The Peace Bee Farmer

Emergency Feeding

2012-01-14T09:54:00.001-06:00

Even though honey bee pests and pathogens draw beekeepers’attention, the greatest killer of honey bee colonies has always beenstarvation. American foulbrood is dreaded because the bacterial brood diseaseis so easily spread, and its reproductive spores are extremely resilient.Parasitic mites have a history of decimating honey bee colonies since theirarrival in the mid-1980s. The Varroa mite adds to the weakening of colonies byvectoring numerous honey bee viruses. The most recent strain of Nosema diseasealso weakens colonies, particularly when combined with other pathogens.Chemicals used inside bee hives to fight honey bee diseases and parasitic mitesas well as environmental pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides combine with deadlytoxic effects on honey bees.

A mild winter may, surprisingly, bring more honeybee colony losses than a cold winter. More managed honey bee colonies are losteach year to starvation than to any honey bee disease. It’s the middle of thewinter, but the Mid-South has not experienced exceptionally cold weather. Themild temperatures have actually placed a considerable strain on honey bee foodstores. On a number of days the weather has been warm enough for the bees tofly from their hives. The bees expended more energy searching for food thanthey would have consumed had they remained clustered in the hive under colderconditions. Any feeding of honey bees in the winter is considered emergencyfeeding. At this time of the year, feeding dry sugar is usually preferred. Granulatedsugar can be placed on a sheet of newspaper atop the top bars of hive framesholding the winter cluster of bees. Sprinkling the sugar with a very smallamount of water holds the sugar in place. Another simple method of applyingemergency food involves pouring granulated sugar atop the hive’s inner cover asin today’s photo. The bees access the sugar through the center hole in theinner cover when the hive is warm enough for bees to break out of their wintercluster.

--Richard

Pesticides Enter Bee Hives

2012-01-11T23:08:00.001-06:00

Indiana experienced a massive honey bee die-offduring 2010 resulting from poisoning by clothianidin, an insecticide highlytoxic to honey bees, which is widely used on corn. Honey bees do not foragecorn, a wind-pollinated grass, for nectar. However, they readily fly through corntassels collecting poisoned pollen on their bodies when the plants have beentreated with systemic insecticides. Clothianidin is in a class of insecticidescalled “neonicotinoids,” nicotine-based neurotoxins that are sprayed onfoliage, sprayed on the soil, or coated onto seeds to kill gnawing or chewinginsects that eat foliage or other plant parts. Systemic insecticides arecarried throughout a plant and poison all plant parts, including nectar andpollen. Purdue University researchers studied the Indiana bee die-off to determinehow neonicotinoids are transported from corn fields to honey bees and beehives. The scientists identified several methods of insecticide contaminationof bee hives near neonicotinoid-treated Indiana corn fields. Most corn is plantedwith seed coated with systemic insecticides. Talc is added to mechanicalplanters to prevent seeds from clumping. The scientists found clothianidin levelsup to 700,000 times the lethal dose for honey bees in talc dust exhausted fromplanters. Also, significant levels of insecticide were found in the soil ofcorn fields as well as fields not currently planted in corn. Neonicotinoids areconsidered persistent; they remain toxic long after use. Outside the cornfields, dandelions, wildflowers attractive to honey bees, were also found tocontain clothianidin.

Clothianidin was found in pollen stored in nearbybee hives. An exceptionally toxic effect occurs when honey bees gather clothianidin-contaminatedcorn pollen from fields treated with common fungicides, a widespread practicein North America. Dead bees found surrounding the hives contained clothianidin,either eaten by the bees or contacted with the bees’ bodies. The researcherscaution that “sublethal doses of insecticides can weaken bees and increasesusceptibility to key parasites or pathogens.” The study by Krupke et al. maybe viewed at http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0029268.Today’s photo: clothianidin-treated broom corn.

--Richard

A New Bee Parasite Found

2012-01-04T23:12:00.001-06:00

A phorid fly known to be a parasite of bumblebeesand paper wasps has been found to also parasitize honey bees. This fly,recently identified in California and South Dakota, is in the same genus as the“decapitating flies” that parasitize fire ants. The phorid flies, widely foundacross the US, multiply inside the bee hive and can infect the queen; femalephorids deposit eggs into the abdomen of honey bees. Honey bees that areattacked by the phorid fly leave the hive at night and die. Then, the phoridfly larvae emerge from the dead bee and pupate elsewhere. The abandonment ofthe hive by worker bees is demonstrated in Colony Collapse Disorder, nowthought to be caused by the interactions of multiple pathogens and parasites.Both phorid adults and larvae are found to carry honey bee deformed wing virusand Nosema ceranae, two pathogens associated with CCD. The researchers thatdetected the phorid flies parasitizing honey bees also found the infected beesflying from the hive at night, not a normal honey bee behavior. Honey beesinfected with phorid flies were also found flying around lights at night in amanner similar to moths, also not a normal honey bee behavior. A potentialthreat exists if the phorid fly has moved from bumblebees’ small, seasonalcolonies to infect the much larger, year-around colonies of honey bees. Theentire report by Core et al. may be viewed at http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0029639.

One of the great mysteries of CCD is that not allcolonies affected by the multiple suspected stressors--viruses, Nosema ceranae,and pesticides--collapse. Some of the beekeepers who have taken losses from CCDhave questioned whether there is a triggering mechanism that brings about thecollapse of colonies. The finding of phorid flies parasitizing honey bees maybe an important clue to solving the CCD mystery. Today’s photo shows a paperwasp attacking a honey bee hive. A guard bee quickly responds to challenge andrepel the intruder.

--Richard

Social Creatures

2011-12-29T23:56:00.000-06:00

While delivering honey on Madison Avenue in colorfulmid-town Memphis, we notice a brick wall covered with striking, artisticgraffiti. A small portion of the wall is particularly catching. Red heartsreflected by recent rains lead to a man in business attire with a distortedface and surrounded by symbols of love and wealth. Disturbing figures loomnearby. Words exclaim, “Enough!” and “Unite.” The simple cartoon ralliesprotesters in the Occupy Memphis movement to unite. The graffiti artistsrecognize that they can communicate a need to correct a problem, recruitallies, strengthen bonds within their group, and, together, effect a socialchange. As a group they can accomplish more than as individuals. Vivid imagesof monopolies, robber barons, and other protest movements are reflected in rainpuddles.

People and honey bees are social creatures. Bothaccomplish much through their group efforts, though the creatures and their behaviorsare completely unalike. People often communicate in symbolic language; honeybees communicate in language silent to us. People communicate by voice, handsigns, expressions, body language, and writing, as on the Madison Avenue wall.Bees communicate by dances, vibrations, odors, and pheromones. Bees communicateamong the colony threats to the hive and sources of nectar and pollen. Beesalso convey the need to perform age-related hive duties, produce and storehoney, replace the queen, swarm, and find new nest areas. Bees somehow learn todo things that none of the bees in the hive have done before. Amazingly, dronesthat have never visited a drone concentration area know where they are located;they create them in the same location year to year. Also, bees that have neverseen a winter know to stockpile food for the next one, storing food for futuregenerations of bees. Bees communicate the need for work to be done inside andoutside the hive. They share in the building of the nest and the care andfeeding of the brood. Only people communicate with paint on city walls.

--Richard

Controlling Varroa Mites

2011-12-28T08:09:00.001-06:00

The Varroa mite remains the most deadly parasite ofhoney bees, and the control of Varroa is the most important issue in honey beecolony health. Tracheal mites pose a decreasing threat, but the Varroa mitecontinues to kill honey bee colonies. Varroa mites develop inside the cappedbrood cell with the developing honey bee pupa. During the honey bee’sdevelopment and after it emerges as an adult, the Varroa mite sucks nutrientsfrom the bee. To access the bee’s blood, or hemolymph, the Varroa mitepenetrates the honey bee’s exoskeleton with its mouth parts. The resultingwound is an entry point for numerous viruses. The viruses cause a number ofhoney bee diseases, and their combined effect is known as “Parasitic MiteSyndrome.” While Varroa mites can be found in all honey bee hives, colonies canwithstand a low level of mites. Varroa reproduce at a relatively steady rate,unlike some other honey bee pests. Small hive beetles, for instance, reproducein massive bursts to rapidly overwhelm a bee colony.

All attempts at controlling Varroa mites shouldbegin with seeking lines of honey bees that have a natural resistance to mites.A heritable behavior trait of resistant honey bees is described as “VarroaSensitive Hygiene.” Bees with this trait can detect reproducing Varroa mitesand remove them along with the infected bee brood. Resistant bees also preenmites from the bodies of adult bees. These mites fall through the screens ofbee hives equipped with screened bottom boards, preventing reinfestation of thehive. Beekeepers can dust the bees with powdered sugar to encourage preening.If Varroa mite levels in the hive are too high, “soft” treatments usingessential oils or organic acids can be used to reduce the mite levels. Each ofthese measures can be used together as part of an Integrated Pest Managementprogram. While parasitic mites have killed most feral honey bee colonies, someexist, like these bees clustered for winter in a hollow tree.

--Richard

Parasitic Mites

2011-12-27T08:57:00.001-06:00

Before parasitic mites entered the United States, aperson could purchase a colony of honey bees and expect it to live for a numberof years providing pollination service and producing honey. However, thearrival of parasitic mites in the mid-1980s dramatically changed beekeeping inthe US. The first mite to be detected, the microscopic tracheal mite, quicklydecimated honey bee populations. It was shortly followed by the Varroa mite, asomewhat larger parasite visible to humans. Click on today’s photo of a Varroamite on a honey bee pupa.

Today, the Varroa is the most deadly parasite ofhoney bees. As it sucks the bees’ blood, called hemolymph, it vectors at least15 honey bee viruses to the weakened bees. With the arrival of parasitic mites,the public noticed the absence of bees from locations normally covered with bees;clover fields were often completely devoid of honey bees. Left untreated, mosthoney bee colonies dwindled and died. Many beekeepers simply quit, abandoningempty hives. Others treated their hives with the miticides, Fluvalinate and Coumaphos.These harsh chemicals killed mites for a period of time, and then they becameless effective. New strains of mites, resistant to the chemical miticides,replaced the original pests. Larger doses of miticides brought less controlover the mites. Honey bees also experience unfavorable side-effects ofmiticides. The chemicals accumulate in beeswax honeycomb, contaminating thebrood nest. Exposure to the miticides causes sterility of queens and droneswhich leads to early supersedure of queens and sometimes loss of colonies.These miticides also become highly toxic to bees when exposed to certain commonagricultural chemicals. New attempts at controlling Varroa stress an IntegratedPest Management approach based largely on breeding bees that can live in thepresence of parasitic mites. To manage bees without using harsh chemicalmiticides, the beekeeper needs to monitor hives for mites. Symptoms of miteproblems include bees with deformed wings or multiple numbers of mites in adrone pupa cell.

--Richard

Pax Vobiscum

2011-12-24T08:52:00.000-06:00

It’s winter in the Northern Hemisphere, and it is aseason of holidays around the world. Cold temperatures keep the bees clusteredinside the hive and the beekeepers out. Winter is the slowest time of thebeekeeping year, and it provides an opportunity for reflection and for spendingtime with friends and family. The holidays are also a time of sharing. Today,Rita pours beeswax Christmas tree ornaments to give to friends.

Many people say they never see bees; however, the honeybee shares a close relationship with humans and other creatures in theenvironment. We rely upon the bees to provide the pollination necessary toprodue much of the food we eat. Without the bees, our diet would be extremelybland and starchy. Through pollination, the bees also help feed wildlife andlivestock that complete our diet. Other networks of relationships exist: Beekeepersrely upon researchers to identify complex relationships between bees, pests,pathogens, nutrition, and the weather; researchers rely upon beekeepers togather data necessary to reveal these relationships. Honey bees are resilient,and beekeepers are as well. Bees adapt to their environment, and beekeepersadapt their management practices in accordance with the developing scientificunderstanding of bee biology. Beekeepers around the world rely upon each otherfor sharing information related to honey bee health. An important benefitresults: sharing information provides a basis for understanding among people ofdifferent backgrounds. I am pleased that portions of these blog writings are inuse in beekeeping training. I have a great appreciation for the friendships thatI have formed in beekeeping and the related communities. These include beekeepers, honey customers, chefs, gardeners, horticulturists, farmers,researchers, extension agents, media reporters, writers, photographers, and “electronic”friends around the country and around the world with whom I communicate. TheUnderhill family that operates Peace Bee Farm offers to all of these friends andto each who follow the world’s great religions, philosophies, and traditions ajoyous holiday season: Peace be with you.

--Richard

The Honey Bee New Year

2011-12-21T21:02:00.000-06:00

Our calendar declares the New Year starts on January1. We also declare that today, December 21, is the first day of winter. Takingthe earth one year to circle the sun, our planet spins on an axis that is slightlytilted. The tilt of the earth’s axis causes the days to lengthen and shortenthroughout the year as the sun strikes larger portions of the Southern, and then,Northern Hemispheres. These changes throughout the year give us our seasons. Anumber of species, including the honey bee, are sensitive to the changes in thelength of days. They time life activities, including reproduction, according tochanges in daylight. Our seasons change on days we call the solstices andequinoxes. The honey bee colony’s year seems to begin on the winter solstice,the day that marks the shortest amount of daylight and the longest night.

Here in the Mid-South, honey bees are clusteredtogether in their hives for warmth. Worker bees forced their queens to stoplaying eggs a number of weeks ago by restricting her food. The winterinterruption in reproduction is a survival strategy that allows honey bees toconserve precious food stores over prolonged winters. Honey bee coloniesmaintain an internal hive temperature around 95 degrees Fahrenheit wheneverthere is brood in the hive. However, the bees conserve energy by allowing the hiveto cool to around 70 degrees if there is no brood present. Just as we canconserve energy required to warm our homes in the winter by turning down thethermostat, bees conserve honey stores by lowering their hive temperature. Queenbees often begin laying a few eggs after the winter solstice. Though winter isjust beginning, for the bees, this is the New Year. People throughout historyhave observed the relative movements of the earth, sun, moon, stars, andplanets. Earlier this month, the moon aligned with the earth and sun to providea colorful lunar eclipse with the moon setting at dawn.

--Richard

Products of the Bee Hive

2011-12-17T22:16:00.001-06:00

Honey bees are managed for pollination service andfor production of honey. The honey bee hive also produces a number of othervaluable products. The Tennessee Beekeepers Association conducts a series ofworkshops across the state to train beekeepers in techniques for harvestingother bee hive resources and for making useful products from them. Thebeekeepers examine various pollen traps used to collect pollen. The traps workby brushing some of the pollen pellets from the pollen baskets on the legs ofworker pollen-foraging bees. The collected bee pollen is a complete proteincontaining all of the necessary amino acids as well as all known vitamins and25 trace elements necessary for mammals. In North America, the majority ofcollected bee pollen is fed to livestock. Some trainers feed large quantitiesof pollen to race horses. The beekeepers also discuss various methods ofcollecting propolis, the antiseptic, antimicrobial, and detoxifying bee gluethat has been used for at least 2000 years. Propolis, the material that honeybees use to varnish their hive to inhibit wood-rotting fungi, disinfect cellsbefore the queen lays eggs, and reduce the growth of numerous strains ofpathogenic bacteria, is collected and sold for use in the production ofmedications.

The text that the beekeepers use in the sessions onproducing value-added bee hive products, Healthand Healing with Bee Products by C. Leigh Broadhurst, also lists healthbenefits of honey. The author, a USDA research scientist, explains that honeyis a broad-spectrum antibiotic; it is antifungal and antimicrobial; and it issometimes mixed with propolis for wound treatments. Broadhurst also revealsthat the vitamins, minerals, and enzymes present in honey aid in metabolism.The beekeepers also use beeswax to make candles and skin-care products. Intoday’s picture beekeepers pour beeswax into candle molds. The trainingsessions are funded by a grant from the Tennessee Department of Agriculturewhich recognizes the importance of increasing beekeeper income to ensurecontinued honey bee availability for crop pollination.

--Richard

Survival Strategies

2011-12-09T09:18:00.001-06:00

Six inches of rain fell during two days of steadyshowers leaving considerable surface flooding across the flat Arkansas Delta.Broad fields, harvested recently, became shallow lakes. The North wind blewcrop debris of twigs, stems, and leaves to form long bands of floatingvegetative matter. Numerous dinner plate sized masses of fire ants floated on theserafts of ground-up soybean plants shown in today’s photo. Fire ant colonies,which live underground, were being transported to dry ground on floating cropdebris. Not only were the fire ants being saved from drowning by their huddlingon floating matter, they were also expanding their range across open fields.

Honey bees expand their range through swarming,usually in the spring but to a lesser extent in the summer and fall. When thebees swarm, the colony divides; half of the bees stay behind, and half of thebees fly away. Sometimes all of the bees in a colony abandon their hive and flyaway in a move called “absconding.” Bees will abandon their hive if the nestgets badly damaged, as when flooded or overrun and “slimed” by small hivebeetles. At times, bees abscond during times of extreme dearth. Honey bees inthe tropics tend to abscond more often than bees in more temperate areas. Tropicalbees don’t have the need to store great amounts of honey to survive the winter.Seasonal changes in tropical nectar and pollen flows vary with rain anddrought. During a dearth of nectar, tropical bees will abscond and move toareas where flowers are blooming. Honey bees in temperate areas survive byhoarding honey to provide food and energy for the winter. Each of these behaviorsby ants or bees illustrates a heritable survival strategy which allows theinsects to survive in a changing environment. Two studies hint at themechanisms for the inheritance of survival traits: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/12/111205102713.htm#.Tt7BaeNFBZY.emaillooks at methods of fighting viruses, and http://www.livescience.com/7655-lizards-dance-avoids-deadly-ants.htmlreveals how lizards learn to avoid fire ants.

--Richard

Ultrafiltration of Honey

2011-12-05T10:26:00.001-06:00

Honey bees use enzymes that they produce in theirbodies to convert the sugars from the nectar of flowers into a concentrated,high-energy food that we know as honey. Along with sugars, honey containsenzymes and pollen from flowers growing in the area. That pollen can be used toidentify the source of the honey. A recent report concerning the removal ofpollen from honey brought considerable public discussion about the deliberateremoval of pollen from honey by unscrupulous importers of foreign honey. The reportby investigative journalist Andrew Schneider appeared in Food Safety News at http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2011/11/tests-show-most-store-honey-isnt-honey/.Schneider reported that independent testing of samples of honey found thatthree fourths of the honey on grocery store shelves could not even be calledhoney because pollen, a component of natural honey, had been removed. To hidethe country of origin, some honey is highly processed by ultrafiltration toremove all pollen.

Responding to the discussion brought about bySchneider’s report, Dan Charles writes in NPR’s food blog, http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2011/11/25/142659547/relax-folks-it-really-is-honey-after-all?ps=cprs,in defense of honey on the grocery store shelf. Many in the public understandthe deceptive practices of a few, but a number of citizens are confused aboutwhat real honey truly is. Many seek out a local beekeeper and purchase honeyproduced in their area. However, at almost every farmers market or honey salesevent that we attend, we have individuals ask for sugar-free honey. Hearingthat there is no such thing as a sugar-free honey, one lady exclaimed that sheknew that there was because she had seen it on the grocery shelf. I assured herthat the product did not come from a bee hive. Adulterated products aresometimes labeled to appear to be honey. Some contain high fructose cornsweetener and are labeled as “honey sauce.” Many processed food items boast onthe label to contain honey while it is only a minor component. For informationabout honey, see the National Honey Board’s web site, http://www.honey.com/nhb/about-honey/.Enjoy real honey.

