Pax Vobiscum

The environmentally conscious group meets between services at their Conway, Arkansas, church. The recently formed group’s enthusiastic members are committed to making a positive impact on the neighborhoods where they live. They invite guest speakers of varying backgrounds to discuss matters in which the members can have an impact. I was honored to be invited to share with the group some ideas for protecting pollinators and providing habitat. One of their first efforts will be to establish pollinator gardens. The enthusiasm, efforts, and examples of the group’s members will surely spread to their neighbors and lead to networks of pollinator gardens, pollinator pastures, and pollinator corridors.

As a beekeeper, I was also privileged to speak to the group with the approach of Christmas. I explained that there was a well-established tradition of Bronze Age, Mid-East beekeeping in the fourteenth century B.C.; and bees and honey were mentioned in the writings of many of the great religions: the Hebrew and Christian Bible, the Talmud, and the Quran. Honey bees were managed throughout the Mid-East, Africa, and Europe. I related the way that the church in Europe supported bees for centuries. Following the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 A.D., libraries were burned, and education was discouraged. Few people outside the monasteries could read and write. European abbeys and monasteries had apiaries, and their monks managed bees for honey, mead, and beeswax for candles and lost wax molding of religious items. The religious orders were the repository of knowledge of worldly matters and beekeeping for a thousand years. When Europeans voyaged to the Americas in the early 1600s, they viewed the New World in biblical terms as a “land of milk and honey.” However, since the Americas lacked the necessary cattle or honey bees, the Pilgrims brought them with them. Today’s photo: Ethiopian Orthodox church, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The Underhill family of Peace Bee Farm offers to the people of the great religions, philosophies, and naturalistic traditions that peace be with you.

--Richard

Protecting Quality Honey

Many of the farmers of Ethiopia rely upon harvesting honey and beeswax as part of their mixed agricultural income. The vast majority of their beekeeping experience involves placing traditional bee hives in trees or high places where they can attract swarms of bees. Once the bees have filled the traditional hives with comb and filled some combs with honey, the farmers drive the bees out of the hives with smoke and cut out the combs. The farmers then crush the combs to separate the honey from the beeswax comb. This technique often yields a low-quality honey. Today's photo shows an Ethiopian beekeeper proudly displaying a comb of honey that she cut from a traditional bee hive. The lower half of the comb contains high-quality, fully ripened honey, capped with beeswax. The upper half of the comb, however, contains brood along with pollen, bee bread, and unripened honey. If the entire comb is crushed together, the honey will be of very low quality, useful only for mead production. Throughout the world, much of the honey harvested in developing countries is used to produce mead honey wine.  Uncapped honey that is not fully ripened and honey containing the protein of brood is suitable for fermenting into mead, however it is not acceptable as honey for storage and consumption. Fully ripened honey lasts virtually forever. By simply cutting apart this comb, this beekeeper can separate the high-quality honey from the lower-quality honey. Each can be sold separately.

It is important that the beekeeper protects the quality of the bees' product. Heavy use of smoke used to drive the bees from traditional hives can alter the delicate flavor of honey. Storage in improper containers can impart flavors as well. Care should be taken to prevent overheating honey in storage, as this can change the honey's flavor and color. Most honey sold to consumers in Ethiopia is packaged as crystallized honey in wide-mouth plastic jars. The farmers deserve a good income for their beekeeping efforts.

--Richard

Replacing Old Honeycombs

Beekeepers build hives for bees, and the bees build their nest inside the hives from beeswax, a substance that the bees produce. Young bees secrete beeswax from glands on the lower side of their abdomen. Beeswax makes a strong and lightweight nest to hold the developing bee brood as well as a storage area for bee food. The individual cells of the bee nest are used repeatedly to house bees developing from egg to larva to pupa to adult. As the bee brood changes from larva to pupa, the workers cap each cell with reused beeswax from the hive. However, workers use freshly secreted beeswax to cover the cells of ripened honey. Honey bees are attracted to the odor of old honeycombs, but old comb is a potential problem for bee health. Beeswax absorbs chemical toxins from the environment, making the hive increasingly toxic. Old honeycombs also hold the reproductive spores of a number of pathogens, namely American foulbrood, chalkbrood, and Nosema disease.

