I went out to visit the hives in early March.  All of them were strong in population except for one  which had a crucial flaw in their population management plans. The queen was shooting blanks into her six sided nursery cells and as a result my comb looked like my Light Bright toy from years past.  Hundreds of little bullet shaped drone cells were protruding from the comb where the vital female variety of honeybee was desired.

Despite this, it looked like I had the better of the two infertile queen scenarios.  If it was a laying worker (No Hope Scenario)  there would be eggs scattered all over the comb in random layout because laying workers don’t have the same laying discipline as full fledged queen.  Finding the false queen would be impossible because she is a worker like the other 30,000 + bees in the hive.  However these eggs were clustered tight together in a solid brood pattern albeit of male offspring.  In China this might be a good thing but in the bee world this is a disaster since the drones do nothing but sit around eat, sleep, and well…you know the rest.

But because the real queen was present I might have a chance to reverse the trend by replacing the queen with a new one. Unfortunaly it was early March and there was nary a bee breeder willing to ship out a new queen to me so my next best bet was to order a new package and hoped it arrived in time before my hive turned into Delta fraternity from Animal House.

In the meantime I gave the bees an early dose of watered down sugar to spur their population forward.

It must be noted. The middle hive, despite its queen problem looked strong and healthy. The other hives likewise. Not once did I feed any of my girls any form of pesticide, miticide, or any other kind of herbal colonic to shield them from natures barbs.  I have seen no varroa mites in the hive or any sign of the tracheal mite.  I attribute this to superb genetics of the bee which are supposedly bred from survivor stock only and are not treated with medications by the breeder.  However these bees are still some real bastards to work with.  Very temperamental and like The Hulk, quick to anger.  But I guess this is what is needed to survive in nature’s crucible.  Those who are the meanest, toughest, and hardiest will survive.   These bees were purchased from Bee Weaver apiaries.

As May arrived  my middle colony had dwindled to nothing.  There were just a few slacker drone bees sitting out front of the porch(bottom board) with a small skeleton crew of workers running the operation.  I also received notice from my breeder that because of the drought in Texas, not to mention the fire storms, my shipment would be late.  This is the death notice for that colony but by the time the package arrives at least the hive will be empty and the new residence will have a clean house to work with, with all of the furniture already laid out for them.

Such is the life of a beekeeper.  On a fun note I will be doing a beekeeping demo for my daughter’s pre-school. I even will bring in a fresh frame of Grade A honey for the children to sample.

Arriving in the mail box a few days later I ripped off the mailing package and looked at the box.  First impressions are important to me  and it was nice to see a real CD in a case with nice graphics and not some hand scrawled note of “Listen To This” sticky noted to a generic Panasonic 750MB data cd. So far so good. Driving to the bee yard was a perfect time to listen to this album. How was it?

Pretty darned good. Instead of music engineered for a Raffi concert I heard real music with real love and heart packed into it. These guys were not just singing flim flam songs about bees with touchy feely vocals and healf hearted strumming of the guitar. They believed everything they were pouring out of the speakers.  From listening to the lyrics you get the feeling that at least one of the band members has bees because their lyrics spoke truth to the biology and the behavior of Apis Mellifera.

This album is just fun to listen to, more so if you happen to bee a beekeeper and can understand the inside the hive humor.  If I had to label them as sounding like another band it would be hard but for the sake of the review I would say a combination of The Violent Femmes, maybe a little They Might Be Giants, The Presidents of The United States, and a dash of Weezer or The Sex Pistols. Good fun music that is catchy and should be paid for with a modest payment to Amazon or using their website found at the link below.

Amazon

ArtichokeTheBand

I give them 4 jars of honey. Of note, 5 jars of honey equals something like the greatest song in the world and has never been acquired in human history.

I now have to objectively assess what I want to do.  Although my bees are not the easiest bees to work with I have to admit their population is vibrant, pulling most of the comb, and actually storing a fair quantity of honey for the winter.  I am amazed with their brood patterns.  They  are solidly packed with eggs, larva and adults. No half-ass placement of eggs by these queens. They have the work ethic and craftsmanship of  German engineers. The Italians on the other hand are not so productive.  They exhibit the same level of industry as a Yugo factory.  They get the work done and in theory it should work, but in the end they will probably starve to death over winter without any help.

