The Organization of Bees Part 2: The Life Cycle of the Bee

Hello fellow beekeepers and bee curious! I am intending to continue my last blog with the life cycle of the bee. However, I wanted to give you an update on Nefertiti and Cleopatra. Both of the hives are thriving and growing fast. We now have three brood boxes on each hive and soon it will be time to install a queen excluder and set some honey supers up. The hive beetles from Cleopatra’s hive are gone, most likely due to the thinning out of the bushes to let in more sunlight. While they are gone for now, we will not be complacent! Beetle Blasters are on their way and will be installed in each brood box for extra protection. We also procured some diatomaceous earth to put in the Beetle Blasters and to sprinkle on the ground around the hives to keep those dreaded verroa mites.

During our last inspection we were unable to see our queens, but we also could not access about 75% of the second brood box in both hives. The bees had built comb between the last frames and the box wall. This in effect eliminated our ability to really inspect more than the outer couple of frames. To do more, risked injuring our queens if they were in there. We had great capped brood and even some emerging brood. Unfortunately, we did not really see any eggs on the frames we could see, but we are not going to panic. The bees weren’t agitated and appeared very busy, so we are going on the assumption that the queens were running around in the frames that we could not inspect. We will try to get at those inner frames this weekend. We also saw drones running around as well as the tell-tale bullet shaped caps that indicate drone eggs. There was also a superseder cell on one of the frames, but it was nothing to worry about for now.

Now as I mentioned before, I wanted to talk about the life cycle of the bee and how their whole lifespan is completely organized. While I was doing some research, I also found an awesome one minute video that shows the first 21 days of a bee’s life in 64 seconds. It is amazing! So let’s get to it.

There are four stages of a bee’s life: egg, larva, pupa, and adult. Each of these stages represents a certain number of days in a bee’s life. The egg stage lasts three days. When the egg is laid, it is standing up and by the third day it is laying down and has hatched. The larval stage lasts five days. During this time it is surrounded by royal jelly for the first three days and then beebread for the remaining days. Now here is an interesting fact. To make a queen, the nurse bee will feed the larva royal jelly the entire time. The longest pre-emerging stage is the pupa stage, which lasts thirteen days. During this stage, the bee forms a cocoon and changes into a fully formed bee ready for work. These first 21 days encompass the bee’s entire pre-emerging life.

Once the bee emerges, it is assigned hive tasks based on how old it is. Once the newly formed bee emerges, they may clean their own cell, although it is unsure if they actually clean their own cell or if other bees come and do it. The remainder of their life is neat and organized. Here is a breakdown:

21 days as a house bee:

1 – 2 days: Cleans cells and warm the brood nest

3 – 5 days:  Feeds older larvae with honey and pollen

6 – 11 days:  Feeds young larvae with royal jelly

12 – 17 days: Produces wax and constructs comb, ripens honey

18 – 21 days: Guard the hive entrance and ventilate the hive

22 + days: Field Service

Forage for nectar, pollen, propolis and water

Source: http://www.clemson.edu/extension/county/oconee/programs/beekeeping/Honey_Bee_Life_Cycle_in_Pictures.pdf

Now that you have the actual breakdown of the life cycle, I want you to enjoy a time lapse video showing days 1-21 of a honeybee’s life cycle. Just a note, if you watch carefully you will see the Varroa destructor, the verroa mite. Enjoy and until next time, happy beekeeping!

https://youtu.be/4aLmR0I7S-E

The Organizational Life of Bees

After attending a few beekeeping classes and managing our hives, we have come to realize one very important fact. Bees are organized. Everything about a bee is organized, from the construction of their hives to their life cycles. This fact is also probably the single most important thing to know about bees. Everything they do is done with absolute purpose. Once you know your hive’s pattern, you can read everything about your bees. You will also come to know that when that organization is disrupted, you have trouble brewing.

