A Curious Beekeeper Goes to the Fair

I suppose it is only fair that the Bee Club tent with an observation hive was a bit hard to find. It was next to the 4-H tent and next to where the cattle got washed down before they were exhibited. Though it wasn’t that far from the food when I went to get a lemonade. We got to see all the cattle go by on their way to the exhibition ring.

People found the club. They looked for the queen in the observation hive (presuming she was there as she was small and probably went through the queen excluder to hide) and bought honey sticks. There was a pair of scissors for those that couldn’t wait to enjoy their purchased sweet and the scissors were really sticky by the end of the day. Those honey sticks were as full of honey as they could be.

It seemed as if all the visitors to the booth had to tell us how they were stung by a bee when they were little and how either they or their mother (or Grandma) was deathly allergic to bee stings, having to carry an Epi-Pen when outside. The whole story, every time. No one was ever stung by a Yellow Jacket nor did anything to deserve the sting. One person owned up to being stung while walking bare foot through clover; that very well could have been a Honey bee (maybe a Bumble) that did the stinging.

There were a fair number of people interested in keeping bees themselves, and we signed them up to be notified when bee school starts taking registrations. “There are no bees pollinating my garden,” said one, while for another it was fruit trees. “I guess if we want ‘em, we need to keep ‘em.” We had a few visits from out of state beekeepers that were fun. Guess what, they’re dealing with Varroa too!

The ones that knew the most about Honey bees and bees in general were kids. I’m not sure just who has been training them, but they knew that Honey bees were not native to the US, and that HBs died when they stung you. Their parents, on the other hand, didn’t know much but were willing to learn, as long as Junior was entertained. Our goto factoid was how Honey bee stings are barbed whereas wasp stings are smooth. Conveniently a wasp chose to hang around the observation hive. A mud dauber too.

I hope the club got lots of people to sign up to get information on Bee School. The setup was good. We had a tent, and posters, books, drawn frames of different sizes, an empty Langstroth hive, beekeeping paraphernalia (hive tool, smoker, etc.). Even a skep.

The only thing lacking – and I don’t want to be too critical of the club as it wasn’t long ago that there wasn’t a bee exhibit at the Blue Hill Fair – is an overall communications mission. What people who visited the exhibit got was Honey bees are cool, we need more Honey bees, wouldn’t you like to keep Honey bees? Cool enough though predictable.

Probably a communications mission is a few years away. The club was continuing to recruit volunteers today. Definitely having enough volunteers comes first.

This was the fair of Charlotte’s Web; (author E.B. White being a nearby summer resident) If the fair could have “some pig” spelled out in a barn spider web (there was a Zuckerman’s petting zoo), than the club could have had a stated objective… Something like, we want you to keep Honey bees, if the time isn’t right for you to keep bees, here’s what you can do to help Honey bees and pollinators in general.

I know I can be impatient. And while it was nice to take my turn, I was glad to be back in the bees today, even though they sensed a thunder storm looming and very quickly let me know they didn’t appreciate having their roof removed and their house torn apart.

This is fun, right?

A Curious Beekeeper looks at Bee Books

I’m an easy sell when it comes to bee books. My one requirement to think well of a book is that it be interesting – that is, present something unique or in a different way (and accurately too!).

On this group, we have talked a bunch about finding queens. There have been challenges and shared posts. More often than not I don’t have real trouble with them. (The challenges, that is.)

Going into a hive afterwards can be a different story. Sometimes queens don’t want to be found and sometimes they are not there to be found! Sometimes too I cross my fingers and hope she’s not on the frames I’m selecting for a new nuc.

Just this week I had what I think was a now missing queen from a swarm in a top bar hive. No eggs, larvae, capped brood. Super calm. No noise. No aggression towards my caged queen – actually little notice at all. I suspect a this was an after swarm with a virgin, who for whatever reason did not make it back from a mating flight.

(At EAS last week, we were told that new queens can take mating flights over 5 days and mate with as many as 60 drones.) (Don’t you love “new” findings? Replication, please.)

Anyway, while I left EAS with only a few books this year, I did manage to spend $13.49 (plus tax) on Amazon for something I hadn’t seen before – Queen Spotting by Hilary Kearney of Girl Next Door Honey. The book is subtitled “MEET THE REMARKABLE QUEEN BEE and discover the drama at the Heart of the Hive.”

I don’t care so much about the drama as much as the 48 “Queenspotting Challenges.” I did ok with them, missing a few, my excuse being that sometimes it is easier to spot queens when they are moving about / seeing in three dimensions instead of a picture. Of course, sometimes I want the bees on the frame I’m looking at to stop moving so I can figure out what is there.

And – as Hilary reminds us in the book – in most inspections you don’t need to find the queen, so long as you see signs (like eggs) that she is there.

Though I keep meaning to put a shaker box together (deep with a queen excluder and lots of duct tape) – Michael Palmer talks about these from time to time.

There are times, like when doing an alcohol wash, that I want to make very sure I know that the queen is safe and not in my sample!

The book is pretty good though there is the requisite amount of beginning beekeeping information in there. It is published by Storey Publishing and there are turns of phrase I’ll use: Such as “We are essentially staging a coup.” It is an easy read – kids and adults will like the challenges – There are interesting descriptions, such as what happens when those 20 swarm cells hatch. In general, the Storey books are decent, at least when the subject is bees.

There are lots of excellent pictures in “Queenspotting.”. Not all of queens.

This is definitely a book to take along on for exhibits.

Changing gears, I’m pleased to see that Eva Crane’s “A Book of Honey” has been republished. This book should not be confused with “Honey – A Comprehensive Survey” first published in 1975 – Crane, then Director of the Bee Research Association (now IBRA), is credited for that as Editor.

I’m not so happy that I paid well over $100 for an ex-libris copy of “A Book of Honey” a few years back, but I am glad it is available now. This is a reference book, not for light reading. Bee Culture Magazine says “it must be on the shelves of anyone who is serious about understanding honey.” I agree.

The section on ancient beekeeping history is classic. If you want to understand beekeeping history this volume, especially when paired with Tammy Horn’s “Bees in America” is all you need. These are a pair for your club library, where they can be borrowed when needed.

“A Book of Honey” is published by IBRA and Northern Bee Books. It will be available on Amazon July 31.

Dr. Eva Crane was a fabulous researcher who died in 2007. I wish I had known about her in my first years of keeping bees. Though I too wish that Varroa mites would suddenly vanish from my hives.

I need to stop wishing. That is not going to happen. Any more than my beekeeping book collection is going to stop growing.

Have you read something interesting lately? (bee related)

A Curious Beekeeper feels overwhelmed

The EAS Conference ended last night (Friday) in South Carolina. Overwhelmed is an understatement.

6 new Master Beekeepers were welcomed at Friday's banquet, including an Internet friend of mine, met in person for the first time at the conference. Next year’s EAS is in Maine, at the University of Maine in Orono during the first week of August. The next year (2021) looks like Massachusetts, but that is not written in stone yet.

The big message I took from the collected program is that Varroa mites can cause lots of big problems, primarily by weakening the bees' immune system and inoculating the bees with various viruses.

We’ve known for years that Varroa mites are something that should not be ignored. There is so much damage caused by viruses and various pathogens (including pesticides) that controlling Varroa is even more important today than it was a few years ago.

There wasn’t a consistent message of how to control, just that they need to be controlled.

Most beekeepers use an acaricide – some of them organic. The Honey Bee Health Coalition has a great guide that can assist in deciding what to do.

Though if you choose to be a completely natural beekeeper, even Dr. Seeley encourages euthanization of hives heavily infested with Varroa.

Which basically means all beekeepers – even those who have no intent of using any sort of treatment - need to pay attention to Varroa, monitoring to know what levels are.

