Varroa

The Varroa mite, Varroa destructor, is the most damaging pest to honey bees in Slovenia and most of the world. Since its discovery in our country in 1980, the pest has spread rapidly throughout the country aided by the movement of infested, commercial honey bee colonies. Varroa is so widespread and its affect on bee colonies is so serious that beekeepers must routinely treat or their colonies will likely perish. Resistance to traditional chemical miticides has developed in recent years. Fortunately, the number of management tools and strategies for Varroa has recently increased, providing beekeepers with a wider array of options for more sustainable mite management.

Varroa destructor was until recently thought to be a closely related mite species called Varroa jacobsoni. Both species parasitize the Asian honey bee, Apis cerana. The mite species originally described as V. jacobsoni by Oudemans in 1904 is part of the same species complex, but not the same species that made the jump to Apis mellifera. That jump probably first took place in the Philippines in the early 1960’s. Only after Apis mellifera were imported to the Philippines, it came into close contact with Apis cerana. Varroa as a parasite of Apis cerana, also became a parasite of Apis mellifera. Up until 2000, scientists did not positively identify Varroa destructor as a separate species. In 2005, we know that the only varroa mites that can reproduce in colonies of Apis mellifera (Western honeybee) are the Korea and Japan/Thailand genotypes of Varroa destructor. Varroa jacobsoni is a fairly benign parasite of Apis cerana. This late identification in 2000 by Anderson and Trueman led to some confusion and mislabeling in the scientific literature.

Biology

Varroa is an external parasite, feeding on the hemolymph, or blood, of immature (brood) and adult bees. They live either on adults or within brood cells. A mated, adult female mite (called a foundress), enters a worker brood cell 15 to 20 hours prior to capping (40 to 50 hours pre-capping for drone brood) and feeds on the larva after the cell is capped. She lays her first egg about 60 hours later and may lay as many as six eggs at 30-hour intervals. Her young feed on the bee prepupa and pupa, taking 7 to 8 days (females) or 5 to 6 days (males) to mature. Mating occurs in the capped cell. Although several eggs are laid, the average number of mature, viable female mites produced per foundress in a cell is less than two. When the bee emerges from the cell, the new female(s) may stay attached to the bee or may attach to another bee. They feed on these bees and may stay on them for a few days to a few months depending on the time of year. Eventually they will enter a brood cell to begin the reproductive cycle over again. The original foundress may survive to infest and reproduce in another cell.


Damage


Symptoms of Varroa infestation may not be obvious until mite numbers have reached damaging levels. Adult bees parasitized by mites as brood may exhibit deformed legs and twisted wings
which is thought to be caused by a virus transmitted by mites. Infested colonies will appear weak, the brood pattern may be spotty, bees may be overly defensive and may be seen discarding larvae and pupa. A colony may abscond (leave the hive) if heavily infested. Colonies entering winter with a Varroa infestation may not survive. A colony dying from Varroa during the winter may be found with a small amount of dead bees and perhaps a moderate amount of honey. There
may be no bees remaining.

Varroa mites can be treated with commercially-available miticides. Miticides must be applied strictly according to the label in order to minimize the contamination of honey that might be consumed by humans. Proper use of miticides will also help to slow the development of resistance among the mites.

Honey Bees

A colony of bees consists of a queen, worker bees, drones, and various stages of brood (immature bees) living together as a social unit. There are between 10,000 and 50,000 bees in a colony. The brood nest isspherical in shape, increasingly filling more cells in each comb and covering more combs as it expands in size. Partially digested pollen, called bee bread, is stored adjacent to cells containing brood. Honey or nectar is stored around the outer edges of, and above, the brood nest. A honey bee egg looks like a tinygrain of white rice standing on end, centered at the base of a cell. To facilitate seeing eggs and other larval stages, shake or gently brush the bees off the comb (use a bee brush) and stand with your back to the sun. Tilt the comb so that the light shines directly into the cells. With a little experience it is not difficult to recognize larval bees or to distinguish capped brood (pupae) from capped honey (ripened honey covered by a thin layer of wax.

The queen bee

Each colony normally has only one queen which is the only bee in the colony capable of fertilizing the eggs she lays. The queen bee develops from a fertilized egg that hatches 3 days after being laid. Nurse bees, a class of worker bee, feed developing queen larvae a special diet consisting mostly of the royal jelly that they secrete from their glands. This special diet shortens the time spent to reach maturity to 16 days, compared with 21days for the worker bee and 24 for the drone. The result is a bee larger than any others, with fully developed ovaries and a very large abdomen. The queen lacks the specialized body parts of worker bees that help them accomplish their tasks. The queen's task is to produce bees and the constant diet of royal jelly fed to an adult queen supplies the nutrients necessary for development of the large ovaries that swell the abdomen. The queen is reared in a large cell resembling a peanut shell that hangs vertically from the comb and about 10 days after emerging she becomes sexually mature. The virgin queen takes one or more brief mating flights during which she mates with 10 to 20 drones to ensure complete filling of the spermatheca. Large amounts of sperm are necessary, since the queen will be laying more than 1,000 eggs a day for many months and will never mate again. The queen begins laying eggs shortly after mating. Even though the queen has a larger thorax, longer abdomen, and less hair than the workers, she can be very difficult to find in a populous colony. Clipping and marking the queen is worth much more than the few cents it costs when she has to be located in the colony. To ensure the potential for having a populous and productive colony, beekeepers should requeen their colonies annually with young vigorous queens

The worker bee

All the rest of the bees in the colony are workers. The worker bee develops from a fertilized egg that hatches 3 days after it is laid. Nurse bees feed the developing larva royal jelly, honey, and pollen during the next 5 to 6 days, then cap the cell. Each larva spins a cocoon and changes to a prepupa, then a pupa. The pupa is not physically active, but undergoes extensive chemical and structural changes that convert it into a functioning adult. (Adult workers are always female.) On the 21st day after the egg has been laid, the adult chews through her wax cap and emerges from the cell to groom herself and to start eating honey and pollen. Her exoskeleton hardens and she is ready to begin her many chores. The workers, endowed with specialized body parts to accomplish their tasks, supply all the labor of the colony. Young worker bees clean cells, feed larvae (through food glands in the workers' heads), remove debris from the hive, evaporate water from nectar to produce honey, secrete wax (through wax glands in their abdomens), build the comb, guard the colony (by means of their inbuilt chemical alarm system), and ventilate the hive. When they are about 3 weeks old, worker bees begin to forage for water and nectar, carrying their finds in a honey sac. Worker bees live only 6 weeks or so during periods of active brood rearing and foraging, but they can survive for several months over winter.

The drone bee

At their peak population (early summer), drones rarely exceed 600 per colony. Their sole function, as male bees, is to mate with the queen. When virgin queens are no longer being produced (in the fall), the drones are forced out of the colony to die of starvation, and no drones are reared until the following spring. Drones develop from unfertilized eggs that hatch 3 days after they are laid. Nurse bees feed the developing larvae royal jelly, honey, and pollen over a 7-day period; the cells are then covered with air-permeablewax (capped).A drone pupa is longer than a worker pupa; thus, its capping is raised above the surface of the comb. This is especially apparent if the drone is reared in a worker cell, where the capping rises way above the capped worker brood and sometimes is referred to as a "bullet." The drone emerges 24 days after the egg is laid and spends the next 10 days maturing sexually and learning to fly. A drone must be fed by worker bees from the time he emerges until the day he dies of oldage (about 5 weeks after emerging) or immediately after mating with a virgin queen. The drone can be distinguished from the workers by its large size, blocky shape, and very large eyes which cover most of his head. He makes more noise when flying thandoes the worker, but he is harmless because he has no sting.

