Honey Bee Secondary Swarms

A Little Rock beekeeper captured a swarm and hived it in his Kenyan Top Bar Hive. Ten days later he checked on the bees and found the sizeable colony building combs and filling them with pollen and honey. The bees were gentle and their behavior was normal. Carefully inspecting the combs, the beekeeper found no eggs or larvae, however, he located a small queen in the hive. It is likely that the beekeeper captured a secondary or “after swarm,” a swarm emitted after a primary swarm. Beekeepers across the Mid-South have seen many primary and secondary swarms this year. The above normal number of swarms may largely result from this spring’s wet weather that encouraged profuse blooming of plants like the invasive privet shown being visited by a carpenter bee in today’s photo. Privet nectar fills brood nest cells needed for egg laying; this congestion leads to swarming.

As a honey bee colony prepares to swarm, it typically produces a number of queen cells. Then, when the colony divides and swarms, the old queen leaves with roughly half of the bees. The original hive is usually left with a sealed queen cell for a queen to emerge, mate, and remain in the hive. If the hive emits one or more secondary swarms, they will contain virgin queens. All virgin queens need five or six days to mature after emerging as adults before their mating flights and another five or six days of further ovary development afterward before they begin laying eggs. A secondary swarm’s virgin queen will not be able to lay eggs as quickly as a primary swarm’s queen. After a secondary swarm moves into its new hive, its virgin queen must make mating flights before she can begin laying eggs. Thus, there will be a couple of weeks delay before egg laying begins in the new hive. Throughout this time the virgin queen emits pheromones that organize the colony in a similar fashion to mature, mated queens.

--Richard

Fruit Trees in Bloom

Wild plum trees are the first white-blooming trees seen in the forest in the early spring. The white blossoms of plums and pear trees often mark abandoned pioneer home sites. These are the first of a number of flowering fruit trees to bloom in the Mid-South. Their bloom is an important milestone on the beekeeper’s calendar. With the start of the fruit tree bloom, beekeepers expect to find prolific expansion of the bee colonies. Abundant nectar and pollen from plum, pear, apple, peach, cherry, and crabapple blossoms along with other emerging wildflowers stimulates the queens to lay eggs. Many of these fruit trees rely upon honey bees to cross-pollinate the blossoms with pollen from similar tree varieties to produce fruit. The peach, as in today’s photo, is an exception. Most peach varieties are self-fruitful; they produce fruit without the assistance of honey bees. This is fortunate today, as cool weather keeps the bees in their hives. The peach tree I find today, growing on an old farmstead, has no bee visitors. Early spring weather in the Mid-South is often unsettled. Effective pollination of fruit trees may be limited by cool or rainy days that prevent bees from flying.

The New York Times reports honey bee colony losses in 2012 at 40 to 50 percent, an increase over recent years. See http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/29/science/earth/soaring-bee-deaths-in-2012-sound-alarm-on-malady.html?_r=2&. Colony losses at this level seriously affect commercial beekeeping and fruit production. The majority of honey bee colonies in North America are used for crop pollination service. Many beekeepers suspect the systemic neonicotinoid insecticides in widespread use to control insect pests on crops as contributing to honey bee colony losses. The insecticide manufactures deny that their products are responsible for the bee die-off. Independent testing will be necessary to prove the safety of this new class of insecticides. Further study is also needed to determine the effect on bee health resulting from the interaction between the many environmental chemicals from pesticides to herbicides to fungicides encountered by foraging honey bees.

--Richard

Sustainable Agriculture

The annual Farm to Table Conference held in Memphis at Rhodes College is designed to bring together farmers and those who buy and use their produce. I conducted an introduction to beekeeping session attended by a number of farmers considering adding bee hives for pollination. The farmers conducting other sessions spoke along common themes: sustainable agriculture, quality of produce, food security, and integrated pest management. Sustainable agricultural practices include irrigation water usage and conservation, soil erosion control, and soil moisture retention. Several farmers spoke of the effects of climate change on farming practices. Climate change especially affects water usage and plant variety selection. Certain plant varieties known to be reliable in the past must now be replaced by a diversity of varieties that thrive under new environmental conditions. Climate change also affects planting dates, growing seasons, and harvest dates. To grow high quality produce, the farmers stress testing for soil fertility, acidity, and nutrients. Integrated pest management involves disease and pest prevention and control. Specific crop pests must be identified, and broad-spectrum insecticides should be avoided. Non-chemical controls include selection of resistant plant varieties, crop rotation, removal of diseased plants, and mulching between crop rows.