Periodically replacing old beeswax combs is a key element in Peace Bee Farm’s integrated pest management plan. Honeycomb replacement has a similar effect as changing the engine oil in a beekeeper’s truck; the impurities are removed. In today’s photo, I am using a high-pressure power washer to remove the old beeswax comb and hive materials from frames of plastic foundation. The stream of water removes pollen deposits, old bee larvae cocoons, wax moth webbing and cocoons, and small hive beetle “slime,” the waste deposits of the larvae of these hive scavengers. Once the old comb is removed from the frames, I will coat the plastic foundation with fresh beeswax, capping wax saved from harvesting honey. The bees will rapidly form this beeswax with their mouthparts into smooth sheets of comb. During a strong nectar flow, young worker bees will secrete additional beeswax to complete the honeycombs. The colonies will rear brood in clean, chemical-free beeswax cells. Providing a clean brood nest helps ensure a healthy bee colony.

--Richard

Winrock International

Agriculture is our most effective usage of solar energy. Through photosynthesis, plants produce food from the sun’s energy, ultimately accounting for virtually all of our food. We eat fruit, seeds, and plant parts; or we eat animals that consume plants. Two important food products of the flowering plants can only be harvested by bees: nectar and pollen. We rely upon honey bees to exploit the carbohydrate of nectar and the protein, fats, vitamins, and minerals of pollen. Bees make honey from nectar. Valued since early man robbed bee trees, honey is considered the only food unchanged since cave men gathered it. Among the highly valued products of the bee hive are honey and beeswax, which are important sources of income in many countries. The value of bee hive products largely depends upon the skill and capabilities of the beekeeper and those processing, handling, transporting, and storing the goods. In most developing countries, honey is primarily used in the production of mead, or honey wine. Usually harvested by crushing honeycombs, the honey contains considerable amounts of beeswax, pollen, and some protein from bee brood. In this form, the honey is most suitable for fermentation into mead. More modern honey extraction and handling techniques produce pure honey sold at a premium on world markets.

Tod Underhill is currently in Ethiopia serving in Winrock International’s Farmer-to-Farmer program assisting beekeepers solve problems in honey handling, processing, and transportation. This is one of many USAID funded project seeking to improve agriculture in developing countries. Though Ethiopia’s semi-tropical climate and diversity of flowering plants make for large honey harvests, the quality of the honey is often low. Tod is teaching the Ethiopian beekeepers the importance of harvesting “ripened” honey that the bees have capped with beeswax. Uncapped honey tends to have a high moisture content, and the honey may ferment in storage. A friend, Phil Craft, the retired Kentucky State Apiarist, also took a Farmer-to-Farmer assignment in Bangladesh. You can follow Phil’s recent travels at http://philcrafthivecraft.com/?p=437.

--Richard

Hive Products for Apinec

Bonga, Kaffa Zone, Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People’s Region, Ethiopia is in the heart of the organic forest honey and coffee region. Located in the highlands at seven degrees north latitude, the region produces ample amounts of product from the surrounding forests. Apinec Agro-Industry purchases raw, hand-crushed honey and beeswax from two thousand area farmers. They process and pack honey and beeswax along with coffee and spices for export. Apinec requested that I train their employees to produce additional products from the honey, beeswax, and propolis collected from the Kaffa bee hives. I conducted a series of training sessions similar to those conducted by the Tennessee Beekeepers Association across the state of Tennessee. In both cases the purpose was the same: to make beekeeping more sustainable by expanding the number of products available for sale. Numerous products can be produced based upon beeswax and honey.

