Congratulations, Jon Z!

 

Beekeepers across Arkansas and beyond our borders know Jon Zawislak (rhymes with Zah-Fish-Lock) simply as Jon Z. Now, we are delighted to announce that Jon has successfully defended his dissertation for a PhD in Entomology from the University of Arkansas. Jon, an Apiculture Instructor with the Cooperative Extension Service of the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture is a valuable resource to beekeepers. An Eastern Apicultural Society Master Beekeeper himself, Jon often helps me analyze honey bee health issues. When I needed to respond to a beekeeper’s question about haplo-diploidy sex determination in bees, I called on Jon for an explanation (https://peacebeefarm.blogspot.com/2012/09/honey-bee-super-sisters.html). Jon trains many beekeepers, and he is a tremendous asset to the Arkansas Beekeepers Association. Jon serves as an ex officio member of the ABA’s Executive Committee, its webmaster, guest speaker recruiter, and himself a frequent presenter. Jon’s research looks into serious problems associated with honey bee health. He participated in measurements of the effects of neonicotinoid insecticides on honey bees. In one of his research projects Jon identified pathogens retarding the growth of the invasive honey bee pest, the small hive beetle. Jon found some of these potential biological control pathogens in the soil of my Arkansas bee yards. Jon conducted research into the foraging behavior of honey bees by attaching tiny labels onto bees and photographing their movements as they flew out and back into their hives.

 

Jon Zawislak is a recognized leader in his profession, and he encourages others to excel. He challenged one of his sons to make good grades in school, and he rewarded him with a sky-diving experience. Jon encouraged me to complete the EAS Master Beekeeper certification program, and he recruited me to teach beekeeping in Africa. Jon’s PhD program did receive an interruption when he donated a kidney. Such generosity! I am deeply proud of Dr. Jon Zawislak, shown here at an ABA conference with Dr. Jeff Harris and Audrey Sheridan of Mississippi State University and EAS Master Beekeeper, David Burns.

--Richard

A Community of Beekeepers

We don’t keep bees alone; our bees don’t live alone. Beekeepers belong to a social community. We share the environment with other beekeepers and all of the bees from miles around. In recent years it has become apparent that our managed bees and our beekeeping practices affect all of the bee colonies in our area. Healthy bees from our hives may rob the honey from the hives of collapsing colonies and return with parasitic Varroa mites. Likewise, if we are not controlling the mites in our hives, we are spreading them to hives for miles around. Bees from mite-infested hives in the area may abandon their hives and move into our hives, bringing mites with them. Mite-infested hives can reasonably be called “Varroa bombs.”

Beekeepers, farmers, gardeners, and homeowners make up communities of individuals whose activities affect each other, sometimes benefiting and at other times adversely affecting others. There are specific groups within the community of beekeepers: those who manage their hives in different manners, those who manage their hives for different purposes, those who treat their hives with different products or measures to control parasitic mites, and those who keep their hives in different forage areas. There are urban beekeepers who may contend with city ordinances or neighborhood association rules, forest beekeepers, and farmland beekeepers. There are beekeepers with stationary hives and others with migratory operations. While there are many ways that we manage bees, we all belong to a community of bee stewards.

Perhaps, the most important communities that beekeepers belong to are the local, state, and regional beekeeping associations. These groups are effective in sharing useful information on managing bees in today’s environment. One of these active groups in Tennessee is the Savannah Area Beekeepers Association. I was honored to be invited to speak at the association’s annual Short Course in Beekeeping along with EAS Master Beekeeper Kent Williams, shown here giving a presentation on new developments in controlling Varroa mites.

--Richard

The Winter Solstice

The sun rose this morning as far south along the horizon as it will appear anytime through the year. We call this day the winter solstice. This is also the year’s shortest day. Starting tomorrow, the sun will appear to rise slightly farther to the north daily until the summer solstice, June 21, when the sun rises in its northern-most position. These apparent movements of the sun along the horizon have been observed since ancient times. They allowed early peoples to develop calendars, vitally necessary for telling farmers when to plant precious seeds needed to feed increasing populations. The life cycles of many species are tied to the seasonal changes associated with the length of days. Among those species is the honey bee. For the honey bee, the winter solstice is the beginning of the new year. Queen bees start laying eggs on the winter solstice.

Here, in the temperate zone, the blooming of most flowering plants follows the length of days as well, blooming spring, summer, and fall. Few flowers are found in the winter, and the life cycle of the honey bee follows the availability of flowers. The bees gather nectar from flowers, convert it into honey, and survive on it through the winter. The honey bee is unique, being the only insect in the temperate zone that stays alive and active throughout the winter. Honey bees eat the high-energy honey that they produce and generate heat by vibrating their flight muscles. They are thus able to survive in cold weather, clustered tightly together to retain warmth. Other insects, like lady bug beetles, hibernate in cold weather, protected under tree bark or leaves. Wasps, hornets, and yellowjackets die off annually, leaving a mated queen to start the next year’s colony. I communicated today with my friend, EAS Certified Master Beekeeper Wubishet Adugna, in Ethiopia, shown here with coffee that he exports. Wubishet’s tropical honey bees follow seasonal changes based upon annual rainfall patterns instead of the length of days.