Robert Hayes, a New Albany, Mississippi blackberry grower, who also manages bees to pollinate his berries, attracts hummingbirds to his farm. Adult hummingbirds feed crop-damaging thirps and aphids to their young birds, a biological pest control. Farmers recognize the need for beneficial insects, particularly honey bees, to pollinate their crops. As well as keeping honey bees, Hayes drills nesting holes in dead trees to make nesting sites for blue orchard bees, effective native pollinators. My presentation to the other farmers explored the reality of maintaining honey bees on today’s farms. It is unfortunate that with the high level of annual colony losses beekeeping can hardly be called sustainable agriculture. The farmers’ awareness of agricultural practices that help and harm bees is important. Cool weather today prevented honey bees from foraging elm trees in full bloom.

--Richard

Red Maple in Bloom

There are several milestones in the beekeeping year that we follow to give us an indication of what the bees are doing. Some of these milestones are the changes in seasons that we follow on our calendar. We know that queen bees start laying eggs after the winter solstice, December 21. Other milestones involve the bloom of major nectar and pollen sources. I always look for the red maple bloom. Maples and elms bloom in late winter. The weather at this time of the year is often unsettled. If the weather is cold when these trees bloom, the bees don’t fly; and they miss the reward of nectar and pollen. On warm days, bees head to the river bottoms to forage from flowering trees. Today, warm temperatures brought bees out in great numbers. Red maples growing in plains above rivers were covered with honey bees and native bees, including small, brightly colored sweat bees, native bees that forage close to their nest. Honey bees, like the one in today’s photo, travel great distances to river bottoms to fill the pollen baskets on their hind legs with dull yellow-colored red maple pollen. The sudden surge in pollen being brought into the hives is a strong stimulant to the queens to start laying eggs.

Other early season plants in bloom include the skunk cabbage located in damp soils of forest margins and dandelions in pastures and lawns. From the nectar, the bees collect carbohydrates; from the pollen, the bees derive protein, fats, vitamins, and minerals. Having a mixture of available pollens ensures that the bees will have a complete diet to feed their brood. The red maple milestone tells the beekeeper that the first nectar and pollen flows are beginning, and hive activity is ready to start increasing rapidly. As brood production expands, beekeepers need to monitor for hives that are light in weight and supply emergency feeding. If stored honey is depleted, late winter nectar sources may not be sufficient.

--Richard

January Thaw

Winters in the temperate Mid-South are not continuous. There are cold periods interrupted every few weeks by mild days. Even though this region’s coldest months are January and February, it is not uncommon for winds to shift from north to south to bring a few warm days, a January thaw. These breaks in the weather give honey bees an opportunity to break out of their winter cluster to eat food stores in the hive, make cleansing flights, and even scout for food to forage. Today, I found the first wildflowers of the year in bloom, dandelions. Winter bees often forage dandelions for pollen.

Warm days also give beekeepers a chance to make a brief check of bee hives. With temperatures above 50 degrees Fahrenheit and no strong breezes, it is safe to open the cover of the hives and peer inside. We don’t, however, want to make a deep inspection of the hives until the temperatures warm considerably.  Today, with warm temperatures and mild breezes, I lifted the hives a couple of inches from the rear to feel the weight of each hive. I then checked the food stores on light weight hives. Most hives held a full box of capped honey above the cluster of bees. In one hive I found the cluster had moved to the very top of the upper box. Bees located in this position during mid-winter are quite vulnerable to die from starvation. Even though the hive contained plenty of honey, colonies often do not move through the hive to access the food as they need it. Clusters of bees tend to move upward in the hive during winter months and not downward. Breaking apart a hive in cool weather may chill the bees and any brood. Rearranging a hive in mid-winter is also risky. Emergency feeding helps protect vulnerable colonies. Today, I poured several pounds of granulated sugar atop the inner cover of the hive for the bees to access from the center hole.

