Beeswax

Beeswax is an important product of the bee hive. Considered to be man’s first plastic, beeswax has been used for many purposes for thousands of years. Beeswax was used 16 thousand years ago in Paleolithic paintings found in Lascaux cave in southwestern France. The Egyptians used beeswax in shipbuilding and preparing mummies. The Romans used beeswax as a waterproofing material for painted walls, and both the ancient Romans and the Greeks used beeswax to produce metal objects in a process known as lost wax molding. The process, which begins with a beeswax model being coated with plaster, is still used today. After the plaster hardens, the beeswax is melted out and the empty space in the plaster is filled with molten metal. The result is a metal copy of the beeswax model. The English longbow was made of wood which was protected by a coating of beeswax. Archers today strengthen their bowstrings with beeswax. Sewing threads are strengthened the same way. Beeswax was used for hundreds of years to lubricate and seal cap and ball firearms. Along with many home and industrial uses, beeswax has long been used for making candles and cosmetics. Artists color cloth using beeswax in a technique known as batik and use beeswax in encaustic painting.

For beekeepers, one of the most important uses of beeswax is the manufacture of foundation for the bee hive. The foundation is the mid rib of the honey comb which is made of beeswax secreted by the two to three week old worker bees. When beekeepers purchase beeswax foundation, it contains traces of chemicals, mostly pesticides used to fight parasitic mites. At Peace Bee Farm, we save our own chemical-free beeswax cappings from the honey harvest to paint onto our plastic foundation as part of our integrated pest management program. Removing old comb and allowing the bees to replace it with freshly secreted beeswax removes chemicals and spores of honey bee diseases, such as American foulbrood, chalkbrood, and Nosema.
--Richard

Soybean Harvest

Soybeans are a major agricultural crop in the Arkansas Delta. Soybeans are an important source of protein and oil. Soybean protein is used as animal food for livestock and poultry. Soybean oil is used in food production as well as paints, plastics, inks, clothing, and biodiesel fuel. The soybean seeds that were drilled into the undisturbed stubble of harvested winter wheat produced a second crop on the same land this year in an example of double crop production and no-till farming. While the wheat, a grass, tends to deplete the soil of nitrogen, the soybean, a legume, acts to replace the nitrogen in the soil. The use of no-till farming practices reduces the losses of soil moisture caused by plowing, reduces fuel use, and lessens weed sprouting in disturbed ground. Weeds are largely controlled in soybean fields by the use of chemical herbicides. Mechanical field cultivation for weed control is rarely seen today.

The soybean, considered self-fertile, can be a significant source of nectar for honey production. However, there are quite a few varieties of soybeans being grown now; and some varieties produce enough nectar for honey bees to produce a surplus of honey, and some do not. The result for the beekeeper is that soybean may be an erratic nectar source, changing from year to year depending upon the varieties of soybeans grown in the area surrounding the bee yard. The variety of nectar rewards offered to the honey bee may explain the difference in results of studies of increases in soybean crop yield for soybeans pollinated by honey bees. Results have been measured from zero to 30 percent increases in soybean yield when honey bees are present for added pollination. A 16 percent increase is the most common finding. Soybean farmers and beekeepers both recognize the importance of the honey bee in helping to produce our food crops. Soybean honey, one of my favorites, is light amber in color and mild in aroma and flavor.
--Richard

The Composite Family

The composite family, Compositae or Asteraceae, also known as the sunflower family, is one of the largest in the plant kingdom with nearly 25 thousand species of composite flowers, worldwide. The composites have flower heads that resemble an individual flower, but the head is actually made up of numerous individual small flowers. The composite family is important to the honey bee because many of its members are prolific producers of nectar and pollen. I will list a number of composites; as well as being beautiful wildflowers, many have curious names: pussy’s toes, mayweed, or dog-fennel, Philadelphia fleabane, wooly ragwort. Other composites include the asters, sunflowers, common milfoil or yarrow, burdock, daisy, bur marigold, Indian plantain, common chicory or blue sailors, and thistles. One thistle, knapweed or star thistle, is known for making honey. A number of composites are recognized as common plantings in the flower garden: coneflower, cornflower or bachelor’s button, and ox-eye daisy. Many composites are wildflowers found in meadows and clearings in woodlots: tickseed coreopsis, daisy fleabane, American feverfew or wild quinine, mist flower, boneset, Indian blanket, rabbit tobacco, black-eyed Susan, groundsel, and Joe-Pye Weed. Some composites should be grouped according to their descriptive names: bitterweed, sneezeweed camphorweed, and stinkweed. Important late-season bee plants from the composite family include Canada goldenrod, the many asters, and dandelion. The over-winter food for many colonies is derived from these composites. The survival of many honey bee colonies is often dependent upon a composite wildflower, the dandelion, the last plant to bloom in the fall and the first to bloom in the spring.

