Too Much Honey A Problem?!

You wouldn't think that you'd ever hear a beekeeper complain about his bees making too much honey. However, this happens. You see, beekeepers want to keep as many bees as they can so that they can get more honey from each hive. However, sometimes bees can bring in so much nectar that unless the beekeepers is able to keep up on providing more space for the bees to put that nectar/honey, the bees can make it so the queen has no more room to lay eggs. As soon as this happens, the hive is said to be "honey-bound". The bees will swarm from this hive because they've essentially outgrown it.

Perhaps because I was gone so long and unable to inspect and put on my second medium super, when I last inspected my bees a large portion of the second deep (normally for rearing brood) was full of nectar and capped honey. In my opinion my bees are pretty close to being honey bound. I did find swarm cells at the bottom of the frames and some did indeed have an egg in them. I destroyed quite a few of these cells. In the future, I may leave them. I think there is some risk in that if the bees do swarm, I want a new queen to be in the works and not have destroyed my bees' chance to save themselves from a queenless doom. When I returned from vacation, I immediately put on my second super. Just this last inspection I switched the positions of the supers so that the one that the bees have filled nearly entirely with capped honey is now on the very top and the super that still needs to have wax drawn out is now just on top of the second deep.

Now, it is the middle aged 10-20 days old, bees that are the comb building, wax drawing bees. These are also the bees that are mostly involved in the nectar processing within the hive. They are sometimes called the food-storer bees. Their job is to unload the bees that have been out foraging for nectar. A forager returns and seeks out a food storer bee to unload their nectar/pollen. If the bee is able to find a food storer bee within an average of 20 seconds, then that means that there are likely less foraging bees than food storing bees. So, if the foraging bee determines that her nectar source is energetically efficient (i.e., the sugar concentration of the nectar and the amount of available forage and distance from the hive will net more energy gained than lost) she  will likely perform a waggle dance. Waggle dances are only performed by bees when they deem their nectar source to be valuable enough to merit recruitment of other bees. Part of this feedback on whether the source is indeed valuable is given via the length of time required to find a food storer bee, the other part via the bee's innate judgement of the nectar source's value. If a specific nectar source is being advertised extensively via waggle dances (which will recruit unemployed foraging bees to find the source), then more bees will quickly find that nectar source and begin to forage and bring back nectar from it. This will have a cross-inhibition effect on nectar sources that are not as valuable. Because bees foraging at a less valuable nectar source will have to spend more time looking for a food-storer bee and hence will perform less waggle dances and there will be less recruitment to that nectar source and bees will be more likely to abandon forage at that source.

Interestingly, I learned while reading Thomas D. Seeley's book The Wisdom of the Hive, that when there are not enough foragers (say at the beginning of the day -- early morning), when a returning forager enters the hive, it may go up to an inactive bee and grab hold and shake it. This seemingly "awakens" the bee and makes it much more likely to go out and forage. This seems to be a signal to recruit more bees to forage.

Another signal that bees give is called the tremble dance. This dance is different than the waggle dance though it does involve shaking. However, instead of just the abdomen shaking, the entire body and legs shake back and forth. This dance is performed when there is a sudden influx of nectar and there aren't enough food storer bees to unload foragers from profitable nectar sources. This dance is performed further into the hive where nurse bees are caring for brood. It causes inactive or brood caring bees to become food storer bees.

I tell you what bees are truly amazing. I have to agree with Lorenzo Langstroth, the inventor of the movable frame hive and Father of Modern American Beekeeping, that honeybees are a witness of a divine creator!

So, it is my hope that my second, empty, undrawn medium super will be drawn out by hard-working middle aged bees so that the nectar in the brood areas can be moved up into that super so that the queen has more room to lay her eggs. The fact that wax is energetically more expensive to produce than honey may also help relieve the overflow of nectar in my bees' brood area. In fact, it takes 6 g of sugar/honey for every 1 gram of wax produced. The bees will naturally move this nectar and honey up as that is how they store their food. Honey on top, pollen just below that, then brood. Honey and pollen on the outsides of the hive. Brood in the middle. Laying eggs is important nearly year round with bees in order to replace the die off rate of foraging bees. During the summer bees (except for the queen) may live only 4 to 6 weeks, though they'll live longer in the winter when they are inactive.

Here are some interesting notes from The Wisdom of the Hive: Social Physiology of the Honeybee:


A patch of flowers 100 square meters about half the size of a tennis court, represents less than 1/125,000 of the area enclosed by a circle with a 2 km radius (and bees can fly up to 6 km radius from the hive) yet remarkably a honey bee colony has a probability of 0.5 or higher of discovering any such flower patch located within 2 km of its hive.

