Gidday! From Australia

Do you listen to your intuition? I wish I did on this day.

I was going to Oxford Honey & Supply to pick up some honey supers and deeps. The night before as I went through my check list I felt that subtle suggestion--Take your camera with you.

I thought, no I don't need to take my camera because I'm only going to a supply warehouse. Even the next morning I heard it again and I thought logically at the time, why, I won't use it? So I left without it.

So, because I didn't listen to my intuition I now have to apologize that the two photos I have are poor, not closeup and were done on a cell phone camera.

You see, while at the supply store there was a man standing there, another beekeeper, and he was holding a cooler.

Just before he left John, the owner, said to me, "Barb, you might want to see this."

"What?" I asked.

"Queens. It's a delivery of queens. We picked them up late last night in Toronto. They're from Australia"

The beekeeper removed the cooler lid and it was full of little queen cages, each with its own queen and attendants. And they were tooting away.

"I can hear their Aussie accents," I said.

Then I went into a side room where they were putting tiny pads of warm water onto the tops of the queen cages - offering the thirsty bees a drink - and some moisture so they could lick at the queen candy in the cage.

The beekeepers who had ordered the queens had all been called and they would soon all be dropping by to pick them up.

What I really regret camera-wise is that I don't have sound or video to play. Otherwise you'd get to hear the high pitched "queen tooting" and a few hundred wings beating, which created a surprising amount of heat.

There were about 200 queens and they were all within inches of each other. I can just imagine if I was a queen that would make me toot too!

Next time, I'll take the camera... no hesitation!

Spring Treatments for AFB and Nosema

Here we have a trio of help for the bees.

Pictured in this photo (24 Apr), resting on top of the frames are:

Peanut butter coloured pollen patties. The bees really love these and have already eaten two.

The pink is the AFB (American Foulbrood) sugar powder treatment resting on wax paper and finally, a Formic Acid pad (blue) to treat for mites.

We took the winter wraps off the second week of April.

This spring has come up so fast that it caught me by surprise. I'm playing catch up now with posts on the hive activities.

Pollen patties were added to both hives and the bees have really been enjoying them. The photo above is when a fresh patty is laid on the top bars. The next photo is when the hive was just opened a week or so later.

The pollen patties come sandwiched between wax paper - it makes them easier to handle, although the more time they spend in the sun the more gooey they can get. The paper has small holes cut out and the bees were very quick to dunk down inside these holes to get a the food.

Later they chew up and carry out the leftover wax paper from the hive.

Hive #1, with more bees, gobbled their patties in less than a week and needed more. This hive has more bees than the other hive.

This caught me by surprise. I had more patties but there were at home in the freezer--oops!

For this trip, Dad and I were adding Formic Acid pads as a mite treatment to both the hives. The formic pads come inside a clear plastic wrap. The clear plastic is cut away, leaving behind the foam pad which stays inside it's blue plastic cover. There are holes in the bottom of the plastic and the pad is set, holes side down, on a couple of sticks. The sticks keep the pads off the actual wood frames of the hive.

Because of the thickness of the pad and the addition of sticks, a rim spacer is needed to create a little space - so we added those to--that's the lime green coloured rim in the photo.

The smoker was lit but it wasn't needed. As soon as the bees smelled the Formic Pad they dove down inside their hive and the buzzing went way up. I really hated doing this treatment. The instructions warn that you could lose up to 14 days worth of brood with this treatment. I was told that the reason the larvae die is because the nurse bees move away from the frame because of the smell and the bees are then not kept warm or fed and die. (Addendum to this note - the hive increased in size each week and it did not appear to lose a lot of brood).

The Formic also penetrates the capped cells to kill the mites, and often it kills the pupae too. But not treating would make things much worse. We examined the sticky mite boards prior to putting the formic on and Hive #2 is heavily infested - and they have less bees.

(Photo at left - bees enjoy eating their pollen patties).

I also watched this hive put out live deformed bees. These workers, born damaged as a result of the mites, are doomed to die and cannot support their hive. It's sad to see them.

We did remember to remove the entrance reducers once the Formic pads were in place.

A mite treatment is like chemotherapy. You're trying to burn out or kill off the cancer but not the patient. With the mites, you're trying to kill one insect but not the other. Like chemo, the treatment takes the patient down in an attempt to save their life.