Through an Amharic language interpreter, I demonstrated how to produce beeswax candles, hand and skin lotions, lip glosses, and other cosmetic products. A student repeated the steps to verify accurate translation and understanding. Having a rich supply of vegetable oils, spices, and essential oils, Ethiopia is well suited for producing such products.  I also provided the Apinec processors with formulas and procedures to produce other products from leather conditioners to furniture polish. The technology for producing each of the products is relatively simple, so start-up of manufacturing products should begin fairly soon. The first attempts by the student processors resulted in very presentable packaged products. The appearance, texture, and fragrance were very nice. To get some feedback on the appeal of the products, we gave samples to five ladies. Each of the five reported that they were not comfortable with the feel of the product on their lips. This proved to be an important marketing test of the product, which will now be reformulated with beeswax and other Ethiopian oils. Apinec’s venture into producing other products from the bee hive is a first for Ethiopia.

--Richard

Pax Vobiscum

It’s winter in the Northern Hemisphere, and it is a season of holidays around the world. Cold temperatures keep the bees clustered inside the hive and the beekeepers out. Winter is the slowest time of the beekeeping year, and it provides an opportunity for reflection and for spending time 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 honey bee shares a close relationship with humans and other creatures in the environment. We rely upon the bees to provide the pollination necessary to produe much of the food we eat. Without the bees, our diet would be extremely bland and starchy. Through pollination, the bees also help feed wildlife and livestock that complete our diet. Other networks of relationships exist: Beekeepers rely upon researchers to identify complex relationships between bees, pests, pathogens, nutrition, and the weather; researchers rely upon beekeepers to gather data necessary to reveal these relationships. Honey bees are resilient, and beekeepers are as well. Bees adapt to their environment, and beekeepers adapt their management practices in accordance with the developing scientific understanding of bee biology. Beekeepers around the world rely upon each other for sharing information related to honey bee health. An important benefit results: sharing information provides a basis for understanding among people of different backgrounds. I am pleased that portions of these blog writings are in use in beekeeping training. I have a great appreciation for the friendships that I 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. The Underhill family that operates Peace Bee Farm offers to all of these friends and to each who follow the world’s great religions, philosophies, and traditions a joyous holiday season: Peace be with you.

--Richard

Processing Beeswax

Beeswax is an important product of the bee hive. This high-quality wax, secreted by young worker bees is the structure of the honey bees’ nest. Beeswax can be collected from old honeycomb or from the capping wax removed when extracting honey. The cappings are the beeswax seals the worker bees place over the cells holding fully ripened honey. Removing old comb is an effective way to remove absorbed environmental chemicals from the hives and reduce diseases spread by spores: American foulbrood, chalkbrood, and Nosema. At Peace Bee Farm, we consider replacement of old honeycomb an important part of our integrated pest management program. Since we don’t use chemicals in the hives, the capping wax that we save can be used to produce new frames of chemical-free honeycomb. Nanda Uganda asked about processing beeswax. To obtain the beeswax we paint onto plastic foundation, we take our capping wax and heat it in a wax melter. The capping wax, which contains a small amount of honey, melts around 145 degrees Fahrenheit. This honey can be recovered when the wax melts, but honey is altered in color, aroma, and flavor by temperatures above 120 degrees. The melted beeswax and heated honey flow from the wax melter into a separator, a simple container with a baffle. The beeswax floats atop the honey. When the beeswax cools and solidifies, thick residue, called slumgum, can be scraped away. To further purify the beeswax, it is melted several times in water. The water absorbs soluble impurities in the beeswax; insoluble material is strained from the beeswax. Repeating the process refines the beeswax.

We use beeswax primarily to coat frames for the brood nest and honey supers of our bee hives. Other uses include candle making as well as a number of bee hive products: hand and skin creams and lotions, lip gloss, soaps, furniture polish, and leather conditioners. People who sew use beeswax to strengthen their thread, and archers coat their bowstrings with beeswax.