If you choose to use a treatment, checking after the treatment to make sure it worked, is important. (Some of the acaricides still registered are not effective in parts of the country.)

The EPA has a label for each one stating how the pesticide is to be used, what applicator safety gear is required, and most everything else you could want to know including withdrawal periods (the time you need to wait before you can have supers on) and special use conditions (like temperature restrictions for using Formic Acid.)

Oxalic Acid Vaporization (OAV) is to be used when a colony doesn’t have brood. This time of year, most colonies have lots of brood. There are ways to break the brood cycle so you can use OAV – they require the beekeeper to do something like cage or remove the queen. Some of the speakers were adamant anti-Oxalic Acid, in that for them the risks to their own health when applying outweighed the result of killing mites.

We’re fast coming up on the time of year when the bees will start creating Winter Bees, or the long-lived bees that live through winter. Beekeepers were encouraged to anticipate the development of these Varroa and to do whatever they need to have the winter bees develop without Varroa 1) weakening their immune system or 2) shortening the winter bees lives. There isn’t universal clarity on when Winter Bees are born – in my part of Maine they start being born the 2nd half of August. An easy and not entirely precise way to think about Winter Bees is that they are the ones who come of foraging age after the killing frost. In other words, they are the ones who don’t work themselves to death foraging.

Many of us (myself definitely included) have had too many colonies that dwindled and died over winter. A small cluster unable to adequately thermo-regulate the hive or move to stores may technically die from something other than Varroa. But the reason the cluster was small to begin with can often be attributed to Varroa.

40%+ winter colony loss is too high. Controlling Varroa ought to be your first step in getting your personal loss number down.

It was a great conference but I’m glad to be making my way home and to get back to working with my bees. I checked my scale hive this morning so I can tell at least that a bear hadn’t taken it out, at least as of sometime yesterday.

I’m curious to hear what other beekeepers are doing to produce healthy Winter Bees. The temps for me look like they’ll peak in the 70s (F) for the next week, so I have options.

Are you doing anything interesting?

A Curious Beekeeper considers what is meant by local adaptation

Yipes. Talk about nature versus nurture. There is great debate about just what locally adapted means and if locally adapted bees survive better and produce more than imported bees.

In the UK there is a great movement to keeping the local native bee, the so called black bee or Apis mellifera mellifera, despite (or perhaps in spite of) Amms having almost been wiped out by the infamous Isle of Wight disease beginning near the dawn of the last century, and lasting for some 20 years. Like CCD, the cause of IOW is debated, with many publications saying it was Tracheal mites.

I found a web posting by Wally Shaw, a Welch beekeeper and author, who says the black bees have been evolving there since the last ice age. Honey bees are not native here. Apis mellifera mellifera was first brought here in the 1600s, and over time was augmented with other bees of Apis mellifera, notably ligustica (Italian) and carnica.

Beekeepers in the Northern US tend to believe that bees adapted to our climate do better in terms of survival than bees from the South or from California. I myself import bred Canadian bees when I can afford them, locally produced and bred bees otherwise. I’d import from Europe if I could. (Danish Buckfast) but the Honey Bee act of 1922 has that door firmly shut.

(“Russian” bees, meaning bees from the RBBA didn’t work for me.)

Why am I using the word “bred”? I haven’t been convinced that natural selection will give me the bee I want to work with, at least not in the time frame I have available to me. I keep in mind that with natural selection, extinction is a possibility.

The problem with bred bees is that you’re forever buying them. At least if the goal is to keep your bees true to what you bought.

Then too, I have never bought the notion that all swarms are locally adapted, survivor bees. Perhaps if the swarm was seen emerging from a bee tree somewhere deep in the woods, but otherwise… I do not know of any genetic testing that can be done without killing the bees being tested.

Not that I am dismissing natural selection. Given the little I know about Honey bees and genetics, I speculate it will take 30 years plus to achieve a bee that will have adapted to life with Varroa. If we go that way exclusively, I worry that there might not be any commercial beekeepers left. If Varroa was first observed in the US in 1987...doing the math… let’s make that another 30 years.

I know there are some commercial beekeepers who are said to make a go of their beekeeping, relying on natural selection. Sam Comfort and Kirk Webster are often mentioned.

Still, I don’t want my investment in what is a hobby for me, to be lost. Without live bees, I’ll have a bunch of very expensive kindling.

(I suppose I could put the electric fence around my sweet corn.)

So, what’s local adaptation? Bees that are progeny of those that survive (winters) and in general thrive locally. I tend to add surviving in areas colder than mine too. I also want decent honey production, reasonable temperament, and at least the start of abilities to deal with Varroa on their own.

For now, bred bees seem like my best option. I feel in some ways like I am going the natural selection route with regards to natives, bumbles and the like. The ones who do a great deal of the pollination already.

The big difference being that I don’t manage the native bees, other than to in general terms keep the 4 Ps (Pesticides, Parasites, Pathogens, Poor Nutrition) in mind for them too.

There is some evidence that smaller colonies have fewer issues with Varroa than larger ones, and that feral colonies tend to be smaller. Then I remember it was long ago drilled into my head that if you want to make a lot of honey, you need a lot of bees.

And some very good beekeepers say this talk of local adaptation is bunk, and that a good beekeeper keeps bees alive. I hear that, but at the same time I also look for whatever advantages I can get.

I guess I still have some thinking to do.

I’m glad EAS is coming up next week. I’m sure some tidbit will emerge that will compete for my thinking time.

A Curious Beekeeper reads a Study

Studies are potential land mines. You never know ahead of time if you’ve got good science or someone trying to prove a predecided point. College PR departments are especially good at twisting a study’s findings to be something sexy they can sell.

Links to the study I’m talking about today were sent to me by several people. “RNA virus spillover from managed honeybees (Apis mellifera) to wild bumblebees (Bombus spp.)” is by Samantha A. Alger, et al, and out of the University of Vermont. The study was published in the on-line, peer reviewed journal, PLoS ONE on June 26, 2019. (PLoS is short for Public Library of Science)

So far, the study looks well done. I like studies with lots of references that I can check (this one has 45) and it fits with something I have been thinking about which is how many colonies of Honey bees can you have in a given area before negatively impacting wild bees. I have some more reading ahead of me before I’m fully satisfied. My state’s Apiarist sent me some papers & articles on Carrying Capacity. I’m making my way through those as well.

(I was taught that studies should be considered skeptically, and when examining, you ought to skip the abstract/authors’ conclusions and start with the data and methods. Confession: I read the abstract first, to see if the study interested me.)

In this study, seven sites near commercial apiaries were studied over about 8 weeks in 2015, looking to see what viruses, if any, the native Bumbles picked up from the Honey bees. Bumbles not near managed colonies were sampled too.

The study reports that the bumbles near the managed colonies had significantly higher levels of Deformed Wing Virus (DWV) and Black Queen Cell Virus (BQCV). The study was focusing on viruses that jumped species to develop, not just exposure that really doesn’t do anything.

There is some evidence that the virus transfer took place at flowers visited by both groups. Virus transfer from Honey bee waste products was also considered.

The study raises lots of questions about where this information leads us and how beekeepers should proceed. First, and I’m not ready to tackle this one, is what kind of responsibility do beekeepers have to keep infections in their kept bees from transferring to wild bees?

Also, the data was gathered several years ago (summer 2015) and beekeepers have learned a great deal about managing Varroa, and minimizing viruses within managed hives. What effect does this have?

I think most would agree that spreading viruses to wild bees is not something that should be done. I wonder then what quantity of kept Honey bees it takes to impact the natives? The Bee Informed Partnership (BIP) counts as commercial those with 100 colonies or more. We have a bunch of side liners in this group, running as many as 50 colonies. I am running about 14 colonies right now, down substantially from prior years, and I’m wondering, how are my bees impacting the local wild bee population?

