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MAYAN AND MELIPONA BEE MAKING IT WITH BEESWAX 64 LOVE AFFAIR, PART 2 36 An interview with Susan Shashock. This ny bee is exalted and revered by the Mayans. Alice Eckles Bel Woodhouse ALMOND MATH 70 THE BEST BEEKEEPING Q&A 39 Growers are faced with math problems daily. Almost. Joe Traynor Stephen Bishop WINTER FEEDING 73 NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR 40 Don’t let your bees starve in late Winter. S ll free of arroa. Tina Sebestyen reprinted with permission from NLBKA VACCINATION OF HONEY BEES 76 Against American Foulbrood. AGAINST THE GRAIN: 43 Dalial Freitak Apprecia on for pollen. Christine Bertz BUZZ OFF OR BEE KIND 79 Have humans forgo en the importance of our rela onship with bees. REFRACTOMETER 48 Lindsey Roberts All you need to know.

Hanna Bäckmo HONEY BEE AND HORSES 84 A unique pairing. MINDING YOUR BEES AND CUES 55 David MacFawn Meal planning. Becky Masterman and Bridget Mendel BEEKEEPING AS A HEALING INTERVENTION 88 Mirror neurons and microbiology. Sharon Schmidt

002 Beehives Executive Publisher – Brad Root arriving in Associate Publisher, Senior Editor – Jerry Hayes, [email protected], Ext. 3214 CA, ready Assistant Editor, Design – Kathy Summers, [email protected], Ext. 3215 for the Social Media, Event Specialist & Subscription Coordinator – Amanda DeSimone, [email protected], Ext. 3255 Advertising – Jean Newcombe, [email protected], Ext. 3216 almond bloom. Contributors Early Clarence Collison • James E. Tew • Kim Lehman • Jay Evans January in Connie Krochmal • Jessica Louque • Ross Conrad • Jennifer Berry • Ed Colby Pixley, CA. Photo by POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Matt BEE CULTURE, The A.I. Root Co., 623 W. Liberty St., Medina, OH 44256 Summers. Subscription Information U.S., one year, $25; two years, $48. Newsstand price: $4.99. All other countries, (U.S. Currency only), $20.00 per year additional for postage. Digital Edition $15. Send remittance by money order, bank draft, express money order, or check or credit card. Bee Culture (ISSN 1071-3190), February 2021, Volume 149, Issue 2, is published monthly by The A.I. Root Co., 623 W. Liberty Street, Medina, OH 44256. Periodicals Postage Paid at Medina, OH and additional mailing offi ces. Subscriptions, Book Orders – www.BeeCulture.com • [email protected] Advertising – 800.289.7668, Ext. 3216; [email protected] Published by The A.I. Root Co. Copyright© 2021. All rights reserved.

February 2021 BEE CULTURE 5 THE SUSTAINABLE CHOICE

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NEW FOR YOU 11 BEE VET 44 Strong icrobials launches new probiotic. What ets can do for beekeepers. Part . Tracy Farone FOUND IN TRANSLATION 24 Food security for honey bees. AMERICAN FOULBROOD 61 Jay Evans Controlling without sacrificing bees or using drugs. Ross Conrad WINTER READING 27 Kaia and the Bees; Applied Beekeeping In The United States. BIGGER PICTURE 68 Facebook University. Jessica Louque BEE KIDS’ CORNER 28 All the buzz . . . for the kids Kim Lehman THE RATIONAL WORLD OF ROBBER BEES 90 A CLOSER LOOK – QUEEN QUALITY Is bee colonies robbing each other really a problem James E. Tew AND PERFORMANCE 31 Failure of the ueen is often thought to be the cause of colony mortality. BOTTOM BOARD 96 Clarence Collison Weather doesn’t kill bees. Ed Colby

In Every Month – Honeycomb Hannah What’s going on in the hive. ailbox 10 From The Editor – 1 Next onth 16 What should you be doing? Honey arket eport 1 What’s fi rst when it’s Spring. It’s Summers Time! 1 Random thoughts. Study Hall 20 Page 24 Q&A. All Around The Beeyard Tips from other beekeepers. Calendar

February 2021 BEE CULTURE 9 each year, and several of our native bees for 36 years and for 30 years bumble bees throughout the U.S. I have practiced beekeeping by Bee Culture are in decline. If we don’t have “maternal line survivorship without 623 West Liberty St. viable numbers of a diversity of chemicals.” Over the years I have Medina, OH 44256 pollinators, we humans are soon to taken my lumps, but as Terry [email protected] be in irreversible trouble. As E.O. has experienced yearly colony Wilson famously said “it is the little losses have improved and are at things that run the world” – we may acceptable levels. not survive, but I have no doubt Also, on page 19 of the same that the last living creatures will issue, Ross Conrad commented have six legs. that “Old time beekeepers for Margot Monson example knew how to control and eliminate American and European Foulbrood without the need for Varroa Resistance antibiotics...” Would Ross be willing I enjoyed reading Terry Combs to expand on this topic? I, too, article on “Varroa Resistance” in believe we need to relearn some of the October 2020 issue of Bee the old ways. Culture, pg. 76. I have been keeping How To Keep Bees In Tom Ferguson The Orchard Is this what we should really be doing to satisfy our perceived “need” to be able to buy/eat almonds 24/7 in every season of the year? I love almonds, usually have some on hand, but at what point do we stop manipulating mother nature, which I believe is behind the increasing degradation of ecological integrity throughout much of the world, be it with our honey bees or depletion of our soils and waters with monocultures dependent on pesticides, herbicides, fungicides. Most beekeepers are losing increasing numbers of honey bees

10 BEE CULTURE February 2021 Project Apis m. New For Your Bees – Your “go-to” non- STRONG MICROBIALS LAUNCH- gens,” said Slava Strogolov, the CEO ES NEW PROBIOTIC TO PRO- of Strong Microbials. profit honey bee TECT HONEY BEES FROM PES- In March 2020, the Universi- TICIDES ty of Florida conducted a fi eld trial research New Scientifi c Research Shows with Strong Microbials’ SuperD- That Pediococcus (P801) Improves FM®+P801™. This study followed organization, with The Survival of Honeybees Exposed sixty hives for two months. In the to Pesticides end, it showed that hives treated programs in the Strong Microbials, the original with SuperDFM®+P801™ showed creators of the fi rst probiotic for a signifi cant improvement in hive USA & Canada  honey bees, have improved the al- weight and a tendency towards bet- ready successful, SuperDFM®-Hon- ter survivorship. Twice as many col- PAm is dedicated to enhancing eybee™ est. in 2014; based on ex- onies in the control group died com- the health of honey bees while citing scientifi c research that shows pared to the hives supplemented improving crop and honey Pediococcus acidilactici (P801) helps with SuperDFM®+P801™. production. rescue honey bees who have suf- EAS Master Beekeeper Carol  fered pesticide exposure. That’s why Hoffman said that “The fungicide Strong Microbials researched and use in the California Central Valley developed SuperDFM®+P801™ for increased in recent years, affecting commercial pollination. bee health. Beekeepers need to fi nd According to a USDA survey1, new approaches to keeping healthy 98% of honey bee comb and founda- bees.” tion in North America were contami- SuperDFM®+P801™ is now nated with an average of six different available for pre-order through the pesticides. Exposure to sublethal website StongMicrobails.com/su- concentrations of pesticides can sig- perdfm-p801. nifi cantly shorten honey bee lifes- Shipments will begin in early pan, weaken immunity, decrease January 2021, with delivery to Cali- colony population, and cause preco- fornia in time for almond pollination.  cious foraging. For additional information, There is an accumulation of please reach out to info@strongmi- evidence supporting probiotic bac- crobials.com. teria’s benefi ts, specifi cally, lactic Strong Microbials is an inno- acid bacteria’s ability to strengthen vative biotech company that devel- and stimulate the immune system ops premium probiotics for agri- while aiding optimal nutrient ab- culture known as DFMs (Direct-fed sorption. The bacterial composition Microbes) and soil and crop inocu- of SuperDFM®+P801™ is a massive lants. Strong Microbials knows that breakthrough in combating the “4 microbes are crucial to re-establish- Ps” that are harming honey bees: ing the harmonious balance eroded parasites, pesticides, poor nutrition, by pesticides, fungicides, herbicides, and pathogens. antibiotics, and other modern farm- A new study2 published in Feb- ing practices. Visit StrongMicrobails. ruary 2020 found that Pediococcus com to learn more about microbes acidilactici can rescue honey bees and how to test DFM quality. from pesticides’ adverse effects. Honey bees exposed to boscalid + 1. https://journals.plos. thiamethoxam, a few of the pesti- org/plosone/article/ cides formulated into products such file?id=10.1371/journal. as Cruiser® and Pristine®, resulted pone.0009754&type=printable ͲͲͲͲͲͲͲͲͲͲͲͲͲͲͲͲͲͲͲͲͲͲͲͲͲͲͲͲͲ in a 41% mortality rate. In compar- 2. https://www.sciencedirect. ison, honey bees exposed to these com/science/article/abs/pii/ pesticides and treated with Pedio- S0048357519304894?via%3Di- coccus only saw a 15% mortality hub rate. “We’ve been testing this strain of Pediococcus acidilactici since 2017. This publication was important be- cause it emphasized the connec- tions between pesticides and patho- February 2021 BEE CULTURE 11 Proud Sponsor of the BEEKeeping Today Podcast

12 BEE CULTURE February 2021 February 2021 BEE CULTURE 13 TRUE SOURCE HONEY TO UPDATE CERTIFICATION STANDARDS IN 2021

The True Source Honey fair market prices and damages in honey sourcing. Visit www. program will enhance its honey’s reputation for quality TrueSourceHoney.com and standards starting Jan. 1, and safety.” follow on Facebook. 2021 to better address honey The True Source Honey NSF International is an authenticity. Certification Program is a independent, global organization The updated standards will voluntary industry program. that facilitates the development of note that True Source Certifi ed NSF International, a global standards, and tests and certifi es Honey whether imported to North public health and safety products for the food, water and America or purchased directly organization and independent consumer goods industries to from North American beekeepers certification body for the food minimize adverse health effects is tested for authenticity by an industry, conducts the auditing and protect the environment. accredited laboratory at some and certification for the True Founded in 1944, NSF is point in the supply chain using Source Honey program worldwide. committed to protecting human either EA/LC-IRMS and Nuclear health and safety worldwide. BC Magnetic Resonance (NMR) True Source Honey LLC is profi ling or EA/LC-IRMS and High a voluntary effort by honey For more information: Resolution Mass Spectrometry packers, importers, exporters Mary Humann/The Humann (HRMS) analysis. This is in and beekeepers to support Factor LLC humann@att. addition to the long-established transparency and authenticity net/970.663.0994. pollen analysis requirements for shipments of honey from countries identifi ed as high-risk. “The True Source Certified standards previously required its packers to maintain a system to From The Editor – analyze honey authenticity, but had not specifi ed exact testing methodologies,” said Gordon Marks, executive director of True Source Honey. “The new standards specify authenticity testing which utilizes longstanding approved methods along with cutting-edge technologies to detect sugar/ syrups.” “True Source Honey launched the True Source Honey program 10 years ago in response to illegal shipments of honey from China. The honey claimed to be from other countries to avoid U.S. tariffs on Chinese origin honey,” said Marks. “While most honey comes from high-quality, legal sources, adulterated honey and illegally sourced honey remains a global issue that undercuts

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6     1"1! . +  + +   /0 0  0 '1 1 '  +    ' +    - 234 5  +6  -) %(*20 FebruaryFeFebFebbruarur ryy 2021202202 1 BEEBEE CULTURECUULLTURRE 155 NEXT MONTH For some of you Spring has Region 5 Sprung and for others we are still in • Check Mite levels with alcohol Honey Reporters the depths of – explicative deleted- wash Winter. What are the fi rst things you • Treat for mites Wanted absolutely must do and will do when • Feed Syrup We are expanding our Honey temperatures get above 57°F? • Put on Pollen Sub. Patties • Make splits eporter popula on and need new Region 1 • Check mite levels, treat if needed reporters in EEY region. We ask • Check Food Supply • Clean out dead bees on bottom that you ll in most of the whole- • Clean entrance of dead bees board sale or retail or both sec ons, most • Watch if Bees are Flying • Check to see if any mice are living months, and our short survey on • Alcohol wash for mites, treat if in hive above threshold of three per 100 the back. We give you a FEE sub- bees Region 6 scrip on for your service. So if you • Hope for consistent low temps • Check for colony activity, or not, are interested send an email to until real Spring at entrance [email protected] and put • Feed syrup and patties EPTE in the subject line. In- Region 2 • Remove Deadouts • Is the Queen still alive? • Feed and feed some more clude name, email, phone number • Is there any brood? • Sample and treat for mites and mailing address and we’ll get • Feed Sugar Syrup you the next Honey eport form. • Put on pollen Sub. Region 7 Sign up today and be a part of the • Start replacing Queens • Feed, Feed, Feed BEST onthly Honey Price and Bee- • Continue to monitor food resourc- • Is colony still alive? es • Alcohol wash mite count keeping anagement eport in the • Ensure moisture condensation • Treat if mite count is above three industry. doesn’t create problems per hundred bees • Hive inspection and assessment. • Get ready to split • Check Candy boards • Build Nucs • Sample and treat for Varroa

Region 3 • Check food stores, feed if needed • Are they Queenrite? • Feed liquid syrup to stimulate Queen laying • Make splits • Equalize colonies

Region 4 • Feed if needed • Manage better in 2021 • Check for Varroa, and diseases • Order nucs or packages • Check food quantity and position- ing • Reverse boxes if brood in top box

16 BEE CULTURE February 2021 FEBRUARY – REGIONAL HONEY PRICE REPORT

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Proudly FebruaryFFebrruaaryy 202120202021 188 BeeMax BEEBEBEEEE CULTURECULCCUULTULTLTUREUURRE carrying: It’s Summers Time –

Random Thoughts Winter seems a little more harsh this year than some. I’m sitting here with my hand warmers on and my blanket around my lap. Maybe it’s just me getting older and more vulnerable to the cold. Here in Ohio January (as I write this) tends to be one of the ‘grayest’ months. We don’t get a lot of sunshine and we’ve all been told how that affects us mentally and emotionally. But then a few days after Christmas we got our fi rst seed catalog and then another and another. One friend of mine compared it to when we were young and we got that Sears catalog before Christmas and sat down with our pens and marked all the things we wanted. And just like that I mark way too many things. Kim has placed his fi rst order and seeds are arriving today. So once again we are hopeful – we know that Spring is coming! And we hope it’s going to be a very different year. Can you believe it’s been almost a year that we’ve been actively dealing with this virus thing. A whole year! It’s been a hard one for many of us. We all know some- one who has been impacted by this and many of us have lost a loved one or more. Just a week ago – early January – my son, Matt sent me photos of the beehives arriving in California for the almond pollination. He lives about an hour north of Bakersfi eld. He actually arrived there last year around mid-February and got to witness this event. It’s incred- ible. The cover photo and the one below were taken by Matt in Pixley, CA. I haven’t seen Matt for awhile so I’m ways a big part of EAS when I was Vice Chairman and hoping to make it out there as soon as it’s safe. then sometimes we got lucky and would see him at the We lost another friend to the nasty cancer monster ABF meeting. – Aaron Morris. I can’t remember the very fi rst time I Aaron loved bees, beekeeping and beekeepers. He met Aaron. It just seems like I’ve always known him. was loud and funny and just good to be around. Be- Aaron was one of those many friends that we usually cause of the virus we hadn’t seen him for about two only got to see once or maybe twice a year. He was al- years. Kim kept in touch with him through email. I kept up with him on Facebook. As you can see by the photo Aaron also really loved Christmas. It was always fun to see his pictures around the holidays. Cancer took him very quickly. We will miss him. The Spieth Road Poultry Farm is doing okay. We’re at 15 chickens (I think) and six ducks. Kim is still res- tling with the duck behavior issues. He keeps trying dif- ferent levels of isolation with the aggressive ones. They get quarantined for awhile and then he tries letting them back into the group. Here’s to a hopeful Spring. I’m already seeing that the March meetings are cancelled or going viral. So it’s hard to say when we might actually see you in person, but keep a good thought. I hope your Winter is mild and peaceful.

Bees arriving in Pixley, California early January.

February 2021 BEE CULTURE 19 STUDY HALL org/stable/25085360?seq=1; operation next year. Please to have https://link.springer.com/arti- another effective tool against Varroa. cle/10.1007/s00040-004-0763-z Q – Honey bees existed before the UPDATE From Bill Fredrick: last ice age in North America accord- ApiGuard Varroa Control: OK, I have ing to the fossil record. some results for you Jerry, regard- Would plants have co-evolved ing the late season ApiGuard treat- with Honey Bees during this time to ment, here along the Maryland/PA produce fl ower shapes, sizes and state line. I was concerned that it nectar production to enhance this re- would be too cold to be effective (No- lationship? vember), but, per your suggestion, Would those plants in North Q – Hope you are able to answer applied the ApiGuard to three hives America still exist and be helping my question about the newly ap- to try it. The results are very good beekeepers (commercial) produce proved wax moth treatment, Certan. (though the sample size is small). large honey crops in non-urban, It's thought that using a dark brood Note: we had an unseasonably warm non-suburban, and production agri- comb in a swarm trap is better than October and early November here, cultural areas? just using frames, but those dark, which likely helped. Thank you in advance. unprotected brood frames are just Mayli Archibald asking for wax moths to have a meal. Hive #1 Would applying Certan to the combs 3.5% mite load, per alcohol wash A – (I went to Dr. Keith Delaplane in the swarm trap, to protect it from sample 10/20 as the expert) the moths, deter the bees from mov- 50ml applied 10/22 and 50ml 0n The paper referred to is Engel, ing in, the way that para moth does? 11/5 M. et al. 2009. A Honey Bee from the Pat Harrison 0% mite load, per alcohol wash sam- Miocene of Nevada and the Biogeog- ple 11/21 raphy of Apis (Hymenoptera: Apidae: A – This is the second round for Apini). Proceedings of the California Certan in the U.S. It was available Hive #2 Academy of Sciences 60(3): 23. The decades ago but dropped because 4.0% mite load, per alcohol wash authors report a fossil member of sales would not support re-regis- sample 10/20 the genus Apis in Nevada shale dat- tration costs. It has been brought 50ml applied 10/22 and 50ml 0n ing from 23-5 million years ago. It back with an updated mixture of Bt 11/5 arrived over the Bering land bridge strains. It works well and will not 0% mite load, per alcohol was sam- and persisted until the Pliocene or discourage honey bees like chemical ple 11/21 Pleistocene epochs ~ 2.5 million Wax Moth repellents. Use away. Stay years ago. The continent remained safe and well in these crazy times Hive #3 Apis-free thereafter until European 3.0% mite load, per alcohol wash colonizers reintroduced Apis mellif- Q – How does a hive know where to 10/20 era in historic times. send her sons to congregate? 50ml applied 10/22 and 50ml 0n The ancient presence of Apis John Miller 11/5 in North America leads to the read- er’s question whether modern plant A – I thought the three links below TBD. I ran out of time to perform the groups persist that retain the thumb- were the most interesting. Short an- alcohol was and subsequent days print of coevolution with their ex- swer is it seems to be multifactorial, were too cold to open the hive. tinct Apis pollinators. Although the meaning we do know that a DCA is Because of the warm Fall and question is reasonable, in principle many times located at the edge of the hives have young (July/August) we would be hard-pressed to know a woods/forest, face of tall buildings queens, I see they still are raising fl ower/Apis partnership if we saw it. etc. so it is location, location, loca- some brood. This makes the typical This is because fl owers and pollina- tion just like all real estate. But, then annual oxalic acid vapor cleanup tors range across a spectrum from how do the drones fi nd the location treatment in late Nov. not so effec- specialist to generalist. A generalist and that is still up for grabs, phero- tive. This was my fi rst year using such as Apis will, by defi nition, visit mones being one supposed way. and ApiGuard and I am very pleased with a wide range of plants, and gener- ultimately ‘we’ still do not know the the trial results that I ran this Sum- alist plants will by defi nition resist complete story. https://jeb.biolo- mer. Combined with its effectiveness adaptations that make their fl owers gists.org/content/217/8/1278. in the Fall, I plan to use ApiGuard accessible to only a subset of polli- short; https://www.jstor. much more extensively across my nators.

20 BEE CULTURE February 2021 If the relationship were special- A – This is a Real Estate issue for ized, one could expect to see a si- a swarm. Its location, location ,loca- multaneous contraction of both the tion pollinator and its host plant – and The scouts of the swarm are again we might not see either in looking for a location and a space modern times because of mutual ex- that has the appropriate volume tinction. so the colony can grow and swarm What tends to happen, however, again next year to spread their par- is a general break-down in the tidy ticular genetics around if they in categories specialist and generalist. fact do survive that long. It is all a An individual of a generalist pollina- Darwinian experiment. The best vol- tor, say a honey bee forager, may be- ume of a swarm trap/box should be the models that were made between come a functional specialist, visiting similar to a Deep Hive body. Honey 1879 and 1892. However A.I. made only one species of plant her entire Bees have great odor receptors and 10 models of extractors that used life. On the other hand, even “spe- recognition. The box should have a that bracket. In 1893 the top crank cialist” plants tend to be visited by a recognizable odor of beeswax and was changed as the fi ligree bracket number of fl ower visitor species at a propolis. A frame of drawn comb kept breaking. Thus many of these local scale. If I were to summarize, I’d is helpful placed inside the swarm extractors became unusable be- say that specialization is adaptive in trap. Some beekeepers put lemon- cause the bracket and crank were the short-term, while generalization grass oil on a cotton ball to advertise parts that could not be replaced. is more favorable to ecosystem-wide this location to swarm scouts. The There were over 10,000 extractors stability in the long-term. Pairs or box should be approximately 8’-10’ in use. I copied some of the pages groups of species may shift togeth- vertically up in a tree or unused deer out of three of the catalogs that tell er (co-specialize) or apart (general- stand or – and on the edge of a wood of the different models and the use ize) over time (see Brosi, BJ, 2016. line. Distance from the apiary where of the extractors. Pollinator specialization: From the the swarm(s) may emerge from can Why the different type of ex- individual to the community. New be from a 100 ft to an mile. We bee- tractors? Because beekeepers used Phytologist 210: 1190). Not an easy keepers like things closer so a min. different types of hives and Root system for tracking in the long-term couple hundred feet can work. made six of the commonly used I’m afraid. There won’t be many ‘old forag- frames until everything got stan- Excellent question. ers’ in the swarm Ken. There may be dardized by the Langstroth frame. some who get caught up in the ex- During the time frame of this ex- Q – Quick question: all Summer long citement but not many. The swarm tractor, the frames sat in the ex- I don't have any issues with bees on is designed to be new young bees tractor exactly like they sat in the my hummingbird feeders, until the who can handle the stress of this hive except for the frames that were last few days. My feeders are loaded move and establish a colony and longer than their height. The longer with bees and they are aggressive. have it grow. Honey Bees are always frames sat vertically with the long Any reason why? preparing for winter so an early start side up and down. That meant that Janet Treder in Spring and young healthy bees there were three different heights is the metric to build up to make it of cans for the extractor. However A – I’m not sure where you may through a long hard cold Winter. if you extracted a bunch of honey be located but the generality is that and kept the valve shut, the hon- when the days are getting shorter, Q – This item was discovered in ey in the tank would interfere with Winter is coming, fl owering plants an old garage. Would anyone in the spinning frames so deeper tanks are fi nishing up and there are not your organization be able to identity could be made on special order. The natural resources for honey bees ex- these two items? One is an old hand- extracting effi ciency on the short- cept what you have trained them on cranked extractor and I have no idea er frames was not as great as they with your hummingbird feeder. The if the other item has anything to do would be sitting in the extractor bees represented at the humming- with honey. with the natural 10 to 14 degrees bird feeder may represent multiple Thanks for your assistance! that bee build into the comb inter- colonies that are competing for this Jeff Collins, Galion, OH fering with the centrifugal motion. last food resource and when honey You would have to measure the tank bees or humans compete, they get A – Jeff I have copied the ultimate and the baskets to determine which aggressive and defensive. historical expert on beekeeping model you have. I would guess that equipment, Jim Thompson. it is model fi ve. Q – How far from the apiary should Oh, did I mention that if you a swarm box be placed? Given that Jeff and Jerry, were the initial buyer of the ex- bees will travel two to three miles This is fairly easy in some re- tractor, an uncapping knife came looking for a possible home site, does spects. The word “Novice” was A.I. along with it. it make sense to locate a swarm box Root’s pen name and he used it on I hope that this answered your within a mile of the apiary? Will old the articles that he wrote and on question. Jim Thompson foragers in the swarm eventually rec- most of the equipment that he made. ognize old landmarks and return to The fi ligree bracket that steadies the their original hive site? Ken Sikora top and the crank was only used on

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February 2021 BEE CULTURE 23 found in translation

Food Security For Honey Bees

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Honey bees provide humans with numerous commercial beeyards, the pollen analyses, to ground-truth how food security, but what does it take NGP has shifted towards managed management schemes improve forage to ensure nutritious and safe food crop agriculture in recent decades. for honey bees and other pollinators. for their own livelihoods? Bee fans Dr. Clint Otto and colleagues at the Over many years they have found from an early age know honey bees U.S. Geological Service, with others which wildfl owers bolster honey bees and other pollinators require pollen from USDA and nearby Universities, (clover, clover, clover does the trick and nectar from fl owering plants. have recently summarized 10 years for the most part, aided by plants that From there it is intuitive that the of research aimed at understanding fl ower at different times) and which abundance and nutritional quality of how forage availability impacts plants are good for all pollinators (a both will translate into better colony bee health in the short and longer larger salad of species required). growth and reproduction. What is terms. The results have practical One key study for bee still debated is how to achieve quality importance for land management management follows 36 commercial and quantity at the landscape level, but also indicate what drives honey honey bee apiaries sampled in given competing bees and competing bee growth and survival and how to September across three NGP states. interests. One long-running effort to measure both. Their compilation, Led by Dr. Autumn Smart (now at the address this debate at a practical level “Forage and habitat for pollinators University of Nebraska), this project has been made by U.S. government in the northern Great Plains – took short-term measures of worker and University scientists working Implications for U.S. Department of bee health in each environment, with land managers and beekeepers Agriculture conservation programs” along with colony strength measures in the Northern Great Plains region (U.S. Geological Survey Open-File in both September and the following of the U.S. This region in the eastern Report 2020–1037, 64 p., https:// year prior to grading for almond halves of North and South Dakota doi.org/ 10.3133/ ofr20201037) pollination. The paper, “Nutritional and extending East and South into is freely available and clearly written. status of honey bee (Apis mellifera Minnesota and Iowa, includes vital For botanists, the review describes L.) workers across an agricultural bee grounds for a third of U.S. several key papers by this group land-use gradient”, (Scientifi c Reports honey bee colonies. Historically that use painstaking fi eld surveys, (2019) 9:16252) is openly available at a region of high honey yields and along with genetic and microscopic https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-

Figure from Smart and colleagues (2019) quantifying the negative relationship between surrounding croplands and colony strength, and the opposite relationship for grasslands and meadows.