THE HIVE BODIES

We usually use the same size for hive bodies and shallow supers. The beehive type Adlešič V3 is lower in the shallow super than in hive body. The hive has nine frames, which are the most important parts of the hive. Their creation to a great extent depends on the successful work in beehives. They are made of linden ore pine wood. The Hoffman frame is the most liked and most used. It is named after the American beekeeper. The frame sides are 15 mm longer on both sides than the outer length of the frame. These are the so-called “ears” on which the frames hang from at the front and back of the hive. The hive body dimensions are 24 cm for the height, 38 cm for the width, and 50 cm for the length and the outer sides are made of 1 cm thick pine wood. The inside is isolated with 1 cm thick Styrofoam, which is coated with a protective layer of colours so the bees do not bite into it. It weighs only 1.5 kg or 6 kg with empty combs.



THE SHALLOW SUPERS
The shallow supers are lower than the body hives in the beehive Adlešič V3 and has a height of 17 cm. The rest of the dimensions are similar to those of the body hive. This is a two-third beehive. The creation of the super is similar to that of the hive body and the frames are smaller. The shallow super is even lighter as an empty one only weighs 1 kg or 4 kg with empty combs. These types of supers are suitable for older people because when filled with honeys are lighter than the bigger hive bodies. They are most suitable for obtaining honey from the combs and different sorts of honey. The shallow supers are very simple to install regarding the strength of the family, feed, and season. The queen excluder is put in between the body hives and shallow supers. A beehive with two shallow supers, empty combs and no hive cover weighs 18 kg at most.


THE HIVE COVER
We use it to cover the top part of the hive. The outside width and length of the cover are the same as the external measurements of the hive. The cover is made of a frame and metal. There is an opening in the middle of the cover in which we smoke the bees out at the beginning. The top of the cover has a sliding screen that prevents us from coming into contact with the bees. We can pour a sugary substance into this cover and put some sugar loaves or dry sugar around the opening. We can put 4 kg of feed into such a cover. There are little openings on the sides acting as vents, which let out the excess humidity.

THE ROOF
There is also a roof on top of everything, which protects the hive from rain and snow. The roof is also used when we examine the hives. When we open the hives we turn it over so that the top of the roof, which is covered with metal, is facing downwards. We temporarily place the hive bodies on the roof of the frame. The roof is made of a wooden frame on which 20 mm thick boards are nailed to. The outer side is made of metal and the inside is covered with Styrofoam, which is added insulation from the cold. The outside measurements are somewhat bigger than the external hive measurements.

THE BOTTOM BOARD

The bottom board is exposed the most to the weather and therefore quickly falls apart. It is assembled with 2 cm thick boards made of pine, which have to be well-protected. The bottom board is 38 cm wide and 54 cm long. 4 cm is cut off for the external section where bees enter and exit the hive. The front parts are painted with different colours so the queen bee can orient itself better during the mating flight.


There is a 11 cm long opening at the front part of the board, which can be adjusted. The smallest opening is used during winter and for weaker colonies and bigger openings are used during the development of the colonies. The height of the board is 5 cm and depends on the beekeeping technology.

The bee hive

The beehive is the beekeeper’s tool. At this point the beekeeper must do all the things necessary with as little effort possible and in the least amount of time. The beehive with which I do my beekeeping started being used forty years ago here in Slovenia. People no longer believe in the statement that our feeding and climate conditions are not suitable because many beekeepers have been successful in our conditions. The beehive does not have a permanent shape or size - we can increase or decrease the size depending on the strength of the colony, feed, the season and so on. See picture that has 8 beehives.

Selecting the most suitable beehive is very important for modern beekeeping and also for its success. I bee keep with the LR beehives in which my father-in-law Martin Adlešič redesigned and completed with quality. Beekeeping with them is simple and the maximum amount of honey is produced. This is the version 3 beehive, which has a 2/3 load of honey (picture) meanwhile he bee keeps with a more improved beehive called version 4. I recommend these beehives to all those who are intending to bee keep with many beehives and to the beginners who are looking to cut the costs as much as possible – this type of beehive costs the least. Compared to the AŽ beehives its easier to monitor the development of bee colonies, less time is used for maintenance and what is most important more honey is produced during a good feed than if the AŽ beehive is used.

The apiary

I bees keep with 30 stacked up beehives and because of this I do not have a traditional bee house but I have these stacked-up beehives in the apiary out in the open. The stacked beehives are in the open (in nature that is) and that is why we call the apiary an open-air bee-house. Successful beekeeping depends on the right selection of an apiary as the open-air apiaries are under the influence of all external factors especially the weather.

An Apiary in the Open-Air
The best place for an apiary is just on the edges of a forest where the bees find just enough feed. The bees find enough food in the forest in various flowers and in the summer they take advantage of the entire forest’s flora (chestnuts, evergreens and oaks). The apiary which has the stacked up beehives must always be on the south side or places where there is not much cool air for a long time. There must not be large amounts of water in the surrounding environment because sickness might arise. The apiary must also be protected from strong winds.

I bought a huge pasture 6 km from Metlika next to Radovica (bordering Croatia) for my beekeeping operation. I planted some fruit trees and some other important plants with good qualities for producing honey. I also have a wooden shed where I keep all the equipment for beekeeping.


The most suitable place for the apiary outside in nature is in orchards or under very leafy forest trees. When the trees have no leaves during winter and spring the sun rays indirectly warm the beehives and accelerate the springtime development and during the summer when the trees are full of leaves the shade cools the beehives and makes for a pleasant stay for the bee families. The bees enjoy peace and quiet especially during the resting period in winter and that is why we should put the apiary near thoroughfares.


The most suitable place for the apiary outside in nature is in orchards or under very leafy forest trees. When the trees have no leaves during winter and spring the sun rays indirectly warm the beehives and accelerate the springtime development and during the summer when the trees are full of leaves the shade cools the beehives and makes for a pleasant stay for the bee families. The bees enjoy peace and quiet especially during the resting period in winter and that is why we should put the apiary near thoroughfares.

The Apiary in Snow

Bees are the kids of the sun, which positively influences their moods and development. However, also a very scorching sun especially in the summer forces the families to give birth. My bees are surrounded by uninhabited nature in which they find an abundant amount of feed. The willows and hazels already begin to blossom in early spring. This is when the bees start to collect the pollen and begin to develop quickly. The nicest time around my apiary is when the wild cherries begin to blossom along with the other fruit trees (cherries, apricots and plums) in the orchard with the bees around. The whole area smells fruity and the smell of the collected cherry pollen lingers in the air.

There are a lot of acacias in the vicinity for the bees to feast on as they fill the hives. Acacia is also the first honey I pour out.

There are a lot of forests bordering Croatia full of chestnut trees on and around my land, which give the bees another type of feed. In the case of beautiful warm dry weather there is never failure of a good pasture and at that time I have a lot of work with pouring the honey amongst the stinging bees and collecting the swarms. In spite of planting the plum trees in the orchards they most like to gather around the shorter hazelnut so therefore I have no problems collecting the swarms. Alongside the 30 colonies I have 5 reserves of colonies 4 km away in a place called Vinomer to where I take swarms that fly away from the hives.

Rearranging the beehives in the apiary depends on the conditions and technology we use when beekeeping. Beekeepers most often place the beehives in nice straight rows however; the bees have difficulty orientating themselves when placed in this position. Losses are greater especially during the mating flight and thus it is recommended that the beehives be painted different colours, which we can see in the picture.

The beginning

Our beautiful Slovenian saying states that you can’t choose your father or your mother however, you can choose your mother-in-law and father-in-law. This is where I have had luck as Martin Adlešič is one of the biggest and most innovative beekeepers from Bela krajina who has been beekeeping already for many years with over 100 stacked-up beehives in two transportable units. Besides this he is a also a beekeeping innovator who makes all his hives at home along with any improvements.


