Fall Hive Management

The roadsides are bright yellow with bitterweed; pink-flowered smartweed covers any damp ground; and field margins bloom with goldenrod and various colors of fall asters. It is time to start preparing the hives for winter. The queens have gradually reduced their egg laying through the end of summer. Now, we would like to extend their egg production throughout October so that the colonies will have plenty of longer-lived worker bees going into winter. Unlike the bees that emerge in spring and summer which have a short lifespan, late season bees can survive the winter. These workers will be the ones that produce the food for the first brood reared early next year. We can stimulate the queen to continue to lay eggs by feeding protein to the hives. An easy way to do this is to place pollen substitute inside a weather-protected container outside the hives.

Our bees must have plenty of honey in the hives to eat over winter. If the hives are short on honey stores now, reduce hive entrances and feed sugar syrup to help the bees build up adequate food stores. It is important that the honey is positioned in the hives so that the bees can access it during cold weather. There should be some honey on the sides of the brood nest and plenty of honey above the brood. If one hive has more frames of capped honey than will be needed, the beekeeper may move some of these frames to hives that are short on honey stores. If queen excluders were used, we must remove them from the hives in the fall. Since bee clusters move upward in the hive during the winter, it is possible for a queen to be left trapped below a queen excluder accidentally left in a hive. A final issue in fall hive preparation regards ventilation. We must make sure that there is adequate air flow, especially at the top of the hive. Today’s photo: fall asters.

--Richard

A Glimmer of Hope

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

Lessons from Honey Bees

Bitterweed is now in bloom along the dry, rocky edges of gravel roads and in bare, unplowed fields. This bright yellow wildflower in the composite, or sunflower, family is a late summer blooming replacement to a series of yellow flowers that have covered the same ground throughout the year. The first was dandelion, which was followed by buttercups, groundsel, the mustards, and then tickseed coreopsis. By blooming in sequence, each plant is effectively pollinated by available bees. These plants have evolved a reproductive strategy that avoids competition for insect pollinators. Like other composites, bitterweed offers ample nectar and pollen to attract honey bees. Foragers, like the honey bee in today’s photo, are able to easily recognize bitterweed from other plants by its color and the shape and interrupted design of the flower’s petals. Click on the photo to see the bright orange-colored bitterweed pollen carried on the honey bee’s hind legs. Livestock will generally avoid eating bitterweed in a pasture, and it is said that it makes milk taste bitter if it is eaten by dairy cattle. Bitterweed is among a number of late summer and fall nectar-producing plants that give the late-season honeys a more robust flavor and aroma.

Our reader, Alan Wood, recently published an insightful piece in bestcollegesonline.com titled, 10 Valuable Life & Business Lessons You Can Learn from Bees. For example, the listing explains that honey bees are excellent communicators and that they are constantly evolving. This thought-provoking writing can be found in the website’s blog post dated August 11, 2010. This website offers a number of other useful pieces, such as 12 Essential TED Talks for Writers. The TED Talks include video presentations from authors in technology, entertainment, and design. This website offers good advice to anyone considering an online educational program. It also contains tips for success in school useful for anyone. The piece on learning from bees was written from a good understanding of honey bee biology.

--Richard

Bitterweed in Bloom

Throughout the year there has been a yellow flower in bloom along roadsides and undisturbed field margins. To the casual observer they may seem to be the same flower. However, there has been a progression from dandelion to buttercups to groundsel to mustards to coreopsis. Each has occupied the same ground, replacing its predecessor without a trace. The next bright yellow flower to come into bloom is bitterweed. Bitterweed belongs to the important bee plant family, the composites, or sunflower family, as do each of its predecessors except the mustards. The composite flowers provide both nectar and pollen for the honey bee.

Click on the photo and you can see that this honey bee is foraging for pollen from the bitterweed. You can see the orange-colored packets of pollen in the bee’s pollen baskets on her hind legs. The same honey bee will not forage for both nectar and pollen. Other honey bees from the hive will visit this bitterweed plant for nectar. As Charles Darwin observed, the honey bees foraging on bitterweed will continue to forage bitterweed as long as it continues to be useful. This behavior is called flower constancy. Foragers are visually guided to the plant by its bright color and the shape of the petals as well as the interruptions between petals. A honey bee has no trouble telling a bitterweed from a golden aster blooming nearby. Ultraviolet nectar guides direct the honey bee to the nectary in the center of the flower. Bitterweed growing in pastures is normally passed over by grazing cattle. If dairy cattle feed on bitterweed, it is said that it will make the milk bitter. As honey bees forage on bitterweed and other fall flowers, the flavor of the honey changes from the mild flavored honey of the summer to a much more robust honey.
--Richard