I Almost Forgot:: Disease Prevention

I have been trying to document all those bee management activities I use. Unfortunately, I've forgot to mention a simple apicultural activity suggested by Marla Spivak that might serve to prevent some diseases developing in the bee hive. De. Spivak suggested "roughening up" the inside of hive boxes before using them to house bees. The "roughening up" encourages honeybees to "propolize" the walls of the hive box to a much greater degree. This simple management technique may lower the chances of some bee diseases gaining a foothold in the hive. Dr. Spivak has asked woodenware manufacturers to sell boxes in such a state.

"Roughening up" does not take much doing. Just take some steel wool and lightly scour the inside of the box.

Sustainable Beekeeping in an Unsustainable World

Every year about this time I make beekeeping resolutions for the coming season. After listening to Marla Spivak's talks at both Saint Mary's and Winona State, and reading Randy Oliver's series of articles in the American Bee Journal, I have decided to recast my apicultural practices somewhat. I would really like to be totally natural in my approach but I must recognize that my bees forage in an un-natural world. They live in a world of suburban development, city ordinances against 'noxious' weeds, conspicuous consumption and leisure, growing monoculture, the casual use of pesticides and herbicides, and globalization. All these social problems impact the nutrition, and health of honeybees. While a 'social apiculturalist' should also be working to fight these economic/political problems, in the present, I need to be concerned about some of my bees' immediate problems. With this is in mind, I resolve to do the following practices this bee season:

1. Culling three year old comb-  Comb retains many of the noxious chemicals and diseases bees come in contact with while foraging. This season I have already removed comb that is three years or older.
2. Supplement Nutrition- I will be more disciplined in supplementing the bees' nutritional needs with pollen supplements when called for. This grates against my 'natural' tendencies but I am convinced now that my neighbor's on the west side of Winona are not providing my bees with a diverse enough diet.
3. Monitor and Manage Varroa Better- I will be monitoring the varroa count of each hive regularly, removing drone comb, and using essential oil based miticides if the mite count calls for it. 
4. Carrying Capacity-  I may have been pushing the number of beehives in the neighborhood to its limits, especially given the rainy and cold spring/summer we had. I will try to stay within a 4 hive limit (with nucs) in the future.

Dr. Spivak Speaks at Saint Mary's University on April 8th.

Dr. Marla Spivak will speak on April 8th at 1:45pm in the Figliulo Recital Hall (which is in Page Theatre). For further information about the event follow the link.

Article: Marla Spivak-- MacArthur Fellow

Congratulations to University of Minnesota entomologist, Marla Spivak on being chosen as a 2010 MacArthur Foundation fellow.

Bees In An Iron Cage? Part III-Origins of Rationalized Beekeeping

On November 4th at 7:30 pm, I will be giving a presentation entitled "Bees in an Iron Cage?: The Formal Rationalization of 20th Century American Apiculture" at the Stark Auditorium at Winona State University. The presentation is part of Winona State's CLASP lecture series which has as its theme this year, Food. I will be collecting my thoughts for this lecture and writing my notes right here on my blog: Canaries In A Coal Mine.

Rationalized beekeeping in the United States began in the mid-19th century through the inventions of a number of innovative apiculturalists who were able to disseminate their ideas throughout the country through such publications as The American Bee Journal and Gleanings of Bee Culture (both still in publication). Laidlaw and Page (1997:9) describe this period in beekeeping history as a time when the "Essential tools of beekeeping were discovered that made it possible to fully exploit the economic value of honey bees. Without movable-frame hive, comb foundation, the honey extractor, or the bellows smoker, beekeeping would indeed be at the same stage of advancement it was in the first half of the nineteenth century." Two important innovators were Lorenzo Langstroth, and G.M. Doolittle.

Langstroth, a semi-retired minister, is credited with inventing the box hive with movable frames, still the most common manner of maintaining bee colonies in the United States today. Langstroth's approach allowed beekeepers a neat and efficient way of managing many bee colonies by giving beekeepers a way to move inter-changeable frames of comb from one hive to another in order to strengthen weak hives, and begin new ones from scratch. Using frames also produced less defensive bees, making the control and manipulation of honey bees easier for the beekeeper. (Langstroth 2004)

G.M. Doolittle (2008) invented a system for the mass production of honey bee queens, allowing the industrious beekeeper to multiply the number of hives in his/her possession without having to capture swarms or feral bee colonies. His system also allows the beekeeper to choose what larvae are suitable for queens, rather than leaving such a decision in the "hands" of the bees as would be done when beekeepers simply split hives. Coupled with a selective breeding plan, the beekeeper could easily produce a line of bees exhibiting such "desired" characteristics as honey productivity, disease resistance, and gentle behavior. His basic techniques are still followed today, and are taught, for example, at the University of Minnesota during their summer queen rearing extension course (Spivak and Reuter 2006).