24 BEE CULTURE February 2021 019-52485-y. The authors used public data where available, and direct surveys where not, to assess forage quality within four kilometers (2½ miles) of each apiary. The apiaries were surrounded predominantly by row crops or diverse grassland meadows, but the ratios of these land types changed from almost all cropland to almost all grassland. The four body health measures used were levels of lipids, proteins, sugars, and glycogen in the abdomens of individual bees. Researchers dismembered dead bees and rendered them in various ways to get quantitative estimates of these body components. All four measures fi trended downward with increasing Sampling a soybean eld. (Ken Hammond photo) nearby cropland, although only lipid levels were significantly different. overwintering success while mite largest impacts on colony survival. Similarly, all four health measures levels in the Fall were negatively Back to the USGS study by for individual bees tended to be correlated with overwintering Dr. Smart and colleagues, while higher in larger colonies at the time success. No surprise there, but this surrounding habitat had modest of collection, although none were ambitious project connected these effects on colony strength in the short signifi cantly so. Most importantly, and other individual and colony term, it had signifi cant effects on protein levels of individual bees (brood and bee counts) traits with the strength of colonies prepped for in September were a significant environmental resources for 300+ almonds the next spring. Colonies that predictor of colony strength the colonies. They also tested the value had spent the prior year surrounded following Spring, as colonies were of forage supplementation, in the by row crops tended to be far smaller prepared for almond pollination. form of ‘catch crops’ of flowering in terms of frames of bees. This study Finding a single-bee measurement plants that honey bees like. Both perfectly describes the compound in one year that predicts later colony catch crops and the ratios of natural interest of maintaining bee health, growth or survival until the next habitat versus crops around each and the decisions beekeepers are year is a big deal both for research colony favored survival, echoing the faced with up to a year before joining and as a practical planning tool for work in the U.S. Of the two, simply the most profi table and important beekeepers. having more unmanaged land in the pollinator event of the year. BC Our group has attempted the foraging range of colonies had the same with disease measures and, predictably, Varroa levels and levels of key viruses are a pretty good crystal ball for overwinter success and prosperity. With respect to nutrition, the protein vitellogenin is often used as a marker for nutritional health and future prospects. This protein has many roles in bee health, from stress relief to immunity and overall storage of resources for wintering. In short, vitellogenin levels in individual bees are generally a good thing. In another case of grinding bees to save bees, Dr. Cedric Alaux and colleagues in France vetted a variety of bee health measurements as predictors of later colony survival and strength. Their paper “A ‘Landscape physiology’ approach for assessing bee health highlights the benefi ts of fl oral landscape enrichment and semi-natural habitats” is freely available in Scientifi c Reports (2017; Bee on Camelina fl ower. (James Eklund photo) 7: 40568, 10.1038/srep40568). Vitellogenin levels favored

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26 BEE CULTURE February 2021 Kaia and the Bees. Written by Ma- Winter Reading For You And The Kids – ribeth Boelts and illustrated by Angela Dominguez. Published by Applied Beekeeping In The Unit- stalling packages to Summer man- Candlewick Press. ISBN 978-1- ed States, by David MacFawn. agement to overwintering nucs to 5362-0105-5. 10” x 9”, 33 pages, Published by and available from laying workers to making candles hardcover with dust jacket, color Outskirts Press Inc., www.out- collecting pollen, to sales and mar- throughout. $22.99, available wher- skirtspress.com/appliedbeekee- keting and beekeeping fi nance. Even ever books are sold. pingintheus. ISBN 9781977232564. if you’ll never consider beekeeping as Electronic versions available. 342 a business, the chapter on fi nance is This is a book for children who pages, 8.5” x 11”, color throughout, worth the time because you can eas- haven’t yet been introduced to bees hard cover. $55.95. ily get lost in how much money this and beekeeping, or may have had hobby can cost. There’s something an unpleasant experience with a You probably recognize the au- here for every level beekeeper. And, bee in the past that caused them to thor of this work as he is a regular if you’re just starting out, you’ll have be afraid of bees, or at least to view contributor to Bee Culture, Beekeep- advice for every step of your journey. them unfavorably. The author is a ing Your First Three Years, and the Though the author has spent beekeeper, and in the book Kaia’s American Bee Journal magazines. most of his beekeeping time in the father is a beekeeper and they live The contents of this book are taken SE part of the U.S., the information in the city with several hives on the from contributions to those jour- in this book pretty much covers the roof of their home. But Kaia isn’t nals, plus contributions to his local whole U.S. If there is any area not part of that activity, by choice, be- beekeeping newsletter. There is also fully covered, it would be the desert cause she was stung long ago and is a good deal of information not pre- SW part of the country, but most of afraid of being stung again. Howev- viously published and is new to the this can be applied even there. er, in all other things Kaia is BRAVE, reader. He is active in the Master Kim Flottum and claims to not be afraid of bees to Beekeeping world, having reached her friends, until one day at school that title in several organizations. she is frightened by a bee and her He has been active with bees for over friends then tease her about being 50 years, primarily in the southeast- afraid. ern U.S. To change that, Kaia goes to the The topics covered, and the in- roof with her dad, enjoys the wonder formation provided in this book are of bees, but gets stung, again, and pretty straight forward, but the detail that’s it for bees and beekeeping for surrounding most of these is pretty the rest of the Summer. Brave girl intense. On the 342 pages there are or not. 246 photos, showing and explaining But then it’s time to harvest, the topics of the 49 chapters. Some and the wonders of honey once chapters are actually only photos again convince Kaia to try bees and and the captions that go with them. beekeeping. You can relate to the is- This book is rich in making sure sues with harvesting… “there’s hon- the reader understands every step ey on the fl oor, on the table, on my of each procedure or technique that elbow, on the door knobs.” This will is explained. More, I can easily say, convince you of the author’s experi- than any book on bees and beekeep- ence with bees and honey. ing I’ve reviewed on these pages in What happens then is what over 34 years. makes this such a good story for Though many of the chapters almost anybody, but especially chil- have been published previously, al- dren with issues with bees. “I’ll go most always the magazines they ap- to the roof again, because bees are peared in did not have the room to amazing and scary and mysterious. publish all of the photos sent with And we need them, and now some- the article, and certainly not the thing inside me is….BRAVE! room to use several full page pho- Kim Flottum tos. I quit counting after only a short time the number of full page photos in this book. As an example, the chapter on installing a package is 15 pages long, and 14 of them are only a huge photo and the caption. I’m impressed with the publisher who designed this book. This book isn’t just for begin- ners though. I goes all the way from smoker fuel, to moving hives, to in-

February 2021 BEE CULTURE 27 Bee B. Queen Walter Kanagy, 6, PA Challenge Dena Sue Wengeld, 11, WI Hello Friends,, Be kindkind Thinking about you withthh to someone.someon love and kindness! Bee B.Queenn Body Parts ŶĂƚŽŵLJʹdŚŝƐƐĐŝĞŶƟĮĐ of a Worker Bee study describes what the This bee was drawn and shared by Antenna (plural antennae) – parts of an animal or plant Aly Boles, age 8, from CA. Learn more Feelers that can detect smell, look like. The study of how the about Aly on the next page. touch, taste and sound. parts work is known as physiology.

Head – The head contains the compound eyes, ocelli (three small eyes on top of the head), antennae, mandibles (mouth), and proboscis (straw like tongue).

Compound eyes – These eyes are ŵĂĚĞƵƉŽĨƚŚŽƵƐĂŶĚƐŽĨƟŶLJůĞŶƐĞƐ͘

Wings – Bees have two sets of wings. The fore wings in each set are larger than the hind wings. Thorax – This The thin wings are middle body strengthened by segment veins. Each set of supports the wings and legs. ǁŝŶŐƐĂƩĂĐŚ together during ŇŝŐŚƚ͘

Legs – The three pairs of Abdomen – The segmented legs are used abdomen to clean the antennae, contains the brush pollen from the honey stomach, hairs of the body to the Pretarus Claw - The stomach, pollen basket, and carry pretarus can be thought of ŝŶƚĞƐƟŶĞƐ͕ pollen and propolis. as the foot of a bee. The ƐƟŶŐĞƌ͕ĂŶĚǁĂdž pretarsal claws help the glands. It is bee hold onto rough composed of ^ƟŶŐĞƌʹdŚĞǁŽƌŬĞƌďĞĞƵƐĞƐƚŚĞ

surfaces. nine segments. 28 BEEϭŇŽǁĞƌƐ͕ϮƋƵĞĞŶďĞĞ͕ϯǁŽƌŬĞƌďĞĞƐ͕ϰŝŶĂŚŝǀĞ͕ϱŚŽŶĞLJ͕ϲŶĞĐƚĂƌ͕ϳĐŽŵď CULTUREƐƟŶŐĞƌƚŽĚĞĨĞŶĚƚŚĞŚŝǀĞ͘ February 2021 Produced by Kim Lehman -www.kim.lehman.com Honey Bee www.beeculture.com Crossword February 2021 by Andrew Wengerd, NY Bee Buddy Emerson Cerny, age 6, helps his dad keep bees in Louisiana. Honey and ƉĞĂŶƵƚďƵƩĞƌƐĂŶĚǁŝĐŚĞƐŝŶƐƉŝƌĞĚ his own honey ƌĞĐŝƉĞŽĨƉƵƫŶŐ honey between crackers to make a honey sandwich. Emerson knows much about bees ĂŶĚĐŽŶƟŶƵĞƐƚŽ learn more by cross ĂƐŬŝŶŐƋƵĞƐƟŽŶƐ ϯ͘tŚŽŵĂŬĞƐƚŚĞŚŽŶĞLJ͍ like “Why don’t ϰ͘tŚĞƌĞĚŽĂďĞĞŬĞĞƉĞƌ͛ƐďĞĞƐůŝǀĞ͍ boy bees have ϲ͘tŚĂƚŝƐŚŽŶĞLJŵĂĚĞĨƌŽŵ͍ ƐƟŶŐĞƌƐ͍͟

own 1. Where do the bees get the nectar Bee Buddy ĂŶĚƉŽůůĞŶ͍ Aly Boles, age 8, likes to Ϯ͘tŚĂƚůĂLJƐĞŐŐƐďƵƚŝƐŶ͛ƚĂŚĞŶ͍ play! She has fun whether ϱ͘tŚĂƚŝƐLJĞůůŽǁĂŶĚƐǁĞĞƚ͍ she is playing with her ϳ͘tŚĞƌĞĚŽďĞĞƐƉƵƚƚŚĞŚŽŶĞLJ dog, playing piano, ďĞĨŽƌĞƚŚĞLJĐĂƉŝƚ͍ playing with her friends, or playing in the ocean on her boogie boarding at the beach. Beecome a Bee Buddy She likes to help her Send two self-addressed ŐƌĂŶĚƉĂ͕Žď<LJůĞ͕ďŽƩůĞ stamped envelopes and the honey from his hives. the following information to: Bee Buddies, PO Box 117, Smithville, TX 78957. Energy Bites Name Aly loves to make and eat these treats for ^ƟƌŝŶŐƌĞĚŝĞŶƚƐƚŽŐĞƚŚĞƌŝŶĂďŽǁů͕ Address ďƌĞĂŬĨĂƐƚŽƌŝŶƚŚĞĂŌĞƌŶŽŽŶĂƐĂƐŶĂĐŬ͘ cover, and refrigerate for about a half Age Birthday Month hour. Use a spoon or hands to form balls E-mail ϭͬϯĐ͘ŚŽŶĞLJ about 1 inch in diameter. Place on a (optional) ϭͬϮĐ͘ƉĞĂŶƵƚďƵƩĞƌ;ƐŵŽŽƚŚŽƌĐƌƵŶĐŚLJͿ parchment-lined baking sheet and 1 c. old-fashioned oats refrigerate or freeze, transferring to a Send all questions, ϭͬϮĐ͘ŐƌŽƵŶĚŇĂdžƐĞĞĚ ĐŽŶƚĂŝŶĞƌŽŶĐĞĮƌŵ͘/ĨLJŽƵŬĞĞƉƚŚĞŵŝŶ photos, and artwork to: 1 tsp. vanilla ƚŚĞĨƌĞĞnjĞƌ͕ŝƚΖƐďĞƩĞƌƚŽůĞƚƚŚĞŵƚŚĂǁ [email protected] 1/2 c. chocolate chips ĨŽƌĂĨĞǁŵŝŶƵƚĞƐďĞĨŽƌĞĞĂƟŶŐƚŚĂŶƚŽ or mail to the above address. February 2021 1 Tbsp. chia seeds BEE(if you CULTURE have them) microwave them (too messy!) Enjoy!29 DISCOVER AN OHIO ORIGINAL

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February 2021 BEE CULTURE 31 this period amounted to 16 days and one hour. On the exposure of wax during bee development is an important other hand, the quality of queens from cells incubated at and concerning factor impairing honey bee health.” 32°C and 34.5°C was similar, they did not differ in body “Residues of the organophosphate acaricide weight, spermathecal volume, ovariole number in both coumaphos and the neonicotinoid insecticide imidacloprid, ovaries, or onset of oviposition (Chuda-Mickiewicz and widely used to combat Varroa mites and for crop Samborski 2015).” protection in agriculture, respectively, have been detected “Queen fertility and fecundity are vital to the success in wax, pollen and comb samples. Chaimanee et al. (2016) of a colony. Young mated queens are shipped worldwide assessed the effects of these compounds at different to meet the demand of the beekeeping industry. Since doses on the viability of sperm stored in the queens’ little is known about the conditions experienced by queens spermatheca. Their results demonstrated that sub-lethal in transit from breeders to beekeepers and the importance doses of imidacloprid (0.02 ppm) decreased sperm viability of these conditions on the queens’ reproductive potential, by 50%, seven days after treatment. Sperm viability was Rousseau et al. (2020) conducted a two-part study. on a downward trend (about 33%) in queens treated First, queen shipments from the USA and Canada to with high doses of coumaphos (100 ppm), but there Canadian beekeepers were monitored to measure thermal was not a signifi cant difference. The expression of genes conditions during shipment. A total of 39 shipments were that are involved in development, immune responses followed in 2017 and 2018. Monitoring revealed variable and detoxifi cation in honey bee queens and workers temperatures during shipment, with occasional periods of exposed to chemicals was measured by qPCR analysis. lows (10-15°C) (53.6-59.0°F) and highs (30-36°C) (86.0- The data showed that expression levels of specifi c genes 96.8°F). Second, young mated queens were placed in were triggered one day after treatment. The expression different shipping boxes with or without attendant bees levels of P450 subfamily genes, CYP306A1, CYP4G11 and exposed to one of three temperatures (6°C, 26°C, and and CYP6AS14 were decreased in queens treated with 40°C) (42.8°F, 78.8°F, 104°F) for two hours. They then low doses of coumaphos (5 ppm) and imidacloprid (0.02 compared the thermoregulation within shipping boxes, ppm). Moreover, these two compounds suppressed the and the viability of sperm in each queen’s spermatheca. expression of genes related to antioxidation, immunity Their results show that both low and high temperatures and development in queens at day one. Up-regulation significantly decrease sperm viability, and that the of antioxidants by these compounds in worker bees was addition of loose attendant bees within shipment boxes observed at day one. Coumaphos also caused a repression helps maintain the temperature at 26°C (78.8°F) when of CYP306A1 and CYP4G11 in workers. Antioxidants exposed to low temperature and delays the temperature appear to prevent chemical damage to honey bees. They increase when temperatures are high.” also found that deformed wing virus replication increased “Managed honey bee colonies face numerous in workers treated with imidacloprid. This research clearly health risks including nutritional stress, exposure to demonstrated that chemical exposure can affect sperm pests and pathogens, poor queen quality and pesticide viability in queen honey bees.” contamination, which cause problems at the individual and “Williams et al. (2015) also demonstrated that colony levels. One of the most serious problems faced by exposure to fi eld realistic concentrations of neonicotinoid honey bees is parasitization by the mite Varroa destructor, pesticides during development can severely affect queens. which is typically controlled through the application In pesticide-exposed queens, reproductive anatomy of miticides such as tau-fl uvalinate, coumaphos and (ovaries) and physiology (spermathecal-stored sperm amitraz. In addition to miticides, colonies are also exposed quality and quantity), rather than fl ight behavior, were to pesticides brought in by foragers from agricultural compromised and likely corresponded to reduced queen settings, including the fungicide chlorothalonil and the success (alive and producing worker offspring).” insecticide chlorpyrifos. Walsh et al. (2020) explored “The infl uence of various diets on the quality of whether exposure of wax to combinations of these honey bee queens was assessed. Colonies intended for pesticides during development affects honey bee queen queen cell production were assigned to four groups fed physiology and worker behavior. They reared queens in on (1) sugar-only, (2) mix of sugar, honey and fresh plastic cups coated with molten beeswax that was either pollen, (3) sugar and pollen substitute (FeedBee®), and pesticide-free or containing fi eld-relevant concentrations (4) natural sources. In addition, a fi fth group had queen of tau-fl uvalinate, coumaphos, amitraz, or chlorothalonil cells obtained naturally, by swarming. Sugar-only diet and chlorpyrifos. Once queens mated naturally, they exerted a signifi cant stimulating effect on the acceptance placed them in observation hives to measure egg-laying of queen cells and the weight of newly emerged queens, rate and worker retinue size. They then dissected the not affecting mated queens. Among mated queens those queens and used the contents of their mandibular glands raised by bees fed on the mix of sugar, honey and fresh to measure worker attractiveness in caged bioassays and pollen had signifi cantly larger numbers of ovarioles to analyze their chemical components using GC-MS. in comparison with all the others. Their weight was Exposure of wax to fi eld-relevant concentrations of the signifi cantly higher than that of the queens from groups tested pesticides during queen development signifi cantly given FeedBee® and swarming queens. Compared to the lowered the adult queens’ egg-laying rate and worker latter, they had signifi cantly wider spermatheca. Given retinue size. Miticide exposure during development also the parameters monitored, FeedBee® proved not to be lowered the attractiveness of queen mandibular gland advantageous for queens (Dolasevic et al. 2020).” contents to workers and affected the relative amounts of “Slater et al. (2020) set out to determine the relative the glands’ chemical components. Their results support contributions of diet quantity and quality to queen the idea that mandibular gland pheromones act as honest development. Larvae were reared in vitro (in an artifi cial indicators of queen reproductive fi tness and that pesticide environment) on nine diets varying in the amount of royal

32 BEE CULTURE February 2021 jelly and sugars, which were fed to larvae in eight different improvement of honey bee (Apis mellifera) queen quality quantities. For the middle diet, an ad libitum quantity through nutritional and hormonal supplementation. treatment (diet that allows food intake as much as Apidologie 50: 14-27 desired) was included. Once adults eclosed (to emerge) the Dolasevic, S., J. Stevanovic, N. Aleksic, U. Glavinic, N. Deletic, queenliness was determined using principal component M. Mladenovic and Z. Stanimirovic 2020. The effect of diet analysis on seven morphological measurements. They types on some quality characteristics of artifi cially reared Apis found that larvae fed an ad libitum quantity of diet were mellifera queens. J. Apic. Res. 59: 115-123. indistinguishable from commercially reared queens, and Hatjina, F., M. Bieńkowska, L. Charistos, R. Chlebo, C. Costa, that queenliness was independent of the proportion of M.M. Dražić, J. Filipi, A. Gregorc, E.N. Ivanova, N. Kezić, J. protein and carbohydrate in the diet. Neither protein nor Kopernicky, P. Kryger, M. Lodesani, V. Lokar, M. Mladenovic, carbohydrate content had a signifi cant infl uence on the B. Panasiuk, P.P. Petrov, S. Rašic, M.I.S. Skerl, F. Vejsnaes fi rst principle component 1 (PC1), which explained 64.4% and J. Wilde 2014. A review of methods used in some of the difference between queens and workers. Instead, European countries for assessing the quality of honey bee the total quantity of diet explained a signifi cant amount queens through their physical characters and the performance of variation in PC1. These results indicate that total diet of their colonies. J. Apic. Res. 53: 337-363. quantity fed to larvae may regulate the difference between Lee, K.V., M. Goblirsch, E. McDermott, D.R. Tarpy and queen and worker castes in honey bees.” M. Spivak 2019. Is the brood pattern within a honey bee “The honey bee queen is the central hub of a colony colony a reliable indicator of queen quality? Insects 10,12; to produce eggs and release pheromones to maintain doi:10.3390/insects10010012 social cohesion. Among many environmental stresses, Payne, A.N. and J. Rangel 2018. The effect of queen insemination viruses are a major concern to compromise the queen’s volume on the growth of newly established honey bee (Apis health and reproductive vigor. Viruses have evolved mellifera) colonies. Apidologie 49: 594-605. numerous strategies to infect queens either via vertical Rangel, J., J.J. Keller and D.R. Tarpy 2013. The effects of honey transmission from the queen’s parents or horizontally bee (Apis mellifera L.) queen reproductive potential on colony through the worker and drones with which she is in growth. Insectes Soc. 60: 65-73. contact during development, while mating, and in the Rousseau, A., E. Houle and P. Giovenazzo 2020. Effect of reproductive period in the colony. Over 30 viruses have shipping boxes, attendant bees, and temperature on honey been discovered from honey bees but only a few studies bee queen sperm quality (Apis mellifera). Apidologie 51: 724- exist on the pathogenicity and direct impact of viruses 735. on the queen’s phenotype (Amiri et al. 2020).” Slater, G.P., G.D. Yocum and J.H. Bousher 2020. Diet quantity “The number of female progeny that a queen produces infl uences caste determination in honeybees (Apis mellifera). in her lifetime is directly dependent on the amount of Proc. R. Soc. B. 287: 20200614. semen she collects upon mating (i.e., insemination volume) Walsh, E.M., S. Sweet, A. Knap, N. Ing and J. Rangel 2020. and the number of viable sperm cells contained within Queen honey bee (Apis mellifera) pheromone and reproductive the semen (i.e., sperm viability). Queen insemination behavior are affected by pesticide exposure during volume has been shown to alter queen mandibular development. Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 74: 33 pheromone profi les, as well as worker behavior and Williams, G.R., A. Troxler, G. Retschnig, K. Roth, O. Yañez, D. physiology at the individual level. In order to determine if Shutler, P. Neumann and L. Gauthier 2015. Neonicotinoid queen insemination volume has any colony-level effects, pesticides severely affect honey bee queens. Sci. Rep. 5: Payne and Rangel (2018) compared the growth of newly 14621. established colonies headed by queens instrumentally inseminated with either a low volume (1.5 μl) or a high Clarence Collison is an Emeritus Professor of Entomology volume (9.0 μl) of pooled semen from May to October in and Department Head Emeritus of Entomology and Plant 2013 and 2015. They did not fi nd a signifi cant effect of Pathology at Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, MS. queen insemination volume on the production of worker comb, drone comb, stored food, worker population, or seasonal queen or colony survivorship. Therefore, they concluded that queen insemination volume does not seem to directly affect growth at the colony level, at least during a colony’s fi rst year.” BC

References Amiri, E., M.K. Strand, D.R. Tarpy and O. Rueppell 2020. Honey bee queens and virus infections. Viruses 12: 322 doi:10.3390/v12030322 Chaimanee, V., J.D. Evans, Y. Chen, C. Jackson, and J.S. Pettis 2016. Sperm viability and gene expression in honey bee queens (Apis mellifera) following exposure to the neonicotinoid insecticide imidacloprid and the organophosphate acaracide coumaphos. J. Insect Physiol. 89: 1-8. Chuda-Mickiewicz, B. and J. Samborski 2015. The quality of honey bee queens from queen cells incubated at different temperatures. Acta Sci. Pol. Zootechnica 14: 25-32. De Souza, D.A., M.H. Huang and D.R. Tarpy 2019. Experimental

February 2021 BEE CULTURE 33 AL L A RO T U N D H B E E E Y AR D

Number 1 Tip of the Month – OAV Extension

I was interested in the OAV treatment for mites but the idea of lugging a battery out to the apiary and maintaining a battery to be used maybe twice a year just seemed too much trouble. Then a friend gave me an OAV wand. Nice! The problem was that the wand only had an eight-foot cord. All my vehicles have 12-volt bat- teries but can’t get within eight-foot of the hives. I still refused to maintain that extra battery and removing the battery from my truck each time I treated was still too much trouble. My electrical experience lead me to the idea of using an extension cord. I just needed to cut the cable on the wand and install connectors. I placed the female con- nection to the wand end to prevent me or any borrower from plugging the wand into a 120 VAC outlet. I ran some tests to verify line loss would not be a problem, and it worked great. The crystals boil off in under two minutes with the extension I used. If you do not have electrical experience, get help from someone who does before altering your wand. This sure beats the special battery requirement. Greg Carey, St. Mary’s County Maryland

Bee Culture wants you to share your good ideas with our readers. Be precise and include a photo or sketch if possible, but that may not be necessary. If we use your idea you get a free one-year subscrip on. The best each month gets 100.

