The Bee Hive in Fall

 

As the seasons change from summer to fall, conditions in the bee hive and tasks for the beekeeper change as well. Summer flowers that produce light flavored honeys become replaced by fall flowers that produce more robust honeys. Beekeepers typically finish their summer honey harvests and begin ensuring that hives have enough honey stores for entering the winter months when flowers are not blooming and bees rely upon stored food. Bee hive pests take an increased toll on hives in late summer and early fall. Small hive beetle populations often explode in weak or queenless hives. Small hive beetles begin laying eggs in great numbers when they detect a hive is under stress. Within a few days, thousands of ravenous small hive beetle larvae begin consuming a hive’s pollen stores, combs, and brood. Yeast, spread by the beetles, ferments honey in the hive; fermented honey is unacceptable to the bees and useless to the beekeeper. With the start of the fall season, queen bees naturally reduce their egg laying, and bee populations gradually decrease. At the same time, parasitic varroa mite populations typically reach their annual peak. As soon as the honey harvest is completed, hives need to be checked for varroa mite loads. The Honey Bee Health Coalition offers useful information for treating varroa mites at https://honeybeehealthcoalition.org/varroa/. If mite populations exceed thresholds, treatments need to be applied. Harsh chemicals should be avoided. Persistent chemicals remain in the beeswax combs and lead to resistant strains of parasitic mites.

 

Honey bees that emerge as adults in the spring and summer typically live about six weeks. However, honey bees that emerge in the fall may live for six months. This is important because the long-lived fall bees that survive the winter feed the first bee brood of the following year. Beekeepers can extend their queens’ egg laying through October by feeding pollen substitute which stimulates queens to lay eggs. Today’s photo: bumblebees and native pollinators are attracted to houseleek in our pollinator garden.

--Richard

Winter Hive Walk Around

 

Beekeeping involves observing hives from the outside as much as on the inside. Beekeepers can’t risk opening hives for a thorough examination during cold weather, but we should occasionally visit the hives during cold and inclement weather. Much can be told of the condition of the colonies inside the bee hives by observing from the outside. Bees do not venture outside the hives when temperatures are below 50 degrees Fahrenheit. They remain inside, clustered together to retain warmth. Honey bees eat their high-energy food, honey, and generate heat in their flight muscles. Only on warm days, bees venture from their hive to make cleansing flights to eliminate their body waste. You will see forager bees that are collecting water, nectar, and pollen. Observing foragers returning to a hive carrying pollen on their pollen baskets of their hind legs usually indicates that their queen is laying eggs. Finding some dead bees on the ground in front of the hives is normal, as a number of bees die inside the hive every day, and they are removed from the hive. A foul odor at a hive may indicate a dead colony with a large number of bees decaying on the hive’s bottom board. If the air temperature is close to 50 degrees, the beekeeper may briefly open a hive’s cover to see if the bees are alive. If the colony has died, the beekeeper needs to protect the combs so that they will not be destroyed by hive scavengers.

 

On my hive visit today, I observed bee pupae on the landing board at the entrance to one hive as seen here. Likely, the workers are aborting brood infested with parasitic Varroa mites. A genetic trait, called hygienic behavior, allows workers to detect Varroa developing with the bee pupae and abort the bee and mites. When the weather warms enough for me to open the hives, I will measure the mite loads and apply an appropriate treatment if the mites exceed prescribed thresholds.

--Richard

Pax Vobiscum

The year 2020 has been dominated by the Covid-19 virus. Viruses are infectious agents, smaller than bacteria, that infect all types of life forms, from animals and plants, even microorganisms. Millions of viruses exist; some infect a narrow group of hosts, and others infect a wide group of hosts. Viruses are carried, or vectored, from one host to another by a number of means. For example, viruses are passed between plants by chewing insects, and viruses causing the common cold are passed airborne between humans when infected people cough or sneeze. Humans and honey bees are affected by a number of viral diseases. Beekeepers fight the ill-effects of viral diseases of honey bees to maintain healthy colonies, aware of sacbrood disease and bee paralysis, caused by viruses, as well as Kashmir virus, black queen cell virus, and deformed wing virus. At least 50 viruses vectored by parasitic Varroa mites have been identified.

