Honey Bees Cluster

One of the reasons that honey bees have been so successful at occupying diverse territories is that they maintain the environment within their nest. Swarming bees begin by selecting a cavity of the appropriate size, about 40 liters. The bees varnish the new cavity with a thin coating of bee glue, called propolis, to seal cracks and make the nest somewhat waterproof. Next, the worker bees begin building sheets of beeswax comb in the cavity. The colony raises brood and stores food in the cells of the comb. The worker bees control the internal environment of the hive. Anytime during the year that brood is being produced, they maintain a hive temperature of about 95 degrees.

When outside temperatures drop in the fall, the bees form a cluster inside the hive to maintain heat. The cluster generally maintains a temperature of about 68 degrees. The queen bee stops laying eggs and rests in the center of the cluster. Clustered bees actually generate heat by eating their high-energy food, honey, and then vibrating their flight muscles to raise their body temperature, a unique feat for an insect. The cluster also adjusts its internal temperature by expanding or contracting as needed. However, if the outside air temperature is very cold, the bees must consume greater amounts of honey to warm the cluster. The bees are not wasteful; they don’t attempt to warm the hive space outside the cluster of bees. The structure of the honey bee nest is itself very favorable for winter survival. The sheets of comb make good insulation. As the honey is eaten from the cells, the cells of dead air become an exceptionally effective barrier from the cold. However, during very cold weather, honey bees often cannot break away from their tight cluster to feed. The colony may starve, even when honey is available nearby. Click the picture. Opening the hive on a cold morning, I disturbed a late fall cluster of bees.
--Richard

Cold Weather Markets

Farmers markets are popular social meeting places. People gather not only for the fresh food, but also for renewing friendships. Most of the regular markets have closed for the year, but there are a number of seasonal markets throughout the month of December. Many of these markets bring in artists with a wide variety of creative products. Peace Bee Farm is participating in a number of these markets, selling our honey and bee hive products. Honey sells exceptionally well on cold days. Folks think of enjoying honey on hot buttered biscuits or pancakes. A cup of hot tea with honey and lemon first warms the hands and then the entire body. People purchase 100 percent beeswax candles and beeswax soaps, hand creams, body balms, and lip glosses either for themselves or as gifts for friends.

We ran into many of our friends at the Memphis Farmers Market’s one-day December market day. Large numbers of people passed among the booths of farmers and artisans. They were eagerly purchasing the cool-weather produce, which included a number of varieties of greens, turnips, and potatoes. Jams, jellies, and preserves were popular items as were many baked goods: pies, cakes, and breads of every description. I photographed Rita and Jill Forrester of Whitton Flowers and Produce on the frosty morning at the outdoor farmers market. That’s Jill wearing the blue and green knit hat. Peace Bee Farm maintains a bee yard at Whitton, Arkansas at Jill and Keith Forrester’s Whitton Farms. Our bees pollinate the Forrester’s crops and produce cotton, soybean, and wildflower honey from surrounding fields. You can visit their web site at http://whittonfarms.com/. Meanwhile, bee yard activity is reduced to a walk around inspection of the bee hives in cold weather, mainly checking that hive covers, weighted down by bricks, are in place. Hive entrances are reduced to a very small opening. It’s best to not open the hive and chill the bees when the temperature is below 50 degrees.
--Richard

Removing Old Comb

Honey bees build their own nest from sheets of beeswax that they erect in the bee hive or cavity they choose for a nest. When the young bees secrete beeswax from wax glands on the bottom of their abdomens, it varies in color from white to yellow. New comb in the bee hive is light in color; but as time passes, the comb continues to darken. After a number of brood cycles in the brood nest, the comb will turn from yellow to brown to black. In many ways the honey bees like these old combs. Swarms of bees are attracted to the old nests of abandoned bee hives. The old comb is rich in odors of bees, beeswax, pollen, honey, bee bread, propolis, and honey bee pheromones. While old comb is attractive to honey bees, it is a source of bee health problems. Beeswax readily holds chemical contaminants in the hive. Recent studies performed in the search for causes of Colony Collapse Disorder have measured a great number of chemicals held in the comb. In most cases the contaminants are miticides used inside the hive to control parasitic mites. Other chemicals found in the comb include agricultural insecticides and pesticides. Old comb is also a reservoir for spores produced by certain honey bee diseases, namely American foulbrood, Nosema, and chalkbrood.

Removing old comb from the bee hive is a good method of eliminating chemical contaminants and disease spores. At Peace Bee Farm we try to aggressively replace old comb with clean foundation for the bees to build new comb. This is an important part of our integrated pest management program. Click on the photo to see a frame of brood comb that has been scraped down to the plastic foundation. At the bottom of the picture is a piece of black, greasy-looking comb that has been removed. Above the hive tool is a piece of removed comb turned upside down to reveal the woven silk cocoons of pupa-stage brood.
--Richard

The Magnolia Family

I ran into my beekeeping friend Randolph Richards at a honey bee conference. Randolph is a retired college professor who is quite an authority on bee plants, especially those that grow in Tennessee and Kentucky. He gives some of the most interesting presentations on bee plants. I mentioned to him that I had been reading that there are a half dozen families of important bee plants: legumes, roses, mints, snapdragons, composites, and mustards. Each family contains numerous plants that supply ample amounts of nectar and pollen to the honey bees. Randolph said there is one more quite important family of bee plants, the magnolias. The magnolia family, Magnoliaceae, includes one of the most important nectar-producing flowering plants, tuliptree. Tuliptree, also known as tulip poplar or yellow poplar tree, is an important source of honey across Tennessee, Kentucky, and much of the eastern United States. We don’t find tuliptree in any abundance here in the Arkansas Delta, though.