In terms of honey production, I maxed out at about 8 colonies. More than that means I feed more and make less honey per colony. So, I’m guessing I should be considering forage availability/quality as well as number of colonies. If I want more colonies, I’m guessing I need to improve forage opportunities for both my managed bees and the natives.

That is easier said than done.

This all started by reading one study. Good science is reproducible, though there is not much glory and profit in confirming others research.

Then too I need to remember my motivation for keeping Honey bees is not making tons of honey to sell, but to maintain a teaching apiary, for club Open Hives and the classes that I teach.

So, who’s up for proving or disproving this study? I’d like to see the study confirmed or refuted, but I’m afraid I don’t have the time or the inclination to do it myself.

A Curious Beekeeper considers Beekeeping Education

In Maine we tend to have our bee schools in the winter, when working with bees just isn’t something that is going to happen. The classes, offered by Beekeeping Clubs, Cooperative Extension, Adult Education, special interest groups and knowledgeable individuals appeal to those who learn best by having an actual instructor and a place to go to.

Other people learn best by seeking out learning via the Internet. They may choose a program like that offered by the University of Montana’s School of Extended & Lifelong Learning that have multiple programs that build toward the Master Beekeeper designation. You might think that internet learning sounds great, but you need to be tested by a person you can see. With real bees.

Others will read everything they can get their hands on, watch YouTube videos, or just dive in and start keeping bees.

I think it was PBS’s Miss Frizzle of Magic School Bus Fame, who said “Take Chances, Make Mistakes, Get Messy!”

There are different learning styles – of that there can be no doubt – and there are Facebook Groups (like NorthEast Beekeeping) and Internet Forums where people can post pictures and ask questions.

Or you can find that person where you work whose daughter used to keep bees….

Or you can practice your queen spotting and disease diagnostics by looking at pictures and sharing comments with others.

Some still wonder: “How tough can it be? You put bees in a box and they pollinate your garden.”

It was pointed out this week that you don’t need a license to be a human parent (in the US at any rate) and having the government involved in certifying you to keep bees doesn’t sound like a good idea.

Some countries have a well-defined curriculum offered by a National Organization (like the British Beekeepers Association), but we don’t have that here. I understand the Maine State Beekeepers Association is working on something – and while who knows what they’ll come up with, I suspect it will be along the lines of course lengths, and topic areas that should be included.

But right now, there are a cornucopia of places you can learn about bees. The opportunity for a National Organization to specify a curriculum passed some years ago. We’re in the midst of a proliferation of groups certifying Master Beekeepers. I wonder how many will still be operating in ten years. That leaves you responsible for your own beekeeping education. That doesn’t strike me as a bad thing.

It can get incredibly complicated. Maybe you’re someone who desperately wants to help breed a bee that will survive everything while producing lots of honey. Maybe you think the bees are capable of sorting things out themselves. My point is that there are a diversity of approaches and attitudes towards bees and beekeeping. And then we’re people – and that means we all have opinions on how beekeeping should be done.

(If you know a sure fire way to keep bees from swarming that does does not involve splitting AND inspecting, I want to talk with you.)

That all said, we need people brave enough to present on topics where the person isn’t an expert, but capable of researching and sharing. LL’s patent comes to mind.

So bee curious. It could be the BBKA Microscopy Course is something that resonates with you. Bees for Development might be your thing. Or being the extra set of hands your neighbor needs (or wants) when harvesting honey for the first time.

Just beware absolute declarations except for terminology. (Though I’ve made a few in my time)

If your club relies on homemade goodies for snacks, It could be you’re into baking. (I like chocolate chip cookies, thank you!) Or maybe organizing the name tags is what you want to do.

Whatever, as the younger folks are fond of saying. Thank you for sharing your journey.

A Curious Beekeeper thinks about bee organizations

I spent some time thinking about the Bee Informed Partnership loss survey that has been making the rounds this week. I have some strong thoughts on that and in bee surveys in general. At times it seems as if we are being surveyed to death. But that thought needs more digesting, so this week I’m reaching back into the closet and a column I wrote several months ago.

I shared a post a while back from Albert Chuback in which he complains of the wide gulf between hobby and commercial beekeeping orientation; this on his return from the recent American Beekeeping Federation Conference.

I thought he had some valid points.

As I thought about an organization whose leadership I recently left (the Maine State Beekeepers Association) it occurred to be that the big difference between the MSBA and the ABF is that the ABF has a professional staff where the MSBA does not.

Having a professional staff doesn’t of necessity force a commercial bent to an organization any more than not having one puts you in the hobby or backyard corner. What it does do is set your expectations for interactions.

I’ve been to some extremely well-run conferences mounted by volunteers at EAS and the MSBA. The amount of donated effort that it takes to pull a conference off is amazing to witness. I regret that my leadership skills don’t lend themselves to recruiting other volunteers, so I have a special regard for those that are make it work. Good leaders are hard to find – and with volunteers, you tend to hang on to them, despite real life intrusions.

(There’s an EAS conference coming up in just a few weeks. In addition to it being a wonderful immersion with like minded folks who think hanging out with insects that can sting is fun, it is my signal that where called for, mite treatments ahead of the bees making their winter bees need to be on soon.)

I suspect that when you are working with a volunteer, you might tend to the forgiving. A pro, not so much. “I’m a busy person with not much time. Do it right the first time or find someone who can.”

That’s the problem I see with the Audacious Hive movement. I haven’t figured out a way to scale it. So, for the moment I see it as a hobby movement.

Don’t get me wrong. I really like what Dr. Seeley is talking about. My hives are kept in gangs of two spread out for disease control. Guess what? It seems to help with bears too.

Commercial beekeepers are a different breed from Backyard keepers. They have to be or the kids don’t get braces, there isn’t food on the table.

It is business. The bee business.

They don’t have the luxury of messing about. Obviously not all commercial keepers are created equal; some are better at their business than others.

More than anything, professional beekeepers are farmers.

There is some cross over. Side liners for example – hobbyists on steroids is one way of thinking of them.

Organizations reflect that. I don’t think there is anything terrible about it. It is simply the way things are. Organizations just like the environment evolve over time. Even when an individual is correct about their concerns & objections, they may not have the personality to intervene successfully.

Local bee clubs ebb and flow too. Particularly when they loose focus, and the one person who is trying to hold it all together burns out.

As Vonnegut used to say “So it goes.”

What do you see from your vantage point?

A Curious Beekeeper goes off the Dark End

Every so often, I feel like I’ve gone off beekeeping’s dark end

“What do you mean by that?” is what I imagine people saying. I think of the dark end as when I stray from tried and true beekeeping into areas of speculation. So…

Hobby beekeeping borrows an awful lot from commercial beekeeping.

Like the Langstroth hive.

I didn’t start keeping bees just so I could imagine transporting them to Almonds. (Those telescoping covers may make stacking on the truck interesting.)

Nor did I think about local commercial pollination. I did think about my apples and my garden. I thought about winters off and about honey. Honey for me and for the neighbors. That worked out, at least for the first few years.

The biggest thing appropriated from commercial beekeeping may be attitude. Bees are here to… make us money.

I like money as much as the next person. Though making money with the bees is not a priority for me. I used to collect stamps (until the US went entirely self-adhesive.) The stamps looked pretty in the album. Bees foraging look pretty too, and there are causes like pesticide bans to join. All because bees look pretty foraging on Bridal Wreath, and assembling wooden boxes for them to live in and learning about their biology is fun for me. And I like saying things like “Tarsal Claw” and “open circulatory system.”