Humans are affected by a number of viral diseases including chicken pox and the common cold. A number of viruses exist in both honey bees and humans without doing harm to their host. However, a new virus, known as Covid-19, entered the human population and spread rapidly around the world this year. The highly contagious virus killed 300,000 people in the U.S. and sickened many more. Persons are susceptible to becoming ill after exposure to the Covid-19 virus unless they have developed an immunity either by having the disease and recovering or by receiving a vaccine. Vaccines for Covid-19 are being developed and distributed. Currently there are no vaccines to protect honey bees from the many viruses that are vectored by Varroa mites. The only effective means of protecting either humans or bees from viruses is to maintain a distance from the vector. With humans, that means wearing masks, maintaining separation, and isolation. With bees, it means controlling Varroa populations. Mindful and saddened by our losses to Covid-19, the Underhills of Peace Bee Farm wish peace be with you.

--Richard

Donkey Days of Summer

I met Elvis Opris, the owner of Brothers Honey Company, https://www.facebook.com/brothershoneyco, in his bee yard, and we started our day early with a breakfast of coffee and graham crackers on the tailgate of my truck. As I lit the smoker, a pair of donkeys, guardians of the farm’s livestock, invited themselves to join in on eating our graham crackers. After the harvest of the summer’s honey, it was time to perform a thorough inspection of the bee hives and start any needed treatments for parasitic mites. As with all hive inspections, we checked for obvious hive diseases and evidence that each hive had a prolific egg-laying queen. In the late summer and early fall seasons, queens lay fewer eggs, and bee populations begin a slight decline. Parasitic varroa mite populations, however, reach their annual maximum. It is important that beekeepers determine the number of mites in the hives and treat the hives if their mite loads exceed recommended thresholds. Information on testing methods, treatment thresholds, and appropriate mite treatments are found on the Honey Bee Health Coalition’s website, https://honeybeehealthcoalition.org/varroa/. Many of the available mite treatments have restrictions on their use. For example, to prevent contamination of honey by chemical treatments, most cannot be used when honey supers are on the hives. Some treatments have temperature restrictions, and need to be applied in the fall with cooler temperatures.

 

We measured the mite loads on hives that had stayed on the farm throughout the year using an alcohol-wash test and found varroa at close to the treatment threshold. Other hives that had been moved to another location for honey production returned in weakened conditions with a large percentage of colonies dead. We measured these surviving hives and found mite loads above the treatment thresholds, so we applied a treatment to all hives. We will measure the mite loads again during the fall to see if the treatments brought the mites below recommended thresholds. I suspect that the donkeys will expect graham crackers.

--Richard

Dog Days of Summer

The hot, droughty mid-summer period is often called the Dog Days of Summer, and a significant dearth of nectar often exists from July through September. At this time, locations that produce spring honey see a dramatic reduction in honey production. Bee hives located near agricultural crops continue to produce honey, especially if the crops are irrigated. Summer’s dearth is a time for harvesting spring and summer honey before fall wildflowers come into bloom. Typically, honey produced from flowers early in the year are mild in flavor and aroma, while honey produced in the fall is          quite more pronounced. Honey bees do not bring into the hives as much nectar and pollen during the summer’s dearth, however, they forage a considerable amount of water. In today’s photo, honey bees are foraging water from moss-covered rocks and duckweed in the bee yard’s water source. A short high speed video shows how the honey bee uses its tongue to take in water either by lapping or by sucking: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/11/science/honeybees-drink-video.html. Beekeepers should make sure that their hives have a reliable source of water throughout the year, and this is especially important in the heat of summer when bees use water to help cool their hives.

The Dog Days of Summer are a good time to take care of other bee hive issues. Small hive beetle populations often expand during the heat of summer. If unchecked, the beetles can overwhelm bee colonies. Integrated pest management approaches to beetle control include hive placement in the sun, beetle trapping, and minimal hive manipulations. Beekeepers should try to prevent multiple generations of beetles from existing in the hives before wintertime. Late summer is a good time to provide pollen substitute feeding to stimulate the queens to continue to lay eggs. It’s important that beekeepers plan for controlling varroa mites as soon as the honey is harvested and temperatures cool to within treatment limits. Consult the Honey Bee Health Coalition’s Varroa Management Decision Tool: https://honeybeehealthcoalition.org/varroa/.