--Richard

Fall Nectar and Pollen

2011-11-28T22:45:00.000-06:00

Honey bees and native pollinators rely upon flowers to produce food for over-winter survival. The Arkansas Delta has a dependable fall nectar flow in most years from goldenrod, fall asters, and Pennsylvania smartweed. All wildflowers vary somewhat from year to year depending upon the weather. This year saw an abundance of fall asters but fewer stands of goldenrod and smartweed. Today’s photo shows a honey bee and a bumblebee sharing the exposed goldenrod blossoms for pollen, which can be seen in the pollen baskets on the hind legs of both female bees. Both insects collect pollen for its protein, fats, vitamins, and minerals. However, the two bees use a different strategy to survive the dearth of flower food in the winter. The honey bee stays active throughout the winter and lives in a colony that is large enough to generate warmth. The bumble bee, which lives in much smaller colonies, produces a number of male reproductive bees late in the summer. The majority of the bumble bees die before winter; a reproductive queen survives the winter by hibernating in a protected area to start a new colony the next spring. Both bees mix nectar, a source of carbohydrate, with pollen to produce a complete food. The honey bees store the resulting “bee bread” in hive cells to feed to their brood. Honey bees store fat in body tissues to use to produce food for the next year’s first brood. Bumble bee queens feed heavily to store fat to nourish the queen during her winter hibernation. Fall asters and goldenrod are members of the important family of bee plants, the composites or sunflowers. The composite flowers are prolific producers of nectar and pollen. Pennsylvania smartweed is a member of the buckwheat family.

As beekeepers use blogs to share ideas around the world, Tonmoy Roy, invites us to view his agricultural blog, http://royfarm.blogspot.com/, and see farming in Bangladesh. Along with poultry, fish, dairy cattle, sheep, and goats, they even tend to crocodiles!

--Richard

Thanksgiving

2011-11-24T16:08:00.000-06:00

Thanksgiving is a seasonal holiday principally observed in the United States and Canada. The tradition of recognizing the bounty of harvested crops and reflecting on family, friendships, and bonds between neighbors is traced to gatherings of Native Americans and Colonists that took place in New England in the early 1600s. With European farmland becoming less capable of feeding the expanding population, colonists crossed the Atlantic Ocean, largely, to settle the New World’s ample farmland. However, many colonists encountered extreme hardships in their first years in the new land. For many, survival depended upon the assistance Native Americans provided in teaching the colonists how to hunt, plant crops, and harvest native foods. Pilgrims celebrated their first harvest with a feast at Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1621, and Puritans in the Massachusetts Bay Colony held their first Thanksgiving celebration in 1630. Large amounts of game, fish, and harvested crops were served. The Europeans especially enjoyed the wild turkeys of the New World, and they introduced them to Europe. Today, domesticated turkeys are the foundation of most Thanksgiving Day dinners. European colonists impacted the New World environment and agriculture when they brought in Old World plants, cattle, hogs, earthworms, and honey bees.

Thanksgiving is a reminder to us of how important, and sometimes fragile, is our food supply. In the 1600s, people left Europe to seek new, fertile lands to produce food. Today, we feed the world, in large part, by industrial agriculture. Hopefully, we can balance the need to produce large volumes of food while protecting the soil, air, and water. People today have the same needs as our colonial ancestors: protection from the elements, food, and an environment free of toxins. Our bees, likewise, have the same requirements. We met many people at farmers markets this week gathering food for a traditional Thanksgiving feast. Among them was our friend, beekeeper and urban farmer, Mary Phillips. This Thanksgiving Day I am enriched by beekeeping friends from across the country and around the world.

--Richard

Storing Honey Supers

2011-11-22T22:11:00.001-06:00

Some beekeepers say that their greatest beekeeping asset is their frames of drawn comb. It takes considerable time and resources of carbohydrates for the bees to produce honeycomb. The comb is produced by young bees that secrete beeswax from glands on the lower side of their abdomen. To produce beeswax, the bees must consume a large volume of honey. To make an ounce of beeswax, the bees eat about a pound of honey. Teams of worker bees take the flakes of fresh beeswax and build honeycomb while forming bridges with their bodies across open spaces in the hive, an act called festooning. Using their mouthparts, the bees shape the flakes of beeswax into sheets of six-sided, back-to-back cells. Beekeepers typically place foundation, either formed from beeswax or plastic, in frames to serve as the mid-rib for the bees to build their honeycomb. Depending upon the population of bees and the strength of the nectar flow, it may take the bees an entire year to draw out their honeycombs. The beekeeper may aid the bees by feeding syrup as a supplementary carbohydrate. Once the bees have drawn the beeswax into honeycomb, they are ready to fill it with honey.

After the beekeeper harvests the surplus honey, the frames need to be cleaned of any residue of honey and then stored over winter so that the bees can fill the comb with honey the following year. If the supers of “wet” frames are stacked outdoors, honey bees in the area will remove all traces of honey and take it back to their hives. The supers can then be stored over winter. Stacking clean supers so that air flows through them usually prevents wax moth damage if the frames never held brood. If frames that held brood need to be stored, they need to be protected from wax moths by stacking tightly and covering. Use PDB moth crystals to kill wax moths. Today’s photo: supers stored to allow air to flow through the frames.

--Richard

Fall Farmers Markets

2011-11-20T10:57:00.000-06:00

Farmers markets change throughout the year. As the Mid-South’s seasons change from the often oppressive hot and humid summer to a cool and crisp fall, area farmers converge on parking lots and convert them into tent-covered markets. Farmers markets attract large crowds of citizens browsing fresh fruit, vegetables, baked goods, canned foods, jams, jellies, nuts, mushrooms, fresh meats, cheeses, eggs, locally roasted coffees, potted plants, cut flowers, and handmade items. Peace bee farm sells honey and bee hive products at farmers markets. The markets provide a variety of goods not often found in a single location. For many, the freshness and quality of items produced on local farms makes farmers markets attractive. Fresh fruit and vegetables are usually harvested the afternoon before the market. Farmers often bring to market produce varieties that are not regularly found in grocery stores. Cool season greens are in abundance at the farmers market. At this week’s market, I counted a dozen varieties of greens and eight varieties of lettuce being offered. In today’s photo, Hattie displays the proper way to wear Yukina Savoy, an Asian green, while her mother, Lori, sells beets, turnips, onions, radishes, sweet potatoes, yams, potatoes, peppers, cabbage, bok choy, mustard, Swiss chard, lettuce, and mixed greens from Downing Hollow Farms.

Memphis’ Cooper-Young Community Farmers Market, http://www.cycfarmersmarket.org/, invites area farmers to bring their produce; and they also provide a place for urban farms and non-profit groups to sell produce grown on vacant city lots and goods produced by groups like the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Memphis. The club’s young culinary students prepare local sweet potato pecan cheesecake, pumpkin ginger walnut cheesecake, red velvet cookies, and pumpkin cookies. The market uses grants to help double the spending power for citizens eligible to participate in nutritional assistance programs. We look forward to the interaction between farmers and the public all year long. The public notices the market’s seasonal change from tomatoes and sweet corn to greens and sweet potatoes.

--Richard

Reusing Bee Hive Frames

2011-11-18T22:16:00.000-06:00

The honey bees’ nest is built of beeswax honeycomb that the bees secrete and shape themselves. It is light in weight and durable. However, honeycomb can easily be damaged by hive intruders, like mice or small hive beetle larvae. The beeswax comb also absorbs and holds environmental chemicals, like miticides, insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides. Honeycomb also holds reproductive spores of a number of honey bee pathogens, namely American foulbrood, chalkbrood, and Nosema, a honey bee gut disease. Honeycomb should be replaced periodically to remove toxic chemicals and disease spores from the hive. Frames of comb should also be replaced when they are damaged, like when the comb has been devoured by small hive beetle larvae.

Bee hive frames are equipped with a foundation of either natural beeswax or plastic that forms the centerline of the honeycomb. If beeswax foundation is used, new foundation must be installed when the comb is replaced; however, if plastic foundation is used, it may be reused when the comb is replaced. The old comb is simply scraped away revealing the plastic foundation as in today’s photo of frames scraped to the foundation. These frames from the hive of a dead bee colony were “slimed” by small hive beetle larvae and covered by a mass of webbing of wax moths. After scraping the debris from the foundation, the frames were rinsed in water and dried in the sun. The wooden frames show the telltale markings of wax moths: dents in the wood where the pupae develop, giving the frame a hammered appearance. Actually, the wax moths helped remove the majority of the old comb from the frames. To make the bare plastic foundation attractive to the bees when these frames are reused, I will paint the surface with melted, chemical-free beeswax that I collected from our hives while harvesting surplus honey. Replacing old comb is an important piece of Peace Bee Farm’s integrated pest management plan. It removes disease spores and toxic chemicals from the hive.

--Richard

The Slimed Bee Hive

2011-11-17T21:34:00.000-06:00

The small hive beetle is a hive scavenger that can cause severe damage to the bee hive and even drive the bees away from their nest. The greatest damage is caused by the larval stage of development of small hive beetles. The larvae consume great amounts of the bee hive to support their rapid growth. They are particularly attracted to sources of protein in the form of stored pollen, bee bread, brood, and drowned bees in hive feeders. Adult small hive beetles do little harm to the hive, but the colony employs guard bees to corral beetles freely moving about the hive. These bees occupied harnessing adult small hive beetles are taken away from other important duties, like foraging for nectar and pollen.

Small hive beetles may be found in any hive. Adult beetles often congregate in a strong hive. Though the beetles are harassed by guard bees, the well-populated hive offers a favorable environment with warmth and plenty of food. Small hive beetles are keenly sensitive to honey bee alarm pheromones released by a colony in stress. The stress may be caused by queenlessness, attack by predators, or careless beekeeper activity. Once the beetles detect a bee colony is in trouble, they fly to its hive and immediately begin laying eggs. In just a few days, small hive beetle larvae can virtually explode in the weakened hive. That is the case with today’s photo of small hive beetle larvae in a “slimed” bee hive. As the beetle larvae crawl through the hive, they consume everything—beeswax, comb, honey, pollen, bee bread, and brood. The ravenous larvae leave behind a liquid waste that supports the growth of yeast. Slimed frames have a strong odor of fermenting oranges. The odor attracts other small hive beetles from great distances while it repels the hive’s bees. Often the first indications of a small hive beetle infestation are liquid drooling from the hive, a sticky landing board, and the odor of fermenting oranges.

--Richard

Fall Bee Hive Inspection

2011-11-09T22:51:00.000-06:00

If a colony is queenless in the fall, it will be dead by the following spring. As beekeepers prepare their hives for winter, they need to determine which colonies stand a chance of surviving the winter. Each hive should be inspected to see if its colony has enough bees to generate heat to stay alive throughout the winter. Any hive that is extremely weak needs to be combined with a strong hive. You can usually combine a weak hive with a stronger hive by simply smoking both hives to cover the bees' scents. If you are combining two fairly strong hives, you need to separate them with a sheet of newspaper to slow the mixing of bees to keep from fighting. If each hive being combined has a queen, the weaker queen can be removed. If you don’t remove one, the queens will fight and only one will survive.

To survive the winter, the bees need to have two things: adequate hive ventilation and enough food stored in a location where the winter cluster of bees can access it. This usually means that the honey stores need to be above the brood nest. I like to rearrange the boxes so that the brood nest is at the bottom of the hive and the honey is above it. The winter cluster of bees will eat the honey above it and move up slowly throughout the winter. The cluster of bees will occupy the honeycomb emptied of stored honey. If a hive doesn’t have adequate honey stores, it is necessary to feed the bees. Fumagillin added to the sugar syrup feed helps control Nosema disease. Ventilation at the top of the hive prevents condensation and moisture build-up. Today’s photo: Judith Rutschman and Richard Underhill. Judith hosts the Memphis television program, Nature of Conservation. Judith interviewed me on the air about honey bee health matters, the effect of chemicals in the environment on bees, and the role of bees in human food production.

--Richard

Honey Contains Pollen

2011-11-07T22:20:00.000-06:00

Honey is harvested as the bees make it, one drop at a time. To make a tablespoon of honey to pour over a hot buttered biscuit requires the full life’s work of 32 honey bees. Producing a jar of honey is the result of considerable effort by both the bees and their keeper. Unfortunately, there are those who take advantage of the appeal, reputation, and health benefits of honey to unscrupulously produce a lesser product and sell it as honey. They do this by adulterating the product by mixing in cheaper sweeteners or by altering the honey to hide its true origin.

In Andrew Schneider’s Food Safety News report, “Tests Show Most Store Honey Isn’t Honey: Ultra-filtering Removes Pollen, Hides Honey Origins,” the investigator writes that pollen is being removed from honey to hide whether the honey came from legitimate and safe sources. Honey is being produced in distant lands, shipped to intermediate countries, repackaged, and stripped of pollen to hide the true origin. According to Schneider, “Food scientists and honey specialists say pollen is the only foolproof fingerprint to a honey’s source.” Schneider explains that in the US the Food and Drug Administration says that a product that has been ultra-filtered and contains no pollen is not honey. One major honey packer describes ultra-filtration as “a deceptive, illegal, unethical practice.” Unfortunately, the FDA isn’t checking honey to see if it contains pollen. Food Safety News purchased honey and had it tested for pollen. They found that three fourths of honey purchased at groceries or big box stores and all honey purchased at drug stores contained no pollen. All honey purchased at farmers markets and “natural” stores, however, contained the expected pollen. Read this informative report at http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2011/11/tests-show-most-store-honey-isnt-honey/. In today’s photo, honey from late summer wildflowers and Arkansas Delta cotton flows in the Peace Bee Farm honey house. We appreciate those loyal customers who support the beekeeping tradition of producing real honey as the bees made it.

--Richard

A Glimmer of Hope

2011-11-04T23:14:00.000-05:00

At the time of the year when most beekeepers have completed their honey harvest and migratory bee hives are stationed for the winter, many state beekeeping associations hold their annual conferences. Rita and I attended the state-wide meetings for Arkansas and Tennessee, two states where we maintain bees. The meetings always afford an opportunity to renew acquaintances with beekeeping friends and to keep abreast of matters involving the beekeeping industry. But most importantly, conferences provide educational programs that put beekeepers in touch with beekeeping experts and researchers studying today’s honey bee health issues. Often I leave these meetings armed with more information but overwhelmed by the growing number of pests and pathogens attacking honey bees. However, I left this year’s events encouraged by details of recent studies and by reports of the resiliency of honey bees. Analysis of stored bee hive pollen and beeswax reveal the bees live in an environment filled with chemicals. Peace Bee Farm participated in several of these studies by sampling bees and comb.

Honey bees in the US are exposed to numerous bee diseases. Honey bees in South Africa, by contrast, are exposed to more predators; however, they are affected by fewer diseases. When parasitic mites decimated honey bee colonies in the US, beekeepers responded by treating the hives with miticides. The mites rapidly became resistant to the chemicals. Varroa mites were identified in South Africa in 1997. Chemical controls were not employed, and within seven years the mites were reduced to an incidental pest. Many beekeepers in the US are moving toward reduced reliance on chemical treatments. The analysis of chemicals in honeycombs reveals that legal miticides become highly toxic to honey bees when they are present with other commonly used chemicals. For example, fluvalinate becomes 1000 times more toxic to honey bees exposed to fungicides regularly used on cropland, orchards, and home gardens. Beekeepers are learning to avoid the harsh miticides. We must use chemicals sparingly. Today’s photo: bitterweed, a common fall wildflower.

--Richard

Ground Nesting Bees

2011-11-01T23:18:00.000-05:00

Bees need the same basic things that humans need: a place to live, food, and an environment free of poisons. Many of the important native pollinators nest underground. Among these are bumblebees and numerous solitary bees. These bees prefer to enter the soil in bare areas not covered by grass, foliage, or mulch. One reason many native pollinators are declining is that favorable habitat is becoming increasingly scarce. Modern large-scale agricultural fields are plowed leaving little undisturbed margin for ground nesting bees. Golf courses and home lawns likewise afford little bare ground when they are covered by a turf of grass. To improve the habitat for ground nesting bees which add much to the effectiveness of pollination of many crops some farms are incorporating strips of ground between crop plantings to accommodate the bees. Homeowners may provide habitat by clearing a portion of a garden or landscape planting of mulch and then leaving the ground bare and undisturbed. Bumblebees, like the one in today’s picture flying from her underground nest, often build dwellings in abandoned mouse holes. With a long tongue, bumblebees are effective pollinators of many crops, especially tomatoes and eggplants.

While the decline in honey bee populations since the mid-1980s has been carefully tracked, the status of native bees and other pollinators has not been documented as closely. One large-scale effort to identify the location and population of native bees enlists thousands of citizens to become data-collecting scientists. The program, The Great Sunflower Project, involves observing bees that are attracted to a single variety of sunflower. People, young and old, plant Lemon Queen seeds; and when the plants grow and flower, they identify and count the bees that come to forage. To sign up to participate in the project or view this year’s results, go to http://www.greatsunflower.org/. The participating citizen scientists found a bee every 2.6 minutes, but 20 percent of gardens had no bees at all. The count is important for identifying areas having shortages of native pollinators.

--Richard

The Meadow Buzzes

2011-10-19T22:17:00.000-05:00

A year ago we planted the plowed ground in hardwood trees spaced in 10-foot rows. The area, slightly over an acre, has become a meadow of wildflowers. It will be several years before the trees shade the ground and change the nature of the understory. For now, wildflowers grow in the full sun on the gentle slope of the natural bank of a Mississippi River tributary. A visit to the field on a warm and sunny fall day finds numerous species of insects feeding on fall asters. The remote meadow actually buzzes from the number of bees in flight. There are many honey bees collecting nectar and pollen from white heath asters as well as several species of bumblebees and numerous species of solitary bees. Many sweat bees and other extremely small bees are present in the bright composite flowers. Flies that mimic the appearance of a bee or wasp are common in the meadow. They are protected from many predators by their yellow and brown stripes and transparent wings. Only their bulging fly eyes give away their true identity. The wildflowers, mostly fall asters, attract many species of butterflies. Songbirds dart through the three-foot-tall tangle of wildflowers.

The one-acre plot, providing food and habitat, is obviously an oasis for honey bees and many species of native pollinators. In the years that the ground is exposed to the sun, it will provide a sequence of blooming flowers as well as protective cover and nesting material for pollinators. Such pollinator meadows, or pastures, are seen as important spaces providing for a diverse population of pollinator species in agricultural areas. The large fields planted in modern industrial agriculture are often too wide for the smaller bees to fly across. To increase crop yield, some farms are incorporating pollinator meadows along field margins or between plantings to accommodate important native pollinators. Click on today’s photo of a honey bee collecting nectar from white heath asters, important plants for winter survival honey stores.

--Richard

Soybeans and Honey

2011-10-15T23:05:00.000-05:00

The soybean is an important honey plant, but not all soybean varieties produce enough nectar to produce a surplus of honey. A beekeeper asked me which varieties of soybeans are the best sources of nectar for making honey. I wish that I could answer this clearly, but I can’t. To try to get some answers, I visited an agricultural research facility where soybean varieties are being developed and tested. Discussing soybean variety characteristics with a researcher, I learned that the amount of nectar offered by a soybean variety is of importance to beekeepers; but it is not a trait that is selected in developing soybeans. The traits that are important to soybean growers include yield, nutrition, and tolerance to pests, disease, and drought. Seed producers also divide soybean varieties according to planting, bloom, and harvest times. Soybeans in any location often include both early and late season varieties. Planting different fields with different varieties helps the farmer spread out the harvest. This benefits honey producers with bee hives near the soybean fields by extending the bloom period, often by several weeks.

I also spoke with several Arkansas beekeepers this week. We discussed honey production around soybean fields. Their thoughts regarding soybeans as important honey plants involved the location and soil type of the fields. For example, beekeepers on the west side of Arkansas’ White River make little honey from soybeans, while beekeepers on the east side of the river make a considerable amount of soybean honey. Soybeans grown on land close to the Mississippi River generally produce considerable amounts of nectar. New soybean varieties are being developed, like one being grown this year for use with new herbicides. Repeated use of a single herbicide led to resistance in crop weeds. Regardless which varieties are planted, honey bees can usually fly far enough to find one that is attractive, even if they have to fly over soybeans offering less reward. Beekeepers can’t simply list good soybean varieties. Today’s photo: harvesting soybeans.

--Richard

Bumblebees are Active

2011-10-12T22:23:00.000-05:00

Bumblebees are foraging on early fall flowering plants. They can be found in abundance on the open flowers of vitex trees and goldenrod. Other bumblebees are pollinating late-blooming tomato plants, like the one in today’s photo. Click on the photo to see the bumblebee’s pollen baskets filled with light-colored pollen. Bumblebees carry pollen on their hind legs similar to honey bees. The bumblebee vibrates the flower using its flight muscles to dislodge pollen in action similar to the honey bee’s use of flight muscles to generate heat to warm the cluster of bees in the wintertime. The bumblebee’s long tongue and buzz pollination capability make it an effective pollinator of many vegetables.

