Simply Bee

Not lots to say here. A new beekeeper and great photographer sent these my way and thought you might like to see them as well.

Finally found the maple trees

Look carefully in the middle of the picture to see our little honeybee closing in on the maple tree blossom.

Myrtle Spurge

New & Older colony of bees

Sure hope our new swarm makes it.

Photos are courtesy of Dietlinde Zipkin.

Bee Boy Out

500 mile warranty or the life of a Honeybee

As my wife and I go into our third year as beekeepers, we continue to not only learn but to relearn about beekeeping.  We have gained some new beekeeper friends that are just starting out and have wisely chosen to take a class from our local bee club. (Mecklenburg County Beekeepers Association) As we discuss beekeeping with our new friends we find ourselves saying, "Yea, we learned that a few years ago but some of the details aren't so fresh."  My wife, my queen bee, is always on the lookout for more bee knowledge and brings me along to add another set if eyes and ears.  Recently we have started to listen to podcasts that are extremely helpful to both refresh and expand our beekeeping knowledge.  Below are my notes from a recent podcast.  Feel free to go over and listen to it for yourself.  Any comments or things I misheard are welcome.  http://www.bkcorner.org/pages/episodes/episode-026.asp

So what are the numbers again on a honeybee?

American Bee Journal Feb 2012 pg 131

21 Days - It takes 21 days on average for a worker bee to become an adult.

3   Days in the egg stage    Day 0   - Day 3  (Queen determined here. Best on day 1.)
6   Days in the larva stage   Day 4   - Day 9
12 Days in the Pupa stage  Day 10 - Day 21

Honeybee warranty beegins (About 38 days in summer or 500 miles) 

If you listen to the podcast, Kevin Inglin does a great job detailing the life of a honeybee once she emerges until her final flight. 

4   Days - New bee                            Day 1 - 4
8   Days - Nurse bee                          Day  5 - 12
9   Days - Middle Aged Bee (MAB)      Day 13 - 21
17 Days - Forager bee                        Day 22 - Day 38

Please note these are average days and are subject to change depending on the environment. (temperature, abundance of food, abundance of workers in the colony, overall health of the colony)

New Bee jobs -  New bees mostly hang out continuing to develop and cleaning their cell.  They spend time sleeping as they develop.

Nurse Bee jobs - Nurse bees feed the queen, brood and foragers.  Turns out that in addition to Queen pheromone, there is also Brood pheromone.  According to Kevin's information, it acts as the fountain of youth for bees.  The closer to the brood pheromone, the longer they live.  That is one explanation for the length of life of a winter bee which can bee as long as 200 days.

Honey bees deposit vitellogenin molecules in fat bodies in their abdomen and heads. The fat bodies apparently acts as a food storage reservoir. The glycolipoprotein vitellogenin has additional functionality as it acts as an antioxidant to prolong Queen bee and forager lifespan as well as a hormone that affects future foraging behavior.^[1] The health of a honey bee colony is dependent upon the vitellogenin reserves of the nurse bees - the foragers having low levels of vitellogenin. As expendable laborers, the foragers are fed just enough protein to keep them working their risky task of collecting nectar and pollen. Vitellogenin levels are important during the nest stage and thus influence honey bee worker division of labor.
A nurse bee's vitellogenin titer that developed in the first four days after emergence, affects its subsequent age to begin foraging and whether it preferentially forages for nectar or pollen. If young workers are short on food their first days of life, they tend to begin foraging early and preferentially for nectar. If they are moderately fed, they forage at normal age preferentially for nectar. If they are abundantly fed, immediately after emergence, their vitellogenin titer is high and they begin foraging later in life, preferentially collecting pollen. Pollen is the only available protein source for honey bees.

Middle Age Bees (MAB) jobs -  These bees are best at comb creation, guarding the hive and receiving nectar.