34 BEE CULTURE February 2021 The A.I. Root Pollinator Garden Alyssum loers

The A.I. Root Co., and Bee Culture, The ‘Magazine of Ameri- can Beekeeping’ will always be connected to the amazing history of Honey Bees and their Keepers. At our company headquarters we recently updated our pollinator friendly garden area in front of the offi ces along the main thoroughfare into our hometown of Medina, Ohio. Over the next several months we will share with you how it is coming along and to highlight individual plants in the garden.

many cultivated varieties including ‘Arizona ‘Burgundy’ (burgundy with yellow center) Arizona Apricot’ (yellow disk and ray fl owers); ‘Arizona Red Shades’ (deep orange to red fl owers); Celebration (deep burgundy petals and center); and ‘Oranges and Lemons’ which is a pastel version with peach colored, yellow tipped petals and a gold center that reaches 2’ tall. ‘Fanfare’ is more unusual with tubular shaped orange petals and a yellow center. Blanket fl ower was named because it covers the ground in bright earthy tones of orange, reds and deep yellow, which reminded early settlers of Indian blankets. Gaillardia x grandifl ora with seed heads. The 3” diameter fl owers arise from short, slender stems from mid-Summer through Fall and continually bloom Blanket flower, Firewheel or Indian blanket are until frost. The hairy gray-green leaves remain green all common names of Gaillardia spp. which is a bright, season and stay low to the ground. Depending on the cheerful perennial that should be added to any perennial, cultivar, the average height of the plants including the butterfl y- or cottage garden. Its mounding habit with fl owers is 2-3’ tall. They do best in loamy, rich soil in full bright orange to red daisy-like fl owers is a cheerful asset to part sun but grow poorly in heavy clay soil. The plants and magnet for butterfl ies and many bee species. Native are mostly free of diseases and insect pests. to North America, it is heat and drought resistant and is Although it is Winter hardy through Zone 4, it often usually not eaten by deer. does not survive more than a few winters unless it is Several hybrids are available, the most common nurtured a little. Remove spent fl ower stems and divide is Gaillardia x grandifl ora, which is a cross between in late Fall to stimulate new growth. Protecting it with Gaillardia pulchella Foug (annual cultivar) and G. mulch also helps. aristate, the perennial cultivar. You can choose from Along with collecting and drying the seed heads, this plant can be propagated by dividing and taking shoot cuttings. Seeds of some cultivars need a chilling period before they can germinate. Check your particular cultivar for directions. Plant seeds in loose rich soil outside after all danger of frost or preplant four to six weeks indoors for earlier fl owering. Add this long time favorite to your garden for a fabulous display of color. Try several cultivars to add to the color wheel and enjoy the continuous traffi c of butterfl ies and other pollinators to these showy fl owers. Note that the goldfi nches love the seedheads so you may want to leave a few for them! BC

References: https://www.missouribotanicalgarden.org/PlantFinder/ PlantFinderDetails.aspx?kempercode=a579 https://gpnmag.com/article/gaillardia-unique-forcing- Gaillardia requirements-old-and-new-cultivars/ “Arizona https://www.gardenia.net/plant-variety/gaillardia-blanket- Apricot.” fl ower

February 2021 BEE CULTURE 35 is always an abundance of fl owers in Taking a little each day it’s the jungle. preventative measures boost the mayan and These exotic flowers are immune system, are used as an responsible for the Melipona honey’s antidiabetic and anti-infl ammatory. unique taste. The only way I can Which is also why it was mixed into melipona describe it is to say that it tastes high percentage dark cacao drinking like the jungle itself. Not as sweet as chocolate in times past. Not as a commercially produced Apis species sweetener but for health, strength bee love honey, it is darker and more potent and stamina. One cup was said to with only a slight sweetness. strengthen a warrior’s body to cover Because the Melipona produce great distances while providing affair about one thirtieth of European enough energy to run all day. Apis species it is easy to see why the Externally it is used on everything relationship is vastly different. The from curing cataracts with a watered- part 2 honey is precious. Used not so much down drop to the eyes twice daily, as as a food source, but as a cure-all a treatment for skin spots, cuts and Bel oohouse within the culture. It is a gift. abrasions as well as mixed with herbs This is the heart of the Mayan for beauty treatments. If you have beekeeping practices. If respect ever seen the Mayan women you can is shown to the Melipona, and its see why, their skin is fl awless. deity the Royal Lady Bee, then hive To ensure optimal honey yields will be good. Their deep-seated production environmental, elemental respect, admiration and affection for and spiritual factors all come into the Melipona ties into every aspect play. of their symbiotic relationship. They Hive location in relation to look after the Melipona and the direction aligned with cardinal points Melipona looks after them in return are as important as which protective by gifting them with longer life and gods are nearby. See, to the Maya, healing through its honey. honey production encompasses The local Yucatan shaman I the whole jungle as well as the spoke with said “if the lady (the deities contained within. Wanting the Melipona) is happy, she is generous blessings and protection of the gods and will cure anything you ask”. This they also need to pacify the cheeky means everything from a stubbed little jungle spirits, the Alux, which Harvesting Melipona honey with toe or small cut through to healing dwell alongside them. This in turn a syringe. a woman’s caesarean scar after provides maximum protection for childbirth. Internally and externally, the bees so they can achieve optimal Since the fi rst natural log hive through both preventative and honey production. was brought near a Mayan house curative medicines, this potent jungle Within a location each direction is centuries ago, hive placement has honey is used to help heal the Maya’s believed to relate to the bees like this: been taken very seriously by Mayan mind body and soul. North – the place where bees go to beekeepers. Yes this is true of all collect pollen and resins. beekeepers but to the Maya there East – the place where honey had are also spiritual and elemental its origin. components. South – dedicated to the place Like all beekeepers they believe where bees gathered to collect their if hives aren’t placed in the most pollen. advantageous place within the West – indicates the place where natural world then optimum honey the young come from. production will never occur. These old ways and beliefs stay This means blending with the same as Mayan beekeeping the entire natural world not just has seen a resurgence in recent close proximity to key ingredients years. Partly as conservation efforts necessary for honey production. Like alongside the preservation of the fl owering trees or fresh water. After Maya culture and practices. all, in the sub-tropics of Mexico’s The Melipona is a large and Yucatan Peninsula it is warm year- honored part of that culture. Which is round so there is always fl owering why the only real change is manmade fl ora nearby. hives. Harvesting is much easier From the highest treetop orchids with a removable roof. As is division and bromeliads blooming alongside of colonies and the establishment of flowering canopy vines and trees new hives. down to sprawling ground covers and A new hive is formed by placing expansive shrubs like lantana. There Making a new hive. a portion of an existing colony along 36 BEE CULTURE February 2021 Different apiaries. The fi rst is more of a traditional Maya apiary with palapa thatched roof. Below is more modern in a citrus orchard using the Melipona to fertilize their crops. Melipona storage pots.

with a princess who quickly turns queen into a small manmade hive about the size of a shoe box. Healthy hives double in size within a year. As the colony grows and needs more space, another section is added on top. Growing over the years to become multilayered hives. Because the Melipona’s yield is so low, harvesting takes place once every 10 to 12 months. The docile Melipona retreats when the hive is opened making honey harvesting easy. A large syringe simply extracts the honey from the fat globular open topped storage pots. Great care is taken not to overharvest. The Maya believe that if you are greedy and tax the hive by taking too much, then the Melipona will leave. Inside a Melipona hive. It is no longer a benefi cial relationship working within the confi nes of the bee’s biorhythms and natural lifecycles. With this much respect, and an almost spiritual relationship the Maya and Melipona have they will continue to fl ourish just as it has in centuries past. A beautiful and amazing relationship between man and bee. BC

February 2021 BEE CULTURE 37 ,7$/,$148((16 3DFNDJHV             3ULFHVDERYHGRQRWLQFOXGHVKLSSLQJFKDUJHV 3LFNXS3DFNDJHV  3LFNXS4XHHQV&HOOV &OLSSLQJ0DUNLQJ 3OHDVHFDOORUZULWHIRUVKLSSLQJGHWDLOVRUWUXFNSULFHV7HUPVGRZQ%DODQFHGXHWZRZHHNVSULRUWRVKLSSLQJ Š­ œ—Ž££œ¦¡šŽŠ¨œ¡£’“£ŽŠ¡ Over 100 Years of Experience • All Bees Are State Inspected

38 BEE CULTURE February 2021 Occasionally, Jerry Hayes is to earth. Nowadays it doesn’t pay to honey harvest, without the need sent questions that all other Bee add insult to injury. In the old days, for a detached honey house. The Culture experts refuse to answer for some orthopedic surgeons offered package is easy to install in most liability reasons. These questions are two-for-one deals to beekeepers kitchens. You merely 1) replace your collected and forwarded to the only (for each shattered ankle, you got a stove with a Maxant motorized frame beekeeping expert foolish enough to cracked rib for free). But now, with uncapper (future cooking can be answer them, the lowly humor writer the state of modern healthcare as it done in the microwave) 2) replace the (whose assets, it should be known, is, you can’t count on free handling refrigerator with a Maxant 160-gallon hardly exceed the retainer of a good for secondary fractures, so it’s best to bottling tank, the dimensions of which lawyer.) be walloped by a fl imsy ladder. closely resemble those of a standard refrigerator (since honey never goes What do you know about nude How does evil spread in a beeyard? bad, refrigeration is not needed) 3) beekeeping? Sandspurs in your shoelaces. If replace the kitchen island with new Little. I only know one nude you’ve never experienced sandspurs, centerpiece of your extraction line, a beekeeper, Ned. Ned was just a picture yourself strolling through new twenty frame Maxant extractor regular guy who wore clothes in a blooming meadow beside your with a rugged ⅓ horsepower motor. public, especially in the bee yard. He beeyard. Smell the flowers and (After honey harvest, the extractor can never once thought about disrobing feel the gentle breeze through your easily double as a spacious island).” outdoors until he accidentally left his veil. Watch bees glide from fl ower If your wife is unmoved by this shirt tail out and bees (from a dropped to fl ower. Then, while listening to goodwill gesture, I would suggest frame) regrouped on his shoes and meadowlarks sing, take one more marriage counseling, ideally with started marching (unbeknownst step and hear yourself utter, at a counselor who has beekeeping to Ned) up his pant legs. The bees the top of your lungs, your favorite experience. formed two fl anks along the belly exclamatory phrase. Hear it echo and the back and coordinated a throughout the countryside. Then Is it hard being a beekeeping simultaneous assault. Underneath start hopping one-footed while calling expert? Ned’s shirt tail and over his belt, the for a medic. The hard part is perfecting a bees charged onto bare skin, where belly laugh. Laugh too hard at many sacrifi ced their lives on the My wife is threatening divorce if another beekeeper’s mistake, and rolling terrain of Ned’s mid-section. I ever use the kitchen again for you’ll be attacked with a dull hive Afterwards, Ned began running and extracting. What should I do? tool. Yet show any hesitancy in shedding clothes simultaneously, Though some may suggest a your laugh, and people will doubt leaving a trail of garments behind, dozen red roses, roses rarely work you’re an expert. Thus, pointing out including his whitey-tightys. This for threats of divorce. You will need another beekeeper’s problem and disrobing routine was captured and a more dramatic romantic overture to belly laughing afterwards, which is posted to YouTube by a random smooth over the damage caused by a the major job responsibility of an passerby and thereafter Ned became honey and wax-splattered kitchen. I all-around beekeeping expert, is like known locally as Nude Ned. suggest you offer a complete kitchen tight-rope walking with no net— remodel. Though I don’t know the meaning it’s a very perilous activity What is the best ladder to use specifi c dimensions of your kitchen, that should only be attempted by for retrieving a swarm from an likely the Maxant Kitchen Remodel trained professionals or those who elevated position? Package would fi t your needs. Here’s pack up and leave town after a week. Every beekeeper needs a good a blurb, flimsy ladder, one that bows and “For hobby beekeepers looking to If you have perplexing questions bends and bounces. A sturdy ladder take the next leap toward commercial that need sage answers, Stephen Bishop is a big mistake. Nothing hurts worse production, the Maxant Kitchen provides free beekeeping and marital than being walloped by a stout ladder Remodel Package offers all the advice at misfitfarmer.com or you can seconds after you’ve plummeted back equipment you need for an effi cient contact him on Twitter @themisfi tfarmer. The Best Beekeeping Q&A (Almost)

Stephen Bishop

February 2021 BEE CULTURE 39 Newfoundland And Labrador tiFrara

The Newfoundland and Labrador money. It would discourage new workshops in the area closest to Beekeeping Association (NLBKA) beekeepers and possibly bankrupt them by contacting Peter Armitage, at recently released a plan to deal with our established and new commercial [email protected]. He the arrival of a parasitic mite, Varroa operators. These are some of the will ensure that they are put on the destructor, that has devastated honey consequences we’ve seen elsewhere list for the most convenient workshop bees around the world. Newfoundland in the world.” and receive relevant details. and Labrador (NL) remains one of the Reid continued, “Our honey and A copy of the VAP report can be last places that remains free of the other bee products are healthy, and obtained on the NLBKA’s website – parasite. relatively pesticide-free because our The development of the VAP A Varroa Action Plan for bees are not exposed to miticides. has been assisted by funds from the Newfoundland and Labrador This allows us to compete successfully Canadian Agricultural Partnership – (VAP) assesses the risk of a Varroa in the future in international niche Newfoundland and Labrador. incursion by various pathways and markets for our apicultural products. For more information, contact concludes that illegal importation However, this opportunity cannot Rodney Reid, President, Newfoundland is the most serious biosecurity risk be realized if the province loses and Labrador Beekeeping Association for the province’s honey bee stock. its current ‘freedom from Varroa’ Email: [email protected]; The northeast Avalon Peninsula has status.” 709-290-5262 (leave a message if the highest risk of a fi rst incursion “It takes only a single varroa mite there is no initial response and because of the Port of St. John’s and to start an infestation. Without a good Rodney will contact you ASAP. He is St. John’s International Airport, and early detection strategy, we wouldn’t a very busy farmer!) because the region has the highest likely notice it until it has spread far density of beekeepers in the province. and wide around the province,” said Backgrounder – key Without an effective crisis action plan Reid. “It’s like the COVID-19 virus. It recommendations of the Varroa in place, the parasite would spread spreads very easily with the help of Action Plan report rapidly from its initial incursion us humans.” The Varroa destructor mite point. “Given its severe impact on causes signifi cant honey bee colony The VAP recommends a number honey bee health, beekeepers in this losses throughout much of the of measures to prevent the arrival of province should be well motivated to world with associated economic the mite, and to deal with it quickly prevent Varroa incursions, implement costs and management challenges should an incursion take place. the most sensitive early detection for beekeepers. The Newfoundland These include an ongoing “saturation methods available, and also prepare and Labrador (NL) honey bee stock advertising campaign” to educate for the arrival of the parasite so as is currently free of this parasite. In beekeepers and the public about to reduce honey bee colony losses to the dangers of Varroa and illegal the greatest extent possible should it importation, a volunteer sentinel become established,” said Reid. apiary network with monitoring hives Reid concluded, “the success at strategic locations, a “passive” of our efforts to stop Varroa will surveillance program whereby as depend upon cooperation among many beekeepers as possible are a large number of our beekeepers trained to monitor for the parasite, in partnership with the provincial testing of swarms and feral colonies, government. We’re looking at a long- mandatory testing of bees sold term commitment from all parties, around the province, “bee districts” coordinated action, and discipline. whereby beekeepers test for Varroa The sooner we get prepared the before transporting bees across better! For a start, we are organizing district boundaries, and enhanced free workshops immediately to train government capacity to respond to a our beekeepers in how to monitor for Varroa incursion. and treat Varroa.” “Getting Varroa would be a The Varroa training workshops disaster for beekeepers and our are scheduled for St. John’s, Port industry,” said Association president, Blandford, Grand Falls- Windsor, and Rodney Reid. “Unless we’re well Cormack between October 3 and 11, prepared for it, the parasite could with training provided by experienced wipe out 90% or more of our stock. beekeepers from New Brunswick The management of our bees would where Varroa has been established A Varrroa destructor mite climbing become much more complex and since the early 1980s. upwards ona toothpick. expensive in terms of time and Beekeepers can register for the (David T. Peck photo) 40 BEE CULTURE February 2021 addition to feeding on honey bees, small-scale, and hobby beekeepers and training, and a commitment it is also vectors and amplifies a are trained in Varroa monitoring of resources to manage a Varroa number of viruses that are not and treatment methods, and incursion; currently found in the province’s encouraged to test for the parasite; •A Varroa crisis management plan stock or wild bee populations. •Testing according to best practices developed by the provincial Other jurisdictions such as New recognized by the scientific government as soon as possible Zealand and Nova Scotia had Varroa community and governments that details how it would respond for three to fi ve years before they internationally, namely, alcohol to a Varroa incursion, identify knew it. By the time the parasite was wash, sugar shake, and sticky the resources available for discovered in their stock, it was too board methods; delimiting surveys and eradication, late to eradicate; it was too widely •Mandatory testing of any apiary the funding available for stock distributed and established. NL can from which bees are “sold” (nucs, replacement, and training for the learn from the Varroa experience queens, full colonies) prior to provincial apiarist and other staff elsewhere, and adopt measures that distribution; to undertake delimiting surveys prevent it from becoming established •Creation of “Bee districts” with (inspections) and eradication. in the province. However, maintaining boundaries based on the •Commence training of government our Varroa-free status requires distribution of apiaries and emergency response personnel rigorous preventative and detection provincial geography, and taking immediately. If resources are measures that have not yet been into consideration the location of limited, alternatives should be developed locally. The Varroa Action small fruit crop operations (namely considered including recruiting Plan (VAP) report presents a clear cranberry), so that beekeepers can and training volunteer beekeepers plan to respond to a Varroa incursion freely move colonies within districts in advance for Varroa inspection should it occur. Key features of the without having to test constantly work; plan include: for Varroa. Transport of bees •Limit Varroa’s devastation of NL and used beekeeping equipment honey bee stocks should it become •A “saturation advertising” approach between districts would require established by training beekeepers to communicate the Varroa threat testing for Varroa no more than 10 in effective mite monitoring and to the beekeeping community and days prior to transport; treatment methods according to the public at large; •Test swarms and feral colonies for international best practices, and •Measures to intercept Varroa- Varroa prior to transporting them by establishing a mite resistance infested bees before they have to another apiary; breeding program. BC contact with NL honey bee stock, •Conduct frequent and sensitive Reprinted with permission from NLBKA e.g., monitoring social media for Varroa testing of swarm catcher talk of illegal importation, Canada home apiaries particularly if they Post and courier companies are located near other apiaries, monitoring for illegal imports; and they distribute bees to other •A volunteer, sentinel apiary program apiaries (e.g., selling nucleus to facilitate monitoring of honey colonies, rent-a-hive arrangements, bee stocks across the province at etc.). These apiaries are high strategic locations particularly at risk potential Varroa-infestation high risk locations such as locations locations; with signifi cant concentrations of • Enhanced provincial government beekeepers (e.g., northeast Avalon support for honey bee biosecurity peninsula); measures including regulatory •A “passive surveillance” approach reform to provide better bee health whereby commercial operators, management tools, the allocation of resources for beekeeper education

February 2021 BEE CULTURE 41     

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42 BEE CULTURE February 2021 A T G: Appreciation For Pollen Christine Bert A grain of pollen is an amazing size. Some wind-pollinated plants these palynivores – but although we thing. produce pollen containing balloon- often say that honey bees are also We don’t usually regard pollen like pockets of air to increase their herbivores, this may not be correct: with awe. After all, on the surface, buoyancy, while others make pollen As small as they are, pollen grains pollen’s function appears mainly to be with wing-shaped outer shells to are colonized in turn by even smaller turning our cars yellow and our eyes catch the wind like a kite. However, to microorganisms – tiny fungi and red. People with a fondness for bees remain lightweight, this type of pollen bacteria that recent research has are more likely to appreciate pollen doesn’t include many large, heavy shown could be a critical component than most, since the honey bee relies molecules like proteins, so pollen of a bee’s diet. on it almost exclusively as a source grains from wind-pollinated plants The good news for pollinator of protein. But pollen is even more are of little nutritional value to bees. stewards who also want an attractive complex than its role as a critical Honey bees generally only deign to yard is that insect-pollinated plants food source for our favorite insect collect this type of pollen when other must advertise the presence of their suggests. A single grain of pollen is a pickings are slim. nectar and pollen with beautiful self-contained, mobile manufacturing Insect-pollinated plants, by fl owers. However, not all fl owers are and shipping center, carrying all contrast, produce larger grains of nutritionally equal: In addition to the materials necessary to fertilize pollen with a sticky or spiky outer differences in pollen composition from a flower packaged compactly into shell. These pollen grains can easily species to species, some cultivated an armor-plated, custom-designed cling to the tiny hairs on a pollinator’s varieties of plants are bred to be vehicle. sterile, and may not produce In less fanciful terms, a grain pollen at all. Others, such as of pollen is composed of two or double-fl owered plants, have three specialized reproductive been selected to produce blooms cells inside a tough outer shell. that are so ornate that bees (This coating is so strong that can’t reach the pollen within. pollen is frequently preserved Unfortunately, information in the fossil record, particularly on fl oral pollen quality can be in lake sediments, and can diffi cult to unearth – but if a provide valuable information web search fails, then experts about the climate in which its at a local nursery may have the parent plant existed.) To produce right tools. a seed, pollen must travel from And expertise is certainly the male part of one fl ower to warranted. For such a tiny the female part of another, a structure, pollen is enormously journey that takes one of several complex. It is a specialized forms: Some plants are wind- or vehicle for plant reproduction, water-pollinated, while others are body to hitch a ride from fl ower to traveling from place to place in carried by animals – including, of fl ower, and pack neatly for transport many ways. Its variety impacts course, honey bees and other insects. on the hind legs of honey bees. From a the health and foraging habits of Although not all grains of pollen reach beekeeper’s perspective, these larger pollinators. And it hosts its own their intended destination, they are grains of pollen are the fi rst to be diverse, mysterious microbiome, constructed to optimize their chances excluded during honey fi ltration, so which we are only just beginning of doing so. As a result, pollen from mesh size is an important choice for to explore. We can’t always control different plant species varies not just beekeepers wishing to preserve the the pollen sources in our vicinity as in color, but in size, shape, texture, pollen content of their honey during much as we’d like – especially during and nutritional content, depending processing. Pollen grains carried ragweed season – but we can choose largely on how it is dispersed. by insects are also relatively heavy, pollen-producing plants for our yard For example, wind-pollinated packed with nutritional content in that help supply honey bees and plants produce massive amounts the form of proteins, carbohydrates, other pollinators with a diet that of pollen that must be carried by lipids, minerals, and vitamins. Many meets their nutritional needs. And air currents. To spread as far and insects are specialized to feed on since insect-pollinated plants are less widely as possible, pollen grains pollen alone, so access to a variety likely to trigger our allergies, they from these plants tend to be small of plants with pollen high in nutrient make it a little bit easier to appreciate and light – even by the standards content is important for their health that the complexity of a grain of of pollen, already microscopic in and survival. Honey bees are among pollen is nothing to sneeze at. BC

February 2021 BEE CULTURE 43 quite unique. This lack of natural, pathological disorders . . . how they direct, zoonotic disease transmission look, how they develop, even how they BEE between bees and humans allow smell, but every time, near the last beekeepers to enjoy a more relaxed, lecture of the term, when treatment VET low-risk interaction with our bees would fi nally come up for discussion, regarding disease. the same old phrase would appear, However, our bee’s health and the “Treatment: Depends on the iastira drugs we use to treat them affects us Diagnosis”. Everyone wants a magic all - humans, other animals, and our pill to fi x all our issues, but it is hard ar environment. The concept of human, to fi x what you have not identifi ed. Dr. Tracy arone animal and environmental health Veterinarians are permitted to start being inevitably intertwined is called treatments immediately (pending “One-Health”. Our bees’ good health confirmatory testing) based on a is vital to provide pollination services tentative diagnosis, if they find for a large portion of our food supply. it appropriate, such as in case of The drugs and chemicals we utilize to suspected AFB. treat bee diseases can leave residues and contaminate bee products, Defi ne Drug Resistance like honey and wax. Antibiotic Over the years, I have found that resistance is considered by national there is some confusion about the and global health organizations nature of drug resistance. So, let to be a top priority public health us take a moment to step back and crisis in the world. 700,000 human define drug resistance. Antibiotic deaths are attributed to antibiotic resistance is a specifi c example of resistance every year (3,4) Overuse drug resistance, but resistance can or misuse of medications can lead to occur with any chemical that is treatment resistance to the particular used to treat an infectious agent or disease within our patient, our pest. For example, there is concern colonies. One should always consider about resistance development with In our big blue world, there the overall effects of developing miticides used in the treatment of are nearly 1500 different infectious treatment plans and administering varroa mites. Drug resistance means diseases known to affect humans. drugs, medications, pesticides, home that a given population of bacteria, 60% of these diseases are zoonotic, remedies – all chemicals, to your varroa mites, or whatever, have been that is diseases that are transferred bees. Below is some guidance on how exposed to a certain drug. The drug between animals and humans, and veterinarians can help beekeepers kills most of the pathogens, but a 75% of new and emerging infectious employ treatment plans. few may survive. These lucky few diseases are zoonotic (1). Offi cially, have a genetic predisposition that there are no zoonotic diseases in The Development of Treatment allows them to survive and go on to bees (with the rare exception noted Plans create the next generation of bugs. in the literature of a few poor souls Ideally, to have the best outcome This new generation of drug resistant who decided to inject honey into for any patient and to avoid drug organisms emerge, and our drugs themselves, which happened to be resistance, it is best to have a proven become less useful. Drug resistance contaminated with Paenebacillis diagnosis before treating any disease. is not the patient “getting used to the larvae or American Foulbrood, AFB, As a young veterinary student, I drug”. Now that that’s cleared up – A spores)(2). Every other domestic can remember being eager to learn careful review of any medications animal and many wild animals about how to treat diseases – how to previously used in your beeyard/s can transmit disease to us, so the fi x it! I would sit in lecture halls for could inform best practice choices lack of zoonotic disease in bees is weeks on end learning about various for your bees going forward.