The warm, sunny early fall days reveal numerous species of bees, wasps, and other insects. Honey bees are dragging drones from the hives. Worker bees returning to the hive with hind leg baskets full of pollen are passing workers stinging and dragging drones. The workers’ stings, though barbed, penetrate the soft exoskeleton of other bees without tearing from the bees’ abdomen as when they sting a human. Red wasps seek shelter and warmth on cool nights under the edge of bee hive covers. Large numbers of red wasps gather around vegetable plants looking for caterpillars. While red wasps are quite defensive of their nest, they ignore my bare hands around the tomato plants as they hunt for caterpillars. I watch a solitary wasp drag a tomato hornworm much larger than its body a great distance through the grass. Some wasps are parasites of caterpillars, laying eggs inside the caterpillar’s body. Mud dauber wasps collect orb spiders to use to nourish their offspring. These paralyzing insects place sting-immobilized spiders inside their mud nests to feed the developing mud dauber wasps. Carnivorous throughout most of the year, yellow jackets seek carbohydrate in the fall and try to enter bee hives for the honey. Numerous species of butterflies visit sunflowers, and single monarch butterflies pass overhead in their fall migration.

--Richard

The Magevney House

2011-10-05T23:16:00.000-05:00

Keeping honey bee colonies in urban areas presents certain challenges not faced in rural areas. Beekeepers must be even more careful in protecting people and pets when bees are kept in public spaces within cities. We should make considerations to avoid contacts between bees and humans as much as possible. Bee hives need to be placed so that the bees won’t regularly fly through pathways or areas used by people. Since honey bees take in large amounts of water, they can be expected to frequent any water source in a nearby sunny area. A water supply should be maintained near the bee hives to prevent encounters with people at swimming pools or fountains. Measures should be taken to reduce swarming, and colonies should be monitored for gentleness. Excessively defensive colonies should be re-queened. Care should be taken to avoid bee encounters with young children or the elderly. If public areas hold outdoor social or recreational events, the open areas may prove unsuitable for bee hives.

Kjeld Petersen maintains the bee hives at the Magevney House in downtown Memphis. The bee hives are part of the 1850 kitchen garden. Along with food for the family, the garden supplied medicinal, dye, aromatic, and pollinator plants. Home gardens were of great importance for everyday life. I assisted Kjeld temporarily move a bee hive to allow for maintenance in the garden. Access to bee hives in public spaces should be carefully planned to allow for the beekeeper to work in the bee hives and provide for lawn, garden, and building space maintenance. Kjeld and I moved the bees before dawn. As we finished the move, the sun illuminated St. Peter’s Catholic Church above the Magevney House. Catholic services were held in the Magevney House in the 1830s. The owner, Eugene Magevney, a pioneer teacher and civic leader, immigrated to the United States from Ireland in 1828. He died in the yellow fever epidemic of 1875. Honey bees help preserve the nature of these historic gardens.

--Richard

Are Beetles Vulnerable?

2011-10-04T21:43:00.000-05:00

Small hive beetles are invasive bee hive scavengers. For the past decade, small hive beetles have been an aggravation at times and a serious problem at other times since their introduction into the US. Beetle populations explode in weakened or queenless hives. Adult small hive beetles, which alone seem to do little harm, live among the bees. The hard wing coverings of the adult beetles protect them from honey bee stings. Since the bees can’t kill the intruding beetles, the worker bees in strong hives drive the adult beetles to the outer edges of the brood nest and honey supers. They also capture adult beetles and trap them in “jails” made of propolis, or bee glue. The narrow space between the ends of frame top bars and the edge of the hive boxes make convenient small hive beetle jails. Since some worker bees are deployed as beetle guards, an additional portion of the worker bee population is occupied. The real problem with small hive beetles is the damage done by their larval stage. The beetle larvae eat everything in the hive: comb, brood, honey, and pollen. The beetles are particularly attracted to the protein in pollen. As the beetle larvae eat their way through a hive, they leave a trail of waste similar to the trail left behind a garden slug. The waste hosts yeast that ferments the honey and gives the hive the odor of rotting oranges. The odor attracts adult beetles that fly in from great distances. The odor also causes honey bees to abandon the hive.

Researchers from the University of Arkansas are searching for natural biological agents that may be exploited to help control small hive beetles. Natasha Wright and Jon Zawislak are at Peace Bee Farm capturing adult beetles and sampling the soil around bee hives searching for nematodes, bacteria, or other microscopic agents that might attack small hive beetles. The beetles are particularly vulnerable when they leave the hive to pupate in the soil.

--Richard

Treating for Mites

2011-10-02T22:56:00.000-05:00

It is harvest time for beekeepers and other farmers in the Arkansas Delta. One of our important nectar sources for honey is cotton. Bolls of cotton fibers are open and ready for harvesting. During the heat of summer, cotton supplied large quantities of nectar for honey bees. Cotton honey is light in color and mild in flavor. A new beekeeper successfully completed his first honey harvest. With his honey sealed in containers, he asked me what he should do next for his bee hives. I congratulated him on his harvest and told him that his harvest of a surplus of honey indicates that he managed his hives properly. For a beekeeper to collect any surplus honey at all, the colonies must be healthy and have strong populations. The colonies’ population build-up must be timed so that there is a large population of bees at the start of the major nectar flows. If the colonies are expanding during major nectar flows, like that of cotton, there will be little surplus honey for the beekeeper to harvest.

Hive treatments to reduce parasitic mites can only be applied when there are no honey supers in place. I told the novice beekeeper that if he detected a number of Varroa mites, now is the time to reduce their numbers. The decision of whether to treat depends upon the bees’ mite loads. If the mite load is low, treatments are not needed. I suggest using a "soft" treatment like ones produced from essential oils or organic acids. The "hard" chemicals are miticides that tend to build up in the beeswax comb, lead to chemical-resistant mites, and cause sterility in drones and queens. The soft treatments are often applied inside the bee hive in a gel form that evaporates. Vapors, which are contained in the hive by covering screened bottom boards, kill exposed Varroa and tracheal mites. Treatments need to be made fairly early in the fall because cold temperatures may prevent the gel from evaporating.

--Richard

Robbing Behavior

2011-09-29T12:31:00.000-05:00

A honey bee colony seeks out sources of carbohydrate to make honey anytime that conditions are acceptable for the bees to fly, and bees fly during daylight hours whenever the temperature is above 50 degrees Fahrenheit. Foraging worker bees collect most of their carbohydrate from flower nectar, a thin solution of sugar water. Bees also take unguarded honey from the hive of another bee colony that is too weak to protect its honey stores. This behavior is called “robbing.” For strong colonies, robbing is an efficient method of rapidly gaining additional honey stores, a definite survival strategy. Weak colonies are likely to starve after their honey stores are robbed out. This likely exerts selective pressure to remove weaker colonies or those prone to disease. Two honey bee colonies, even those sitting side-by-side in the same bee yard, do not share stored food resources. Every worker bee is a selfless contributor devoted to the care and protection of its own colony, but not to other colonies. While guard bees protect the hive from all intruders, their main duty involves protecting the colony from robbing by bees from other colonies. For the beekeeper, robbing is not a serious problem as long as there are numerous flowers in bloom. However, during times of dearth, like during the end of summer and early fall, robbing intensifies.

The harvesting of honey by humans has traditionally been called “robbing.” When bees are drawn to the smell of honey, harvesting becomes more difficult. If honey supers or frames of honey are left exposed in an opened hive or outside the hive, they readily induce robbing. The bees’ robbing tendency can be used by the beekeeper, as in today’s photo, to effectively clean honey supers after the harvest. Stack “wet” supers several hundred yards away from the bee yard, and bees will remove any traces of honey in a day’s time. To prevent robbing always reduce hive entrances whenever feeding, making colony divisions, and during the winter.

--Richard

Caution with Insecticides

2011-09-27T22:21:00.000-05:00

Some insects are annoying pest that eat crops, contaminate food, and spread disease. Other insects are considered beneficial. These insects pollinate our crops, producing food and seed. Others help control pest insects. If insecticides are used to kill insect pests, they often kill beneficial insects as well. Insecticides described as “broad spectrum” kill all insects in the area regardless of whether they are considered pest or beneficial. This year’s late-summer spraying of insecticides killed honey bee colonies when other insect pests were the target. Annoying mosquitoes and flies were targeted in urban lawns, but honey bee colonies were killed as well. A Memphis beekeeper found thousands of bees dead on the ground around her hive with dozens of other bees crawling and twitching on the ground. They likely encountered a neighbor’s broad spectrum insecticide spraying arrangement.

An article in The New York Times describes efforts being made to develop methods of delivering poison to mosquitoes. Mosquitoes which spread malaria are a major killer of humans, especially young children, in parts of the world. Diseases, like malaria and dengue, are spread by mosquitoes when they bite humans to suck blood. Female mosquitoes, the only ones that bite humans, need the blood for its iron and protein to lay eggs. The insects can live, however, on nectar from flowers or from ripe or rotting fruit. The Times article, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/27/health/27mosquito.html, describes how researchers are making nectar poisons known as Attractive Toxic Sugar Baits. While the initial trials are proving effective in killing large numbers of mosquitoes, the use of poisoned nectars is particularly troubling to beekeepers. We will be keenly watching the development of poisoned nectars. Many beekeepers feel that the systemic neonicotinoid insecticides now in widespread use affect honey bee immune systems and have a negative effect on honey bee health. Today’s photo shows tree frogs sharing the bee hive; bees seem to completely ignore the vulnerable frogs. Frogs and other amphibians are considered indicators of the health of the environment.

--Richard

Where is Tod?

2011-09-21T23:41:00.000-05:00

A number of Peace Bee Farm’s friends and customers have been asking Rita and me, “Where is Tod?” Our son, Tod Underhill, who regularly mans our booth selling honey and bee hive products at farmers markets, is actively working on a PhD degree in Heritage Studies at Arkansas State University. His degree program involves researching and developing historic sites across the Arkansas Delta. The wide-open agricultural region encompassing 15 counties along the Mississippi River is the flattest area on the planet. Carved from bottom land hardwood forests to create cotton plantations in the 1800s, Arkansas’s Delta was the last agricultural region formed adjacent the Mississippi River. The rich alluvial land is now cultivated in row crops including cotton, soybeans, rice, wheat, corn, and grain sorghum. Today, Delta towns are largely in decline with decreased populations due to the reduced labor needs of mechanized industrial farming.

Tod may be found on ASU’s main campus at Jonesboro, Arkansas or working at ASU’s museum located in the former Southern Tenant Farmers Union building at Tyronza, Arkansas. The union was established in 1934 by black and white farmers and Tyronza businessmen. The men and women of the union demanded fair compensation for farm labor through strikes, marches, and rallies. Their non-violent protests led the way toward labor and civil rights efforts in later decades. This museum is only one of several projects the ASU program is developing to uncover and save the region’s cultural heritage. Other Arkansas Delta heritage sites include Ernest Hemingway’s writing studio, the Hemingway-Pfeiffer Home at Piggott; the historic Dyess Colony and Johnny Cash’s childhood home at Dyess; and the 1859 Lakeport Plantation at Lake Village, the only remaining antebellum plantation home in the Delta. Arkansas Delta Byways includes tourism routes through the Delta which are extended through the Great River Road linking 10 states along both sides of the Mississippi River from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. Today’s photo: Tod and Rita at a farmers market.

--Richard

Invasive Insects

2011-09-20T22:03:00.000-05:00

Invasive species often spread rapidly, and they are likely to be more damaging in their new environment than in their original location. One such invasive insect species that is considered North America’s most destructive insect is the emerald ash borer, a beetle thought to have entered this continent from Asia in wooden pallets from China. In less than a decade, the emerald ash borer has killed tens of millions of ash trees and threatens to eliminate all North American ash species. The efforts to identify and control this invasive insect are detailed in a New York Times piece, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/13/science/13beetle.html. Often, invasive species have their populations held in check in their native environment by pests, pathogens, or competing species. Without these limiting factors, the populations of an invasive species may explode across its new range. That seems to be happening with the emerald ash borer following its discovery near Detroit in 2002. To follow the spread of the beetles, now in 15 states and adjacent Canadian provinces, the Forest Service developed a purple-colored, scented beetle trap to locate the invasive insects. Control of the beetles using insecticides is considered too costly for North America’s more than seven billion ash trees. While biological controls are being investigated, a control strategy using “sink trees” is being used. A few ash trees are intentionally killed and used to attract emerald beetles. These trees are then cut in the winter killing the beetle larvae. In today’s photo, rows of green ash and oak trees stretch for sunlight above annual grasses in Peace Farm’s Wetland Reforestation Project. The trees will protect a tributary of the Mississippi River from erosion.

The spread of emerald ash borers has occurred at the same time as small hive beetles spread through bee yards across the states. Effective methods of control of the rapidly spreading small hive beetle will rely upon cultural, biological, and mechanical methods. It is too dangerous to the bees to use insecticides inside bee hives.

--Richard

Late Summer Hive Inspection

2011-09-14T22:31:00.001-05:00

Bee hive inspections of the brood nest are less frequently made on bee hives during the major nectar flows. The beekeeper can usually tell if the colony is queen-right by observing the bees from outside the hive. Hives should have considerable flight activity during daytime hours. Seeing bees returning to the hive with full pollen baskets usually indicates the bees are feeding brood. Lifting the weight of heavy honey supers in the heat of the summer to expose the brood nest is a real task. However, once the beekeeper removes the honey supers and harvests the honey, it is a good time to carefully examine the brood nest. In late summer, beekeepers should be making the same checks as they make at other times of the year. We need to see evidence that the colony has a laying queen, and check for signs of disease or parasites. If Varroa mite loads are excessive, now is a good time to treat the hive with “soft” treatments, like thymol products. Since nectar flows may not be strong in late summer, we need to know if the hive has enough honey to sustain the bees until fall flowers bloom. Finally, we need to see plenty of bees in the hive. It is not uncommon to see a number of dead bees on the ground in front of the hive. One hundred dead bees is probably normal; one thousand dead bees probably indicates a hive problem. Especially during a late summer nectar dearth, the bees may kill their drones. Uncapped, liquid honey may fill the cells most recently used to produce the colony’s last brood.

Today’s photo shows a late summer queen starting to lay eggs. Like many new queens, her egg-laying pattern contains some skipped cells. Mixed stages of brood reveal eggs and larvae of different ages. Healthy larvae are pearly white in color. Cells containing pupae are capped with light brown colored, recycled beeswax. Honey is capped with freshly secreted, snow-white beeswax.

--Richard

Chemicals in Beekeeping

2011-09-02T22:38:00.000-05:00

A new beekeeper attending an introductory course in beekeeping was surprised by the number of chemical treatments available for the beehive. She asked, “Can beekeepers avoid using antibiotics and miticides and still have healthy bees?” The answer is not simple, for there are several approaches to keeping honey bees. Some beekeepers rely upon chemical treatments for parasitic mites and honey bee diseases. However, over time, the honey bee pests and pathogens develop resistance to the chemical agents. Other beekeepers attempt to tend to bees without the use of treatments. In most cases their colonies dwindle and die within a couple of years. A third approach at beekeeping, which we adhere to at Peace Bee Farm, relies upon a series of integrated pest management steps designed to strengthen the bee colony while lessening the colony’s pests and pathogens.

An IPM approach to beekeeping employs a number of cultural, biological, and mechanical measures. Purchasing resistant-stock queen bees that are bred for hygienic behavior is the first biological measure for controlling parasitic Varroa mites. The hive design affects colony health. Screened bottom boards increase ventilation and reduce the hive’s Varroa mites. Ventilation is important for controlling chalkbrood and Nosema disease. Encouraging bees to preen Varroa mites by dusting the bees with powdered sugar is a cultural control. When the mites fall through the screen, ants eat them, a biological control. Varroa prefer to reproduce on drone brood. Removing and freezing frames of drone brood is biological control of these vectors of honey bee viruses. Parasitic tracheal mites seek very young bees as hosts, but they can be confused by vegetable oil patties placed in the hive, a biological control. Worker bees chase small hive beetles into traps, a mechanical control. These and more IPM measures, when used together, help protect the honey bee colony. Finally, when mite control is necessary, beekeepers should choose the “soft” treatments, such as those derived from essential oils. Today’s photo: partridge pea, a legume. A grasshopper consumes the foliage.

--Richard

Use of Antibiotics

2011-09-01T23:09:00.000-05:00

Prior to the introduction of antibiotics in the 1940s, infections were treated by medicinal folklore. For example, the colonial-era Native American folk healer Joe Pye used plants to treat diarrhea, typhus, kidney stones, and fevers. These plants in the composite flower family are now known as Joe-Pye weed. Today’s photo is Joe-Pye weed blooming in the damp, marshy ground surrounding Peace Farm lakes.

Antibiotics are substances produced by fungi, algae, and bacteria that inhibit the growth of bacteria. With their wide-spread introduction in the 1940s, they were described as “wonder drugs.” While antibiotics initially provided effective control of bacterial infections, their effectiveness is often short lived. Strains of bacteria quickly become resistant to antibiotics. A New York Times report with important implications for beekeepers may be viewed at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/01/science/01gene.html. The report describes an analysis of 30-thousand-year-old bacteria recovered from Canada’s Yukon permafrost. The bacteria proved to be resistant to antibiotics. The researchers find that antibiotic resistance is widespread, and it is a natural phenomenon that existed long before the modern medical use of antibiotics. They find that the ancient bacteria contained all of the major genes that enable today’s bacteria to resist antibiotics. The researchers describe the evolution of two classes of genes: ones that make antibiotics and ones that provide resistance to antibiotics. One researcher states, “Antibiotic resistance is part of the natural ecology of the planet….” Another describes the ease with which resistance can appear. They also warn of problems caused by the overuse of antibiotics in poor countries and by farmers who regularly feed antibiotics to farm animals to induce faster growth. The result is the emergence of drug-resistant bacteria in both animals and farm workers. Another concern is the communities of bacteria that live in the human gut. These bacteria passed from mother to child over thousands of generations may be degraded by antibiotics. The continued use of antibiotics by beekeepers attempting to prevent American foulbrood leads to resistant strains of this bacterial disease.

--Richard

Social Behavior

2011-08-26T20:50:00.000-05:00

Social creatures, such as honey bees and humans, employ elaborate methods of communication. The honey bee evolved senses and behaviors to help protect the colony from hazards in the environment and to allow the bees to effectively forage for food over great distances. Most of the colony’s communication senses are based upon pheromones, odors that the bees recognize. Other methods of communications involve vibrations, usually detected as movements in the honeycomb of the colony’s hive. These behaviors are used to defend the colony from intruders, protect it from disease, and notify the members of available food sources. We observe the actions of guard bees instantly alerting other worker bees while defending against an intruder attempting to enter the hive. Scout bees convey newly located nectar sources to forager bees by demonstrating with dances and sharing a taste of the nectar.

Humans communicate largely by visual signs, electronic devices, and speech, a form of controlled vibrations. While the craft of beekeeping developed over the years with most of its great innovations developing in the mid-1800s, the science of honey bee biology is being advanced today. The 2006 completion of the honey bee genome project greatly broadened the study of bee disease mechanisms. Human communications, especially via the internet, now allow researchers anywhere in the world to work together and share knowledge. Our ability to communicate will help us solve honey bee problems that we may have created ourselves through the importation of pests, parasites, and pathogens as well as our use of chemicals in bee hives and the environment. I watched an example of mankind’s cooperative efforts in communications and problem solving as the International Space Station made a six-minute pass over Peace Farm at 17 thousand miles per hour. The manned space station appears as a bright, moving star. That’s my camera’s wobble, not the space craft. You may follow orbital tracking at http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/tracking/, and you may find when the space craft is passing over your location at http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/.

