Over-Winter Survival

In the temperate regions, the honey bee’s entire life cycle is geared around surviving the winter season when flowers are not producing food. Cold winter temperatures prevent the bees from flying and making cleansing flights. To raise brood, requires greatly warming the brood nest. Because the winter season makes for an interruption in the honey bee’s food supply, the bees must store adequate amounts of honey to feed the colony until flowers bloom again in the spring. While the amount of honey stored in the hive is largely dependent upon the available nectar in the fall and the amount of honey harvested by the beekeeper, it is also affected by the health of the colony. Colonies afflicted by the new strain of Nosema disease have a reduced population of foraging workers, because the disease shortens the bees’ lives. Colonies that survive the winter are likely to be the ones that are not excessively susceptible to pests and pathogens that affect the concentrated cluster of bees. Among these conditions are tracheal mites, Nosema disease, and chalkbrood. Merely surviving the winter is a great measure of the health of the honey bee colony. Harsh winters actually separate the honey bee colonies having beneficial traits and behaviors from those that do not. A late-winter hive inspection finds the brood nest expanding rapidly on strong colonies. Foragers carry pollen of several different colors. A few drones walk about the combs.

Pears, flowering trees of the rose family, are in full bloom in the Mid-South. The nectar of the pear contains a lower concentration of sugars than many of the other plants in bloom. Honey bees tend to forage from flowers that offer them the greatest abundance and concentration of sugars. To pollinate pears, beekeepers often move hives into the orchard as the trees start to bloom to encourage the bees to forage the thin sugars of pear nectar. Click on today’s photo of a honey bee collecting caramel-colored pollen from a pear blossom.

--Richard

Fruit Trees in Bloom

The spring of the year sees a continuous series of fruit trees coming into bloom. The blooming season begins in California with almond trees. Almonds are one of the nation’s major agricultural export crops, and the nuts can only be produced after the trees are pollinated by honey bees. It is said that an almond tree without bees is merely a shade tree. In the Mid-South we will see plums, pears, peaches, cherries, apples, and crabapples in bloom. Each of these trees, even the almonds, is a member of the roses, an important family of bee plants. The rose family, which also includes the flowering roses, hawthorns, blackberries, and bramble vines, provides large amounts of nectar and pollen for honey bees. The fruit trees provide food for the bees in the form of nectar and pollen, and the bees serve the trees by pollinating their flowers. As the bees move about the flower blossoms, they inadvertently carry pollen from flower to flower and tree to tree. This is a necessary step in the production of fruit and seed.

Click on today’s photo to see a honey bee collecting pollen from a pear tree blossom. Bright yellow pollen from the flower’s anthers adheres to the hairy body of the honey bee. When she touches the sticky stigma of a pear flower, the tree produces fruit and seeds. Honey bees are the greatest pollinator of agricultural food crops because they live in large colonies which can be transported to the crops needing pollination. Honey bees also exhibit a behavior known as flower constancy, which means that bees foraging on a species of plant will continue to visit that same plant as long as it stays in bloom and produces an attractive reward to the bees. Beekeepers pollinating pears coordinate their efforts with the orchard owners because the pear nectar is relatively weak in sugar content and may not be as attractive to the honey bees as other nearby plants in bloom.

--Richard

The Rose Family

The rose family, Rosaceae, includes many shrubs, vines, and trees that are important bee plants. They are important to the honey bee, because they are sources of nectar and pollen. These plants are also dependent upon the honey bee and other pollinators to ensure the plants’ reproduction. Without the bees to move the grains of pollen about the flower parts, the plants would not produce fruit and seeds. The rose family makes for a large amount of our fruiting trees. The apple, pear, apricot, peach, cherry, crabapple, and plum trees are each members of the rose family. Each is attractive to the honey bee. Only the peach is able to reproduce itself without the assistance of bees. Most peach varieties are self-fruitful. The serviceberry tree, named for the bright white blossoms used in church services, and the many hawthorns are rose family members that produce berries that are important food for wildlife, especially songbirds. The chokeberry is a rose family shrub that also provides ample food for quail and other birds. Strawberries are roses, as are the brambles: blackberries, dewberries, and raspberries. While many of the flowering roses developed for their beautiful blossoms have petals that block bees from entering the flower, open flowers like the knockout roses and the prairie rose and the multiflora rose found growing along woodlot margins attract great numbers of honey bees.

The fruiting trees and berries, which rely on honey bees for commercial pollination service, are of significant economic importance. The almond, a nut from a tree in the rose family, is a major export of the Unites States. The almond crop is completely dependent upon the honey bee for pollination. It is said that an almond tree without honey bees is merely a shade tree. One half of the managed honey bee hives in America are employed in California each spring to pollinate almonds. Click on today’s picture to see a honey bee unknowingly pollinating a pear while collecting nectar.
--Richard

Pears in Bloom

Pear trees burst into bloom. In late winter, the pear trees are covered with bright blossoms. The honey bees are attracted to the fruit trees for pollen and nectar. As we zoom in for a close look, we see that many of the honey bees have a shiny abdomen. These bees have lost much of the fine hair covering their bodies. Aging bees, like aging beekeepers, start to lose their hair. These are bees that were born last September and October. Fall bees have a slightly different physiology from summer bees. Fall bees are equipped to live up to six months while their summertime sisters live but six weeks. These fall bees survived the winter in a warm cluster of bees inside the hive. Now their task is to bring in food to rear a large population of bees to take advantage of spring’s flower bounty.
--Richard