My Father-in-Law’s Transportable Apiary

Love, wanted me to marry his daughter (his only child) and as “the beekeeper’s daughter” for the dowry she received 30 bee families in stacked-up hives and I received magazines called “The Slovenian Beekeeper” from 1970 onwards for studying beekeeping. Therefore, in 1989 this is how my beekeeping adventure had started and I hope it will last for many years. As the right husband and “householder” I took the animals into my care, which turned out to be a bad decision as these animals “stung” really bad. As a preventative measure I started carrying a bigger picture of me so that at least the people close to me could recognize me.


My First Stand

The first days of my beekeeping career were difficult as I didn’t have any experience and differentiating between the drone and queen bee was problematic. There were no problems after we coloured the queen bee. Thank God that my father-in-law always stood by my side with nerves of steel and good advice along with my wife Greta who had the medication to relieve the swelling from the bee stings.


Bees in Action

Son’s help

Under my father-in-law’s tactics I slowly gained experience and slowly began to understand the organisation and life of the bees. I already achieved some nice results in the first few years, which gave me added momentum and will-power. I will never forget July 1991 when as a soldier I defended the southern border of Slovenia and the bees were working like crazy. At that time they produced 6 kg per family in one day. In short, I gained experience and knowledge throughout the years with the help of my father-in-law and mentor Martin Adlešič.

Therefore now, I can say I am an old pro in beekeeping with LR beehives. I have come to realise the golden rule in beekeeping which states that there are no rules when it comes to bees.

. April has Maple

This morning I woke up to a bright and very warm spring day. The temperatures were in the high 60’s. I poured myself a cup of coffee and went out on the back porch to the sound of loud buzzing. I could tell that the bees were working something. I walked over to the hives to find them “buzzing” with activity. Sure enough the Red Maple (Swamp Maple) has begun to bloom.

The Red Maple is a native tree to Cape Cod. It is also one of the earliest blooming trees. Unlike its cousin the Sugar Maple, the Red Maple cannot be used to make Maple Syrup, but the bees are gathering the nectar from its blooms to make honey to feed the young they are currently rearing inside the hive. Last year (2006) the Red Maple began blooming around April 10th, almost two weeks earlier than this year (2007). Likewise the yellow Forsythia, which have not begun to bloom this year, were blooming on April 11 of 2006.

It looks like spring has begun a little later this year than last. I guess Phil the Groundhog was wrong, or maybe he just lied, when he said he did not see his shadow in February.

One of my bees working the Red Maple Blossoms. The trees were filled with buzzing.

I was nice to have warm weather and work in the yard. I briefly peeked into the hives to make sure they were taking sugar syrup from the hive top feeders. I have one weak hive I have been watching closely since March. The queen was introduced to the hive in the Summer of 2006, and produced well into the fall, but for some reason their numbers dropped off rapidly in February. They are down to about 2 frames of bees. I replaced the hive top feeder with a bucket feeder placed directly over the brood area of the colony. Since they had recent signs of dysentery I added some Fumagilin-B medication to the sugar syrup. As a rule I do not medicate the bees in the spring, but since all my hives had signs of dysentery this winter, and with a new (and more severe) form of Nosema being discovered in bees this year, I may end up adding medication to all the hives this spring.

This weeks predicted warm weather should help the bees increase their numbers.

. The Queen has returned

After introducing the queen cells into mating nucs 10 days ago, I finally got to the mating yard to look at the results of my grafting attempt of July 1st.

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Left: The mating yard offered to me by two fellow beekeepers, Paul and Claire.
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With much anticipation I opened the first mating nuc, and pulled out the queen cell and queen cell protector. It had emerged!

My next step was to inspected the two frames of bees in the mating nuc to see if the queen had successfully bee accepted as part of the hive.

In order for her to have been successful she would have to have completed the following.

Right: Opening the first two frame nuc to see if the queen had emerged from her cell. You can see the plastic cell protector resting between the two frames of bees.


1. Successfully emerge from the queen cell.
2. Be accepted by the bees as leader of the hive
3. Conduct two to three mating flights where she would have to successfully mate with up to 15 male bees (drones)
4. Finder her way back to the hive without being lost or eaten by a bird
5. Start to lay fertilized (female) eggs.

Sure enough I found her on the first frame I checked. Could she have begun to lay eggs? Sure enough she was on a frame containing eggs and very young larva. Success!

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Right: An unmarked mated queen was found in the first mating nuc. 6 mated queens were produced from my second grafting attempt.
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Needless to say I was pleased.

I had brought yellow paint (the marking color for 2007) so I could mark any queens I found, but as I attempted to pick her up to mark her back (Thorax) with the paint, she flew away onto a bush. I rushed over and tried to pick her up, but she flew out of my hand into the grass. I quickly went to grasp her but she flew into the dirt, I went over and picked her up, and she flew away into the cranberry bog.

I was not pleased.

Would she return? Was she lost forever?

Sure enough after a few minutes she returned, and I was able to mark her. I guess she was not about to go through all that work only to have me mess it up.

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Right: A marked queen. The newly produced queens are marked in yellow. Yellow is the standard queen marking color for 2007.

I continued to check the other mating nucs. Out of 9 queen cells 6 hatched and mated successfully. One of the mating nucs had an empty queen cell, but no bees or queen were found inside.

Perhaps they did not like their new home and decided to find a new place to live.

Of the 7 queens, 6 are large healthy looking queens. One however is on the smaller size.
Here is the summery of the July 1, 2007 grafting attempt

Left: A closeup of the marked mated queen.

. Buttom Board

May Be Spring? Maybe

It has been a cool wet week here in the Northeast. The bees have been flying when possible. The coolness is expected to give way to warm weather this week.

A Queen mating box under construction. You can see the three removable divider making four seporate compartments. Click on the picture for a larger image.

The damp weekend gave me time to work on my queen mating boxes. These are standard deep hive bodies (boxes) which have been divided into four, Two frame sections. This mating box will sit on a special bottom board giving each section its own separate entrance.

(left) Looking down inside a compartment to the screened bottom below.
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(Below) The special screened bottom board. See how each section will have it's own entrance?

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The plan is, that once queen cells have been raise to the point where the queen is ready to

emerge, each one of these sections will receive a queen cell, with two full frames

of bees and capped brood. Once the queen emerges from her cell she will take two to three mating flights where she will mate with multiple males, 12 to 15. Upon completing her mating process she will return to her compartment and start to lay fertilized eggs. She can then be evaluated, marked, and introduce into a colony who’s queen is failing.


The forsythia has begun to bloom, as well as the peach trees, and early dandelions.

Forsythia Blossom

The forsythia is an important pollen producer for the honey bee in spring. The bees will collect the abundant pollen to use as food for the young.

The peach tree in our yard is always the first fruit tree to bloom. It’s pink flowers are pretty contrast against the yellow flowering forsythia.

Peach Blossom

The blooming of the dandelions are a traditional signal to the northern beekeeper to switch the two deep hive bodies. During the winter months the cluster of bees will work its way around the stores of honey in the hive. They group themselves together into a tight ball, and by moving there wing muscles without moving their wings, they generate enough heat to keep the center of the cluster at 90 degrees. This “ball” of bees will move as a group around the hive and slowly consume the 50 pounds or so of honey that has been stored in the combs. By spring they are almost always in the upper of the two boxes. This is convenient for the beekeeper, because if extra food is required, a sugar candy mixture can be added on top of the frames of bees to sustain them until they can collect food in the spring. Once the dandelions show up, it is warm enough to place the top box with most of the bees, and the queen, on the bottom, and place the mostly empty box of comb on top of the box with the queen.