--Richard

Summer Nectar Flow

2011-08-25T14:00:00.000-05:00

A hot, dry summer is often the backdrop for a good honey production year. This year’s wet, stormy spring kept farmers out of the fields in the Arkansas Delta. Planting was delayed, but a healthy crop of cotton and soybeans followed. These crops account for an abundance of Delta honey. Honey bees gather significant amounts of nectar to make a surplus of honey in strong hives. A surplus of honey can only be produced if the colony is strong and productive, the hive is near a good source of nectar, and the queen is producing large numbers of eggs in the weeks prior to the major nectar flow. The timing of the colony’s population build-up is critical for honey production. If the colony is just starting to expand during the nectar flow, there will probably not be enough of the older worker bees, the foragers, to gather enough nectar to make a surplus of honey.

I tested using additional entrances to my stronger hives this year. The entrances are placed between surplus honey supers at the top of the hives. There is evidence that the entrances allow foragers to deliver their nectar more efficiently. Nectar is taken directly into the honey supers without having to be carried through the brood nest. Upper entrances also allow for extra ventilation at the top of the hive. However, the wooden shims used for the upper entrances violate the concept of bee space. Every opening inside a bee hive should be three eights of an inch. The shim’s wider gap between supers makes a space that the bees fill with honeycomb. In fact, many of the hives equipped with upper entrances became clogged with burr comb in the space between supers. Burr comb, which is any honeycomb that the bees build that does not conform to the shape and order of the hive’s removable frames, tends to break when the hive is opened for inspection or honey harvesting. Today’s picture: burr comb, a sticky mess.

--Richard

Observing Evolution

2011-08-21T21:15:00.000-05:00

Can we see evolution in action? The New York Times reports that a group of evolutionary biologists and geneticists from Harvard University is attempting to find the mechanisms that lead to physical changes and learn how those changes affect fitness. They also want to learn how changes make an organism likely to survive and reproduce. These are critical issues for honey bee health. Harvard’s Dr. Hopi Hoekstra explains, “Fitness is the most important concept in biology, but no one ever measures it.” To observe evolution while it occurs, the researchers devised a test of fitness. They built four large enclosures on light-colored, sandy soil to house deer mice. A distance away, they built another four similar enclosures on dark-colored soil. Some of the deer mice, North America’s most populous mammal, have lighter colored fur than typical deer mice. The researchers discovered that the range of colors is dependent upon a single gene that controls pigment-producing cells. Mutations in this gene lead to deer mice with various levels of fur color. Mice that differ greatly in color from their background are easily spotted by predators, quickly changing the population of highly visible mice. The researchers are measuring the fur color shift in deer mice populations. The deer mice study can be viewed at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/09/science/09mouse.html.

While people often think of evolution as an extremely gradual process, at times rapid changes occur. This is seen with pathogens becoming antibiotic resistant and honey bee parasitic mites quickly becoming resistant to chemical treatments. Hopefully, we will start seeing honey bee populations evolve that are fit to live in our rapidly changing environment. European honey bees have been in the presence of parasitic Varroa mites for about 150 years. In this time some resistant lines of honey bees survived, and their offspring are now being selected by breeders. Today’s photo shows tickseed coreopsis, a colorful summertime carpet along roadsides and clearings. Coreopsis is a member of the important family of bee plants, the composites, or sunflowers.

--Richard

Honey Bee Emotions

2011-08-09T00:51:00.000-05:00

Beekeepers know it is common for bees in different bee yards to have distinct natures. The bees in one yard may be more defensive in behavior than the bees in other yards managed by the same beekeeper. Also, certain beekeepers gain a reputation for keeping “hot” hives, while other beekeepers keep gentle bees. What causes bees to be defensive? Is it the location of the hives, the way the bees are manipulated, the bees’ genetics, the beekeeper, or bee yard intruders? Certainly, many factors combine to shape the nature of a bee yard. Researchers at Newcastle University in England are studying the emotions of honey bees. Using a series of carefully designed tests, the researchers are finding evidence that honey bees react to hive disturbances in ways that were previously unexpected of invertebrate animals. The bees are trained to anticipate pleasant or unpleasant feedings, and then the researchers record how the bees react according to learned expectations. The honey bees in the study are given a pleasant reward of sugar or an unpleasant offering of bitter quinine. They respond by sticking their tongues out for a reward of sugar. However, some of the bees in the study are shaken in a manner similar to having their hive attacked by wild animals. Shaken bees change their behavior and become “pessimistic” according to the researchers’ descriptions. They react by not sticking their tongue out for an unknown offering of food. The shaken bees seem to be anticipating that an unknown feeding will be associated with punishment To read more about the study, see “The Secret Minds of Bees” at http://www.onearth.org/article/the-secret-minds-of-bees.

We don’t know if honey bees experience human-like emotions, but we do know that the manner in which we handle bees goes a long way toward determining their behavior. I explained to an observer today that a little smoke settles bees; too much disturbs them. The bees teach us how much to use. In today’s photo, I’m surrounded by disturbed bees.

--Richard

Moisture in Honey

2011-08-07T17:05:00.000-05:00

A new beekeeper preparing for his first harvest asked me about handling the honey. He wanted to know how to tell if the moisture in the honey was correct and how to adjust it if it is too high. When the honey bees collect nectar from flowers, it is mostly water with a weak concentration of sugars. The bees start the conversion of nectar to honey as they carry it back to their hive inside their honey gut where it is mixed with enzymes. Once the nectar is deposited in the hive, worker bees continue its conversion to honey by continuously mixing it with enzymes. To concentrate the honey, the bees blow bubbles in the honey and stretch its surface area with their mouthparts. They evaporate the moisture from the honey by fanning their wings across its surface. They dry the honey until its moisture content reaches 18 percent. At this point, the bees cover the cells containing the now “ripe” honey with freshly secreted beeswax.

I told the new beekeeper that ripe honey can be harvested and stored indefinitely. However, if honey is harvested too soon, it will have excessive moisture; and it may ferment. The safest way to prevent this is to wait until the frames of honey are at least 70 percent capped with beeswax before harvesting. At this point, the honey should contain the proper moisture for bottling or storing. Beekeepers typically measure the moisture content of honey using an optical device called a refractometer. I also explained to the new beekeeper that honey readily takes on or gives up moisture depending upon the environmental conditions. This occurs even with beeswax-capped honey in the frames before it is extracted. Beeswax is porous. In the honey house, honey can be further dried, as the bees do it, by blowing dry air across the honey’s surface. In today’s picture, bees fan their wings to dry and cool the exterior of the hive while others inside fan to evaporate honey.

--Richard

Last Chance for a New Queen

2011-08-04T21:47:00.000-05:00

Honey bee colonies produce new queens as they need them through the spring, summer, and fall. The bees make new queens for supersedure, or replacement, of aging queens; or they make new queens to sustain the colony after it divides and swarms. Some races of bees, like the Russians, continue to produce numbers of queen cells throughout this time. The bees tear down the cells if a new queen is not needed in the hive at the time. Beekeepers produce queens during the same period by encouraging the bees to produce queen cells. The queen cells may be created by either grafting day-old larvae into queen cell cups or by non-grafting techniques. Today’s photo shows beekeepers practicing grafting at a University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service advanced beekeeping workshop in Little Rock, Arkansas.

In the Mid-South area, queens may be reared from May through August. An important element in the production of good queens is the availability of sufficient numbers of drones to mate with the new queens. If we attempt to produce queens too early in the spring, they are often of low quality because large numbers of sexually-mature drones are not available. The number of drones in the drone concentration areas is often reduced late in the summer, especially during times of dearth of nectar and pollen. At this time, the colonies produce fewer drones and sometimes remove drones from the hives. Late-season queens that are well mated with good drones make for prolific colonies for pollination service or honey production the following year. At Peace Bee Farm, we like to produce a number of extra queens to have as replacements for lost queens. If we detect a queen-less colony during a nectar flow, we can easily replace her by bringing in a laying queen housed in a nucleus hive. Once the two hives are combined using a sheet of newspaper to slow the merger of the bees, the colony can continue producing honey without losing population.

--Richard

Martins and Drones

2011-07-29T19:40:00.002-05:00

The purple martin is the largest member of the swallow family. These strong flying, insect-eating birds migrate to North America in the spring, and return to South America in the summer. Martins nest in gourds hanging from vines in treetops or in man-made bird houses mounted on poles. During the spring and early summer, martins rear their young. They catch great numbers of flying insects to feed their rapidly growing offspring, and the martins are feeding young birds at the same time that honey bee colonies are at the height of queen bee production. Soaring high in the sky and performing aerial acrobatics, the martins grab flying insects at will. As martins climb, dive, and sweep through honey bee drone concentration areas 20 to 80 feet in the air, they likely catch some queen bees making mating flights as well as drones.

Peace Bee Farm employs drone-breeder colonies with added drone brood frames to increase the number of drones in the drone concentration areas with valued traits. This technique, called drone saturation, is intended to lessen queen matings with feral drones. While some healthy bees are lost to martin predation, I feel like the birds actually help by eliminating weak or slow flying queens and drones. Martins surely apply selective pressure on queen bees while the queens are vulnerable outside the hive. It is evident that martins fly through drone concentration areas, because numbers of drones follow the martins back to their nest. Drones have large eyes to see queen bees making their mating flights. They seem to be attracted to the martins that fly through their drone concentration area. Following a fast moving martin, a plume of drones has no trouble keeping up with the bird as it sweeps through the sky. The drones follow the martins all the way back to their nest. Today’s photo shows a drone in close pursuit of a martin. The birds seem to pay no attention to their “comet tail” of drones.

--Richard

Bee Hive Upper Entrance

2011-07-26T20:31:00.000-05:00

Natural honey bee hives in hollow trees often have multiple entrances. Bees fly in and out of knot holes or broken openings linked to the tree’s cavity. I watched a colony of honey bees in a sweet gum tree for four years. The bees entered the hive through a hole in the tree near the ground. At times, the bees also used a second entrance, a knot hole three feet above and to the side of the tree. The bees would use the upper entrance for awhile, and then seal it with propolis. Eventually, the honey bee colony swarmed and settled into a wood duck nesting box about the size of a deep bee hive body. The duck box had a large entrance hole near the top, facing east. The bees survived a winter in the duck box, and I hived them the next spring as my first managed colony.

Honey bees readily use holes in rotted corners of beehives as extra entrances to the hive. The late George Imirie designed shims with openings to give bees an upper hive entrance. See http://www.tnbeekeepers.org/learning.htm, and then “George Imirie” and “Optimizing Honey Production.” The blue-colored Imirie shim shown in today’s photo allows foraging workers to enter the honey supers without passing through the hive’s brood nest. Imirie felt that using upper entrances with frames of drawn comb increased his honey production. Adding an upper hive entrance also increases ventilation through the hive. Jerry Hayes conducted a small-scale investigation into the effect of upper entrances to bee hives. The report can be viewed at http://www.beesource.com/point-of-view/jerry-hayes/queen-excluder-or-honey-excluder/. Hayes compared three configurations of bee hives: control hives with entrances at the bottom and no queen excluder, hives with entrances at the bottom and a queen excluder, and hives with an upper entrance above a queen excluder. The hives with upper entrances outperformed the other hives in two ways: There was less brood chamber congestion from honey, and more surplus honey was stored in the honey supers.

--Richard

Hot and Dry

2011-07-19T22:27:00.001-05:00

The climate is changing, and conditions are moving toward the extremes. Careful measurements of the earth’s air and oceans are being conducted, and evidence of the change is visible in numerous areas. Some of the results of climate change are quite subtle. This year’s white clover, which secretes nectar heavily between 80 and 90 degrees, produced less than normal nectar as the thermometer quickly surpassed the 90 degree mark. Birds of the tropics ventured farther into more temperate regions. The Arkansas Delta saw birds this summer not typically found in this region. Among rarely seen visitors to the Peace Farm bird sanctuary were a pair of black-bellied whistling ducks, seen in today’s photo. Expanding populations and improved habitat may be responsible for unusual bird sightings; however, warming climate may have an effect as well. One of the most glaring signs of the earth’s climate change is the melting of glaciers. A piece in The New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/17/opinion/sunday/17drought.html, describes the hot and dry weather conditions experienced across America’s southern states. The result has been massive wildfires and water shortages. The Times piece even suggests that portions of the region may become permanently arid, a condition beyond temporary drought conditions. The availability of water is expected to be of increasing concern. Permanent changes in climate will have a significant effect on agriculture and cities. There will be greater demands for water for human use as well as for livestock and irrigation of crops. The changes in climate and available water will affect the quality and amount of forage for honey bees and native pollinators. With a changing environment, the honey bees must adapt in order to survive. The more genetic diversity among the bees, the more likely they will fit in.

Today, Tod and I traveled to the University of Tennessee, Martin Campus to help judge the beekeeping and entomology students in Tennessee’s 4-H Roundup competition. The high school students were quite impressive for their knowledge, efforts, and accomplishments.

--Richard

Defensive Behavior

2011-07-16T16:08:00.000-05:00

Bee hives are constantly under attack. A healthy hive contains hundreds of pounds of tasty and nutritious food, and is a temptation to numerous animals from insects to bears. The brood and pollen offer protein; and honey is an attractive, high-energy carbohydrate. Throughout the night and day, small hive beetles, moths, wasps, hornets, and yellowjackets, are trying to slip past guard bees watching the hive entrance. At night, possums, raccoons, and skunks test the hive defenses. In their range, black bears are known to tear into bee hives to eat the protein-rich brood. When beekeepers are careless, guard bees find unprotected skin to sting. Probably the bee hive’s greatest intruder, though, is the honey bee from another hive. Bees will rob the unprotected stores of honey from a weak colony. Against all of these invaders the bee hive is protected by workers with well-developed venomous stings.

In Kenya, the honey bee is being called upon to protect farms from elephants. These massive animals try to avoid honey bees that sting the sensitive skin around the eyes, behind the ears, and in the nose. A number of large animals are vulnerable to nose stings. Honey bees are known to kill horses when their nasal passages close from numerous bee stings. Following the international blockage of ivory trade, the elephant is making a comeback. With human populations expanding in the same region, deadly encounters between elephants and people are on the rise. Go to http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/07/beehive-fences-block-elephants/ to see how Kenyan top bar hives are being wired into fences to repel elephants from crop fields. The hives, connected by wires, shake violently when elephants invade the fields at night. When the hives are shaken, alerted guard bees fly from the disturbed hives and repel the elephants. In today’s photo an irrigated soybean field is in bloom in the Arkansas Delta. The soybean, a member of the important bee plant family, the legumes, produces abundant nectar for a light colored and flavored honey.

--Richard

Restricting Beekeeping

2011-07-10T22:41:00.000-05:00

News reports of the loss of honey bee colonies over the past four years have stirred interest in keeping bees. Across America hobbyist beekeepers are placing bee hives in urban and suburban backyards and city rooftops. Some want to help reverse the decline in honey bee colonies. Others want to ensure a supply of bees for their home gardens to grow some of their own food. For many, beekeeping provides an opportunity to look into the complicated life of these intriguing social insects. A recent article in USA Today, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2011-06-27-city-restrictions-beekeeping-fights_n.htm, points to the fact that honey bees are misunderstood, unappreciated, or feared by some. Instead of welcoming honey bees and beekeepers, some municipalities are attempting to keep bees out by passing restrictive ordinances. Those who request banning bees from a community do not realize the unexpected consequences of their actions. While ordinances may ban beekeeping, the laws do nothing to control bees and other stinging insects. Insects simply don’t abide by written laws. Removing managed honey bee colonies from a residential community opens an environmental niche for less desirable insects to fill.

Increasing the number of managed bee hives across the country offers benefits. First, more pollinators become available. Many of the new beekeepers are informed stewards of the environment. As they study honey bee biology and the craft of beekeeping, they insist upon using measures that protect the bees and our natural resources. Experienced beekeepers also serve communities by answering numerous requests from the public and governmental agencies for handling honey bee swarm removal and stinging insect emergencies. Beekeepers try to prevent problems with the public by adhering to “good neighbor” practices. They limit exposure of the bees to others by carefully placing hives so that bees won’t fly across areas frequented by people, provide the bees water, and work the bees when conditions are favorable and people are not present. In today’s photo colorful crepe myrtle blossoms attract honey bees to suburban landscapes. Honey bees need our protection.

--Richard

The Palouse

2011-07-07T23:29:00.000-05:00

To have healthy honey bee colonies, we want to have a diverse population of drone bees to mate with the queen bees when they make their series of mating flights. A diversity of available genes carried by drones from numerous hives makes for a greater possibility of the queens passing along to their offspring traits that will make them survivable in our constantly changing environment. The queen honey bee’s behavior of mating with a number of drones increases the probability that some of the offspring will be resistant to certain pathogens attacking bees.

As important as it is for bees in nature to have a diverse gene pool, there is a time when diversity is not desired: That is when queen breeders are trying to develop new genetic lines. Here, they are attempting to control the mating of the queen to drones carrying particular genetic traits. This inbreeding in a controlled environment is used to concentrate wanted genes in the population. After evaluating the characteristics of the offspring, the best queens are used to produce new queens. This method is being used to produce honey bees with hygienic behavior traits that can live in the presence of parasitic mites and resist a number of honey bee diseases. Lines of hygienic Russian honey bees were developed in isolation on an island in the Gulf of Mexico. A similar tactic is being employed in the Northwest. Honey bees are being bred in isolation in a “sea of wheat” on the Palouse, the immense rolling farmland of Washington, Idaho, and Oregon. The agricultural region primarily produces wheat, a grass that offers no food to honey bees. With no food and few nesting cavities in the area, there are no feral honey bee colonies in the Palouse. Queen bees can be naturally mated in flight with drones from desired colonies. The best queens will become new hygienic honey bee lines. Wes Underhill is attending Washington State University, located in the Palouse at Pullman, Washington.

--Richard

Nosema Studies Underway

2011-07-03T08:26:00.000-05:00

A Minnesota beekeeper asks if there are guarantees that the bees one purchases in packages are free of Nosema disease and tracheal mites. The answer is no. There are no visible ways to detect either condition. The pathogen causing Nosema and the mite involved in tracheal mite infestation are both microscopic. To be seen, bees must be dissected and the affected organs viewed under a microscope. At times, tracheal mite infestations lead to “k-wing” bees having unhooked wings and bees crawling along the ground. However, these conditions are not conclusive evidence of tracheal mites. The bees that one receives in a package may carry Nosema disease or tracheal mites, and it is possible that the person supplying the bees may not be aware of the condition. The recently identified strain of Nosema disease, Nosema ceranae, is being studied by scientists of the Managed Pollinator CAP, or Coordinated Agricultural Project. A CAP project for queen breeders, http://www.extension.org/pages/58424/laying-groundwork-for-a-sustainable-market-of-genetically-improved-queens:-the-bee-team, has been started in California. It is designed to help queen producers improve genetic diversity and select for bees that can defend themselves from parasitic mites and diseases. If this program works well, the team plans to establish similar programs in the Southeast and other queen breeding areas. The CAP project also gives an extensive report on the nature of Nosema ceranae at http://www.extension.org/pages/31234/nosema-microsporidia:-friend-foe-and-intriguing-creatures. The work of the Managed Pollinator CAP program is designed to provide feedback to queen producers to allow them to adjust their methods of controlling Nosema disease. The researchers are finding that Nosema infections increase the effect of viral infections in honey bees. The current method of detecting Nosema is by counting spores in the mid-gut of foragers.

Honey bees are working buckwheat vine today. The tough vine which covers small trees and invades row crops is a heavy producer of nectar in the summer. Buckwheat vine is also known as “ladies’ eardrops” because of the shape of the seed pods produced after the flowers are pollinated by bees.

--Richard

The New Nosema

2011-07-01T21:43:00.000-05:00

A beekeeping friend in New England started packages of bees in April and May. While each colony had plenty of bees, one colony struggled. These bees took up less syrup than the other similar colonies. Eventually, they quit feeding on syrup altogether. The beekeeper requeened the colony to give it a queen with stronger pheromones and greater egg-laying potential. Still, the colony dwindled and died. A Mississippi beekeeper installed four packages of bees and captured a swarm in May. Each colony started to expand rapidly, and then they all became queenless. A Tennessee beekeeper says that he has plenty of bees in his hives, but they are not putting a surplus of honey in his supers. All three are frequently seen occurrences in beekeeping. It is possible that each shares one thing in common: the new strain of Nosema disease, Nosema ceranae. Unlike the original Nosema strain, N. apis, N. ceranae exhibits no symptoms in the bees. The bees lose their ability to digest food, and they may starve in the presence of plenty food. Like the New England bees, the nutritionally stressed bees quit eating. Nosema disease can lead to early supersedure of queens, a possibility with the Mississippi colonies. Perhaps the most notable effect of honey bee colonies being infected by Nosema ceranae is slow population build-up caused by the premature death of foraging worker bees. While a hive may appear to have plenty of bees, without a large population of the older bees, the foragers, very little surplus honey can be stored. This is a possible explanation for the Tennessee bees’ not storing honey. Nosema ceranae infection produces perforated honey gut linings, exposing the bees to viral infections. The combined effects can of Nosema and viruses can be lethal.