--Richard

In the Honey House

The honey house is a small, insulated building where we handle the honey from the time that it is harvested until it is bottled. There are tasks to be done in the honey house throughout the year, but the comfortably warm building is an exceptionally nice place to be when outside temperatures are below freezing. Honey bees produce honey in the spring, summer, and fall when flowers are in bloom. They store honey in their hives for the winter. We harvest a small portion of their surplus honey and store it in the honey house. All honey changes over time from a liquid to crystals of sugar. The formation of crystals doesn’t harm the taste or quality of honey. Some of the sugars in honey are stable as a crystal and not as a liquid. Different honeys convert to crystals faster than others. Generally, honeys that bees make from flowers crystallize faster than honeys derived from flowering trees. Cool temperatures also speed the formation of crystals. By winter, most honey contains crystals. We slowly warm the honey to re-liquefy it. Stirring daily, most honey can be liquefied in three to five days at 108 degrees Fahrenheit. The honey is then held at 100 degrees until needed. The warm honey pours freely from the bottling unit. Some liquid honey is made into creamed honey. This spreadable honey is formed by mixing in fine crystals of honey and then chilling at 57 degrees.

Beeswax is also being melted and cleaned in the honey house. In its first melting, some honey is removed from the beeswax. Since beeswax melts around 145 degrees, this honey has been heated, altering its color and flavor. We never mix this heated honey with our raw honey; it is sold to those who produce mead, or honey wine. The final residue left from melting and straining beeswax, called “slumgum,” is shown in the photo. It is composed primarily of propolis bee glue, pollen, and silk from bee pupae cocoons.

--Richard

Priming Foundation

Honey bees build their own nest from beeswax that the young bees secrete from glands on the lower side of their abdomen. The beeswax is secreted in small flakes, and these are worked into six-sided cells of honeycomb by the worker bees using their mouthparts. The beeswax is produced by young worker bees when the bees eat honey. The bees must consume about one pound of honey to produce one ounce of beeswax. To produce this pound of honey, or an ounce of beeswax, the bees must visit about two million flowers and fly a combined distance of 55 thousand miles. That’s more than twice the distance around the earth at the equator. Building honey comb is, therefore, quite costly to the bee in time and resources consumed. The bees will readily build their comb on beeswax foundation. Foundation is the mid-rib of the honey comb, and it was one of the great beekeeping developments of the mid-1800s.

Beekeepers now have available foundation made of beeswax or of plastic. Each has its advantages and disadvantages. The honey bees strictly prefer to build comb on natural beeswax foundation. If frames of both types are placed in a hive, the bees will use the beeswax and ignore the plastic. Some colonies build comb on plastic foundation in spotty, erratic patterns. This can be corrected by priming or painting the plastic foundation with melted beeswax. The beeswax can be melted in a double boiler and added to the plastic foundation with a paint brush or roller. The bees will use this layer of beeswax to start drawing out the honey comb cells. The beekeeper’s work doesn’t need to be too neat; the bees will correct it. At Peace Bee Farm we use our own chemical-free beeswax, saved from our honey harvest, as a major part of our integrated pest management program. We prefer the durable plastic foundation because, unlike beeswax foundation, it can easily be cleaned of old comb and reused.
--Richard

Removing Old Comb

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

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

Beeswax

Beeswax is an important product of the bee hive. Considered to be man’s first plastic, beeswax has been used for many purposes for thousands of years. Beeswax was used 16 thousand years ago in Paleolithic paintings found in Lascaux cave in southwestern France. The Egyptians used beeswax in shipbuilding and preparing mummies. The Romans used beeswax as a waterproofing material for painted walls, and both the ancient Romans and the Greeks used beeswax to produce metal objects in a process known as lost wax molding. The process, which begins with a beeswax model being coated with plaster, is still used today. After the plaster hardens, the beeswax is melted out and the empty space in the plaster is filled with molten metal. The result is a metal copy of the beeswax model. The English longbow was made of wood which was protected by a coating of beeswax. Archers today strengthen their bowstrings with beeswax. Sewing threads are strengthened the same way. Beeswax was used for hundreds of years to lubricate and seal cap and ball firearms. Along with many home and industrial uses, beeswax has long been used for making candles and cosmetics. Artists color cloth using beeswax in a technique known as batik and use beeswax in encaustic painting.