An overwinterd collony being fed sugar candy. See how all the bees are clustered in one area?
Since the queen likes to move upward in a hive, she will be able to lay eggs below, and when the lower box is depleted of space, she can move upward to the empty combs, which are now being filled with pollen and nectar from the spring flowers. This allows a more rapid buildup of bees in preparation to the main honey flow (nectar flow) which starts here on Cape Cod around the last week of May. Now is buildup time. The more bees we have, the more honey will be produce, but also the greater chance of swarming.


But more about that next time…


Of Mice, Men, and Bees

The weather was warm enough (low 60’s) to open up the hives and have a more detailed look inside, as well as doing some basic hive maintenance like cleaning off the bottom boards of dead bees and miscellaneous hive debris.



As expected I opened one of the hives to find a family of mice living inside the bottom hive body. A hive is a nice dry place for mice to live during the winter. The bees stay in the upper box, to far away to do much damage to mice during the cold winter months. It appears that my home made mouse guards, which are supposed to keep the mice out, did not work the way they were intended to. I ended up replacing three of the four chewed combs with drawn comb from last season.



The Crocus have started blooming and there were some bees working the welcomed flowers. Pollen collection seamed to be the task of the day. Pollen is consumed by the bees as their carbohydrate. Mixed with some honey this “Bee Bread” is fed to the young while they develop through their various stages from egg to adult. Pollen is crucial to the spring buildup of the hive. An over-wintered hive will expand from around 4,000 bees in the spring to about 60,000 bees in August. The number of bees in the hive has a direct effect the amount of nectar collected by the bees from the flowers, and thus the amount of honey which will be produced that summer.

A retro-fitted bottom board. Once solid it has been modified to be a screened bottom board with a pull-out sticky board.

It has been a cold spring here on Cape Cod. The bees have not yet started feeding off the sugar syrup placed in the hive top feeders two weeks ago. Once the warmer spring weather appears the bees will kick into high gear raising and feeding the young larva.


I would be interested to hear from other northern beekeepers regarding the condition of their hives. What are you doing to feed and help you bees?

You can leave a comment by selecting “post a comment” below.

. Beekeeping

Winterize

Well it is the end of October. We have been preparing our hives for winter since the honey crop was removed on September first. I have come to learn that next years beekeeping begins now in the fall. In order to have strong hives next spring the colonies need to be properly prepared in the fall. I will say it again… The success of next years beekeeping depends on what we do now.

Above: A hive top feed being installed on a colony. You can see that a pollen substitute patty, and a Crisco and sugar patty has been installed in the hive. The pollen patty ensures nutrition. The Crisco and sugar patty treats varroa and trachea mites.

Some people are beehavers. They have bees, there bees die, they get more bees, they have them, those bees die.

Some people are beekeepers. They keep there bees healthy year after year.


Above: 2:1 sugar syrup being poured into the hive top feeder. The bees will collect this sugar syrup and store it for food to be consumed this winter.

I have been amazed that our mite problem still exists in the previously treated hives. Once high levels of varroa mite levels are detected, treatment of the hives began immediately. It takes 3 weeks to treat with formic acid pads, and with the weather getting cooler the formic acid vapors will not be as effective as they were in early September.


Above: Robbing was so bad this year that I had to install weather stripping between the feeders and the cover to prevent bees from stealing the sugar syrup.

Our winter preparations in October and the first two weeks of November include the following.

1: Colonies are inspected for health. Is the colony strong? Is the colony health? Is there an adequate number of bees to insure the colonies survival through the winter months. Have the bees produced enough comb to store food. Sometimes the combs of bees need to be rearranged so that all the drawn comb and honey stores are located in the upper brood chamber. Empty frames and un-drawn frames of foundation are moved to the lower brood chamber. Since the bees will over-winter in the top box, this should be the location of most of their stores.



2: The hives are inspected for adequate winter stores of pollen and honey. If there is less than 50 lbs of honey in the colony the hives will be fed with a 2:1 ration of sugar syrup. Two parts sugar to one part water. All our colonies are fed sugar syrup and pollen substitute to insure they have more than enough supplies for winter.

Robbing has been a big problem this year. One drop of syrup outside the hive causes thousands of bees to go searching for the syrup. Once this starts hives will attempt to rob other hives of their winter stores. The battle is amazing to watch, but it is not good for the bees. Because of this problem we have installed entrance reducers on all the hives to help them protected themselves against robbing.

3: Mouse guards and entrance reducers are installed on all the hives to keep mice from building nests in the dry cozy hives.

Above: Formic acid pads installed over a colony in order to reduce the varroa mites.

4: All colonies are evaluated for varroa mites. If varroa mites are found in large numbers the colonies are treated for varroa and trachea mites using formic acid applications.

5: Ventilation will be provided above the colonies to allow moisture out of the hive. By placing two square toothpicks under the back side of the inner cover, a ventilation space is created. This ventilation will keep moisture from building up on the underside of the cover which would drip on the colony. The cold will not harm a healthy cluster of bees, but cold damp conditions will. I also install a layer of newspaper above the ventilation space. This newspaper will absorb any moisture that may collect, keeping it from effecting the colony.



Above: Entrance reducers and mouse guards are installed on the hives to prevent the entrance of mice. The mice love to spend the winter in the dry hives. Once inside the mice will destroy the comb to make room for it's nest. You can see the bees bringing in the fall pollen.

6: Review this past seasons beekeeping notes. Identify what went wrong and why. Correct these deficiencies.

Learn by your mistakes!

. Bee Escape

The Great Extraction

On September 1st we removed and extracted the honey from our hives here on the Cape. As suspected and commented on in previous posts it was a very lean year honey wise.

With the potential to produce 350 pounds of honey our hives produced only 28 pounds. Some beekeepers in our area did not get any honey from there hives this year. The combination of a very cold spring, and a very dry summer created no abundance of nectar. What little the bees collected was used to keep the hive running.

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Right: A frame of capped honey
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The process of extracting honey consists of first removing the honey supers from the hives. To achieve this, bee escape boards are placed between the honey supers (boxes) and the brood chamber (where the bees raise their young). Over a few days the bees leave the honey super and are unable to return to it through the escape board. The honey boxes can then be removed.
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Left: Uncapping the honey comb with a hot electric knife

Honey is produced by the collection of nectar from the local flowers. The nectar contains about 1% sugar. The bees collect the nectar and store it in the cells of the comb. The water is evaporated from the nectar leaving only the sugar behind. Once the honey is “ripe” (completed) the bees cap over the cells with a white wax. The wax capping seals the cells and keeps the honey from absorbing moisture from the air. The honey is now sealed in a air tight container of wax. Normally the bees would save the honey and use it as food during the winter months. The cell would be uncapped when the honey was needed as food. Fortunately for the beekeeper bees are hoarders of honey. They will produce much more honey than they need to survive the winter.

The Beekeeper can take for himself what the bees will not need. Yum.

The extraction process starts with the removal of the white wax cappings. A hot electric knife is used to cut the wax cappings off the comb exposing the liquid honey in the cells. Frames of honey which are not capped are not extracted. Uncapped honey may contain excess water which will in time cause the honey to ferment. Only ripe capped honey comb is extracted.

Once the frame of honey is uncapped it is placed in a centrifuge (extractor). The comb is spun in the extractor and centrifugal force causes the liquid honey out of the comb and into the extractor. The empty combs are then removed and stored to be used again next season.
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Right: Our two fram hand crank extractor
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The best part of extracting is the sent of hot honey produced by the electric uncapping knife. The smell is indescribably sweet.

Once the honey gate is open liquid honey pours out into a series of screens designed to remove any wax which may be in the honey. The honey drips through the screens into a honey bucket. Each bucket holds about 60 pounds of honey.

