Honey in Storage

Honey is the only unprocessed food that will last indefinitely. It is made by the honey bee during times of plentiful food availability and stored until needed by the colony. Since a healthy, well-populated colony can produce more honey than is needed to sustain the colony, beekeepers can remove the surplus honey. Once the beekeepers have taken ownership of the honey, they have to do the same things as the honey bees to protect honey in storage. When the honey bees store honey, they ensure that it is fully ripened, meaning that the moisture content has been reduced to a point at which fermentation will not occur. This honey is 82 percent sugar solids and 18 percent water. The bees then seal the honey in clean honey comb cells with a capping of fresh beeswax. Beekeepers measure the moisture content honey using a device called a reflectometer. The purpose of this measurement is to ensure that the honey will not ferment. The beekeepers store honey in clean, food-grade containers. Common sizes for honey containers are five gallon honey pails holding 55 pounds or 55 gallon drums holding 600 pounds.

All honey crystallizes over time. The length of time required for honey to granulate is determined by the nectar source of the honey, particles of pollen or beeswax in the honey, and temperature. Honey crystallizes most rapidly at 57 degrees Fahrenheit. Honey held in the winter is likely to be highly crystallized when the containers are opened. This is not a problem, as crystallization does not alter the quality or flavor of honey. The honey can be returned to its liquid state by slowly warming it. Honey fully cured by the honey bee and carefully stored will not deteriorate; it will not even support the growth of bacteria or yeast. Honey is truly a unique food. There is a considerable amount of information available about honey including health benefits and recipes available through the National Honey Board at http://www.honey.com/
--Richard

Preparing Pollinator Habitat

It is important to preserve both honey bees and native pollinators for us to continue to have abundant food, productive agriculture, healthy wildlife, and a diversity of plants and animals in the environment. While the honey bee performs the largest share of the pollination of commercial crops, the native pollinators also contribute by supplementing and filling in on the pollination requirements of flowers and crops. All of the vital pollinators need food and habitat to flourish. Urbanization that removes natural vegetation, the use of monoculture farming practices, and the widespread use of herbicides have removed much of the food supplies and habitat of the pollinators. The excessive use of insecticides and pesticides have reduced the numbers of insect pollinators and weakened many of the surviving insects.

We can help to provide for the pollinators by being aware that they need food, water, habitat, and places to breed and develop their offspring. Many of the pollinators have specific food and protected habitat requirements for their developing offspring. We can rapidly increase the pollinators in our lawns, gardens, orchards, and farms by leaving margins of “weedy,” un-mowed ground, water sources, plants, like milkweed, for larvae to feed upon, and nesting places. Blue orchard bees, or mason bees, are one of the easily attracted and highly effective native pollinators in North America. In the winter, when our honey bee activity is at a minimum, we prepare nesting areas for blue orchard bees, bumble bees, and other solitary bees. Blue orchard bees lay their eggs in holes in wood drilled by beetles or in the hollow stems of plants with pithy centers. Nesting tubes may be fashioned from bamboo canes or by drilling holes in untreated wood or dead trees. In the picture, Rita is drilling 5/16 inch holes in the trunk of a cottonwood tree that was struck by lightning. The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation has a new fact sheet for building and maintaining nest sites for tunnel nesting bees at http://www.xerces.org/.
--Richard

Priming Foundation

Honey bees build their own nest from beeswax that the young bees secrete from glands on the lower side of their abdomen. The beeswax is secreted in small flakes, and these are worked into six-sided cells of honeycomb by the worker bees using their mouthparts. The beeswax is produced by young worker bees when the bees eat honey. The bees must consume about one pound of honey to produce one ounce of beeswax. To produce this pound of honey, or an ounce of beeswax, the bees must visit about two million flowers and fly a combined distance of 55 thousand miles. That’s more than twice the distance around the earth at the equator. Building honey comb is, therefore, quite costly to the bee in time and resources consumed. The bees will readily build their comb on beeswax foundation. Foundation is the mid-rib of the honey comb, and it was one of the great beekeeping developments of the mid-1800s.

Beekeepers now have available foundation made of beeswax or of plastic. Each has its advantages and disadvantages. The honey bees strictly prefer to build comb on natural beeswax foundation. If frames of both types are placed in a hive, the bees will use the beeswax and ignore the plastic. Some colonies build comb on plastic foundation in spotty, erratic patterns. This can be corrected by priming or painting the plastic foundation with melted beeswax. The beeswax can be melted in a double boiler and added to the plastic foundation with a paint brush or roller. The bees will use this layer of beeswax to start drawing out the honey comb cells. The beekeeper’s work doesn’t need to be too neat; the bees will correct it. At Peace Bee Farm we use our own chemical-free beeswax, saved from our honey harvest, as a major part of our integrated pest management program. We prefer the durable plastic foundation because, unlike beeswax foundation, it can easily be cleaned of old comb and reused.
--Richard

Winter Bee Yard Checks

Beekeepers leave their colonies alone for most of the winter, as it is not safe to open the bee hives in cold weather and chill the tightly clustered bees. It is a good habit, though, to visit the bee yards from time to time in the winter. Much can be told about the bees without opening the hives. A quick glance will tell that all hives are standing upright. Vandalism sometimes occurs in bee yards when the bees are not seen flying. Armadillos can burrow large tunnels under hive stands and cause hives to topple. All hive covers and entrance reducers should be in place. There should not be too many dead bees on the ground. A few dead bees on the landing board usually means that the colony is healthy and the workers are removing the bees that routinely die inside the hive. Wild animals can be a problem in the bee yard. I find fish bones atop the hives in one of my bee yards where raccoons perch on the hives to dine. Fortunately, they have not removed any covers so far. Skunks are a true pest of the bee hive. They scratch at the hive with their claws and then eat the bees as they respond to the disturbance. Evidence of skunks in the bee yard is scratches on the front of the bee hive and balls of chewed-up honey bee exoskeletons on the ground. Raccoons, skunks, and opossums can easily be lured into a live trap using sardines as bait. They need to be transported a number of miles for release, else they will be back in the bee yard tomorrow night. We don’t have bears around our bee yards, but in some areas electric fences are a necessity.