Reading books like Tom Seeley’s The Lives of Bees reminds me that curiosity is good and that beekeeping in the last 150 years has been experiencing a golden age for tinkering. While I didn’t live through what I like to think of as the great box size debate of the late 1800s, we are living through a hive design/configuration experimentation period now. Certainly there are traditionalists who are adamant in their belief that anything other than a 10 frame Langstroth is wrong, yet I seem drawn to the hive designs (like the Warre’) that lend themselves to what I like to think of as a more holistic approach to beekeeping.

I’m trying to see the eco system as an evolving entity. Part of the space is taken by the non-native Honey bee. Part by the native pollinators. There should be room for both; my job is to discern the carrying capacity of my area for Honey bees, and what I can do to make the environment richer both for the Honey bees and all the other pollinators. Some judgements are gut level, some are scientifically arrived at. My gut tells me that if established Honey bee colonies routinely require feeding, the carrying capacity has been exceeded.

There is more emphasis today at asking why people want to keep bees. Some want to produce as much honey as they can and sell it for as much money as they can. No problems here. It is simply at odds with my own motivation, which I hope will be reckoned gentler. I’ll spend a lifetime learning about that, all the while George Imirie’s Bee Haver vs. Bee Keeper runs through my head.

I increasingly realize that all beekeeping is really local; that while some bee behaviors are universal, some are not. Lots of our actions have consequences. Learning what the consequences are and why is tough. Why is it, I ask myself, that a strong hive in a certain location, gets a queen excluder and honey super, only to swarm. Maybe if I think about it long enough, the why will become clear. Though I really just want a box full of honey and no brood. ("There was room in the brood box for egg laying.")

Don’t get me wrong: commercial beekeeping has done great things for all beekeepers. I’m just doing my best to tweak and make my beekeeping work for me.

A Curious Beekeeper considers Tom Seeley’s The Lives of Bees

Dr. Thomas Dyer Seeley is a Professor of Biology in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior at Cornell University. He is an extremely well-respected researcher with a gift for writing: his earlier volumes include The Wisdom of the Hive and Honeybee Democracy. His initial training was as an Ecologist not an Entomologist, which starts him at a different vantage point from most bee researchers.

Dr. Seeley spends the first 10 chapters in the book revisiting familiar territory, though with some wonderful extra detail and research updates. (I was delighted at his giving the history of the Arnot Forest – Cornell’s research forest. In particular his naming of the McClary Road. My middle name is McClary. Does it matter? Not particularly, but I enjoyed it none-the-less.)

The first 10 chapters serve as the underpinning for the 11th, called Darwinian Beekeeping. In this chapter, Dr. Seeley focuses on what his research has shown him is what the Honey bee does in nature, instead of the managed techniques of commercial beekeeping. My reading is that he is very clear not to criticize commercial beekeeping practices, which he recognizes as essential, particularly in the areas of honey production and pollination services.

That said, he describes what he has seen and lays out the differences in list form. Picking 2 of the 21 differences to explore in more detail is no easy task for me. Some of the differences are key to my beekeeping strategy. Others I haven’t fully considered yet. The two I’ll discuss further are colony spacing and the amount of drone cone comb in the colony.

Dr. Seeley’s observation is that colony density in The Arnot Forest is roughly 2.5 colonies per square mile, with the colonies widely spread out. Citing studies from around the world, Dr. Seeley says colony density varies, in part in response to the quantity of available nesting sites and carrying capacity of the land. (It is fascinating to learn how different research teams made their estimates.)

It makes sense to me that in nature, Honey bee colonies don’t exist in neat rows and in places where they can be easily reached and managed. There are practical limits to how far I can keep colonies spaced as I have to worry about bears and protecting my economic investment. Then too, my management requires that I periodically inspect my colonies, so having them 20 feet in the air, isn’t going to happen.

In nature, there should be decreased pest and parasite transmission between colonies widely spaced out. Then too, the density of colonies is aligned with the forage availability and what other consumers of that forage (native bees and pollinators) there might be. (Another thing to consider is robbing pressure.)

Dr. Seeley found that in wild nests, drones make up between 10 and 25% of bee population. A fundamental component of most Langstroth hives is worker sized foundation. This serves to suppress the number of drones; which Dr. Seeley sees as a trend away from what the bees do in nature. (I try to get around this issue by including a frame without foundation in each brood box.) The book identifies other jobs drones do; increasing the number of drones means among other things increased mating competition.

Dr. Seeley’s book is not a manifesto of how we should be keeping bees. Instead it is mostly his observations and analysis of how they live in the wild – How he sees Honey bees as having evolved in response to their environment. If anything, it can cause readers to look closer at their motivations for keeping Honey bees, making management adjustments as they feel led.

As has been recently discussed in the Group, Honey bees are livestock. Management is based on desired outcomes. What Dr. Seeley’s book does for me is provide science about Honey bee living conditions in the wild. I’m glad it is on my shelf, and glad too that it contains numerous points to ponder.

A Curious Beekeeper thinks about the 4 Ps

“Save the bees” is everywhere. I have a problem with that in that I don’t think the bees need saving per se but rather there are situations that need addressing.

The 4 Ps are an easy way to remember what are thought to be the causes of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) and even if they are not the root causes of CCD, are factors that negatively effect Honey bee health. The 4 Ps are Parasites, Pathogens, Pesticides and Poor Nutrition. Some substitute Poor Beekeeping (a/k/a a particular type of non-polite poor beekeeping or PPB) for Poor Nutrition.

CCD hasn’t been seen near me in 5 years or more. I thought I was fairly safe regarding the 4 Ps too until I looked at lawns near me on my way to the Post Office. Maybe half the lawns were free of Dandelions! (Darn that dreaded Weed and Feed!)

Tom Seeley’s new book (more later) has bees flying as much as 6 miles to forage (and another 6 miles back.) I’m comforted by this being an extreme case where the bees are in desperate need of the nutrition. This time of year, there is plenty of natural forage available on land I control near my hives, so I don’t have to worry overly about Pesticide Poisoning right now.

I keep Parasites (mostly Varroa) under control using miticides. There is some thought – I haven’t determined if it is research or speculation yet – that colony density and size may have a great deal to do with parasite infestation.

So, for the time being, check.

Pathogens. Like most, I see some of these in my bees from time to time. My dog vet isn’t going to help me out with OxyTet if I find EFB; There are no medications for many other diseases. Maintaining healthy stock to begin with is often the best course of action. A qualified check.

Pesticides. Ugh. Conventional farming seems to require them. A few of my neighbors apparently think they need Dandelion free lawns. I couldn’t qualify my operation as USDA Organic if I wanted to. (And some of the pesticides allowed in USDA Organic are scary, to this beekeeper at least – Entrust anyone?) No check here.

Poor Nutrition. This is always a tough one, especially at dearth time. In the old days, pollen substitutes were not even conceived of. Our former State Apiarist flat out assured me that there was plenty of natural pollen. But this year, my new packages got some, as did my over wintered colonies – though largely as insurance for when the bees couldn't fly to get the natural stuff. This year that policy has paid off!

I have always liked Randy Oliver’s writings in this regard. Essentially, if you’re a beekeeper and your bees are in danger of starving, feed them! Nutrition gets checked. (There’s something about mixing sugar syrup in a trash can with a canoe paddle that I like)

That brings us to PPB. This is something I worry about, especially when attempting to follow some other non-Langstroth management systems that are basically leave the bees alone. This year I plan to be in my colonies at least monthly during the season to do mite washes along with general inspections. As long as my health holds, I plan to avoid the PPB label; so, a check.