The honey is stored for 24 hours which allows any small particles of wax to float to the top of the honey bucket. The honey is then poured from the bottom of the pail through a honey gate and into the bottles.

Each years honey is different from the previous years, depending on what flowers the honey was collected from. As you can see, this years honey was very dark, compared to last years honey which was very golden.
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Left: Extracted liquid honey pouring into the filter screens


Once the honey is removed from the hive, preparations begin for the over wintering of the hives.

But more about that next time.


Posted by Mark at 7:01 PM 1 comments Links to this post
Labels: Bee Escape, Beekeeping, Honey Extracting, Honey Flow
August 30, 2007
Escaping Bees and Counting Mites
Well it’s now the end of August here on Cape Cod. It has been a great summer, weather wise, but the worst honey production year I have seen since I started keeping bees in 1978.
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Left: The dreaded Varroa mite. The mite population increases through the summer months and can reach damaging numbers.
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We are averaging about 10 lbs of honey per producing hive, and only 3 out of 7 hives are producing any honey. Last years yield was 60 lbs of honey per hive. This honey season has been a disappointing one. As a beekeeper, at this point, I can not see what could have been done better to produce more honey. The biggest factor was the spring weather. It was cold too long for the bees to build up in numbers and to take advantage of the spring honey flow. Then when the spring honey flow finally started, three weeks late, it was over too fast.
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Right: A screened bottom board with a sticky board installed. The screened bottom board allows Varroa mites to fall out of a colony and not climb back in. The sticky board is installed to collect the fallen mites in order to observe their numbers.
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August is when the Varroa mites show up in their greatest numbers. Detected in Kentucky in 1991 they have quickly spread throughout the country. A few years ago the cape lost about 80% of its bee colonies because of the Varroa Mites. The mites attach themselves to the bees, feeding off of them, weakening them, and spreading disease.
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Right: A sticky board being removed from the screened bottom board after a 24 hour period. The mite levels found on the board will reveal if there is a mite population problem inside the hive.
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A week ago I conducted a 24 hour mite drop count on all the colonies. Since I maintain a screened bottom board on most of the colonies, a slide in sticky board was used to collect falling mites over a 24 hour period. The sticky board is then removed and the mites counted. If only a few are found then it is an indication that the mite population is low within the colony. My mite count was in the hundreds in two of the colonies, with high counts in a third, and low counts in the others. I have never experienced mites in these numbers before. The trend was that the over-wintered colonies had a much higher mite count than the colonies started in 2007.
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Right: Enlarged area of the sticky board. Among the debris are great numbers of varroa mites. Not good news.
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Before the hives can receive any type of medications or treatments the Honey must be removed from the hive. I installed escape boards which allow the bees to exit the honey supers, and not return. Within two to three days almost all the bees will have exited the honey supers into the brood chambers below where the queen is. After removing all of the honey, I was able to start formic acid treatments. Formic acid is found naturally in the colony. Adding formic acid pads inside the colony raises the formic acid level within the colony. This increased level does not hurt the bees, but kills both Varroa and Trachea mites. The treatment lasts 3 weeks after which the hives will be tested again for Varroa mites to insure their numbers are under control. Once the formic acid pads are removed, the acid levels return to normal.
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Left: Closeup of the sticky board. Oil spray (like pam) is used on the board to keep the mites in place once they fall onto the board.
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Since honey production was so low this year, the hives do not contain much honey for the bees to live on through the winter. We have started feeding the bees with a 1:1 ratio of sugar and water. The supplemental feeding has started early this year so the bees will have enough time to store it in the brood chamber.
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Left: The bottom of a bee escape board. The bees can come down through the round hole, and out the small openings, but are to dumb to find there way back. Once placed between the honey supers and the brood chamber this board will evacuate the bees from the honey super in three days.
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I am hoping that there will be an abundance of Goldenrod bloom this fall. The Goldenrod is the last major producer of nectar and pollen for the bees before the frost and cold weather set in.
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Right: Installed bee escape board.
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We will be extracting what honey we can this weekend!

That’s always fun

.HONEY PIE

April showers bring… Honey Pie
Well we are still feeling the effects of the record breaking Nor’easter here on the Cape. The spring temperatures continue to be below normal for this time of year. These colder spring temperatures are hard on the Bees. When temperatures tip below 40 degrees the bees start to cluster. Not much work gets done, and the colony certainly does not expand.



A worker bee bringing pollen an nector into the hive


Fortunately I was able to check the hives prior to the big storm and replace any pollen patties or food that may be required. Even with the rain, if the temperatures climb above 40 they will be able to feed. One hive which has been weak all spring, continues to dwindle in numbers. The cluster is down to only one and a half frames of bees. If it does not warm up soon I don’t know if they will be able to survive.



A nice shot of one of my bees with pollen on his hind legs
The bees were flying the Saturday before Easter, and I was able to take a few photographs of the bees bringing in some much needed spring pollen.

The weather has been so cold that the bees have not taken any of the sugar syrup feed that was place on the hives the end of March. Our shipment of new bees has been delayed a week due to the weather. This will give a little more time to prepare the required equipment.

The weather forecast is predicting warm temperatures this weekend.




My wife's Honey Apricot Pie
On the positive side, the bad weather has encouraged some cooking and baking on the part of my talented wife. For the Easter holiday she prepared a unique honey apricot chiffon pie with chocolate and almond bees. There were many steps involved but as you can see the pie came out beautiful. The best part was that it tasted better than it looked!

It makes you almost wish for more rain so there will be more baking.



But I’m not!

. BEEKEEPİNG

Beekeeping

There are different kinds of bee, but the European honey bee makes the most honey. They make more honey than they can possibly use, so humans are able to take the extra honey they make. These are the bees that are kept by beekeepers.


A beekeeper is called an apiarist (say ape-ee-uh-rist).

Apiarists keep bees in hives with rows of frames inside. The bees build comb inside each frame and fill it with honey.

The frames are easily lifted out and the honey-filled comb is removed and the empty frame replaced. The bees build more comb and fill it with nectar.



Some apiarists put their hives in places where there is plenty of one kind of flower, such as lavendar or eucalypts, so that the bees collect nectar from only those plants. Honey made from nectar of certain plants has a particular taste. Some honey sold in shops is from a mixture of flowers.


An apiarist wears protective clothing, including netting that covers the face and neck, and fills the hive with smoke so the bees get sleepy. This makes it safer to open the hive.



The apiarist on the left is holding the smoker which puffs smoke into the hive.





The combs put into a container that spins around to remove the honey, leaving empty wax combs which can be used for making furniture polish or candles. Honey is taken from the container and put in jars.

. BEES MAX

“The life of Man is said to be like a candle - the candle itself the mortal form, the unmelted wax undeveloped potential, and its flame the spirit - for candles are not only light, but living fire.”
Cheeky Bee beeswax candles offer the most healthy and enlightened candle burning experience on earth. Here's why:

Beeswax burns completely clean - non-toxic and non-allergenic. Cheeky Bee candles contain no paraffin, benzene, acrolyn, lead, stearic acid, or any other chemicals. Simply 100% pure, Canadian beeswax.

Beeswax is the only fuel known to science that releases a negative ion as it burns. Negative ions are proven to eliminate dust, pollen, mould, smoke, food odour and pet dander, as well as airborne germs and bacteria. These ions are nature's way of cleaning up man's pollution. They are a fundamental aspect of our planet's survival and are found in high concentrations in several ecological areas like mountain regions, seashores, waterfalls, and oceans. Electrical storms and rainfall also release a tremendous amount of negative ions. They help alleviate asthma and allergies and invigorate the most basic cells of the human body. Beeswax also promotes healthier and less fitful sleep and dream patterns.