Employment of IPM Practices Integrated pest management is a practice commonly employed by beekeepers and veterinarians alike. Most diseases of animals, including bees, are not treated with drugs Don’t be afraid to reach out for help! alone or proper treatment can be (Deidra Ressler achieved without drug intervention photo) at all. Engaging in best management practices, re-queening, proper nutrition, and sometimes just plain rest are often the best medicine. Drugs are only one tool in our toolbox for fighting disease. In fact, of the few bee drugs that

44 BEE CULTURE February 2021 require veterinary intervention, their effectiveness is only in part to nearly Developing a useless. Since antibiotics are not treatment plan for effective against AFB spores, burning Varroa mites is of is required or highly recommended primary importance. for hives infected with AFB, and for (Deidre Ressler photo) Melissococcus plutonius, European Foulbrood (EFB), treatment with antibiotics is typically only used in severe cases and in conjunction with other IPM practices. Good News: Most backyard beekeepers employing good biosecurity protocols should not have to use antibiotics because typically their bees are kept in one area (reducing stress and exposures). Also, luckily, AFB is a great example approved veterinary preparations. have contact lists of vets willing to see of an endemic disease. What is an Only one drug, oxytetracycline, bees. For example, in PA, I consult endemic disease? Endemic disease is approved for the treatment of regularly with the PADA on bees and is a disease that is ever present in a Melissococcus plutonius (EFB) in compiled a list of vets interested in geographical area but typically in low, either a VFD or prescription. For seeing bees. manageable levels. Due to the long AFB, only oxytetracycline is approved surviving spores that AFB produces in both VFD and prescription forms. Proper Use and Withdraw Times soil is contaminated. While data of Tylosin and Lincomycin can be used I cannot stress enough AFB incidence can be difficult to for AFB only by prescription. the importance of proper use of obtain due to the stigma of this deadly Not every vet will agree to see medication. Labels and indications disease, known prevalence data year bees. To better serve their clients, for use must be followed. It is the law, to year only affects a small fraction many veterinarians self-limit but also good practice in providing of colonies. The literature supports themselves to the species of animals the safest course of treatment for your that it is likely that many healthy they serve, because the scope of bees, preventing drug resistance, and hives exposed to AFB spores can what we may cover is so vast. This preventing residues in bee products. manage the infection sub-clinically is not uncommon and not intended Many drugs, like antibiotics and and remain asymptomatic. to be exclusive. You would not call miticides, cannot be used when honey a cat clinic to see your goat, right? supers are on or must be withdrawn Provision of VFDs and But how do you fi nd a vet for bees? four to six weeks before honey supers Prescriptions for Antibiotics Here are a few suggestions. If you are added. This requires careful Since 2017, the FDA has required already have a local vet for your dog management planning and record a veterinary feed directive (VFD) or horse or whatever, it does not hurt keeping to achieve. For antibiotics, or prescription from a veterinarian to ask if they are willing and able to approved indications of these drugs to administer medically important see bees. The Honey Bee Veterinary can be used for prevention, control, antibiotics to bees. The formulary Consortium (HBVC) https://www. and/or treatment of disease. This is simple and limited. There are hbvc.org has lists of vets by state is of primary importance in the three approved drugs for use in that are willing to see bees. Your management of foulbrood in migratory bees, Oxytetracycline, Tylosin, and state’s Department of Agriculture and/or commercial operations. Lincomycin, available in 11 different (DA) has state veterinarians who may 

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46 BEE CULTURE February 2021 Holistic Health Practices: Beyond animals would be well acquainted good husbandry/understanding bee Antibiotics and Foulbrood to the nature of the relationship biology, Varroa and other disease While AFB and EFB certainly backyard beekeepers have with their control, nutrition, queen status/ can be serious disease issues, their bees. Large animal veterinarians genetics will go a long way in keeping prevalence and overall impact pales would be well up on the curve with the healthiest honey bees. BC in comparison to nearly every hive working with commercial beekeeping in the U.S. and much of the world farmers. Within the profession there References and resources for further being threatened by the panzootic are also research and lab animal reading: (pandemic), varroosis. Good health vets that can fi t in quite well with 1) Zoonotic disease prevalence: https:// requires evaluation of the whole entomologists. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/ patient. Would you only see your Continuing education on bee PMC5711306/#:~:text=Emerging%20 doctor for two diseases and treatment health is included in nearly every and%20endemic%20zoonotic%20 with three drugs? Thankfully, most major veterinary conference in the diseases,origin%20(1%2C2). backyard beekeepers may never have last four years and veterinary schools 2) Human cases of P. larvae bacteremia: to deal with foulbrood, but many across the U.S. and Canada are https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/ backyard beekeepers could use more adding bee curriculum. Currently, I articles/PMC3322038/ help understanding how to manage am working with a group developing 3) CDC information on antibiotic resistance: the overall health of their bees and a veterinary textbook series on bee https://www.cdc.gov/drugresistance/ maintain strong colonies. health and I am writing the chapter solutions-initiative/stories/ar-global- Certainly, state apiarists, review on registered drugs used in the threat.html university entomologists, seasoned U.S. and Canada for honey bees. This 4) WHO information on antibiotic resistance: beekeepers, and various beekeeping review will include not just antibiotics https://www.who.int/news/item/29- organizations offer many great but other medications for use in bees 04-2019-new-report-calls-for-urgent- resources for beekeeping. These for a variety of medical conditions. action-to-avert-antimicrobial- groups and general beekeepers alike resistance-crisis#:~:text=By%20 are still looking for more support to The Best Treatment: Prevention 2030%2C%20antimicrobial%20 cover the demand for good information As I end this three-part series, resistance%20could,die%20from%20 and services. Here’s where bee savvy I hope it gave you some insight into multidrug%2Dresistant%20tuberculosis. vets can add their abilities to partner how veterinarians are trained to Veterinary approved bee antibiotics: http:// with the industry. approach disease and help achieve www.farad.org/vetgram/honeybees.asp I think the stage is set-up for health in our patients. And with the Great resource for best practices and some complimentary relationship end, we are back to the beginning management of varroa and other diseases: building. Veterinarians that limit – the best treatment is prevention. https://honeybeehealthcoalition.org/ themselves to small, companion Prioritizing the four key elements of

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February 2021 BEE CULTURE 47 REFRACTOMETER n Hanna Bckmo

An analogue honey refractometer.

Honey typically contains somewhere between 14% terpart. Yeast needs nitrogen and mineral salts to grow, – 20% water, seldom less, sometimes more. Honey con- which is why some honey which contains a lot of those tains lots of other substances as well, such as carbo- substances will ferment faster. hydrates, mineral substances, enzymes, organic acids, There is no universally accepted number for what proteins, and vitamins, but it is the water that we are moisture content honey should have, but a good guide going to concern ourselves with in this article. The water to aim for is somewhere between 16-18%. Below 17% found in honey is mostly residual moisture after the pro- moisture content, no fermentation will occur. At 18% no cess of nectar ripening. I say mostly, because as honey fermentation will occur unless there are large amounts is hygroscopic, it absorbs moisture from its surrounds. of yeasts present. Above 19% moisture there is a defi - If honey is stored incorrectly after extraction, its water nite danger of fermentation regardless of the amount of content can increase. Frames of uncapped honey stored yeasts present. At 20% and over, yeasts will multiply incorrectly prior to extraction can also absorb moisture freely, and the higher the moisture content, the more and thus increase the water content of the honey. The rapid the fermentation becomes. percentage of water in honey depends on nectar origin, This presents the need for the beekeeper to be able honey maturity and environmental factors such as cli- to accurately measure the moisture content in honey. In mate, weather, and storage. the apiary, we may do a simple shake-test to see if the The water content of honey largely determines if the honey is ripe enough to be harvested, (give frames of un- honey can stay fresh. The lower the water content, the capped honey a good shake, if the honey comes out, it is better the honey will keep. As a beekeeper, being able to not ready, and if it stays in the comb, it can be harvested produce honey with the ‘right’ moisture content is im- and extracted alongside the capped frames). But when it perative, particularly if you intend to sell your honey or comes to bottling and storing the honey, we need to be a store it. Honey with low moisture content will crystallize, bit more scientifi c than that. or granulate, rapidly, but other than that it rarely gives any trouble. Where things go wrong is when honey with Measuring moisture content in honey high moisture content is harvested and subsequently When light passes through a substance, it changes stored incorrectly, as this can lead to fermentation of direction. This is called refraction. The amount of refrac- the honey. This would render it unsuitable for resale as tion that the light undergoes depends on the amount or anything other than baker’s honey. concentration of solids in the solution. A refractometer is an instrument that measures the refractive index of a Fermentation substance, or, in layman’s terms, the degree that light, In order for fermentation to occur, three components passing through a solution, is bent. By measuring the need to be present. Yeasts, relatively high moisture con- difference between the angle of the light coming in (inci- tent (in excess of 17%), and a suitable temperature for dence) and the angle of the light going out (refraction) of the yeasts to grow (10-30°C approximately). Take away a substance you have the components needed to calcu- at least one of these components and the honey will not late the refractive index. If you look at a glass of water ferment. For instance, store the honey below 10°C and/ with a straw in it, you will notice that the straw looks as or ensure that the moisture content is low. You can kill if it is bent or distorted. This is because the light pass- the yeasts by heating the honey also, but this is not es through the glass more quickly than it does through recommended as the heating process will destroy or re- the glass and water. Similarly, light will pass through duce the effect of the enzymes present in honey, as well honey with fewer solids faster than it will through honey as altering the fl avour. Yeasts are brought into the hive with many solids. Hence, the refractive index of honey with the nectar. Many yeasts will die when the nectar will change relative to the amount of sugars, pollen, and is dried out and the sugar concentration rises. Howev- other substances present in the honey. er, some remain in the honey. You will fi nd the greatest The refractometer is a very useful tool that measures amount of yeasts in uncapped or unripe honey, and it the refractive index, does the calculations, and presents also contains more water than its capped or ripe coun- a reading. Refractometers are used not only by beekeep-

48 BEE CULTURE February 2021 ers. Different types of refractometers are used in other scale, such as 90-60 Brix (or 10-30% water) which is professions and industries such as medicine, brewing, common for honey refractometers, you may have prob- machine- and car industries, gemology, and are used to lems calibrating it accurately if your reference solution measure salinity in aquariums, etc. The amount of sol- falls outside of those measurements. Many of the cheap- ids in a solution is measured on a Brix scale, where each er refractometers do not include any reference solution, degree of Brix (°Bx) equals one percent solids (There are and unfortunately many also come with the wrong in- other scales also, but the Brix scale is used when mea- structions. It does not necessarily mean that there is suring sugars). So, on a refractometer using the regu- anything wrong with the instrument itself, only that you lar Brix scale, 20 degrees Brix means that the solution have to do a bit more work to get it right. If you do not contains 20 percent solids. Anyone familiar with honey have a reference solution supplied with your instrument, refractometers will be aware that they do not present the it is possible to use oils that you have in your kitchen readings as solids in water, they work the opposite way to calibrate your refractometer. For instance, extra vir- and give measurements for water in solids. The scale gin olive oil can be used, as can liquid paraffi n. Extra works in reverse, and what we see is the water content virgin olive oil measures 71-72 Brix. If using this oil to of a solution as opposed to solid content. They are not calibrate, set it at 71.5 Brix (or 27% water). Liquid par- designed this way to confuse, but to make the process affi n has a moisture content of 24.5%. If you are unsure of measuring moisture content in honey more straight of the moisture content or Brix reading of a substance, forward for beekeepers, and more exact. The honey re- there is little point in attempting to use it as a reference fractometer also does not commonly have the full 0-100 solution. If, however, you are stuck and you happen to Brix scale, but typically displays values between 10-30 have access to someone who has a refractometer that (% water) or 70-90 (% solids). Both a regular refractom- is properly calibrated, you can use this instrument to eter and a honey refractometer can be used to measure determine the Brix of a substance, and then calibrate moisture content in honey, the only difference is how your own refractometer accordingly. This is obviously a the results are read. cumbersome way to go about it, so it is easier just to ask The refractive index will change slightly as the tem- them for a few drops of their reference solution if it falls perature changes so most refractometers are designed within the Brix scale on your refractometer. It is always to make corrections based on temperature using Auto- good to have a small bottle of reference solution stashed matic Temperature Compensation, or ATC. alongside the refractometer in your honey room. Write down the Brix or the moisture content on the bottle so Different refractometers If you are considering getting a refractometer to measure your honey, it is advisable to get a honey re- fractometer as opposed to a regular one. There are many honey refractometers available on the market, most are portable and easy to use. There are both analogue and digital instruments available, ranging in price from around 20 Euros or about $25US to several hundred and even thousands for laboratory style pieces. You can of course fork out for a top of the range digital version, but a standard analogue honey refractometer will give adequate readings. The readings will not be completely accurate but typically within one degree Brix, or 1 per- cent, fault margin, so will give a good indication of the moisture content in your honey, provided that the re- fractometer is used correctly and is calibrated properly.

Calibration The fi rst thing that you have to do with your re- fractometer is to calibrate it. By calibrating it, you are using a reference liquid or solution that you know the Brix reading of (or the moisture content) and adjust the instrument so that you get the same reading on its Brix scale. Some refractometers are already calibrated, but it is always good to re-calibrate it yourself fi rst before using it to test your honey. The screw used to adjust the reading could have become loose in transport, and it is good practice to recalibrate your instrument after it has been unused for any length of time.

Reference solution When calibrating the refractometer, you need to make sure that you use a reference solution that is suit- This is what you can see when you look into the eyepiece of a able for your particular instrument. For instance, if you honey refractometer. The honey measured here has a moisture are using a honey refractometer with a reduced Brix content of approximately 18.5%

February 2021 BEE CULTURE 49  that you do not have to rely on your memory, look it • Clean the clear panel and prism using a moistened up or make guesstimations the next time you need to soft lint free cloth and repeat. recalibrate. • Take multiple readings and calculate the average, es- This is how to calibrate an analogue refractometer pecially if measuring the moisture content of a bucket (for digital versions, follow the instructions provided or large amount of honey. with the instrument): • If the honey is to be stored, write down the moisture • Lift the clear panel that sits on top of the glass and content of the honey on the bucket alongside the clean the glass or prism with a lint free cloth. Then batch number and extraction date. add a couple of drops of the reference solution to the • When fi nished, clean the refractometer, and put away glass and spread it out. Make sure there are no air in its box. Be careful with the prism as any scratches bubbles in the reference solution and close the panel. can impair or interfere with the readings. Any air can be squeezed out by gently pressing down the panel and wiggle it slightly. In order to ensure that the honey does not contain • Remove the cover for the calibration adjustment piece excessive moisture, when harvesting make sure that the and have the little screwdriver at the ready. honey in the frames is ripe and take frames with capped • Hold the refractometer towards a bright light and look honey only. It is nearly impossible to completely exclude through the eyepiece. Focus the eyepiece if necessary, uncapped honey when harvesting and extracting, par- to make the lines and numbers clearer. You should ticularly at the end of Summer harvest, and many bee- see a fi eld of blue and another fi eld of white, with a keepers will include up to 10 percent of uncapped cells. very distinct line where the two fi elds meet. This line Take off the honey supers in the morning so that the marks the Brix of the substance measured. bees can dry out the honey over-night and to ensure • While still looking through the eyepiece, insert the that there is no new nectar coming in. If there are a lot screwdriver into the screw in the adjustment piece of uncapped frames to be harvested and extracted, they and turn it until the line correlates to the number for can be dried out prior to extraction using a fan and/ the known Brix reading of your chosen substance. or dehumidifi er. The honey can also be extracted and • Your instrument is now calibrated and ready to use. stored separately. Honey with high moisture content for Replace the cover for the calibration adjustment piece own use is best frozen in jars and taken out as they and clean the clear panel and prism using a damp soft are needed. Extracted honey with high moisture content lint free cloth. can be placed on trays and dried using a fan and/or de- humidifi er. Smaller amounts can also be mixed in with Refractometers need to be recalibrated regularly, at honey with low moisture content. If doing this, ensure least every season but preferably more often as the in- that the end result is a honey that has no higher than strument is sensitive. The adjustment screw can acci- 17-18% moisture content. dentally loosen during handling causing the reading to Finally, I would advise anyone who harvests honey change, and it is also somewhat sensitive to changes in to use a refractometer to measure the moisture content temperature. of the honey, whether it is for own consumption, gifts, or sale. BC How to use an analogue refractometer Once properly calibrated, refractometers are de- For any comments, feedback, or suggestions, please lightfully easy to use. Make sure the honey is well stirred email [email protected] (honey that has been sitting in a bucket or jar for some time will often have different readings in the samples Reprinted with permission of “The Irish Beekeeper.” taken from the top and bottom) and that the honey is the same temperature as the refractometer, ideally room temperature. • Lift the clear panel that sits on top of the glass and clean the glass or prism with a lint free cloth. Then add a couple of drops of honey to the glass and spread it out. Make sure there are no air bubbles in the honey and close the panel. Any air can be squeezed out by gently pressing down the panel and wiggle it slightly. Made in MAINE Quantity Pricing Available! Make sure not to put too much honey on the prism as it can make it diffi cult to get a clear reading. • Hold the refractometer towards a bright light and look • Frames through the eyepiece. Focus the eyepiece if neces- • Boxes sary. You should see a fi eld of blue and another fi eld • Outer Covers Manufacturers of Quality • Bottom Boards of white, with a very distinct line or border where the • Nuc Boxes two fi elds meet. In most analogue refractometers there Apiary Woodenware is an ascending Brix scale in the middle, and a de- Try our budget frames & boxes today! 1-877-4-BEE-BOX scending water content scale on the right. The line will We think you’ll be pleased. (1-877-423-3269) go through both scales and thus you can read both the Brix and the water content in percent in the same [email protected]· www.humbleabodesmaine.com reading. 636 Coopers Mills Road, Windsor, ME 04363

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February 2021 BEE CULTURE 51 I John iller B W O

Happy New Year Fellow Travelers! I observe conditions in the Indoor Beehive Wintering building most days. Here are a few Facilities nationwide are now in full things I’ve learned. As time goes by – Old shoes – last life. swing, shipping beehives to California the buildings are going to get smarter for almond pollination season. It – and the owner/operators will too. threw away in September have is 2500 semi loads of bees passing one fi nal calling. As careful as I through almost exclusively one ‘Bug 1. Beehives stored indoors shed dead am to keep a broom or squeegee Station’, in Truckee, CA. To address bees all Winter. Prepare for it. 300 in front of me at all times, literally the frequent congestion in Truckee, gallon totes are fi ne for storing the at all times; in spite of this: Shoes a Memorandum of Understanding dead bees. Dead bees sweep up get dirty, they stink; you might be is now in place between California, easy. A seasoned fl oor squeegee bodily thrown from your own house Idaho, and North Dakota. Montana with wings is good. Soft-bristled upon entering with ‘bee building’ will probably soon also join the MOU. brooms are fi ne too. Large areas of shoes on. I’m not afraid to defend Under the terms of the Apiary Pre- the building are open – the entire the clean building if visitors/ Inspection Certifi cate, participant middle of the building, is open inspectors come. “You’re welcome beekeepers may pass through for trucks to pass through. A 4’ inside; as long as this broom stays Truckee without delay. Truckers like broom will get that area clean in a in front of you at all times.” the program. Truckee offi cers like it. hurry. Stacks are, in our building 3. Marvels in the building. This More beekeepers join every year. supposed to have 25” clearance. particular hive is well-prepared I care for a building housing Perfect width for a 2’ broom or for Giant Hornets. Actually, the Miller Honey Farms, Inc. beehives. squeegee to sweep those bees to entire building is Giant Hornet This year we stored nearly 15,000 row ends. Stacks 23” apart are proof. See the amount of propolis hives. The building we use is designed an annoyance, the broom clunks covering the entrance? I looked to handle up to 22,000 hives; 120’ X the pallets on both sides. Soon – at the hive for other entrances 150’ w/ popouts housing refrigeration several dozens of compound eyes – the hive bodies are tight; and equipment. We put up the building in investigate the disturbance. The shown is the entrance for this 2015/16. red-light headlight banded to your hive. This is a breathing, living forehead becomes a beacon for super organism reliant on oxygen incoming. Avoid this. to survive – yet the entrance is so 2. Those garden shoes you almost propilized – it’s easy to imagine the

We are looking eye-level at the entrance. The white surface is the hive body. The plywood is the pallet bottom board. Visible are barely bee size holes in the propolis entrance-caulking. Dead bees – about a tote a week. 52 BEE CULTURE February 2021 C02 levels within that hive would be interesting to monitor. 4. Every concrete expansion joint is an opportunity to set a mouse trap. Consider, in the Fall mice like to move into beehives. Now, say there is one mouse per 16 hives; four pallets loaded into the building. [I’ll do the arithmetic for Orland beekeepers.] Loading 4,000 pallets = 1,000 mice happily hauled in while loading. This was my estimate in December, 2019. I had placed about 100 mouse traps in the building. I was trapping about 20 mice a day during December – in January the number dropped. So every concrete seam is the location of a mouse trap on the fl oor, and nd atop the 2 pallet of the eight pallet At every seam. Atop the second of eight pallets. stack. Groping your way around in a pitch-black building with a forehead light is confusing. Use stack averaged 115.4 pounds per Always. Indoor wintering buildings the seams to locate devices placed beehive. A semi can haul 80,000#. will be much better in 10 years. in the building. Tare it at 32,000# - 48,000# / Building designs will improve. 5. Data matters. This stack of 12 115# = 416 hives. Trim average Better software emerges [we re- beehives sets on a platform scale. hive weight 10 pounds; to 95# / wrote our software OS]. Beekeepers I have enough data to confi rm: bees hive; the semi now hauls 488 hives. do more ‘backgrounding’ of hives properly stored indoors use less 488 > 416. in Q3 – improving survival and feed than previously thought. In 6. Try stuff. Pictured is a grain effi ciency. BC our building, bees eat about 1/8 vacuum. Yup, it’s a drum with a of a pound daily. Knowing this, a twin blower vacuum with a really beekeeper using indoor wintering long hose. I bought it. It didn’t could verify weights in September cost $60,000 for a whole-building and store their bees to best meet vacuum system. The grain vacuum feed costs/needs. With discipline, works great – except the drum must beekeepers could reduce freight be lifted/hoisted to dump. You costs. On December 20, 2020 the will leave a pile of dead bees in the scale hives weighed 1385 pounds. drum once. Once only. If I use the 12 beehives aboard. Today the vacuum, I empty it before leaving.

Grain vacuum.

Colonies in stack on scale. Weight of colonies in the stack.