Factors that I can contend with all seem to get checks. But there are many that are beyond me. I read somewhere that the recent EPA ban of 12 pesticides wasn’t a ban at all but a court ordered non-renewal of registrations. This is where lawyers earn their money while beekeepers wonder what just happened. Certainly, getting news to have confidence in is not easy. I’m now just confused… while remaining curious.

The four Ps contain things I can control and things I can’t. The US philosophy on a lot of this stuff is go ahead and do it if you can; we’ll ask questions and clean up the messes later on.

I’ll continue to recoil against “Save the Bee” campaigns, believing as I do that they over simplify problems. But then, it is not like there’s a one size fits all solution. I don’t know where to start. Do you?

A Curious Beekeeper gathers samples for the BIP Sentinel Apiary Program

My mind got to wandering while I was collecting samples for BIP this afternoon: Why, I wondered, was a larger deal not made about the pesticide registrations that were cancelled early this week?

Admittedly, the cancellations were the result of a court case, but EPA backtracking on pesticide effects is huge. I guess I was anticipating this type of victory to be news worthy. I must be missing something.

Turning to sample collection…

This is the third year I’ve been collecting samples for BIP. I’m happy for them to collect the data and publish what they do. My main goal is getting independent confirmation of my Varroa sampling, and truth be told, I like that the obligation to collect samples monthly during the bee season, gets me regular Varroa counts.

BIP also provides Nosema counts, though I don’t especially pay much attention to those. Maybe I should; I lost a hive this winter where the major symptom was dysentery inside the hive. BIP warned me that Nosema (they don’t differentiate between Apis and Ceranae) counts were high in that hive last fall. Nosema is not something I know how to treat for anyway.

There is a discipline to collecting the samples. Every frame in the hive gets examined. And I have to assign values based on what I find. How many frames of brood are there in the hive? How do I rate the brood pattern? Has the colony been fed or medicated since the last inspection? Has any honey been harvested?

Today I used the sample gathering to do an initial assessment of a nuc I installed a week ago. I saw the queen (I did well this go round, seeing the queen in the 4 hives sampled) and looked at what they had consumed for food in the last week. The foundationless frame was about 1/3 drawn, while there was honey stored in frames that were empty when the nuc was installed. The colony has gone through a 1lb winter patty (Dadant, AP23) and most of a pollen patty too (Global, 15%)

I will switch them over to sugar syrup this week so I put the box on to around the paint can. I used today’s sample collection as my opportunity to add a honey super to one of the two over winter colonies I’m sampling.

This is a hobby for me, and I’m not a disciplined as I probably should be about doing regular inspections.

Today was our first day in the upper 60s temperature wise; I hope to check other colonies on Monday, though I may not check every frame.

BIP wants a variety of different hive sources in the sample so this year they’re getting two over winter colonies plus a colony started from a package and one started from a nuc. I’ll use the sample results, if interesting, from the package started colony as the canary in the coal mine for other package started colonies.

The big thing I’ve learned in the past several years of doing the sample collections, is that there are limits to what can be accomplished with technology. My Arnia scale reported robust activity on a dead hive over the winter. Still, technology attracts, and I’ve backed Dr. B’s cell phone app to assess colony health – I expect to have my copy of the app by July.

One thing I noted this year was that young queens bred to not have a strong swarm inclination, makes a difference. I went through a very populous over wintered colony and found no swarm cells and all of three cups positioned where they could have become swarm cells. Last year I went splt crazy – but not this year. I want to make some honey! Our frost-free season is very short, 6/15-9/15. That it is cold here means I usually don’t have to worry about using Formic Acid in August – in time to make healthy winter bees.

The BIP sample collection forces me to be a beekeeper. It reminds me of some things (like beekeeping this time of year is easy). And that decisions made last year impact colonies this year. I apparently didn’t do a great job leveling a hive stand a year ago and a result was that water collected on the bottom board. Drawn to my attention, I can address the problem.

Being included on the maps is nice and I like to look at others’ data, if only to make sure that my issues are typical. BIP now has a four colony testing option (there used to be an 8 colony requirement.) Four colonies works for me; 2-3 hours once a month isn’t that big a commitment.

Maybe you’ll participate next year.

A Curious Beekeeper gets a nuc

Later this afternoon, a nuc will be delivered.

I ordered it through my local club. Last year everyone who had ordered picked them up at my place. Not this year though. I’ve handed that responsibility off.

I wish I could turn the clock back to relive the excitement and wonder of my first nuc. Brand new to beekeeping, Diane had one and I had one, in a pasture on somebody’s farm.

I rolled my Queen, that first year. The fellow we bought the nucs from was nice enough to drive to a Micky D’s close to me, with a new Queen.

This year’s queen started life as a cell from Florida. The name of the Producer is in my notes. Last year’s was good.

I get on the club order to see what my students are working with.

Now I’ve gotten the state form in today’s mail reminding me that I need to register my hives by June 15th. The form was largely pre-filled. Also in the envelope was a “Save the Date” reminder that EAS will be held in Maine next year at The University of Maine in Orono. (Aug. 3 – 7)

My registration fee for the year is $12, unchanged from last year. I fall into the 11-40 hive band. The registration fee will no doubt he higher next year. I did not attend the public hearing although I did send the state some thoughts by e-mail.

I got some packages back in April, and as far as I know they are all doing well. I say as far as I know as the weather has not been good for beekeeping this spring. As of today, we have no Dandelions. The temperature is in the mid-40s, maybe we’ll make it into the 50s this afternoon.

When I went to bed last night, the weather forecast called for a couple of nice days, the temperature reaching 60F. Something changed. We postponed our bee school working with bees event scheduled for today. It was just too cold to work bees. And it was sleeting here, at least first thing this morning.

Today’s writing is not intended as a trip down Memory Lane, but instead as a desired recollection of the eagerness and anticipation experienced by new beekeepers. Once upon a time getting a nuc was an adventure. I did get a new bee book this week (The Secrets of Bees by Michael Weiler and translated from the German by David Heath) The nuc will go in a Lyson polystyrene hive. I certainly wasn’t using those when I started, nor was I adding a foundationless frame to each box.

I braved the cold wind this morning to spend some time in the bee yard. For some reason the branches pruned from the Apple trees were still there, as were the package boxes installed in April. They are not there anymore!

I should go back down to the bee yard before the nuc arrives. There are holes to be dug for eight Inkberry plants to go along with the few that made it through the winter. The plants arrived last week and need to go in the ground very soon. I’m trying to grow my own wind break, while providing something for the bees to eat at the same time.

The electric fence needs some work too. I’ve escaped Bruins so far this spring – I hope my luck continues. Last year was no fun.

Maybe we’ll soon get to 60F! There are samples to collect for BIP, honey supers to add, colonies started from packages that should soon need another box as part of their brood chamber… and bees to watch, mite samples to take, and…

But not today. Today I need to trim the brambles from around the hive stand, place the hive, and then place the nuc. I’ll let the bees fly from their nuc box today and put them in their new home tomorrow.

The club had us order bees this year in January, well before winter losses were known. They told the nuc provider a year ago that the club needed to be on the list for this year. Let’s see, the club got a 50% deposit when I placed the order. So, I need to find the check book. Then I can go out to the garage and double check that everything is ready.

Maybe I have time to put the hive in place. (I painted it months ago)

And then I wait.

A Curious Beekeeper thinks more about breeding bees for Varroa resistance

A Comment by Richard Cryberg on Bee-L spoke to me:

“many have brought queens north that survived just fine treatment free in the south only to find they produced hives in the north that promptly died from mites. It appears quite easy to be treatment free in Alabama or Texas. And people that live there can not understand why in the world someone living in Ohio either treats or has dead bees and often says we are stupid for treating as all it does is make weak bees. After all, they do not treat and they have acceptable survival with their superior genetics. It does not mater a bit to them if those superior genetics fail miserably when brought north as we apparently are doing something else wrong.”