Unlike paraffin's "burn off", beeswax reacts more like water and evaporates by the heat of the flame. This is one of the reasons why beeswax doesn't smoke. This is also why we recommend that you maintain the wick at 1/4 inch (the higher the flame, the hotter the flame, the faster the evaporation).

Beeswax has a considerably higher melting point than paraffin. Because it takes longer to melt, it therefore burns much slower. This is how we are able to claim such incredible burn times for our candles. As a result, beeswax burns very efficiently and thus costs pennies an hour to burn, making it economical as well.



We utilize an all natural plant fibre wick in our candles. This is consistent with the purity and perfection of our wax. Our wick is better able to withstand the high melting point of beeswax, thereby allowing one to safely use the entire candle - right down to the base.

With each Cheeky Bee candle, you are guaranteed the cleanest beeswax available. We fully render our wax and put each batch through a triple-filter process. This removes any and all impurities and exemplifies the best and most beautiful beeswax that nature has to offer.

Beeswax burns with a brilliant, golden flame that will enhance any spiritual experience. It's positive vibration will charm and illuminate - bringing heightened connection, awareness, and positive energy to any gathering or meditative session.


Beeswax comes in a variety of shades and tones depending on the region and the nectar's source from which it is harvested. At Cheeky Bee, we use only the cappings of the hive, meaning we do not use the traditionally darker comb wax. It is interesting to note that the various shades of beeswax and honey eerily resembles the skin tones of every human being on earth.

Bees will travel over 50,000 miles and pollinate over 2 million flowers to generate 1/4 of a pound of pure beeswax. Beeswax is actually white, but turns yellow due to the natural colour of pollen: something bees collect in abundance. The sweet aroma is the true essence of 10,000 flowers.

Beeswax will occasionally develop a layer of dust, or bloom, on its exterior. This is natural and to be expected, especially when storing. Simply rub it off with a dry cloth or use a hair dryer to remove. Beeswax, because of its consistency, can be safely stored and kept forever.

The connection between the bee and a "higher power" can be traced back to the time of the ancient Egyptians. It is customary that candles burned in churches be made from beeswax: the significance being that the bee literally processes the nectars of the Gods. Beeswax was traditionally used in art, religious ceremonies, as a cloth preserver and in healing ointments. Today it is used in candles, cosmetics, salves, waterproofing, tool maintenance, furniture preserving, carpentry and in the grafting of plants and trees.

Beeswax, because of its purity and natural origins, burns on the identical light spectrum as fire: a source that is conducive to the relaxation of the retina (of the eye) and thus helping to ease tension on the central nervous system of the body. Our candles produce a very bright flame and are ideal for meditation, relaxation and yoga.





95% of the world's candles contain some percentage of paraffin wax. Paraffin is a petroleum bi-product that requires more chemicals to harden, colour and scent it, as well as releasing numerous toxins as you burn it (easily identified by black soot). Paraffin has a low melting point resulting in inefficient use of the material. It also contributes to Paraffinoma, a condition arising from the exposure to and use of paraffin based products. Common ailments include itchy watery eyes, sore throat, blocked nasal passages, headaches and skin irritations. Don't be fooled by "aromatherapy" candles. Despite the fact that wonderful essential oils are used, paraffin wax is still the foundation. Paraffin is a cheap, wasteful alternative to burning the real thing - beeswax, the natural alternative.

: www.cheekybee.com

. BEE COMMUNICATION

Bee learning and communication

Honey bees learn and communicate in order to find food sources and for other means.

Swarming bees require good communication in order to congregate all in the same spot
Learning
Learning is essential for efficient foraging. Honey bees are unlikely to make many repeat visits if a plant provides little in the way of reward. A single forager will visit different flowers in the morning and, if there is sufficient attraction and reward in a particular kind of flower, she will make visits to that type of flower for most of the day, unless the plants stop producing reward or weather conditions change. Honey bees are quite adept at associative learning, and many of the standard phenomena of conditioning take the same form in honey bees as they do in the vertebrates that are the more usual subjects of such experiments.

Honey bees can perform learning tasks that go beyond simple conditioning. Foragers were trained to enter a simple Y-shaped maze that had been marked at the entrance with a particular color. Inside the maze was a branching point where the bee was required to choose between two paths. One path, which led to the food reward, was marked with the same color that had been used at the entrance to the maze, while the other was marked with a different color. Foragers learned to choose the correct path, and continued to do so when a different kind of marker (black and white stripes oriented in various directions) was substituted for the colored markers. When the experimental conditions were reversed, rewarding bees for choosing the inner passage marked with a symbol that was different from the entrance symbol, the bees again learned to choose the correct path. Extending the length of the tunnel to increase the time between seeing the one marker indicating the correct path and a second marker identifying the correct path show that the bees can retain the information for about 5 seconds, equivalent to the short-term memory of birds.[1]


Communication
Foragers communicate their floral findings in order to recruit other worker bees of the hive to forage in the same area. The factors that determine recruiting success are not completely known but probably include evaluations of the quality of nectar and/or pollen brought in.

There are two main hypotheses to explain how foragers recruit other workers — the "waggle dance" or "dance language" theory and the "odor plume" theory. The dance language theory is far more widely accepted, and has far more empirical support. The theories also differ in that the former allows for an important role of odor in recruitment (i.e., effective recruitment relies on dance plus odor), while the latter claims that the dance is essentially irrelevant (recruitment relies on odor alone).


Dance language
It has long been known that successfully foraging Western honey bees perform a dance on their return to the hive, known as waggle dance (the round dance is a short version of the waggle dance). The laden forager dances on the comb in a circular pattern, occasionally crossing the circle in a zig-zag or waggle pattern. Aristotle in 330 BC, described this behaviour in his Historia Animalium. It was thought to attract the attention of other bees.

In 1947, Karl von Frisch correlated the runs and turns of the dance to the distance and direction of the food source from the hive. The orientation of the dance correlates to the relative position of the sun, and the length of the waggle portion of the run is correlated to the distance from the hive. There is no evidence that this form of communication depends on individual learning.

Von Frisch performed a series of experiments to validate his theory.[2] He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1973 for his discoveries.


One of the most important lines of evidence on the origin and utility of the dance is that all of the known species and races of honey bees exhibit the behavior, but details of its execution vary among the different species. For example, in Apis florea and Apis andreniformis (the "dwarf honeybees") the dance is performed on the dorsal, horizontal portion of the nest, which is exposed. The runs and dances point directly toward the resource in these species. Each honey bee species has a characteristically different correlation of "waggling" to distance, as well.[3] Such species-specific behavior suggests that this form of communication does not depend on learning but is rather determined genetically. It also suggests how the dance may have evolved.

Various experiments document that changes in the conditions under which the dance is performed lead to characteristic changes in recruitment to external resources,[4] in a manner consistent with von Frisch's original conclusions.


Odor plume
While the majority of researchers believe that bee dances give enough information to locate resources, proponents of the odor plume theory argue that the dance gives no actual guidance to a nectar source. They argue that bees instead are primarily recruited by odor. The purpose of the dance is simply to gain attention to the returning worker bee so she can share the odor of the nectar with other workers who will then follow the odor trail to the source.

The primary lines of evidence used by the odor plume advocates are

clinical experiments with odorless sugar sources which show that worker bees are unable to recruit to those sources and
logical difficulties of a small-scale dance (a few centimeters across) giving directions precise enough to hold the other bees on course during a flight that could be several kilometers long. Misreading by even a few degrees would lead the bee off course by hundreds of meters at the far end.
Neither of these points invalidate the dance theory, but simply point out that odor must be involved, which is indeed conceded by all proponents of dance theory. Critics of the odor plume theory counter that most natural nectar sources are relatively large - orchards or entire fields. Precision may not be necessary or even desirable. They have also challenged the reproducibility of the odorless source experiment.

