Short Course Forty-Six

Much of the practical training of beekeepers is provided by local beekeeping associations. These groups provide initial introductory courses in beekeeping as well as ongoing training and mentoring of beekeepers. The Memphis Area Beekeepers Association serves beekeepers across West Tennessee, North Mississippi, and East Arkansas. On Saturday, the association will conduct its forty-sixth annual Short Course in Beekeeping. The short course serves as an overview of a broad range of beekeeping topics. The program starts with a description of the equipment and protective clothing used by beekeepers. New beekeepers get to assemble bee hives to get an idea of how to put together these puzzles. Folks are introduced to the honey bee’s life cycle. We discuss where to locate the bee hives and carefully cover how to install the bees in the new hive. The course briefly mentions how we harvest and extract honey. Like other timely topics, this will be covered in greater depth during a monthly meeting prior to harvest.

I will address the new beekeepers on honey bee health issues. Since honey bees may be attacked by pests from bears to other insects as well as from bacteria, viruses, and fungi, it is important for new beekeepers to be aware of what the hives face. I will mention the pests introduced into our hives, mostly through world trade, since the mid-1980s: tracheal mites, Varroa mites, small hive beetles, and a new strain of Nosema. I’ll briefly describe Africanized honey bees and Colony Collapse Disorder. The majority of the presentation will be a suggestion for the beekeepers to adopt an integrated pest management approach to beekeeping, relying first on biological, cultural, and mechanical controls of pests. Chemical control measures will be held as last resorts. I will encourage everyone to avoid using insecticides and nerve toxins in the hives and to treat American foulbrood with the only sure cure: burning the hives. Peace Farm lakes are frozen now; wild ducks circle to maintain small areas of open water.

--Richard

Honey Bee Evolution

A report published in The New York Times relates that only 28 percent of public high school biology teachers are following teaching recommendations to “describe straightforwardly the evidence for evolution and explain the ways in which it is a unifying theme in all of biology.” Thirteen percent of the biology teachers explicitly advocate creationism, and 60 percent avoid the subject altogether. The Times report: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/08/science/08creationism.html?hpw.

A beekeeper tries to explain the complexity of the honey bee’s social behavior in a colony that appears to be as organized as a city full of people. He says that such a well-organized colony can only be the result of creation by a higher being of great intelligence, and he struggles to find bee hive examples of what he calls “intelligent design.” There is wondrous activity among these social insects, but the honey bee colony is certainly not perfect. The colony gathers and produces its own food, increases its numbers and expands its territory. It regulates the temperature and atmosphere of its hive. It can even produce a new queen when one is need. However, there are times when the life cycle of the honey bee colony becomes dead-ended. When dealing with a poorly mated queen, an egg-laying worker, or a queen failing to lay fertile eggs, a colony often becomes hopelessly queenless and then dwindles and dies. Rather than the product of an “intelligent design,” today’s honey bee colony can be better understood as the result of millions of years of evolution in a changing environment. Those colonies that inherited traits, altered by mutations, that make them more survivable in the present environment pass along those traits to their offspring. They replace other less suited colonies that either die or are less successful in reproducing. The replacement of less suited species has been seen recently in the evolution of antibiotic-resistant strains of tuberculosis, insecticide-resistant bed bugs, herbicide-resistant Palmer pigweed, and Varroa mites resistant to the miticides used by beekeepers. Today’s photo: beekeeper Richard Underhill.

--Richard

The Warre Hive

Some individuals are attracted to beekeeping’s lack of complicated modern technologies. In fact, most of the great inventions of modern beekeeping occurred in the mid-1800s. They include L. L. Langstroth’s 1851 removable frame hive, beeswax foundation for hive frames, the honey extractor, and the beekeeper’s smoker. While the durable Langstroth hive is the one most widely used to house managed colonies of honey bees, there are others. The Warre hive, pronounced “war-ray,” and the Kenyan top bar hive are two hives that use only wooden bars to support the sheets of honeycomb instead of complete frames. The Warre hive stands vertically and resembles a Langstroth hive in outward appearance. Brood nest and honey storage boxes are similarly stacked atop each other. The unique element of a Warre hive is the upper box, which slightly overhangs the hive. This box has a sloping, vented roof and a canvas floor. The box is filled with straw or other moisture-absorbing material to help control the atmosphere in the hive as well as hold hive scents. Abbe Emile Warre, who developed this arrangement in France and called it the “People’s Hive,” felt that it allowed the bees to control the temperature, humidity, and oxygen and carbon dioxide levels within the hive.

