First Two Days of Queen Rearing Course

Thursday night, Monta and I were off to St. Paul so that I could take the queen rearing course taught by Marla Spivak and Gary Reuter at the University of Minnesota. (While I took the course, Monta wandered about St. Paul and also did art.)

The first morning of the first day of class was spent discussing bee biology and stock selection. Some of the highlights of this morning included our discussion of the importance of drone colonies in the queen mating equation, and the importance of creating a queen system that allows the bees to do what they are "hardwired" to do. Dr. Spivak also explained why she and Reuter will no longer maintain the Minnesota Hygienic line of bees. If I understood her correctly, her intention was never to create a hygienic super bee that all beekeepers would eventually use, but to develop a method of selecting and developing hygienic bees that all queen rearers could use on whatever type of bee they manage. Developing a dominant line of bees would be self-defeating in the long run, destroying what's left of the genetic diversity in the American bee population. The selection of hygienic behavior can and should be used on all lines of bees.

Dr. Spivak spent a good deal of time warning us about using chemicals in the hive to treat diseases and pests, although many of the no chemical purists would probably be disappointed with her not saying NEVER! As a top bar beekeeper, I appreciated her discussion on the taintededness of foundation. A three-year cycle of comb use was suggested.

Next, Gary Reuter described the types of equipment that they use to raise queens through their system. I never got the feeling that Spivak and Reuter were presenting their way as the only way or the right way. They recognized that we would adapt their methods to our own needs and locality.

Saturday was our time to get our hands dirty! After a short review of Friday's information, we got to actually work with the equipment, and do labs. Our morning was spent doing "beeless" run-throughs of the various steps of their system. We manipulated beeless finishing colonies, set up beeless swarm boxes, and learned to graft larvae into queen cups. In the afternoon, we actually did all of the above on the "real" colonies at the University. Class members grafted larvae into six queen cups, and placed them into a swarm hive we students also set up. We also learned how to test for nosema, and varroa. We watched a demonstration on the use liquid nitrogen to test for hygienic behavior.. We left the second day with a Chinese grafting tool, and a nalgene bottle.

The course ends tomorrow morning. Students will be able to exmine how well their grafts took in the swarm box. I will report my grade Monday.

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.