Summer Nectar Flow

A hot, dry summer is often the backdrop for a good honey production year. This year’s wet, stormy spring kept farmers out of the fields in the Arkansas Delta. Planting was delayed, but a healthy crop of cotton and soybeans followed. These crops account for an abundance of Delta honey. Honey bees gather significant amounts of nectar to make a surplus of honey in strong hives. A surplus of honey can only be produced if the colony is strong and productive, the hive is near a good source of nectar, and the queen is producing large numbers of eggs in the weeks prior to the major nectar flow. The timing of the colony’s population build-up is critical for honey production. If the colony is just starting to expand during the nectar flow, there will probably not be enough of the older worker bees, the foragers, to gather enough nectar to make a surplus of honey.

I tested using additional entrances to my stronger hives this year. The entrances are placed between surplus honey supers at the top of the hives. There is evidence that the entrances allow foragers to deliver their nectar more efficiently. Nectar is taken directly into the honey supers without having to be carried through the brood nest. Upper entrances also allow for extra ventilation at the top of the hive. However, the wooden shims used for the upper entrances violate the concept of bee space. Every opening inside a bee hive should be three eights of an inch. The shim’s wider gap between supers makes a space that the bees fill with honeycomb. In fact, many of the hives equipped with upper entrances became clogged with burr comb in the space between supers. Burr comb, which is any honeycomb that the bees build that does not conform to the shape and order of the hive’s removable frames, tends to break when the hive is opened for inspection or honey harvesting. Today’s picture: burr comb, a sticky mess.

--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

Honey Bee Emotions

Beekeepers know it is common for bees in different bee yards to have distinct natures. The bees in one yard may be more defensive in behavior than the bees in other yards managed by the same beekeeper. Also, certain beekeepers gain a reputation for keeping “hot” hives, while other beekeepers keep gentle bees. What causes bees to be defensive? Is it the location of the hives, the way the bees are manipulated, the bees’ genetics, the beekeeper, or bee yard intruders? Certainly, many factors combine to shape the nature of a bee yard. Researchers at Newcastle University in England are studying the emotions of honey bees. Using a series of carefully designed tests, the researchers are finding evidence that honey bees react to hive disturbances in ways that were previously unexpected of invertebrate animals. The bees are trained to anticipate pleasant or unpleasant feedings, and then the researchers record how the bees react according to learned expectations. The honey bees in the study are given a pleasant reward of sugar or an unpleasant offering of bitter quinine. They respond by sticking their tongues out for a reward of sugar. However, some of the bees in the study are shaken in a manner similar to having their hive attacked by wild animals. Shaken bees change their behavior and become “pessimistic” according to the researchers’ descriptions. They react by not sticking their tongue out for an unknown offering of food. The shaken bees seem to be anticipating that an unknown feeding will be associated with punishment To read more about the study, see “The Secret Minds of Bees” at http://www.onearth.org/article/the-secret-minds-of-bees.

We don’t know if honey bees experience human-like emotions, but we do know that the manner in which we handle bees goes a long way toward determining their behavior. I explained to an observer today that a little smoke settles bees; too much disturbs them. The bees teach us how much to use. In today’s photo, I’m surrounded by disturbed bees.

--Richard

Moisture in Honey

A new beekeeper preparing for his first harvest asked me about handling the honey. He wanted to know how to tell if the moisture in the honey was correct and how to adjust it if it is too high. When the honey bees collect nectar from flowers, it is mostly water with a weak concentration of sugars. The bees start the conversion of nectar to honey as they carry it back to their hive inside their honey gut where it is mixed with enzymes. Once the nectar is deposited in the hive, worker bees continue its conversion to honey by continuously mixing it with enzymes. To concentrate the honey, the bees blow bubbles in the honey and stretch its surface area with their mouthparts. They evaporate the moisture from the honey by fanning their wings across its surface. They dry the honey until its moisture content reaches 18 percent. At this point, the bees cover the cells containing the now “ripe” honey with freshly secreted beeswax.

I told the new beekeeper that ripe honey can be harvested and stored indefinitely. However, if honey is harvested too soon, it will have excessive moisture; and it may ferment. The safest way to prevent this is to wait until the frames of honey are at least 70 percent capped with beeswax before harvesting. At this point, the honey should contain the proper moisture for bottling or storing. Beekeepers typically measure the moisture content of honey using an optical device called a refractometer. I also explained to the new beekeeper that honey readily takes on or gives up moisture depending upon the environmental conditions. This occurs even with beeswax-capped honey in the frames before it is extracted. Beeswax is porous. In the honey house, honey can be further dried, as the bees do it, by blowing dry air across the honey’s surface. In today’s picture, bees fan their wings to dry and cool the exterior of the hive while others inside fan to evaporate honey.