It was also time for an AFB treatment, that powder is sprinkled onto wax paper that rests on the tops of the frames. I also gave them Fumigilan B to treat nosema.

We topped up their sugar water and then closed up the hive.

While taking photos I noticed some brown spots on the front of the hive. I don't think they were there prior to taking the wraps off. It could be Nosema (I hope not) or possibly a dysentery.

I'll have to keep my eye on that. (Addendum - no further brown poop seen on the outside of the hives.)

If you are new to beekeeping or you'd like to see a list of the recommendations and options for spring treatments, the Ontario Bee Association has an excellent list of what needs to be done and when. You can view it here. I found it most useful to remind me what I'll need to do next.

Sick Bee

Vampires are a really hot item these days in novels and movies. Both kids and adults have their PG and R rated versions of programming that we can watch... and enjoy.

But this is no pleasure and this one is a real X-Rated Horror.

Click the picture to enlarge the photo and you'll see why.

I found her outside her hive. She'd been evicted by her sisters. They probably didn't want to but they knew they had to.

She'll die of course. Probably later that night as the temperature dropped and the spring air cools her body. Whether her hunger or the cold air would get her first, I'm not sure. I don't want to think about it.

I hated seeing her suffering. I wouldn't feed her either--not because I didn't want to--but because I knew it would only prolong the suffering and unavoidable death.

She can't fly and she could barely walk. Her abdomen is deformed. Probably her internal organs aren't functioning well either.

Are you wondering why?

Because of a vampire called Varroa Destructor. Varroa Mites were inside this bee's cell when she was a defenseless pupae, capped and waiting to make her final metamorphosis into a worker bee.

They fed so well on her--latching onto the thorax, her back, where there's a good supply of blood to suck on. They fed so vigorously that they destroyed her tissue. Her body could not develop normally and her wings and body are malformed.

She'll never fly. She'll never be a nurse bee. She'll never fulfill the role she was born to do.

It could be Deformed Wing Virus (DWV). Mites are dirty mouthed and like mosquitoes they not only steal a blood meal, they spread germs and disease as well.

What can the beekeeper do? There are various methods to treat the hive, some organic and others not. For myself, I'll be using a natural product called Formic Acid. The fumes it creates eats away at the mite's shell and weakens/kills it. The weakened mites lose their grip on the bee's fur and falls. Hopefully the fallen mite will land on the greased board sticky board at the bottom of the hive where it will stick and be held until it dies.

Photo - Here's the sticky board - it's plastic cardboard that sits under a screen at the bottom of the hive. The bees can't get through the screen (called a Varroa Screen) but the mites do. It's been greased with Crisco Shortening.

Use Crisco, vaseline or any product that will make the board sticky - this will trap and hold the mite preventing it from climbing back up in the hive and find another bee to latch onto.

To see the mites in the photo - you can easily count them. Click on the photo to enlarge. I've circled a couple in red so you can see what they look like.

Hive #2 is a concern - it was heavily infested before the Formic Acid was put in the hive. The photo is from after the Formic was put in place.

To determine the level of infestation beekeepers will put in a cleanly greased board and then return in either 24 or 72 hours. If 72 hours, divide the total mites counted on the board by 3 to get the daily drop levels. Anything over 20 is considered a very heavy infestation.

To determine the effectiveness of the treatment, a count is also done, again on a clean board, while the treatment is in place.

With the Formic Acid pads fumigating the hive a lot more mites are falling. I'm certainly not sorry to hear that!

This girl will never fly or enjoy being a nurse bee but I hope I've given her short life meaning in a new bee task as an Education Bee. Let her example help you make decisions on how you'll care for your hives.

Spring Bee Chores

I'm back! Actually, I never left but I did get pretty busy for a few weeks.

My next few posting will be catch-up and to make a record of my activities over the last three weeks.

(Photo - bees under the plexi-glass panel of the hive top feeder).

First, how are YOUR bees? Did they survive the winter? Are you feeding and/or doing mite treatments? What treatment plan are you following? I look forward to reading about your hives or interest in the comments.

My bees survived the winter. Yeah!!! My first two hives. Our Canadian winter was very mild which was unusual.

I started feeding a 2:1 sugar/water syrup using a hive top feeder the second week of April. Temperatures had gone up considerably with some days as high as 26 degrees Celsius. That is unseasonably warm. I did leave the winter wraps on the first week of April while the nights were still pretty cool.

