A Dry Swarm

Before honey bees swarm, the workers gorge on stored honey to have energy to survive from the time they leave their old hive until they can forage from their new hive. By gorging on honey they also build up the carbohydrate resources they will need to secrete the beeswax needed to build new combs. In the swarming process, bees usually stop to rest on a tree limb or other structure. Here, they are generally quite gentle because they don’t have a nest with brood and food to defend. However, if the swarm does not find a permanent nesting cavity within a couple of days and remains in its resting place, the bees will consume the honey that they are carrying in their honey guts. This is called a “dry swarm.” The swarm may even start to build comb on their temporary structure. Once they do this, they then have a hive to defend, and they defend their hive by stinging, adding excitement to gathering a swarm!

This year has been an exceptionally “swarmy” spring and summer in the Mid-South. Regular rains brought about good nectar flows which often contribute to brood nest congestion. Having the brood nest cells used by the queen for egg laying filled with nectar stimulates the colony to swarm. Today’s photo shows the comb built by a summertime swarm that settled underneath an urban bee hive. The colony built combs and even raised brood before abandoning the exposed combs. When the entire colony of bees flies away from its nest, accompanied by the queen, we call it “absconding.” The beekeeper was able to capture the absconding colony when it stopped nearby to rest, and he hived the bees in a modern Langstroth hive with plenty of sugar syrup to replenish the bees’ expended food stores. The colony has accepted its new home; and with the help of the beekeeper, who will be supplying supplemental feedings, the bees should be in good condition to survive the winter.

--Richard

Teff for Injera

As we traveled northward, the forests thinned and farms abounded in Ethiopia’s open plains. As we left the forests, we encountered less monkeys and baboons on the road, but larger herds of livestock. Our truck stopped repeatedly for cattle being driven to water in the rivers. Crossing the Omo River gorge, we encountered numerous volcanoes. Today’s photo shows a typical farm with a thatched roof, stick and mud daub house located near the base of a volcano. The entire family shares the single-room house with cattle, sheep, goats, and donkeys. Young boys direct the cattle herd’s movements with a stick like a conductor directing an orchestra. The cattle obey their master with whom they live night and day. Stacks of teff recently harvested by hand with a short sickle sit on the ground. Family members, including children, toss the teff into the air to separate the fine seed. Teff is the staple crop used to make the fermented bread known as injera that is eaten at every meal.

As we continued on our drive to Nazareth, Wubishet and I discussed how Ethiopia’s honey bees tend to abscond, or abandon their hives, much more frequently than do the honey bees of beekeepers in the more temperate climate of the United States. Wubishet described seasonal management of the hives in which beekeepers increase the volume of the hives prior to major nectar flows to accommodate the colonies’ honey storage capacity. I explained that some believe that tropical bees, like those in Ethiopia, don’t hoard honey, but instead abscond and move to the mountains during the dry season. Wubishet said that that description of tropical bee behavior is not correct. I told him that honey bees will abscond if their hive becomes completely undesirable. He explained that at times the comb melts in the equatorial heat, truly making for an unfit nest. We stopped at Walesa for a meal of traditional fasting food: injera with an assortment of beans, peas, lentils, and peppers.

--Richard

Survival Strategies

Six inches of rain fell during two days of steady showers leaving considerable surface flooding across the flat Arkansas Delta. Broad fields, harvested recently, became shallow lakes. The North wind blew crop debris of twigs, stems, and leaves to form long bands of floating vegetative matter. Numerous dinner plate sized masses of fire ants floated on these rafts of ground-up soybean plants shown in today’s photo. Fire ant colonies, which live underground, were being transported to dry ground on floating crop debris. Not only were the fire ants being saved from drowning by their huddling on 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 the bees swarm, the colony divides; half of the bees stay behind, and half of the bees fly away. Sometimes all of the bees in a colony abandon their hive and fly away in a move called “absconding.” Bees will abandon their hive if the nest gets badly damaged, as when flooded or overrun and “slimed” by small hive beetles. At times, bees abscond during times of extreme dearth. Honey bees in the tropics tend to abscond more often than bees in more temperate areas. Tropical bees 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 and drought. During a dearth of nectar, tropical bees will abscond and move to areas where flowers are blooming. Honey bees in temperate areas survive by hoarding honey to provide food and energy for the winter. Each of these behaviors by ants or bees illustrates a heritable survival strategy which allows the insects to survive in a changing environment. Two studies hint at the mechanisms for the inheritance of survival traits: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/12/111205102713.htm#.Tt7BaeNFBZY.email looks at methods of fighting viruses, and http://www.livescience.com/7655-lizards-dance-avoids-deadly-ants.html reveals how lizards learn to avoid fire ants.

--Richard