Hands up for people who like treating to keep Varroa in check.

I’m not surprised to not see any hands. I sure don’t like treating. And I really don’t like needing to use OAV safety gear.

Maybe OAV won’t be part of my plans this year.

I would like to purchase a bee that will coexist with Varroa. That’s not too much to ask for, is it?

In recent years we have had Purdue Ankle Biters, open mated Saskatraz, and Minnesota Hygienic OK, the Minnesota Hygenic is really Varroa Sensitive Hygiene (VSH) in action. All disappoint in that they may require fewer treatments in order to survive with the Varroa mite, they don’t solve the Varroa problem completely Maybe my expectations are not realistic.

Setting my expectations aside, this means we’re testing, treating, and testing again to double check treatment efficacy. Maybe we’re not treating as much. The jury is still out on that.

As the (re)search continues, I think I’ll persevere with local queens bred for gentleness, disease resistance productivity, and wintering ability. And a few Canadian Buckfast thrown in for good measure.

I’ve taken some heat already for it, but I ordered replacement queens for all my packages a few weeks back. Some of the queens that are being replaced may be outstanding. In the past several years there have been frequent anecdotal issues with package queens, the most common problem mentioned was supercedure.

Will that solve all my problems? Very doubtful, but I’m getting the genetic traits I want if I can’t have Varroa coexistance. So Varroa testing continues without pretenses. I made the decision to replace the queens (and thus the colony population) before purchasing the packages.

Why am I replacing what may be a very good queen (certainly a bunch of time and effort went into creating her)? The answer is fairly simple. I want 90% survival of production colonies this coming winter.

I didn’t reach that success percentage this year and the result is replacing not only the cost of bees, but also the time and energy invested in managing them. Over wintered 4 x 4s are more complicated to do – 75% survival will make me happy there.

What I don’t want to do is buy bees again next year.

A Curious Beekeeper thinks about beekeeping conferences

Beekeeping can be a solitary activity.

It is often a Zen and magical experience designed to be shared with others who “get” working with stinging insects!

Beekeeping gatherings are great. Club meetings and Open Hives. – They are wonderful chances to socialize and to learn.

Conferences – like the week long EAS (Eastern Apicultural Society) and Apimondia gatherings – both of which move around – are nirvana for beekeepers.

At EAS’s conference, there are vendors galore (you’ll get to meet Earl from Kelly Bees), watch candidates for the Master Beekeeper designation scurry from exam to exam, and hear from a variety of knowledgeable beekeepers on a ton of beekeeping topics. And socialize.

At the last EAS conference I attended, I scored an old Beekeeping Merit Badge Book in a silent auction. Maybe you’ll enter the honey competition, showing off your Mead. Or Wax, Or beekeeping Photos. Participation is what counts.

Same goes for Apimondia, except the international flavor of Apimondia does not include Master Beekeeper certification.

Of course there is talk of bees. Though even more important is the opportunity to interact with beekeepers from all over. The social events (both have banquets) give beekeepers the chance to rub shoulders with others who get it.

It wasn’t that many years ago at an EAS gathering that Al asked to sit at our table. Myself and the other Maine beekeepers at the table had an enjoyable evening though we didn’t realize at dinner that Al was short for Alphonse, one of the authors of The Beekeepers Handbook.

While every stranger won’t be a beekeeping celebrity, what you’ll quickly discover is that everyone there thinks bees are cool, and that they practice the somewhat mystical art of beekeeping. It doesn’t matter if you have one hive in the back yard or take 2,000 colonies to Almonds. Over coffee, or a beer, they are beekeepers.

The EAS Short Course and Conference is Greenville, South Carolina on July 15th – 19th. You’ll need your passport for Apimondia – it is in Montreal (Canada) on September 8th-12th.

Both conferences move around – EAS will be held in Orono, Maine next year The 2021 Apimondia (it is held every two years) will be in Ufa, Russia. The last two were in Turkey and South Korea – Montreal is likely as close as it will ever be.

It can be hard to imagine that there is a place at a National Conference like EAS for the new beekeeper but there certainly is. The short course that they talk about is a bee school on steroids, frequently taught collectively by Master Beekeepers.

I look forward to hearing Landi Simone (a frequent poster in this group) talk about feeding, and Dave Priebe talk about New Hampshire’s Honey Bee Diagnostic Network. I’m just a little curious about what they’re hiding just over the border from Maine!

By all means you should attend your state gatherings and field days, but if you can swing it, plan to attend these other events too!

Maybe you’ll carpool. Or take the train and discover that one of your fellow passengers is a beekeeper from your state! Maybe you’ll make friends with a commercial beekeeper from New Zealand. The happenings at a conference are hard to predict but almost always a wonderful time. See you there.

A Curious Beekeeper thinks about hive types and bullying

I was making my way through the pile of unread material on my desk and came across what was labeled as a special feature in the American Beekeeping Federation Quarterly by Albert Chubak entitled  “Bullying as Related to Modern Beekeeping.”

Uh Oh.  I know I felt run off of the Warre’ Forum here on Facebook, but bullying, I don’t know if I’d call it that so much as a discussion/argument I didn’t feel there was point in pursuing.  This beekeeping is supposed to be fun after all – at least for those who are engaging in it as a hobby.

We have our own issues and our own failings as communicators – by which I mean – there are some beekeeping issues I have a very short fuse on – Truth in Advertising is one for me.  I also fall into the communication trap all too often in part because I am convinced that all beekeeping is really local, and my conclusion that many – if not most – new beekeepers believe they know everything by the end of their third year and insinuate in their communication that everyone who has ever kept bees must be a stupid idiot not to innately see things the way they do.

I used to be an active poster/reader of the Beesource forum.  The arguments there about treatment free beekeeping versus more conventional beekeeping were the stuff of legends.  Some of the posters there still wonder what they walked into.

Nowadays I try, not as always successfully as I’d like, to see value in many different approaches to beekeeping, and to appropriate what I consider good ideas into my own beekeeping, regardless of where the idea came from.  For example, I think the quilt box on the Warre´  Hive a wonderful idea, and I’m starting to keep some on my Langs year round.  (My own Warre´ experiences are stuck in start up mode, as my efforts with the hive the past two summers were interrupted by Bruins, and I’m not talking about those that play hockey in Boston.)

Looking back at beekeeping history, I don’t conclude that Langstroth’s hive was so wonderful that the whole world adopted it because it was the cat’s meow, but rather Langstroth’s design was something that could be standardized and made easily transportable. The ease of transportation is what led to the birth of beekeeping industries (honey production and crop pollination) in the United States.

I realize that Albert sells a specialized hive type and on-line sales are undoubtedly linked to his perceptions of bullying.  He is a Facebook friend.  I do not own or use any of his hives.

Maine bee laws (and I presume that of most other States & Provinces) mandate that bees be kept on removable frame hives.  So no skeps or gums – no nailing down Warre´ frames.    There is, very little enforcement.  Depending on your vantage point that can be a good or a bad thing.

Focusing on bullying: it can be hard to criticize an idea without making the criticism seem like a personal attack.  It feels to me like it would go without saying that claims need to be backed up, with reliable data.  If scientific data is lacking, the tests done to date need to be reproducible.  “It works for me” and “I saw it on the Internet” aren’t good enough for me.

I’m ok with speculation, as I think most people are, if it is labeled as speculation.

Part of being curious is to look at bee biology and bee teaching methods from around the world.  We’ve got several marvelous books on Bee Biology – there are three I like, one published recently, one published in the UK, and a classic.  I’m limited to the English language so for the most part my research is restricted to North America, the UK and Australia/New Zealand.  There is lots of great stuff coming out of Canada these days (particularly Ontario)   Australia’s Bee Aware has great videos too, particularly those framed in terms of Bio-Security.