February 2021 BEE CULTURE 53 54 BEE CULTURE February 2021 ininrBsns Meal Planning – Hungry Bees Becky asterman Bridget enel

What if you were solely responsible well as the complex obligation we as within agricultural groups, but for the nutritional needs of your beekeepers have to other bee species. not among other stakeholders, like honey bees? With most livestock or In December 2020, the outgoing beekeepers and pollinator advocates. pets, feeding them daily is a big part chairman of the House Agriculture Concerns about both CP42 seed of your job as caretaker. Honey bees Committee, Rep. Collin Peterson, mix design and pricing need to be on the other hand can be established D-Minn., proposed a bill that would addressed through beekeeper input. and simply let loose on the landscape. require the Secretary of Agriculture If we understand the intricacies of the Your bees fl y for miles, over property to enroll 50 million acres in the legislative programs and proposals lines, to locate fl owers. They recruit Conservation Reserve Program our taxes fund, our voices and votes their sisters to fl oral patches, and (CRP) within fi ve years. While the can be used to improve and support hopefully gather copious amounts of current limit is 50 million acres, those initiatives that will best help us nectar and pollen. Food wise, bees only 22 million acres are enrolled. feed our bees. can be economical pets, that is until While not expecting the bill to pass, We look to beekeeping clubs you have hungry bees. Then what? Representative Peterson hoped to for mentorship and fellowship. Nutrition is an essential baseline for highlight the carbon sequestration Can these groups also foster an healthy bees, allowing them to thrive role that CRP provides. Importantly engaged beekeeper community and better resist disease pressures. to beekeepers, the CRP program that understands the issues and Whether you think of your already includes the option to provide opportunities around bee habitat? honey bees as pets, livestock, or the pollinator habitat with its CP42 The Minnesota Honey Producers tears of an ancient god: what are initiative (see link to article by Randall Association* took an important fi rst you doing to ensure that they are Cass below). step to address the habitat (and well-fed? Generally, conversations It was Minnesota farmer Keith honey) crisis at their December board about feeding bees focus on pollen Johnson who brought Representative meeting. They voted unanimously to substitute, syrups, sugar cakes Peterson’s CRP bill to our attention. form a Habitat Committee. and fondant. We all worry about Farmer Keith was concerned that If your organization doesn’t feeding our bees in early Spring or the proposed bill was being debated have a habitat committee yet, we in preparation for Winter, but not all beekeepers worry about ensuring their bees have access to diverse flowers. What if we spent more time planning for the flowers our bees will need? What if beekeepers actively managed their bees’ health not only inside the colony but outside the colony as well, through land management and community engagement? Some beekeepers can plant bee food plots right on their property, thereby supporting at least some of their bees’ fl oral needs. Of course, it is impossible for each beekeeper to plant enough fl owers to feed all of their colonies. Instead, feeding our honey bees must become a group effort. Exploring ways to engage others to feed our bees will also support our neighbor’s bees, and While we can’t plant offset the calories honey bees might enough fl owers for the fl bees in every apiary otherwise take from native bee owers location, it doesn’t hurt to in the area. Furthermore, planting try! Goldenrod is a great for bees as a central beekeeping late season source of bee practice might change how we view food. (Bridget Mendel beekeeping, underlining the primacy photo) of good nutrition for bee health, as

February 2021 BEE CULTURE 55  56 BEE CULTURE February 2021 challenge you to start one. Addressing Thriving clover bee the habitat issue within a club is lawn at the fi University of ef cient. Beekeeping organizations Minnesota’s can connect with local growers, Weisman Art habitat experts, legislators and Museum. Does the programs to learn about the issues lawn at your and barriers to putting more fl owers favorite art museum feed bees? Doesn’t into the ground. Instead of reacting to hurt to ask! (photo opportunities and political initiatives, by Marla Spivak) a committee can provide information and guidance to members who are invested in increasing the number of bee fl owers in our landscapes. If you are feeling responsible for each sip of nectar and load of pollen that your bees bring into the hive, changing your own landscape is just the fi rst step. Your free ranging bees (quoting Farmer Keith) need a community of habitat providers to support their nutritional needs. Next steps could be identifying community members with the power to plant and having conversations with them, addressing barriers to planting (like insuffi cient incentives to participate in CRP programs) through political action, or encouraging neighbors to participate in innovative programs such as the Bee and Butterfly Habitat Fund’s Seed A Legacy project. Through our strong beekeeping Representative Peterson’s CRP Bill: Acknowledgement networks and clubs, we have the https://www.agweek.com/business/ The authors would like to thank power to really increase habitat, agriculture/6787142-Collin- Dr. Marla Spivak for helpful edits and providing much needed growth in Peterson-unveils-bill-requiring-50- suggestions. honey production for commercial million-acres-in-CRP beekeepers, and making life easier Keeping Bees in CRP (Randall Cass, Authors for beginner beekeepers, too. BC Extension Educator Iowa State) Becky Masterman led the UMN Bee https://crops.extension.iastate.edu/ Squad from 2013-2019 and currently Resources cropnews/2020/04/keeping-bees- alternates between acting as an advisor Farmer Keith: https://www.beeculture. crp and worker bee for the program. Bridget com/wpcontent/uploads/2020/05/ Seed a Legacy Program https://www. Mendel joined the Bee Squad in 2013 and MayDig2020.pdf (p.56) beeandbutterfl yfund.org/ has led the program since 2020. (Photo *Mendel is the MHPA Secretary and of Becky and Bridget from 2014, before Masterman is a board member social distancing).

To learn more about the MN Bee Squad, watch for the BeekeepingTodayPodcast, sponsored by Bee Culture Magazine at www.BeekeepingTodayPodcast.com

February 2021 BEE CULTURE 57 The Beehives That Don’t Hold Bees,

Part 2 Brigham felt something was missing exodus of the Latter Day Saints so he converted to the Reformed in 1838. Brigham helped build Jim Thompson Methodist Church in 1824. the Mormon Temple in Nauvoo, At the age of 23, Brigham married Illinois and fi nished it in 1840. May This article was initiated by one Miriam Angeline Work and they had 1, 1846, Brigham and 147-159 of my copper clad postcards. The two daughters. In 1830 Brigham was Mormon pioneers were forced out of postcard is of the Beehive House of introduced to the Book of Mormon Nauvoo, Illinois. (The number varies Brigham Young in Salt Lake City. Here and joined the Church of Jesus depending upon the information are some of the events in Brigham Christ Of Latter Day Saints, April 14, source.) They wintered in Nebraska Young’s life. Brigham was born June 1832 and started preaching. Also in in late 1846 and arrived in Salt 1, 1801 in Whitingham, Vermont to 1832, Miriam died and Brigham met Lake Valley July 24, 1847. In 1849, John and Abigail (Nabby) Young. Joseph Smith, who was a Mason/ Brigham proposed a new territory for Brigham had ten siblings: Nancy, Mormon. 1833, Brigham moved to Mormons called the State of Deseret Fanny, Rhoda, John Jr., Nabby, Kirtland, Ohio and met Mary Ann meaning ‘Honey Bee’. It covered two Susannah, Joseph, Phinehas Howe, Angell. They married in 1834. He states and parts of seven others. Louisa, and Lorenzo Dow. His mother used his carpentry skills to help However it was never recognized by died of tuberculosis when he was 14. build the Kirtland Temple, which the United States Government and Brigham was kicked out of the house was the fi rst Mormon Temple. The the proposal was disestablished. The when he was 16. Thus he became Kirtland Temple was dedicated in Compromise of 1850 established the an apprentice to learn carpentry, 1836. Later it was set on fi re by the boundaries of the states. painting, and glazing trades. The local people who were against the The fi rst name for the residence family was primarily Methodist, but Mormons. The Kirtland Safety Society that Brigham built was Deseret which forced him and other Mormons out of is a derivation of the word bt. Some Kirtland in 1837, so he fl ed to Dublin, may say it comes from dsrt which is Indiana and then to Caldwell County, the red crown of the king of Lower Missouri. He started planning the Egypt and pronounced desheret. No bees were involved in this Deseret, but the meaning Brigham meant was to be cooperative work as in a honey bee colony. The pioneers of the Latter Day Saints brought with them five skeps. The Deseret was later renamed the Beehive House and was the primary residence, with offi ces for the Utah’s First Governor (Brigham). The Beehive House was completed in 1854 and had “apartments” consisting of a parlor, bedroom and front door for each occupant. Bee images can be seen with the carved skep on the crown, Newell posts, carvings or impressions on many window and door jambs, and designs on the door knobs. In 1856, the Lion House was built. It is a house built for the wives and children of Brigham and in the

58 BEE CULTURE February 2021 References: Behind the Beehive.pdf Brigham Young’s House the humble fabulist.pdf Brigham Young’s Obituary.pdf Brigham Young Wikipedia.pdf Brigham Young’s Wives.pdf Brigham Young’s Wives and the divorce from Ann Eliza Webb.pdg Deseret translation.pdf Masonic Symbols and the LDS Temple. basement is the dining room that in Utah. It is on businesses, Bail pdf will seat 70 people. Brigham had at Bonds, a Tea Room, Auto dealers, an State of Deseret.pdf one time or another 55 wives and Elementary School, a Credit Union, The faithful Young Family.pdf 56 children. Brigham Young did not Title Insurance, Glass companies, My postcard collection have a middle name. Brigham died Insurance companies, scooter sellers, August 29, 1877 and the LDS church clothing stores and even the dome of changed their views on Polygamy with some buildings. This is an interesting the 1890 Manifesto that was issued observation, but the use of the word in September, advising against future Beehive was in use long ago, as plural marriages. evidenced by some of my postcards. Mary Brown Malouf wrote an There are several more beehive article May 2, 2016 stating that postcards in my collection, but I the word Beehive is everywhere fi gured this is enough for now. BC

This postcard is dated in 1920 and is of the Bee Hive Store in Jamaica. Notice there is a streetcar in front of the building.

There were many Department Stores with the Beehive name and one of the fi rst ones in the United States was the Beehive in California, dated 1890. This picture shows the workers of the store A building originally built in 1882-83 for the U.S. standing out front. Infantry, but in 1921 the third fl oor was added and building is used for apartments. Its name? The beehive.

February 2021 BEE CULTURE 59 60 BEE CULTURE February 2021 American Foulbrood ntinittariinBsrsinrs

Before parasitic mites and their shape, and may be pockmarked with foulbrood bacteria release in order accompanying viruses came to pin-sized holes. Given that brood to melt down the larval bodies in the the shores of North America, the infected with active P. larvae spores fi nal stages of infection. The enzyme most serious of all diseases, from fail to hatch, diseased cells can will also break down milk protein U.S. beekeepers’ perspective, was often be found adjacent to healthy and will cause a weak solution of American foulbrood (AFB). While brood or surrounded by cells that powdered milk to clear up within varroa mites tend to suck up most of have been abandoned by healthy minutes. One teaspoon of powdered the oxygen in the room, AFB is still the hatchlings. As a result, frames of milk is mixed thoroughly in 100 most deadly and contaigeous of the brood in a colony suffering from AFB milliliters of water (a little less than honey bee pathogens. Any beekeeper often take on a spotty pattern, rather half a cup), The watered-down milk is worth their salt should be familiar than the more solid pattern typical of then poured into two clear glass vials with American foulbrood, know how healthy hives where the queen has or jars. As large a sample of brood to identify its symptoms and what to laid eggs of similar age all adjacent as possible from a suspected AFB do to address an outbreak. Seasoned to one another. Another factor that colony is collected with a toothpick beekeepers can benefit from this contributes to the shotgun brood and placed into one of the prepared review. pattern of a foulbrood infected hive is vials. Nothing is done with the second As its name implies, the the hygienic behavior of the workers vial of milk. Both containers are then bacterium Paenibacillus larvae who remove larvae after they get sick placed in a warm place (such as your (formerly known as Bacillus larvae) or die. shirt breast pocket underneath your that causes AFB infects bee larvae in AFB can also be recognized in bee suit) for at least one hour. If the their early stages, eventually killing the fi eld by testing the stringiness of sample contains AFB the vial with the them, and in advanced cases the the dead pupae, which are moist and sample will become clear compared infected brood give off a foul odor slimy in the early stages after death. to the control vial. that is very noticeable and vaguely When a small twig, piece of straw, or Vita Bee Health, (aka Vita Europe resembles the smell of rotten glue or toothpick is inserted into the pupal Ltd) manufactures a wide range of dead fi sh. Early in its progression, mass, it will tend to stick to the probe honey bee health products and has the pupa melts away like an ice and stretch a quarter to a half inch also developed an AFB diagnostic cream cone on a hot summer day as or so as the probe is removed, much kit that allows for fast and accurate the bacterium consumes it, causing like the sticky, ropelike viscosity of fi eld testing for foulbrood producing what’s left of the baby bee to ooze mucus. Dead pupae unaffected by results in about three minutes. down into the lowest part of the cell. foulbrood disease will not stretch or They also have a diagnostic kit for The pupae turns into a brownish become threadlike after being poked. European Foulbrood. slime resembling the color of milk One exception to this is European P. larvae is diffi cult to control chocolate. The remains of the brood Foulbrood (EFB). I have found that because in its resting stage the eventually dry out in the bottom of EFB can also cause infected larvae to bacterium forms spores that are the cell and create a black scale that stretch out when tested, however the reported to live for as long as 70 years adheres so tightly to the cell wall that difference is that with EFB, the larvae or more, until favorable conditions it is diffi cult for the bees to clean up does not turn chocolate brown. It may the mess, especially since the hive’s still be white, or an off-white color or Ross Conra population is reduced from the action multi-colored with some parts of the of the disease. larvae white and some tan, but not Once a diseased hive has all brownish like AFB. progressed to this stage, the colony American foulbrood is easily is typically so weak that neighboring spread, and it can destroy an entire hives have robbed honey out of the apiary if not attended to quickly. sick hive and spread the foulbrood Thus it is vitally important that every spores. Compared to healthy brood, beekeeper become familiar with and whose worker cappings will be slightly be able to recognize the symptoms raised in shape and light brown of AFB. in color, the cappings covering the One commercial fi eld test that cells containing infants infected with can be used to detect the presence foulbrood will often be dark brown of AFB is a powdered milk test to almost black in color, will have (Holst Milk Test). This test detects a greasy appearance and a sunken the presence of an enzyme that the

February 2021 BEE CULTURE 61  While a shotgun directly into the brood area, or they brood pattern could may kill the developing larvae and be a sign of AFB, it pupae.) isn't always. Varroa Sensitive Hygiene No matter how careful one is, Bees that remove however, antibiotic treatments (when mite parasitized they work at all) simply mask the larvae, a failing presence of the disease, preventing queen, and bees leaving open cells in viable spores from growing and the brood nest in reproducing. Such treatments do not order to make it remove the spores from the hive. As a easier for them to result, hives treated with antibiotics maintain the brood tend to quickly show signs of re- nest temperature are also reasons that a infection with the active form of AFB brood pattern may once antibiotic use is discontinued. appear poor. Photo In addition, special care must Credit Steve Parise be taken to ensure that honey being harvested does not become allow it to bloom. AFB is most often the active ingredient either in a grease contaminated with antibiotics. The spread from colony to colony by bees patty or mixed with confectioners’ regular consumption of minute doses from a neighboring colony robbing sugar and sprinkled near the brood of antibiotics in the human diet has out a dead infected hive and carrying nest within the hive. However, the been linked to the development of the disease back to their own nest, patties are not always consumed antibiotic-resistant microbes that or by drifters that visit from hives in a consistent and rapid manner, cause numerous human diseases infected with the disease. Beekeepers which creates a situation in which that resist conventional antibiotic may also unwittingly spread AFB by an incomplete dose of the antibiotic treatments. interchanging frames between sick is administered to the hive. The use of To permanently remove American and healthy colonies, by not cleaning such patties has been blamed for the foulbrood from a colony, all AFB up diseased equipment from a colony Terramycin-resistant forms of AFB spores must be eliminated from that has died from AFB before it gets infecting some hives. As a result, the the hive. With a strong dose of robbed out, or by feeding colonies USDA has approved a new and more determination and an investment honey contaminated with AFB spores powerful antibiotic, Tylan® (Tylosin), of time and resources, this can be which is taken from diseased hives. for use against foulbrood disease. accomplished within a single season Mixing the honey from a questionable This new antibiotic is extremely by removing every bit of drawn comb source with water to create a syrup stable, and rather than being used and beeswax, pollen, brood, and and then boiling the mixture for 20 prophylactically, as oxytetracycline honey from an infected colony. These to 30 minutes should kill any spores was, it should be applied only when are all the hive products that will that may be present and make signs of foulbrood are clearly visible harbor spores. Such an endeavor is the feed safe for use though not and lab results show that the strain best conducted early in the season, ideal. This is because when heated, of AFB is resistant to Terramycin. so that the hive has the maximum Hydroxymethylfurfural is created in The treatment should be applied as amount of time to build new comb honey and is mildly toxic to bees. a powder mixed with confectioner’s and store adequate supplies of honey For many years in the United sugar and shaken into the hive, to and pollen for winter. Also, by taking States, the only approved treatment reduce the chances that P. larvae will away a colony’s drawn comb early on for AFB was the use of the antibiotic develop resistance to Tylan® as well. in its yearly cycle, before egg laying oxytetracycline, known commercially (Antibiotics when applied in powder reaches its peak, a minimum amount as Terramycin. The drug is applied as form should never be administered of brood is sacrifi ced for the greater good. The actual process of eliminating Scale AFB from a hive consists of shaking each frame of bees from the hive into a new hive body fi lled with foundation. Included in the new hive body of foundation should be one empty In its later stages, frame of drawn comb. This frame of AFB infected larvae comb is left so that the bees have a melt down and dry place to deposit honey they may have out on the bottom engorged themselves with during edge of the cell creating black scales. the process of smoking and shaking These scales are very them into their new home. The very diffi cult to remove next day, the frame of drawn comb and contain billions containing these honey deposits of foulbrood spores. Photo Credit Steve should be removed and replaced with Parise a frame of foundation. The colony should then be fed uninfected honey

62 BEE CULTURE February 2021 or sugar syrup so that they have The classic fi eld test something to get started on and for AFB only works during the early won’t starve should cold, wet weather stages of the disease descend preventing the opportunity before the larvae has to forage. dried out and formed By following this procedure, all scales. Photo Credit: the beeswax, pollen, brood, and honey Steve Parise that may possibly contain AFB spores are removed from the hive. All of this material removed from the infected colonies should be burned, and all hive bodies, supers, inner covers, and bottom boards should be scraped clean of burr comb, which should also be burned. The woodenware itself can be scorched with a propane or equipment to become mixed in not been used on the colony and you torch or other device that will heat the among my hives, and I am vigilant have a high level of confi dence in surface of the equipment to a high in working to prevent someone else’s the source, accepting used frames enough temperature to ensure that apiary nearby from spreading the is tantamount to taking on someone any remaining surface spores are disease to my colonies. My primary else’s problems. destroyed. This may, or may not be defense is the hive autopsy as one Should I ever discover another enough to prevent a reoccurrence of of the biggest sources of disease outbreak of foulbrood, I will the disease once the equipment is put infection, and re-infection, are the immediately shake the surviving back into use in the bee yard. I did neglected carcasses of dead hives bees onto foundation and once this to my bees in 2002 and it worked. from other beekeepers close by. again destroy all the hive’s combs To date (18 years) I have not had any The keys to maintaining and honey. If this option is not resurgence of AFB despite it being a foulbrood-free colonies are regular immediately available, though, I reoccurring problem for me around hive inspections and careful will move the diseased hive to an the turn of the century. examination of every colony that dies isolated quarantine yard until it is That said, a 2001 study that for signs of disease. Once your hives possible to do so. It is important to looked at the disinfection of wood are disease-free, regularly removing eliminate all combs that exhibit AFB contaminated with Paenibacillus a couple of the old, darkened combs symptoms from your bee yard as larvae spores and published in the from the colonies each year and soon as possible to avoid having other Journal of Applied Microbiology by W. replacing them with frames of nearby colonies become infected with Dobbelaere et. al, found that scorching foundation will serve to reduce the the disease. BC only destroyed spores on the surface opportunities for disease spores to of the wood and not those that were build up within a colony’s drawn Ross Conrad is author of Natural imbedded deeper under the surface. comb reserves. By the same token, Beekeeping, Expanded and Revised 2nd To guarantee full decontamination one should make it a practice to avoid Edition, and Co-author of The Land of of woodenware the researchers frames of comb when purchasing Milk and Honey: A history of beekeeping suggest irradiating the equipment equipment. Unless you know that in Vermont. with gamma irradiation such as hard chemicals and antibiotics have found in a food irradiation facility. Other effective decontamination treatments recommended were chemical treatment such as with a 75 percent solution of chlorine bleach for 30 minutes. However given the water repellant nature of beeswax and some propolized surfaces, obtaining the required concentration over the surface of used bee equipment may be diffi cult. Heat treatment of infected FOR ALL YOUR PROCESSING NEEDS woodenware such as in an oven for two hours at least 160°F was 100 percent effective while dipping the woodenware in melted paraffin at 120°F for 10 minutes resulted in 99% decontamination. However, when the paraffi n temperature was increased to 170°F, complete decontamination was AMERICAN MADE IN OUR NEW FACTORY 3100 EXTRACTOR obtained both inside and out. I am now extremely careful never 978-772-BEES to allow any questionable frames www.MaxantIndustries.com

February 2021 BEE CULTURE 63 aintit Bsa Alice ckles

Susan knows her beekeeper beeswax supplier and puts magic in every jar.

wax becomes the architectural material the bees use to create cells for baby bees and containers to store their honey and pollen in. It’s a wonderfully moldable material. At Dancing Bee Gardens we harvest beeswax as we go through the hives, cleaning excess beeswax off inner covers and anywhere it seems unnecessary or in the way. We simply scrape these little bits into a “wax box” and The pandemic has been a game changer for Shashock’s busi- when enough is collected we add it to our home made solar ness, and though she’s had to cancel in person sales and prod- wax melter. The construction of a passive solar wax melter uct sampling, sustainability remains a key part of her mission. is covered in an article by Ross Conrad in the July 2019 issue of Bee Culture. Also we have found that removing An Interview With Susan Shashock old frames of comb from the hive is one of the best things we can do for the health of our hives, so we try to do it Thinking of the uses of beeswax and the myriad of often. Older wax will absorb and hold environmental businesses that rely on it from fi ne art to food wraps my pollutants over time, just like fat in the human body. The mind turned to my neighbor and friend, Susan Shashock old combs also go into the solar melter. Cappings wax of Middlebury, Vermont, who regularly buys bulk beeswax from the honey extracting process is placed outside on a from my husband and I at Dancing Bee Gardens, for her sunny day after being recovered from the uncapping tank skincare business, Caroline’s Dream. once the honey has been drained, to let the bees clean Honey bees make wax when a good honey fl ow is up the last bits of honey in the cappings. The cappings on and they have more nectar than they can consume wax is special: newly made, light, and clean making it or store in a timely manner. Young worker bees secrete the highest quality wax obtainable. This special cappings clear fl akes of wax from eight wax glands located under wax is reserved for skin care products like Susan’s and their abdomen. The bees then chew the fl akes and pollen we keep it separate. To keep her production costs down and propolis gets incorporated into the wax giving it the though Susan buys the wax from us in its raw state, as golden color and that sweet familiar beeswax smell. This a blob strait out of the wax melter, still needing to have the honey, pollen and propolis cleaned out of it. They say good business is about relationships and I think it’s interesting how circles of relationships overlap in this example: Dancing Bee Gardens’ relationship with honey bees, Ross Conrad of Dancing Bee Gardens and Susan Shashock of Caroline’s Dream both involved in local politics are friends, and Susan Shashock buys DBG beeswax for her cosmetic line. Susan Shashock sells her products at Elmer Farm Community Supported Agriculture in Middlebury where Ross Conrad has one of his beeyards and where we also sell our products. It starts to seem like it’s all one ball of wax! But beeswax has a different place in different businesses. My talk with Susan about beeswax in her business sheds more light on the comb. Beekeeper businesses stimulate the local economy in many ways by wholesaling products from their Fresh cappings collected from the uncapping tank following the hives as well as through pollination and other services. harvest, yields the highest quality beeswax for cosmetics and skincare products. Beekeeping businesses provide supplies and services for 64 BEE CULTURE February 2021 mead makers, farmers, artists, health and beauty product A.E. – What keeps you going, interested, and makers, and still other industries. Recognizing this good enthusiastic? that comes from what we do as a beekeeping business S.S. – I love getting outdoors. I hike, bicycle, and travel inspired me to ask Susan Shashock about her business as much as possible. I’ve been practicing yoga for 25+ and how beewax comes into it. years and I read and follow local politics. Alice Eckles – How did you get started making your A.E. – How has Covid infl uenced your business? products? S.S. – It’s been a game changer. I spent a lot of time Susan Shashock – I started because I wasn’t fi nding the and money last year investing in marketing and events products that would work with my sensitive, acne prone that were canceled or fell apart. My sales in January and skin. I tried them all and got so frustrated, that I took February were my best ever but they crashed in March a class on how to make my own. That fi rst moisturizer and are only now returning. My previous marketing relied that I formulated specifi cally for me worked so well that on in person demos that are now unacceptable, as well I started making some for gifts and experimented with as tester jars on shelves, and indoor pop-up shops. I’ve making other formulas for family and friends. In a few pivoted to develop no contact deliveries and refocus my years enough people wanted to buy them that I was able online newsletter. to start a company. A.E. – I know you encourage others to make their own A.E. – How long have you been in business? products as well. Before I ask you some more beeswax- S.S. – This coming April will be 20 years of Caroline’s centric questions I want to share with our readers my Dream, LLC. Beeswax Aromatherapy Balm recipe: A.E. – Has your business changed over the years? At the end of Summer I make an herbal salve with the S.S. – It was mainly a hobby for the fi rst 10 years. abundance of fresh herbs available. In the Winter with I dabbled mostly in local wholesale and direct sales short dark days and a snow covered garden, I decided to to family and friends. I did get a wonderful Canadian try making an uplifting woodsy perfume balm. wholesale account during this time that explains Here’s the recipe. the French translations on some of the labels. It was I/4 cup beeswax wonderful to have a creative outlet when my kids were 1/4 cup olive oil ( or other oil of your choice) young. 80 drops more or less of essential oils (I used cedar, fi r, The second 10 years I shifted my focus from wholesale and lemon grass) to more direct sales online and through local delivery on Containers to hold your perfume (I used little tins I found my electric cargo bike. I partner with a local farm CSA to at a food co-op.) deliver during Farm pick up days and will be expanding Pouring container such as a measuring cup with pour this concept in 2021 with more CSA’s. I also started spout. (Not plastic of course!) making a private label line for a cooperative of Vermont You might want to make a few or a bunch of different emu farms and I occasionally custom formulate for other scented batches. Try mixing your scent fi rst to make sure small companies. you like it. To get a pleasing balanced scent experiment A.E. – What’s your business mission? with using three different essential oils that you can S.S. – My baseline is functional beauty. I create high- classify as being a high note, a medium note, and a low quality products that work for busy people, supporting note. These are subjective classifi cations but once you their active lives. I keep my prices low in comparison to decide on them using your nose, try a mix that is mostly my competition to keep natural skin care accessible to the medium note, about half or less of the low note, and more people. just a hint of the high note. Or you could just use a single A.E. – What inspires you most about your work? essential oil. S.S. – I love matching customers to the right product for them. I love formulating and production days the most. I learned long ago that I need to create with my hands on a regular basis to be happy.

