Springtime Expansion

Honey bee populations expand rapidly in the spring. Prolific queens are stimulated to lay eggs at their maximum rate in April as flowers come into bloom in abundance. Hives fill with bees, and those colonies that do not have enough capacity make preparations for swarming. The same conditions that lead colonies to reproduce by division and swarming are the conditions that queen producers set up when rearing queens, and these newly produced queens are used to establish new colonies. Beekeepers regularly purchase colonies to expand their apiaries or to replace overwinter colony losses. They may purchase entire hives with their established bees, but more frequently they purchase nucleus colonies, “nucs,” or packaged bees like those awaiting delivery at the recent Bee Day event at Bemis Honey Bee Farm shown in today’s photo. Hundreds of previously ordered packages of bees and nucleus colonies were passed out to beekeepers from across the region.

Nucleus colonies are small honey bee colonies derived by separating frames from existing full-size hives. A nuc is a colony in equilibrium. It typically contains five frames of bees on combs with an egg-laying queen, brood, and bees. Since a nuc is an established colony with a queen and combs available for her to continue laying eggs, it is ready to expand in its new hive. A package of bees, on the other hand, is not an established colony when the beekeeper receives it. Typically, it is three pounds of bees measured by weight (approximately 12,000 bees). The bees in the package are not on frames. Included in the package is a queen bee in a cage with the queen separated from the rest of the bees for her protection. She is held in a cage with a candy plug delaying her release into her new hive. Over a few days, workers pass food to the queen and get accustomed to her pheromones while chewing through the candy, releasing her. Then, the bees are a family—a colony.

--Richard

A Winter Hive Loss

While honey bees do not fly in cold weather, they do venture out of their hive on the occasional warm winter day. Bees make cleansing flights and forage for nectar and pollen from early-blooming flowers. Observing the bees’ flight at the hive entrances, one hive showed less flight activity than adjacent hives. The warm day allowed for an inspection of the evidently weaker hive, revealing a small population of bees with brood present. However, all of the brood was drone brood, no worker brood. Drones are produced from infertile eggs, and workers are produced from fertile eggs. And colonies typically don’t produce drones in the winter. It appeared that some of the workers had developed working reproductive systems and had become drone layers. Workers typically don’t lay eggs, however when a hive has been queenless for a period of time, some workers start laying infertile eggs. It appeared that the colony was dwindling in population without a queen producing workers.

Looking deeper into the hive, I found the likely cause of the colony’s population decline and drone laying. I found a queen cell with the side wall chewed out. It appears that the colony attempted to replace its queen during the winter through supersedure. Honey bees in the Mid-South can only produce viable queens from April through August. The queen cell shown here has not been opened at the tip where a queen would emerge. Instead, it was chewed out through the side. A virgin queen emerged in the hive, found this developing queen, and stung her to death through the side of the cell. Workers later chewed through the cell wall and removed the remains. Beekeepers need to be on the lookout for wintertime colony losses and take measures to protect the combs. I stacked the frames of this hive atop the frames of a strong hive. Those bees will protect the combs, and a colony division in the spring, when queens become available, will restore the hive count.

--Richard

Mid-Winter Beekeeping

We cannot go deep into our bee hives in the winter, but it is good advice to make a brief inspection of our hives on warm winter days. Breaking hive boxes apart and removing brood frames in cold temperatures risks chilling and killing brood. On warmer days, we can open the hive covers and quickly look inside, simply looking for evidence that the bee colonies are alive and that they have adequate food to survive the remainder of the winter. We may see live bees in a hive as soon as we remove the covers, however the bees may be clustered lower in the hive and not immediately visible. In this case, we can usually determine that we have living bees by removing a frame from the center of the uppermost box to view below. If the colony is dead, we should protect the precious comb-covered frames by stacking them above the frames of a strong hive or placing them in a freezer. We can estimate the amount of stored honey in a hive by lifting the back of our hives an inch with our fingers. Any hives that feel light in weight are likely lacking in stored honey and in need of emergency feeding. As bees are reluctant to consume liquid sugar syrup in cold weather, we may feed bees dry sugar atop the inner covers of the hives. A shim placed between the inner and outer covers allows us to place plenty of sugar on the inner cover.

While existing beekeepers are checking on their overwintering hives, they are also sharing their experience with individuals preparing to start beekeeping. Local beekeeping associations are offering short courses to introduce people to the art and skill of beekeeping. The Ozark Foothills Beekeepers Association held two sessions of its Beekeeping 101 class, and is preparing for a Beekeeping 201 class to be followed in the summer by a class on harvesting and processing honey. An exceptionally large honey bee visited the class.

--Richard

Pax Vobiscum

 

Heifer Ranch is a working ranch and agricultural demonstration farm at Perryville, Arkansas. This year I witnessed at the ranch how honey bees play a role in restoring and enhancing the environment for both plants and animals. Managed honey bees along with feral colonies and native bees and pollinators play a quiet and barely seen role in the life of the ranch. For instance, bees pollinate legumes, including clover, vetch, lespedeza, alfalfa, partridge peas, and beggar’s lice, as they gather nectar and pollen to feed their colony. Pollination is the first step in the production of seed for these plants growing in pastures. Legumes provide high-value, nitrogen-rich food for livestock and wildlife animals, and legumes are but one family of flowering plants and grasses that feed livestock on the ranch. The livestock, selectively bred to thrive on grasses rather than grain feeds, are managed for sale for human consumption.