--Richard

Toad Suck Daze

Toad Suck Daze is a social gathering held every spring in Conway, Arkansas, a state that has its share of towns with names reflecting a rich pioneer history. There’s Oil Trough, Fifty-Six, and Greasy Corner. Conway has its Toad Suck, a landing on the Arkansas River where the river makes a sharp bend from west to south. There are several speculations as to the origin of the region’s name, but a favorite involves rugged rivermen stopping at area taverns and sucking tankards of ale till their bellies swelled up like toads. Typically, crowds gather at Conway for Toad Suck Daze, a festival with live toad races, music and singing on the old court house grounds, and street vendors selling foods and crafts. Local beekeepers have tables filled with honey. This year’s Toad Suck event was interrupted by the world-wide spread of the deadly Corvid-19 virus with its necessary social distancing requirement which rendered the public event impossible. In response, aviators from the Lollie Bottoms Pilots Association conducted an airplane parade over the city for people to share an event while remaining personally separated. Today’s photo is the Bulldog Flight Formation Group passing over the city. When a virus enters a vulnerable population, it is likely to spread unchecked. With humans having no natural immunity to the virus, or vaccine, the virus spread exponentially.

Honey bee colonies experienced massive losses since the introduction of parasitic mites in the mid-1980s. The Varroa mite is especially harmful to bees because it vectors numerous viruses. One way that Varroa mites are spread between honey bee colonies is by having hives in close proximity. Separating hives, like separating people, helps reduce the spread of viruses. An interesting study of Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus describes a mechanism that the virus employs giving it a reproductive advantage, https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/04/deadly-virus-turns-honey-bees-trojan-horses. Jon Zawislak states, “There’s a fascinating and frightening arms race between bees and viruses. The biologist in me thinks “Wow!” but the beekeeper in me cringes.”

--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

Changing Seasons

The beekeeping year can be divided into two extended management seasons: spring management and fall management. September sees changes in the bee yard which result in changes in beekeepers’ hive management. Honey bee colonies forage any flowers in bloom. Summer flowers that bees use to produce light colored and mild flavored honey are dying back. Beekeepers harvest delightful summer honey and sell it at a premium. Fall flowers are now coming into bloom. From the nectar of fall flowers, bees produce honey that is typically darker in color and more robust in flavor. The aroma of the honey is likewise changing from mild to more pronounced. Today, I noticed the more pungent odor of fall honey being ripened by the bees as I opened my hives for a regular seasonal inspection. Bitterweed and fall asters are coming into bloom in central Arkansas. They soon will be followed by the bloom of smartweed and goldenrod. These fall wildflowers produce ample amounts of nectar for the bees to convert into honey. Prudent beekeepers leave the resulting stronger-flavored fall honey in the hive, and bees use this honey for food throughout the winter.

Another change occurring at this time of the year involves the population of bees and their parasitic mite pests. Honey bee populations peak in late summer and then gradually decrease through the fall. Parasitic Varroa mite populations are reaching their maximum now. If left unchecked, the mites will weaken the honey bee colonies and spread viral diseases which will kill the bees. Beekeepers need to measure the number of Varroa mites in their hives and take corrective action if the mite load exceeds treatment thresholds calculated by the Honey Bee Health Coalition. Methods of sampling the mites and optional treatments are available in the pamphlet, “Tools for Varroa Management: A Guide to Effective Varroa Sampling and Control,” available at honeybeehealthcoalition.org. I assisted James Metrailer, shown in today’s photo, sample Varroa mites in his Kenyan Top Bar Hives.

