Blog – bees, beekeeping & other sticky subjects

Why treatment testing is so… testing

Varroa hit

Beekeepers often wonder why some honeybee colonies have much higher levels of Varroa infestation than others in the same apiary. In fact no two colonies ever seem to have the same level of infestation, so that requires the trialling of new treatments to be very scientific. Rigorous testing of treatment efficacy and repeatability are key features of the registration process.

Max Watkins said: “Few things are certain, but you can always be sure that infestation levels are never equal between colonies in the same apiary.

“Some colonies become more infested than others, but the reasons are usually unclear. One hive may have been robbed by an infested colony, both bees and Varroa vary in their resilience, hive temperature and light exposure may also be factors.

“Fortunately, when we are testing efficacy of products, we can adopt methods to try to level out infestations. For instance, we swap frames of brood from heavily infested colonies with those of less infested ones.”

It’s a tricky topic, so don’t be surprised if your own colonies show inexplicable variations in infestation.

But at least you can be sure that if you use registered products, tough questions will have been addressed in the registration process.

A wintery tale of two colonies

Here is the debris contrasting drop of two colonies in two neighbouring, but different apiaries in southern England after six days in January. Why the difference?

The first picture is from a colony obviously munching through its stores in an apiary exposed to winds.

The second picture shows a much less active colony in a more sheltered location with plenty of stores onboard.

Quantity of debris aside, there is one subtle, but significant and somewhat alarming difference: in amongst the second colony’s debris there were six dead varroa — and none in the first. I’m not happy to see a drop of six dead varroa in six days in winter. That is most unusual for my colonies.

I don’t like opening up colonies in winter, but the second will be inspected as soon as warmer conditions prevail! Varroa treatments will be at the ready!

There are a number of possible explanations of the differences in the debris fall – who would like to speculate?

(The debris is collected in a standard varroa screen.)

Turlough, Vita’s Guest Beekeeper Blogger
Views expressed in this blog are not necessarily those of Vita (Europe) Ltd.

Honey Money

In December, Central Bank of Luxembourg issued a collectors’ €5 coin commemorating the European honeybee (Apis mellifera).

The coin is a part of ‘Fauna and Flora in Luxembourg’ series which started in 2009.

The coin is made of Nordic gold and silver, but unfortunately it cannot be acquired for its face value.

A total of 30,000 were minted in Utrecht and the going rate seems to be about €60 complete with accompanying booklet and presentation case.

And then there were none – tales from the observation hive

The exit through which the bees made their late season escape.

The year 2014 was a peculiar one on the observation hive and the ending was rather odd too.

The queenless colony dwindled and it did so in two rapid surges. One day early in November there was a queue at the nucleus hive in the garden – and suddenly about half the bees in the observation hive had gone. A large group of them had obviously decided to move en masse.

The second move involved the quite small number of remaining bees, but it was very decisive! At the end of November, there was one day of very heavy continuous rain . Then, as darkness fell, the clouds cleared to greet a very heavy frost. Overnight all the remaining bees disappeared!

In the morning, the observation hive was completely empty. There were no dead bees, so either in the torrential rain or the heavy frost, they made a dash for it.

Perhaps they entered the garden nucleus. Perhaps they died in the attempt. I simply don’t know!

Turlough, Vita’s Guest Beekeeper Blogger

Year 2 of life in a honeybee fishbowl

Last year, I wrote of my experiences in installing and managing an observation hive in my office. It was a fascinating experience and a great distraction from my work, so a second year was essential.

But first to complete last year’s story. I didn’t overwinter the bees in the observation hive because during the season I saw how quickly the balance of such a small colony can be upset. I knew that I would be away for several weeks leaving the bees unattended, so they were transferred to a nucleus and transported to one of my apiaries.

In June this year I started again with a queen-making colony. I installed a Langstroth brood frame with two super frames above it. The brood frame had two sealed queen cells as I wanted to have an insurance in case one failed. Even if both were viable and neither destroyed by the bees, I might just be lucky enough to be around when a swarm departed. I was!

One June morning, a lot of squalking started coming from the hive. The noise was queen piping, so I suspected that a swarm might be imminent. Just before lunchtime the colony became increasingly agitated, running in gangs in all directions around the observation hive. Some found the entrance and poured down the exit tube much to the bewilderment of returning foragers which continued to try to squeeze themselves past and into the hive. When about half had reached the open air, they left with their virgin queen. Naturally it was a very small swarm and I saw it fly across neighbouring gardens, but I don’t think anyone else noticed and I never heard from them again.

That left the other queen to emerge and I waited patiently for her to mate. I spotted her in the hive one day, so I knew she existed, but I never discovered what became of her. She didn’t start laying and eventually I had to introduce a replacement brood frame with a new queen cell.

That new queen also emerged and at one point I thought she had mated because I even saw her going through the motions of depositing eggs in cells. But no eggs or larvae ever appeared! She eventually disappeared leaving a broodless colony.

I introduced a third replacement frame with a queen cell. A tiny queen emerged, but again failed to mate and lay.

Perhaps each queen had difficulty in relocating the hive entrance after a mating flight. Perhaps they were just unlucky to become a bird’s lunchtime inflight snack. Interestingly, Karl Tautz in his fascinating book The Buzz about Bees says that nucleii moved to a new mating apiary have high rates of queen loss during mating flights. Their disappearance remains a mystery to me and quite unlike my previous year’s experience.

However, there was lots of fascination to be had watching even a queenless colony. I especially enjoyed watching the bee dances which for some bees culminated in a quick kiss of nectar with the dancing bee before leaving to forage.

I was also intrigued by the confusion house-cleaning bees showed in failing to find the exit. They would wander round and round the hive with a piece of larva, sometimes walking unwittingly right across the exit! I would very much like to know if this cluelessness about the layout of their home results from the design of the observation hive or if this happens in every hive. It certainly wastes a lot of energy and is reminiscent of the children’s game, blind man’s buff.

So I look forward to more experiments next year and am already planning some changes, one of which is to make the entrance very clear to returning mated queens.

Here, I have been able to touch only on a little of what I saw in between emails and telephone calls. But be warned: observation hives and deadlines don’t mix!

Turlough, Vita’s Guest Beekeeper Blogger