--Richard

Cotton and Bees

Crops grown in today’s modern industrial agriculture employ improved seed, chemical pesticides and fertilizers, irrigation, and heavy machinery. Farmers are keenly aware of industrial agriculture’s impact on the natural world, and most producers are diligent stewards of the environment. They take great care in protecting their land and the wildlife that lives on it. Cathy Foust, Shelby County, Tennessee’s Extension Director, invited me to attend a presentation on protecting pollinators by Dr. Don Parker, Integrated Pest Management Manager with the National Cotton Council. Also attending were several other beekeeping friends, Richard Coy, president of Arkansas Beekeepers Association, Charles Force, president of Memphis Area Beekeepers Association, and Jon Zawislak, apiary instructor with University of Arkansas Extension Service. The audience of interested agricultural producers listened intently as Dr. Parker discussed the impact pesticides make on honey bees and native pollinators. Many of the producers were not aware that honey bees forage cotton fields. Some had not considered the effect of cotton insecticides on beneficial insects; they had only concentrated on killing pests. Cotton growers asked numerous questions of the beekeepers and seemed to be equally interested in protecting pollinators.

Dr. Parker spoke of some of the difficulties involved in protecting beneficial insects while trying to control pest insects with insecticides. One suggestion was to only apply insecticides at night while bees are not flying. Dr. Parker mentioned how dangerous it would be to fly a crop duster at night with cotton fields surrounded by trees and power lines. Such practices are completely unacceptable. Cotton growers and beekeepers were interested in discussions of the effect on beneficial insects when spraying insecticides on crop plants with “indeterminate growth” in which pollinators are continuously attracted by nectar. Here, bees can be poisoned even when the crop is not blooming. Other insecticide spraying challenges exist with plants, like cotton, which have “extrafloral” nectaries secreting nectar outside the flower. Today’s photo: a honey bee and a bumblebee, a native pollinator, share fall goldenrod near cotton fields.

--Richard

Training in Shambu

My training of beekeeper trainers in Shambu includes both classroom and practical experience. Ninety-seven percent of Ethiopia’s honey bees are housed in traditional bee hives high in trees. Traditional beekeeping primarily involves placing in trees a number of hives, rubbed with a native plant as a bee attractant. In western Ethiopia, the plant is “kusaya” in Oromifa or “kosereta” in Amharic, a plant with a lemon odor similar to honey bee Nasanov pheromone. After swarms move into the hives, beekeepers wait for the bees to expand their colony and build up stores of honey. Then, at night, a beekeeper climbs a tree and lowers a hive down to a waiting partner. Using large amounts of smoke, the beekeepers drive the bees out of the hive and cut out the honeycombs. The evicted colony of bees is lost. The honeycombs are crushed by hand, and the honey and beeswax are collected together. The traditional beekeepers actually have little interaction with the hive and the bees. The students, each seasoned beekeepers, are extremely interested in the workings of a honey bee colony.

Ethiopia’s rainy season dictates our training schedule. Intermittent rains and power outages bring us indoors. Using a portable generator, we view photos of healthy bee hives and hive problems; many are the same photos seen in this blog. Some have not seen inside a hive with the bee colony intact. Their only experience involves driving bees from the hive at night. For practical experience, the beekeepers prepare a modern Zander hive and transfer the bees from a traditional hive to it. This procedure will allow beekeepers to catch swarms of bees in the treetops and then move them to modern hives where they can be tended allowing for continuous harvests without destroying the bee colony. First, beeswax is melted and cleaned to produce foundation. In today’s photo, skilled hands embed support wires into the freshly made sheet of foundation using a knife heated in an open fire.

