Snow Day

This weekend we had our first notable snowfall of the season (there was a skiff of snow in October, but it melted quickly). I expect the weather to stay cold, so that means it's time to do some final winter work on the hives.

You can see in the picture that I still have the extra super on the hives. It simply encloses some (now empty) sugar syrup feeding jars. Now that the weather is cold, the bees stop taking the syrup, so I'll remove them. I still want to put a piece of foam insulation in between the top cover (the metal cover) and the inner cover. I also want to slope the hives a little more so that condensation runs to the edge - I'm not satisfied with the slant yet.

My wife mentioned a week or so ago that she went out and could hear lots of buzzing at the green hive, but almost nothing at the brown hive. Maybe the brown hive won't make it over the winter - we'll see.

A Bee-Thanksgiving

Earlier this month was the Worcester County Beekeeper's Association annual Thanksgiving day banquet. It was interesting to note that one year ago I attended the same banquet, and it was my first time attending the WCBA. A lot has happened in that year!

This time I convinced my wife to go with me. It took a bit of convincing, because she has attended a few bee functions, and knows about the ... ahem... "interesting" personalities of the members of the WCBA (and you won't find a one to disagree with her). But, being the supportive wife that she is, she decided to take one for the team and go with me. We got a babysitter, left the kids at home, and made an evening of it.

A year ago I sat next to a couple of friends from the club, and this year I looked for the same people. I saw Michelle again and steered her towards our table, so we got to visit with her and her husband and 2 children. They were very well behaved, and so were their children! :-)

One of the things which convinced my wife to go was that the featured speaker was going to speak on companion gardening, the idea you plant companion plants together to naturally keep pests away, thus reducing your need and dependence on chemical pesticides. Usually it is a combination of some kind of an aromatic herb paired with a vegetable. As beekeepers we try to be as naturally possible. When we do use chemicals, we use the bare minimums we can to achieve the desired effect. I've learned the goal of pesticides with bees is not to eradicate the pest, but to reduced the population to the point where the bees can manage the load. You'll never eliminate 100% of the mites in a hive, for example, but if the number of mites is low enough the bees can manage it.

One of the fun things of that evening is that people bring in items to donate to a club raffle. The club itself puts together large gift baskets (there were 4 this year), and everyone gets one ticket to be drawn to win one of the baskets (we didn't win any of those). For the items that others bring in to raffle off, people buy multiple tickets and you put as many as you want in each cup in front of the item you want to bid on. Depending on how bad you want the item, you can stack the odds by putting more than one ticket in the cup.

My wife had her eye on a cute pumpkin ceramic centerpiece, and between her tickets and mine, she won it!


I put in for a few things, but I saw and won this neat jar of honey. It wasn't clear like most honey - it was a type of crystallized honey.


It isn't like what happens at your house where the honey becomes solid like a rock, and you have to heat it up to liquefy it. No, this is done on purpose and the honey has very fine crystals in it, too small to see. The honey is still spreadable, but a little thicker and opaque. This honey was from New Hampshire, and was absolutely delicious! Before getting into beekeeping I never knew the different tastes of honey (plus, the honey you buy from the store is usually pasteurized, which affects the taste). Too bad I couldn't have any of my own honey to taste (maybe next year!).

Fall, but not quite...

The weather hasn't decided it if is Fall or Winter yet, so we are getting some ups and downs. It rained a bunch the past couple of days, and today it was dry and 65 - go figure! So I decided it was a good day to remove the Apistan strips (medication for mite prevention). It was right at the recommended time, and I don't want to leave them in too long.

Due to the warm weather, the bees were out buzzing around the hive today. It was good to see that - during cold times, you never know what is going on in the hive.

I also decided to mix up another batch of sugar syrup to feed the bees. I had checked on them last week, and they had almost emptied the jars. I noticed one jar apparently leaked, and there was a bunch of syrup puddled on the top board. Today when I checked, the syrup was gone - the bees took care of it.

When I mix up a batch, I use a 10# bag of sugar (I am making concentrated syrup, 2 parts sugar to one part water). A bag of sugar fills up my six one-quart jars plus leaves about 1 1/2 quart left over.

The Green hive was doing well - saw lots of bees when I opened things up. But when I opened the Brown hive, I didn't see the same strength of bees (almost no bees greeted me when I popped off the top inner cover). I don't know if the hive has lost her queen or not - I guess time will tell (even if the hive is queenless, now is not the time to do anything about it). If it turns out to be queenless, it'll probably die off during the winter. If that's the case, I'll see what I want to do in the spring.

I took the picture at the top this afternoon. The hives look a little lonely just sitting there among the leafless-trees...

Sugar baby...

We are in the feeding mode - during the fall weather, it's my job to get the bees stockpiled in food to survive the winter. You do that by feeding 2:1 sugar syrup.

I got some new quart jars, and I put three jars of sugar on the bees at a time. I've already fed them the medicated syrup, so now it's just straight sugar.