Randy Oliver discusses current studies into Nosema ceranae on his website, http://scientificbeekeeping.com/nosema-ceranae-kiss-of-death-or-much-ado-about-nothing/. In time for the major summer nectar flows in the Arkansas Delta, I am spacing nine frames so the bees can extend the honeycomb.

--Richard

Arkansas DeltaMade

2011-07-01T08:01:00.000-05:00

The Arkansas Delta is an economically depressed agricultural region with a rich heritage located on the most fertile soil in the world. The land produces food and fiber on large farms, models of industrial agriculture. These modern row-crop farms produce soybeans, cotton, rice, corn, wheat, and grain sorghum using a minimum of tillage. Mechanical cultivation of the soil to control grasses and weeds has largely been eliminated by the use of genetically modified crops and herbicides. With agricultural labor needs greatly reduced, employment opportunities in the Delta became scarce. Many of the cities in the region lost population; some resembled ghost towns. Three years ago, a non-profit organization called Arkansas DeltaMade, http://www.arkansasdeltamade.com/, formed to help market goods produced in the 15 Delta counties along the Mississippi River. DeltaMade located artists, craftsmen, potters, woodworkers, cooks, and individuals with numerous skills. Peace Bee Farm was proud to be one of the first businesses selected to carry the DeltaMade logo.

The story of DeltaMade was carried on ABC World News. See the story and the short video “Made in America: Marketing the People Behind the Product” at http://abcnews.go.com/Business/made-america-marketing-people-product/story?id=13969196#.Tg0kHZZxEfQ.facebook. Producer Erin Hayes questioned Rita and me along with DeltaMade’s Beth Wiedower about the effectiveness of promoting cottage industries as a means of reviving economic development in the Delta. DeltaMade has created or saved three hundred jobs in the area since its creation. We also pointed to the work in Appalachia by the Coal Country Beeworks, http://www.eri.eku.edu/honey.php, for creating jobs in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky and West Virginia. Perhaps, the time is right to use home and community-based businesses to support local economies. Many of these would not exist without the assistance and promotion of groups like DeltaMade. In today’s picture, captured from ABC World News, Rita and I discuss marketing of locally produced products at Helena, Arkansas. We find that the producers take great pride in the region. We appreciate the attention given to those who work to revitalize the Arkansas Delta.

--Richard

Our Food

2011-06-28T22:06:00.000-05:00

Melissa Petersen is the editor of Edible Memphis magazine, http://www.ediblecommunities.com/memphis/, a quarterly devoted to building connections between farmers, food artisans, and the community. Melissa spoke to the Memphis Herb Society about the food we eat, what it takes to bring it to the table, and what it means to us. She described how our food is so much more than nourishment for our bodies. We use food to celebrate special family events. Certain foods bring back special memories. Many of those who buy our honey at farmers markets relate to us that their grandfathers kept honey bees. Others seek comb honey because they have nostalgic memories of eating honeycomb as a child after family members robbed a bee tree. The Herb Society members know that cooking often involves preparing foods using home-grown herbs for special occasions. Melissa reminded the audience that bringing food to the table requires hard work from numerous individuals. Preparing food in a commercial kitchen involves long, busy, hot, hours, by a team of dedicated workers. Beekeepers recognize the commitment involved in harvesting honey in the summer. Honey supers are heavy; protective bee suits are hot; and some guard bees always find exposed skin.

Mary Phillips, who worked with us at Peace Bee Farm, is featured in the Memphis Commercial Appeal: http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2011/jun/24/farm-fresh/. Mary is helping bring fresh food to inner-city areas known as “food deserts.” In parts of some cities it is said to be easier to buy a handgun than a fresh apple. Mary is helping correct this by managing a midtown farmers market, helping community gardens, and building raised-bed backyard vegetable gardens. She is also teaching farming at a girls’ school. Mary says that food “transcends all barriers—class, gender, race, and age.” In our recent travels, we encountered a food coop in Spokane, Washington, featured in today’s photo. See http://www.mainmarket.coop/. Without pollination from the honey bee, the only pictured food available to us is the bread and the macaroni noodles in the soup.

--Richard

The Bear Project

2011-06-24T21:18:00.001-05:00

The bear has often been associated with bee hives and honey in works of fiction. However, the diet of bear has not always been clearly understood. Research into bear diet as well as other areas of bear health, physiology, and behavior is conducted at the world’s only facility designed to house North America’s grizzly bear, the Bear Research, Conservation, and Education Program located on the campus of Washington State University at Pullman, Washington. Researchers study bears in their natural habitat as well as captive bears like this young grizzly in the caged facility. Grizzly bears, the great omnivores of the Northwest, reach a weight approaching one thousand pounds. Researchers at Pullman determined that when pine nuts are available bears consume large quantities of these seeds of conifer trees. These massive animals require large amounts of high-protein food to build up body reserves to carry them through long winters in the Rocky Mountains. At times the bears gain four hundred pounds before starting hibernation. While grizzly bears are known to eat large mammals such as moose, elk, deer, bison, and black bears, their diet is largely comprised of grasses, moths, and berries. Grizzlies will eat insects, including bees, if they are available, but some of the locations where grizzly bears are found are at high elevations and lack sufficient flowering plants to support honey bees.

Grizzly bears catch large numbers of salmon in the mountain streams when the ocean-dwelling fish return to their birthplace to spawn. Researchers at Pullman found that bears enrich the terrain surrounding the streams where they catch salmon by spreading nitrogen-rich waste which nourishes the pine trees. The seeds of berries are spread in the waste of bears. Bees provide the pollination that makes the fruit and seed production possible, and the bear waste fertilizes the plants growing from seed. Honey bees and grizzly bears play important roles in supporting wildlife in the American Northwest. Washington State University is also active in conducting honey bee research.

--Richard

The Queen Excluder

2011-06-22T22:30:00.000-05:00

The queen excluder is an important part of the modern honey bee hive used to separate the brood nest area from the stored honey. The device is simply a sheet of metal or plastic with openings sized to allow worker bees to pass through but block the larger drones and queen bees. A queen excluder is typically placed above the hive bodies that hold the brood nest. As many surplus honey supers are then placed above the brood nest as are needed to store the colony’s honey. The use of queen excluders offers several advantages to the beekeeper. First, with no brood being reared in the frames devoted to honey production, the honey is clean and free of eggs and larvae. The absence of brood in the honey supers means that there is little protein being deposited in the supers. The protein comes from pollen used to feed the larvae and from silk cocoons spun by pupae. It is protein that attracts hive scavengers like wax moths. Frames of beeswax honeycomb from honey production can usually be stored over winter without chemical treatments. They merely need ventilation. Frames that held brood are often damaged by wax moth larvae while in storage. Some beekeepers prefer to not use queen excluders; they even call them “honey excluders.” They feel that the bees produce more honey without a queen excluder in the hive. However, bees can easily be encouraged to move through the queen excluder to store honey in the supers by “priming” the super with a frame containing honey or even with frames of drawn comb.

Today, I found an "upside-down" hive, a rather rare occurrence. The brood was above the queen excluder; the honey below. When the colony superseded itself, the new queen made its mating flights. When she returned to the hive, the queen, still quite small, was able to pass through the mesh of the queen excluder. I moved the queen and the brood down below the queen excluder.

--Richard

The Peanut Butter Bee

2011-06-21T22:53:00.000-05:00

Honey bees derive food from wildflowers by gathering nectar and pollen. Honey bee colonies require very large populations to gather enough nectar to make a surplus of honey. The worker honey bees’ foraging behavior makes them seek nectar sources that provide the largest amount of nectar with the greatest concentration of sugars. Foragers fly past weak nectar sources to get to stronger sources farther away from the hive. Throughout the spring the honey bee colony strives to gather nectar, make honey, and build its population to allow it to divide and create a new colony in a new location. By dividing the colony and swarming, the bees are able to increase their numbers, expand their range, and move away from old chemical and disease spore-laden honeycombs. Pollen is also necessary for honey bees. When a number of different flower species are in bloom, a variety of pollens are brought back to the hive. The pollen contains proteins, fats, vitamins, and minerals. The proteins are made of amino acids, but some pollens lack certain amino acids required for complete nutrition. If diverse flowering plants are in bloom, the bees are able to feed the developing brood a complete diet. For the colony to provide adequate nutrition for the brood, it is important for the colony to have a population of young workers with well-developed glands to produce worker, drone, and queen food. We harvested Tennessee spring wildflower honey today. It is light in color and flavor and has the aroma of flowers.

Peace Bee Farm participates in the Teddy Bear Picnic, an annual children’s event held at the Memphis Botanic Garden. We explain the role of honey bees to children and parents; many are already familiar with honey bees. Seventeen-year-old author Joel Cox reads from The Peanut Butter Bee, a children’s book that he wrote and illustrated. The Christian Brothers High School student studied honey bee biology, and then wrote an inspirational book about the determination of a worker honey bee.

--Richard

Looking Ahead

2011-06-19T23:05:00.000-05:00

The past four years, marked by heavy colony losses, have been costly to beekeepers. News stories have made this a time of expanding awareness among much of the public of the dwindling number of honey bees and the importance of honey bees and other pollinators in producing our food. Hopefully, the next five years will bring about a greater understanding of the conditions affecting honey bee health. Beekeepers will continue to study honey bee biology and try to learn more about the pests and pathogens that attack bees. Concerted efforts will be made to improve plant diversity on farms and public lands. Farmers will modify their tillage and planting practices to provide food and habitat for bees and native pollinators. Beekeepers will fight to resist the importation of bees from foreign countries to lessen the possibility of spreading pests and diseases. Queen bees may be carefully imported to expand genetic diversity. Hopefully, we will learn how to solve beekeeping and environmental problems with lesser use of chemicals. Colony Collapse Disorder will become another controllable condition of the bee yard.

Already, we are seeing an increase in the number of people putting a couple of bee hives in the back yard. They bring ideas and enthusiasm. They attend beekeeping association meetings and learn how bees are affected by humans and how we alter the environment. The hives of these new beekeepers also serve the existing bee colonies by supplying diverse drones to mate with queens. Most new beekeepers in North America build traditional Langstroth bee hives, but many explore other styles. Two writers offer views of bee hives developed in other countries and in earlier days: Buck White’s Bee Hive Journal, http://beehivejournal.blogspot.com/, offers design drawings for numerous bee hives and equipment. Amy Leigh shows bee hives from around the world at http://benefitsofhoneyblog.com/beekeeping-innovations/. She describes Langstroth, National, and Egyptian hives as well as skeps, bee gums, and hollow log hives. Erin Underhill, age seven, feeds a queen mating nucleus hive.

--Richard

The Next Five Years

2011-06-18T22:01:00.000-05:00

Four years of study of the great die-off of North America’s honey bees revealed the scope of the losses. No single cause of the honey bee colony losses emerged, however combinations of pathogens appear to be involved when bee hives lose their adult populations. Surveys of beekeepers revealed that over-winter colony losses averaged 30 percent; however, individual beekeepers’ losses varied widely. One fourth of the beekeepers surveyed experienced winter-time losses above 55 percent, and another fourth of the beekeepers had winter losses of 15 percent or less. Replacing lost colonies is expensive, and thirty percent annual losses are not considered sustainable. If the beekeeping industry cannot be maintained, a large segment of our food production is at risk. The risk increased in the past decades with the arrival of parasitic mites when the feral honey bee colonies which contributed to food crop pollination largely disappeared. What has been learned from the surveys of beekeepers is that losses vary among beekeepers and from one location to the next.

A new five-year study of beekeeping operations is intended to identify the factors that allow some beekeepers to keep bees with low colony losses. The investigation, funded by the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture, will look at beekeeping management practices and environmental conditions in the bee yard and forage areas. Penn State’s enthusiastic Dennis vanEnglesdorp will lead the project. Those who would like to participate in the project can sign up at http://beeinformed.org/. The study will employ tools used by epidemiologists studying diseases of humans. As results of the study are gathered, beekeepers will be able to design their own beekeeping program following what works and what doesn’t. Beekeepers will continue to select from their strongest colonies, and, hopefully, over time surviving bees will become resistant to certain pests and pathogens. As an example, honey bee resistance to tracheal mites seems to be spreading in recent years. In today’s photo spring wildflowers abound: bull nettle, buttercups, spring asters, and common vetch.

--Richard

Advancing Beekeeping

2011-06-06T22:55:00.000-05:00

Most beekeepers that I have met are continuously trying to learn about honey bee biology and the craft of beekeeping. They belong to beekeeping associations, attend meetings, exchange ideas with other beekeepers, read books, and carefully study their own bees. Before parasitic mites entered the United States in the mid-1980s, beekeepers were able to learn the craft from others, purchase some bees, and expect them to live. After the arrival of parasitic mites and the viruses they vector, small hive beetles, resistant strains of existing honey bee diseases, and a new strain of Nosema disease, keeping bees alive got increasingly difficult. Adding to the stresses upon the honey bees were the increased use of insecticides and pesticides by both beekeepers and others, the importation of honey bees and pathogens from foreign lands, increased migratory movement of bee hives, and nutritional stresses from altered weather patterns associated with a changing climate. Responding to requests for training in greater depth, the University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service offered an advanced beekeeping workshop. Beekeepers from across the state converged on the Arkansas 4-H Center near Little Rock for three days of presentations, hands-on participation, microscope laboratory work, and bee hive inspection.

David Burns of Fairmont, Illinois, pictured lighting a smoker before beginning a session on building a queen cell starter hive, conducted a class on raising queen bees. David covered queen rearing from selecting breeder stock to preparing starter and finisher hives and queen mating nucleus hives. Grafting was practiced, and some non-grafting techniques were discussed. David, who writes informative beekeeping lessons at http://basicbeekeeping.blogspot.com/, produces queens and packaged honey bees. He handles bees with a gentle touch. As we built a queen cell starter hive, David used a turkey feather to flick young bees off brood frames. Three quick flicks of the feather removed the bees with less disturbance than with brushing. David explained that he always wears a yellow shirt when working his bees so that they will remember him.

--Richard

Conservation Agriculture

2011-06-05T23:01:00.000-05:00

Beekeeping is a small but important part of a changing agriculture. Every year sees changes being made in agricultural production techniques resulting from efforts by farmers to produce food and fiber to an ever increasing world population. Along with greater demands for agricultural products there is an increasing pressure on the producers to adjust to increases in fuel and other costs. One of the easiest ways to reduce fuel costs is for farmers to find ways to reduce tillage of the soil. Such approaches, which may be called “conservation agriculture,” can have benefits for the farmer and the environment. Conservation agriculture is based on farming techniques that keep a cover crop on the ground at all times, disturb the soil at a minimum, and provide for crop rotations. For more, see http://www.fao.org/ag/ca/. Any changes in agriculture affect beekeeping operations in the area. The lessened plowing of fields should immediately benefit many native bees that nest in the soil. These bees lose habitat through industrial agricultural practices that destroy their nest along field margins. Today’s photo shows soybeans being planted into unbroken soil covered in annual grasses. In the distance, a winter wheat field is harvested in the morning and planted the same afternoon without tilling the soil. The grasses and competing crop weeds are killed by an application of herbicides. This planting technique reduces fuel usage, saves ground water, and helps conserve organic matter in the soil, increasing tilth. No-till planting lessens soil erosion, and sometimes reduces fertilizer use. Since weeds spring from broken ground, no-till planting reduces the germination of weed seeds.

A New York Times piece, http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/04/damaging-the-earth-to-feed-its-people/, describes how no-till planting may lessens the release of nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas. Agriculture accounts for the release of a considerable amount of the greenhouse gases that are affecting the world’s climate. All forms of agriculture, including beekeeping, are looking for management practices that are more sustainable and less damaging to the environment. All stand to benefit from careful planting.

--Richard

Protecting Pollinators

2011-06-02T22:43:00.000-05:00

Honey bees have the same basic needs as people: a safe place to live and raise offspring, an area to collect food and water, and an environment free of toxins. This was the message that I presented to a receptive group of business leaders in Ripley, Tennessee. Beekeepers understand that bees need a dry hive to protect the bees from the weather. The hive should be elevated to prevent it from flooding and to allow for air to flow around the hive. The hive must have provisions for ventilation. The hive’s honeycombs should be free of chemicals and disease spores. Places for honey bees and other pollinators to find food are becoming increasingly less common, especially in areas of industrial agriculture. The soil is often tilled to the edge of the field leaving no unplowed field margins. The result is the loss of bee forage and nesting area. Monocultural plantings of a single crop often reduce the available forage. Monoculture may lead to lower food quality due to a lack of a diversity of nutrients. Insecticides, pesticides, and herbicides in the environment as well as miticides used by beekeepers kill bees outright or build-up in the beeswax honeycomb of the bee hive. Broad-spectrum insecticides kill every insect present, including pollinators and other beneficial insects. Persistent insecticides remain in the soil for a long time and kill and weaken bees well into the future. Mixing together more than one chemical agent or increasing the strength of insecticide sprays are especially damaging to bees. I encouraged the business leaders to use their influence to help control the use of pesticides in agricultural settings, around homes and gardens, and on golf courses. Many attending were surprised that our entire luncheon was dependent upon insect pollinators with the single exception of the dinner roll.

Today’s photo is a speckled kingsnake, a harmless resident of a Peace Bee Farm bee yard. Snakes are welcomed protectors of bee hives and help control rodents during warm weather.

--Richard

Marking Queen Bees

2011-05-24T07:58:00.000-05:00

After the new queen honey bee returns from a series of mating flights to the mating nucleus hive where she emerged as an adult a week earlier, she roams the combs for another week. Now, at about two weeks of age, the queen begins a life of egg laying. One queen is responsible for producing the entire population of the colony. The success of the colony depends upon the number of bees that she produces. The behavioral traits and many of the health characteristics of the colony are shaped by the genes shared by the queen and the drones she mated with. The organization of the colony as a social unit is built around the pheromones the queen secretes. If the beekeeper wants to control or improve the bee stock, it is important to identify the queen. Unless the queen is marked, there is no way to tell whether she has been replaced through supersedure. Colonies regularly replace their queen, often more frequently than the beekeeper realizes. Some races of honey bees continuously build queen cells as a survival strategy: A new queen is always readily available if needed. As long as the existing queen remains productive, laying plenty of eggs and producing ample pheromones, the extra queen cells are destroyed by the workers before new queens emerge.

The Russian queen held in a plastic marking tube was reared in a queen mating nucleus hive from a queen cell that I cut from the comb of one of my hives. By continuously evaluating queens, the beekeeper can choose ones that have the best traits for survival in the local region. Those are the queens one would like to have producing new generations of queens. This queen will be observed over her lifetime for over-winter survival of the colony, spring-time population buildup, behavior on the comb, brood pattern, honey production, and gentleness. The dot of white paint on her thorax will tell me that she has not been superseded.

--Richard

New Queens Emerge

2011-05-22T14:31:00.000-05:00

A honey bee colony can be no better than its queen. Producing a good queen requires good bee genetics, nutrition, and successful mating with good drones. Queens may be produced in queen mating nucleus hives from larvae grafted from the beekeeper’s best honey bee stock or from supersedure or swarm cells found in existing bee hives. Queens may be produced entirely by the bees themselves if the beekeeper moves frames containing eggs and very young larvae and places them in a nucleus hive set-up to accept them. This nucleus hive is prepared a day in advance with frames of open brood, nurse bees, and frames containing pollen and honey. In this case, the hive may be considered a “walk-away” split, since it requires no attention by the beekeeper after it is set up. There are also non-grafting techniques for producing queens. Any of these methods area capable of producing good, productive queens. However, things can go wrong; and poor queens may result if conditions are not right. For example, the genetic mix of the queen and the drones she mates with must be well suited for the local environmental conditions. The nucleus colony must have adequate food to nourish the developing queen, particularly a diversity of pollens to provide all of the necessary proteins, vitamins, and minerals. There must be an adequate population of foraging worker bees to gather food if it is not supplied by the beekeeper. There must be plenty mature drones in the area for the queen to mate with. Finally, weather conditions must be suitable for the young queen to make her mating flights.