--Richard

Pollination by Honey Bees

Half of the managed honey bee hives in the United States are in California in February for almond pollination. California maintains a large beekeeping business, and it receives many truckloads of bee hives from across the country. This huge movement of hundreds of thousands of hives full of live honey bees is one of modern agriculture’s greatest accomplishments. California leads the world in the production of almonds, nuts prized for their taste and as a healthy food. However, almond trees require pollination by bees. It is bluntly stated that an almond tree without honey bees is merely a shade tree. The pollination of almonds and numerous other crops is accomplished by migratory beekeepers who move their bee hives around the country by truck. Honey bees are ideally suited for migratory pollination service due to their behavior. Honey bees, living in large colonies, can be safely trucked in durable wooden Langstroth hives. The honey bee exhibits a foraging behavior known as “flower constancy” in which individual bees forage from the same plant species as long as the plant is secreting nectar or producing pollen. Charles Darwin described this behavior which makes the honey bee an efficient crop pollinator since only pollen from the same species of plant is transferred among flowers. Migratory beekeeping provides the pollination necessary for over ninety food crops, amounting to one third of our human diet.

Moving hives is stressful on the bees, leaving colonies vulnerable to both new and existing honey bee diseases. Some migratory beekeepers experienced great numbers of colony losses. They were the first to detect Colony Collapse Disorder. Some of these beekeepers are also on the forefront of efforts to manage healthy honey bee colonies by culling old honeycombs, limiting chemical uses, and seeking genetically resistant honey bee stock. While moving bee hives around the country spreads pests and pathogens, the movement distributes honey bee genes, a benefit to beekeeping. In today’s picture, Squeaker, our 25-year-old parrot, enjoys her favorite treat, an almond.

--Richard

Fall Nectar and Pollen

Honey bees and native pollinators rely upon flowers to produce food for over-winter survival. The Arkansas Delta has a dependable fall nectar flow in most years from goldenrod, fall asters, and Pennsylvania smartweed. All wildflowers vary somewhat from year to year depending upon the weather. This year saw an abundance of fall asters but fewer stands of goldenrod and smartweed. Today’s photo shows a honey bee and a bumblebee sharing the exposed goldenrod blossoms for pollen, which can be seen in the pollen baskets on the hind legs of both female bees. Both insects collect pollen for its protein, fats, vitamins, and minerals. However, the two bees use a different strategy to survive the dearth of flower food in the winter. The honey bee stays active throughout the winter and lives in a colony that is large enough to generate warmth. The bumble bee, which lives in much smaller colonies, produces a number of male reproductive bees late in the summer. The majority of the bumble bees die before winter; a reproductive queen survives the winter by hibernating in a protected area to start a new colony the next spring. Both bees mix nectar, a source of carbohydrate, with pollen to produce a complete food. The honey bees store the resulting “bee bread” in hive cells to feed to their brood. Honey bees store fat in body tissues to use to produce food for the next year’s first brood. Bumble bee queens feed heavily to store fat to nourish the queen during her winter hibernation. Fall asters and goldenrod are members of the important family of bee plants, the composites or sunflowers. The composite flowers are prolific producers of nectar and pollen. Pennsylvania smartweed is a member of the buckwheat family.

As beekeepers use blogs to share ideas around the world, Tonmoy Roy, invites us to view his agricultural blog, http://royfarm.blogspot.com/, and see farming in Bangladesh. Along with poultry, fish, dairy cattle, sheep, and goats, they even tend to crocodiles!

--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

The Meadow Buzzes

A year ago we planted the plowed ground in hardwood trees spaced in 10-foot rows. The area, slightly over an acre, has become a meadow of wildflowers. It will be several years before the trees shade the ground and change the nature of the understory. For now, wildflowers grow in the full sun on the gentle slope of the natural bank of a Mississippi River tributary. A visit to the field on a warm and sunny fall day finds numerous species of insects feeding on fall asters. The remote meadow actually buzzes from the number of bees in flight. There are many honey bees collecting nectar and pollen from white heath asters as well as several species of bumblebees and numerous species of solitary bees. Many sweat bees and other extremely small bees are present in the bright composite flowers. Flies that mimic the appearance of a bee or wasp are common in the meadow. They are protected from many predators by their yellow and brown stripes and transparent wings. Only their bulging fly eyes give away their true identity. The wildflowers, mostly fall asters, attract many species of butterflies. Songbirds dart through the three-foot-tall tangle of wildflowers.