With the combs hanging unsupported from top bars in both Warre hives and Kenyan top bar hives, honey harvesting is destructive of the beeswax combs. Most honey is harvested by mashing the comb and draining the honey. Without full support of the combs as in the Langstroth hives, these hives are not well suited for transport. However, both hives are popular with beekeepers who want to provide pollination for gardens or intend to infrequently manipulate the hives. Beekeepers must delicately handle the U-shaped combs that the bees hang from simple top bars. In today’s photo, The Luddite, checks the fit of top bars for a Warre hive she is building. The complete Warre hive can be seen in the February 6, 2011 posting.

--Richard

Backyard Beekeeping

Backyard beekeeping is expanding in popularity, and it provides many benefits. First, our gardens and plantings of food crops benefit from the replacement of pollinators that have been disappearing in recent years. Another great benefit of backyard beekeeping is experienced by the beekeepers themselves. Planning for adding a couple of bee hives, attending adult education classes or a short course at the local beekeepers association, reading some beekeeping books and journals, ordering a package or nucleus colony of bees, building and painting the hives, and finally installing them in the hives make for an exciting break from any other endeavor. However, beekeeping becomes a true source of involvement of one’s attention once the bees start drawing out their beeswax nest, the queen starts laying eggs, brood starts developing, and we get to observe the intricate activity occurring in the colony. Many beekeepers find the bee hives such a source of interest that they become so thoroughly absorbed in observing the bees and tending to the hives that they are able to completely forget other daily activity or worry. As such, beekeeping becomes a source of relaxation or enjoyment. Many like to sit and simply watch the bees at the hive’s entrance and listen to the hum of the hive.

The Luddite, a busy New England Primary Care Provider, finds relaxation with her bees. In today’s picture, we see her in snow shoes visiting one of her Warre bee hives accompanied by her “official apiary dog,” Hannah. A Warre is a hive that stands vertically, approximating a hollow tree, the honey bee’s natural home. The Warre hive does not use frames as found in the conventional Langstroth hive. Instead, it employs simple wooden upper supports, similar to those used in a Kenyan top bar hive. The top of the Warre hive is comprised of a box filled with straw or other absorbent material. This box, used to control hive moisture is separated from the brood nest by canvas. The Luddite looks care free.

--Richard

We Work with Nature

One of our guiding principles at Peace Bee Farm has always been simply stated as, “we work with nature.” We try to provide our bees a hive that is similar to their natural nest in a hollow tree cavity. We seek to find natural solutions to problems and encourage healthy relationships. Natural predators of honey bee pests are encouraged. Rats and mice serve no good purpose in bee hives, and they are particularly worrisome in agricultural regions after the crops are harvested. Hawks and owls are effective predators of rodents. Screech owls are welcomed occupants of wood duck nesting boxes located around the lakes on the farm. These small owls are on duty every night throughout the year catching mice. In today’s picture, Rita is touching the sleeping owl she photographed in yesterday’s posting. We place fresh nesting material in wood duck nesting boxes for the birds to use in March and April. The reclusive wood ducks will be seen briefly with the adult female after they leave the nesting boxes.