--Richard

Fall Bee Hive Set-Up

Fall bee hive management tasks prepare the hives for the bees’ winter survival. When the beekeeper sets up the hives for winter on a warm fall day, he or she will make a number of observations and hive adjustments. First, the hives must be queen-right. We don’t need to actually locate the queen, just see evidence that the hives have a healthy queen. Finding eggs or larvae tell us that a queen has been laying eggs recently. Queen bees reduce their egg laying in the fall and usually stop laying eggs completely as winter approaches. If a colony is weak, we should combine it with a strong colony. It is best to take our winter losses in the fall and not risk losing valuable honeycombs to wax moths. It is extremely important for beekeepers to manage parasitic Varroa mite levels in the hives. We should sample the bees and measure the mites using an alcohol wash or powdered sugar roll test. If Varroa levels exceed a three percent threshold, then a mite treatment of the hives is needed. Bees in colonies with high mite levels have a shortened life expectancy, and these colonies often perish during cold weather due to a lack of sufficient bees to provide winter cluster warmth.

To successfully over-wintering bees, the hives must have sufficient winter stores of honey, properly placed so that the bees can access it; and the hives must have adequate ventilation, particularly at the top. Arkansas hives require approximately 60 pounds of honey stores. Frames of honey should be on the edges of the fall cluster of bees, and the majority of the honey should be above the bees’ cluster. The beekeeper will likely need to rearrange hive boxes or frames to place the fall cluster low in the hive. As the winter progresses, the bee cluster will slowly move upward, eating through the stored honey. Remove all queen excluders, and reduce hive entrances as in today’s photo.

--Richard

Build-Up, Behavior, Brood

After evaluating a honey bee colony’s over-winter survival success, the beekeeper can observe other desirable traits for continuous stock improvement. The speed of a bee colony’s springtime population build-up is determined by the queen’s genetic make-up. It is also affected by the age of the queen and the queen’s successful mating with a large number of drones. Conditions in the environment also affect spring build-up. Favorable weather, producing ample pollen from flowers stimulates the queen to lay eggs. The beekeeper can stimulate the queen in the same manner by feeding pollen substitute in late winter and early spring. A honey bee colony’s behavior is largely dependent upon the queen’s genetics. Excessively defensive behavior can result from inbreeding or Africanized Honey Bee genetics. Drones in the hive’s surrounding area can influence a hive’s behavior if the drones impart defensive genes during queen mating flights. Environmental conditions also affect a honey bee colony’s behavior. A normally gentle colony is likely to become highly defensive if the hive is attacked by skunks at night. The beekeeper’s actions in manipulating the hive greatly affect the bees’ defensive behavior.

A bee hive’s brood pattern should contain large areas of continuous capped cells of pupae with few empty cells. Today’s photo is an example of an excellent brood pattern produced by a prolific queen. However, genetic conditions can negatively affect the brood pattern. Inbreeding results in brood with many empty cells. The bacterial infections, European foulbrood and American foulbrood, also leave brood with many empty cells. An environmental factor affecting brood pattern is the presence of Varroa mite-infested hives in the surrounding area which may spread these parasitic mites, often by workers robbing weak or collapsing hives. In the early spring, it is common for bees to fill brood nest cells needed by the queen for egg laying with nectar. The beekeeper can significantly affect a hive’s brood pattern by rearranging frames to help prevent brood nest congestion during a strong nectar flow.

--Richard

Puerto Rico's Bees

The island of Puerto Rico has a unique and extremely valuable population of honey bees that is capable of living with the parasitic Varroa mites. An article in Newsweek, http://www.newsweek.com/2017/12/29/puerto-rico-hurricane-destruction-doomed-honeybees-750213.html, describes Puerto Rico’s bees and their severe destruction as a result of the 2017 Hurricane Maria. Puerto Rico’s bees are Africanized Honey Bees which, in the Americas, have a reputation for being excessively defensive. Puerto Rico’s AHBs are by contrast relatively gentle in nature. Africanized Honey Bees occurred as a result of African honey bees being brought to Brazil in an effort to improve the genetics of Brazil’s bees. Several colonies of African bees escaped in 1956, and they hybridized with the more-gentle bees of the Americas. The hybrid bees are more defensive than regular honey bees, which are the same species. The author calls Africanized Honey Bees “killer bees,” but beekeepers rarely use this term because honey bees typically only sting to defend their hive and don’t attack people. Puerto Rico’s Africanized Honey Bees tend to show aggression toward Varroa mites while not being excessively defensive.