I think I will just put up with their antics as long as they keep producing well.  They may have the temperament of an angry German engineer but they do fine quality work.   Maybe their horrible personality is part of the price for having bees that will survive on their own without medications or weird Rube Goldberg devices to remove the mites.

On another note, as I was working with the bees I realized how important it is for a beekeeper to be mindful in their own actions.  My beekeeping mentor of old taught me a lot of what is needed in the way of mindset when working with the bees.

We have a picture in our mind that we are helping the bees and are their benefactor. With our white suit and hat and general outlook on life that I have found most beekeepers have it is easy to forget that to them we are really monsters. Basically we are like a whitely suited King Kong ham-fisting our way through their home on a  bi-weekly basis. For all we know they have come up with a hive mind like mythology or religion based upon our appearance.  “Oh no, the sun has risen and fallen 14 times. Now again begins the ritual sacrifice we must go through to live in such a well designed home!!! May the great White Sheet God show mercy upon us with his hands of smoke and sword!! May he only crush 200 of us unlike the last time!! Oh woe is us!!” See what I mean.

So we can either be the angry bearded old man god found in the Old Testament who wiped out cities for juggling pigs or we can be the benevolent god of peace which my Google results could not find a single one.

Comparisons

To help beekeepers become the kindly Amun-Ra of their own bees one should keep in mind several things.

1. Know exactly what you want to do before you do it.  The more you move the components of your hive the more likely it is you are smashing, grinding, and de-limbing your worshipers. Every action should have a purpose. If you just want to take a look for the sake of looking your are probably going to kill some bees for your own gratification. Look because you are trying to determine something. The hives health, state of stress, mites, anything but just don’t look for the hell of it. That is what an observation hive is for.

2. When replacing hive bodies or supers I place the box at an angle compared to the other box. I then slowly rotate the boxes until they line up. Doing this helps gives the bees time to move out of the way of the oncoming wall. Just plopping the box down on top of the other so that they align right away is a sure way of crushing 10  or so bees.

3. Have the movement of a sloth or Tai-Chi master.  Bees don’t like swift movements.  Maybe their minds exist in another temporal space from ours but  I have found that when you move quickly, like when you swat at bees, it only attracts more and seems to aggravate them.

4. When pulling the frames out. Be sure you have loosened them well and pull them out as vertically as you can.  Any movement of the frame off from its 90 degree extraction will kill bees between the frames or at least increase their stress levels as they are mashed into the adjacent comb. Again go slowly as you do it.

5. When placing frames back into the hive, don’t ram them home like a railroad spike. Slowly and deliberately is the plan for the day.

6. Don’t smoke the hell out of them every five seconds.  Use just a little smoke  when necessary. I have seen some people just asphyxiate their bees with bellows of smoke.

7. Wait until later in the day if possible.  Too early and their will be more population in the hive equaling more potential for loss of worshipers. Wait too late and the same thing happens.  I usually go out between 2-5 depending on the time of year.

These are just seven lucky tips I try to keep in mind.  If any of you have others please add them in the comments below.

The key is just to play it smart, be deliberate in everything you do, and try to keep your bees less agitated.  The more agitated they become the greater the chance they will find their location too much of a hassle and swarm to some place less inhabited by the angry bee gods.

Amen Brother.

I just finished reading a small article in the February issue of Bee Culture titled Honey Bee Stress Reduction.

In the article, the author discusses how honeybees have been put under too much stress during the last century from a  wide spectrum of sources.  Pesticides, mites, you know the litany.  It should be no wonder that honey bee populations are crashing around the world.  What gets me is that we should have seen it coming.  When our bodies and psyche’s are under stress what happens to us humans?  We get sick, feel weaker, or decide one day to blow away half of our office mates after having Elf Bowling emailed to us for the nth time. The proverbial “straw” adds up until finally we succumb.

Well honeybees or any other living organism are no different.