--Richard

Last Chance for a New Queen

Honey bee colonies produce new queens as they need them through the spring, summer, and fall. The bees make new queens for supersedure, or replacement, of aging queens; or they make new queens to sustain the colony after it divides and swarms. Some races of bees, like the Russians, continue to produce numbers of queen cells throughout this time. The bees tear down the cells if a new queen is not needed in the hive at the time. Beekeepers produce queens during the same period by encouraging the bees to produce queen cells. The queen cells may be created by either grafting day-old larvae into queen cell cups or by non-grafting techniques. Today’s photo shows beekeepers practicing grafting at a University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service advanced beekeeping workshop in Little Rock, Arkansas.

In the Mid-South area, queens may be reared from May through August. An important element in the production of good queens is the availability of sufficient numbers of drones to mate with the new queens. If we attempt to produce queens too early in the spring, they are often of low quality because large numbers of sexually-mature drones are not available. The number of drones in the drone concentration areas is often reduced late in the summer, especially during times of dearth of nectar and pollen. At this time, the colonies produce fewer drones and sometimes remove drones from the hives. Late-season queens that are well mated with good drones make for prolific colonies for pollination service or honey production the following year. At Peace Bee Farm, we like to produce a number of extra queens to have as replacements for lost queens. If we detect a queen-less colony during a nectar flow, we can easily replace her by bringing in a laying queen housed in a nucleus hive. Once the two hives are combined using a sheet of newspaper to slow the merger of the bees, the colony can continue producing honey without losing population.

--Richard

Martins and Drones

The purple martin is the largest member of the swallow family. These strong flying, insect-eating birds migrate to North America in the spring, and return to South America in the summer. Martins nest in gourds hanging from vines in treetops or in man-made bird houses mounted on poles. During the spring and early summer, martins rear their young. They catch great numbers of flying insects to feed their rapidly growing offspring, and the martins are feeding young birds at the same time that honey bee colonies are at the height of queen bee production. Soaring high in the sky and performing aerial acrobatics, the martins grab flying insects at will. As martins climb, dive, and sweep through honey bee drone concentration areas 20 to 80 feet in the air, they likely catch some queen bees making mating flights as well as drones.

Peace Bee Farm employs drone-breeder colonies with added drone brood frames to increase the number of drones in the drone concentration areas with valued traits. This technique, called drone saturation, is intended to lessen queen matings with feral drones. While some healthy bees are lost to martin predation, I feel like the birds actually help by eliminating weak or slow flying queens and drones. Martins surely apply selective pressure on queen bees while the queens are vulnerable outside the hive. It is evident that martins fly through drone concentration areas, because numbers of drones follow the martins back to their nest. Drones have large eyes to see queen bees making their mating flights. They seem to be attracted to the martins that fly through their drone concentration area. Following a fast moving martin, a plume of drones has no trouble keeping up with the bird as it sweeps through the sky. The drones follow the martins all the way back to their nest. Today’s photo shows a drone in close pursuit of a martin. The birds seem to pay no attention to their “comet tail” of drones.

--Richard

Bee Hive Upper Entrance

Natural honey bee hives in hollow trees often have multiple entrances. Bees fly in and out of knot holes or broken openings linked to the tree’s cavity. I watched a colony of honey bees in a sweet gum tree for four years. The bees entered the hive through a hole in the tree near the ground. At times, the bees also used a second entrance, a knot hole three feet above and to the side of the tree. The bees would use the upper entrance for awhile, and then seal it with propolis. Eventually, the honey bee colony swarmed and settled into a wood duck nesting box about the size of a deep bee hive body. The duck box had a large entrance hole near the top, facing east. The bees survived a winter in the duck box, and I hived them the next spring as my first managed colony.

Honey bees readily use holes in rotted corners of beehives as extra entrances to the hive. The late George Imirie designed shims with openings to give bees an upper hive entrance. See http://www.tnbeekeepers.org/learning.htm, and then “George Imirie” and “Optimizing Honey Production.” The blue-colored Imirie shim shown in today’s photo allows foraging workers to enter the honey supers without passing through the hive’s brood nest. Imirie felt that using upper entrances with frames of drawn comb increased his honey production. Adding an upper hive entrance also increases ventilation through the hive. Jerry Hayes conducted a small-scale investigation into the effect of upper entrances to bee hives. The report can be viewed at http://www.beesource.com/point-of-view/jerry-hayes/queen-excluder-or-honey-excluder/. Hayes compared three configurations of bee hives: control hives with entrances at the bottom and no queen excluder, hives with entrances at the bottom and a queen excluder, and hives with an upper entrance above a queen excluder. The hives with upper entrances outperformed the other hives in two ways: There was less brood chamber congestion from honey, and more surplus honey was stored in the honey supers.

--Richard