The academic debate between these two theories is extremely polarized and often hostile. Adrian Wenner, a modern bee researcher, is the chief proponent of the odor plume theory (anti-dance). One supporter of Wenner's theories, Julian O'Dea, has proposed an evolutionary explanation for the "waggle dance" that does not involve communication from one bee to another, by claiming it may be a simple idiothetic movement that conveys no information [1]. Conversely, experiments with robotic dummies were indeed able to induce some recruitment,[5] which should not have been possible if the dance contains no information.

The controversy persists, though it does so primarily due to an asymmetry between the two "camps"; those who study dance communication freely admit that odor is an essential component of the system, and even necessary at various stages of the recruitment process, including once a recruited forager reaches the vicinity of the resource (e.g.[6]), while odor-plume advocates do not acknowledge that the dance contains any information whatsoever. Various experimental results demonstrate that the dance does convey information, but the use of this information may be context-dependent (e.g.[7]), and this may explain why the results of earlier studies were inconsistent. In essence, both sides of the "controversy" agree that odor is used in recruitment to resources, but they differ strongly in opinion as to the information content of the dance.

Note: much of the research on the two competing hypotheses of communication has been restricted to Western honey bees (but see the work of F.C. Dyer [2]. Other species of Apis use variants on the same theme, and other types of bees use other methods altogether.


Trophallaxis
The exchange of food, trophallaxis, is also used by means to communicate and includes information on the quality of and thus competition for a food source, temperature and water demand, and the condition of the queen (Sebeok, 1990).


Primer Pheromones
For more background on this topic, see Pheromone (honey bee).
Research that was published in November 2004, by scientists under the leadership of Dr. Zachary Huang, Michigan State University indicates that so called primer pheromones play an important part in how a honey bee colony adjusts its distribution of labor most beneficially. In order to survive as a bee colony of sometimes 50,000 -100,000 individual bees, the communal structure has to be adaptable to seasonal changes and the availability of food. The division of labor has to adjust itself to the resources available from foraging. While the division of labor in a bee colony is quite complex, the work can be roughly seen as work inside the hive and outside the hive. Younger bees play a role inside the hive while older bees play a role outside the hive mostly as foragers. Huang's team found that forager bees gather and carry a chemical called ethyl oleate in the stomach. The forager bees feed this primer pheromone to the worker bees, and the chemical keeps them in a nurse bee state. The pheromone prevents the nurse bees from maturing too early to become forager bees. As forager bees die off less of the ethyl oleate is available and nurse bees more quickly mature to become foragers. It appears that this control system is an example of decentralized decision making in the bee colony.


Cognition
Experiments by James Gould suggest that honey bees may have a cognitive map for information they have learned, and utilize it when communicating.

In one test reported in a 1983 issue of Science News, he moved a supply of sugar water 25% further away from a hive each day[8]. The bees communicated to each other as usual on its location. Then he placed the sugar water on a boat anchored in the middle of a small lake. When scouts returned to the hive to communicate their find, other bees refused to go with them, not expecting to find food in the middle of a lake, even though they frequently flew over the lake to reach pollen sources on the opposite shore.


In another test related in the August 1986 issue of Discover ("A Honey of a Question: Are Bees Intelligent?"), Gould lured some bees to a dish of artificial nectar, then gradually moved it farther from the hive after they became accustomed to it. He marked the addicted bees, placed them in a darkened jar, and relocated them to a spot where the hive was still visible, but not the dish. When released one by one, the bees would appear disoriented for a few seconds, then fly directly for the covert dish. 73 of 75 bees reached it in about 28 seconds. They apparently accomplished this feat by devising a new flight path based on a cognitive map of visible landmarks.


See also
Proxemics
Zoosemiotics



References
^ Zhang, S; Bock F, Si A, Tautz J, Srinivasan MV (April 5 2005). "Visual working memory in decision making by honey bees". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 102 (14): 5250-5. PMID 15795382.
^ von Frisch, K. (1967) The Dance Language and Orientation of Bees. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.
^ Dyer, F.C., T.D. Seeley (1991). Dance dialects and foraging range in three Asian honey bee species. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 28: 227-233
^ Visscher, P.K. and Tanner, D.A. (2004). Sensory aspects of recruitment-dance performance in honey bees (Apis mellifera). in: Hartfelder, K.H, De Jong, D. et al. eds. (2004) Proceedings of the 8th IBRA International Conference on Tropical Bees and VI Encontro sobre Abelhas. Ribierao Preto: USP/FM
^ Michelsen, A., B. B. Anderson, W. H. Kirchner, and M. Lindauer (1989). Honeybees can be recruited by a mechanical model of a dancing bee. Naturwissenschaften 76:277-280.
^ Riley, J.R., Greggers, U., Smith, A.D., Reynolds, D.R. & Menzel, R. (2005). The flight paths of honeybees recruited by the waggle dance. Nature 435: 205-207.
^ G. Sherman & P.K. Visscher (2002) Honeybee colonies achieve fitness through dancing. Nature 419, 920-922
^ Science News; 4/23/1983, Vol. 123 Issue 17, p271, 1/6p
Leoncini, I; Le Conte Y, Costagliola G, Plettner E, Toth AL, Wang M, Huang Z, Becard JM, Crauser D, Slessor KN, Robinson GE (December 14 2004). "Regulation of behavioral maturation by a primer pheromone produced by adult worker honey bees". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 101 (50): 17559-64. PMID 15572455.
Miller, Julie Ann (April 23, 1983). "Do Bees Plan Ahead Intelligently?". Science News 123 (17): 271.
Sebeok (1990). Essays in Zoosemiotics. Toronto: Toronto Semiotic Circle. ISSN 0838-5858 .

External links
Honeybee Communication
Genetic Control of the Honey Bee (apis mellifera) Dance Language: Segregating Dance Forms in a Backcrossed Colony
a very detailed introduction to the honey bee dance language. (.pdf file).
Paper by Adrian Wenner: http://www.beesource.com/pov/wenner/jib2002.htm
Martin Giurfa, et al.: The concepts of 'sameness' and 'difference' in an insect, Nature, 410, 930-933 (19 April 2001)
The Sensory Basis of the Honeybee's Dance Language, W Kirchner & W Towne, Scientific American
Jacqui Hayes: Please chemical controls bee dance COSMOS magazine

. WORKER BEES

WORKER BEES ARE IMPERFECT FEMALES maternally developed to provide all life support systems. Together with the sexually developed queen, also an imperfect female, the workers form the perfect female system- reproduction plus sustenance.

Worker honey bees are produced from fertilized eggs in 21 days (compared with 16 for queens). They lack fully developed sex organs as a result of a controlled diet that leads to hormonal deficiencies. However, some workers may develop functional ovaries and lay significant numbers of unfertilized eggs that develop into drones. Moreover, it is reported that worker bees in queenless colonies can produce female offspring from diploid eggs via parthenogenesis (that is, without mating). This occurs most frequently in one race of bees, which occasionally requeen colonies with worker-produced progeny.

Workers are the labor force of the colony, performing specialized duties based primarily on their age. Early in adult life they engage in hive duties such as brood rearing, comb construction, and colony defense, while late in their lives they become foragers.