The one-acre plot, providing food and habitat, is obviously an oasis for honey bees and many species of native pollinators. In the years that the ground is exposed to the sun, it will provide a sequence of blooming flowers as well as protective cover and nesting material for pollinators. Such pollinator meadows, or pastures, are seen as important spaces providing for a diverse population of pollinator species in agricultural areas. The large fields planted in modern industrial agriculture are often too wide for the smaller bees to fly across. To increase crop yield, some farms are incorporating pollinator meadows along field margins or between plantings to accommodate important native pollinators. Click on today’s photo of a honey bee collecting nectar from white heath asters, important plants for winter survival honey stores.

--Richard

Soybeans and Honey

The soybean is an important honey plant, but not all soybean varieties produce enough nectar to produce a surplus of honey. A beekeeper asked me which varieties of soybeans are the best sources of nectar for making honey. I wish that I could answer this clearly, but I can’t. To try to get some answers, I visited an agricultural research facility where soybean varieties are being developed and tested. Discussing soybean variety characteristics with a researcher, I learned that the amount of nectar offered by a soybean variety is of importance to beekeepers; but it is not a trait that is selected in developing soybeans. The traits that are important to soybean growers include yield, nutrition, and tolerance to pests, disease, and drought. Seed producers also divide soybean varieties according to planting, bloom, and harvest times. Soybeans in any location often include both early and late season varieties. Planting different fields with different varieties helps the farmer spread out the harvest. This benefits honey producers with bee hives near the soybean fields by extending the bloom period, often by several weeks.

I also spoke with several Arkansas beekeepers this week. We discussed honey production around soybean fields. Their thoughts regarding soybeans as important honey plants involved the location and soil type of the fields. For example, beekeepers on the west side of Arkansas’ White River make little honey from soybeans, while beekeepers on the east side of the river make a considerable amount of soybean honey. Soybeans grown on land close to the Mississippi River generally produce considerable amounts of nectar. New soybean varieties are being developed, like one being grown this year for use with new herbicides. Repeated use of a single herbicide led to resistance in crop weeds. Regardless which varieties are planted, honey bees can usually fly far enough to find one that is attractive, even if they have to fly over soybeans offering less reward. Beekeepers can’t simply list good soybean varieties. Today’s photo: harvesting soybeans.

--Richard

Treating for Mites

It is harvest time for beekeepers and other farmers in the Arkansas Delta. One of our important nectar sources for honey is cotton. Bolls of cotton fibers are open and ready for harvesting. During the heat of summer, cotton supplied large quantities of nectar for honey bees. Cotton honey is light in color and mild in flavor. A new beekeeper successfully completed his first honey harvest. With his honey sealed in containers, he asked me what he should do next for his bee hives. I congratulated him on his harvest and told him that his harvest of a surplus of honey indicates that he managed his hives properly. For a beekeeper to collect any surplus honey at all, the colonies must be healthy and have strong populations. The colonies’ population build-up must be timed so that there is a large population of bees at the start of the major nectar flows. If the colonies are expanding during major nectar flows, like that of cotton, there will be little surplus honey for the beekeeper to harvest.

Hive treatments to reduce parasitic mites can only be applied when there are no honey supers in place. I told the novice beekeeper that if he detected a number of Varroa mites, now is the time to reduce their numbers. The decision of whether to treat depends upon the bees’ mite loads. If the mite load is low, treatments are not needed. I suggest using a "soft" treatment like ones produced from essential oils or organic acids. The "hard" chemicals are miticides that tend to build up in the beeswax comb, lead to chemical-resistant mites, and cause sterility in drones and queens. The soft treatments are often applied inside the bee hive in a gel form that evaporates. Vapors, which are contained in the hive by covering screened bottom boards, kill exposed Varroa and tracheal mites. Treatments need to be made fairly early in the fall because cold temperatures may prevent the gel from evaporating.