Someone asked the details of how I have my feeder, so I took some pictures.

I put the top cover on the hive, and put a couple of sticks (cut from some scrap wood) on top:


Then I upend three jars of sugar syrup. I had already drilled about 10 holes in the lids in basically a line, and I line up the holes in parallel with the sticks (you can see the dark marks I made with a marker on the side of the jar lids to help me orient the lids). I didn't want holes touching the wood rails, because that might cause syrup to leak.


I did a quick inspection this last weekend, since the weather was nice. I noticed that the bees hadn't taken much of the pollen patty I put on a few weeks ago, so I just took it off (it was very moist and mushy, and I noticed a lot of moisture on the top cover of the hive). Obviously they weren't eating much of it.

I didn't look for the queen, since as I mentioned before, there is a lot of propolis holding things together, and I didn't want to break that up and disrupt the hive. I did look and didn't see any brood on the frames I took out, so I have no proof there is a queen. I am going on faith that she is there - there were lots of bees around.

Wet and Warm...

The weather has been chilly for the past couple of weeks, but Saturday was a surprisingly warm day. It was about 68 degrees, and the rain which had been falling the past day or so stopped. So it was a moist but warm time, and the bees took advantage of the warmth to go out foraging:


I don't see them bringing back any pollen, because I think the frost killed off all of the flowers. I put 3 jars of syrup on each hive last week, and have a pollen patty on top of the top bars. I see a lot of bees clustering at the upper entrance:


I suspect they are using it to get to the pollen, and maybe the syrup. I don't see any agitation, so there doesn't appear to be robbing going on.

The Scientific Side of Bees

Last Saturday was a special meeting of the Worcester County Beekeeper Association and the Massachusetts Beekeepers Association. A couple of prominent bee scientists came to town to give presentations on beekeeping topics. I'll give a synopsis of the day, with some pictures.

At the start of the meeting some danish was served for breakfast. Beekeepers like to eat!


The meeting was well attended - there were about 200 people according to a rough count.

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Dr. Marla Spivak from the University of Minnesota was the first to speak. She spoke on "Propolis and Bee Health." Propolis is the gummy tree resin bees collect and bring in to the hive. In a natural hive, they basically encapsulate the inside of the hive. In Langstroth hives (which beekeepers use) the propolis gums up the frames something fierce, and beekeepers hate it. But it turns out propolis may have a health benefit for the hive's "social health." Her research is still ongoing. More Q&A with Dr. Spivak is here.

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Then Dr. Heather Mattila from Wellesley College here in MA spoke on "Genetic Diversity, Dancing and Foraging of the Honey Bee." Queen Bees mate with multiple (6-20) males (called "polyandry") which gives the hive a diverse genetic makeup. She did some experiments with hives made up of a single genetic line (using artificial insemination from a single male) as well as multiple genetic lines (inseminated by 15 males). Her research shows that hives with a diverse genetic makeup are superior in many ways (foraging, etc.) so it's a benefit for the queen to be promiscuous (you can read a short article about her research on this here).

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Ken Warchol then gave an update on the Worcester Bee Research Project. Beekeepers in the area have expressed concern about the USDA’s use of imidacloprid to kill the invasive, tree-killing Asian longhorned beetle first discovered in the Worcester area last year. Combined with infested tree removal, officials plan to inject the chemical into potential host trees over three-year cycles to kill off the beetle in the area.

Ken will be monitoring about 50 hives throughout the area to see the impact of the pesticide on bees. Obviously it's a bad thing if the bees are impacted by the pesticide. Here is an article from the Worcester Telegram on this issue.


(sorry for the blurry pictures - all I had was my point-and-shoot digital camera)

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After lunch, Dr. Spivak again took the mic and gave a presentation on "A New Novel Way to Monitor Varroa Mites." She showed how to accurately sample your bees to see the mite level of the hive, so you can decide how and when to treat for the mites. The process is described here.

Then Dr. Mattila gave a presentation on "Life Inside a Swarm." She showed what happens when a beehive decides it needs to execute a swarming activity. It was an interesting study on the group dynamics of tens of thousands of bees, and how they decide what they decide.

Overall it was very enjoyable conference. Dr. Spivak is a highly sought-after speaker, due to her prominence with the Minnesota Hygienic bee line. It took 3 years of scheduling to get her here. The presentations weren't too scientific, and from my observations, didn't go over everyone's head. As an engineer myself, I am fascinated at how much of Beekeeping is "art" - people with opinions on what is works and what doesn't. There is a joke that if you ask 5 beekeepers a question, you'll get 10 answers. That's true in a lot of ways. But both of these women have done a good job of applying scientific methods to the bees. Bees aren't the easiest creatures to study, because they won't do exactly what you want. But there are tricks you can do to get the answers you want.

I had to laugh at the end, when as a thank-you gift Ken gave each of the presenters a jar of club Honey. I could imagine them thinking to themselves, "Gee, just what I need - another jar of honey!"