The first sign of the queen’s successful mating is the presence of eggs. Click of today’s photo to see a new, dark-colored queen that failed to develop into a productive egg laying “mother” for the colony. Actually she became smallest bee in the hive. Still, the workers are attracted to her pheromones and attend to her. She will be replaced.

--Richard

Blackberry in Bloom

2011-05-19T23:14:00.000-05:00

The bloom of the blackberry is milestone on the beekeeper’s calendar. Shirley Murphy told me her Tennessee River bees were bringing in large amounts of light gray colored pollen. When I took today’s picture, I knew the source of the pollen: blackberry. I had noticed my Arkansas Delta bees bringing in large amounts of the light gray colored pollen along with bright yellow pollen. After several days of cool, rainy weather, the sun broke out of the clouds briefly; and the bees burst from their hives and converged on blackberry thickets in great numbers. Blackberries are an important source of pollen for honey bees feeding a large population of brood.

The blackberry is a vine in the important family of bee plants, the roses. Members of the rose family supply great amounts of nectar and pollen to honey bees and native pollinators. Other roses include the flowering rose plants and a number of vines: greenbrier, raspberries, and strawberries. A number of roses are shrubs and trees, including hawthorns, apples, almonds, apricots, peaches, cherries, plums, pears, and crabapples. Today’s photo shows honey bees pollinating blackberry flowers. As the bees scrub through the flowers, they transfer grains of pollen from the exposed anthers to the sticky stigmas, allowing the plants to produce fruit and seed. Since blackberries bloom over a rather long period of time, there are buds, flowers, and unripened fruit showing in the picture. Later, there will be dark, ripe fruit as well. Cultivated blackberries are a favorite for pies, jams, and jellies. Wild blackberries provide food for songbirds and wildlife. Seeds are dispersed by birds, and 10-foot-tall blackberry thickets grow rapidly in full sun. In colonial times, the tough vines of blackberry plants were stripped of their thorns, and then they were used to bind bundles of straw to build skeps and roofing thatch. Skeps are dome-shaped bee hives that look like inverted straw baskets. Honey bees were brought from Europe to North America aboard sailing ships in skeps.

--Richard

Four Years of CCD

2011-05-15T23:07:00.000-05:00

We are four years into the greatest recorded die-off of honey bees. Since the spring of 2007, beekeepers across North America have experienced colony losses averaging 30 percent each year, typically over the winter. Studies of the causes of the losses, known as Colony Collapse Disorder, have been made and continue. Much more is now known about the factors affecting honey bee health. However, a single source of the condition which results in the loss of a hive’s adult population has not been identified. It seems that multiple conditions exist when colonies collapse. The first common element identified with the honey bee die-off is colony stress. Bees may be under stress from confinement due to transportation for pollination service or from nutritional deficiencies caused by weather, lack of bee plants in monoculture agriculture, or from exposure to insecticides and chemical toxins in the environment. Initial reports of the causes of Colony Collapse Disorder identify honey bee viruses, often vectored by parasitic Varroa mites, and a new strain of Nosema disease, Nosema ceranae. Still unanswered is the effect on honey bees of the use in the environment of neonicotinoids, systemic insecticides brought back to the hive by bees foraging for nectar and pollen. Of special concern are imidacloprid and clothianidin. Their safety is strongly questioned by beekeepers. Study, independent of the chemical manufacturers, is needed to assure their safety.

Colony Collapse Disorder has changed beekeeping over the past four years. The public has become acutely aware of the honey bee’s role in producing our food. Beekeepers have adjusted their management practices to control bee diseases and keep colonies healthy. There has been a shift from the use of harsh chemicals for parasitic mite control to less stressful or chemical-free measures. The importation of honey bees into the United States, allowed in 2006, is again blocked. Breeding bees resistant to the effects of parasitic mites is increasingly the promise for healthier honey bees. Today’s photo: foraging pollen from native Arkansas dogwood trees.

--Richard

Bees in Hollow Trees

2011-05-13T21:28:00.003-05:00

Beekeepers receive many calls from people who find bees in trees. Particularly in the spring, these are swarms of honey bees hanging from a limb. It is also common for homeowners to find honey bees living in a hollow cavity in a tree in their yard. The tree may have been occupied by bees for a long period of time, but the bees are unnoticed until warm weather brings about increased flight activity. When one receives a swarm call, it is best to quiz the caller for as many details as possible. I received a message that there were bees on a tree limb exactly seven and one-half feet above the ground. This would be a perfect opportunity to try out my new swarm collecting device that I built from a design shown on John Jones’ Stone Mountain, Georgia beekeeping blog at http://stonemountaingeorgiabeediary.blogspot.com/2011/05/swarm-catcher-5-gallow-water-bottle-in.html. The device is a plastic jug mounted on an extension pole for safe removal of bees in a tree while standing on the ground.

I loaded my truck with a swarm box, bee hive, feeder, syrup, a bee suit, veil, and tools. Next, I called to get exact directions and clarify details from the homeowner. He finally described the bees as being one cupful of bees, a rather small swarm, possibly from the colony that he had an exterminator spray inside the tree. He read out a list of three insecticides that had been sprayed or dusted on the bees plus an adhesive sealant sprayed into their nest. He asked me if I reckoned that spraying had hurt the bees, and did I want them. I told him that I had no use for dead bees. Remarkably, this was not my only call to collect dead bees. The other recent caller wanted me to pick-up dead, insecticide-sprayed bees so that they would not come back to life and harm her. Today’s photo is a swarm of live bees I collected from the surface of an oak tree.

--Richard

Sharing Ideas

2011-05-11T22:46:00.000-05:00

Much of the craft of beekeeping involves positive and negative experiences being passed along among beekeepers. Recent blog pieces involving installing packaged honey bees brought comments and questions from several places around the world. Discussion came from Russia and New Zealand as well as several locations in the US. New beekeepers were interested in gaining insights from successful package installations, and seasoned beekeepers were willing to share their experiences. Two specific topics were discussed: wetting the honey bees before placing them in the hive and methods of placing the bees in the hive. I like to give a package of bees a light spraying of sugar water as soon as I receive it to help hydrate the bees after shipment. Before hiving the bees, some beekeepers like to moisten the bees’ wings with sugar water. The wet bees are not as eager to fly, and they may be easier to house in a new hive. In either case, it is important to be careful not to chill bees by spraying them if the weather is cool. The other topic discussed among beekeepers involved placing a sheet of cloth on the ground and allowing the bees to walk across it to the hive’s entrance. If a queen, confined in the hive, is emitting strong pheromones, workers will fan pheromones at the hive entrance and attract colony members to the hive. If all goes well, the bees “march” into the hive. The problem that may arise is that packaged bees are often not organized as a colony. Bees poured onto a cloth may merely fly away. A safer introduction method may involve pouring the bees directly into the hive.

For different perspectives on beekeeping, see http://ludditeapiary.blogspot.com and http://kiwitopbarhive.blogspot.com. Each descriptive writer keeps bees in a different type of hive using similar beekeeping principles. The Luddite keeps bees in Warre hives; Marcia uses Kenyan top bar hives. In today’s photo, Mary Phillips successfully completes installing packaged bees in Langstroth hives. Each shares ideas.

--Richard

One Hundred Year Flood

2011-05-10T07:33:00.000-05:00

The Mississippi River crested today at the highest level since the Great Flood of 1937. Swollen by melting snow in northern regions and heavy spring rains, North America’s largest river rose to within a foot of its all-time record. I took today’s photo from atop Chisca Mound in Memphis, Tennessee, a city built on high ground known as the fourth Chickasaw Bluff. Trunks of massive trees drift in the fast-moving current. The tops of tall cottonwood trees can be seen one mile away, marking the river’s west bank and the Arkansas Delta. Seven miles, straight ahead, beyond the river’s main earthen levee, sits the city of West Memphis, Arkansas; fifteen miles ahead is Peace Bee Farm. This year’s flooding along the Mississippi River has had an effect upon both managed and natural honey bee colonies. The Memphis Area Beekeepers Association lost several hives when its bee yard was flooded by waist-deep waters of the Wolf River, a tributary of the Mississippi. Swarms that I captured this week near the Mississippi River in Arkansas may have been driven from natural nests in the cavities of trees by rising waters. Some of the honey bee colonies clearly perished, but many of the resilient bees seem to have escaped flooded trees and floating hives.

Humans, like honey bees, are social beings. We accomplish more as a community than could be possible as individuals. Designing and building a levee system to protect from powerful forces like a once in a hundred year flood requires the combined efforts of many. Viewing the Mississippi River above flood stage is humbling. Another thing comes to mind: All of this water draining from 31 states was carried by clouds and deposited as rain or snow. As the climate warms, one of the effects will be increases in mighty floods. Native Americans, like the Chisca, moved into the rich river bottom lands to hunt and farm, and then retreated to high ground when the Mississippi floods each spring.

--Richard

Nectaries

2011-05-08T22:28:00.001-05:00

Flowering plants attract honey bees and other pollinators as a method of moving pollen within and among flowers to reproduce the plants. To attract the pollinators, plants emit fragrances, display colorful flowers with intricate shapes, and offer tasty and nutritious foods. The foods are carbohydrates from nectar and proteins, fats, vitamins, and minerals from pollen. Nectar is usually secreted by the flowers. Honey bees are directed to the nectary, the nectar-bearing part of the flower, by ultraviolet nectar guides. The nectary is usually located in the center of the flower. However, nectar is secreted by some plants in areas outside of the flowers. Among the plants with extra-floral nectaries is the catalpa tree, which is now in bloom. Today, I watched a Baltimore oriole feeding on nectar in catalpa flowers. Honey bees were flying into the large bell-shaped white catalpa flowers, and they were also working extra-floral nectaries on the large catalpa leaves. The leaves secrete sugary nectar to attract pollinators like the bees in today’s photo. Catalpa trees are members of the trumpet creeper family. After pollination, catalpa produces wind-dispersed seeds that hang in long pods.

Cotton is another flowering plant that secretes large amounts of nectar outside of the flower. After the first day’s bloom, which yields nectar from the blossom, cotton secretes nectar from bracts, leaf-like parts outside of the flower, and from leaves. Other plants have flowers that make it difficult for some pollinators to access the nectary. Honeysuckle flowers have a long bell-shaped flower making it difficult for honey bee tongues to reach the nectar. However, honey bees can access honeysuckle nectar after leaf-cutting bees chew through the side of the flower. Honey bees follow leaf-cutting bees to forage on hosta lilies as well. To access the nectar of alfalfa, honey bees must trip a trigger in the flower which delivers an annoying slap in the bee’s face. The foraging techniques used by honey bees to access the nectar of different plants are learned behaviors.

--Richard

The Mating Nucleus Hive

2011-05-03T11:21:00.000-05:00

Beekeepers typically produce their queen bees in small hives called queen mating nucleus hives. Nucleus hives are any hives that are smaller than full size bee hives. Honey bees produce queens anytime from spring through fall; however, they produce them in greater numbers in the spring. For the bees, this spring-time queen production matches their tendency to divide the colony and swarm. Beekeepers take advantage of the spring-time tendency to produce queens in order to expand their beekeeping operation or replace colonies lost over the winter. A queen cell is placed in a queen mating nucleus hive by the beekeeper two days before the queen emerges as an adult. Today’s photo shows a queen cell in a plastic protective holder, positioned vertically, pushed into the surface of the comb. The queen cell may have been developed from beekeeper-grafted larvae reared in a cell builder hive or produced by bees in an existing hive as a swarm cell or supersedure cell. Productive queens come from good genetic lines and receive complete nutrition and effective mating to high-quality drones.

The queen mating nucleus hive is a queenless colony set-up to care for a developing queen bee. The nucleus hive contains frames of nurse bees and brood. Capped brood contains pupae that will soon emerge as adults. These young adult workers produce food for the developing queen. Open brood emits strong pheromones to hold nurse bees in the mating nucleus hive. Frames of honey and pollen ensure the new queen receives nutritious food for proper development. After the virgin queen emerges from her cell as an adult, she roams the combs of the mating nucleus hive for five or six days. Then she makes a series of mating flights, mating in flight with 12 to 20 drones. Afterward, she flies back to the same nucleus hive. In five or six days, she begins to lay eggs. The beekeeper can then begin evaluating the quality of the queen in the mating nucleus hives.

--Richard

Installing Packaged Bees

2011-05-02T14:20:00.000-05:00

One of the most common ways for beekeepers to establish a honey bee colony is by purchasing a package of bees. Commercial beekeeping operations prepare the packages, which can be delivered by truck or shipped. The package is a wooden box with screened sides for ventilation. The box includes one queen bee housed in a cage, roughly 12 thousand worker bees, and a can of sugar syrup. The queen often shares her cage with five or six attendant bees to feed and care for her. The can of sugar syrup is slightly perforated to allow it to drip to provide food and moisture for the bees while they are housed in the package. Prepared in the Deep South, packaged bees are often shipped across the US in April and May. The packages are made-up of bees shaken from the frames of numerous production hives. The caged queen and her attendant bees are taken from queen mating nucleus colonies after the queen begins to lay eggs, indicating that she is successfully mated. At the time that the package is produced, it cannot be considered a colony. The bees become organized as a colony after they get accustomed to the queen’s pheromones. To prevent the disorganized bees from merely flying away before they become a colony, I like to confine them in the hive.

This week I assisted several beekeepers install packages of bees. In today’s picture Mary Phillips and I block the entrance to three hives with clover to temporarily prevent the bees from leaving the hives. Mary sprays the inside of the hive and the surfaces of the frames with sugar water scented with spearmint and lemongrass essential oils. The can of syrup is removed from a package, and we inspect the queen in her cage. We expose the candy plug that the bees will chew through to release the queen from her cage. Feeders supply the bees with syrup to help them secrete beeswax they use to build honeycomb.

--Richard

A Violent Spring

2011-05-01T23:29:00.001-05:00

The mid-section of the United States is the only area in the world that regularly sees tornadoes. Each spring violent thunderstorms develop as warm, damp air rising from the Gulf of Mexico is met by strong cold fronts sweeping down from arctic regions. Atmospheric conditions are made unstable by jet stream currents, high-altitude, high-speed winds that shear the tops off clouds and twist storm cells. The result is violent thunderstorms with torrential rains, numerous lightning strikes, large hail, tornadoes, and strong winds shearing downward at high speed. A series of thunderstorms left a path of death and destruction across the South. Friends from the Birmingham, Alabama region experienced exceptionally large and powerful tornadoes. Many lives were lost in Tuscaloosa, Huntsville, Hueytown, and Concord, Alabama. While communications from the affected areas of Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi, Alabama, Virginia, and Georgia have been difficult, it appears that over three hundred deaths resulted from this one series of storms, the latest in four weeks of continuous storms. I encourage anyone who would like to contribute to responsible agencies, such as the American Red Cross, to direct cash gifts to the capable relief workers assisting the affected citizens recovering from the storm damage.

Today the empress tree is in bloom. Whenever I see the large pink to violet bells of the empress tree, I remember seeing them covering Red Mountain in Birmingham, Alabama. These trees, imported from China, as ornamentals escaped into the countryside. Tiny seeds of the empress tree are blown by the winds to propagate this woody member of the important family of bee plants, the figworts. Honey bees can be seen moving about the clusters of large empress tree flowers on the limb tips high in the treetops. Today’s picture is an empress tree blooming in downtown Memphis, Tennessee. The tree, purported to be a gift to Jefferson Davis’ wife, came from the Forbidden City of China. Hopefully, the seeds of empress trees will be distributed by more gently winds.

--Richard

Buttercups in Bloom

2011-04-24T22:26:00.000-05:00

From spring through fall there are yellow wildflowers in bloom along forest margins, roadsides, and unplowed farm fields. The flowers are actually a sequence of species that bloom at different times. These plants are able to secure insect pollination by not competing with but a few species in attracting the available insects. Buttercups are the first yellow wildflowers to carpet the ground in the Arkansas Delta. They will be followed by groundsel, tickseed coreopsis, golden asters, bitterweed, and goldenrod. Pollinators like the honey bee and moth shown in today’s photo are attracted to the bright, yellow buttercup flowers, which have a waxy surface giving the flower the appearance of being wet with dew.

In the Mid-South, the spring of the year always sees the clash of warm, damp air rising from the Gulf of Mexico meeting the year’s final arctic cold fronts. The result is predictable rainfall to support ample flowering plants for the honey bees and other pollinators. Strong cold fronts bring violent thunderstorms and tornadoes to the region. Peace Bee Farm and the surrounding area were struck by a series of severe storms over the past three weeks. Blown from a barn, broken lumber and sheets of steel roofing struck queen mating nucleus hives, scattering hives and bees. Small clusters of bees sheltered young queens in nucleus hives exposed to the weather. I added nurse bees to boost the population of these hives. Roofers placed temporary coverings over our house’s damaged roof. Lighting struck the honey house, and damaged some honey-handling equipment. An electrician rapidly repaired the wiring; burned fans and lighting fixtures were replaced. The electrical power lines were damaged as well. A lineman in a tall bucket truck repaired wind-strained wiring and replaced fuses. All of these workers efforts are especially appreciated after such storms. Each worked cheerfully conducting important, tiresome, and sometimes dangerous repair tasks. After a short upheaval, our bees remain in dry hives, and honey flows from the honey house. Thanks to all.

--Richard

Black Locust in Bloom

2011-04-20T22:33:00.000-05:00

The beekeeper’s calendar follows the honey bee’s life cycle more closely than our calendar on the wall which is based on dates of the year. Activity in Peace Bee Farm’s hives in the Arkansas Delta leads those of our beekeeping friends in New England by about seven weeks, and it lags behind our New Zealand friends’ hives by about six months. Since honey bee activities are timed differently in various areas, beekeepers watch the bloom of certain flowering plants to help predict events in the bee hive. One of the significant observations for many is the bloom of the black locust tree. To them, the black locust tells when to expect the queen to be at her maximum egg laying production. This can mean that the beekeeper can rear new queen bees in cell builder hives. It can also mean that swarm season is rapidly approaching. At this time, colonies often replace their queen through supersedure or create a new queen and divide the colony through swarming.

When in bloom, the black locust is easily recognizable along the margins of woodlots or suburban landscapes by its large clusters of fragrant, bright white blossoms. These trees, which reach 80 feet, may attract large numbers of honey bees as well as other bees; however, the black locust nectar flow is not consistent from year to year. In some years the relatively weak black locust nectar is not as attractive as other plants blooming at the same time, and few honey bees are seen working the locust flowers. In other years an abundant surplus of tasteful, light-colored black locust honey may be harvested. The black locust is a member of the legume family. The legumes are important bee plants because they produce ample amounts of nectar and pollen. The honey locust, another legume, is similar in appearance, and it produces flowers with the fragrance of honey. However, the honey locust, which sports eight-inch thorns, usually does not produce a surplus of honey.

--Richard

Locally Adapted Bees

2011-04-19T23:17:00.000-05:00

Every geographic area has its own challenges for honey bees. The bees in different locals experience varied weather as well as pests, pathogens, and parasites. Honey bees that thrive in one area may not be able to survive in a different area. A number of beekeepers are attempting to rear honey bees in their own area rather than relying on bees purchased from afar. They feel that the locally produced honey bees stand a better chance of surviving in the local environment. Recognizing the importance of honey bees for crop pollination, the Tennessee Department of Agriculture is helping the Tennessee Beekeepers Association fund a program to rear queen bees. The queen bees will help supply Tennessee beekeepers so that they can fill vacancies in pollination needs.