Wax Flakes

Master beekeeper Charlotte Anderson photographed one of her worker bees producing wax scales from the glands on her abdomen. This Cleaning beeswax is made easier by melting it in a solar wax photograph is from melter. Most of the debris in the wax gets left behind in the melt- her website ing tray of the melter. The melted beeswax fl ows into a water https://carolina- fi lled bucket below creating a freeform blob shaped by the water honeybees.com and the container."

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66 BEE CULTURE February 2021 Use a double boiler on medium heat to melt the Susan is beeswax and olive oil or other oil of your choice together. happiest Do not over heat. You shouldn’t see smoke! If it seems making it with too thick for your liking you can add more oil. beeswax on production Get your containers ready to pour into. Make sure days. they’re on a level surface. Take the melted mixture off the heat and add the essential oils. If you’re making different batches of scents you’ll need to divide the melted mixture and add the scent separately to each batch. Next use a heat safe pour spout container to pour your melted scented mixture into the containers. You might try just one fi rst letting it harden quickly outside or in the refrigerator, then testing it to see if the scent is the right strength. You can adjust the amount of essential oils at your nose’s discretion. Once these perfume balms cool and harden you can put on the lids and have fun labeling them and sharing with friends. Who doesn’t need a lovely scent or breath of fresh air? If making all your own skincare products seems like too much trouble, and you’d like to try Caroline’s Dream’s products, treat yourself to at https://www. carolinesdream.com/ with a one use per person 10% A.E. – What’s your experience fi nding suppliers of off discount code. Enter the code BEE during checkout. beeswax? A.E. – Now let’s get down to beeswax tasks. Tell me S.S. – I’m fussy about sustainable practices being in about all the different products that you make using place for my ingredient suppliers and have experimented beeswax. a few times fi nding other sources. I think you and Ross S.S. – All of my products use local Vermont beeswax. at Dancing Bee Gardens and I are on the same page and Three face and body creams, foot cream and a Chamois we are a good fi t. Cream which is anti-fungal and anti-chaffi ng for hikers After speaking with Susan I have to agree. We are and cyclists. I have three different lip balm‘s, medicinal not only on the same page but we’re on the same cottage salve, sunscreen and deodorant. industry scale. You’ve probably heard of Burt’s Bees A.E. – Why do you use beeswax in these formulations, and maybe even Bee’s Wrap, they’re some of the bigger and where do you fi nd quality beeswax? companies that have made beeswax a prominent part of S.S. – I love the properties beeswax offers as a natural their product. ingredient that I can buy locally and it offers a mild, Many materials of the earth and nature have lent delicious scent. It makes the creams particularly creamy. themselves to the creative needs of humans over the I use only Dancing Bee Gardens beeswax for my products. millennium, for example: clay, stone, and wool. But I sometimes source other locally sourced beeswax for the the human relationship with honey bees and the use of private label line. beeswax in value added products going back to prehistory A.E. – I know you buy our beeswax in its raw state seems extra special for the long-standing universal value straight from the solar wax melter. Do you process it of beeswax and the inter-species cooperation since the any further, and how much beeswax do you go through very fi rst farmers kept bees...around 9,000 years ago. per year? We’ve had our ups and downs but we’re still in bees-ness S.S. – I melt and fi lter it then let it harden into small, so to speak, and it’s a source of great hope and inspiration easy to use chunks. I do a rough fi lter though, I’m not that we can go on, relating, creating, and bee-ing. trying to get every bit of propolis, pollen and honey out. As I write this it is Thanksgiving Day and I refl ect That’s the good stuff that makes my products extra upon how I am thankful for the drones who sacrifi ce special. Previous years I used 25 to 40 pounds of beeswax, themselves for the good of the hive, the workers who lift this year it’s been less. and carry, and to the sacred mothers who pivot eternity A.E. – What have you learned about working with with each new queen’s generation. I’m grateful for the beeswax? bees, the beekeepers, and the opportunity to make S.S. – I have learned that all beeswax is not the same. something of it. BC When I experimented with wax purchased in bulk from wholesalers, my creams were affected. Maybe I was the Alice Eckles is the author of The Literature Preferred by only one to notice but they did not blend as creamy, and Wild Boar, a novel. While she sometimes assists in beekeeping, the yummy beeswax scent was noticeably diminished. she mostly handles the value added parts of the beekeeping A.E. – Would you ever consider substituting another business she shares with Ross Conrad and has fun exploring type of wax or ingredient for beeswax in your recipes? the intersection of beekeeping and art via her artist business S.S. – No. I would never use petro chemical or soy AliceEcklesStudio.com. waxes. My products are certifi ed Paleo and my competition in that category mostly use tallow. I prefer the smoother and thicker fi nish of beeswax.

February 2021 BEE CULTURE 67 BIGGER PICTURE Jessica ouue Fanirsit

It is pretty obvious that people out that it’s three different puzzles to a hobby beekeeper for a long time, have been home too much. The thrown in the box and maybe 17 if at all. If you ever watched the movie internet has always been a little bit of pieces are missing. You throw them “The Devil Wears Prada” there’s a a wild territory with people on social the missing pieces and they insist scene where Meryl Streep puts Anne media, just because of the anonymity they don’t need them. Anyway. Hathaway in her place for dismissing and distance given to users. People Maybe some people are bored and the fashion industry, explaining how are much more likely to be rude, trying to pick a fi ght to pass the time, the fashion world brought her the condescending, and harass people but it seems like most people just blue sweater she was wearing. Work than they would in person. With the think they have superior knowledge might get published, but it’s usually pandemic being both politicized and to everyone else and nobody is on a long way away from being able to medically-based, it is amazing to their level. I can’t say much because be applied in a practical manner to a watch the people that suddenly have if someone particularly catches my hobbyist beekeeper. It doesn’t mean a doctorate in political policy and eye as a Pompous Poster, I will join in it’s not interesting or useful to know, medicine. As beekeepers, we already the action to amuse myself. Typically, but just not applicable to beekeeping had a lot of this fl oating around in our I prefer not interacting with people, at the time. A lot of the work done is community, and now it has expanded especially in the beekeeping forums. to understand how colonies work, to some impressive proportions with You just can’t convince anyone they what makes them tick, and just how the inability to communicate face-to- might be wrong and it’s not usually they do things in general. How queens face with others. mate might not make a bit of The internet could have difference to how you keep your been so useful. Now, you can’t bees, but knowing that certain trust just about anything you miticides may make a difference see or read or hear. Everyone in how successful a queen is has some sort of motive with her mating might make you behind whatever they say, choose a different chemical than and the people telling the you normally would. Or, it might truth are just as frustrated not because sometimes these as the people trying to fi nd it. studies may be rerun and have Imagine working diligently on different results because one a project, going through peer variable was different. Bees can review, and then having your be incredibly tricky to work with work published. Then, the since they are a superorganism people reading it are hobby and they are codependent on so beekeepers who are online a many external factors. If you are whole lot more than they used reading these articles to improve to be, and they critique the work worth my time. Sometimes . . . I your beekeeping, look for things that you did with no prior knowledge of just can’t help myself. I try not to can be applied to your work. anything used as the basis of the be mean, but also specifi cally point If you’re reading to stay on top research, or how the research even out everything that was wrong with of the beekeeping and honey bee works. I’ve seen countless people their argument. I have even requested community news, then you have a argue with articles posted in my to speak at bee meetings before to lot more options. A lot of the articles own state’s Facebook group postings address issues that have come up in can be overwhelming, especially if and it has to be just for the sake of arguments when I knew the person you don’t have a science background. arguing. If they’re proven wrong, they was part of that association. They Sometimes I fi nd them annoying and just double down on the ignorant don’t usually show up, because I’ve been doing beekeeping work for “fake facts” they posted and act like people like to be right in their wrongs. over a decade – albeit not the kind it must be true because they either I have some suggestions for you that typically gets published in a “read it somewhere on the internet” guys who aren’t looking to argue on journal. It is pretty common for a or made it up in their heads because the internet, but you want to learn person reading an article they found it sounded logical to them. It’s like some information and expand. To be that was posted to add a comment watching someone try to put a puzzle honest, there’s a lot of information below about something they didn’t together, thinking they are a master published in scientifi c journals that like, found confusing, or disagree of puzzles, and they can’t figure aren’t really going to make a difference with. This opens their comment up 68 BEE CULTURE February 2021 to the entire community and that’s are specifi c parameters that have to internet. If you decide that you want really a mixed bag of experience and be met though, and usually those to feed your babies pollen patties, abilities. It’s also common for people suggestions come from other people and you have the patience to clean to try to point out small mistakes or with research experience. up the disaster that pollen powder grammatical errors in publications. Most people also spend a lot of makes, then there are a decent I think this is to make people feel time and work and blood, sweat, amount of videos and recipes on how better about themselves when they and tears in those studies and are to make them and none of them will don’t understand the content, but more than happy to converse with particularly steer you wrong. If it ends I personally think it’s rude and genuinely interested people about up in pollen patty form, you probably condescending. If your commentary the research. If you have questions, did it right. isn’t adding to the conversation, and it’s not often that an author won’t Just try to remember that nobody you’re pointing out something that respond and will usually tell you likes bullies, nobody likes people can no longer be fi xed, you’re just more than you ever wanted to know. that point out their mistakes, and being a crappy person and trying to They will be the true expert on that everyone will remember who you are bring negative attention to someone study because they’re the ones that and that’s not a good thing. Be nice else. did the work, so they can probably to people and ask questions that are If you have a genuine question give you the best information on how genuine to learn information and about the article, even well meaning to dissect the work and take value make your beekeeping better. people answering can still be wrong from it. Everybody is having a rough because of the desire to try to be If you’re a new-ish beekeeper and time, so don’t make it worse on helpful and feel important posting, trying to fi nd classes online . . . good someone else. Don’t make your but still have incorrect information. luck. I think our state is doing online mama disappointed in your behavior. If you are just trying to vie for social beginner classes for the Spring, but Also, even if you curse like a sailor interaction, lob out some simple sometimes you want information in person (I know I do), it takes questions to bolster other people throughout the year and it’s hard to premeditated effort to curse in a post that know the answer and use it to reach out to people who can’t come that you type and people don’t take have a good beekeeper conversation. in person. you any more seriously for cursing in If you have a true question, the best I am a fan of printed books, a post. Have some respect if you want thing to do is email the authors. especially older beekeeping books to receive it in return. Believe me, I Sometimes I think people forget for accurate information. People are know how hard this might be because that’s an option. Most of the basic less likely to publish garbage in print I have to edit the cursing out of my methodology of my work stays the because it takes too much work. You mental sentences all the time before I same within each study type, but I try can take a few minutes to a few hours type them. I don’t bother with spoken my best to go through commentary and publish on the internet. Books sentences most of the time – which once the EPA releases to the public are awesome because you can take may be a problem if we ever get back to fi nd useful criticism. It’s not easy them with you to the beeyard if you to normal social interaction. BC with lots of people writing garbage, need to, you can download some of but most people conducting studies them on your phone or iPad, and you Jessica Louque and her husband do like to fi x holes in the methodology can keep them for reference forever. Bobby are homebound in NC with kids, to make the research more sound. Most information on beekeeping bees, dog, cats and more, hoping for a A fresh eye can bring a different hasn’t changed all that much. Bees better year. perspective to a study, giving you an are hungry, feed them. Bees have idea you may not have thought about mites, manage them as best you previously. It can be diffi cult if there can. Bees get cold in the Winter, keep them warm. Queens die, get a new one. How you choose to solve each of the answers is the biggest learning curve, but it can depend on climate, environment in general, your race of bees, your beekeeping experience level, and how frisky you are. If you’re having hungry bees, do you just do straight sugar syrup? Do you use corn syrup? Do you add a supplement like Honey-B-Healthy? Do you add pollen? Do you make your own pollen patties and if so, do you use pollen powder mix like AP23 or do you buy pollen baskets? All of these things are questions that you have to fi gure out on your own, largely with the help of the internet. This is the kind of thing that you can fi nd and shouldn’t be too controversial on the

February 2021 BEE CULTURE 69 A P M Joe Traynor

Ask an almond grower what was the most useful Pollen-collecting honey bees usually work four hours/ class he took in school (including college) and if he (she) day in almonds (10AM to 2PM). Bees will visit 10 fl owers/ thinks about it long enough, the answer should be math, minute (20 or more, if pickings are slim; less than 10 if they maybe algebra in high school, maybe arithmetic in the can get a pollen load from a few fl owers) 3rd grade. Growers are faced with math problems daily – Assuming 4000 worker bees/acre and 100 trees calibrating spray rigs, fi guring the amount of chemicals per acre you should see 20 bees per tree during bloom if to apply per acre, fi lling out use reports, making out using one strong colony/acre (about half of those 4,000 budgets and calculating ROI (if you’re fortunate enough workers will be fl ying or will be depositing their pollen to have an ROI). loads in the hive). Virtually every problem facing mankind can be 20 bees per tree visiting 10 fl owers a minute will visit reduced to a math problem, whether landing a vehicle on a total of 200 fl owers in a minute, or 48,000 fl owers in Mars, projecting the consequences, if global warming is a 240 minutes (4 hours). valid thesis, feeding a growing world population, reducing At 100 trees per acre, there are 20,000 fl owers per pollution, returning a Republican to the White House, tree. 20 bees per tree will visit each fl ower two or more etc. Little wonder that our greatest scientists – Newton, times in one four-hour day (four or more times in two four- Galileo, Einstein, Feynman and many others – were (are) hour days). Although it takes only one pollen grain to set primarily fi rst-rate mathematicians. a nut, excess pollen deposited on the stigma of the fl ower Rapidly expanding almond acreage coupled with stimulates the growth of that one pollen grain. a static, or diminishing supply of bees is causing the Individual almond fl owers remain receptive for two to almond industry to confront a major math problem: can four days but are most receptive the fi rst two days after growers get by with fewer colonies per acre? Here’s the they open (UC). original 1947 UC recommendation: “In general, one hive The effective blooming period (when all fl owers are per acre is ample, even in adverse seasons” (Extension receptive) can be from three to 10 days. The more the Circular 103, Almond Culture in California). Today, the bloom is strung out, the more time bees have to complete generally accepted fi gure is two hives (colonies) per acre, the pollination job. with colony strength rarely defi ned. Some growers use Frank Eischen (USDA) has shown that one strong 2.5 to three colonies per acre as a hedge against poor colony, equipped with a pollen trap, can collect six lbs of bloom weather, while others have cut back to 1.5 or one pollen in a day (12 lbs over a two-day period at peak bloom; colony per acre but make sure they are getting strong signifi cantly less than six lbs/day on the days before and colonies – defi ned as colonies with eight to 10 frames of after peak bloom). This colony had to stray out of its one bees. Growers that have cut back on colonies have not acre allotted area to get six lbs. in a day; pollen traps cause seen reduced yields, even in 2011, when bloom weather colonies to collect more pollen than they normally would was far from ideal. and they do so at the expense of colonies without traps. Some of the basic math data needed to determine An eight-frame colony will collect signifi cantly more the optimum economical number of colonies needed per pollen than two four-frame colonies. (American Bee Journal, acre is given below. Because one can easily get bogged Feb. 1977, p.78; California Agriculture, UC, August, 1970). down in this quicksand of data a shortcut (rope) is delivered afterwards. If the heavy dose of fi gures below is too intimidating, you can cut to the chase further down. A 3000 lb almond crop has 1 million nuts (assume 350 Growers Are nuts/lb). Assuming a 50% set of fl owers, it would take 2 million fl owers to give a 3000 lb crop (recent work by Frank Eischen, USDA, has shown that percent set can vary from Faced With 25 to 75%, requiring four million and 1.3 million fl owers respectively to attain 1 million nuts). Almond fl owers produce 0.7 to 1.2 mg of pure pollen (up to 2.4 mg of bee-collected pollen; bees add “glue” to Math Problems pollen). Assuming two million fl owers/acre, an almond orchard will put out from fi ve to 10 lbs of pollen per acre. (American Bee Journal, April 2001, pp.287-288) Daily A frame of bees contains about 1500 bees. An eight- frame colony contains about 12,000 bees; a third of these bees (4,000 bees) will be foraging bees. 70 BEE CULTURE February 2021 good pollination in a one-hour year, there’s a good chance Bee fl ight hours and statewide almond yields, that bloom-time diseases would take your crop. 2011 and 2012 Note: The data fi gures given above are, in many cases, 2011: 47 hours, 2650 lbs/ac. 2012: 65 hours, 2550 best guesses; actual fi gures can vary 100% or more from lbs/ac. (est.) Bee fl ight hours, courtesy of Tom Dunklee, those given. Hopefully these fi gures will be refi ned in Global Climate Center are for Merced but hour differences coming years and a skilled mathematician will calculate for other almond areas are similar (Sacramento Valley a more exact fi gure for the optimum number of colonies/ stations averaged only 22 bee hours in 2011). acre that almond growers should use. Now, forget all the above data and calculations – here’s the shortcut, the rope: Using strong colonies, When the Pollen is Gone honey bees collect the daily ration of pollen provided by Once bees have stripped the almond pollen from almond fl owers by 2 PM (or sooner). Walk your orchard your orchard, the pollination game is over – no pollen, after 2 PM and rub the anthers of the fl owers between no pollination. A strange phenomenon, perhaps unique your thumb and forefi nger; if the bees have done their to almonds, occurs when the pollen is gone – bee activity job, you should see little or no pollen on your fi ngers – often increases! You will often see more bees/tree after the bees have fi nished their work for the day and are your trees have been pollinated. Look closely, though, too smart to expend valuable energy for a minuscule and you will observe that these busy workers are all reward (to verify this, check the entrances of your hives nectar-collecting bees, pushing their tongues to the for returning pollen-collecting bees). If there is still pollen base of the fl owers to suck out the sweet nectar. Almond on your fl owers after 2 PM you need stronger bee colonies fl owers release most of their nectar after the fl owers are or more colonies. Can you get by with fewer than two pollinated. We learned in grammar school that fl owers colonies/acre? Using the 2 PM orchard walk outlined produce nectar to attract bees to transfer pollen, so what’s above, it is certainly possible, but make sure you rent going on here? At this time, we don’t know. Although there eight to 10-frame colonies. The 1947 UC recommendation is no proof, some have speculated that the sugar-laden of 1 hive/acre (with no strength specifi cation) could well almond nectar nourishes the small developing nutlet, hold true today, but only if the hives contain strong bee helping it to survive post-bloom nutlet drop. Some growers populations. release their bees after all the pollen is gone, but most Almond pollination is a community effort so make won’t release bees until they see no more fl owers. If you sure your neighbor rents colonies of suffi cient strength to decide you want all or most of your bees removed from prevent your bees from seeking bigger rewards elsewhere. your orchard when there are still many nectar-collecting Because one eight-frame colony will collect signifi cantly bees working (but no pollen-collecting bees) you may more pollen than two four-frame colonies, paying a fi nd beekeepers reluctant to move them out, as almond premium price for the stronger colonies is a worthwhile nectar is a valuable food source for bees. Unless bees investment. And remember that a hive is the structure have another fl ower source to go to (as would Florida or (usually wooden) that contains the colony of bees. Hives Texas bees) they are better off remaining in the orchard can contain 0 to 20,000 or more bees. In any given year, until the last drop of almond nectar has been extracted. there will always be plenty of hives available for California almond orchards, but not all orchards will be supplied Beekeeper Math with strong bee colonies. Beekeepers that attempt to satisfy almond growers The argument, and it’s a good one, against cutting demand for strong bee colonies are faced with a diffi cult back on bee colonies goes like this: I know I can get by choice: spend the necessary money to produce such with fewer bees most years, but for that one year when colonies, or rent weaker colonies at a reduced price. the bees only get an hour or two to do the job, I want as According to UC Extension Apiculturist, Eric Mussen, many bees out there as possible – it’s good insurance. “four frames of bees is the size a Central Valley California 2011 was a year when intermittent rains confi ned bees colony is likely to be (if it survives) when it is not fed to their hives for extended periods. Bee fl ight hours for extra syrup and protein during the year.” (Jan/Feb 2010 2011 were the lowest in the 10-year period these hours Newsletter, From the UC Apiaries). Dr. Mussen estimates have been recorded – 22 hours in the Sacramento Valley that beekeepers must spend $120/colony to provide – yet the 2011 almond crop hit an all-time record of 2650 four-frame colonies and $200 to $220/colony to provide lbs/acre. Even in a poor-weather year, there should 8 to 10 frame colonies (these cost fi gures are likely 10% always be enough bee-fl ight hours between storms to higher for 2013 than they were in 2010). A beekeeper is allow strong bee colonies to do their job. If there is only better off, probably far better off, renting a four to six- one hour of decent bee weather over the entire pollination frame colony for $150 than renting an eight to 10-frame period, sure, you would benefi t from more bees. Such an colony for $200. Even with record almond pollination event is highly unlikely, but in our current era of unlikely fees, building high bee populations that continue to weather events, it’s certainly possible. If forecasts indicate consume expensive feed during the Winter (both before a prolonged monsoon event with maybe only an hour and after almond bloom) does not make economic sense or two of good weather over the entire blooming period, for many bee operations. With Varroa mites, viruses and then ordering more colonies would be prudent. Although diminished bee pasture taking an ever-mounting toll on there probably wouldn’t be any extra bees in California, honey bees, today’s beekeeper feels fortunate if he can beekeepers in Texas and Florida often have bees available cover operating expenses, let alone attain an ROI (a term after almond bloom starts but would need a few days foreign to many beekeeping operations). BC notice to get them here. Even if extra bees did give you

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72 BEE CULTURE February 2021 WINTER FEEDING

Tina Seestyen

One of the things I love about surviving, however, you have just and the bees must be able to break horizontal hives is the way we can ended it for them. Ask me how I know. cluster, go get food, and return to the help our bees in mid-Winter. The Here is the process for safely cluster. Moving food stores makes confi guration of the hives allows us checking on a colony in a top bar it much easier and safer for them. the opportunity to help the bees in hive or long Langstroth hive, and Sometimes in spring, a dead colony Winter, besides being our handicap. adding food if necessary. Start at will be found with bees spread out In a Kenyan top bar hive, the bars the back of the hive, well behind the instead of clustering. This may have create a solid roof over the bees, so cluster, removing bars or frames until been because there was no queen, that many of the bars can be removed you begin to see a few bees moving but sometimes it is because they were without ever exposing the cluster. around (the temperature should be at on a mission to get food, a cold snap In a long Langstroth hive, the use of least 40 degrees). The queen will have descended suddenly, the bees were either wooden slats over the combs started laying eggs soon after the paralyzed by it, and could not return or a burlap cover affords the same winter solstice if there is enough bee to the cluster. By moving the honey protection of the cluster. bread in the colony, and if she has closer, we keep the bees from having First, a word of warning – it is enough bees. The cluster must keep to trek so far. entirely possible for a tiny cluster the brood nest at a balmy 96 degrees, Feeding pollen substitute of bees to make it through winter, so it is important not to open the in Winter can be dangerous. It only to be killed by curiosity. This brood chamber. Set aside the empty encourages bees to raise brood means you! Exposing a cluster with frames or bars and scoot full ones when they shouldn’t, or to raise few bees can cause their deaths, forward, to just behind the cluster. more than they can afford. Italian because it is so disruptive, and the If you saved a sheet of bee bread in bees especially get going on raising cluster cannot recover from the lost the freezer and have thawed it, place babies, and forget that it might be heat and humidity. It is diffi cult to it fi rst, right behind the cluster. Put a long time before incoming nectar resist exploring to see where the bees all of the empty frames or bars in at makes up for dwindling honey in the are if you can’t see or hear bees. It the back of the hive, away from the hive. Most commercially produced is human nature to want to know cluster. Once the queen starts laying Winter patties do have some pollen what happened. If a tiny cluster is eggs, the cluster is anchored in place, substitute, but it is much less than

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74 BEE CULTURE February 2021 one would give a colony in Spring or Pressing about four Summer. Having a sheet of bee bread pounds of sugar mixed with four in the freezer to thaw and give in late Tbs. of water onto Winter is the perfect answer. It allows ½” hardware cloth them to start raising brood when “rebar” on a top conditions are right without causing bar, in a cardboard seasonally inappropriate amounts of form the exact size of a drawn comb. brood rearing. A difficulty in horizontal beekeeping is emergency feeding if it is discovered that the bees have eaten all of their stores. We can’t simply lay sugar on top of the bars as in regular Langstroth beekeeping. It is possible to have the lid of a long hive made in such a way that there is space for and your hands. Press the resulting in hive top feeders in cold weather bee candy. This makes the lid much mixture into the form and around the can be dangerous for bees. In a bigger and harder to handle. It is too hardware cloth and allow it to set in hive top feeder, the liquid gets cold cold in much of the country to feed a sunny spot for two or three days, over-night, and the cold attracts sugar water. until it is hard enough to pick up the condensation from the bees’ A better plan is to make candy without crumbling. Hang this bar in respiration. The condensation can for the bees. Using the same recipe the hive, right in front, or right behind then drip down onto the cluster that is used for regular Langstroth the cluster for easy access. A similar of bees. Wet bees are dead bees. hives, we make our bee candy so bee candy frame can be made for the Even using a frame feeder can be that it can go in a frame or hang from long Langstroth. Just press the candy dangerous for them, since when a top bar. Take one of the top bars right onto plastic foundation. the bees ingest the cold liquid, it with drawn comb and use it to make For true “emergency” feeding, paralyzes them, and they fall in and a template out of cardboard to hold there is nothing like having a frame drown. the sugar in the right shape while it or bar of honey comb frozen to thaw On days that are warm enough sets. Lay the drawn comb on the piece and give back to the colony. I would for the bees to fl y, you can give them of cardboard, and without cutting have left the extra honey comb in liquid feed away from the apiary. If we through both sides of the cardboard, the colony, so if I discover a cluster were to feed them outside the hive, score the surface with a utility knife, of bees alive, but with no honey at but in the apiary, the bees would have and then turn the cardboard over. all, it is time for drastic measures. difficulty communicating to each Bend the cardboard towards you It is possible to give them 2:1 sugar other about the location of the feeder. along the score lines. Use duct tape to water right in their empty comb. Or, they might just get used to being help it hold its shape. Now, on a top Take a comb as close to the cluster fed in the apiary, and once the feeder bar that has no drawn comb, bend as you can without disturbing them. is no longer present, they might and staple on a piece of ½” hardware Hold it over an empty five gallon decide that they can get food from cloth (or whatever you have) to act as bucket to catch the drips, and using the other hives nearby. Feeding liquid rebar for strengthening the candy. a bike bottle, shoot the sugar water feed inside the apiary causes robbing. Lay the top bar with hardware cloth into the comb. It is diffi cult to get it Place your feeder at least 100 feet inside the cardboard form, ready to in, so use good pressure in a thin away to avoid inciting robbing. The receive the candy. Mix one tablespoon stream. Sometimes it helps to rub a simplest feeder for this time of year of water to each pound of sugar using fi nger over the comb to break the air is a fi ve gallon bucket without a lid. the dough blade in a stand mixer, bubbles under the water. Float straw or Styrofoam pellets to or just mix with a wooden spoon Feeding liquid feed inside or keep bees from drowning, or stand twigs in the bucket for bees to walk in and out on (the bees love this best). My bees often fl y as soon as it is over 42 degrees, cool days get even cooler early in the afternoon. The bees will be so intent on gathering as much food as they can that they will stay out much later than they should. Go out before it gets too cool, and bang on the side of the bucket until all of the bees fl y out, so that you can bring it in, in plenty of time for everyone to safely fl y home. Late Winter is a dangerous time for bees when they are most likely to starve. Don’t let it happen to you! BC

