Beekeeping at Heifer Ranch

 

Heifer Ranch at Perryville, Arkansas, part of Little Rock-based Heifer International, is celebrating its eightieth anniversary with a mission of ending hunger and poverty while caring for the earth. The ranch, a model of regenerative agricultural practices, tends to livestock using methods beneficial to the land. Assistant Rancher Lizzy Parker tends to the ranch’s bee hives and cattle along with their sheep, hogs, turkeys, and chickens. Lizzy keeps thorough records of her honey bee colonies as she does her individual cattle. This year has been busy in the ranch’s bee yard. Lizzy rearranged the hive stands along the edge of one of the ranch’s pastures, facing the morning sun and with afternoon shade to help cool the bees—and the beekeeper! She transitioned the bee hives from traditional Langstroth deep hives into lighter-weight medium-depth hives by cutting down the hive boxes in the ranch wood shop. Lizzy established bee hives, identified feral colonies among the ranch’s bee trees, lured swarms to bait hives, combined weak hives, expanded strong hives, and managed queens.

 

Lizzy, whose background as a science teacher and banker, is expanding her knowledge and experience in beekeeping. She attended four beekeeping classes at Bemis Honey Bee Farm in Little Rock, and she participates with activities of the Ozark Foothills Beekeepers Association. She compares the principles of genetics and breeding of honey bees and cattle. She provides resources of young brood to colonies in need. Working with Heifer Ranch’s bees, she discovered that colonies may experience brood cycle interruptions, often through supersedure of the queen. She learned to observe colonies over time as the bees are often able to correct hive problems themselves. I have been pleased to visit Heifer Ranch occasionally to provide a little assistance in the bee yard. While gaining experience herself, Lizzy is helping share the craft of beekeeping by producing a short video of the twelve rules of apiary etiquette, the steps beekeepers employ to safely and gently handle honey bees.

--Richard

Lizzy Parker

Eat Invasive Species?

Through photosynthesis, plants convert solar energy into carbohydrates forming the basis for a food chain that sustains all living creatures. Agriculture provides our most efficient usage of solar energy, and the honey bee is an integral part of agriculture. Without the bees and other pollinators, the diversity of plant life and food for wildlife, livestock, and humans would be greatly reduced. The January 2011 issue of National Geographic features in-depth coverage of the planet’s expanding human population, which is expected to reach seven billion this year and nine billion by 2045. The rapidly growing population will make an increasing demand upon the earth’s resources. The future will see increasing challenges in feeding the world. A New York Times article describes some novel, sometimes whimsical, approaches to solving two of our challenges: obtaining food and controlling invasive species. As food for thought, literally, the author challenges us to find ways to reduce the invasive plants and animals by finding ways to make them desirable food choices. He describes how chefs in the Florida Keys are preparing invasive lionfish and Chicago chefs are cooking invasive Asian carp. Individuals in other parts of the country are anticipating an abundance of invasive members of the mustard family in the spring. The incredibly fast-growing kudzu vine, an invasive legume imported to control soil erosion, is known as a food source. While these plants are considered a nuisance to some, they are important bee plants, producing both nectar and pollen. I have eaten delicious kudzu honey produced in Mississippi. The Times piece, “A Diet for an Invaded Planet: Invasive Species,” can be read at nytimes.com/2011/01/02/weekinreview/02gorman.html?_r=1&hpw.

Many people enjoy eating wild game. A number of states have programs that provide venison donated by hunters to feed the needy. A generous friend recently donated a flock of geese to provide sustainable nutrition for a distant family through Heifer International. Visit http://www.heifer.org/ to learn about their programs. Today’s photo: gently, domestic Toulouse geese noisily greet Peace Farm visitors.

--Richard

The Bee Hive in the Fall

A visit to the bee yards on a warm fall day finds many foragers entering some of the hives with their pollen baskets bulging with bright orange pollen. These hives are the ones that are still producing brood. Other hives show no pollen being collected. In these hives, the queens have either slowed egg laying or stopped for the season. Most of the pollen is converted into bee bread to be fed to the larvae. Little pollen is stored over winter. The earliest brood of next year will be fed from nutrients stored in fat bodies of the worker bees. I find no drone bees in the hives. To conserve food, the colonies have removed many drones during the drought and nectar dearth of late summer. The remaining drones were expelled from the hives with the first few cold nights of fall. Beekeepers look for hives with large populations of drones in the fall, as this is an indication that a colony may bee queen-less. The colonies have concentrated their honey stores into the brood nest. Most of the honey is capped with beeswax, but the bees leave some honey uncapped and ready to eat.

Today’s photo of foragers bringing pollen into the hive was taken by beekeeper Brandon Dill. You can see his work at www.brandondillphotography.com. Brandon studied beekeeping at Heifer International, a most interesting charitable organization devoted to relieving global hunger and poverty. Heifer began its work by providing animals such as cattle, goats, water buffalos, or camels to needy people to provide meat, milk, muscle, manure, money, materials, and motivation. Along with sustainable agriculture training, Heifer’s efforts are designed to help entire communities by having recipients pass along a female offspring animal to a family who has also undergone sustainability training. Among Heifer International’s many worldwide projects are “Beekeeping to Stop Poverty and Illiteracy” in Kosovo and “Seeds of Hope” in the southern counties of the Arkansas Delta region. Heifer International’s efforts may be viewed at www.heifer.org/.

--Richard