The Newsweek article explains that Africanized Honey Bees crossed the Caribbean in 1994, likely by boat, and established colonies in Puerto Rico. These became gentle bees, not expressing excessive defensiveness to humans. A second important trait of these new bees is of most importance to beekeepers: They are highly resistant to Varroa mites. How the changes in behavior happened is unknown. Genetic mutations may have occurred, or beekeepers on the populous island may have selected for these desirable bees. Anyway, the bees were struck a terrible blow, along with the human population, by Hurricane Maria that killed 80 to 90 percent of the bee colonies and decimated their floral forage. Puerto Rican beekeepers do not want to import new colonies of bees; they would rather expand their gentle, locally adapted bee colonies. However, the fate of these bees is uncertain. Today’s photo: bees remove Varroa mites by uncapping and aborting mite-infected pupae.

--Richard

Sampling Varroa Mites

Varroa mites are the greatest pest killer of honey bees. If left unchecked, these parasites will kill a colony of bees in about 18 months. It is, therefore, necessary for beekeepers to be aware of the mite load that a hive carries and to take corrective action when mite numbers exceed critical levels. Varroa mites live in bee hives, and they reproduce in the sealed brood cells of the pupal stage of honey bee brood. Mite levels typically peak in late summer at the time that queen bees slow their rate of egg laying. Excessive numbers of Varroa mites in the hive often lead to colony death. Mites weaken individual bees by sucking the bee’s blood, known as hemolymph. When a mite pierces the exoskeleton of a honey bee, it passes numerous viruses to the bee. At least 15 Varroa-vectored viruses have been identified. Varroa mites and the viruses that they transmit lessen the life span of the bees, leading to smaller winter colony clusters. These smaller clusters are often unable to generate enough heat to survive the winter.

Some individuals ignore the threat of parasitic mites and lose their bee. Others attempt to kill the mites with harsh chemical treatments. They are usually successful in reducing the colony mite loads, however, repeated use of harsh chemicals leads to populations of mites that are resistant to the chemicals. Beekeepers who take a judicious approach to controlling parasitic mites develop their own Integrated Pest Management program that involves mite sampling and treatments as necessary. The Honey Bee Health Coalition offers Tools for Varroa Management: A Guide to Effective Varroa Sampling & Control as a free document. The guide and video demonstrations of Varroa control techniques may be downloaded from http://honeybeehealthcoalition.org/varroa/. There are several methods of sampling a bee hive’s mite levels, including powdered sugar rolls and alcohol rolls. In today’s photo, Rita is counting the number of Varroa mites on 300 bees using a simple alcohol roll test.

--Richard

Mid-Winter Hive Check

Whenever the winter weather conditions are suitable, beekeepers examine their hives. An extremely mild Mid-South winter brought several warm days with temperatures rising above 50 degrees, allowing bees to fly from their hives and beekeepers to check them. If the temperature is barely above 50 and conditions are windy, one can only open the hives briefly. Extensive exposure can chill and kill brood. If somewhat warmer conditions exist, a more in-depth examination of hives is possible. We experienced several suitable beekeeping days in February. Any hive check involves looking for evidence of an egg-laying queen, ample stores of food, and signs of bee disease. A mid-winter check of hives revealed colonies with rapidly expanding populations. Queens were laying eggs in all hives; and while warm weather allowed the bees to fly and consume lots of honey, all of the hives held adequate food stores.

Hives with lesser populations of bees require particular attention. Examining one weak hive revealed a small population with no worker brood. I found the queen shown in today’s photo surrounded by a retinue of attendant workers constantly stroking her abdomen. However, the queen was damaged; her wings were incomplete. The queen appeared to be afflicted with Deformed Wing Virus, one of more than a dozen viral diseases commonly vectored by parasitic Varroa mites. A queen with deformed wings would have been unable to make her mating flights as a young adult. An unmated queen cannot lay the fertilized eggs needed to produce worker bees or queens. Without these bees, the colony is doomed to collapse. This deformed queen evidently emerged the previous fall. The workers in the hive were long-lived bees produced by this queen’s mother. Deformed Wing Virus affects drones and workers more frequently than queens. It is likely that a female Varroa mite entered the queen cell before it was capped, and then the parasitic mite transferred the virus to the developing queen pupa. Varroa-vectored viral diseases cause the loss of many honey bee colonies.