The picture shows a large oak tree being removed from one of my bee yards. The two hundred year old tree fell earlier in the year during a storm; the massive trunk barely missed six hives.
--Richard

Storing Brood Comb

The best way to protect honey comb is to keep it in a hive occupied by a large, healthy colony of honey bees. The worker bees will constantly clean the comb and remove the eggs, larvae, and adults of attacking pests. Wax moths lay eggs in the seams between the boxes that make up the bee hive. These are common flying moths that are present anytime except during extremely cold weather. Their larvae crawl through the seams and enter the hive. The bees in a strong colony will catch and eat the larvae. In a weak colony, the wax moth larvae may have the opportunity to find cells filled with protein-rich pollen to eat. Once these bee hive scavengers have a foot-hold, they can destroy the honey combs, leaving a tangle of woven webbing and feces.

At times it is necessary to store the frames of brood comb in a building away from the bee hives. The frames that have been used by bees to raise brood are particularly vulnerable to wax moth damage because they contain considerable food in the form of pollen, honey, bee bread, and silk cocoons spun by the pupae. The developing wax moth larvae need this food; they can’t live on beeswax comb alone. Without bees to protect the comb, it is quite vulnerable to damage from wax moths. Moth crystals made from PDB (paradichlorobenzene) kill larvae and adult wax moths. Never treat bee hive equipment with moth balls; they are another chemical which is not acceptable for bee hive use. The crystals may be placed on strips of newspaper, as in the photo, atop the frames in tightly stacked hive boxes. Place a cover above the boxes. The crystals evaporate, and the heavier than air vapors sink to the floor, killing all stages of wax moth except the eggs. After storage on moth crystals, it is necessary to air out the frames for several days before placing them in use in a bee hive.
--Richard

Pax Vobiscum

Over millions of years of developing its social order, the honey bee gained the ability to communicate rapidly with all of the members of the colony. The bees communicate by means of sight, vibrations, tastes, odors, and pheromones, the chemical signals that the bees pass among the colony members as airborne odors or as scents passed by touch. Humans developed elaborate methods of communicating to further their social order as well. Our communications generally involve sight, sound, language, and written symbols. Electronic forms of communication broadened the size of our society. With the internet we can now rapidly reach a community as large as the world. It is a pleasure to communicate with so many citizens of the world through this simple beekeeping writing.

I share my observations of the world of the honey bee with over 10 thousand individuals in each of the 50 states of the U.S. as well over one hundred countries around the world. Many of the followers are beekeepers; many are just interested in the honey bee. My writings are six months out of season with readers in the Southern Hemisphere. Some of the readers tend to bees of other species than our bees of European origin. Many speak different languages. It is marvelous that there are translation programs that can allow us all to share our thoughts. My bees’ brood nest temperature of 95 degrees Fahrenheit may be 35 degrees Celsius in New Zealand. Though there are differences in approaches to beekeeping and styles of communications, I feel that there are many common areas of interest anywhere in the world. Beekeepers have a keen appreciation of the environment and an understanding of the relationship between the flowering plants, the bees, and mankind. Beekeepers recognize that the environment is fragile and damaged, but capable of being restored. From the Underhill family that operates Peace Bee Farm, I offer to all who observe the great religions, traditions, and philosophies of the world: Peace be with you.
--Richard

1884 and Today

Google has made available an old beekeeping book, found only on the shelves of a few libraries. From 1884, it is A Dictionary of Practical Apiculture, by John Phin. While the book cannot compete with current writings on beekeeping for science-based information, it does give an insight into the thinking of the late 1800s and the problems facing beekeepers 125 years ago. Just scanning through the dictionary reveals that some situations persist. Adulteration by unscrupulous individuals was a problem in 1884 as it is today. The 1884 definition of honey closely resembles the wording being established in state offices today. Phin described decoy hives dating back to 1610 that are similar to ones I use to catch swarms each year. The 1884 races of honey bees included ones well known today: black, brown, Carniolan, Caucasian, German, and Italian. It also listed races less widely known today: Albino, Cyprian, Dalmatian, Egyptian, Heath, Holyland, Palestine, and Syrian. Foulbrood was considered a serious problem in 1884, but its cause was unknown. Today we are well aware of the bacterium that causes the disease, and we know how to control its reproductive spores. Parasites of bees were not thought to be a problem for bees in 1884. World trade and transportation have spread parasites, and the Varroa mite is a well-known killer of bees. Phin quoted Pliny, the Roman naturalist who lived two thousand years ago, in describing honey comb as being constructed in three stages from commosin, pissoceros, and propolis. This is not the process of honey comb construction that we now understand. Phin’s description of spring dwindling is an example of recurring bee health problems that continue today. You may download Phin’s dictionary from: http://books.google.com/booksid=0qw1AAAAMAAJ.

Today’s photo shows that you can still find wild game for sale in the Arkansas Delta, just as you could in 1884. Raccoons and rabbits are available along with catfish and carp from the Mississippi River. In the summer, turtles and frogs are offered.
--Richard