--Richard

Chemicals in Beekeeping

A new beekeeper attending an introductory course in beekeeping was surprised by the number of chemical treatments available for the beehive. She asked, “Can beekeepers avoid using antibiotics and miticides and still have healthy bees?” The answer is not simple, for there are several approaches to keeping honey bees. Some beekeepers rely upon chemical treatments for parasitic mites and honey bee diseases. However, over time, the honey bee pests and pathogens develop resistance to the chemical agents. Other beekeepers attempt to tend to bees without the use of treatments. In most cases their colonies dwindle and die within a couple of years. A third approach at beekeeping, which we adhere to at Peace Bee Farm, relies upon a series of integrated pest management steps designed to strengthen the bee colony while lessening the colony’s pests and pathogens.

An IPM approach to beekeeping employs a number of cultural, biological, and mechanical measures. Purchasing resistant-stock queen bees that are bred for hygienic behavior is the first biological measure for controlling parasitic Varroa mites. The hive design affects colony health. Screened bottom boards increase ventilation and reduce the hive’s Varroa mites. Ventilation is important for controlling chalkbrood and Nosema disease. Encouraging bees to preen Varroa mites by dusting the bees with powdered sugar is a cultural control. When the mites fall through the screen, ants eat them, a biological control. Varroa prefer to reproduce on drone brood. Removing and freezing frames of drone brood is biological control of these vectors of honey bee viruses. Parasitic tracheal mites seek very young bees as hosts, but they can be confused by vegetable oil patties placed in the hive, a biological control. Worker bees chase small hive beetles into traps, a mechanical control. These and more IPM measures, when used together, help protect the honey bee colony. Finally, when mite control is necessary, beekeepers should choose the “soft” treatments, such as those derived from essential oils. Today’s photo: partridge pea, a legume. A grasshopper consumes the foliage.

--Richard

Use of Antibiotics

Prior to the introduction of antibiotics in the 1940s, infections were treated by medicinal folklore. For example, the colonial-era Native American folk healer Joe Pye used plants to treat diarrhea, typhus, kidney stones, and fevers. These plants in the composite flower family are now known as Joe-Pye weed. Today’s photo is Joe-Pye weed blooming in the damp, marshy ground surrounding Peace Farm lakes.

Antibiotics are substances produced by fungi, algae, and bacteria that inhibit the growth of bacteria. With their wide-spread introduction in the 1940s, they were described as “wonder drugs.” While antibiotics initially provided effective control of bacterial infections, their effectiveness is often short lived. Strains of bacteria quickly become resistant to antibiotics. A New York Times report with important implications for beekeepers may be viewed at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/01/science/01gene.html. The report describes an analysis of 30-thousand-year-old bacteria recovered from Canada’s Yukon permafrost. The bacteria proved to be resistant to antibiotics. The researchers find that antibiotic resistance is widespread, and it is a natural phenomenon that existed long before the modern medical use of antibiotics. They find that the ancient bacteria contained all of the major genes that enable today’s bacteria to resist antibiotics. The researchers describe the evolution of two classes of genes: ones that make antibiotics and ones that provide resistance to antibiotics. One researcher states, “Antibiotic resistance is part of the natural ecology of the planet….” Another describes the ease with which resistance can appear. They also warn of problems caused by the overuse of antibiotics in poor countries and by farmers who regularly feed antibiotics to farm animals to induce faster growth. The result is the emergence of drug-resistant bacteria in both animals and farm workers. Another concern is the communities of bacteria that live in the human gut. These bacteria passed from mother to child over thousands of generations may be degraded by antibiotics. The continued use of antibiotics by beekeepers attempting to prevent American foulbrood leads to resistant strains of this bacterial disease.

--Richard

Observing Evolution

Can we see evolution in action? The New York Times reports that a group of evolutionary biologists and geneticists from Harvard University is attempting to find the mechanisms that lead to physical changes and learn how those changes affect fitness. They also want to learn how changes make an organism likely to survive and reproduce. These are critical issues for honey bee health. Harvard’s Dr. Hopi Hoekstra explains, “Fitness is the most important concept in biology, but no one ever measures it.” To observe evolution while it occurs, the researchers devised a test of fitness. They built four large enclosures on light-colored, sandy soil to house deer mice. A distance away, they built another four similar enclosures on dark-colored soil. Some of the deer mice, North America’s most populous mammal, have lighter colored fur than typical deer mice. The researchers discovered that the range of colors is dependent upon a single gene that controls pigment-producing cells. Mutations in this gene lead to deer mice with various levels of fur color. Mice that differ greatly in color from their background are easily spotted by predators, quickly changing the population of highly visible mice. The researchers are measuring the fur color shift in deer mice populations. The deer mice study can be viewed at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/09/science/09mouse.html.