Forager Bee jobs - Finally we get to the last stage of a worker bee's life.  They literally work from sunrise to sundown gathering pollen, nectar and propolis.  They also act as guard bees after they return to the hive at night to sleep.  Foragers literally work themselves to death.  As their wings wear out, it works their little flight muscles more and more.  According to Kevin's information, the muscles last about 500 miles worth of flight. 

Push pull phenomenon - According to Kevin's information, bees can change jobs to a certain extent.  If there are insufficient foragers, MABs are drafted.  Too many foragers, they can revert back to a MAB.  The closer to the brood, the more of the elixir of life.  So adult bees are pushed through the different stages of life but can bee pulled back as needed, to a certain extent.  I don't think a bee can go from forager to new bee.

Wow, how miraculous.

Final question for beekeepers to debate.  Design or Chance?  If you are a Darwinian evolutionist I would love to hear your explanation of all of this. If you believe in a supreme omnipotent being, I think I know your answer.  According to Occam's razor the simplest approach is usually the correct one.  Guess we could ponder this for quite awhile.

Bee Boy out...

Oh, for more information, here is a great book.

Honeybee wrestling or our first swarm

I have worked with the Bee Boss over the past two years and have watched him wrestle bees.  I guess for real beekeepers the term would be going on a "swarm call".  So yesterday was a nice 75 +  degree Fahrenheit day and I wanted to check out our Charlotte bee yard which is located in the backyard of some new friends and new beekeepers.  I put the call out to our friend and she said "sounded good".  A short time later I received a happily frantic call with the news that there was a swarm in one of the nearby trees.  The bee wrestling/wrangling had begun.

It took me about an hour to load up the bee mobile. A second call from her indicated there might be 2 swarms so I had to come up with additional gear for a possible second swarm.  The good news was that everything was close to the ground.

When I arrived to assess the situation, one of the swarms had vanished.  Upon closer inspection it appeared that perhaps the bees had been overzealous and gone out on a limb so to speak on one of the swarm locations. My wife and I discussed theories as to why bees would swarm on a warm stone on the ground rather than in a high tree branch.  Perhaps, once again, those darn bees had not read their bee manual and were not swarming the  "right way".

So with assistance from my new bee assistant,  we shook the stones and bees over a new hive body.  I had prepped the hive body by spraying the frames with sugar water.  There appeared to be a flurry of bees but they started clustering in the hive. I put a screen top over the hive but to the bees, screen schmeem.  I gently attempted brushing them into the box to no avail.  My next plan of attack was to spray them with sugar water and gently use a dust pan and escort them one by one into the new hive.  My thinking here was that if we got enough bees inside the hive, their little pheromones would kick in with the come home scent and the rest of the swarm would join them.

When I left, there were a few bees flying in and out but not enough to convince me we had a queen, the bees were happy and they would stay.  Give it a day or so and we'll see.

Bee boy out.

Heresy - Let's not always smoke the Honeybees

Haven't stirred the pot in awhile so I thought I'd ask the unaskable question. 

Do we always need to smoke the honeybees before entering the hive?

For those of you that may be just joining us, this is considered heresy.  Let's go to Wikipedia to get a full understanding of heresy.

Heresy (from Greek αἵρεσις, which originally meant "choice") is an accusation levied against members of another group which has beliefs which conflict with those of the accusers. It is usually used to discuss violations of religious or traditional laws or codes, although it is used by some political extremists to refer to their opponents. It carries the connotation of behaviors or beliefs likely to undermine accepted morality and cause tangible evils, damnation, or other punishment. In some religions, it also implies that the heretic is in alliance with the religion's symbol of evil, such as Satan or chaos.^[1] It is distinct from apostasy, which is the formal denunciation of one's religion, principles or cause,^[2] and blasphemy, which is irreverence toward religion.^[3] The founder or leader of a heretical movement is called a heresiarch, while individuals who espouse heresy or commit heresy, are known as heretics.

Efficiency asks "What is the best way to do something?"

Effectiveness asks "Do we need to do it at all?"