I had a followup e-mail conversation with Dr. Mattila and she mentioned that she feels like she has a foot in 2 different worlds, as a beekeeper and as a scientist.

By the way, you can also read about the meeting at my friend Michelle's Blog (she is a fellow beekeeper in the club).

A Quick Check...

The weather was great today, and heavy rains are planned for the weekend. So I took advantage of the evening light to do a quick check of the hives.

It's been about 3 weeks since I put on the Formic Acid pads, and it was time to take them off. So I suited up and fired up the smoker a little (not too much - it was a quick check after all).

The green hive hadn't taken any syrup over the past week. I thought that it was strange, but when I lifted off the upside-down bottle I found out why - the small holes were apparently clogged (probably with sugar crystals). I didn't have enough either - only 4. The brown hive had almost emptied their bottle.

I found that the bees had added propolis along the underside of the pads, plugging up the holes. I guess they really didn't like the smell! They also didn't eat much of the pollen patty. I suspect that it was because of the odor of the pad - they were staying away. I added another pollen patty to both hives; we'll see what they do this next week.

I took the opportunity this evening to cook up a batch of 2:1 sugar syrup, and added some Fumigilin-B medication (to treat for / prevent Nosema). I needed a better set of feeding jars, so I bought a 12-pack of quart canning jars. Since I had bad luck with the metal bands and lids, I found a set of replacement plastic lids which fit the jars. I could have chosen a larger jar (and thus have to add syrup less often), but I liked having to only use one super to surround the jar. I figured I can fit 3 jars per hive along a long set of riser sticks I cut. Here is a picture of 6 jars ready for feeding. The lids have small holes drilled in them (if you can see them):


I should note that most people would be showing jars of honey produced by the hive, but alas, such is not the case for mine...

I'll probably put the jars on tomorrow morning after they have cooled.

SNOW!!!

No, this isn't a picture of my beehives! We had about 1/2" of snow overnight, and by mid-day it had all melted. But it is a sign that we are heading into winter.

I decided to do a little maintenance on the hives this afternoon. One good thing about the cool/cold weather is that the bees aren't out and about, and they don't bother me while I work around the hive.

I bought some styrofoam insulation (a sheet about 3/4" thick) and cut some pieces to fit under the screened bottom board of my hives. This'll cut down on the drafts coming up the bottom. Here's a picture of the insulation:


I checked the syrup feeders, and the one on the green hive was empty. I filled it back up, and the bees should be able to get to it once the weather warms up a little.

When I checked the brown hive, I found this visitor:


Mr. Spider, meet Mr. Hive Tool! Notice that there is a poor bee caught in the web.

I also tilted up the hives a little (wedged a stick under the back end) to cause any moisture condensation to go to the front edge of the hive, and not drip down on the bees. While I was lifting them up, I felt that the green hive was a lot lighter than the brown hive. This is consistent with the fact the green hive is newer than the brown hive. So I'll feed and feed and feed!

Mites!

I've been treating the hives with some medication for a couple of weeks now, specifically to combat the Varroa Mite and Tracheal Mite. You'll recall that these mites can weaken a beehive to the point where it can't survive, especially the winter. Now that fall is here, some beekeepers treat with medication (others do more natural treatments, like sugar shakes, while others don't do any treatments at all).

[It's interesting to note that these pests are relatively recent to the U.S. The Varroa Mite arrived around 1987, and the Tracheal Mites in 1984. See here for more information.]

I wanted to see how effective the treatments are, so I performed a "mite drop test." I have a couple of sheets of corrugated plastic board, and I sprayed them with aerosol cooking spray (to make the surface sticky). Then I placed the boards under the screened bottom board of each hive last Sunday. Tonight I removed them for examination.

Wow - there were lots of mites on the boards! Here are the pictures - the first is from the brown hive, the second from the green hive (click for larger).



The small brown dots are mites. You'll note that the brown hive had more mites than the green one (the picture at the top is a closeup from the brown hive's board). I attribute this to the fact that the brown hive is older, and has a larger population. In any case, the medications appear to be working. Next weekend I'll take off the Formic Acid pad, and the Apistan strips come out a few weeks after that. This weekend I'll also start feeding the Fumigilin-B which treats for Nosema.

As an aside, this weekend is a special meeting of the Worcester County Beekeeper Association. It's the Mass Bee Fall Meeting and Honey Show hosted by WCBA, and is an all-day meeting. One of the speakers will be Dr. Marla Spivak of the University of Minnesota. Dr. Spivak is one of the world's leading experts on bee hygienics, or the feature of bees being able to keep their hives free(er) of disease and pests.

Oh, and it snowed today; go figure...

Pleasant Afternoon

Yesterday we had very harsh rains. Obviously the bees stayed in. Today was clear and the weather was in the 70's at the high. Around 2 in the afternoon, I looked out and saw a lot of activity in front of the green hive. The new bees were doing their orientation flights, just lazily hovering in front of the hive. Very serene! The picture doesn't do it justice...