While people often think of evolution as an extremely gradual process, at times rapid changes occur. This is seen with pathogens becoming antibiotic resistant and honey bee parasitic mites quickly becoming resistant to chemical treatments. Hopefully, we will start seeing honey bee populations evolve that are fit to live in our rapidly changing environment. European honey bees have been in the presence of parasitic Varroa mites for about 150 years. In this time some resistant lines of honey bees survived, and their offspring are now being selected by breeders. Today’s photo shows tickseed coreopsis, a colorful summertime carpet along roadsides and clearings. Coreopsis is a member of the important family of bee plants, the composites, or sunflowers.

--Richard

Defensive Behavior

Bee hives are constantly under attack. A healthy hive contains hundreds of pounds of tasty and nutritious food, and is a temptation to numerous animals from insects to bears. The brood and pollen offer protein; and honey is an attractive, high-energy carbohydrate. Throughout the night and day, small hive beetles, moths, wasps, hornets, and yellowjackets, are trying to slip past guard bees watching the hive entrance. At night, possums, raccoons, and skunks test the hive defenses. In their range, black bears are known to tear into bee hives to eat the protein-rich brood. When beekeepers are careless, guard bees find unprotected skin to sting. Probably the bee hive’s greatest intruder, though, is the honey bee from another hive. Bees will rob the unprotected stores of honey from a weak colony. Against all of these invaders the bee hive is protected by workers with well-developed venomous stings.

In Kenya, the honey bee is being called upon to protect farms from elephants. These massive animals try to avoid honey bees that sting the sensitive skin around the eyes, behind the ears, and in the nose. A number of large animals are vulnerable to nose stings. Honey bees are known to kill horses when their nasal passages close from numerous bee stings. Following the international blockage of ivory trade, the elephant is making a comeback. With human populations expanding in the same region, deadly encounters between elephants and people are on the rise. Go to http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/07/beehive-fences-block-elephants/ to see how Kenyan top bar hives are being wired into fences to repel elephants from crop fields. The hives, connected by wires, shake violently when elephants invade the fields at night. When the hives are shaken, alerted guard bees fly from the disturbed hives and repel the elephants. In today’s photo an irrigated soybean field is in bloom in the Arkansas Delta. The soybean, a member of the important bee plant family, the legumes, produces abundant nectar for a light colored and flavored honey.

--Richard

Restricting Beekeeping

News reports of the loss of honey bee colonies over the past four years have stirred interest in keeping bees. Across America hobbyist beekeepers are placing bee hives in urban and suburban backyards and city rooftops. Some want to help reverse the decline in honey bee colonies. Others want to ensure a supply of bees for their home gardens to grow some of their own food. For many, beekeeping provides an opportunity to look into the complicated life of these intriguing social insects. A recent article in USA Today, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2011-06-27-city-restrictions-beekeeping-fights_n.htm, points to the fact that honey bees are misunderstood, unappreciated, or feared by some. Instead of welcoming honey bees and beekeepers, some municipalities are attempting to keep bees out by passing restrictive ordinances. Those who request banning bees from a community do not realize the unexpected consequences of their actions. While ordinances may ban beekeeping, the laws do nothing to control bees and other stinging insects. Insects simply don’t abide by written laws. Removing managed honey bee colonies from a residential community opens an environmental niche for less desirable insects to fill.