I have a confession to make.   I like gadgets.  From the IPhone to the indoor remote control helicopter, I love technology.  Even with beekeeping I once could have seen myself buying all of the latest gadgets and miticides to solve my problems of the instance.  But I think what happens over the long term is we end up building a process of actions akin to a  Rube Goldberg device  just to maintain our bees health and make our life “easier”. When really what we could be doing is helping our bees over the long term through more of a hands off or natural approach.  When I say “natural” approach I don’t mean stop brushing your teeth with fluoride  but returning to a state of beekeeping that allows the bees to solve their own problems rather than relying on quick fixes.

Poppycock you may say.  90% of my hives will be lost.  And to you I say you are probably right. This is a bitter pill that you will have to swallow but just listen to some of his ideas before you nay-say.

1.  Our apiary’s medicine cabinet is full of miticides and antibiotics that were all designed to make life easier for our bees by not allowing them to suffer through tremendous losses.   However this has caused several things to happen.  It has left toxic residues in our hives which will vector into the food chain and has fostered the rise of a weaker bee.  The antibiotics we  use do kill off the bad bacteria in our hives such as AFB, but also the good pro-biotics which in the end, negatively effects the overall immune system of our honeybees.

It is true that through the use of chemicals/medicines we have prevented the immediate total collapse of our honeybee colonies but over the long term our bees are only going to become weaker and succumb to other stressors. However, if we can keep these pests and diseases in check using natural methods that don’t cause stressors of their own compared to the unnatural ones, we are able to eliminate or reduce several stressors at once.  With each stressor eliminated we are able to increase our hives chances of survivability when dealing with other stressors effecting their immune system.

To this effort of eliminating unnatural elements in our hive Ross Conrad suggests we begin relying on ordering honeybees that have a proven reliability when dealing with these stressors.  For instance purchasing honeybees that have come out of the program run by Dr. John Harbo and Dr. Roger Hoopingarner to develop Varroa resistance mites through Russian stock is a good option.  Other breeders, such as Bee Weaver, are producing honeybees that have not relied on chemicals since 2001.

In the past it was popular to not use honeybees that generated huge amounts of propolis as this caused hives components to become stuck to one another.  However this propolis has been known for years to be an extremely powerful antibiotic/antiviral and is responsible for extending the immune system of honeybees.  Because propolis is so powerful it is surmised that throughout the course of natural history honeybees have not needed to develop an especially strong immune system to the same extent as required by other insects. – C. Ross, Bee Culture.

2. Another recommendation by Mr. Conrad is to rely on quality wax sources that are not infused already with chemicals as a source of foundation.  However finding a source of chemical free wax can be hard to do and expensive.  One suggestion is to allow the bees to draw out their own comb while providing them with a limited amount of foundation instead of a full sheet.  He mentions when doing this to be sure your hive is level with the ground as bees will naturally draw comb parallel to the direction of gravity.  So if your colony is situated on a slope, the honeybees will pull their comb down and miss the mark of the bottom frame.

I was wondering if maybe very thin sheets of balsa wood could work too.  Maybe I will try this with one of my hives this year.

If these potential solutions work in conjunction with each other this may help reduce the total stress levels on a hive to the point that it will outweigh the necessity to rely on chemical solutions.

In my opinion, our best option is to purchase honeybees from producers of good survivor stock.  This focused effort of forcing the bees to deal with the stressors through tough love may at first seem brutal but in the long haul may be to the benefit of honeybee populations in general.  Evolution has brought bees through at least 35 million years of disease and predators.  With human efforts we can narrow the time limit but it takes an initial dose of perseverance and a willingness to basically start over.

JPBELLAVANCE

The best way to give thanks is to get on our knees and…. thank Farmer’s Market Foods for coming out with an canned/organic Pumpkin Pie mix. I am sure if canned pumpkin pie mix had been at Plymouth during 1620, the Native Americans would be around today in far larger numbers. Pumpkin pie can sweeten even the most dour Puritanical demeanor and with a little whip cream, well, Life is Good even if your religious cult thinks chastity belts and burning witches are all the rage.

My wife makes a great pumpkin pie but I found this recipe the other day and think its the Bee’s Knees. You can view it at this link (recipe) or follow the recipe below.