--Richard

Be Careful Out There

Organic acids are among the chemical treatments available for controlling parasitic Varroa mites in honey bee hives. In March of 2015 the EPA approved oxalic acid for use in the U.S.; it has previously been used in Europe. Researchers at the Laboratory of Apiculture & Social Insects in Sussex, England report their findings on the use of oxalic acid: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00218839.2015.1106777. Varroa mites occur in the hive both inside the capped brood cells and on the bodies of adult bees. Oxalic acid only kills the phoretic mites, the ones on the adult bees. There are three methods for treating bee hives with oxalic acid: trickling or dribbling, spraying, and sublimation. The Sussex researchers found the sublimation method, which uses an electrical heating element to cause oxalic acid crystals to convert directly to a gas, the most effective killer of mites. Treatments should be applied when temperatures are between 39 and 61 degrees Fahrenheit and when no capped brood is present in the hive. The EPA states that oxalic acid should be used in late fall or early spring when little brood is present. The Sussex researchers explain that even a little brood can protect a lot of Varroa mites from oxalic acid. The Sussex researchers placed 2.5 ml of oxalic acid crystals (half a teaspoon) in a heating device and placed it inside the hives sealed with foam to confine vapors. After the crystals vaporized, they left the hives sealed for 10 to 15 minutes.

As a word of caution, the EPA states, “In addition to the standard beekeeping suit (veil, long-sleeved shirt, long pants and gloves) as personal protective equipment, a respirator and goggles are required.” While oxalic acid occurs naturally in foods, such as carrots, Brussel sprouts, cabbage, broccoli, parsley, and rhubarb, the chemical can be extremely dangerous if it is breathed or if contacted with the skin or eyes. I highly recommend using other methods than oxalic acid to control Varroa mites. Photo: honey bee on early December sunflower.

--Richard

Swarm Season

Honey bees and beekeepers are at cross purposes when it comes to swarming. Bees readily swarm when conditions are right. For them, swarming is reproduction on a colony-wide basis. It means expanding their range, increasing their number of colonies, finding suitable new nesting sites, and eventually abandoning old nests and combs in decaying tree cavities. Swarming also breaks the brood cycle, helping to reduce the growth of Varroa mites in both old and new colonies. Beekeepers, on the other hand, usually try to reduce swarming, which often means the loss of a year’s honey production or pollination service. Honey bee colonies in the temperate zone typically expand their population in the spring and then divide their colony to form a second colony which flies away as a swarm. The act of swarming is risky for the bees; only a few swarms, maybe one in five, find a suitable permanent nest and survive for several years after leaving the parent colony’s nest cavity. Also, since the old colony must produce a new queen, there is the possibility that the requeening of the original hive may not succeed. If the old colony is not successful in requeening, it will rapidly die.

Collecting honey bee swarms is an exciting activity for many beekeepers. I assisted beekeeper Claranne Farris capture and hive a swarm that she encountered on an afternoon walk. The swarm hung on a pecan tree limb 10 feet in the air. Spraying a little sugar water on the swarm calmed the bees while I snipped the branch upon which they clung. After moving the swarm to a new hive, we noticed fanning by half a dozen workers, a good indication that the hive held the queen. Blocking the hive entrance with grass to slow the bees’ escape and adding one frame of open brood borrowed from another managed hive helps hold the swarm in place until they accept their new hive. Today’s photo: Claranne’s swarm resting on a pecan tree limb.

--Richard

Feral Bees and Swarms

Speaking at the Arkansas Beekeepers Association’s fall conference in Mountain View, Arkansas, Dr. Tom Seeley, author of Honeybee Democracy, described his genetics study of feral honeybees collected at Cornell University’s Arnot Forest in 1977 and 2010, http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2015/150806/ncomms8991/full/ncomms8991.html. The study analyzed honey bees before and after the arrival of parasitic Varroa mites. Surprisingly, colony densities in the forest remained the same after the introduction of the mites. Bees collected in 2010 were, however, the offspring of only a few surviving colonies that repopulated the forest. Finding feral survivor colonies is encouraging news for beekeepers.