Composites of economic significance include lettuce, chicory, chrysanthemum, artichoke, and sunflower. As I am visiting my bee yards at this time of the year, I am finding a few composite flowers in bloom. Whenever we see some bees bringing pollen into the hives at this time, it is usually from composites. Today’s photo shows a honey bee foraging in a perennial sunflower, the Jerusalem artichoke or sunchoke.
--Richard

Honey Bee Tracheal Mites

A great die-off of honey bee colonies occurred in the U.S. in 1984. Beekeepers found their hives largely depleted of adult bees. A parasitic mite of microscopic size was found living in the breathing tubes of bees in the affected colonies. Honey bees breathe through breathing tubes, called trachea, located on the sides of their thorax. The thorax is the middle of the three segments of the bee’s body. These tracheal mites live almost all of their entire life within the breathing tubes of the adult bees. They weaken their host bee by puncturing the bee’s breathing tube and then sucking the bee’s blood. The puncture also leaves the bee exposed to a number of secondary infections. The life of the tracheal mite begins with a female mite entering a breathing tube of a very young honey bee, usually within the first 24 hours after the bee emerges as an adult. The tracheal mite lays eggs; they progress through a larval stage and develop into adults. Still within the breathing tubes, the tracheal mites mate with their siblings. The mated female mite leaves the breathing tube and moves to a newly emerged honey bee to begin the reproductive cycle again.

Beekeepers can interfere with the tracheal mite’s ability to reproduce by placing vegetable oil patties in the hive. These patties, made of solid vegetable oil and sugar, are taken up by the bees because of the sugar. The oil is distributed among the bees in the hive, thinly coating all of the bees. Tracheal mites are less successful in finding day-old bees when all of the bees are coated with oil. At Peace Bee Farm, we keep vegetable oil patties on the hives at all times. We add spearmint and lemon grass essential oils to the mix to make the patties more attractive to the bees. Vegetable oil patties are part of our integrated pest management plan. Resistant strains of honey bees have made the tracheal mite less of a killer today.
--Richard

Communication and Navigation

Honey bees and humans are social creatures. We both live in proximity with others and share in daily activities. The benefit of sociality is that the colony of bees or the community of people can accomplish more as a group than the individuals could if acting alone. An important element in our social arrangement is our ability to communicate with others and to direct members to the location of remote places. For the honey bees, this often means distant blooming flowers. Both bees and humans also need to be able to find their home from miles away. The honey bees primarily communicate among themselves by means of odors. They detect odors, known as pheromones, from the glands of other honey bees. Bees fan air across their raised abdomens to direct flying bees to the hive or to a swarm. Other honey bee communication is accomplished by sight and by vibrations in the hive. By far, one of the most complex forms of communication observed in nature is the honey bee’s dance. By dancing, the honey bee conveys to other members of the colony the direction and distance to a distant food source. This is, by the way, the same information that we give to airplane pilots for navigation: direction and distance.

Humans communicate by voice, by vision, by written words and symbols, and now largely by electronic devices. Rita and I received an invitation from Candice Ludlow, News Director for WKNO FM Radio, NPR for the Mid-South, to visit their new digital media center. I headed out with a map that I downloaded from the internet. It gave me the direction and distance. I got turned around in route. At times I checked the direction against the sun. Bees do that. At other times, I checked it against the compass in my car. Bees can navigate by magnetism. We’ll see Candice another day. Here’s a picture of Candice interviewing me for an NPR report on Colony Collapse Disorder.
--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

Marking a Queen Bee

Being social insects, honey bees share in the duties of the hive. Each individual does not perform all of the daily tasks of the hive. The workers assume different roles and perform the needed colony tasks. The worker bees’ roles change as they age. As these bees age, their various glands develop; and they change in their ability to produce brood food, secrete beeswax, produce an effective sting, and perform various tasks. For this reason, the workers pass through a series of tasks throughout their life. Among the shared tasks performed by the bees are cleaning of the nest, feeding the brood, feeding and tending to the queen, guarding the hive, secreting beeswax, building honey comb, cooling the hive, moving honey and pollen about the hive, foraging for nectar and pollen, and curing honey.

While the honey bee colony shares in collecting, preparing, and storing food, tending to the hive, and feeding and caring for the brood, the colony also employs a common means of reproduction. A single queen bee produces all of the eggs that will become the population of the colony. The male bees, the drones, serve a single role. The drones mate with queen bees. Since the drones never mate with queens inside the hive, they add genetic diversity to surrounding colonies. The queen bee is more likely to be mating with drones from various distant colonies. Since the population of the colony and its success is dependent upon one bee, the queen, she is of utmost importance to the colony. Many beekeepers mark their queens to be able to match the colony’s traits to an individual queen. Honey bee colonies regularly replace their queens through a process called supersedure. If a queen bee is found in the hive without the appropriate marking, it is likely that the queen has been superseded. In the photo, Shirley, Mike, and I are marking a queen bee with a dot of paint on the bees’ thorax.
--Richard