Grumpy Winter Bees-- A Visit to Beelandia

With the temperature about 21 degrees F and a bright, late morning sun, I went out to the bee yard to give each hive a glance.

All three of the langstroth hives showed activity at the top entrances and, as usual, Lib-BEE-taria, with its population of Carniolan bees, was a bit grumpy at my inspection. Even in this temperature, I had one guard bee take a flight at my face, more as a bluff than an actual attempt to sting. While I do like seeing the bees alive in these hives, I do worry about them being at the top entrance. This could mean they have run out of food stores, and, while I did place fondant over the inner cover and under the quilt boxes last month, I don't know when it will be warm enough to place more fondant there. Around each langstroth, there is evidence that the bees have made cleansing flights. I hope none have nosema, a dysentary-like disease.

I saw no evidence of active bees at either of the top bar hives' entrances' but that could simply be because the winter cluster is not near the entrance that's opened. Each hive does show evidence of recent bee flights, however, so that is good.

A Visit to Beelandia -- 2/16/2010

Locally, the day was sunny, a bit windy, with temperatures in the mid-30s; a pleasant break from the cloudy, snowy and cold weather of the past week. Just the right kind of weather for peeking about the beehives in Beelandia.

As has been usual the last few weeks, I was able to observe activity at the top entrances of three hives: Lib-BEE-taria, Nuc To Be Named Later, and Bee Glad... The fact that the bees are at the top entrance does worry me a bit, as this might indicate they are running out of food. Hopefully, sometime soon, the temperature will rise above forty degrees F and I'll be able to check their food storage and feed some fondant if necessary.

Metpropolis, one of my top bar hives, concerns me as well. There is excessive diarrhea around the hive which may be a sign of a nosema problem. While I did not see any bees active near the entrance of the other top bar hive, Plan Bee..., I did notice other tell-tale signs of an active hive. However, as I mentioned before, this hive may have a "mouse problem". (No allusion to Monty Python here)

The Road to Non-Sustainability is Paved with Good Intentions

Readers of this blog recognize that "Treadmill of Production Theory" underlies many of my ideas on sustainable beekeeping and what I call "social apiculture": the idea that sustainable beekeeping is not simply a matter of how we manage our hives, nor where we locate our hives in the physical environment but also a matter of the very way human beings organize their own societies. The following is an illustration of some of these ideas. Originally, it was written as a comment to a friend's facebook status, but I decided instead to simply share it here.

Let's take a very real, concrete example: commercial migratory beekeeping. Even the largest commercial pollination service is more often than not a small family-run concern. Commercial beekeepers can make a comfortable living but still are just one or two months ahead of their creditors (like most of us). They take pride in the fact that their services help keep a variety of foods on America's dinner table.

Now let's say it's February, the beginning of the migratory beekeeping season and Mr. X is ready to truck his thousands of honeybee colonies into the California almond orchards. He discovers his bees aren't doing all that well. The mite count is high in his hives and they seem to have dysentery. A long-term sustainable approach might be to let Darwinian selection weed out the weak hives and breed from the survivors, however, that would mean losing many hives and possibly going bankrupt. Not only would this threaten his business but also his children's college fund, and next mortgage payment. He, instead, takes the short-term route, using miticides and fungicides on his hives, pumping the colonies with HFCS, trucking them out to the fields and hoping for the best. He knows this solution is not sustainable in that it only creates resistant mites and fungi over the long-term but his family does have to eat. So with all his good intentions he decides in favor of non-sustainability.

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.