Other work by Dr. Seeley defined the mechanisms honeybees employ in swarming. To determine honey bees’ preferences for choosing a nesting site Dr. Seeley used numerous swarm catcher hives. He questioned: How large a cavity? How large an entrance hole? Hive in the sun or shade? Direction hive should face? Can the hive be drafty? Can the hive be damp? Answering these questions help us design effective swarm catcher hives. Bees choose hives according to their ability to correct hive deficiencies. For example, if a hive is drafty, bees will often accept it because they can easily fill drafty cracks with propolis. On the other hand, bees will often reject a hive in the full sun because it is more difficult to cool in the summer. Pixar Studios filmed honey bee swarms moving from their swarm resting site to their permanent hive. Observing individual bees in flight lead to an understanding of how workers guide the swarm. Of great interest was Dr. Seeley’s finding of feral honey bee colonies surviving in the forest while carrying parasitic Varroa mites. Two significant factors seem to support the feral colonies’ survival. First, there is little drifting of forest bees. Next, honey bees in nature prefer a nest cavity of approximately 40 liters, close to that of a single Langstroth hive body. Small cavity hives develop brood nest congestion, leading to swarming. Swarming interrupts Varroa mite reproduction. Today’s photo: Ozark Mountain maples.

--Richard

Savannah, Tennessee

I spent a few most interesting fall days at Savannah, Tennessee with friends who, like me, devote much time studying history and honey bees. We combined our interests while visiting historic areas in the Tennessee River Valley. Jerry Hayes, Shirley Murphy, and I walked the fields and woods of Shiloh National Military Park, http://www.nps.gov/shil/learn/historyculture/shiloh-history.htm, the site of the horrific 1862 Civil War battle. Here, on the battlefield grounds we retraced the steps of ancestors who fought on both sides of the conflict. Shown in today’s photo are some of the 62 Confederate artillery pieces concentrated in Duncan Field, bearing down on the Sunken Road and Hornet’s Nest. We also visited other historic sites in the surrounding area, including the city of Savannah, where General U. S. Grant maintained his headquarters at the Cherry Mansion. Close by on Savannah’s Main Street the Tennessee River Museum, http://www.tennesseerivermuseum.org/exhibits.html, offers detailed views of the area’s Native American Mississipian culture, the U. S. Army’s forced removal of the Cherokee Nation in a march through Savannah known as the Trail of Tears. The museum also depicts pioneer life in the Tennessee River Valley.

Jerry and I visited Shirley’s well-tended bee hives before Jerry’s presentation at a meeting of the Savannah Area Beekeepers Association. Jerry, who has made a career of honey bee health issues, discussed current research into controlling Varroa mites and the viruses that they vector. He explained that some basic research that Monsanto is conducting with RNA interference technology, RNAi, offers promise. Jerry writes the popular “Classroom” section of the American Bee Journal. He conducted a live version of The Classroom for the Arkansas Beekeepers Association. Shirley is the charter president of the Savannah Area Beekeepers Association, an active group of Tennessee River Valley beekeepers. Shirley and I worked together, sharing our best honey bee genetic stock to breed locally adapted queens. Honey bee health improvement involves the efforts of devoted beekeepers in bee yards and researchers in labs. History surrounds us.

--Richard

The Bee Hive in Fall

The success of the colony to survive the winter is largely dependent upon the health of the bees in the fall and the beekeeper’s efforts in setting up the hive for winter. Fall is a time of transition in the bee hive. The bee colony’s population is changing from the short-lived bees of summer to the longer-lived bees that live through the winter. Bees born in the early fall are the ones that will produce the brood food for the first bees the colony rears the following year. Food stores are important. Bees must be able to sustain themselves until flowers bloom again in the spring. The bees store food of both honey and pollen in cells in the bee hive. Other necessary nutrients for the colony’s survival are stored in fat bodies in the individual bees’ abdomens. The more food that bees have available in the fall, the more nutrients they store in these fat bodies. These bees with well-filled fat bodies are best able to produce brood food for bees reared before flowers start blooming in the spring.

