Four Years of CCD

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

The Honey-Bound Hive

Honey bees are tireless workers. Anytime that there is nectar available and flying conditions permit, foragers are out collecting. The guard bees at the hive entrance welcome any bee entering with nectar, even if it is a forager drifting into the wrong hive. Once the nectar is inside the hive, it is stored in combs, even if there is not available normal storage space. Inside the bee hive, we normally find the brood nest in the lower, center portion of the cavity. The brood, which consists of the eggs the queen laid as well as developing larvae and pupae, is surrounded by a narrow layer of pollen and a layer of honey. Larger honey storage areas for the colony’s winter food stores usually exist above the brood nest. The queen moves about the brood nest laying eggs in continuous patterns of cells as the workers clean and prepare the brood nest. The workers emerge after 21 days from the time the eggs are laid. The emergence of the adult bees frees the cells for the queen to lay more eggs. However, if flowers come into bloom in abundance, worker bees will store the nectar in the brood nest cells. The bees convert the nectar into honey, and the crowded hive may be described as being honey-bound.

The loss of egg-laying capacity is one of the great stimulators for the colony to swarm. It is important for the beekeeper to take corrective action to prevent a honey-bound colony from swarming. Frames of honey can be removed from the brood nest and replaced with empty drawn comb or frames of foundation. The removed honey can be extracted, or the frames can be moved to a honey super if the same size boxes are used. The honey can also be used to boost a weak colony. Click on today’s photo of a honey bee and a solitary bee foraging for nectar from the small, exposed flowers of the native tree, alternate leaf dogwood.

--Richard

Native Dogwoods in Bloom

We are attracted to flowering plants by the same things that attract honey bees to them. We see the color of the blossoms and their shape. The honey bees pay particular attention to the interruptions in the pattern of the petals. We smell the fragrance of the flowers. The honey bee’s antennae can sense the faintest of odors. They can detect the smell of flowers even when flying over the plants. The bees can discriminate between different nectars offered to them by scout bees. This attraction of the honey bees has the result of accomplishing pollination of the flowering plant. The honey bee is rewarded for its work in pollinating the plant by receiving a small ration of pollen or nectar. Thus, the flowering plants and the bees share a most important beneficial relationship. Click on the picture and you can see a honey bee approaching a native dogwood. In preparation for collecting nectar, the bee’s tongue, or proboscis, can be seen being brought forward from the area where it normally rests under the head.

Native dogwoods are in bloom in the woodlots thinly scattered across the Arkansas Delta. These low trees of the hardwood understory have tiny flowers unlike those of the well-known flowering dogwoods. The native dogwoods are quite fragrant and attract honey bees as well as a number of native pollinators. I think that the dogwoods smell soapy; Rita says they smell like a bouquet of flowers. After the dogwoods are pollinated by the bees, they produce their fruit, a berry. The berries are eaten by numerous birds which scatter the seeds. Deer browse the dogwood, a favored food, clearing the ground for the growth of wildflowers and more dogwoods. The honey bee is a partner in a number of beneficial relationships.
--Richard