Clearly we are in the realm of an effectiveness question.

  http://www.brushymountainbeefarm.com/Brushy-Mountain-Pro-Smoker/productinfo/750/

http://shopdixiebee.com/?page_id=53&category=13

Above is a picture of the smoker I currently use.  From an efficiency point of view it is great.  I can load pine needles and smoker fuel and go about my business with my bees.

Pros for using a smoker: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-bee-smoker.htm

1. When smoke is blown into the hive first, however, the guard bees' receptors are dulled and they fail to sound the pheromonious alarm.
2. Conveniently the smoke has a secondary effect in that it causes the other bees to instinctively gorge themselves on honey — a survival instinct in case they must vacate the hive and recreate it elsewhere. This gorging has a tendency to pacify the bees.

Cons for using a smoker:

1. It is a bad idea to dull the senses of one of natures most sensitive olifactorily endowed creatures.  Honeybees can smell a flower burp a mile away.
2. Like the idea of smoking? Let's go to your house and light up.  Bet you'll run for the exits and gorge on honey too. :-)

Observation of an astute mechanic:

If the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem better be a nail!

So how about this for middle ground?

Let's not smoke every time.

• If we are just putting in sugar water in a Mann Lake hive top feeder and not going into the hive, why smoke?
• If we are putting on sugar fondant on a cold day, let's not smoke.
• If we are doing a quick inspection, the bees are happy and not pulling EVERY FRAME, let's not smoke.

So what is smoke good for?

• When you need to move bees from something, smoke clears them out/away.
• If we are going deep and need to do a detailed inspection and the bees are cranky, smoke can calm things down a bit. (Really it just confuses them and covers the attack pheromones. )

Can we still be friends even if I ask the unaskable?

If you have a different opinion, I'd love to hear from you.

The Bee Boy out.

New Trees on Plan Bee

We are still working our forest plan and after having an official NC State Forester visit Plan Bee we were told we were an acre short of the required 20 to become a forest for tax purposes.  As luck would have it, we took our Bee Mobile for routine maintenance @ the local Subaru dealer and discovered they needed to get some extra trees planted for the "Share the Love" event.

The folks @ Subaru were kind enough to provide lots of trees that needed a new home.  We took them to our humble abode in Charlotte, NC and asked our planting team to look over the trees.  Below you will note that in addition to my wife and I, our local planting team consists of a fairy and rock frog.  They both quietly approved of the trees.  Fairies are some interesting creatures anyhow.

So as soon as possible, we drove the trees up to Plan Bee to find them a new home.  After a quick stop at a local supply store for good dirt, we had them planted in the ground.

It took us hours but by the setting of the sun our new trees were sharing some love on Plan Bee.

We will keep you posted on the progress of our new trees.  By the way, these are Eastern White Pines.  As a boy scout years ago I have a fond memory of finding a dry place in an Eastern White Pine forest during a rainy camping event.  The needles are fairly long and soft.  My wife and I look forward to having our very own Eastern White Pine forest.

The Bee (HoneyBee) in Scripture

In our last Mecklenburg County Beekeepers Association newsletter  page 3 referred to the honeybee as being referred to in The Holy Qu'ran.  I have a friend that is familiar with The Holy Qu'ran and he referred me to Surah 16 entitled, "The Bee" or in Arabic "Al-Nahl".  The Holy Qu'ran is comprised of 114 Surahs/chapters.  Unlike The Holy Bible, it is organized from longest to shortest Surah.  It was completed around 632 AD and written in Arabic.  While we do not have the original document, those that are most familiar with it speak Arabic and state The Holy Qu'ran is accurate to the letter.

Below are some interesting facts as reported to me by my friend about The Bee in The Holy Qu'ran. 

********

hope you doing well, here is part one of the answer

THE BEE

“And thy Lord taught the Bee To build its cells in hills, On trees, and in (men’s) habitations; Then to eat of all The produce (of the earth), And find with skill the spacious Paths of its Lord.” [Al-Qur’aan 16:68-69]

Von-Frisch received the Nobel Prize in 1973 for his research on the behaviour and communication of the bees. The bee, after discovering any new garden or flower, goes back and tells its fellow bees the exact direction and map to get there, which is known as ‘bee dance’. The meanings of this insect’s movements that are intended to transmit information between worker bees have been discovered scientifically using photography and other methods. The Qur’aan mentions in the above verse how the bee finds with skill the spacious paths of its Lord.

