Blog – bees, beekeeping & other sticky subjects
Busy again, but where?
Observation hive bees get into autumnal action rushing in and out of their tunnel to the great outdoors.
After a few weeks idle time, the observation hive bees are out and about again as often as the weather permits. I suspect the ivy is beginning to flower after the August gap. Ivy produces one of the few honeys that I loathe, but I like what it does to provide winter stores for the bees.
I’ve heard it said that its crystallization makes it hard for the bees to use in a cold winter, but here in southern England winters are mild enough to let the bees out frequently enough to gather water to help liquefy any solid stores.
This week, I saw the NASA honeybee forage map of the USA. Fascinating — by clicking on each state, you can see what the bee forage is, its significance and when it flowers.
For British beekeepers there is that marvellous short paper by Dorothy Hodges: A Calendar of Bee Plants. Published by IBRA in 1978, but giving average flowering times recorded in the 1940s and 50s it offers an almost frightening picture of climate change: it is very clear how earlier plants tend to flower now (this tardy spring excepted of course!).
And this year, the beekeeper must-have Plants for Bees, an updated version of the 1945 work of FN Howes’ Plants and Beekeeping was published.
But what I’d really like is a flightpath map to show where my bees are foraging. Any ideas?
Turlough, Vita’s Guest Beekeeper Blogger
How long can Apiguard be stored?
We’ve received a few queries about how long Apiguard can be stored.
Applying Apiguard
We know that, as long as the product has not been stored in hot conditions (in direct sun or above 30°C), Apiguard is stable for at least four years and probably up to six years in the sealed aluminium tray pack. We say three years’ stability on the label as this is the normal requirement but product dated June 2013 is perfectly OK to use this year.
However, if you are using a 3 kg tub, from which you have already used a large quantity, leaving a small residual amount of gel in the tub, this should be used with caution. If this is the case, you should try a little dose (25g) on a colony at a time to check the bees respond normally to it. (If there is too much thymol and not enough liquid left, due to evaporation, then the product could be too powerful and will repel bees strongly, so try a little first and see what happens.) This should also be OK but we cannot guarantee used product past its shelf life.
Video on applying Apiguard:
I never knew housework could be quite so exhausting
Bee with a mission
I’ve just been watching — or rather I’ve just given up watching — a house-cleaning bee attempting to remove a bit of larva from the hive.
She clearly doesn’t know the hive layout too well as she cannot find the exit. I’ve watched her run up and down the sides tightly clutching her debris. Tantalisingly, I’ve seen her walk straight over the top of the exit several times. No amount of willing her, enables her to find the way out. But she does seem to understand its around the edge of the colony somewhere.
Perhaps it’s because it’s the younger bees which do the cleaning and are not yet foragers have not mapped their home yet. (John B Free’s book The Social Organisation of Honey Bees gives a very interesting series of diagrams showing the ages at which bees perform certain tasks.)
However, she is determined to remove the trash from the hive, unlike some people I know who just drop litter anywhere.
Turlough, Vita’s Guest Bee Blogger
Never take your eye off an observation hive!
I’m learning very quickly that you cannot keep too close an eye on bees in an observation hive. Yesterday an increasing roar from the hive alerted me that something was most definitely amiss.
Regular blog readers may remember that as the nectar flow was drawing to a close, the observation hive was beginning to get rather too full of honey, so with a few little incidents, I replaced the super frames.
The entrance tube is clear again.
I gave the bees some sugar feedwhich they eagerly consumed and I thought all would be well. I went away over the long holiday weekend and returned to discover that the bees were sluggish and a handful had died. Obviously the nectar flow had dried up completely and the sugar feed hadn’t been enough, so I hurriedly gave them more and they rapidly returned to a healthy buzzing state.
Then yesterday as the day warmed up, the bees started to roar and that roar increased as the day grew warmer. I noticed that they were racing around the hive, but that none were leaving or entering via the tube. Obviously it was blocked! The dead bees they had been removing had become stuck in the bend of the tube and blocked it!
So it was time to empty and clean the observation hive once again (performed with rather more skill having learned from the previous attempt, I might add!).
The bees recovered quickly and all is well again, but I have learnt a very sharp lesson: in a colony as small as in an observation hive, the food supply can change with remarkable speed.
Turlough, Vita’s Guest Beekeeper Blogger
Intruder
Intruder
A wasp dared to enter the observation hive and had a torrid time as a result. I watched the hive on-and-off for at least two hours as the wasp was chased around the hive having tussles (like this one in the photograph) along the way.
Eventually the wasp was trapped with its head hanging over a bottom bar and its body above it as the bees explained that its presence in the hive was unwelcome.
I last saw the very disoriented and clearly injured wasp in the plastic exit tube being brushed aside as the bees went about their business. It was so confused — or perhaps drawn by the smell of honey — that it would try to go back towards the hive when the bees rushing passed it allowed it to move anywhere.
I didn’t see its final and inevitable demise. I wonder how long it actually underwent its harassment and am surprised that it wasn’t actually killed outright, just mortally wounded.
Turlough, Vita’s Guest Bee Blogger