--Richard

Jon Zawislak

His name is Jon Zawislak; it rhymes with “Zah-FISH-Lock,” but everyone knows him simply as “Jon Z.” Jon’s known by beekeepers across the state of Arkansas and beyond for his engaging beekeeping training regularly accentuated with humor. Jon is an Eastern Apicultural Society Master Beekeeper and Arkansas’ State Extension Apiculturist. In this position, Jon trains beekeepers and conducts research on honey bee health issues. I have encountered numerous beekeeper students of Jon’s classes. They are enthusiastic, and they always feel like they are well-prepared by Jon’s instruction to start their beekeeping adventure. I have participated in some of his research. In one study, Jon searched for parasites that might be preying upon the invasive Small Hive Beetle. Sampling bees, combs, and soil surrounding the bee hives, Jon found on my farm and several other Arkansas sites a parasite attacking these pest beetles. The parasite has the potential of being a biological control of Small Hive Beetles, https://peacebeefarm.blogspot.com/2011/10/are-beetles-vulnerable.html. Jon also participated in a study of the effect of neonicotinoid insecticides on honey bees, https://peacebeefarm.blogspot.com/2015/02/neonics-questioned_12.html. While many wanted to blame the widely-used class of insecticides for causing excessive bee colony losses, Jon made measurements to get an accurate assessment of the effect of the insecticides. It now appears that the neonicotinoids are not the sole cause of the losses, but instead one of several contributing factors. Jon is always available to answer a technical question. When a reader of this blog questioned the mechanism for honey bees’ passing along genetic information, I asked Jon to explain for me, https://peacebeefarm.blogspot.com/2012/09/honey-bee-super-sisters.html. I am particularly grateful for Jon’s participation with the Arkansas Beekeepers Association as an active member of our leadership, https://peacebeefarm.blogspot.com/2015/11/bee-lining-in-ozarks.html.

Jon Zawislak received the prestigious 2018 Roger A. Morse Outstanding Teaching/Extension Service/Regulatory Award at the Eastern Apicultural Society’s conference at Hampton, Virginia. Dr. Morse developed the EAS Master Beekeeper program at Cornell University. Jon provided me the encouragement to complete my EAS Master Beekeeper certification. He is truly an inspiration. Congratulations, Jon Z.

--Richard

Pax Vobiscum

Wubishet Adugna hosted me in his home country of Ethiopia when I travelled to Africa as a USAID-funded volunteer, charged with teaching modern beekeeping techniques. Together, we travelled extensively through the Ethiopian highlands visiting beekeepers, farmers who tend honey bees in apiaries and tree tops sites. The farmers manage bees and tend crops, gardens, and livestock. When I taught beekeeping classes in Wubishet’s training facility at Bonga, Ethiopia, I spoke in English, and Wubishet translated my words into Amharic. Travelling together, we had the opportunity to discuss beekeeping traditions in detail. I am sure that we each learned from each other. I certainly learned much about honey bees and beekeeping from Wubishet. In part, I learned that much of the western literature on beekeeping in the tropics did not accurately describe beekeeping in Ethiopia’s diverse semi-tropical geography. Together, Wubishet and I shared our understanding of the art and science of beekeeping. The combination of these traditions is to me the joy of beekeeping. In our classes, we demonstrated how to manage honey bees in modern Zander bee hives, harvest honey and beeswax, and produce candles, cosmetic products, and mead. Ethiopia’s traditional beverage is tej, a most-enjoyable mead wine.

It was my great honor to sponsor Wubishet when he travelled to the United States and successfully completed the tests to become an Eastern Apicultural Society Certified Master Beekeeper at the 2017 EAS conference at the University of Delaware. Wubishet is the first EAS Master Beekeeper from the African continent. Wubishet teaches the art and science of beekeeping to farmers as an important part of Ethiopia’s mixed agriculture. My son, Peace Bee Farm beekeeper, Tod Underhill, had the opportunity to work with Wubishet on separate occasions. Here, you can see Wubishet and Tod enjoying a liter of tej in Addis Ababa. I encountered Christians, Muslims, and Naturalistic Believers living in harmony in Ethiopia. For these people and others, the Underhills of Peace Bee Farm extend our wish that peace be with you.

--Richard

Pax Vobiscum

I recently completed my tenure presiding over the Arkansas Beekeepers Association. It was a true honor to be entrusted with the leadership of the state’s beekeeping trade association. In this role I had great help. A capable team of committed volunteer leaders from all areas of the state played an important role in planning and conducting the association’s tasks. These leaders, the Officers and Regional Directors of the ABA’s Executive Committee, included James Rhein, Larry Kichler, Britt Bailey, Linda Rhein, Alan Isom, Howard Waddell, Steve Cline, Patrick Edwards, Jeremy Bemis, Howard Hawthorn, Richard Coy, Melissa Mencer, and Jon Zawislak. Each of these individuals assisted in conducting our educational conferences and bee equipment trade shows and assisted roughly 30 local beekeeping associations representing 2000 beekeepers.

Recent years have found me increasingly involved in training and mentoring of beekeepers. I have been conducting beekeeping training classes with Jeremy Bemis at Bemis Honey Bee Farm in Little Rock, Arkansas. We are finding great interest in beekeeping training, especially among the expanding number of new beekeepers. Further, I was honored to be asked to participate in the development of a new beekeeping college located in one of the villages where I trained beekeepers in Africa. My host, Wubishet Adunga, is building the college located at Bonga in the highlands of southwestern Ethiopia. For this project I edited the curriculum for the Apinec Apiculture Technical Vocational and Education Training College. Beekeeping and production of hive products are important for food security in the developing world. The worldwide communications between beekeepers and the efforts being taken to provide training and protect bees and the beekeeping industry is visible in today’s photo. At a meeting of the Eastern Apicultural Society, I noticed a picture of myself inspecting brood in one of my Arkansas bee yards. The picture is on the cover of training manuals published in England by Bee Craft. The Underhills of Peace Bee Farm wish beekeepers and peace-loving people worldwide that peace be with you.

--Richard