The health of the bees is important for the survival of the colony through the winter. If a large number of the colony’s bees are afflicted by viruses spread by parasitic mites or by Nosema disease, many bees will likely die over winter. Hives losing excessive bees often do not have enough bees to maintain a warm environment in the winter cluster. In preparing the hive in the fall, the beekeeper needs to check for the presence of bee parasites. If Varroa mite loads are high, the colony will not survive for very long. Reducing Small Hive Beetle levels to a minimum in the fall helps control these pests in the following year. The winter bee hive must also be provided with adequate ventilation to prevent the warm, moist air from condensing inside the hive and dripping water on the clustered bees. Today’s photo: Jeremy Bemis prepares hives for winter.

--Richard

What Happened to the Hive?

A beekeeper asks for my thoughts about the loss of a colony of bees. He explains, “I had a good sized colony, three boxes high, bottom and part of second were a mix of brood and honey, and top was all honey. Earlier in the summer I had another six inch super on top which was filled.” In late August, finding his hive empty, he explains, “There was no sound, in fact there was not one bee, and there was not one dead bee either. Every bee was gone.” However, on the day before, the hive showed much bee activity. Attempting to understand colony losses is curious and worthwhile.

The complete abandoning of a bee hive, called “absconding,” is not common in the temperate zone unless conditions make the hive completely undesirable. Colony Collapse Disorder has drawn much attention in recent years, but the conditions here don’t fit its definition. With CCD, there is a loss of older adult bees, but the hive is left with a queen, nurse bees, and brood. A very common cause of the loss of a colony of honey bees, however, is colony collapse due to Varroa mite infestation. This is particularly common in the time period of late summer, as in this late August case. Honey bee colonies grow rapidly in the spring to produce large populations of foragers to harvest nectar and pollen while flowers are in bloom. The queen slows her egg laying in the summer and the colony population gently declines. Parasitic Varroa mite populations follow a different pattern. Mites in a bee hive increase in number gradually throughout the year. By late summer bee numbers are declining while mites are increasing. As the Varroa mites bite bees, they spread bacterial, fungal, and viral infections throughout the colony, eventually killing it. Why was there plenty of hive activity the day before? Robber bees were removing honey stores. Today’s photo shows guard bees challenging incoming foragers. Guards are absent from dead hives.

--Richard

Controlling Varroa Mites

The Varroa mite remains the most deadly parasite of honey bees, and the control of Varroa is the most important issue in honey bee colony health. Tracheal mites pose a decreasing threat, but the Varroa mite continues to kill honey bee colonies. Varroa mites develop inside the capped brood cell with the developing honey bee pupa. During the honey bee’s development and after it emerges as an adult, the Varroa mite sucks nutrients from the bee. To access the bee’s blood, or hemolymph, the Varroa mite penetrates the honey bee’s exoskeleton with its mouth parts. The resulting wound is an entry point for numerous viruses. The viruses cause a number of honey bee diseases, and their combined effect is known as “Parasitic Mite Syndrome.” While Varroa mites can be found in all honey bee hives, colonies can withstand a low level of mites. Varroa reproduce at a relatively steady rate, unlike some other honey bee pests. Small hive beetles, for instance, reproduce in massive bursts to rapidly overwhelm a bee colony.

All attempts at controlling Varroa mites should begin with seeking lines of honey bees that have a natural resistance to mites. A heritable behavior trait of resistant honey bees is described as “Varroa Sensitive Hygiene.” Bees with this trait can detect reproducing Varroa mites and remove them along with the infected bee brood. Resistant bees also preen mites from the bodies of adult bees. These mites fall through the screens of bee hives equipped with screened bottom boards, preventing reinfestation of the hive. Beekeepers can dust the bees with powdered sugar to encourage preening. If Varroa mite levels in the hive are too high, “soft” treatments using essential oils or organic acids can be used to reduce the mite levels. Each of these measures can be used together as part of an Integrated Pest Management program. While parasitic mites have killed most feral honey bee colonies, some exist, like these bees clustered for winter in a hollow tree.

--Richard