In today’s photo, Kent Williams, demonstrates queen grafting techniques to Shirley Murphy. They transfer one-day-old larvae into queen cell cups, and then they move the cell cups to a cell builder hive. The cell builder hive is established by brushing a large number of bees from frames of capped brood. The bees are of various ages, and they may come from different hives. With a large population of bees, plenty of food, and no queen present, the bees in the cell builder have a strong desire to create a new queen. When these bees are presented one-day-old larvae, they will begin feeding them royal jelly to begin the physiological changes that make the larvae develop into queens. As the larvae are being fed, other workers extend the queen cell cup into a queen cell using beeswax. The queen is encapsulated in a cell shaped like a peanut shell and resembling in size, shape, and texture. Two days before the queen emerges as an adult, the queen cells are moved to queen mating nucleus hives holding bees to tend to the new queens. As the newly trained beekeepers gain experience in rearing queens, they will share their best stock to develop a hearty Tennessee bee.

--Richard

Advocate for Pollinators

2011-04-13T23:45:00.001-05:00

A story in The New York Times paints a picture of the changing landscape of Appalachia. Not only are the communities gradually disappearing, the silhouettes of the mountains themselves are. The descriptive Times piece, “As the Mountains Fall, a Coal Town Vanishes,” (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/13/us/13lindytown.html?) reveals how coal mining is shifting from underground work in mines to mountain top removal. The process involves removing the trees, soil, and rock, what the coal companies call “overburden,” to expose coal. The coal is heavily relied upon to provide energy to power our industrial world. In accessing the coal, large volumes of removed soil and rock are dumped and dozed into ravines to form a shape called an “approximate original contour.” This reclamation process often turns the thin mountainous topsoil under the removed rock and gravel leaving a surface unsuitable for vegetative growth. Even when the rubble is fertilized, mulched, and seeded, plants and trees do not thrive. Valleys and creeks are often filled with rubble as well. Our eastern Kentucky beekeeping friend, Tammy Horn, received the Pollinator Advocate award from the North American Pollinator Protection Campaign for her efforts to encourage and guide the coal companies in changing mountain top removal practices to be more environmentally favorable. New approaches to reclamation include reduced compaction of soils and plantings of bee plants like American chestnut, sourwood, and understory herbs. Tammy is working to establish a cottage industry of beekeeping in the economically depressed coal mining region of Eastern Kentucky and West Virginia. Tammy has been a true advocate for both the pollinators and the people of Appalachia.

Click on today’s photo of a honey bee heavily laden with pollen from apple blossoms. Apples, members of the important family of bee plants, the roses, rely upon bees for pollination. Without the bees, no fruit is produced. Apples, which contain both soluble and insoluble fibers, are known as a healthy food. Apples are blooming in the Mid-South. The apple bloom is another landmark on the beekeeper’s calendar.

--Richard

Willow in Bloom

2011-04-06T22:34:00.000-05:00

Along with helping individuals share their enjoyment of growing flowers and plants, garden clubs are effective groups for spreading information on horticulture and for raising awareness of environmental issues. The Memphis Herb Society invited me to speak to their group. I gave a presentation on the relationship between the herbs, people, and the honey bees and other pollinators. Many of the herbs are flowering plants that rely upon the bees for reproduction. In turn, the bees receive food from the flowering herbs. We use herbs for flavorings in our cooking, for medications, and often simply for enjoyment. Many of the culinary herbs, like thyme, rosemary, and sage, are excellent bee plants. Thyme is used to produce control treatments for parasitic honey bee mites. Herbs are used to produce many of our important medications. Some herbs, like lemon balm, bee balm, and hyssop, are grown for their fragrance. These herbs in the mint family are all important bee plants producing nectar and pollen. I encouraged the members of the Herb Society to make their plantings “pollinator herb gardens.” I told them that their herb gardens designed to attract, feed, and provide nesting areas for pollinators would eventually be connected to other pollinator gardens and pastures by a series of pollinator corridors.

One of the plants that I featured in my presentation to this environmentally conscious group was the black willow, which is now in bloom. Willows are trees that grow along the banks of waterways. They are important medicinal plants that were used by American Indians for their anti-inflammatory and antiseptic effects. An Italian professor extracted salicylic acid from willow flowers and buds in 1838. In 1899, Bayer created the name “aspirin” by rearranging the genus name for meadowsweet willow, “Spirea.” Willows attract large numbers of honey bees to river bottom lands to fly among golden-colored catkins. These are clusters of flowers without petals; the willow is evolving a reproductive strategy relying upon wind pollination to replace insect pollination.

--Richard

Building Bee Hives

2011-04-04T21:07:00.000-05:00

There are a number of reasons that people engage in tending to honey bees. For many the bees are used to provide pollination of crops. Migratory beekeepers carry hives great distances to provide pollination service to farms and orchards as crops come into bloom. Other beekeepers tend to stationary bee hives to provide pollination service and produce honey crops. Commercial beekeepers grow bees to sell the queens, packaged bees, and nucleus colonies. Homeowners and gardeners tend to bee hives to produce honey and pollinate home gardens. Observation bee hives are kept in schools, zoos, museums, and public areas for educational purposes. Colleges and universities maintain bee yards for teaching and research. Some people keep honey bees simply for the enjoyment of watching and listening to the bees. Many of these enthusiasts never harvest any honey.

In today’s photo, Mary Phillips is building bee hives for the Urban Farms in the Binghampton neighborhood of Memphis. She is assembling Langstroth hives in the wood shop at Peace Bee Farm. We always enjoy having her back at the bee farm. She worked with us to gain experience in beekeeping, and now she is adding honey bees to the Urban Farms to ensure pollination of their crops. The Urban Farms regularly see visitors; many are neighborhood children who are not aware of the source of food or how it is produced. For them the bee hives will help explain the important role of pollination in food production. The Urban Farms and their manager, Mary Phillips, are working to ensure the inner city area has access to healthy, locally produced food. The Urban Farms was voted a Local Hero award by the readers of Edible Memphis magazine. Edible Memphis, a quarterly magazine devoted to the harvest of the Mid-South builds ties between farmers, food artisans, and the community. The magazine can be found at www.ediblememphis.com. You can follow activity at the Urban Farms at http://www.bdcmemphis.org/urban_farms.html. These bee hives will pollinate and educate.

--Richard

Redbud in Bloom

2011-04-02T21:56:00.000-05:00

The sight of purplish-red color splashed through the understory of the woods is a true sign of spring. Redbud trees are in bloom throughout the Mid-South. These small trees covered with pink or rose flowers are easily recognizable from a distance. They grow under the oak and hickory cover of the woods and along ditch banks and forest margins. Redbuds are propagated by seeds that hang in pods, and are distributed by songbirds and the wind. In suburban settings, the colorful redbud is a cultivated favorite for landscape plantings. Honey bees are attracted in great numbers to the bright pink to rose-colored flowers which cover redbud twigs, stems, and even trunks. Honey bees do not make a surplus of redbud honey, but the tree does provide a dependable source of both nectar and pollen at an important time when bees are rapidly expanding their colonies and need all of the food they can gather to feed the brood.

The redbud is a member of the important family of bee plants, the legumes. The legumes, or pea or bean family, includes many of the most prolific producers of nectar for honey. Many of the legumes are forage and food plants. Clover is a legume, as are alfalfa, peanuts, lentils, lespedeza, peas, beans, wisteria, and vetch. Like the redbud, a number of trees are legumes. Among them are the black locust, honey locust, mimosa, and Kentucky coffeetree. By pollinating the flowers of legumes, the honey bees play an important role in producing seed, and add help produce food for humans as well as livestock and wildlife. The seeds of the legumes are contained in pods that resemble peas or beans. Many of the legumes also serve the environment by enriching the soil. Bacteria growing in nodules on the roots of legumes take nitrogen from the atmosphere and convert it in the soil to a usable form for plants to absorb. In this way these plants actually enrich the soil.

--Richard

Chilled Brood

2011-03-30T15:23:00.000-05:00

Early spring bee hive inspections give the beekeeper an opportunity to determine the health of the colony and the condition of its queen. Inspections also allow the beekeeper to analyze and start taking corrective action for hive or colony problems. In the inspection, we look at the size of the population of bees and examine the brood. A hive with a smaller population than others being inspected at the same time may have a failing queen. Much can be learned about the queen’s productivity by examining the different stages of brood. Because of the amount of time that the brood remains in each of the different stages of development, we can determine if there is continuity in the queen’s egg laying by roughly counting the brood. When she is laying, there will be twice as many larvae as eggs and twice as many pupae as larvae. For example, finding capped brood but no uncapped brood may mean that the queen has stopped laying eggs.

Honey bee eggs and larvae are pearly white in color, and are found in open cells and should not be discolored. Pupae are housed in capped cells, which should have even-shaped cappings made of recycled beeswax. The brood should never have an unpleasant odor. Observing the appearance, texture, and odor of brood can usually identify two serious brood diseases, American foulbrood and European foulbrood. However, there is a very common bee hive condition that is similar in appearance and often tricky to identify. It is chilled brood caused by having a portion of the comb exposed to cold or damp conditions without being covered by protective bees. Chilled brood may have discolored larvae similar to European foulbrood or eneven, discolored, and perforated cappings like American foulbrood. There may be an unpleasant odor as well from decaying bees and brood. The chilled brood and dead bees in today’s photo resulted from vandals exposing a hive to the elements. Knowing the hive’s history helps identify chilled brood.

--Richard

Early Spring Hive Inspection

2011-03-28T23:12:00.000-05:00

Opening a bee hive engages all of one’s senses. We very quickly learn the condition of the colony within. As soon as we remove the cover of a bee hive, we smell the aroma of beeswax and honey. An unpleasant odor may indicate a brood disease or dead, decaying bees in the hive. Of course, what we see in the hive reveals much about the condition of the colony. We notice the bees’ activity in and around the hive. We find that from hive to hive the bees vary from calm to highly agitated. Some bees remain in the frames, while others fly out in response to opening the hive. The sound of the hive changes with different colony conditions. A queen-right colony with normal activity will generate a gentle humming sound. A queen-less colony will often buzz loudly for a few seconds when the hive is first opened. The beekeeper’s sense of touch comes into play, sometimes unpleasantly. Most bees in the hive’s brood nest will allow the beekeeper to handle the frames of bees bare handed, never stinging unless a bee is accidentally mashed by the beekeeper. The bees from some colonies will punish exposed skin with effective stings. Colonies that readily sting may be queenless; they may be experiencing attacks from skunks or other predators; or they may have inherited defensive behavioral traits. Even gentle bees may sting if the weather conditions are wrong; it is late in the day; or the hive has been opened too frequently. One hive condition seems to always involve my using my sense of taste while examining the hives in the early spring. An unidentified white substance found inside the cells of honeycomb tastes sweet and pleasant; it’s crystallized aster honey from late last fall.

As we inspect the bee hive, we always examine the brood. In today’s photo of healthy brood, we see, from right to left, eggs, young larvae, older larvae, pupae in capped cells, and adult worker bees.

--Richard

The Hive in Late Winter

2011-03-19T20:53:00.000-05:00

Warm days in late winter afford an opportunity to make the first in-depth examination of the bee hives. As we approach the vernal equinox and the changing of seasons, we find strong colonies expanding rapidly. Colonies with a productive queen have large, circular patches of brood on numerous frames. As soon as the pupae emerge as adults, workers immediately clean their cells and prepare them for reused in producing more brood. Drones are walking about the surface of combs of some of the hives, an indication that the bees are preparing for raising new queens. With our hives comprised of three medium-size hive bodies, we typically find that the brood nest now occupies the top two boxes. The lowest hive box is usually empty of bees, brood, and honey; the bees having moved upward during the winter. We can now move this empty box of frames of drawn comb to the top of the brood nest. This move makes available more empty cells for the queen to use for colony build-up, and rearranging the brood nest stimulates the colony to build up an even greater population for nectar gathering and honey production. With erratic weather in March, it is important to avoid separating areas of brood production when rearranging the hive. A cold night will often lead to the bees’ covering one brood area and leaving another to chill and die. It is also important when making rearrangements inside the hive at this time of the year to avoid separating the brood from the stored honey. We can even help the bees survive the next few critical weeks of uncertain weather by moving frames of honey and pollen close to the brood nest.

Click on today’s photo to see a honey bee foraging for dead nettle pollen. To access this wildflower of the mint family, the forager must learn to place its head under the flower petals that form a hood protecting the flower, an uncomfortable task for the bee.

--Richard

Over-Winter Survival

2011-03-16T22:05:00.000-05:00

In the temperate regions, the honey bee’s entire life cycle is geared around surviving the winter season when flowers are not producing food. Cold winter temperatures prevent the bees from flying and making cleansing flights. To raise brood, requires greatly warming the brood nest. Because the winter season makes for an interruption in the honey bee’s food supply, the bees must store adequate amounts of honey to feed the colony until flowers bloom again in the spring. While the amount of honey stored in the hive is largely dependent upon the available nectar in the fall and the amount of honey harvested by the beekeeper, it is also affected by the health of the colony. Colonies afflicted by the new strain of Nosema disease have a reduced population of foraging workers, because the disease shortens the bees’ lives. Colonies that survive the winter are likely to be the ones that are not excessively susceptible to pests and pathogens that affect the concentrated cluster of bees. Among these conditions are tracheal mites, Nosema disease, and chalkbrood. Merely surviving the winter is a great measure of the health of the honey bee colony. Harsh winters actually separate the honey bee colonies having beneficial traits and behaviors from those that do not. A late-winter hive inspection finds the brood nest expanding rapidly on strong colonies. Foragers carry pollen of several different colors. A few drones walk about the combs.

Pears, flowering trees of the rose family, are in full bloom in the Mid-South. The nectar of the pear contains a lower concentration of sugars than many of the other plants in bloom. Honey bees tend to forage from flowers that offer them the greatest abundance and concentration of sugars. To pollinate pears, beekeepers often move hives into the orchard as the trees start to bloom to encourage the bees to forage the thin sugars of pear nectar. Click on today’s photo of a honey bee collecting caramel-colored pollen from a pear blossom.

--Richard

Behavior

2011-03-15T00:43:00.000-05:00

One of the purposes the honey bee genome sequencing project was to reveal the complexity of the behavior of honey bees as social insects. It was thought that we might learn from the honey bee some of the ways that behavior evolved in human beings. The results of the project, which was completed in 2006, will be studied for years to come. At the same time that honey bee behavior is being studied, psychologists, evolutionary biologists, and anthropologists are comparing the behavior of humans to our relatives from a common ancestor, the chimpanzees. The researchers describe humans’ “cooperative behavior” as opposed to chimpanzees’ “fierce aggression” as being the difference that shaped human evolution. Those who have kept or studied honey bees are aware of the complex behaviors of the bees, especially involving communication, navigation, guarding the hive, protecting from disease, preventing inbreeding, and preparing for seasonal colony events like replacing the queen, swarming, and storing honey.

I was interrupted from my reading of an interesting New York Times piece on the behavior of humans and chimpanzees, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/11/science/11kin.html?_r=2&hpw, when a neighbor came to tell me vandals had damaged one of my outlying bee yards. Someone had deliberately driven a truck into 10 bee hives, leaving several scattered about the ground and others balanced precariously on damaged stands. The exposed hives contained dead bees and dead, chilled brood. Unprotected, stored honey was removed from the exposed hives by robber bees. Small hive beetles, alerted by alarm pheromone from the damaged hives, flew in from great distances to take advantage of the weakened colonies. Honey bees, social insects, protect their hive with their sting. Beekeepers, social creatures as well, protect their hives by watchful neighbors, deputy sheriffs, prosecutors, laws, and jails. Honey bees confine small hive beetles that invade their hives in propolis “jails.” Eventually, the felony vandals will be caught and confined in real jails. I wonder how far our human behavior has evolved. Troglodytes should not be allowed to drive trucks.

--Richard

Maples and Elms

2011-03-12T22:54:00.000-06:00

The beekeeper’s year is measured by a number of events of the calendar and nature. The calendar is divided into months and days and the solstices and equinoxes. Natural events are also significant to beekeepers. Among them are the bloom of the red maple, clover, blackberry, apple, tuliptree, and goldenrod. The bloom dates of major nectar producers, like soybeans and cotton in the Arkansas Delta, are also carefully followed. The red maple bloom is one of the first events observed by beekeepers. Maples are often the first major source of nectar and pollen. Red maple trees produce considerable nectar and large amounts of pollen in the late winter. As foraging workers bring the red pollen into the hive, it stimulates the queen’s egg production. The pollen also provides necessary protein for the developing brood. In the Arkansas Delta, the red nectar bloom occurs during the rapid expansion of the honey bees' brood nest. The red maple is followed in bloom by the silver maple, sugar maple, and the box elder, which is also a maple. Maple honey is described as having a fine flavor and a white or amber color with a tinge of pink. Rarely is a surplus stored; most is consumed feeding the brood.

Elms are wind-pollinated trees, but honey bees collect pollen from elms during times of pollen scarcity from other sources. The American elm was planted extensively in urban areas; but its numbers were reduced by a fungal condition, Dutch elm disease. Today, the most common elm is a small tree, the winged elm. While the maples and elms bloom at an important time in the early development of the honey bee colony’s spring-time expansion, their bounty is often missed. Cold and rainy days of the late winter and early spring often prevent bees from flying while the trees are in bloom. The weather was warm and pleasant today, and I saw foragers bringing in bright red maple pollen. Today’s photo: red maple in bloom.

--Richard

Sustainable Agriculture

2011-03-09T22:44:00.000-06:00

The earth’s population is predicted to reach nine billion by 2050 with increasing demand for food, water, fuel, and arable land. Industrial agriculture that dominates food production today is highly dependent upon chemicals and fossil fuel for crop production and transportation. Industrial agriculture typically employs large-scale plantings of a single species of a genetically modified crop, heavy tilling equipment, chemical fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides, plus large amounts of irrigation water. Mark Bittman, writing today in The New York Times, suggests that another model of crop production more closely resembling organic farming may be a better solution for feeding the world. Organic practices rely less upon chemical fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides. A blended model of farming employing the best practices of both industrial and organic agriculture may be a sustainable alternative. See http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/08/sustainable-farming/?src=me&ref=homepage as well as Andrew Revkin’s analysis at http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/03/a-hybrid-path-to-feeding-9-billion-on-a-still-green-planet/. Those skeptical of elements of industrial agriculture, like the use of GMOs or genetically modified organisms, must be willing to accept the reality of the safe use of GMO foods over a number of years. Also, GMO crop planting allows for reductions in insecticide usage and increased use of no-till farming practices. Likewise, producers growing crops under industrial conditions must realize that the large-scale planting of mono-cultural crops, heavy use of chemical herbicides and pesticides, and elimination of “turn-rows” or crop margins has added to the serious decline of beneficial insect pollinators. The loss of honey bees and other pollinators adversely affects all agricultural growers.

Just as a blended model of crop production may prove to be a more sustainable design for the future, a blended model of integrated pest management may be the best choice for managing honey bee colonies. The repeated use of bee hive chemicals designed to kill parasitic mites and suppress American foulbrood resulted in resistant strains of mites and bacteria. The complete abandonment of bee hive mite chemicals is not successful except with bees bred for genetic mite resistance. Today’s photo: industrial agriculture: mono-cultural winter wheat.

--Richard

A Natural Honey Bee Nest

2011-03-04T18:17:00.000-06:00

We can learn much about honey bees by observing bees in their natural habitat. Residents of my Arkansas Delta county called today and described a colony of honey bees living in a huge, hollow cottonwood tree at their home. Cottonwoods are among the tallest trees in the Delta, climbing to nearly 150 feet. This gnarled tree had weathered many a season and showed the damage of numerous wind storms and lightning strikes. Hollow cavities in storm-damaged trees provide excellent spaces for honey bees to build their nests.

The colony moved into the ancient tree this past October. Colonies that swarm late in the year often fail to build enough comb and store a sufficient amount of honey to survive the winter. Fortunately, there was a good nectar flow from goldenrod this past fall. If you click on today’s photo, you can see the entrance to the natural honey bee nest about 23 feet above ground on the underside of a large, hollow limb. Four sheets of clean, light-colored beeswax honeycomb hang down from the opening in the tree. The darkened comb previously held brood and pollen. Like a screened bottom board on a modern bee hive, the open bottom of this natural nest allows hive debris and parasitic Varroa mites preened by the bees to fall to the ground. All of the exposed comb is empty; the bees have moved their cluster upward over the winter. The empty cells filled with air make excellent insulation for the colony’s nest. The sheets of comb themselves help calm the winter winds. The homeowner and I watched the honey bees actively flying from their natural nest. An international pilot, he discussed how insecticides are sprayed inside the cargo holds of aircrafts before landing in foreign countries to prevent the unwanted transfer of bees or other insects. This colony should be successful in its new home. It found a suitable tree and a family concerned with protecting the bees and the environment.