Albert’s article talks a bit about the blinders new beekeepers can encounter at clubs.  I imagine if you are expecting to talk about the finer point of successfully over wintering your Kenya Style Top Bar Hive at your typical Bee Club in Maine, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment.  There just aren’t that many people who have experience with that hive type.

Keepers of bees in non Langstroth hives may very well find themselves in a situation where they need to do some educating.  People in clubs are generally open to getting education.  Though not when their made to feel stupid as part of the learning process.  This can happen when beliefs (and myths) about bee behavior and management are shared. 

And it is important to remember that keeping bees in a box of any type is not exactly natural.  Bees cope remarkably well in a variety of hive types.

I like to think that beekeepers are open minded.  It may take some time and adjustments to language to find that open mindedness, but it is there.  I applaud the person who objects to doing regular alcohol washes because they have trouble finding the queen.  That’s communication.

A Curious Beekeeper thinks about pesticides

I imagine most have seen the drawing of the bee wearing a gas mask to avoid being poisoned by a pesticide. Gruesome. Thought provoking. In many ways the antithesis of beekeeping.

Ok. I need to make sure I’ve got this straight. Reaching for a bottle straight off is bad because of… more than anything, an untrusting ideology that worries about consequences – primarily unintended – of using anything designed to kill.

In the abstract, that all sounds fine. But then something pops up like the Varroa Mite – and then all the King’s Horses and All the King’s Men need to focus on MY pet problem.

Errr… make that King’s people.

And then I recall that the beekeeping market, while vitally important to agriculture, is pretty small. No one will get rich selling mite treatments to beekeepers, especially not ones that are novel uses of existing inexpensive products. Oxalic Acid, commonly sold as a wood bleach, being one example.

The Varroa Mite is an unusual parasite in that it is out of balance with its host – meaning, it kills its host. Honey bees in general, specifically MY bees. There are those who swear that science will come up with a bee that “deals” with Varroa and there are those that adamantly believe evolution will take care of it. Me, I don’t care who solves the issue, as long as it is solved soon.

I am content with the miticides we have now (pesticides all) and I regard testing and responding to test results as prudent. Though there are times, like just ahead of winter bees being made, when I find it quite reasonable to get mite numbers as low as I can in all hives.

Maybe – says I creating an excuse for myself – I have too many hives to follow either the Treatment Free (TF) or true IPM regimens. Maybe, being a bit more honest, I’m lazy. At times beekeeping is hard work. My wife says I was essentially incoherent when I came in last night. Some water, dinner and time (and today coffee) seem to have revitalized me.

But I digress. I don’t think the Veterinary Feed Directive (VFD) was such a bad thing for beekeepers. Maybe I’ll feel differently when I want something for EFB and my dog’s vet tells me they don’t do bees. In my area it is darn hard to justify prophylactic treatments for AFB. I hadn’t done them in years. As a new beekeeper, I did what I was told.

(The VFD is a recently enacted prohibition for using antibiotics on livestock that could be used in humans, without a veterinarian’s prescription.)

There was one identified by the state case of AFB in Maine last year. Thanks Jen & Tony (State Apiarists) for all the infected hives you’ve found and destroyed over the years.

Back to Varroa. One of the paths (science or evolution) will work out before too many more years go by. At least that is what I am counting on.

Until then I have several testing jars and I know how to use them. There maybe baby steps along the way. I’m ok with that. I think it was Kim Flottum who wrote something about small increments of stock improvement.

I am big on truth in advertising though. Please don’t tell me that a product is done when it isn’t. I realize that breeders (especially of bees) have to earn a living.

Until then, I’m going to continue to count on miticides (which are pesticides) to do their jobs. But I won’t be using herbicides to keep the grass down on the electric fence, fungicides on my Apples, pesticides in my garden. I hate using anything with a cide in its description, but I’ve tried TF and couldn’t get it to work for me here.

I heard this week that there may very well be 40,000 migratory colonies coming in to the state this year. Most to the county I live in. So much for feral survivor stock.

But – I am conscious that I’m leaning on a crutch, and know too that the clock is ticking. I’m open to ideas (at least the ones that seem sensible to me) though we don’t seem to be getting many new ones.

I don’t think anyone enjoys using miticides to control Varroa. Please let me know of your ideas and thoughts – As we learn more, I’m happy to change up my strategy.

Now how can we make use of a brood break in a short bee season?

A Curious Beekeeper thinks about package bees

I got an e-mail last night from my local club president.  The packages are coming.   On Easter weekend. The timing wasn’t so great, he said.

 Growing up Easter was a big family holiday.  Not any more.

Package bees work for me.  I understand that I’m not everyone, and my situation doesn’t apply universally.

 I want bees.  I don’t want more comb. I’m in the midst of down-sizing.  (3 yards to 1)  I cycled out the all plastic frames as quick as I could anyway.

 Here’s the kicker.  I’m planning to replace the queens that come in the packages with local stock bred for qualities I like.

 Sure it adds to the expense AND I have to find the queen and go through the queen introduction process a second time.  Finding queens doesn’t bother me.  You get real good at finding them after 1 or 2 get alcohol washed.

 Some people report problems with queen introductions.  They haven’t been an issue for me, though I may get even more conservative this year.  Like having the hive queenless for a day before giving the new queen.  And staying out the hive for a whole week.  Which would bring to an end my practice of manually releasing the queen after 3 or 4 days.

 I find I really like the new California Mini and JZ-BZ queen cages.  The three hole Benton cage not so much.  Proper frame spacing and all that.

 Two of the packages are bound for non-Langstroth hives (a Warre´ and a deep Horizontal), two more for medium boxes.  Medium nucs are hard to find where I live.  And how did the upper entrance on the horizontal get covered with duct tape?  I won’t do that again.  (The Warre´ went to a bear last summer)

 I did raise my own nucs this past winter and some of them made it.  Enough for me to work on my equipment design so that I do some more this year.  The nucs were all on deep frames.  Maybe I’ll try some mediums this winter.

 I haven’t yet found out what the medication regime of the packages is.  If I can’t find out, I’ll have to test.  Testing is probably a good idea anyway.  If I need to treat, it will most likely be a single OAV application before they have sealed brood.  I haven’t decided yet about removing the queen when treatment is applied.

 The weather race to get things ready starts in earnest today.  I’ve got some bottom boards that need another coat of paint and I like to have the hives in place for several days before the packages arrive.  That will give me the opportunity too to check the levelness of my hive stands.

 My testing supplies for the BIP Sentinel Apiary program are set to arrive Monday.  I need to decide if any of these new colonies will be tested.

 I know bee season started long ago for many, but here in northern coastal Maine it starts for me next week.

 Spring is always chaotic.  The garden needs preparation and planting at the same time the bees need attention.  It rained last night and that took most of the remaining snow away.  We had 5 inches fall on Monday and Tuesday.  (Yeah, my potatoes, onions, strawberries and leeks all arrived during the snow storm.  Now if the ground will only dry.

 I did manage to prune a few apple trees.

Ah, spring!

A Curious Beekeeper thinks some more about over wintering

Last fall I wrote about over wintering. A winter has passed, and while my success has improved, it is not perfect yet.

I’m no longer satisfied with a 40-50% survival rate. I want 90-100%.

Will that happen every year? No. But that won’t stop me from shooting for 100%.

The BIP survey arrived in the mail yesterday. Two copies. I guess they really want me to fill it out this year. Though the contributor part of me thinks they are wasting money by sending multiple solicitations.

What did I learn this winter?