Increasing the number of managed bee hives across the country offers benefits. First, more pollinators become available. Many of the new beekeepers are informed stewards of the environment. As they study honey bee biology and the craft of beekeeping, they insist upon using measures that protect the bees and our natural resources. Experienced beekeepers also serve communities by answering numerous requests from the public and governmental agencies for handling honey bee swarm removal and stinging insect emergencies. Beekeepers try to prevent problems with the public by adhering to “good neighbor” practices. They limit exposure of the bees to others by carefully placing hives so that bees won’t fly across areas frequented by people, provide the bees water, and work the bees when conditions are favorable and people are not present. In today’s photo colorful crepe myrtle blossoms attract honey bees to suburban landscapes. Honey bees need our protection.

--Richard

Nosema Studies Underway

A Minnesota beekeeper asks if there are guarantees that the bees one purchases in packages are free of Nosema disease and tracheal mites. The answer is no. There are no visible ways to detect either condition. The pathogen causing Nosema and the mite involved in tracheal mite infestation are both microscopic. To be seen, bees must be dissected and the affected organs viewed under a microscope. At times, tracheal mite infestations lead to “k-wing” bees having unhooked wings and bees crawling along the ground. However, these conditions are not conclusive evidence of tracheal mites. The bees that one receives in a package may carry Nosema disease or tracheal mites, and it is possible that the person supplying the bees may not be aware of the condition. The recently identified strain of Nosema disease, Nosema ceranae, is being studied by scientists of the Managed Pollinator CAP, or Coordinated Agricultural Project. A CAP project for queen breeders, http://www.extension.org/pages/58424/laying-groundwork-for-a-sustainable-market-of-genetically-improved-queens:-the-bee-team, has been started in California. It is designed to help queen producers improve genetic diversity and select for bees that can defend themselves from parasitic mites and diseases. If this program works well, the team plans to establish similar programs in the Southeast and other queen breeding areas. The CAP project also gives an extensive report on the nature of Nosema ceranae at http://www.extension.org/pages/31234/nosema-microsporidia:-friend-foe-and-intriguing-creatures. The work of the Managed Pollinator CAP program is designed to provide feedback to queen producers to allow them to adjust their methods of controlling Nosema disease. The researchers are finding that Nosema infections increase the effect of viral infections in honey bees. The current method of detecting Nosema is by counting spores in the mid-gut of foragers.

Honey bees are working buckwheat vine today. The tough vine which covers small trees and invades row crops is a heavy producer of nectar in the summer. Buckwheat vine is also known as “ladies’ eardrops” because of the shape of the seed pods produced after the flowers are pollinated by bees.

--Richard

Blackberry in Bloom

The bloom of the blackberry is milestone on the beekeeper’s calendar. Shirley Murphy told me her Tennessee River bees were bringing in large amounts of light gray colored pollen. When I took today’s picture, I knew the source of the pollen: blackberry. I had noticed my Arkansas Delta bees bringing in large amounts of the light gray colored pollen along with bright yellow pollen. After several days of cool, rainy weather, the sun broke out of the clouds briefly; and the bees burst from their hives and converged on blackberry thickets in great numbers. Blackberries are an important source of pollen for honey bees feeding a large population of brood.

The blackberry is a vine in the important family of bee plants, the roses. Members of the rose family supply great amounts of nectar and pollen to honey bees and native pollinators. Other roses include the flowering rose plants and a number of vines: greenbrier, raspberries, and strawberries. A number of roses are shrubs and trees, including hawthorns, apples, almonds, apricots, peaches, cherries, plums, pears, and crabapples. Today’s photo shows honey bees pollinating blackberry flowers. As the bees scrub through the flowers, they transfer grains of pollen from the exposed anthers to the sticky stigmas, allowing the plants to produce fruit and seed. Since blackberries bloom over a rather long period of time, there are buds, flowers, and unripened fruit showing in the picture. Later, there will be dark, ripe fruit as well. Cultivated blackberries are a favorite for pies, jams, and jellies. Wild blackberries provide food for songbirds and wildlife. Seeds are dispersed by birds, and 10-foot-tall blackberry thickets grow rapidly in full sun. In colonial times, the tough vines of blackberry plants were stripped of their thorns, and then they were used to bind bundles of straw to build skeps and roofing thatch. Skeps are dome-shaped bee hives that look like inverted straw baskets. Honey bees were brought from Europe to North America aboard sailing ships in skeps.

--Richard