While the rationalized techniques used have allowed beekeepers to efficiently run a greater number of hives in a very productive and controlled manner, this rationalization has probably had costs for the honey bees, even after setting aside the negative effects of rationalized pesticide-use on the bees. The beekeeper's need for efficiency, predictability, control and profit often conflict with the biophysical needs of the honey bee colony.




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Works Cited

Doolittle, G.M. (2008) Scientific Queen-Rearing. Kalamazoo, MI: Wicwas.

Laidlaw Jr., Harry H. and Robert E. Page Jr. (1997) Queen Rearing and Bee Breeding. Kalamazoo, MI: Wicwas.

Langstroth, L.L. (2004) Langstroth's Hive and the Honey-Bee: The Classic Beekeeper's Manual. North Andover, MA: Dover.

Spivak, Marla and Gary S. Reuter. Successful Queen Rearing- Short Course. St. Paul, MN: University of Minnesota.

Last Day of Queen Rearing Course

I finished up the queen rearing class at the University of Minnesota this morning. Our primary activity was taking our grafted cell bars out of the swarm boxes to see whether the bees started any queen cells. Of my eight grafts, only two were being cultivated into queens. One unlucky group's swarm box had included a virgin queen, so none of their grafts took. (There is a lesson there, there could be two queens in any hive so be careful when you shake bees into your swarm box!) After examining the bars, they were all placed in prepared hives for "finishing". These queens will be used in Marla Spivak's classes to teach the techniques of artificial insemination.

We all left with a pleasant surprise. Gary Reuter gave each of us a ripe queen cell grafted from a strong survivor hive. We actually packaged the cells in the nalgene bottles we were given the day before. When I got home I placed my cell in a 5 frame nuc created from frames and bees taken from Bee Glad... We will see if a mated queen will result from this. This allows me to experiment with wintering a double nuc.

Knowledge Acknowledged

Except for computer problems which made our powerpoint presentation useless, I would have to say that our beekeeping presentation for my univerity's Knowledge Acknowledged series was a success. We had a very diverse and engaged audience, along with tasty refreshments supplied by the library.

I left with a deep appreciation for my beekeeping colleagues at the university, even though we all came to apiculture from different directions and for different purposes. Gary found his way through the face-to-face influence of another local beekeeper who mentored him in the craft. He has a very non-interference approach that I much admire. Chris's approach is shaped by his involvement in the Univerity of Minnesota's extension courses and Marla Spivak's work. The joy he takes in beekeeping and all of nature was quite evident in his talk. My own approach finds its home mostly at Phil Chandler's biobees.com. I am very happy to have had the opportunity to work together with Gary and Chris on this project.

Model of Reality vs. Reality of the Model Part II

I was meandering through youtube.com this morning watching bee videos and saw this interesting video on the installation of bees. While the video is well done for an amateur video, this was really not what caught my interest about it, however. It was actually the reaction of some of the commenters who criticized the makers of this video for not "installing bees correctly". Yes, the video maker's method was a bit uncommon and I've never used their approach myself, but it is the method suggested by Furgala, Spivak, and Reuter in Beekeeping in Northern Climates, therefore, well within the realm of beekeeping "orthodoxy".

The comments toward this video illustrate a pet peeve of mine I've had throughout my lifetime: people who make knee-jerk criticisms of others without being fully up on the area of concern. If I've learned anything, for every successful experienced beekeeper, there is, quite likely, some unique successful technique I can learn from him/her. Once I, especially as a novice, close my mind to learning a new method, I am doomed.

Successful Queen Rearing Short Course

I started reading April's issue of the American Bee Journal yesterday and caught sight of a news item on page 305, announcing the scheduling of a queen rearing course at the University of Minnesota's St. Paul campus July 10th to 12. I may not be at the point of raising my own queens but I do have a great curiosity for all things apis, so I registered for the class last night and mailed my check in today.

If anyone else is interested you can read more about the course at www.extension.umn.edu/honeybees/components/publiccourses.htm . Enrollment is limited to 32 people, so they encourage people to register early.

Final Weekly Inspection of the Season

Sunday was my last weekly inspection of Bee Glad.... Other maintenance will be done before the winter wrap but weekly inspections of individual frames is done with.