Contrary to popular opinion worker bees are frequently idle, and foraging bees are highly opportunistic. Hive bees spend most of their time unproductively, and foragers prefer the most lucrative nectar and pollen sources. Although the divisions of labor are fairly clear-cut based on age, research has shown that in a worker population with an unbalanced age structure resulting from some catastrophic event, individual worker bees will adapt and assume duties that are not normal for their age. It has been shown that when bees are forced to modify their behavior in this fashion they perform less effectively than when they follow a normal sequence of development. Although the pheromones produced by the queen are necessary to maintain the integrity of the hive, worker bees are thought to control the fate of the colony by their activities, such as governing where and how many eggs the queen lays, replacing a failing queen, or ensuring the production of drones. The life span of worker bees is 4 to 6 months in the winter but only 28 to 35 days in the spring and summer.


Individual foraging bees readily discriminate between sources and normally retain a high degree of fidelity to a single source. Differences in foraging cues such as color, aroma, and taste are often subtle, but these modalities are handled with ease by the workers' sets of finely tuned receptor cells. Bees have an excellent sense of direction and time. Their chronometric powers permit them to emerge from the hive each day at the precise time a certain plant species begins to produce nectar or pollen. They also have an excellent memory, especially for odors. After one experience they can remember for 6 days; after three experiences they can remember for 2 weeks.

Honey bees forage between about 16'C (61'F) and 43'C (100'F). Honey bees are photonegative below 16'C; most plants do not even secrete nectar below 15.5'C (60'F). The honey bee eye, like that of many insects, is adapted to perceive rapid movement. This exceptional visual resolution enables bees in flight to discern the complex shapes and broken patterns of objects below, such as colored flowers against a green background. Bees have three visual pigments in each eye that permit them to see hues in the ultraviolet spectrum as well as the portion of the color spectrum (except red) visible to humans.

A bee collecting nectar normally makes 7 to 13 trips per day (the average is 10, the maximum recorded is 24), spending 27 to 45 min per trip. Flight speeds average 14.8 km (9.2 mi) per hour loaded and 13 km (8.1 mi) per hour empty. In doing so, a worker can visit as few as 5 or as many as 800 flowers in a single trip. When filled, the honey stomach can hold up to 85 percent of the weight of the bee. Bees collecting pollen usually take 6 to 10 minutes to gather a load, making 6 to 12 trips per day (the average is 10, the maximum reported is 47). On a single trip a bee will visit I to 200 flowers. The weight of a pollen load can be 20 to 33 percent of the weight of the bee. These estimates are variable, of course, and depend on the productivity of the plant source(s) involved and the needs of the colony. Research has shown that individual worker bees have an 804-km (500-mi) maximum lifetime flight limitation, determined by the exhaustion of her enzymatic mechanisms of carbohydrate metabolism.


When gathering pollen, a bee often uses both mouthparts and forelegs to dislodge pollen from the flower so that she becomes dusted with pollen. She then uses tarsal brushes on the foreleg to clean her mouthparts and head. Following this she uses similar brushes on her middle legs to clean the forelegs and thorax. Then with her hind legs she cleans the wings, abdomen, and middle legs. When cleaning the middle legs the bee grasps each leg between the pollen combs of the hind legs, drawing it past the combs. Interestingly, the result is that pollen taken from the right side of the bee is deposited in the left comb and vice versa. Then to pack the pollen the bee uses the rastellum (rake) on the opposite leg to clean each comb and force the pollen into the pollen press of that leg, which squeezes it (like toothpaste from a tube) up into the pollen basket on the outside of the hind leg. Thus in the packing process, pollen is moved from one side of the body to the other and then back again.

Since the tip of her sting is heavily barbed, the worker bee normally loses her sting when she impales an enemy as she attacks in self-defense or in defense of the hive. Shortly thereafter she dies as a result of a sizable loss of internal organs and tissue. If she doesn't lose her sting but empties the venom sac the worker is unable to replenish the venom. Adult worker bees must eat pollen (bee bread), grow, and mature before they have a full complement of venom. Venom gradually accumulates until the bees are about 15 days old. Hence, young bees are unable to sting effectively.


Some enemies of honey bees, such as skunks, are unaffected by large numbers of stings. Others, such as humans, may develop a hypersensitivity to the venom, which can be lethal; such people number less than 1 or 2 percent of the world population. (Recent studies have shown that most hypersensitive people do not react more intensively with each successive sting. Rather their level of reaction remains the same or decreases slightly with each event.) Normally, people who work with bees and are stung routinely eventually develop immunity to the extent that each additional sting produces only a small wheal or minimal swelling at the site of the sting.

gears.tucson.ars.ag.gov

. DRONES

about . . . Drones


Drones essentially do nothing but eat and attempt to mate. They can't even help defend the hive since they are stinger-less. When the weather is nice enough, they fly out of the hive at around 1pm to what is called the drone congregation area and wait for a virgin queen to fly by. When she does, they will do their best to become one of the 13 to 18 drones to mate with that queen. Unfortunately for that drone, mating is fatal. But they have served their life's purpose and their genetics carry on — quite literally survival of the fittest in action. Drones and queens mate on the wing. Since drones within a hive are the sons of that hive's queen (or brothers if there is a new queen), they don't inbreed unless by accident of fate outside of the hive.

Here at The Carolina Bee Company we keep a number of hives of bees in wooden boxes that are a good compromise between what a beekeeper can work with and what the bees seem to like. This equipment is largely similar to the original design of the Langstroth hive designed in the late 1800s, but has a few modern twists.

At the height of summer a hive can consist of roughly 40,000 to 80,000 honey bees. In the winter, they can drift all the way down to a few thousand or even less. Each hive consists of a number of boxes that we increase or decrease dependent on the number of bees in the hive and other variables.

These boxes also make it convenient (though it's hard work) to block off the hive entrance, pack up the bees on a truck and take those bees to a farmer's field. The bees, upon finding a rich source of pollen and nectar, enthusiastically fly from flower to flower collecting these delicious bee foods. We humans gain the side benefit of significantly boosting our production of food crops in that field.

A side benefit of the pollination of our food crops is the delicious honey that the bees produce. Honey is essentially dehydrated flower nectar, but the bees do add an enzyme and some other trace materials to it. Since honey bees, have to maintain an adult population throughout the winter need to stock up on honey. We humans have taken advantage of this and collect their excess for our own use.

Humans have been managing bees in some form or fashion for many thousands of years. Some say as far back as 8000 years.

Honey bees are fascinating creatures who socially manage their hive through a complex system of smells (pheromones), actions, and most amazingly, a symbolic dance. Honey bees are one of the few animals that have developed a symbolic language.

So, the next time you see a honey bee on a flower, stop for a moment to ponder and appreciate this beautiful and amazing little creature.

Here at The Carolina Bee Company we keep Western honey bees (as do most beekeepers). More specifically, the bulk of our hives are of the Minnesota Hygienic breed.
Cliff Van Eaton, New Zealand Beekeeper consultant, "And now for a moment of beeeeeeees," BoingBoing (blog), 15 September 2006 (Accessed 2 March 2008).
The quote: "A well-trained honey bee scientist wouldn't spell the name "honeybee", even though you'll find it mistakenly spelled this way in a number of dictionaries (as well as on the MS spell checker), and even in Wikipedia. The biological convention is that the name of an insect is separated into two words when the insect is what the name implies. So "honey bee" is separated into two words, since its a bee that collects honey, whereas "butterfly" is one word since it isn't a fly that produces butter."
E.H. Ericson Jr., S.D. Carlson, and M.B. Garment, "The Natural History of Honey Bees," in A Scanning Electron Microscope Atlas of the Honey Bee (accessed 2 March 2008).
Brenda Kellar, "Honey Bees Across America," 2004 (accessed 2008-03-02).
"Apis melliefera," Wikispecies (accessed 2008-03-02).
Learn honey bee hive dynamics at PBS' NATURE: Alien Empire Enter the Hive edu-tool.
Learn your anatomy of the honey bee and more at PBS' NATURE: Alien Empire Bee Anatomy edu-tool.