Recipe for Honey Pumpkin Pie

3 eggs
1 pastry for single 9-inch pie crust
3/4 cup honey
1 can (15 oz.) canned pumpkin
1 cup evaporated milk
2 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions
Preheat oven to 425°F

In a medium bowl, beat eggs. Brush one teaspoon beaten egg on inside of pie crust. Place crust on a cookie sheet and bake for 5 minutes. Meanwhile, add the rest of the ingredients to remaining beaten eggs and whisk to combine. Remove pie crust from oven and carefully pour honey pumpkin mixture into hot crust; bake 5 minutes more at 425°F. Reduce heat to 350°F, and bake 30 to 40 minutes more, until filling is set. Cool completely and serve with Honey Whipped Cream (recipe follows).

Recipe For Honey Whipped Cream

1 cup whipping cream
3 tablespoons honey
1 teaspoon vanilla

Directions

Beat whipping cream until mixture thickens; gradually add honey and beat until soft peaks form. Fold in vanilla. Makes 2 cups. Delicious!

If you make it this year let me know what you think.

Have a peaceful Thanksgiving.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Probably one of the best movies I have seen about bees.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Honeybees and cinema can be a deadly combination, but if done just right it can make for a great movie.

I believe there is a certain ratio of bees to movie time that is the determinant factor for the success or failure of the movie.  If the movie is 90% bees and 10% everything else the movie is sure to fall like a rock in a vacuum.  But if the movie is primarily about the people and the bees are tangential to the story than the likelihood of success multiplies.

To prove my point just look at some of the movies listed below.

1. Ulee’s Gold.  Good movie and a good story.  Honeybees are not the primary focus of the movie.

2. The Secret Life of Bees.  Again the bees are only an aspect of the story.

3. The Bee Movie.  This movie is technically about honeybees but they are so anthropomorphized that it is really a human story with honeybees as fill ins for actors. Think about that movie if it portrayed honeybees for how they really act.  Can you imagine the critical acclaim it would have received if all of the drones were thrown out of the hive at the end of the year to starve to death.  Granted, seeing the Seinfeld character bemoan his situation as he froze to death in the snow might be a laugh for us but children would probably not understand.

4. The Great Santini: Another great movie where the bees play a small but vital role.

And then we get movies like the one seen at the top. The bees are portrayed more ridiculously than the human characters.  This is usually what comes from made for TV movies.  Crap plot, B-grade special effects, and community theater actors getting their first big break.

If you know of any other Bee-Movies please list them here. Good or bad.

Sometimes this requires you to open up the Beekeeper’s Guerrilla Guide to Keeping Bees. When the deck is stacked against you, you either have to bend like the reed and work with the problem or begin RC modeling in place of apiculture.

Chapter 1 of the GGtKB states that when operating in the “bush”, evasion is your first line of defense.  This is because you can never always be with your hives.  At some point you will have to go home to your family for dinner and a bath and your hives will have to fend for themselves.  How they fare depends on how much preparation you have put into your evasion methodology.  This can be broken down into several aspects.

1. Where are your hives situated? Hives sitting right out in the open no more than 30 feet off the road is liking taping a “KICK ME” sign on the front of it. As the saying goes, “out of sight, out of mind.”  If you can see it from your driveway, so can Bubba with his lifted pickup truck with 50 inch mudders.  Move your hives  behind an object that removes it from the view-shed of the road.  Behind your house is a good place to start if you have a large enough property to work with.
2. If not than you will need to improvise.  Go to your local gardening store and buy some shrubbery and create a hedge line separating the hives from the view of the road.  Remember to get plants that are tall enough and will grow thick enough to block the view.  This also has the added benefit of creating a wind break to shield your hives from the cold winds of winter.
3. Paint your hives something other than a bright white.  Try to use light or pastel colored greens. Don’t use dark paints especially if  your hives encounter a lot of direct sun for they will be more likely to overheat.  The lighter pastel tones will still be noticeable but not as much as white.  Plus in combination with with shrubbery, the effect will be improved.
4. If you are a carpenter, build your own hive boxes that don’t look live beehives.  Be sure to build your hive box using dimensions in accordance  to the principals of Bee Space.  This website actually sells bee hives that don’t look exactly like beehives. Hide Hives
5. When you are working out in the field maybe wear something other than a pure white jump suit.  This guy here might have the right idea.
6. Back in the 80’s there were plenty of army/navy surplus stores.  If you are lucky enough you may still  find  camouflage netting.  Used traditionally to drape over tanks or half-tracks to hide them from the enemy, these can be used to cover the public facing side of your apiary provided they are all clustered together.
7. Build a trellis wall around your hives and plant nice plants with it.  To anyone driving by they will initially think what a beautiful bit of landscaping they are seeing rather than destroying your hives.
8. Lastly, Punji traps.  Stagger the holes surrounding your apiary in a carefully laid out random pattern.  Inside place sharpened bamboo spears for your trespassers to impale themselves on. If you have access to poison frogs, carefully wipe the spear tips along the frogs skin a few times.  Be sure to map out your locations so your friends and family don’t fall in. JUST KIDDING.