--Richard

Plum in Bloom

2011-03-03T22:22:00.000-06:00

The plum is the first white-blooming tree seen in the woods early in the year. Plums blossoms have just started showing in the Mid-South. Plums can be seen in large thickets and scattered among the understory of forests. In the next few weeks some stands of plum in full bloom will give the woods the appearance of a late winter snowfall. Their locations often reveal pioneer homesteads long abandoned. When one encounters plums, pecans, mimosa, sassafras, yucca, forsythia, daffodil, catalpa, or wisteria in the woods, bricks and rubble of earlier dwellings are usually close by. We often find a number of varieties of plums in a woodlot, forest margin, or abandoned farmstead. Along with wild plums one may find Chickasaw plums, thought to have been cultivated by the Chickasaw Indians and early settlers. Many domestic plums require pollination by honey bees or bumblebees to produce fruit. Wild animals attracted to the fruit scatter plum seeds.

In today’s photo, an aging forager gathers pollen from a plum blossom. The old worker bee, a survivor of the winter, has lost much of the hair from her abdomen, giving her a black, shiny appearance. The bee clings onto the plum flower using the pads and hooks of her feet. Using body attachments shaped like combs and rakes, the worker preens the pollen granules from her hairy body, into pellets of gray-colored pollen to be carried on her hind legs. The arrival of pollen being brought into the hive in late winter serves to stimulate the queen to increase egg laying. Plums provide valuable nectar and pollen early in the year when it is most needed for winter survival and for starting the colony’s population build-up for the spring. The plum is a member of the important family of bee plants, the roses. Other roses include California’s almonds and other fruit trees: pears, peaches, cherries, and apples. Hawthorns, blackberries, strawberries, and greenbrier are also roses. The bees and beekeepers welcome the plums in bloom.

--Richard

March: The Harshest Month

2011-03-01T22:12:00.001-06:00

The calendar tells us that three more weeks of winter remain. We declare that spring begins on the day of the vernal equinox. However the change in seasons progresses at about one week for each 100 miles of latitude. The weather warmed today and allowed the bees to fly. I noticed foragers working the tiny white flowers of sand wort blooming among clover leaves starting to unfold in the winter-bare ground. Other foragers were forcing open a single petal of crabapple flower buds today to access nectar or pollen. Tomorrow the blossoms should be more open. With warm weather forecast for tomorrow, the foragers will return to the same flowers. Red maple flowers are opening, but not yet attracting bees. The trees must not be producing nectar and pollen at this time. Similar flights were made a month ago 400 miles to the south where many of the queen bees are produced. A beekeeping friend in New England now covered in deep snow won’t see flowers for weeks to come.

In the Arkansas Delta, March is the harshest month for the honey bee colony. While a few flowering plants are just starting to bloom, there is no significant nectar flow. Brood production is well underway, and considerable amounts of food are needed for the developing bees. With brood present, the hive’s brood area must be maintained at 95 degrees. The honey and pollen stores are dwindling in the hives. Some of the food for the brood is held in the tissue of fat bodies and glands of the worker bees themselves. The quality of this food follows the health of the bees from the time they emerged as adults last October. Meanwhile, the colonies are growing and consuming increasing amounts of food. March’s rapidly changing weather patterns bring both cold and warm days. The bees consume much energy on warm days like today searching for food; often more energy is spent than is gained in foraging. Most starvation occurs in March.

--Richard

The Bee Hive in Winter

2011-02-24T16:58:00.000-06:00

Honey bees area unique among insects. In temperate areas, they spend the winter inside the hive alive and active unlike wasps and hornets that die in the winter or lady bug beetles that hibernate. The honey bee accomplishes its winter-time survival by making and storing a high-energy food, honey. By eating the high-energy food, the worker honey bee is able to generate about 104 degrees Fahrenheit of heat in its flight muscles to warm the colony. Again, the honey bees are unique among insects, which are cold-blooded animals, in their ability to generate heat. The bees use the heat that they produce to warm the center of their cluster of bees. They hold the heat inside the cluster by forming a tight layer of bees on the outside. These bees, which eventually chill, periodically exchange places with bees inside the cluster. The cluster of bees expands and contracts with the outside temperature. The bees don’t waste energy warming the entire hive cavity, only the cluster of bees. The colder the weather gets, the more tightly compacted the cluster gets. As the cluster shrinks, it leaves a surrounding area of empty honeycomb. During prolonged periods of cold weather, the bees often remain tightly clustered; and they don’t venture the short distance to where honey is stored in the hive. Beekeepers often find colonies that have starved with ample stores of honey only inches away from the cluster.

The structure of a bee hive makes it quite an effective housing for surviving the harsh elements of winter. Empty cells of honeycomb make excellent insulation, and parallel sheets of comb effectively block winter winds. As the cluster of bees consumes the food stored above them, the cluster moves upward into this space. This upward movement of bees during the winter gives beekeepers an opportunity to move bees from lower frames as I am doing in today’s photo. I am transferring bees from the dark-colored deep hive body into medium boxes filled with honey.

--Richard

Planning the Bee Yard

2011-02-21T21:10:00.001-06:00

Beekeepers have been generous in passing along the craft of handling honey bees. A new beekeeper who attended our local beekeepers association’s introductory short course came by Peace Bee Farm to get some ideas for establishing his bee yard. I explained that the first consideration is always public safety. Bee hives should be placed so that the bees’ flight path avoids areas frequented by people. If bee hives are placed in residential areas, the bees can be directed to fly above people’s heads by placing a fence or hedge in front of the hive. While many bee hives are maintained in backyards and even on building rooftops without problems, the number of hives placed on small residential lots should be limited.

After safety considerations, the next important issue for beekeepers is access to the bee hives. Beekeeping equipment is heavy, and it is best to place hives where the beekeeper can drive close to the bee yard any time of the year. Many beekeepers like to face the hives toward the east or south, so that the sun warms the hive entrance early in day. This causes the foragers to fly earlier, and thus gather more nectar. Many beekeepers like to arrange the bee hives for afternoon shade to help the bees cool the hives in the summer. Others prefer to place the hives in the full sun to lessen small hive beetle reproductive success. Bees kept in wooded areas are often more defensive than bees kept in open spaces. Honey Bees also need a source of water. Without a convenient water supply, foragers may visit swimming pools or other outdoor water sources. Wind screens of evergreen foliage planted to the north and west of the bee yard help block cold winter winds. A few snow geese passed overhead today, many have started their migration to their breeding grounds in the arctic. It’s still winter, but birds are migrating; bees are flying on warm days; and brood production has started.

--Richard

Landmarks

2011-02-19T22:27:00.000-06:00

Worker honey bees live for about six weeks. The first three weeks of their life are spent doing tasks inside the hive. The next three weeks are spent doing work that involves flying away from the hive. When the bees begin venturing from the hive at about three weeks of age, they start by making a series of orientation flights in which the bees memorize the appearance of the hive and its surroundings. The young bees start their “flight school” in the afternoon by flying in a small figure-eight pattern inches away from the hive’s entrance. As the bees make their orientation flights, they are looking for colors and patterns of shapes. Honey bees can see all of the colors that humans do with the exception of red. The bees can also see ultraviolet, which is beyond our eyesight. The images that the bees memorize involve shapes and patterns of interruptions. After flying close to the hive’s entrance, the bees expand their flight to learn landmarks surrounding the hive.

Honey bees at the Children’s Museum of Memphis have no problem finding their hives located among the huge building blocks that spell “CMOM.” In today’s picture from the museum’s blog, www.cmom.com, the museum’s CEO, Richard C. Hackett, is high in the air above our bee hives painting the letter C in pink for breast cancer awareness. To learn more, the museum directs us to www.nbcam.org/about_nbcam.cfm and www.cancer.org/. The always personally involved Mr. Hackett, a beekeeper himself, proposed the honey bee exhibit and offered useful suggestions in the development of the observation bee hive project. Mr. Hackett swung in close to the bee hives to paint the iconic blocks that make the museum a landmark in the heart of the city. The honey bee exhibit is designed to fit into the museum’s mission: “We create memorable learning experiences through the joy of play in hands-on exhibits and programs.” The museum helps honey bees as well as children expand their view.

--Richard

Observation Bee Hives

2011-02-16T22:21:00.000-06:00

Much of our knowledge of the honey bee colony’s activity and life cycle is learned using observation bee hives having clear windows of glass or plastic providing a view inside the hive. Regardless of the weather, beekeepers cannot keep a bee hive open for an extended observation without disturbing the bees and adversely affecting the colony. Observation hives allow for long-term viewing with a minimum disturbance of the bees. However, observation hives are usually smaller and are more difficult to maintain than regular, full-size hives. Most commercially available observation hives hold from two to six frames. These smaller hives are more prone to starving, swarming, and being overtaken by Small Hive Beetles. Bees in small hives also have more difficulty in maintaining the hive’s temperature.

The Columbia University Beekeeping Club is considering placing a hive outside a campus building. I offered them the details of modified Langstroth hives I maintain at the Children’s Museum of Memphis. Windows in the side of one hive expose frames of comb, and windows in the rear of another allow viewing between the frames. The hives are placed outside the building as opposed to inside arrangements that use a tube for the bees to enter and exit. With any observation hive it is most important that proper bee space is maintained. In my modified hives, Lexan windows fit flush with the inside surface of the hive bodies. Quite often I see observation hives with windows covered with comb or propolis. Maintain clean windows by providing 3/8 inch spacing between the inside surface of the window and the adjacent frame. Choosing a location for placing the hive is most important. Consider the direction of the sun in relation to the hive. If the sun strikes the observation hive’s glass, the hive will likely become a solar beeswax melter, and the bees will die. I placed my Children’s Museum hives in a North-facing alcove which blocks the afternoon sun. You may view the exhibit at http://www.cmom.com/?q=honeybees.

--Richard

Abandon the Old Nest

2011-02-15T22:45:00.000-06:00

Honey bee colonies typically swarm once a year in the temperate regions. This method of reproduction on the colony-wide basis expands the number of colonies and moves bees into new areas. However, swarming is quite risky. Only about one in five swarms is successful in moving into a new cavity and establishing a colony that lives for several years. Why would a creature adopt a behavior unless it is beneficial in the long term? Perhaps swarming serves an important purpose other than colony increase and range expansion. Moving the colony to a new location, even if only occasionally successful, allows the bees to leave behind old nests. The old nests, built of beeswax honeycomb, are reservoirs of pesticides, chemicals, and toxins found in the environment. The old honeycombs may also hold the reproductive spores of a number of honey bee diseases, namely American foulbrood, Nosema, and chalkbrood. Another purpose is served by swarming and moving into a new cavity. Trees with cavities are often in decline and fall due to structural damage and decay.

When the honey bee colony divides itself and swarms, it takes along the old queen. A new queen, or more often a queen cell with a potential queen, is left behind with the remnant of the original colony. While this new queen may successfully mate and serve to provide reproduction in the original hive, this too is not always successful. Still, it appears that the swarming process serves as an effective reproductive strategy. Swarming is another behavior that the honey bee evolved to help ensure the survival of the colony. Other behaviors that the bees use to protect the colony include defending the hive with guard bees and removing dead bees from the hive. Unhealthy bees fly or crawl from the hive to die. At Peace Bee Farm, we regularly remove old honeycomb from our hives to reduce the build-up of environmental chemicals and eliminate spores of pathogens. Today’s photo: burning old brood nest honeycombs.

--Richard

GMOs and Neonicotinoids

2011-02-13T21:56:00.000-06:00

Corn, or maize, is the most widely grown crop in the Americas. A beekeeper asked me if Bt corn and Roundup-Ready corn are dangerous to honey bees. This is among the commonly asked questions as beekeepers are facing annual colony losses of 30 percent. Beekeepers question the safety of chemicals used in the environment and changes in agricultural practices. Bt corn and Roundup-Ready corn are both Genetically Modified Organisms. In Bt corn, a gene is borrowed from the Bacillus thuringiensus bacteria. This modification allows the corn plant to produce its own Bt insecticidal protein. This technology allows for corn production with lesser application of insecticides, as the plant is producing its own insect killer. The effect of Bt corn on honey bees was tested in Germany from 2001 through 2004. Michael Schacker reports in A Spring Without Bees: How Colony Collapse Disorder Has Endangered Our Food Supply, 2008, that Bt crops and GMOs are not correlated with Colony Collapse Disorder. There may possibly be some benefits for bees and other pollinators from the use of Bt technology in corn, as this may lead to a reduction in the use of crop insecticides. Roundup-Ready corn can withstand the herbicide glyphosate. Herbicides, like Roundup, are being tested now; however, results have not been published.

Following the appearance of Colony Collapse Disorder in 2007, the effect on honey bee health is questioned for all chemicals used around bee hives. A relatively new class of insecticides, the neonicotinoids, is highly suspected by many beekeepers as being involved in CCD and honey bee health problems. Among these systemic insecticides are imidacloprid and clothianidin. Of particular concern is the effect upon the bees of a less than lethal dose of a neonicotinoid insecticide when combined with certain honey bee viruses or the newly detected strain of Nosema disease. Honey bee colony collapses often occur in the winter. This winter has seen greater than normal snowfalls in the Arkansas Delta. Today’s photo: common starlings weather the snow.

--Richard

Short Course Forty-Six

2011-02-11T20:13:00.001-06:00

Much of the practical training of beekeepers is provided by local beekeeping associations. These groups provide initial introductory courses in beekeeping as well as ongoing training and mentoring of beekeepers. The Memphis Area Beekeepers Association serves beekeepers across West Tennessee, North Mississippi, and East Arkansas. On Saturday, the association will conduct its forty-sixth annual Short Course in Beekeeping. The short course serves as an overview of a broad range of beekeeping topics. The program starts with a description of the equipment and protective clothing used by beekeepers. New beekeepers get to assemble bee hives to get an idea of how to put together these puzzles. Folks are introduced to the honey bee’s life cycle. We discuss where to locate the bee hives and carefully cover how to install the bees in the new hive. The course briefly mentions how we harvest and extract honey. Like other timely topics, this will be covered in greater depth during a monthly meeting prior to harvest.

I will address the new beekeepers on honey bee health issues. Since honey bees may be attacked by pests from bears to other insects as well as from bacteria, viruses, and fungi, it is important for new beekeepers to be aware of what the hives face. I will mention the pests introduced into our hives, mostly through world trade, since the mid-1980s: tracheal mites, Varroa mites, small hive beetles, and a new strain of Nosema. I’ll briefly describe Africanized honey bees and Colony Collapse Disorder. The majority of the presentation will be a suggestion for the beekeepers to adopt an integrated pest management approach to beekeeping, relying first on biological, cultural, and mechanical controls of pests. Chemical control measures will be held as last resorts. I will encourage everyone to avoid using insecticides and nerve toxins in the hives and to treat American foulbrood with the only sure cure: burning the hives. Peace Farm lakes are frozen now; wild ducks circle to maintain small areas of open water.

--Richard

Honey Bee Evolution

2011-02-08T22:38:00.000-06:00

A report published in The New York Times relates that only 28 percent of public high school biology teachers are following teaching recommendations to “describe straightforwardly the evidence for evolution and explain the ways in which it is a unifying theme in all of biology.” Thirteen percent of the biology teachers explicitly advocate creationism, and 60 percent avoid the subject altogether. The Times report: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/08/science/08creationism.html?hpw.

A beekeeper tries to explain the complexity of the honey bee’s social behavior in a colony that appears to be as organized as a city full of people. He says that such a well-organized colony can only be the result of creation by a higher being of great intelligence, and he struggles to find bee hive examples of what he calls “intelligent design.” There is wondrous activity among these social insects, but the honey bee colony is certainly not perfect. The colony gathers and produces its own food, increases its numbers and expands its territory. It regulates the temperature and atmosphere of its hive. It can even produce a new queen when one is need. However, there are times when the life cycle of the honey bee colony becomes dead-ended. When dealing with a poorly mated queen, an egg-laying worker, or a queen failing to lay fertile eggs, a colony often becomes hopelessly queenless and then dwindles and dies. Rather than the product of an “intelligent design,” today’s honey bee colony can be better understood as the result of millions of years of evolution in a changing environment. Those colonies that inherited traits, altered by mutations, that make them more survivable in the present environment pass along those traits to their offspring. They replace other less suited colonies that either die or are less successful in reproducing. The replacement of less suited species has been seen recently in the evolution of antibiotic-resistant strains of tuberculosis, insecticide-resistant bed bugs, herbicide-resistant Palmer pigweed, and Varroa mites resistant to the miticides used by beekeepers. Today’s photo: beekeeper Richard Underhill.

--Richard

The Warre Hive

2011-02-07T16:48:00.000-06:00

Some individuals are attracted to beekeeping’s lack of complicated modern technologies. In fact, most of the great inventions of modern beekeeping occurred in the mid-1800s. They include L. L. Langstroth’s 1851 removable frame hive, beeswax foundation for hive frames, the honey extractor, and the beekeeper’s smoker. While the durable Langstroth hive is the one most widely used to house managed colonies of honey bees, there are others. The Warre hive, pronounced “war-ray,” and the Kenyan top bar hive are two hives that use only wooden bars to support the sheets of honeycomb instead of complete frames. The Warre hive stands vertically and resembles a Langstroth hive in outward appearance. Brood nest and honey storage boxes are similarly stacked atop each other. The unique element of a Warre hive is the upper box, which slightly overhangs the hive. This box has a sloping, vented roof and a canvas floor. The box is filled with straw or other moisture-absorbing material to help control the atmosphere in the hive as well as hold hive scents. Abbe Emile Warre, who developed this arrangement in France and called it the “People’s Hive,” felt that it allowed the bees to control the temperature, humidity, and oxygen and carbon dioxide levels within the hive.

With the combs hanging unsupported from top bars in both Warre hives and Kenyan top bar hives, honey harvesting is destructive of the beeswax combs. Most honey is harvested by mashing the comb and draining the honey. Without full support of the combs as in the Langstroth hives, these hives are not well suited for transport. However, both hives are popular with beekeepers who want to provide pollination for gardens or intend to infrequently manipulate the hives. Beekeepers must delicately handle the U-shaped combs that the bees hang from simple top bars. In today’s photo, The Luddite, checks the fit of top bars for a Warre hive she is building. The complete Warre hive can be seen in the February 6, 2011 posting.

--Richard

Backyard Beekeeping

2011-02-06T11:24:00.003-06:00

Backyard beekeeping is expanding in popularity, and it provides many benefits. First, our gardens and plantings of food crops benefit from the replacement of pollinators that have been disappearing in recent years. Another great benefit of backyard beekeeping is experienced by the beekeepers themselves. Planning for adding a couple of bee hives, attending adult education classes or a short course at the local beekeepers association, reading some beekeeping books and journals, ordering a package or nucleus colony of bees, building and painting the hives, and finally installing them in the hives make for an exciting break from any other endeavor. However, beekeeping becomes a true source of involvement of one’s attention once the bees start drawing out their beeswax nest, the queen starts laying eggs, brood starts developing, and we get to observe the intricate activity occurring in the colony. Many beekeepers find the bee hives such a source of interest that they become so thoroughly absorbed in observing the bees and tending to the hives that they are able to completely forget other daily activity or worry. As such, beekeeping becomes a source of relaxation or enjoyment. Many like to sit and simply watch the bees at the hive’s entrance and listen to the hum of the hive.

The Luddite, a busy New England Primary Care Provider, finds relaxation with her bees. In today’s picture, we see her in snow shoes visiting one of her Warre bee hives accompanied by her “official apiary dog,” Hannah. A Warre is a hive that stands vertically, approximating a hollow tree, the honey bee’s natural home. The Warre hive does not use frames as found in the conventional Langstroth hive. Instead, it employs simple wooden upper supports, similar to those used in a Kenyan top bar hive. The top of the Warre hive is comprised of a box filled with straw or other absorbent material. This box, used to control hive moisture is separated from the brood nest by canvas. The Luddite looks care free.

--Richard