I think one of the most visible examples of bee organization is in how they construct hives in the wild. They start by putting a layer of pollen on the very outer edge, followed by a layer of honey. Inside this cocoon on pollen and honey are the brood cells. It is a very clever design which I believe may have evolved as a result of animals raiding the hives for honey. Over time, this design probably emerged in order to keep the brood protected during a raid, thereby allowing the hive to survive the intrusion. This design is also important because it is mimicked in artificial hives as well. Take my eight frame boxes for example. The two outer frames, one and eight, have pollen in them. Frames two and seven have pollen and honey. The remaining four inner frames are where the queen lays the brood.

Not only is the box organized that way, but the individual brood frames are as well. The brood is laid in the center, and the surrounding cells are filled with honey or pollen. This allows for the bees to have a pantry of sorts on each frame to make short work of feeding the brood. Once you are able to determine this pattern in your hives, you will be able to locate your queen quickly and also know where she has been and how long ago.

This obsession with organization even occurs at the individual honey comb cell level. Have you ever wonder why bees build their honey comb cells in a hexagonal shape? The answer is simple really. There are only three shapes which can fit together perfectly on all sides without leaving extra space: (read: needing extra wax) the square, triangle, and hexagon. It was mathematically proven that using hexagons provided the most compact configuration which meant more cells in a space and the least amount of wax needed to build those cells (1). Also, the size of the cell lets the queen know whether to fertilize the egg she is laying or not. First of all, if the bees are instructed to construct drone cells (burr comb), they will do so. Then when the queen comes over a cell to lay an egg, she will fertilize the egg if she sizes the cell up to be small, producing a worker bee. If she determines the cell is large, she will lay the egg without fertilizing it, creating a drone.

There is one other area where honeybees are very organized. They know how to manage population control. The queen’s laying explodes during May and June, when the hive is doing the most expanding and in need of workers. This pans off closer towards the fall, when the hive starts winding down for winter. Finally, when the nectar stops flowing and the bees are left to rely on their honey stores, they start evicting. The drones that is. When it gets right down to survival, the working bees stay and the drones, who contribute nothing more than being sperm donors, are dragged out of the hive and refused re-entry. Honeybees won’t waste resources on freeloaders!

There is much more I can say about the organizational life of bees, but I think I will leave that for next time. In my next blog, I will talk about the bee life cycle and how the entire life of a bee is laid out and organized in order to create an efficient hive mind. It is truly fascinating the precise nature of a bee’s life cycle, but more on that next time. Until then, happy beekeeping!

Regina

1. http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2013/05/13/183704091/what-is-it-about-bees-and-hexagons

History of Beekeeping

This week has been interesting with the bees. We conducted our first comprehensive inspection on Cleopatra’s hive and we found that they simply do not like to follow directions. They managed to bridge the two sets of frames together with comb, which made it virtually impossible to remove the top box without breaking it all up. They were not happy about this. Some of the bees refused to leave the comb, even after we had removed it from the hive. Eventually we got the bees separated from the comb finished inspecting the hive. We are happy to report that they are very busy and appear healthy. However, we saw a small hive beetle in the top box. Not really much cause for concern at this point, nevertheless, we were annoyed. The bees were also annoyed by the invaders presence. There is not much we can do except smash them when we see them. The bees have their own ways of dealing with them. If they are a strong hive, they will be able to handle the situation. So we will watch and see for now. One thing we are doing is cutting back the trees around the hive. Now that they have completely filled out, we can see just how much shade they are making. Bees don’t like shade, beetles do.

As we are gearing up for the busy bee season, I began to ponder the history of beekeeping. When did it start? How did they manage beekeeping in the past? So like any reasonably educated person, I did some research. A beekeeper should know the history of beekeeping, right? What I found out was quite interesting. I decided I would use this blog to give you a little primer about the history of beekeeping. I am not sure how many people are out there that know this already, but it sure was news to me.

Honey Bee History

The fossil record suggests that bees have been around for 100 million years. The earliest fossil of a bee also suggests that bees and wasps had a common ancestor. Today, there are more than 16,000 species of bees (2). They made their way to the Americas by the mid-1850s by Australians, Europeans, and Russians bringing them in when they came over.  By 1851, bees had colonized the entire world.