As well as producing seed by pollinating plants, bees benefit the environment by enriching the soil. Bacteria dwelling on the roots of legumes convert atmospheric nitrogen into a form suitable for use by plants. Thus, they enrich the soil and promote the growth of pasture grasses and increase the carrying capacity of the land. Regenerative agricultural practices employ measures replicating the natural grazing of wildlife that allows grasses to develop deep roots. Heifer Ranch cattle and sheep, shown here rotating to another of the ranch’s pastures of tall grasses, graze the way bison move across the Great Plains, constantly moving to forage available grasses. The cattle and sheep eat the top growth of the grasses and deposit manure that fertilizes the pastures. Their hooves push nutrients into the soil; the soil improves; grasses develop deeper roots; and the soil retains more water than soil under shallow roots. The honey bee queen ends her short winter break and starts laying eggs on the winter solstice to regenerate the colony. The Underhill family of Peace Bee Farm offer to all: Peace be with you.

--Richard

Bees Need Water

 

Honey bee foragers collect four things to bring into their hives: nectar, pollen, propolis and water. The bee colony is quite adept at controlling the temperature of its hive. Whenever there is brood in the hive, the bees regulate the temperature in the brood area to 95 degrees. With afternoon temperature climbing above 100 degrees in the shade, it is a challenge for bees to cool their hive, especially if it is located in the full sun. To assist in cooling the hive, foragers bring large amounts of water into the hive, and workers fan their wings over droplets of water. It is important that beekeepers supply their bees with a reliable source of water throughout the year. If there is a natural water source, such as a lake or stream within one quarter of a mile, bees will forage from it. In all other cases, beekeepers need to supply water in containers like we see in today’s photo. Useful water containers are typically placed in sunny locations, and they need floats or rocks for the bees to climb upon while foraging. Supplying water for hives in urban and suburban locations is particularly important, else bees will seek neighbors’ swimming pools. Bees love swimming pool water flavored with chlorine and suntan lotion. Foraging water with a flavor is part of the honey bee’s behavior of sharing the taste of food being foraged. When scout bees discover a food or water source, they share its taste with foragers they are recruiting. The scouts also mark the location of the water source with Nasanov gland pheromone.

On hot afternoons and evenings, bees move outside the hive and rest on the hive’s surface or hang in a bearding fashion to assist in cooling the brood area. Beekeepers can assist their colonies in cooling their hives by painting the hives in light colors. Placing hives to the east side of trees that provide afternoon shade helps cool the bees and the beekeepers working the hives.

--Richard

Double Screen Board

Honey bees produce queens on three occasions: when the colony reproduces through swarming, when the colony replaces its queen through supersedure, and in emergencies when the colony loses its queen. We can make colony divisions and produce queens by setting up hive conditions for a colony to produce an emergency queen. Honey bees detect the presence of their queen by the queen substance pheromone that she secretes. This pheromone is passed through the hive by touch, unlike her other pheromones which are aromas carried in the air. The queen’s retinue of attendant workers constantly stroke the queen, gathering queen substance pheromone and passing it to nearby workers. The pheromone is passed from bee to bee throughout the hive. As long as the bees receive queen substance pheromone, the colony is content. If the queen is not present in the hive, the colony detects her loss within one hour and begins replacing her within four hours.

Beekeepers employ the loss of queen substance pheromone to perform colony divisions known as “walk-away splits.” They can accomplish the production of a new queen and make a colony division using a double screen board. This simple device is a board with two screens separated so that queen substance cannot be passed between hive brood boxes. When placed between the brood boxes of a strong hive with bees and brood on both sides of the screens, one half of the hive is content, and the other half feels that it is queenless and starts producing an emergency queen from a young worker larva. This larva is fed royal jelly throughout its development into a virgin queen. After its emergence as an adult, the virgin queen exits the hive for her mating flights through an entrance in the double screen board. She will begin laying eggs in about one month from the time of starting the procedure. In today’s photo workers return at the double screen board entrance with pollen to feed the new queen’s brood.

--Richard

April is Busy

 

April is the busiest month for bees and beekeepers. Populations of bees are expanding toward their maximum, and flowers are coming into bloom in abundance. Bees eagerly gather nectar and pollen to produce brood food for rapidly expanding colonies. Heavy springtime nectar flows often lead to brood nest congestion when nectar is stored in the brood nest. Without available cells for the queen to lay eggs, the colony divides and swarms, with swarming reaching a peak in April and May. Beekeepers attempt to capture swarms of bees, as these have the potential of growing rapidly into productive colonies. For those hives that lose a large population of bees through swarming, it usually means the loss of the year’s honey crop. April saw periods of nice weather, conducive to bees’ foraging, interrupted by periods of extreme weather. Numerous thunderstorms and tornadoes along with severe localized flooding lingered across Arkansas and neighboring states. Some bee hives were overturned by strong winds, and some were flooded.

 

April found beekeepers busy expanding their operations. Bee Day activity at Bemis Honey Bee Farm in Little Rock attracted beekeepers from throughout the region to pick up hundreds of packages of bees and nucleus colonies. I participated in speaking sessions held throughout the day. Dr. Cameron Jack of the University of Florida spoke on varroa mite and small hive beetle integrated pest management practices, and he described his ongoing research on seasonal varroa mite treatments. Bo Sterk and Dave Westervelt of Bees Beyond Borders, www.beesbeyondborders.org, spoke on swarms and splits, common mistakes made in the bee yard, and feeding bees among other topics. Dr. Jon Zawislak of the University of Arkansas described queen genetics, and I spoke on honey bee communications. An interested group followed my presentation on ethical beekeeping. I joined Bo and Dave who remained in Little Rock for two days of beekeeping workshops, sharing their experience, much of it involving their training of beekeepers across the Caribbean. Today’s photo: catalpa, a prolific bee forage tree.

--Richard