That if my upper entrance is above my inner cover, I’d best not cover the inner cover hole with a patty.

Talk about a mess! The patty melts and runs everywhere. All that HFCS. (winter patties) And the bees die. Guess who has to clean it up?

I had mixed results with my Quilt boxes and poor results with Vivaldi Boards. I’ll try both again – I think the Vivaldi Boards will work fine with strong colonies.

I’ve re-read Bill Hesbach’s Bee Culture article “Winter Management” from the October 2016 issue. Bill is an EAS and U Montana Master Beekeeper.

Writes Hesbach: “There’s no question that ventilation is needed, but I think if we could refine our understanding of how much is needed and when, modify our boxes to direct the convective flows away from the cluster’s center, and increase insulation around the Winter cluster, we could help our bees live healthier, lessen the burden of Winter provisioning, and reduce Winter losses.”

I think I’m starting to understand.

In a Langstroth hive, insulation on top of the box is really necessary, on the sides of the box is helpful. Ventilation is necessary to remove some of the bee generated moisture, but how much is needed is open to debate.

Helping the cluster retain heat needs to be the goal as well as dealing with moisture.

What is not debatable is that the R value of the wood in our hives is about .84

There are lots of other issues to consider, quality and makeup of feed being one. I want honey to be the best over-wintering food, but given local conditions, I’m worrying more and more about it. Several successful beekeepers that I know in Maine routinely do not have their bees overwinter on fall honey.

The goal being to have live colonies of strong bees in the spring.

To do that Varroa parasitism needs to be low going into winter.

And the bees need enough food.

Some days I wish for the days of tar paper wraps, Homasote and candy boards. They seemed to work fine at the turn of the century.

Certainly our knowledge has increased. So to have the challenges. Though some things never change: like mice getting into hives through unprotected openings.

That I can do something about. The other stuff, I think I understand. Though some times my eyes glaze over.

Now lets talk about winter wraps that have been torn open soaking the enclosed insulation. Some things can’t be fixed with Duct tape. And while I’m off on this tangent, what nutritive need are the bees addressing when they eat my blue insulation?

I talk to my class this week about over-wintering. Your thoughts and comments are appreciated.

A Curious Beekeeper considers Biosecurity

This week I was e-mailing with a Beekeeper in Canada when a reason for keeping the border closed to routine bee crossings was suggested: the lack in the US of cohesive bee biosecurity.

 I know my state apiarist sampled my hives for Tropilaelaps Mites last year.  I know too what the Asian Hornet looks like.  Maine is well known for the great job our apiary people have done over the years in tracking down and eliminating AFB.  There was all of one identification of AFB in the state last year.

 But then it struck me that not every state does things the way we do in Maine.  What about the states that lack an apiary inspection service.  What about funding?

 Real biosecurity must be done on a National Level.

 Australia has a big (or at least it seems big to me) program to detect a variety of Honey bee pests (they consider diseases pests too) that they don’t currently, ah enjoy, and active endeavors to keep pests that they do have, like AFB, from decimating their industry.

 Importantly, they see hobbyists as part of the beekeeping industry.  “All beekeepers, from commercial operators, to backyard enthusiasts, to people starting up their first hive, form part of the honey bee industry.” (from BioSecurity Manual for Beekeepers, © Plant Health Australia)

 Last summer Varroa destructor was discovered in a colony on a ship from the US at the Port of Melbourne.  It was dealt with, and for the time being, Australia still considers itself free from Varroa destructor.

 Wouldn’t beekeeping be even more wonderful if we didn’t have Varroa to worry about?

 Beekeepers in a Province to my north are terribly concerned about Small Hive Beetles.  In an e-mail I described them as relatively straight forward to deal with, once you get over the shock of having yet another pest to learn about.  My correspondent reported  being told that SHB wouldn’t reproduce there, only to later discover that in fact they do.  Hmm.

 The SHB arrived in colonies imported from other provinces for Wild Blueberry pollination.

 Granted Australia is small compared to the US and being essentially an island has a well defined border.  I’m just starting to think about strategic responses to invasive pests and I don’t necessarily like what I conclude.  Some pests, like the Africanized Honey Bee, are beyond our ability to keep out.  Same with the now established SHB.  They are going to spread now that they are here, and the best we can do is to somehow limit their range, doing what is possible to limit range expansion.

 In talking with Wild Blueberry folks here abouts, they certainly recognize that some commercial pollinators bees are -shall we say so “hot”, that the bees are placed far away from people.  I don’t know if these are Africanized bees or simply ill tempered European Honey bees.  My point is that some responsible party ought to examine the bees and based on what is learned take appropriate action.  I’d rather not have swarms of either Africanized or ill-tempered bees around.

 Maybe one answer is in using more local bees to pollinate crops.  We start down the road of economics there.  Is it worth the time and trouble for local beekeepers to make the investments necessary to have bees available for local pollination?  I’m sure each crop has its own woes – for wild blueberries there are too many people producing too much fruit.  Some growers have given up on the game – not pollinating and some have not bothered to harvest.

 Given that, establishing a sound economic plan for achieving  pollination will be challenging.  Perhaps increased use of local bees?  The goal should be a plan that increases Biosecurity while being economically viable..

 There are consequences all over the place.  The fact that the US is one big trading zone means that it is easy for me to have bees sent to me from Africanized areas of the US.  If biosecurity is a priority, that door needs to be shut.  Talk about huge challenges!

I think we’re well past the time to begin the biosecurity conversation. I’d be delighted to learn that it is already going on, and I just haven’t been aware of it.

 In the meantime, good sanitation practices in my own bee yard and regular inspections (by myself and qualified others) seems prudent.

 Your thoughts?

A Curious Beekeeper has high hopes for “Harvesting Honey” by Wally Shaw

Pleased is a good way to characterize my discovery of Wally Shaw’s "Harvesting Honey" on Amazon (2018, $11.00). Shaw - part of the Welsh Beekeepers Association – has put out marvelous pamphlets in the past which I’ve ordered from their publisher, Northern Bee Books in the UK. I love the title of one: "There are queen cells in my hive: - what should I do?"

I was delighted not to pay for trans-Atlantic shipping.

While the pamphlet was a great reminder of many things having to do with processing liquid honey, I was hoping it would address the "crush and strain method” of processing honey. For those not familiar with it, “crush and strain” is most often used by Top Bar hive beekeepers and those Langstroth beekeepers who either lack access to an extractor or are not processing enough honey to make an extractor worthwhile.

I’m planning to harvest from both my TBH and Warre´ Hive this summer – I was counting on Shaw’s pamphlet to give me insight.

Alas, it wasn’t mentioned.

Shaw does have a good discussion of Hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) and the consequences of heating liquid honey.

I don’t know how fair it is to judge a pamphlet based on my expectations of what it might contain. I can’t imagine it will sell too many copies in the US.

Shaw covers liquid honey and comb honey, addresses heather honey to say that covering that is really beyond what could be done in a pamphlet. He also talks about creamed honey, but does not mention the Dyce method, at least by name. (Dyce as in Elton J. Dyce for whom the Dyce Lab at Cornell is named.)

New beekeepers will benefit from discussions of how to get bees out of honey supers, how you can decide to harvest honey when it hasn’t been capped over, what you do with wet supers. In those areas he is succinct and accurate.

I very much like his concluding admonition: “Honey is a wonderful and complex product that is easily damaged during its journey from the hive to the jar. It is up to us to bring it to market in the best possible condition so that we maintain reputation and premium status of locally produced, beekeeper honey.”

The pamphlet does not address marketing. I guess that means I’ll be selling local wild flower honey made by free range bees in Downeast, Maine”

Quite the mouthful.

I should make sure my processing permit is in good order. Ah, the business end of beekeeping!