Other members of the magnolia family include several species of flowering magnolia trees. The beautiful flowering blossoms of these magnolias often produce large quantities of pollen. Pollen is important to the honey bees as a source of protein, fats, vitamins, and minerals. Tuliptree is a heavy producer of nectar, a carbohydrate and the source of honey. When the bees mix the pollen and nectar to produce bee bread, they make a complete diet for their brood. The towering tuliptree produces nectar from large, tulip-shaped blossoms. Each flower only produces nectar for about a day and a half. However, during its relatively short blooming period, one of these large trees may produce nine pounds of nectar. From this nectar, the bees may produce two to two and a half pounds of honey. Tuliptree honey, considered to be of good quality, is reddish amber in color and rather strong if flavor. I am sure that on a cold Kentucky morning Randolph enjoys a breakfast of fried rabbit and hot, buttered biscuits with tuliptree honey.
--Richard

L. L. Langstroth

Lorenzo L. Langstroth is considered the “Father of American Beekeeping.” A careful observer of nature, Langstroth, made precise measurements in numerous bee nests. He observed a common characteristic in all bee hives: Honey bees maintain an open space of three eights of an inch between sheets of comb. This concept, known as bee space, became the foundation for his development of the modern bee hive. This space allows two bees to pass shoulder to shoulder anywhere in the hive. Langstroth noted that if an open area in the hive is greater than the three eights inch bee space, the bees will build a sheet of comb in it. If there is an opening smaller than the bee space, the bees will fill this narrow gap with bee glue, known as propolis. Today, the Langstroth bee hive, designed in 1851, with its removable frames is the only legal bee hive in all 50 states. The Langstroth bee hive replaced all other hives because it is the only one designed to allow for removal and inspection of hive frames to detect honey bee diseases. The Langstroth hive made the woven bee skep and the bee gum obsolete, as there was no way to remove the combs for inspection.

The non-profit group, Science Friday, is trying to convince the U. S. Postal Service to honor L. L. Langstroth on the two hundredth anniversary of his birth by issuing a commemorative postage stamp. For information on how you may lend your support in this effort, view: http://scifri.org/dte/about/projects/bee-science/postage-due/. In today’s photo, I am inspecting a modern Langstroth bee hive. The hive, constructed of open wooden boxes stacked atop each other makes it very similar to a hollow tree, the honey bee’s natural home. Removable frames separated one bee space of three eights inch hold the combs. My granddaughter, Erin, watches me inspect a hive. I use a hive tool to break the propolis bond and remove a frame from the hive.
--Richard

Fighting at the Hive Entrance

With fall weather bringing cool nights and warm days, the honey bees are able to fly during the daytime when temperatures rise above 50 degrees. However, the bees are finding very few plants in bloom to forage for nectar and pollen. With the hives still holding large populations of foraging-age bees, they are ready to exploit any source of available food. Any unprotected honey is eagerly gathered by these foragers, which will rob the honey stores from any hive that they can overtake. Healthy hives that have been successful in building up winter stores are holding many pounds of honey.

With the conditions set for robbing of the hives, we need to reduce the size of the entrances to the hives. Reducing the entrance serves two purposes: It helps keep mice from entering the hive, and it gives the guard bees an advantage in their efforts to protect the hive. It is easier for the guard bees to protect a smaller entrance. Honey bee colonies, when they swarm, often select cavities with very small entrances. Click on the photo to see the hive entrance reduced by a notched stick. Notice that the opening is placed upward. This arrangement often fools mice, which scurry along the edge of the stick and don’t climb the one half inch distance to the entrance. On the hive’s landing board, guard bees with potent stings stand poised on their four hind legs with foreleg raised. They check any bees approaching the hive entrance with their antennae and mouthparts. Guards recognize bees of their own colony by odor, and any bees foreign to the hive are repulsed. On the lower-right corner of the entrance, three guard bees are stinging an intruder. A pair of robber bees with shiny, black abdomens can be seen; one is located on each side of the entrance. Robbers get this shiny appearance as they lose the hairs on their body while fighting with guard bees.
--Richard

First Frost

The temperature dropped below the freezing point last night for the first frost of the fall. With very normal seasonal weather, the air had warmed considerably by mid-morning; and the honey bees were flying. A number of the bees were eagerly foraging evening primrose plants that were slightly wilted by the overnight frost. This is the first day that I have noticed honey bees foraging evening primrose in any numbers. More often, I have found moths, butterflies, blue orchard bees, and other solitary bees foraging this hearty native plant. The evening primroses have been in continuous bloom for several months. During the summer I observed luna moths the size of small birds pollinating the evening primrose flowers at night. The change in the honey bees’ foraging behavior seems to have followed the change in the weather. The frost may have caused the plants that the bees were foraging the previous day to stop producing nectar. Honey bees will forage a species of plants as long as the nectar is reliable, then, they will scout for a different nectar source.

With the season’s first frost foretelling more cool and cold weather to come, the honey bees are reacting to a scarcity of available nectar. They are searching for new sources. Many bees are flying around the wood shop where I am cleaning hive frames. There is also much activity on the landing boards of bee hives where the guard bees are checking all returning bees to prevent robbers from entering. Each hive’s winter stores of honey are vulnerable to robbing bees. Evening primrose is a medicinal herb that was a staple food for many Native American tribes. The colorful and long-blooming evening primrose is often planted as a hearty summer flower along fencerows and in meadows.
--Richard