During the day, marsh hawks sail low across the ground and red-tailed hawks perch from a high vantage point. Both are ready to swoop onto a rat or mouse. Migrating hawk numbers peak in the winter, but some hawks remain around the year. Snakes take over much of the rodent control duties in warm weather. We provide cover for black rat snakes and speckled king snakes near our bee hives. Impressively large common water snakes abound the lake banks. Bats, living in cavities of trees, fly at night when wax moths are active. Even inside the bee hives there are naturally occurring relationships between predators and prey that can be encouraged. Ants eat parasitic Varroa mites when they fall through screened bottom boards onto the ground. Each of these predators: hawks, owls, snakes, bats, and ants play a role in helping control pests of the honey bee hive; and they work tirelessly. All they need is a little protection.

--Richard

Great Backyard Bird Count

Another opportunity arises for anyone to serve as a citizen scientist on the upcoming Great Backyard Bird Count. Each year the four-day bird count is held in mid-February on the leading edge of the bird migration season. Counting birds simultaneously across the continental US, Hawaii, and Canada, scientists follow trends in population numbers and bird migration patterns. This year’s bird count will be conducted February 18 through 21. Participation information and results of previous bird counts is at www.birdsource.org.

This past year participants from the 50 US states and Canada’s 10 provinces and three territories found 602 species of birds in 11 million observations. The most observed bird was the American robin. The Canada goose, snow goose, American crow, and European starling followed. Some rare bird observations were made in 2010. A new species was sighted off the coast of San Diego; and a finch was found in Ontario, Canada far from its native range of the Rocky Mountains. The Great Backyard Bird count is effective in monitoring population trends. In 1999, one thousand Eurasian collared doves, immigrants to Florida from the Caribbean, were observed in nine states. Last year, 14 thousand doves were found in 39 states. I first spotted these new doves in my backyard about three years ago. Larger than mourning doves, these unwary doves with a dark ring marking the neck often hold steady for easy viewing. Experts review the checklists of bird observations, and computer analysis helps detect errors. For example, last year I reported seeing several hundred herring gulls. The program flagged this as an unusually large number of sightings of this species for Arkansas in February. They asked me if I could verify my sighting. Indeed the birds were ring-billed gulls. Today’s picture shows a screech owl squinting in the sunlight. Rita and I found three of the small owls living in wood duck nesting boxes here on Peace Farm. I’ll dust off my binoculars and camera for the Great Backyard Bird Count.

--Richard

Urban Beekeeping

Mark Leech, of Tasmania, Australia, writing about urban beekeeping, questions how Peace Bee Farm arranges its hives at three locations in the city of Memphis. Answering Mark’s questions about our urban bee yards reveals some interesting details. We discover that the nectar sources, the timing of the nectar flow, and the amount of honey produced varies within the city. Our bee yard located in the Memphis Botanic Garden produces honey earlier than the other locations and produces several distinct flavors of honey through the year. The area contains specialty gardens and a great diversity of flowering plants and trees. The surrounding residential neighborhoods contain flower gardens and numerous chemically treated lawns. A nearby golf course offers limited forage of clover. Observation hives a few miles away at the Children’s Museum of Memphis produce some surplus honey, even though they are primarily managed for viewing the bees and honeycomb. The older neighborhoods surrounding the museum offer wildflower forage in untreated lawns, vacant lots, and along railroad lines.

Today’s picture shows the view from our bee yard located in the rear of the Hunt-Phelan Home facing historic Beale Street in downtown Memphis. Even though the downtown area is largely paved and covered with buildings, the bees have access to trees and forage areas along the Mississippi River. Urban areas provide surprising amounts for forage for honey bee hives. The amount of honey produced may vary according to the neighborhood. Weedy areas and gardens often produce significant amounts of nectar and pollen. Carefully tended lawns, golf courses, office parks, and paved parking lots, however, are virtual deserts to honey bees and native pollinators. The Hunt-Phelan Home, completed in 1832, was designed by Robert Mills, architect of the Washington Monument, the US Treasury building, and part of the White House. The home has hosted US presidents Andrew Jackson, Andrew Johnson, Ulysses S. Grant, Grover Cleveland, and Martin Van Buren. Confederate president Jefferson Davis was a frequent guest in the home. View Hunt-Phelan at http://huntphelan.com/.

--Richard