An average foraging trip for a bee results in either 15 mg of pollen or resin (propolis) or 30 mg of nectar or water. Many foraging trips are performed each day.

Yearly colony wide approximately 20 kg. of pollen, 120 kg. of nectar, 100 g of propolis, and 25 liters of water are collected. During the summer bees will consume 70 kg of nectar. This leaves 50 kg of food storage that the bees amass each summer. Much of this comes during what is termed "nectar flows" periods of intense flowering by certain sources that last perhaps only a week or so perhaps shorter due to inclement weather, etc.

Next time you see a honeybee, stop and take a look at it and marvel at the work it performs! I recently read a quote that I liked, "Only God can make blood and honey."

Beekeepers Do Crazy Things

I'm sure that mainstream society already thinks that beekeepers have got a screw lose. I mean, who in their right mind thinks that keeping nearly 30,000 stinging insects in their backyard is fun?! But just to make sure that there is no doubt in anyone's mind that some beekeepers are a bit more "unhinged" than others, one just needs to read the news. Check it out: http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2011/07/world/hires.bee.bearding/index.html?&hpt=hp_c2

Now this demonstration of bee bearding is a testament to several things 1) the insanity/bravery/guts of the guys in the picture and 2) the gentleness of bees when responding to queen mandibular pheromone. Either queen pheromone vials or queen bees themselves are used to attract the bees. I'm guessing that vials of pheromone were used here. The cloth in the picture may have been soaked or sprinkled in it as well. The bees aren't necessarily swarming the person as much as they are swarming where they can smell the presence of queen pheromone. So, if you took a bath in queen pheromone or hung  a vial of it about your neck like a pendant or talisman during late spring/ early summer and you may very well end up with a swarm of bees hanging from your neck. That would give a whole new meaning to the term: bee bearding.

On Vacation is the Place to Bee

Honeybee in Hawaii

My wife and I recently got back from a celebratory cruise throughout the Hawaiian islands for my parents'-in-law 40th wedding anniversary. We had a great time. This, though, was my first time in Hawaii as a beekeeper. I was much more cognizant of these amazing insects this time around. So, when I'd see one on a flower, I'd try to get a nice close up of it with my new camera. The picture of the bee and the purple flower is mine. However, this is a much closer/better picture of a bee in Hawaii going for a landing on a white tropical flower. Here's the link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nayrsivart/4612613865/.

Funny, how once you appreciate something, you notice it much more often and take it for granted much less. In fact, I noticed a brochure at one of the ports that the cruise stopped (Kauai, I believe) where you could go visit a beekeeping facility and they'd open up their hives and you'd be able to check out their bees. Now, this may very well be something cool for someone who's never seen inside a hive before, but I'm fairly certain that my hives would look for all intents and purposes like hives in Hawaii. I'm not so sure that suiting up in a bee suit in Hawaii is my idea of a vacation. However, touring their beekeeping operation and talking to a Hawaiian beekeeper, would be an enjoyable way to pass the time (if you ever get sick of being on the beach and hiking to waterfalls :) ).

Unfortunately, bees in Hawaii have been having a tough time. This is because, until recently, they've been able to avoid acquiring the dreaded Varroa destructor mite and small-hive beetle. I've been reading in Bee Culture that both Varroa and especially the small-hive beetle have now gained access to paradise. Throughout the Big Island of Hawaii, apparently small-hive beetle has been causing the loss of many colonies. Small-hive beetle does better in warmer climates, and when they eat the honey and wax, their waste causes the honey to ferment and become slimey. The bees can't stand this, and so they abandon the hive. So, in some respects, having that dreaded winter season where it gets bitter cold also helps to eliminate and diminish the threat of some bee pests and diseases. So winter isn't all that bad.

Just this last weekend, I took the family to Palmyra, NY. We visited the Joseph Smith family farm there. It has been restored and is as close to what it would have looked like in the 1800s as it can be. As we were walking out of the restored threshing barn, I noticed replicas of what the Smith's honeybee hives would have looked like. Now, these certainly aren't as convenient--or bee friendly for that matter-- as the removable frame Langstroth hive; but I probably wouldn't have thought twice about this two years ago. Instead, it became a great picture spot. I'm sure that Joseph, Hyrum, and the rest loved their honey! I wonder whose job it mostly fell to when honey harvesting time came around?

Hives out of Tree Trunks

The Smiths had some pretty serious hive weights!

Since I've been gone, I haven't been able to inspect my hives for nearly a month. I did take a quick peak (i.e. without smoking the bees) and determined that I should put a 2nd medium super on. That's good news. Hopefully, the bees will have made enough honey by the end of the summer that I can take in close to 30 pounds. That would be what I'm shooting for. Any more than that, and I'll be pleasantly surprised!