Beekeeping Timeline

Prehistoric cave paintings were found as far back as 10,000 years ago that depicted humans eating honey. This became easier when humans leaned how to manage fire, and they learned that smoking the bees made harvesting easier (8). Beekeeping itself dates back to around 13,000 BC. This makes it one of the oldest forms of food production. The Egyptians lay claim to this, updating the methods, until the practice found its way to the U.S. courtesy of John Harbison (7). By the early 1800s, beekeeping had made its way to the west coast of the U.S. (1,5). No matter where beekeeping has taken place, it has always been for the same reasons: wax, honey, pollen, royal jelly and propolis (bee glue). Interestingly, I found out that propolis is used as an alternative to stitches in deep cuts where stitches will not work.

History of Beehives

Today, bee hives are generally made from wood or pottery, and more recently, plastic, and have several sections to one hive. These sections allow for the combs to be inspected and harvested without damaging the hives. Historically though, hives were far more informal. They were traditionally made from clay, baskets, mud, wicker (skeps), hollow logs (log gums), and even holes in rock cliffs (3,6). All of these hives were considered fixed comb hives. The bees would simply make comb everywhere, attaching the comb to the walls of the container, like they do in the wild. The problem with these hives was that when harvesting occurred, the hive and comb were greatly damaged. Skeps attempted to alleviate this by providing some support for the comb with sticks.

Harvesting the honey also looked quite different back then. Initially, when it was time to harvest the honey, the bees would be killed. Clearly this was not a sustainable method, and eventually hives were constructed that would allow for the removal of the honey without disturbing the hive. It was here in the U.S. that beekeeping was revolutionized with the development of beehives with removable frames in 1851. The genius behind this development was L.L. Langstroth, who is known as the father of American beekeeping. His design would persuade bees all over the world to build comb in even, symmetrical patterns at precise depths, called bee space. This space allows for two bees to work on neighboring frames at the same time (3).

Honey Heavyweights

China, U.S., Mexico, Argentina, Canada, and the former USSR are the leading honey producers in the world. China supplies the largest share of honey on the world honey market. The US provides about 50% of the North American honey, but most of it is consumed domestically and therefore doesn’t make it into the world market. In recent years, honey production has been declining and prices rising, which is primarily due to the decline in honeybees. In 2005, the US had to start importing bees to cover the country’s pollination demands (4).

As promised, I only provided you with a small primer on the history of beekeeping. There was no way to put all the information into this blog (although I wanted to, I had to ultimately decide against trying for the world record for longest blog post), so I have attached the websites that I sourced for this information. They will be able to provide you with a wealth of information beyond anything I could provide here. I hope you will check it out. Until next week, keep your bees happy and if you don’t have any, get some!

Happy beekeeping!

Regina

P.S. – I have overcome my fear of bees. We actually did some work around the hives today without the space suits!

Resources

1. Bee Source. http://www.beesource.com/resources/usda/history-of-beekeeping-in-the-united-states/. May 2, 2015.
2. Science Daily. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/12/061209083342.htm. May 2, 2015.
3. Bees-and-Beekeeping.com. http://www.bees-and-beekeeping.com/history-of-beekeeping.html. May 2, 2015.
4. Bee Behavior. http://wwwbeebehavior.com/beekeeping_history.php. May 2, 2015.
5. John’s Beekeeping Notebook. http://www.outdoorplace.org/beekeeping/history1.htm. May 2, 2015.
6. Glory Bee Beekeeping. http://beekeeping.glorybee.com/blogs/lesson-1-history-beekeeping. May 2, 2015.
7. Beekeeping 101. http://honeybees101.com/beekeeping_history.html. May 2, 2015.
8. Buzzaboutbees.net. http://www.buzzaboutbees.net/history-of-beekeeping.html. May 2, 2015.

Let’s Get Nosy

Hive inspections are an important ongoing task when you are managing bee hives. I have found that there is a certain method and timing that goes into hive inspections. For us, we have already gone through the initial inspections for the release of the queen and making sure that she has started laying eggs. We know we have a hive and our queens are alive and laying. Now what?