For beekeepers, one of the most important uses of beeswax is the manufacture of foundation for the bee hive. The foundation is the mid rib of the honey comb which is made of beeswax secreted by the two to three week old worker bees. When beekeepers purchase beeswax foundation, it contains traces of chemicals, mostly pesticides used to fight parasitic mites. At Peace Bee Farm, we save our own chemical-free beeswax cappings from the honey harvest to paint onto our plastic foundation as part of our integrated pest management program. Removing old comb and allowing the bees to replace it with freshly secreted beeswax removes chemicals and spores of honey bee diseases, such as American foulbrood, chalkbrood, and Nosema.
--Richard

Bee Hive Products

The honey bee hive produces a number of products that are useful to man. The first is, of course, honey. We know from cave paintings that men have been taking honey from bees for at least seven thousand years. Rita gave a presentation on the products of the bee hive to an interested group at the Collierville, Tennessee library. The next product of the bee hive is beeswax, which is the material from which the comb is made. Beeswax is secreted by glands on the underside of the young bees’ abdomens. Beeswax has been used extensively by man. High quality beeswax candles have always been a church tradition. Beeswax strengthens thread for sewing and bowstrings for archery. Beeswax was used extensively aboard ships, especially as a lubricant. Mixed with other waxes and oils, beeswax can be converted into many products from furniture polish, to boot and saddle conditioner, to lip gloss and hand lotions. Bee pollen is a high-protein hive product eaten as a food that contains vitamins and minerals. Propolis is the antibacterial and antifungal bee glue that honey bees make from the saps and gums of trees. It is harvested from the bee hive to produce medicines for man. Antonio Stradivari used propolis in the late 1600s when he built violins. Royal jelly is collected from the queen bee cells and is eaten by humans. This food of the queen bee is collected in tiny amounts, mostly in China. Almost none is collected in the United States. The products of the bee hive are sources of hundreds of items used by man.

Today’s picture is button bush, a shrub which thrives in the Arkansas Delta at the water’s edge. Button bush has an open, unprotected flower, which attracts a number of insect species. Click on the picture to see a honey bee sharing a button bush flower with a butterfly. A tiny solitary bee rests nearby.
--Richard

Curing Honey

As Shirley Murphy and I examined her new hive of bees, we looked over the various patterns of hive structures, all based upon the honey bee’s six-sided cells of beeswax. Each structure in the hive has a slightly different appearance. The brood area has open cells that are empty or that have eggs or larvae. There are capped cells in the brood area with a brown, slightly gritty texture. There are capped drone brood cells shaped like the nose of bullets. These rise above the surface of worker brood cells. There are free-form shapes called brace comb and burr comb that don’t lie in flat sheets. Vertical queen cell cups and queen cells hang from the bottoms of frames. In the honey supers, the bees make frames of comb to hold the liquid honey. Wet, uncured honey is held in open cells. Cured honey, which is chemically altered by the enzymes in the honey bee’s body and then evaporated, is capped with beeswax. The freshly secreted capping wax ranges in color from white to yellow. The surface of the beeswax cappings contains curved linear markings, giving the appearance of hieroglyphic writings.