February 2021 BEE CULTURE 75 VACCINATIONnBsainstmrianFr Daliel reitak Brood diseases in honey bees are diseases. It can spread quickly within startup founded on basic research caused by various bacterial, fungal and between beeyards, causing hives aimed to understand how honey and viral pathogens. These pathogens to collapse extremely fast. Hence bees transfer the protection against target the brood (the eggs, larvae and very strict measures are in place a disease from one generation to pupae of the hive) and are especially should infection surface in any one the next. Historically, vaccination heinous. The growth of the hive is hive. In many countries the entire of benefi cial insects, such as honey hindered, and in the case of a high apiary needs to be quarantined bees, was deemed unfeasible since infection rate, the colony is lost. The and the infected hive(s), bees and these animals lack the antibody- majority of the brood diseases, if equipment in contact with those based, acquired immune system not all, are globally distributed, and hives must be burned. No truly present in vertebrates such as are causing serious ecological and effective measures exist against AFB, humans. Our breakthrough in the economical issues worldwide. though prophylactic treatment with understanding of immune priming in One of the most devastating antibiotics has been used for some honey bees indicates that vaccination global bacterial brood diseases time now. The use of antibiotics can occur via the mother insect, of the honey bee is American has led to number of negative side namely the queen. This phenomenon, Foulbrood (AFB), which is caused by effects, as the bacterium becomes coined ‘trans-generational immune Paenibacillus larvae. P. larvae is a more resistant to the medication, priming’, was fi rst observed a decade gram-positive bacterium which can and the honey cannot be sold for ago, but the mechanism remained form nearly indestructible spores consumption after treatment. In poorly understood. We have studied that are viable in the environment addition, evidence has emerged immune priming in insects3 including for up to 70 years1. AFB has a very that antibiotics can harm honey honey bees and discovered that short infection window. It can only bees’ microbiome2, making them queens use the protein vitellogenin infect freshly hatched larvae, not less capable of fending off disease to transfer immune elicitors to their more than two to three days old. All and other environmental threats. To eggs. Vitellogenin is a major egg-yolk other individuals in the beehive are date no real prevention for AFB, or protein which makes up to 98% of resistant. Despite this very specifi c any other brood disease, has been total dry weight of the developing egg. age-dependent infectivity, it is one available. During embryogenesis, vitellogenin of the most detrimental honey bee Dalan Animal Health, Inc. is a is broken down and the pieces of

76 BEE CULTURE February 2021 it are used as nutrients for the program for honey bees. Vaccination may be an effective control measure in developing embryo. We found of pollinators is a completely novel, honey bees as well. We are currently that this protein binds directly to unprecedented project, as there are no pursuing USDA licensure for an AFB both Gram-positive P. larvae (the current nor former vaccines available honey bee vaccine. Our discoveries in American Foulbrood bacterium) for insects. We have selected AFB as insect immunity and the successful and Gram-negative Escherichia the fi rst pathogen target for vaccine vaccine pilot data create a foundation coli, as well as to general bacterial development due to its signifi cant for the fi rst oral vaccine for honey and fungal pathogen-associated contribution to the global decline of bees against a disease that handicaps molecular pattern (PAMP) molecules. bees. The pathology of the disease apiculture and pollination-dependent Furthermore, vitellogenin is able to and the stability of the spores make agriculture. BC transport bacterial molecules to the it extremely hard to control American developing eggs4. The presentation Foulbrood. The most effi cient way to References: of PAMPs to the egg triggers and reduce infection would be to increase 1OIE Terrestrial Manual (2018) – Chapter adjusts the immune system of the AFB resistance in early larval stages. 3.2.2. American Foulbrood of honey new insect to increase resistance This is exactly the approach of our bees (infection of honey bees with against the pathogen from which vaccination method. The vaccine will Paenibacillus larvae). the PAMPs originated. The queen be administered orally via food to 2Daisley, BA et al. (2020) – Missing may encounter bacteria via food, at honey bee queens, who then lay eggs, Microbes in Bees: How Systematic which point these bacteria are broken from which more resistant larvae will Depletion of Key Szmbionts Erodes down by the digestive system and the hatch. Immunity. Trends in Microbiology, In resulting fragments transferred to the Without a doubt, we can say press. body cavity, where they are collected that vaccination of humans and 3Freitak et al. (2014) – The maternal in the fat body (a liver-like organ in animals has changed the world. As a transfer of bacteria can mediate trans- insects). This is the primary site for result, life-expectancy has increased, generational immune priming in insects. the synthesis of vitellogenin prior its mortality due to infectious diseases Virulence, 5:4, 547–554. transfer to ovaries. has decreased, and many illnesses 3Salmela et al. (2015) – Transfer of This antibody independent once considered fatal are now rarely Immunity from Mother to Offspring immune priming mechanism has encountered. Dalan Animal Health, Is Mediated via Egg-Yolk Protein allowed Dalan Animal Health, Inc. to Inc. has completed proof of concept Vitellogenin. PLoS Pathogens 11 (7): start the development of a vaccination studies indicating that vaccination e1005015.

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78 BEE CULTURE February 2021 In my humble opinion, bees are more about the secret life of bees absolutely incredible. Not only are than ever before yet some things they intelligent beings with behaviour remain the same. Honey is still being Buzz Off that is so intricate researchers are consumed by people, applied as a still trying to decode it such as the wound dressing and appears as a waggle-dance which is used to inform key ingredient in a range of cosmetic Or Bee other bees of where the best fl owers products alongside bees wax – just are located in reference to the sun, as the ancient Egyptians did. Bees but they are also a eusocial species, appear in our historical literature and Kind meaning they act in social ways that popular culture as represented by Lindsey oerts benefi t the entire hive, even at a cost fi lms (‘Bee Movie’) and as symbols of Lindsey is a Psychologist working in the NHS in the United to their own individual reproductive ‘busy-ness’, beauty and nature, that Kingdom and has started a postgraduate course at Hartpury success (Alemida and Porto, 2014). have re-emerged across fashion and University in Human-Animal Interactions. As well as being inherently home décor prints and accessories. extinction (Le Conte and Navajas, altruistic, bees also share the Many well-known expressions are 2008); threatening our own existence conscientious personality trait derived from bees including ‘busy as too. However, it is not just climate alongside (some…) humans, which a bee’, ‘the bee’s knees’ or to have ‘a change that threatens bees and their can clearly be seen in their perfectly bee in your bonnet’. Yet bees are also colonies, some pesticides used in formed hexagonal cells, carefully capable of stinging people through a the agricultural industry are killing constructed from beeswax. The idea one-time individual sting or en masse bees as well as their plant-munching that bees have differing roles but to protect a hive. counterparts, such as slugs and all work together in pursuit of a While the majority of people caterpillars. This appears completely common goal to please their queen know very little about insects per counter-intuitive: bees are needed to and maintain hive harmony, is seen se, public-perceptions of bees are pollinate yet we are killing them in as hugely adaptive from our human being shifted through education and the process! perspective and is not too dissimilar wildlife campaigns to encourage an A study conducted by Neumann from many of our own societal and appreciation that bees are essential and Carreck a decade ago cultural constructs that we strive to for pollination of plants, human well- demonstrated that sudden losses maintain. being, a healthy planet, and a healthy of bee colonies are occurring to the The relationship between economy. point of a ‘world pollinator crisis’, humans and bees has been recorded Forbes cited bees as responsible known as Colony Collapse Disorder as over 9,000 years old (Roffet-Salque for up to $577 billion worth of food or ‘CCD’ (Figure 1). et al., 2015). For instance, people production and without them 39 The CCD phenomenon is originating from the Stone Age were crops would go into rapid decline attracting much media attention found to have harvested and used bee including almond, blueberry, squash and can be attributed to many products (Dams and Dams, 1977), and watermelon. Honey production combined factors e.g. poor weather while traces of beeswax have also is a stand-alone industry valued conditions preventing bees from been found in Europe and Africa at $7 billion worldwide and honey fl ying and feeding, infections that from the Neolithic period (Roffet- production is said to have amassed a cause paralysis, infestation of Varroa Salque et al., 2015). Ancient Egypt whopping 447 thousand metric tons destructor mites (Figure 2) and bee iconography dates back to at least in 2018 (Statista, 2020). starvation owing to a decline in the 2400 BC (Crane, 1999) and even the Without bees, humans would ratio of nearby fl owers to the number King of Lower Egypt adopted the bee have to rely on more invasive of hives in any given location. as his symbol in hieroglyphs. The agricultural practices to yield similar Given the catastrophic nature intrinsic value of the bee’s ability to food resources, reducing biodiversity of CCD and its implications for pollinate plants was well understood (Forbes, 2019) and increasing global human health, why are we not doing and hives (also designed in pyramid famine and the effects of climate more to save our beloved bees from form) were transported along the Nile change (Neumann and Carreck, an ethical, moral and collective to crosspollinate fl owers and crops 2010). In turn, climate change survival standpoint? It appears the throughout the country. For the would limit honey-bee behaviour, answer may be best understood ancient Egyptians, honey produced reproduction, development and in terms of our own attitudes and by bees was not only a form of food overall health that would lead to mass beliefs to promote changes in human but it was also a form of payment; for both the living and the dead. Honey held such a spiritual signifi cance that the dead were embalmed in honey and 2,000 year-old pots of honey were found unspoiled alongside tombs as offerings in the afterlife (Plant Bee Foundation, 2017), indicating Figure 1. U.S. that ancient Egyptians also had an honey producing enduring love affair with the honey colonies, parasitic bee and their produce. mites and CCD In the 21st century, we know (Kluser, 2010)

February 2021 BEE CULTURE 79 Figure 2. The global problem of honey bee colony losses associated with Varroa destructor mites above and below the equator line (Neumann and Carreck, 2010). behaviour. For instance, we know his Canadian colleagues conducted an entomophobia perspective (i.e. a that human attitudes towards a a study to investigate this important phobia related to insects that causes species directly affect their welfare question and explored the variability intense anxiety). (Serpell, 2004) and we also know that in human perceptions of insects. It is unsurprising that bees are in order to change human behaviour They explored ‘personal meaning’ considered in a more favourable light in relation to our environment, we surrounding insect species before than fl ies or mosquitoes; they tend to have to challenge people’s thoughts, and after 280 study participants had be brightly coloured, fl uffy and can values and beliefs (Prager, 2012). watched a six-minte video showing a produce honey, beloved by humans However, global change doesn’t multitude of insects and behaviour. and bears alike, so what can we do to just occur at the individual level: People’s descriptions before the video, protect them? From a psychological values held about a species from a and focus group accounts following perspective, we could adopt either a societal perspective include within the video were recorded, coded and topdown or a bottom-up approach to and between cultural differences analysed. Study results highlighted the protection of bees. A ‘top-down’ (Szucs, 2012). It is also known that that bees (n=254), ants (n=200), approach to conservation would cross-cultural differences are present butterflies (n=162), dragonflies involve national fi gureheads, policy- in the perception of insects both (n=52) and ladybugs (n=44) were makers, agricultural farming experts, in terms of their perceived danger considered to contribute positively to ecologists and entomologists working and our willingness to protect them the ecosystem or have intrinsic value. together to decide upon and advocate (Schönfelder and Bogner, 2017). Conversely, flies (n=289), for a global initiative that all nations Generally speaking, people do mosquitoes (n=200) and wasps must adhere to in the short and long- not like insects. Negative human (n=78) were seen to be harmful term for bee preservation. While a perceptions of insects tend to range and not provide any utilitarian ‘bottom-up’ approach would support from mildly annoying, ‘creepy crawlies’ function to society at all. While the ability of individuals to make a (e.g. fl ies and mosquitos) to outright expressions of ‘amazement’ increased difference on the ground, in its most fear inducing beings that are capable following the video footage, many literal form! of infl icting pain (i.e. wasps). Yet many more perceptions decreased for Bottom up approaches would species such as butterfl ies and bees insects that were already disliked encourage children to spend time are considered beautiful and revered and even became ‘hated’. They outdoors and become inspired by for their physical and utilitarian concluded that human interactions nature, educational programmes attributes. If we delve further into with insects tended to rely on prior around insects and bees to dispel the research surrounding insects childhood experiences, education myths surrounding them and to create we fi nd multiple contradictions and and/or the inference that a species an affi nity for ‘all creatures great and irregularities. Researchers have is ‘similar to us’ in terms of features small’ across all cultures. This in stated that humans fi nd interactions and characteristics as explained turn would promote a sustainable with insects “complex, unsettling, through an anthropomorphism culture towards taking care of, and and rewarding” (Lemelin et al., 2017), lens (i.e. the projection of human protecting nature into adulthood so what is it that makes some insects emotions or traits onto non-human worldwide. For adults who are open fascinating and important over animals); or the degree to which to new experiences, bee keeping can disgusting or terrifying? insects are absolutely ‘not like us’ be a fantastic opportunity to learn Recently, Raynald Lemelin and and are something to be feared from a new skill, create your own honey

80 BEE CULTURE February 2021 and even set-up a new business! Le Conte, Y. and Navajas, M. (2008) et al. (2015) Widespread exploitation of Keen or novice gardeners can also Climate change: impact on honey bee the honeybee by early Neolithic farmers. support local colonies by planting populations and diseases. Rev. sci. tech. Nature 527, 226–230. https://doi. bee-friendly fl owers and plants as Off. int. Epiz., 2008, 27 (2), 499-510 org/10.1038/nature15757 advertised by local gardening centres Lemelin, R.H., Dampier, J., Harper, Schönfelder, M.L. and Bogner, F.X. (2017) while spending very little money R., Bowles, R. and Balika, D. (2017) Individual perception of bees: Between or having extensive green space. Perceptions of Insects: A Visual perceived danger and willingness to Collectively, a bottom-up(individu Analysis. Society and Animals:1-20. protect. PLoS ONE 12 (6): e0180168. alsocietalcultural) and a top- DOI: 10.1163/15685306-12341469 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal. down (culturalsocietalindividual) Neumann, P. and Carreck, N.L. (2010) pone.0180168 approach that meets in the middle to Honey bee colony losses: Guest Editorial. Serpell, J.A. (2004) Factors infl uencing protect the humble honey bee, might Journal of Apicultural human attitudes to animals and their just save them and us from a global Research 49(1): 1-6. DOI 10.3896/ welfare. Animal Welfare 2004, 13:S145- catastrophe, and what fun it could IBRA.1.49.1.01 151. ISSN 0962-7286. bee along the way! BC Planet Bee Foundation. (2017) Available Statista. (2020) Available at: https:// at: https://www.planetbee.org/ www.statista.com/topics/5090/ References planet-bee-blog//thesacred-bee- honey-market-worldwide/. Accessed Alemida, E. and Porto, D.S. (2014) bees-in-ancient-egypt. Accessed 08, 08, December, 2020. Investigating Eusociality in Bees while December, 2020. Szucs, E., Geers, R., Jezierski, T., Trusting the Uncertainty. Prager, K. (2012) Understanding behaviour Sossidou, E.N. and Broom, D.M. (2012) Sociobiology 61(4): 355-368 (December change: How to apply theories of Animal Welfare in Different 2014): DOI: 10.13102/sociobiology. behaviour change to SEWeb and related Human Cultures, Traditions and Religious v61i4.355-368. public engagement activities. A report Faiths. Asian-Aust. J. Anim. Sci. Vol. Crane, E. (1999) The World History for SEWeb LIFE10 ENV-UK-000182, 25, No. 11 : 1499-1506 of Beekeeping and Honey Hunting May 2012. November 2012 http://dx.doi. (Duckworth, 1999). Edition 2. Roffet-Salque, M., Regert, M., Evershed, R. org/10.5713/ajas.2012.r.02 Dams, M. and Dams, L. R. (1977) Spanish art rock depicting honey gathering during the Mesolithic. Nature 268, 228–230. Forbes (2019). The Value of Pollinators to The Ecosystem and our Economy. Bayer Contributor. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ bayer/2019/10/14/the-value-of- pollinators-to-theecosystem-and- our-economy/?sh=5962990b7a1d. Accessed 08, December, 2020. KLUSER, S., Neumann, P., Chazat, M-P. and Jefferey, P. 2010 Global honey bee colony disorders and other threats to insect pollinators. Environmental Alert Bulletins. Available at http://archiveouverte.unige.ch/ unige:32251. Accessed 08, Dec, 2020. $25 POSTPAID FIRST EDITION $29 PP $34 POSTPAID Classic Reprint $25 PP

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February 2021 BEE CULTURE 81 A Closer Look Basic Honey Bee Biology

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Clarence H. Collison July82 2018 BEEBEE CULTURE CULTURE February 202165 February 2021 BEE CULTURE 83 H B A H David acan

Twenty stalls in the main barn and hay barn.

Three Fox Farm entrance.

Honey bees and horses are a unique pairing. They can coexist under the correct circumstances. The colonies need to be placed such that when the bees fl y, they fl y away from any pastures and are close to a water source; closer than the horses’ water trough. A sign indicating where the honey bees’ hives are located should be installed so the humans who work with the horses know! The colonies should be located at least 20 to 30 feet away from pastures and at least that distance where people ride and board their horses. A hedge or fence can be placed in front of the colonies to force the bees to fl y up above the horse’s heads and rider head level. Hives should not be located in pastures where there are horses. The horses will knock the hives over, resulting in angry bees and possibly injured horses. Three Fox Farm (http://threefoxfarm.net/) is a full-service hunter/jumper facility located in Blythewood, South Carolina. They offer boarding, lessons, showing, and training. They show on the South Carolina Hunter Beeyard some distance from the horses. 84 BEE CULTURE February 2021 Swarm settling into new home. (photo by Susan Jones)

farm. The colonies should be inspected weekly during the active swarm season. The active swarm season in the Blythewood, South Carolina, area is from the end of February through about the end of June. Five-frame nucleus colonies (NUCs) will swarm more and easier than eight-frame colonies with 10-frame colonies tending to swarm later and less often. Care should also be taken during the honey harvest. Bees tend to get “excited” when removed from honey

Horses drinking from their water trough. Jumper Association (SCHJA), Blue Ridge Hunter Jumper Association (BRHJA), Progressive Show Jumping (PSJ) circuits, and at “AA” rated shows. Three Fox Farm also coaches the University of South Carolina IHSA Equestrian Team; they were Regional Reserve Champions for 2020! Also, just as important, the bees’ water source should be closer than the horses’ water trough. Bees will line up around the trough water edges to gather water and sting the horses. If the bees start going to the water troughs, the colonies may need to be moved. This has only been an issue when the temperature gets into the upper 90°F. to low 100°F. in the Columbia, SC, area. Swarming should be controlled as much as possible. Swarms emitting from hives can disrupt life on the

Swarm cells protruding from bottom of a frame. (photo by Kathy Carpineto) Opening hive to pull a super of honey. February 2021 BEE CULTURE 85 Full honey supers on their way to be extracted.

supers. Honey should be harvested on a warm good weather day and when there are very few horse riders and little farm activity. Honey bees and horses can co-exist under the correct circumstances. In the case of Three Fox Farm, we ended up moving the hives due to the bees gathering water from the horses’ troughs on very hot days. We were not able to locate the colonies closer to another water source than the troughs. Additional key issues are locating the colonies far enough away that during swarming and honey removal the bees do not disrupt life on the farm. BC

David MacFawn is an Eastern Apiculture Society Master Beekeeper and a North Carolina Master Craftsman beekeeper living in the Columbia, South Carolina, area. He is the author of three books, Applied Beekeeping in the United States by David MacFawn, Brushing straggler bees. Note how many bees are fl ying. published by Outskirts Press https://outskirtspress.com/

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FebruaryFebruary 20212021 BEEBBEEE CULTURECUCULLTTUURRE 87 Beekeeping As A Healing Intervention Sharon ighorn Schmit

Beekeeping for wellness has recently come to the fore as a way of helping people to defeat Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Depression and Anxiety. How- ever, using peoples' interests in other living creatures as motivation in complementary and adjunctive mental health therapies is not new. Many books and articles describe the therapeutic value of working with animals that require training and/or care for the purpose of en- This is mirroring by the biggest bee I know. hancing and enriching cognitive and emotional change in people experiencing challenges. But, just as there are Beekeeping as a healing intervention implies that similarities, there are also very specifi c differences be- something within the individual has become disorga- tween caring for or training individual animals and the nized and that participants are engaging in remediating techniques of animal husbandry and the relatedness re- mental health problems or problems in living. In Post quired by a colony of bees, a super-organism; a society Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) the etiology of the unto themselves. disruption is clear; the individual dealt with a trauma perceived by them as life threatening. As a result, one of Proposed mechanisms of action tne of the affected structures in the brain (the hypothal- As with any healing intervention, the mechanism of amus) becomes impaired and affects the capacity of the action which produces the observed result is of interest. individual to integrate new learning and go on as usual. Historically it is not unusual to use health interventions The disorder is bimodal and characterized by periods that work but about which we do not have enough infor- of over and under-arousal. In depression, the develop- mation to be precise about why they work. An example ment is not always clear but the disorder involves the is talk therapy which works for about a third of the pop- near-constant experience that one’s circumstances are ulation of consumers. The way in which it works is not horribly bad and overwhelming, that they will continue precisely known and varies according to theoreticians. to be overwhelming forever and that one is powerless Although we usually think of elements like an im- to do anything about it. In clinically signifi cant anxiety, provement in social ties caused by working with other the experience of being under constant threat, of feel- beekeepers - or a sense of competence - or improvement ing worried, vulnerable and exposed may bring about in focused attention forged by beekeeping as being help- the most exquisite sense of panic, being unable to think ful, maybe even more is occurring in the human-insect straight, cope or even breathe. In short, in clinically sig- interaction with bees than can be accounted for by those nifi cant illnesses, insults to the mind and body impose factors. disorganization of thought emotion and function. In 1996 neuroscientists Gallese, V., Fadiga, L., Fo- Beekeeping involves the exposure of the participant gassi, L., and Rizzolatti used electrodes placed in the to 30,000 to 60,000 tiny individuals engaged in highly premotor cortex of macaque monkeys to study neurons sophisticated, organized activity. The question is wheth- specialized for the control of hand and mouth actions er corresponding neurons “light up” in the brain of the and recorded electrical signals from a group of neurons participant beekeeper; a “Mirror Neuron Activation” ef- in the monkey's brain while the monkey was allowed fect; and whether that activity enhances neuronal re-or- to reach for pieces of food. Having learned which neu- ganization in debilitated or disorganized individuals. rons responded to the food stimulus, they found out This leads to the question of whether cross-species ac- that those neurons fi red not only when the monkey was tivity recognition naturally occurs between very different allowed to pick up the food but that some of the neu- species, in this case specifi cally human/insect. rons would respond when the monkey simply observed Although there is no specifi c data about human/in- a human pick up the piece of food as well. The neurons sect recognition, the study by Gallese, et al (1996) cited involved in this sympathetic phenomena were dubbed above implies recognition by monkeys of the implication “mirror neurons.” Thus, we can say that not only might of a food related activity carried out by humans. It is a mirror neurons explain empathic reactions but that great deal more diffi cult to get willing humans to allow those reactions may occur between living organisms, at electrodes to be implanted in their brains, therefore it least in primates. may be a long time before we can be certain of mirror 88 BEE CULTURE February 2021 neuron activation as a mechanism of action in human/ References insect interactions but it is worth hypothesizing that Gallese, V., Fadiga, L., Fogassi, L., & Rizzolatti, G. (1996). Action this might have something to do with therapeutic expe- recognition in the premotor cortex. Brain : a journal of neu- riences in beekeeping. rology, 119 ( Pt 2), 593–609. https://doi.org/10.1093/ A second proposed mechanism of action that could brain/119.2.593. Accessed online on August 12, 2020 fall under the rubric of “Exposure to Nature” perhaps Gong, W., Liang, Y., Ling, Y. et al.(2020). Effects of Mycobacte- under a heading such as “Microbiological Infl uence” rium vaccae vaccine in a mouse model of tuberculosis: protec- is exposure to benefi cial bacteria. In 1989 when David tive action and differentially expressed genes. Military Med Strachan fi rst proposed the “Hygiene Hypothesis”, he Res 7, 25 https://doi.org/10.1186/s40779-020-00258-4 postulated that lack of exposure to disease-causing bac- Lowry, C.A, Hollis, J.H, De Vries, A, Pan, B, Brunet, L.R, teria during childhood might be responsible for immune Hunt, J.R.F, . . . Lightman, S.L. (2007). Identifi cation of an inadequacy as an adult which was showing up as aller- immune-responsive mesolimbocortical serotonergic system: gies and asthma. However, it is also arguable that lack Potential role in regulation of emotional behavior. Neurosci- of exposure to benefi cial bacteria contributes to mental ence, 146(2), 756-772. health problems. Smith, David G., Martinelli, Roberta, Besra, Gurdyal S. Illarion- Even as the role of infl ammation was unfolding as a ov, Petr A., Szatmari, Istvan, Brazda, Peter, Allen, Mary A., contributing or even causal factor in mental illness, the Xu, Wenqing, Wang,Wenqing, Nagy, László, Dowell, Robin role of benefi cial bacteria advanced by Christopher Low- D., Rook, Graham A. W., Brunet, Laura R., Lowry, Christo- ry has gathered more substance. Results of experiments pher A. (2019). Identifi cation and characterization of a novel by his team indicated that the novel lipid, or fatty acid, anti-infl ammatory lipid isolated from Mycobacterium vaccae, called 10(Z)-hexadecenoic acid found in Mycobacterium a soil-derived bacterium with immunoregulatory and stress vaccae in soil inhibits pathways that drive infl ammato- resilience properties. Psychopharmacology, DOI: 10.1007/ ry responses. At this time, heat-inactivated M. vaccae s00213-019-05253-9 Accessed online August 25, 2020 is already licensed as an immunotherapy in China and at: https://um-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/perma- has been evaluated as a vaccination for TB showing a link/f/1a4m872/TN_cdi_ucl_eprints_oai_eprints_ucl_ac_ robust response in mice (Gong, W., Liang, Y., Ling, Y. et uk_OAI2_10095411 al (2020). We hypothesize that exposure to the bacteria White, Nicole C, Reid, Connor, & Welsh, Timothy N. (2014). in soil may have a positive effect and may therefore con- Responses of the human motor system to observing actions tribute to wellbeing. across species: A transcranial magnetic stimulation study. Brain and Cognition, 92, 11-18. Accessed online July 20, Conclusions and future directions 2020 at: https://um-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/ A review of the literature indicates that explanations permalink/f/1a4m872/TN_cdi_gale_infotracacademi- for positive healing outcomes for beekeepers exist but conefi le_A393156946 none of them involve an explanation of the direct, bio- logical effect of the hive or nature. Author Data: Sharon Nighorn Schmidt, RN, PMHNP, Psy.D. is a This paper offers a proposed mechanism of action graduate of the University of Montana Master Beekeeper Pro- for some of the positive changes reported among peo- gram. She holds a Doctoral Degree in Clinical Psychology, is a ple who participate in Beekeeping for healing. It sug- Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner, Licensed Clinical gests that in addition to intra and intrapersonal factors, Psychologist and director of the non-profi t, Cascade Girl Organi- perceived healing may be related to 1) factors in nature zation affi liated with the Klamath Basin Beekeepers Association. such as benefi cial microbes found in soil and 2) the na- ture of the beehive-human interaction which may ex- ert a therapeutic effect due to the engagement of mirror neurons. These hypotheses are among many that might form a basis for research in this data-rich fi eld. BC