These are just a few things you can do to improve the surviability of your bee hives.  We will have to leave bears to another article.

Guerrilla beekeeping involves knowing your enemy and how they think. It is sad that there are people out there who have nothing better to do than tipping over beehives but it is a fact we have to deal with.

Share/Save]]> http://theweekendbeekeeper.com/2009/11/18/gureilla-beekeeping-evasion/feed/ 4 http://theweekendbeekeeper.com/2009/11/08/having-your-significant-other-help-with-the-bees/ http://theweekendbeekeeper.com/2009/11/08/having-your-significant-other-help-with-the-bees/#comments Sun, 08 Nov 2009 17:59:18 +0000 The Weekend Beekeeper http://theweekendbeekeeper.com/?p=242 People’s eyes either light up with delight or furrow in thought as they think of an excuse to not help you out in the apiary. My wife, a credit to her soul, is always up for  trying something new at least once.  And one of those instances was when I requested her help in the bee yard.

I did not really need much help but I thought I could introduce her to the wonderful world of beekeeping and get her hooked.

The weekend was perfect, late September, and not a cloud in the sky.  We rolled up close to the hives in my car and unloaded the equipment.  At the time I did not have an extra suit and I assured Nina that she would not need to get too close to the hive.  While I was preparing for everything I asked her to take the two 1 gallon pails to my uncles house and fill them up with a 2:1 ratio of sugar to water.  I wanted to give my bees a little extra help for their winter larder.

While she was away I smoked the entrances of the hives to get them to settle a bit and then began the inspection of them.  I am sure I was thinking to myself, “This is going to be great! My own wife will become my first student to beekeeping and she will eventually want some hives of her own.  Beekeeping will become a great Bellavance family tradition.”

When Nina came back carrying the two buckets I had her place them down next to the car and I motioned her to come over. I showed her the layout of the hive and explained some of the basic fundementals concerning keeping the bees.  Special importance was placed on being gentle and knowing exactly what you wanted to do before starting.

After about 30 minutes we were done and I began to close up the hive.  With almost everything stacked I began the last step of closing the hives by inverting the sugar water pails over the inner cover.  That was when the Johnstown sugar flood of Bellavance Apiaries, colony #2, took place.

I had forgotten to check to see if Nina had firmly placed the lids on the sugar water pails.  As a result, a torrent of sugar water plunged into the heart of the hive and created a deluge of disaster from out of the entrance.  Hundreds of bees were ejected from the front like miniature Hawaiians surfing a 30 foot set at Pipeline.  A second later thousands of bees exploded out of the front of the hive and began swarming around with a determined effort to find the god-like being who had wrecked havoc upon their world.  Luckily I was in my bee suit.  Unlucky for Nina for she was only wearing some jeans and fleece pullover.  To the bees she probably looked like a blue bear because they went after her with vigilance.  Nina began the ever so popular bee dance and ran for the hills with arms waving and swatting at the hive minded horde.

Amazingly she did not suffer one single sting.  Her hair was displaced and demeanor a bit heightend but other than that everything was OK.  In my mind the dreams of having my better half helping me into old age burned like the Hindenburg.  It’s been 10 years since and I have yet to ask her again.