Shirley noticed that all of the bees along the top edge of a frame of capped honey had their heads inside cells. These bees were curing the remaining cells of honey. The bees suck the honey into their honey gut, mixing it with enzymes. They then blow bubbles with the honey, expanding its surface area and promoting evaporation. Evaporation is increased by the bees’ fanning their wings. They cap the honey with freshly secreted beeswax once its moisture content is reduced to 18 percent water. In the picture you can see the bees actively involved in curing the honey. The yellow, textured structure is cured honey capped with beeswax and patterned like hieroglyphics.
--Richard

Building Honey Comb

The honey bee builds its own nest out of beeswax that the young bees secrete from glands on the lower side of their abdomen. Flakes of beeswax are secreted after the bees eat honey. For the bees to produce an ounce of beeswax, they must consume one pound of honey. For the bees to produce that pound of honey they must fly a combined distance of 55 thousand miles and visit two million flowers. That distance is more than twice the distance around the world at the equator. To accomplish the building of the brood nest, it is necessary to have a significant nectar flow from the flowering plants surrounding the bee hive.

Some of the honey bee colonies that we started in the spring have expanded their brood nest to fill two medium-size hive boxes and are now building the honey comb to occupy a third box. If you click on the picture, you can see the bees in the process of drawing out the beeswax to make the six-sided honey comb cells. The bees work together to fashion the flakes of beeswax into cells by starting at the top frame bar and working their way downward. In the picture, you can see bees in the lower half of the frame manipulating beeswax to draw out the comb. The beeswax of new honey comb is bright and white. The bees in the upper half of the frame are filling the newly completed cells with honey. Here, we see a strong colony drawing out perfect frames of honey comb during a good nectar flow.
--Richard

Nectar Flows in the Garden

In the honey bee’s natural hive, pollen and honey are stored in close proximity to the brood nest. This allows the bees to feed the larvae the large amounts of food that the developing bees require. The bees store surplus honey above the brood nest. The modern bee hive, developed by Philadelphia pastor L. L. Langstroth in 1851, is designed to match the honey bee’s natural tendencies in nest building. The Langstroth hive has a brood nest at the bottom and storage space above for the bees to store surplus amounts of honey. The honey storage boxes are called “supers,” because they are superimposed one on top of another. Inside the supers are frames which hold the beeswax combs that the honey bees make. Langstroth’s design, which he copied from natural honey bee nests, has removable frames. These removable frames can be examined to check for bee health. They also allow for the beekeeper to remove frames of honey

The bees take in as much nectar as the colony can collect whenever plants are in bloom. The one thing that honey bees don’t do is stop foraging just because they have stored enough honey to carry the colony through the next winter. The bees’ eagerness and ability to produce a surplus of honey makes beekeeping for honey production possible. One of the ways that the beekeeper can tell how much nectar is being brought into the hive and how much storage space is needed is to look in the honey supers. When there is a considerable amount of nectar coming in, the bees are building large amounts of beeswax comb to store the honey. The bees produce the beeswax in glands on the underside of their abdomen. To produce beeswax, the bees must eat honey. White beeswax being added to the sides of the top bars of the frames tells the beekeeper to add another super. That is the case with this colony of Peace Bee Farm bees in the Memphis Botanic Garden's urban orchard.
--Richard

Farmers Markets Open

In communities all across the country farmers markets are opening to enthusiastic crowds. There is a renewed interest in locally produced foods. Many people want to know the source of the food on their table. They are drawn to their local farmers markets by the desire to get fresh, nutritious foods grown by those who respect the environment and use fertilizers and chemicals prudently. For many, the trip to the local farmers market is a social event. For others the market evokes a sense of nostalgia. Handmade jams, jellies, baked goods, cut flowers, and artisan craft items are sought out. Freshly picked fruit and vegetables have a taste and texture that can’t be found in most grocery store produce departments. The area restaurant chefs shop early in day for the freshest foods and for items not readily found. The early season markets bring cool weather produce crops, but many in the crowd want summer vegetables on day one. The farmers markets thus become learning events for many, as they learn the seasonal nature of our food supply.

Peace Bee Farm sells much of its honey and products produced from beeswax at farmers markets. Here, Cissy, a long-time friend of Rita’s and mine, greets folks at the market.
--Richard