The worker bee or the soldier bee is a female bee. In Soorah Al-Nahl chapter no. 16, verses 68 and 69 the gender used for the bee is the female gender (fa’slukî and kulî), indicating that the bee that leaves its home for gathering food is a female bee. In other words the soldier or worker bee is a female bee. 

In fact, in Shakespeare’s play,“Henry the Fourth”, some of the characters speak about bees and mention that the bees are soldiers and that they have a king. That is what people thought in Shakespearean times. They thought that the worker bees are male bees and they go home and are answerable to a king bee. This, however, is not true. The worker bees are females and they do not report to a king bee but to a queen bee. But it took modern investigations in the last 300 years to discover this.

*******

So I was curious.  What does is say about The Bee in The Holy Bible.  Turns out there is one reference to "The Bee" in The Holy Bible.

KJV Isaiah 7:18 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the LORD shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria. (Isa 7:18 KJV)

The word for Bee in Hebrew is transliterated Devorah.  We have Anglicized the word to be the name, Deborah.  If you are a male beekeeper and in your youth you have been stung by a Deborah, now you know why.  Turns out that had old Shakespeare read and studied The Holy Bible or The Holy Qu'ran he would have learned that in Hebrew or Arabic, a Bee is feminine. 

Let me end lest I drone on.

Winterizing Plan Bee

Hard to believe it is almost December on the Gregorian calendar.  This morning after a slow drive up to Plan Bee because of grass mowing on I85 I arrived to a bright sunny Plan Bee.  Near the beehives it is a balmy 70 degrees in the sun.  Bees are out flying and I noted they had drained the 2 gallons of sugar water I had left for them in the chicken waterers.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

When you are out in the open like we are on Plan Bee, you have to think like a Bee.  We are getting our property ready for winter in warm weather and shining sun.  We know cold freezing weather is just around the corner.  Now that we have water if it gets really cold, pipes can break, the well head can freeze.  If we have our well burst it could cost thousands of dollars to repair.  In speaking with local rednecks, we have come up with a very economical solution.

  A light bulb.  HA!

So I popped off the well cover and put in a light with a timer.  Checked the bulb from last year and it was burned out.  Thankfully I had a replacement ready since I thought it a high probability a bulb would go bad.  Just a lightbulb turned on under the well cover that is set to come on from dusk to dawn to come on protects the well from freezing.  

With the tested light and timer in place, I simply drop the well cover over the well head and again and we are in business. Done

Next Job - With cold weather we have taken off the Mann Lake hive top feeders.  Instead we now have a solid inner cover on all three hives. (Aleph, Gimmel & Dalet)  Much to the chagrin of other beekeepers, we have elected to do some open feeding.  When the weather is warm and the bees are hungry we set up 2 one  gallon chicken waterers.  You can get a five gallon version that is easy to refill from the Tractor Supply store. I refilled the one gallon chicken waterers with sugar syrup.  I get my sugar syrup for $8.00/ 5 gallon bucket.  Refilled them and replaced my bumblebee marbles in the waterers so my bees won't drown. Such an idiot. Ha

Turned on the water for my fruit trees. Yea. Used to haul water now just turn it on from my frost proof yard hydrants. With our drip irrigation system in place, as I work I water.  Well worth the money.  Next year will extend the drip irrigation to water the front nut trees. I recently planted 2  replacement pecan trees.

So I did a quick weedeating job around some property markers and in front of the beehives. With the sun out and warmer weather, our bees found the sugar water and are really enjoying their meal.  At a usually safe distance in our picnic shelter I am being buzzed.  Stepping away from a curious bee seems to work well.

With a setting sun and a beautiful happy day, I bid good bye to Plan Bee. Winterized and ready to go.