Now we have reached the point where we wait. The bees are doing their thing, and during bee season, you should inspect the hives generally every two weeks, except during when the hive is at its peak for growth, usually in May and June. If you are curious about the bee calendar, I found a great resource at http://www.backyardbeekeepers.com/to-do.html. This will tell you on a monthly basis, what is going on in the hive and what you should be doing as a beekeeper. You should do your first comprehensive inspection in April. Before you go to conduct your hive inspections, it is important to remember a few tips:

1. Never inspect your hive when the temperatures are below 60 degrees
2. Inspect every week to two weeks for infestations, crowding, swarming, egg laying, and honey during bee season.
3. Don’t be smelly (body odor, perfume/cologne)
4. Don’t eat bananas – scent mimics the smell of another queen, making for nervous bees
5. Be a meteorologist. Low barometric pressure makes for cranky bees, so only bother them when the pressure is level or rising.
6. If its cloudy, especially before a storm, leave the bees be. They don’t like storms either.
7. Best time of day is between 10 am to 2 pm. This will ensure that there are less bees in the hive because some of them don’t have the luxury of working from home.
8. Don’t be gloomy, wear bright colors or white. Dark colors make bees cranky.
9. Don’t block the front door! They’re a busy bunch and no one likes a traffic jam.
10. Make sure you have all of your tools before you start.
11. Get yourself a frame rack!

When you get ready to do an inspection of your hive, first make sure that you suit up and have all of your tools before you open the hive. If you are smoking your bees, make sure that you have your smoker prepared and smoke the front of the hive a few times. After opening your hive, you should remove one frame to make room for inspections. Make sure that you do not remove one on the end and that you remember the order in which you removed them so you can replace them the way they originally were. The first thing you are looking for is the natural function of the colony. For example:

1. Where is the queen?
2. How many bee larvae do you have?
3. How many drones?
4. Types of cells present (queen, drone, empty, eggs, etc)
5. Is there honey?
6. Is it crowded and in need of more room?
7. Are they capping cells properly?

It is best to track this on a worksheet so you have something to refer to at a later date. I found a hive inspection checklist at: http://www.littlehouseonthebighill.com/beekeeping/images/inspectionsheets/hiveinspection20130827.pdf. This checklist lists everything that you need to check as well as space to make note on the hive and note counts of bee types, larvae, eggs, and honey.

Secondly, you will need to look for pests, in particular small hive beetles, wax moths, and varroa mites. One interesting thing I learned was to dust your hives, liberally, with powdered sugar during inspection. This will force the bees to groom, knocking off any varroa mites that may be hitching a ride. I will cover in another blog what you can do if you find pests in your hive. You do not have to examine every frame in the hive to get an idea of the hive’s health. Once you are finished, replace the frames in the order and orientation that you originally removed them and close up the hive. If you want some more information on the process of hive inspections, check out http://www.slideshare.net/mellonabee/a-basic-hive-inspection. This is a very helpful slideshow on the process of inspecting hives.

To smoke or not to smoke…the bees

Smoking is supposed to calm the bees tricking the guard bees into not releasing the attack alarm. It is also said that it causes the bees to gorge honey, a natural survival instinct, which tends to pacify them. A fat bee can’t sting very well.

I personally think it sounds mean, but I am sure it is necessary when harvesting honey. Do we smoke our bees? As of yet, no. There does not appear to be a reason to for just taking quick looks in the hive. I am not sure whether we will smoke them for inspections. I would prefer not to make them think their house is burning down whenever we need to take a peek. Also, I still wear a space suit out to the hive and it has protected me thus far. However, ultimately, smoking is a personal choice.

Wax Moth Prevention

I came across an interesting natural way to prevent wax moth from getting into the hives and I thought I should go ahead and share it so hopefully my blog on wax moth clean up won’t be necessary. I found this at http://www.beeworks.com/informationcentre/wax_moth.html.

Take a 2 liter plastic pop bottle and drill a 1 inch hole just below the slope on the neck, then add 1 cup water, 1 cup sugar, 1 half cup vinegar and finally 1 banana peel. Wait a few days till it starts to ferment, then tie it into a tree close to the hives. This trap will draw the wax moth, they enter the hole can’t get out and drown in the liquid, this will even draw in and kill the bald faced hornet.