February 2021 BEE CULTURE 89 The Rational World Of Robber Bees

It’s a problem because we say it is the resources from a sad colony would appear that the more hives a Bee colonies robbing each neighbor. There must be profi ts for keeper has, the greater the level of other is a problem because we – the aggressor colony. To beekeepers, competence. Not necessarily, but that as concerned beekeepers – say the activity appears to be criminality is a story for another time. Bottom it is. And beekeepers say it’s a in the natural bee world, but to beekeeper line? We would want both problem because apiary bees become foragers, it’s all in a day’s productive colonies to survive. To the beekeeper, defensive (and aggressive) within the work. it would seem that two colonies are area and secondly, weaker colonies In his chapter in The Hive and better than one. can actually be robbed to death. the Honey Bee1, Dr. Norm Gary wrote, These common beeyard results “Robbing behavior is, unfortunately, Nature’s opposing view are not good – at least not for the an anthropomorphic description of a The biggest challenge a bee beekeeper. special foraging behavior in which colony faces in a temperate climate In some way, it would seem that bees collect nectar and honey at hives is the long, foodless Winter period. the negligent beekeeper should have or on unprotected combs of honey Without enough food reserves, all the done something to forestall this rather than foraging on fl owers.” good health, great queens, genetics, rampant behavior. Admonishments I guess it could be said that Winter packing, and hive ventilation to address honey bee robbing are in Mother Nature is frequently not loving is for naught. Without adequate food every basic beekeeping book – every and nurturing. For instance, in an reserves, the wintering colony will last one of them. Things to do and unforgiving world, I established two starve before Spring. things never to do, that control or hypothetical colonies. One developed As the Autumn nectar flow prevent robbing are presented in a large, healthy population and has wanes, and all fl owering resources concrete fashion. It’s like, “Here’s the hoarded surplus stores. It has done have been exploited to all profi table problem,” and “Here’s the answer.” well during the season just past. It’s degrees, then the primary foraging Advice from others free fl ows. Dealing near colony neighbor, didn’t do as source becomes the honey reserves with robber bees is an old and well. The reasons are irrelevant. Given in neighboring colonies. If the common apiary concern. the same environmental benefi ts, one neighboring colony is not strong From another view, criminal bees colony did better than the other. One enough to defend its stores, then it seem perfectly happy to pillage the had a greater population than the most likely was not strong enough to area. If entire book sections and years other and more food reserves. That’s survive the Winter. As Dr. Gary wrote and years of advice abound, why do all that matters. in the reference presented about bees still perform the behavior so For honey bees in general, what robber bees, they are not criminals so readily and so predictably? Clearly, would be a better survival scheme? much as they are relentless foragers there is some advantage for the To have one “good” colony and one – even if it means foraging in their bullish colony to forcibly take all “okay” colony try to survive the winter neighboring colony’s pantry. or to combine them and have one James E. Te “great” colony try to get through the Robbing is more than a simple upcoming Winter? beekeeper inconvenience Online, it is essentially impossible Enter the beekeeper to uncover academic information The beekeeper has invested about the biology and ecology of money and time in both colonies. robbing behavior. Hundreds of listings They will try to subsidize colony immediately present generalized food reserves and possibly feed both robbing control methods with time- colonies to get them through the honored recommendations. Don’t Winter. It’s what we beekeepers do. have colonies too close together. We have two expensive queens – true Reduce entrances. Don’t open fact that one must be better than the colonies during a dearth. Don’t other – and we bought two packages leave comb scraps exposed. If you (more money), and too often, overall have managed bee colonies more hive numbers are an indicator of than a full year, you have read the our beekeeper value. Somehow, it generalized recommendations. There ary or ctiities an ehaior o is nothing wrong with this advice. Honey ees In raha e The Hie an No harm done. But know this, bee the Honey ee Daant & Sons Hailton I pp colonies will rob each other, and they will do it every season. The only 90 BEE CULTURE February 2021 way to completely eliminate robbing Are these bees foragers behavior is tremendously reduce or thieves? colony density. In a robber-free world, a colony would have no near bee neighbors. Robbing behavior is more than unemployed foragers, rife with frustration and boredom, searching anywhere and everywhere for food in any form. Colony foragers are aggressively competing with foragers from other colonies – in a life and death arena. I have taken the following insert2, verbatim from Wikipedia. “In ecology, scramble competition (or complete symmetric competition) refers to a situation in which a resource is accessible to all competitors (that is, it is not monopolizable by an individual or group). However, since the than what is presently available to each other. That some colonies particular resource is usually fi nite, the colony. So much as possible, no survive the Winter is paramount to scramble competition may lead food source (blossom or otherwise) the survival of the species. If one to decreased survival rates for all is ignored, but it would be wrong wants to see the concept of “Survival competitors if the resource is used to let the reader think that during of the fi ttest” in play, just watch the to its carrying capacity. Scramble good nectar and pollen fl ow times, pandemonium that robbing causes competition is also defined as all foragers come back fully ladened. within the apiary. “[a] fi nite resource [that] is shared As Page discusses, foraging decision- equally amongst the competitors so making is a complex issue. Pure frenzy that the quantity of food per individual Historically, still photos have declines with increasing population What about Contest Competition? been presented to show events that density”.[1] A further description of Does robbing behavior shift to really couldn’t be shown in a still scramble competition is “competition Contest Competition as the season photo. The wonderment of watching a for a resource that is inadequate progresses? So hypothetically, all bee dance is completely lost in a still for the needs of all, but which foragers are out on the game fi eld, photo. I write about a dozen articles is partitioned equally among being as successful as possible and a year asking what washboard contestants, so that no competitor the game clock, the nectar fl ow, runs movement is showing. A still photo obtains the amount it needs and all out. The ending bell, the fi rst frost does not capture the washboard would die in extreme cases.” of early Winter, sounds and fl oral behavior movement. Until you see foraging comes to an end. Commonly, hundreds of bees performing the Robbing seems to be a form of food dearths occur in mid-Summer or rhythmic motion of the unexplained Scramble Competition – at fi rst during Winter. Flowers are no longer behavior, a beekeeper cannot grasp For bee foragers, it’s a timed producing food rewards. That is when the event. game. The clock is operated by the I suggest that the second type of Robbing frenzy is one of those nectar fl ow. While the fl ow is ongoing, interspecifi c competition comes into bee behavioral events that is poorly each colony forager maniacally play – Contest Competition. Contest captured by still photography. Look gathers whatever she can bring back competition4 is a form of competition at my short clip at: to the colony’s storeroom. At this where there is a winner and a loser point, I simply cannot get off the and where resources can be attained subject of this article, but R. Page, completely or not at all. This is the in his book, “The Art of the Bee3,” case of the robber and the hive being reveals that not all foragers are out robbed – one winner and one loser. for the biggest bang for their buck. Though nectar sources have While most foragers are going for finished flowering, the weather is the maximum load, some scouts are still warm enough for bee flight. or look at any other bee robbing clip searching for alternative sources that Experienced foragers are still on the on the web. True chaos. Pure frenzy. are sometimes lesser food producers job, but no sources are out there. To fully appreciate, you simply must Robbing conditions are at hand. see and hear the hellish event. I don’t Beekeepers know that this is the have words and terms to express httpsenikipeiaorgikiScramle time that colonies begin to attack what a full-featured robbing event competitioncitenoteenBerg1 looks and sounds like. Page obert r The rt o the ee Shaping the nironent ro anscapes to httpsenikipeiaorgikiScrable Societies or niersity Press pp copetitioncitenoteDenerg

February 2021 BEE CULTURE 91  I get it – as best I can the colonies with the best chance beleaguered colony?” I am not strongly Okay. In some fashion, using for survival get the food reserves of bonded with my own question. But I some rational foraging plan, bees those with a lesser chance of Winter am bonded with this notion – there have “scrambled” to garner what they survival. is something different in a beeyard could from fl owering plants in their that is attacking and being attacked immediate ecosystem. That aspect of I speculate even more by robbers. Everywhere this energy, the season ending, foragers moved In my beeyard, I would guess this franticness is exhibited. What to some other type of non-blossom that as the fl owering season comes bee yard characteristics changed? foraging paradigm – maybe contest to an end, some behavioral shift competition. Winner take all. It’s a occurs in foragers. Rather than I’m not fi nished… brutal, unfair world out there for witnessing recruitment dances and I am not finished, but my bees. Even so, I cannot explain the learning fl owers, foragers seem to monthly space allocation is fi lled. electric frenzy that pervades my broaden their search parameters In a companion article within a few apiary when robbing is in play. The to anything that smells and tastes months, I would like to contribute whole area, far beyond my beeyard, of carbohydrates. I would guess, robbing comments on entrance is energized. I feel an odd urge to type that within my beeyard, there is a restrictions, robbing cages, robber my comments here in upper case and general mingling of foragers from behavior and other beekeeper bolded. These bees are absolutely colonies that are testing neighboring procedures. I hope you don’t mind. nutso. Absolutely. colonies. If a colony is able to rebuff Obviously, I have this bee behavior exploratory robbers, they protect on my mind. We are part of the problem their resources and their scouts This is one of my guesses. The possibly fi nd a colony that is having To be crystal clear insanity shown by robbing bees difficulty protecting whatever it I want to be perfectly clear that can only be due to the unnatural has. I suppose I am writing, that the citation I posted concerning positioning of numerous colonies during robbing periods, probably Scramble and Contest Competition is near each other. As beekeepers we all colonies are explored for possible not my written work. I copied it and do that and call the assemblage robbing targets, but some are able then cited it in the URL presented an “apiary.” There are no natural to resist. Others can’t withstand the in footnotes. This is the fi rst time I apiaries in the wild. If I may be blunt, onslaught. have used a citation that had other can I say that overall, while great for But I am at a loss to suggest a URLs embedded. I want to be sure I the beekeeper, I sense that an apiary way that other robbing foragers are am crediting the original authors in is not a good thing for bees. It’s where recruited to the newly found weak a proper way. beekeepers concentrate bee diseases, colony. Ribbands5 said that robbers suppress natural swarming, violate were using odor cues to fi nd robbing Thank you. brood nest sanctity, entice animal sources and entrances. I don’t doubt As always, I appreciate you pests, and yes, set the groundwork that observation, but does it feel reading my rambling comments. for massive robbing behavior. a bit inadequate? Why the raging Readers are a great thing for any As has become my style, without confusion and how are recruits writer. Thank you. BC a shred of original data and without fi nding the victim source? In the an adequate literature search, I same beeyard, recruitment dances Dr. James E. Tew, Emeritus, Faculty, speculate that robbing behavior would be generalized. What’s new Entomology, The Ohio State University commonly occurs in nature, but with about the odors. These odors have and One Tew Bee, LLC; tewbee2@gmail. much less fanfare and commotion. been there all season long. During com; http://www.onetew.com Natural nests are spaced far apart – robbing periods, what’s different that not just a few meters, and populations lets bee sister turn on bee sister so https://youtu.be/aL3fxfHQQqQ are much smaller. Mortal battles are aggressively? fought, won, and lost. But all of this is out of sight from the prying beekeeper. There is one thing . . . Resources are reapportioned and a There is one visible characteristic natural nest cavity is made ready for of robbing bees – their erratic, jerky a replacement swarm next spring. flight. It has long been reported Importantly, population dynamics that bees develop that personality are adjusted to refl ect the current because they have been accosted carrying capacity of the immediate by innumerable guard bees. In ecosystem. some cases, even their thoracic hair has been rubbed away. But just I am speculating let me ask, “Is it possible that the Robbing is not simply an erratic fl ight behavior of robbers is a inconvenience for beekeepers who are cue for enticing robber recruits to a trying to maintain colony numbers. Robbing is a population adjustment strategy that reallocates valuable ibbans onal The ehaior an Social resources to colonies better suited ie o Honey ees Doer Publications Inc for seasonal survival. Essentially, roaay e ork pp

92 BEE CULTURE February 2021 GLEANINGS FEBRUARY 2021 • ALL THE NEWS THAT FITS BITAIS Curtis (Pete) Eugene Meier, of Aaron W. Morris, Round Lake, Paris, Texas passed away December NY. The Bee Man has passed. Aaron 11, 2020, at Paris Regional Hospital. W. Morris, 66, passed away on Sun- Curtis was nine days from cele- day, January 3, 2021, at his home brating his 90th birthday. surrounded by his family. Curtis was well known in the bee- He was born in Saratoga Springs keeping industry with many great and was a 1972 graduate of Shenen- friends and customers. He began his dehowa Central Schools and a grad- passion for beekeeping as a child. uate of SUNY Albany majoring After working 10 years for the in mathematics/computer science, railroad in Taylor, Texas, he moved class of 1981. Aaron was one of the his young family to Paris and began fi rst computer specialists working at working as a branch manager for SUNY Albany, retiring in 2011. Dadant & Sons Bee Supply Compa- A world renown master beekeep- ny. He serviced beekeepers through- Curtis is survived by his wife, er, Aaron was former president of Village of Round Lake. out Texas and the adjoining states DeEtte Cobb Meier; and his chil- the Empire State Beekeepers Asso- He was predeceased by his father and was often invited to speak at dren, Vickie Noles, Kathie Wood- ciation. He taught many beekeeping Ellis F. Morris Sr. and his mother conferences. He loved working for ard and husband, Randy, Russell classes throughout the northeast in- and stepfather Barbara Morris Lu- Dadant and retired in 2004. Meier and wife, Delloise. Also his cluding Cornell University. He was carelli and Frank Lucarelli. Aaron While working at Dadant, he grandchildren, Aimee Cobey and a member of Empire State Honey is survived by his brothers, Ellis built his own beekeeping company husband, Stephen, Chris Noles and Producers, and the Southern Ad- Morris (Valerie) and Ross Morris with thousands of hives scattered wife, Becky, Kim Adams and hus- irondack Beekeepers Association, (Edie); sister Daryl Morris Griffi ths throughout Texas. In 1985 he was band, Rich, Ryan Nelson, Britney holding numerous positions. He was (Tim); and his loving friend Julia awarded Texas Beekeeper of the DiFulgentiz and husband, Bobby, also master beekeeper of the Eastern Corbally-Carson. He was a special Year by the Texas Beekeepers Asso- Chase Woodard and Jodie Edel- Agricultural Society. He attended uncle of Michael, Samantha, Eliza- ciation. In 2004, he was recognized hauser, Chance Woodard and Aus- several international beekeeping beth (Travis), Luke, Leora (Haylee), for his contributions to the beekeep- tin Meier; 14 great-grandchildren. conferences as a special invited and Livia; and great-uncle of Dylan, ing industry from 1958 to 2004. He is also survived by DeEtte’s guest and speaker. Charlotte, and Theo. They lovingly Curtis loved the outdoors and children, Carla and Bill Coleman, Aaron received multiple awards called him Uncle Beezer. took his family on camping vaca- Missy and Joe Cobb, Margaret and for his honey, beeswax, and candle A celebration of Aaron's life will tions to Arkansas every year. His Robert Cobb, Deanna and Richard making. Aaron enjoyed all aspects be held on a later date. Memorial favorite hobbies included traveling, Cobb and their children and grand- of gardening, including special gar- contributions in memory of Aaron golf, barbecuing, fi shing, bird hunt- children, all of whom loved Curtis dens for bees, butterfl ies and birds. may be made to the Fund for the ing and deer hunting. very much. He especially enjoyed the company Preservation of the Round Lake Au- He built a ranch in Mason, Tex- of family, friends, and his adopted ditorium and Organ, c/o AP3, P.O. as with his older brother Fritz. He second family, the residents of the Box 546, Round Lake, NY, 12151. treasured and shared the ranch with his family and many friends. The annual Thanksgiving gathering was a cherished time for him with his family. He loved the serenity of the hill country and the view while sit- ting on the porch in the morning and evening. He would still make the six plus hour drive at the age of 89 (even alone) just to spend time there. Curtis was baptized and con- fi rmed at the St. Paul Lutheran Church in Taylor, Texas. He be- longed to Beautiful Savior Lutheran Church in Paris. Curtis was preceded in death by his parents, Edwin and Lena Meier; his wife and the mother of his chil- dren, Joyce Meier; his wife, Deana Settles; and his six siblings.

February 2021 BEE CULTURE 93 calendar

ALABAMA The 26th Annual Alabama Beekeeping Symposium is going digital on February 6-7. Because of COVID-19 restrictions participants will be able to attend from the comfort of their own home. The cost is $20 and you can register and get more de- tails at https://www.aces.edu/blog/topics/lawn-garden/ alabama-beekeeping-symposium/.

KANSAS Spring 2021 Virtual Kansas Honey Producers Meeting March 6. Guest speakers include Samuel Ramsey and Clarence Collison. You must register to have the zoom link emailed to you. To register and for more information please visit www. kansashoneyproducers.org.

MICHIGAN MI Beekeepers Association Spring Conference will be held March 3-6. Speakers include Samuel Ramsey, Tammy Horn Potter, Juliana Rangel Posada, Meghan Milbrath, Roger Hoopinarner, Julia Mahood, Peggy Garnes and Dorothy Morgan. Workshops for the whole family. For more information please visit http://michigan- bees.org.

NEVADA Nevada State Beekeeperes will hold their conference February 26-27 in Yerington. There will be speakers, hands on workshops, honey tasting, photo contest, banquest and more. For information contact NevadaStateBeekeepers.org.

OHIO Lorain County Beekeepers Association will hold their annual Beginner Beekeeping Class on Fridays in March be- ginning March 5, at Life Church, 1033 Elm Street, Grafton. The fee is $50 which includes 1 year membership to the club. Hands-On Field Day will be held June 5 at Queen Right Colonies, 43655 State Route 162, Spencer, OH. Bonus Class - Fall Wrap September 10, 7:00 p.m. at Life Church. For information visit www.loraincountybeekeepers. org.

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February 2021 BEE CULTURE 95 old weather doesn’t kill bees. Varroa mites kill bees. I live by this. It’s early December as I write. Lately our western CColorado overnight lows have hit the teens, with daytime highs in the upper 40s. My queens are mostly shut down, and next week’s forecast is for 10-15 degrees colder. It’s time to treat my 70 colonies with an oxalic acid dribble, for Varroa mite control. An oxalic dribble on brood-less colonies is hell on mites, relatively easy on bees, and gives me confi dence I’ll have very low Varroa numbers going into Spring. To make an oxalic acid solution, you need an accurate scale that measures in grams. Just as I was about to inquire where ours was, the gal Marilyn blurted out, “I think a meth head stole my scales at the farmer’s market in Montrose!” This is rural Colorado, and yes, we have our problems. I leave any inevitable comparisons Tina thinks I’m off my rocker, but she’s very nice about it. She to modern-day politics and fake news argues that we should only in the most dire of situations break the to your fertile imagination. insulating propolis seals that bees create between hive parts, like On the drive home from last brood supers and inner covers. She says our little darlings could week’s fishing expedition, Paul said catch a chill. Rather than dribble with a garden sprayer, she says he found Meghan Milbrath’s American I should use an oxalic acid vaporizer, so I don’t have to break open Bee Journal piece on paraffi n-coating my hives. I get what she’s saying, but I don’t own a vaporizer, and hive woodenware to be intriguing and I’m not convinced they’re as effective as the dribble. Tina also claims maybe even practical. When I read it, the dribble may disrupt the bees’ gut biome. She may be right. I it occurred to me you’d want very good frankly have no idea. I only know it’s December, and I have to do insurance, and maybe a fi re truck in the what I have to do. driveway. But Meghan has boundless Tina and I had this same conversation a year ago in November, energy and enthusiasm for bees and when I got blindsided by large mite populations in some of my beekeeping, so I get it that she would colonies. Hemmed in by a dismal weather forecast and some bee attempt something as dicey as heating club commitments, I bundled up and broke a whole lot of propolis large vats of highly fl ammable paraffi n seals when I dribbled 80 colonies. Temps were in the high 30s. to coat bee supers. I did not wrap these hives for our frosty Colorado Winter. I never Meghan’s leaving Michigan on do. They sat on the ground, not on hive stands. I partially duct- Tuesday for a yearlong stint at the taped-shut the bottom entrances and put sheet-foam insulation Swedish Agricultural University’s honey or hive-top feeders under the hives’ telescoping outer covers, to bee lab, in Uppsala. Her focus: bee create dead air space. A dozen or so colonies with migratory lids health. She got a scientifi c exception received no such insulation. I didn’t bother with mouse guards. to the Covid ban on U.S. travelers, so When I tested In April I couldn’t fi nd a mite. Colony overwintering now she’ll live her honey bee dream success was exceptional. Just how exceptional? I’m not going to under the midnight sun, or steaming say, because you’d call me a liar. in saunas and rolling in the snow like Paul didn’t call me a liar, even though I did tell him a stretcher they do over there. She gets to bring or two. We normally release the trout we catch, and we don’t fi sh Ben and both dogs. right next to each other, so we use the honor system when we brag. A Meghan’s good fortune makes my few weeks ago, I said, “Paul, I landed a 20-inch brown,” and he said, heart sing, and I told her so. Faithful “That’s great! I caught a 24-inch rainbow.” I believe him! The week reader, do you want the answer to life’s after that, when I reported a 22-inch brown, he never questioned riddle? Do you want to know why you’re my integrity. I based both of my measurements on the fact that I here? I’m old, so I know all the answers. have a 10-inch outstretched hand span, so I can lay a fi sh out on I’ll tell you. Be like Meghan. Find your the bank and make a quick estimate., before I return it to the river. passion and pursue it. Never let up. Except when I re-checked my hand span after the fact, it was That’s all you need to know! only nine inches. When I confessed, “Paul, you need to knock two inches off both those big browns,” he merely chuckled. Ed Coly Exaggeration is such a part of fi shing culture, it’s considered normal and even appropriate. If you insist on the real truth, you need to subtract a fudge factor from any angler’s measurement or Weather Doesn’t weight estimate. I still think the tape measure on the outside of my canvas fi sh creel is a little over the top. It goes up to 16 inches, but Kill Bees when I laid a real tape measure next to it, the “16 inches” revealed itself to be a mere 14! BOTTOM BOARD 96 BEE CULTURE February 2021