The temperature was in the mid- 70s on Sunday with full sun and a slight breeze. The colder temperatures were noticed by the bees of course -- no "bearding" on the front of the hive. The bees were bringing in bright yellow-orange pollen.

The bees in Bee Glad... were again very defensive, so I only did the minimum. Most of the frames in the top deep (one of three) were filled with capped honey primarily. (A real heavy box!) The middle box was mixed half and half with honey and brood. The bees still don't like working the green drone frame in the middle deep. If given a choice between foundationless and plastic, they seem to choose foundationless. These bees are heavy propolis makers. The queen seems to be slowing in her egg-laying.

As I mentioned, the bees were quite defensive, flying at my veiled face, and stinging my ungloved hands. (I received six stings in my brief inspection.)

Sometime this week I will also do my final weekly inspection of Metpropolis, and go back and review my Beekeeping in Northern Climates manual to plan out my September and October tasks.

This winter I will plan out any apiary expansion and continue to research and write professionally in the area of environmental sociology. My chief difficulty will be time. School started today so I will have to switch into my professorial mode as well. It should be a busy school year.

Week 10: Between the Raindrops

The 10 week inspection of Bee Glad... and Metpropolis took place yesterday. When I started the inspection at around 11 a.m. the weather was partially cloudy; by the end, the clouds were a bit more threatening as afternoon and evening storms moved in. The bees are foraging a variety of plants, though they don't touch those I have blossoming in The Forests of Beelandia at this moment. Cucumbers, borage, chamomile, narrow-leaf milk weed are all flowering, along with the continuation of vetch, and white clover in and about the neighborhood.

This inspection included a new associate: Robert, a son-in-law, who I think has caught "bee fever", despite the fact that he took a sting near the eye today.

The bees are now working in all three boxes of Bee Glad... The middle box was heavy with honey and brood. The top box had partially filled frames of comb and brood. The bottom box was much like the middle. I removed one frame each from the bottom and middle box and exchanged them for "empties" in the top box, in line with suggestions given in the book Beekeeping in Northern Climates. Now the top two boxes have only 9 frames each. Before inspecting this hive this morning, I examined a sticky board I had placed under the screen bottom 24 hours before. I found no mites. Bee Glad... continues to thrive.

Metpropolis is also thriving. The queen is still producing brood and the bees are storing pollen and nectar. I added two bars to this hive, one on each end. This hive also seems healthy as I found no sign of disease in it as well.

Two Month Report

It's been two months since I first installed my bees in Beelandia, and all seems well in the two hives. It was a fine day to inspect the bees, after a rather stormy Sunday caused a postponement. The weather was sunny, a temperature around 70 degrees.

Bee Glad... was booming with activity. Following the suggestion in Furgala, Spivak, and Reuter's book, Beekeeping in Northern Climates, I had added a third deep box since the bees were at work on all frames in the second. As the photo above shows, they aren't too keen on the plastic drone I've installed for IPM purposes, building comb only here and there. However, they "love" building in the foundationless frames. I did have to trim some cross-comb. Before I closed up the hive, I dusted and brushed the frames with powdered sugar.

Metpropolis was even stronger with the bees building nice straight comb on 18 of the 21 frames now in that hive. My patient approach to its cross-comb problems seems to be paying off. The bees are working with me, slowly but surely "changing their ways". I dusted every comb containing bees with powdered sugar as well (using an old smoker as a "puffer") and did only a bit of trimming on comb.

The bees seem to be bringing in alot of pollen and there was much stored away in both hives. My guess is that most of this is coming from white clover, a few basswood trees, and my neighbor's coreopsis bed. My own narrow leafed milkweed and borage are very close to blooming and should provide the bees with a small amount of pollen and nectar in the future.

"Healthy Bees"

I just completed the University of Minnesota's online extension course: Healthy Bees. This beginner-focused course introduces the hobby beekeeper to the various pests and diseases that currently plague honey bees in a very entertaining, accessible way. Each module of the course focuses on one hive "super-villain", presenting what entomological science currently knows about it, the preventative measures beekeepers can take against "the villain", and suggestions on what to do should "the villain" appear in your hives. Drs. Spivak and Reuter see "hard chemicals" and antibiotics as weapons of last resort, urging beekeepers to use good apicultural management techniques, nutrition and genetically resistant bees for combating diseases and pests. As experimental empiricists, they suggest only those treatments that have been found effective in laboratory tests and do not produce resistance in the pest over the long-term. So Spivak and Reuter reject the use of many "essential oil" approaches and say that the "jury is still out" on whether the small cell approach has any significant benefits in the control of Varroa mites. They also reject the use of antibiotics as a preventative protocol.