In addition, making sure you place a screen over the top entrances and that your lid fits properly will also prevent moth infestations.

Update on bee watering source problem

Incidentally, I figured out that I can float old wine corks in the bees’ watering bucket so that I do not have any more drownings. Off to the wine store!

I hope that this information will make inspections a little easier for all of you newbies to beekeeping. I certainly found it enlightening. I think the main thing you need to take away from all this information is this: Bees are a lot like us. Whatever aggravates us, will aggravate the bees, so treat them with care when you inspect the hives and be diligent about problems. You don’t like pests running through your house or being overly crowded, and neither do the bees. Until next time…

Regina

The Three Pillars of Beekeeping

It has been a quiet week with the bees. Not much going on except to refill the sugar water in Cleopatra’s hive. Nefertiti’s hive is not taking much sugar water, so we suspect that they are finding enough sustenance outside of the hive. Good for them. Both hives appeared healthy and busy when we last looked in on them. For now we just watch and give them more room when they are ready for it and check for pests when necessary. I did learn one thing though. We have a bucket of water out by the hive for the bees to drink. We placed a sponge in the bucket for the bees to land on so they can drink without drowning. It worked for several days, but eventually it sank, taking a bee with it. This was not what we were expecting. We need to figure out a better way to give them reliable water. If anyone has any creative suggestions for watering bees, let me know.

In my short time involved in beekeeping, I have learned that it relies on a few important concepts: patience, comradery, and environmental responsibility. Patience is key to successful beekeeping. It is a waiting game, especially in the beginning. We are at the point now where we do not go into the hive too much. The bees are established and doing their thing, so they don’t need us butting in every few days. Just like us, they will move if you keep inviting yourself into their home. Especially when you rearrange the furniture and go through their cabinets. As much as you want to peep in on them out of curiosity, you can’t. Honey harvesting also takes a while and it is not likely we will get any this first year.

The second thing that is key to beekeeping is comradery. I have always found it interesting how you never hear about something until you are a part of it yourself. Since we have been beekeepers, I have talked to many people that keep bees or have beekeepers in their families. It is truly amazing how many there are out there that you have no idea about. What else is amazing is that beekeepers as a whole are a very friendly group. You feel like kindred spirits on the same mission. When you mention you have bees, you instantly have a friend who will talk bees with you and share tips and stories about their hives and experiences.

Bee keeping also relies heavily on one’s sense of environmental responsibility. When keeping bees, you have to remember that you are only there to give them the best possible chance for survival. You are the caretakers of the bees and it is not often that you can take on such an intimate role in a wild creature’s life to ensure its survival.  I like to think of it as an honorable duty. You are taking a very hands-on approach to solving a very real problem in our ecosystem. It is also a long term commitment. As long as you do not lose all of your hives to disease or swarming, you will have them around for a very long time. Having bee hives also changes your perceptions on other areas of gardening. You tend to lean more towards bee friendly flowering plants and practice organic gardening. You will also rethink pest and weed control for your yard as the toxins most commonly used are harmful to the bees. Your whole outlook on the environment changes when you are responsible for bee hives.

I tend to believe that beekeepers are more sensitive and in tuned to the environment. We are more likely to be the same people who do rainwater collection, integrated pest management, grow our own gardens, and use electric lawn mowers. We are a common people who believe that the world is larger than we are and we are entirely responsible for our long term health and the health of the planet. If you ever come across a beekeeper, stop and talk to them for a minute about it. You will find that we are an interesting and friendly bunch, and we love bees.

To Bee or Not to Bee

My husband and I attended a hive inspection class on Saturday. During the class, we learned a few interesting things about the bees and how to tell when they are going to swarm or dump their queen. We covered way too much information that day, and thankfully our hives neither dumped their queen nor were preparing to swarm. I am proud to report that Nefertiti is alive and well and has laid eggs. Her hive is strong and growing, and is ready for the addition of another eight frame box. Cleopatra is also alive and well, although we were not able to see any eggs. They could be there and we just did not see them. They are extremely small and we did not want to aggravate the hive too long looking for some. We will check back later on her progress. On a good note, Cleopatra’s hive is also ready for another box of frames to expand into.

During our inspection class, we were asked why we are keeping bees. Many people have asked me this question when I told them that we are bee keepers. People have many reasons for keeping bees. So why did my husband decided to keep bees? There is one main reason really. We are going to have a garden and fruit trees. Honey bees are responsible for pollinating all of the fruits and vegetables that we plan to plant. Unfortunately, the nation’s honey bee population, and more notably Tennessee’s, are in severe decline, so we are raising our own. Not only will it give us pollinators for our crops, but we will be doing our small part to promote sustainable gardening and a healthy urban honey bee population.

Bee keeping is not easy. There are a lot of things working against you, like mites, beetles, moths, and foulbrood bacteria. The worst thing we have to deal with is Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). This is when the majority of the worker bees fly off, never to return again. There are several suspected culprits, but no one is really sure of what causes CCD. I will do another blog detailing CCD later in the future, but for now, the important thing to know is that the rates of decline over the past several decades have been staggering and it is a global phenomenon. The honey bee population is relying on hobby bee keepers to help bolster their populations and minimize the effects of annual losses.

For those of you who are curious or actually contemplating bee keeping, I have posted several links to some great websites on my Resources page that discuss bee keeping and the plight of honey bees. Bee keeping may not be for everyone, but anyone can be a bee keeper. If everyone kept just one or two hives, we could make a serious impact on honey bee populations and help provide the numbers of bees necessary to pollinate our agricultural crops. Presently, bees are in such short supply that large bee keeping farms are renting their bees out to farms for pollination. This is how California’s almond crops are getting pollinated right now. So keep all of this in mind when you ask yourself the question, “To bee or not to bee?”

Day One: Bee Homecoming

This is my first official post as the wife of a beekeeper. Today, my husband received his bees and we installed them in our hives. Perhaps I should have prefaced this by saying I hate bees. I understand their usefulness in our ecosystem and I respect that, as long as they do not come near me. So now here I am with a hive of around 5000 honeybees in my backyard. Yep, you heard that right. One hive is remaining at the center for training purposes and our second one is currently residing in my backyard.

When my husband came up to me a few months ago and said he wanted to be a beekeeper, I was supportive, despite my serious apprehension to having them in my yard by the droves. I helped him build the hives, ready their spot in the yard, and bought my very own beekeeping personal protection equipment. I figured that if I was going to have bees, I better learn how not to get stung by them. So I went to the training where we installed the bees. I believe it was one of the most interesting things I have ever done.

There were several other beekeepers there learning how to start their first hives. I met another anxious wife who was accompanying her excited husband in this endeavor. After an informative lecture about how to set up the hive, which I actually enjoyed, we suited up and chose our bees. I was so interested during the live demonstration, using a full box of bees this time, I forgot to be afraid. After everyone started to install their bees, of which I was front and center for mine, I was finally aware that I was surrounded by many honeybees.  Normally, my instinct would have been to flail my arms and run like mad, but thankfully I did not. I was oddly calm around them. A few times I came face to face with one and instead of smacking it away, I took a moment to look at them in the relative safety of my veil and jacket. I instantly became fascinated by the little bees looking back at me. I actually did the unthinkable, I was reaching out to let them land on me.

I truly believe that if you have that irrational fear of bees, you need to become a beekeeper. It gives you a chance to experience them, while still feeling safe, and learn to appreciate them without the cloud of fear that so often follows us. A day ago I would have said I hated bees. Today, after setting up our two hives and standing amidst hundreds flying around, I can say I quite like the cuties. I have claimed them and now they are our bees. I am actually looking forward to growing our hives and creating a third. Perhaps I will paint that one up and make it my own. Later this afternoon, I saw a bee hanging out next to my garage. No, I did not run away screaming, “Bees! Bees!” I took a moment to look at it and recognized it as one of mine. When the little girl flew right up to my face and I happily left it alone to go about her business. I am proud to say that I am no longer irrationally afraid of bees. However, this is just day one and I am still a reluctant a beekeeper’s wife.