Spring took me by surprise so I wasn't ready as quickly as other experienced beekeepers to put in the pollen patties and get the syrup on. I think I'm about a week behind the professional beekeepers.

I ordered pollen patties from Munro Honey. They come rolled flat and cut in a rectangle. The pollen is mixed with honey and maybe some vitamins and is put between wax paper. I laid them right on the top bars of the hive. No rim spacer was required since the patties fit in the small space between the tops of the frames and the inner cover.

(Photo - as soon as the hive winter wraps came off, the bees in Hive #1 set to sending out homing scents for returning bees to follow - note their rears up in the air).

The bees were landing on the patties even before I could get them on the hive. They must smell good. They look like peanut butter, brown and sticky.

Hive #1 with the purchased queen appeared to have more bees than Hive #2 with their own made queen. I must note that I feel I took too much honey from Hive #2 last season, considering the poor weather we had the bees didn't get a chance to build up more honey after I took a super from them. I feel that set them back a bit.

Ontario has gone on record (maybe all of Canada but I can't confirm that) that last year was the worst honey year ever. Beekeepers reported bringing in half the amount of honey as usual. Winter kill reports haven't been done yet but the Ontario Bee Association and Tech Team will be surveying beekeepers to get the stats.

The unofficial report at our last local bee meeting gave percentages of losses from 20 to 50%.

Hive #1 ate their 2 patties in a week while Hive #2 still had one left. I gave them both more. Hive #1 was also taking down the syrup faster. It was obvious that the Hive #1 has more bees than the other.

The bees were bringing in lots of pollen. I think the foraging at this new bee yard will be much better than the damp dark swamp.

Let's hope for a great summer for the bees... and us.

More on The Buzz About Bees and a Word from the Author

What a wonderful surprise to hear personally from the author of the book I had blogged about. You can find the book, The Buzz About Bees on Amazon.ca. There are more reviews of the book on Amazon.com as well.

Here's what the author had to say:

"If you want to see hot bees coming and going in a life stream online, please go to http://www.hobos-online.de/.

For more details on this honey bee educational project please see the two PDF attachments.

HOBOS is being build piece by piece, so a visit there from time to time allows to follow the progress. We will have also webcams inside the colony to study heater bees at work."

HOBOS (HoneyBee Online Studies)is an internet portal, giving access into the life of a honey bee colony for the purpose of education and research. Honey bees are key organisms for understanding aspects of behaviour, ecology and agriculture.

Read more about HOBOS and BeeGroup on this BeeGroup website.

Another Bee Chore - Heater Bees!

I'm devouring a fantastic bee book which I must tell you about. It's called The Buzz About Bees, Biology of a Superorganism by Jurgen Tautz. It was originally written and published in German and is translated (excellently) into English.

This book covers all the latest and greatest on the secret life of bees. Reading it has been fascinating with many "I never knew that" moments. Here's a few new things I learned from this book:

A Heater bee is actually another recently discovered task that some workers perform inside the hive. The heater bee will help to warm the brood in two very distinct ways.

Have you ever noticed how the queen doesn't always lay a perfect brood pattern and leaves the occasional cell empty? Well the heater bee uses that cell to warm the brood in the adjacent cells. Have you ever seen workers dunked all the way down inside a cell and not moving. For many years it was thought that the bee was cleaning but now they've used infrared and carefully sliced open the cell walls to observe.

The worker laying still inside the cell is actually moving her abdomen very quickly and is generating an incredible amount of heat, often up to 41 degrees Celsius. The worker will often continue in this activity for up to 30 minutes.

After that she'll be exhausted and all her energy reserves are burned up.... but that's when another newly discovered bee job comes into play. That job is for the Filling Station bees. These workers fill themselves and then go in search of energy starved bees in the hive. They give the heater bee that "sweet kiss", touching tongues together, which you'll often see when observing bees inside the hive.

Filling stations are those odd cells in the brood area which the bees fill with nectar to save long trips to find an energy boost.

Another task that heater bees carry out, also recently discovered, is to stand with their thorax resting on the cap of a cell. Then they do "stationary flying", which is vibrating their wing muscles which is how they warm themselves. This heat is transferred to the wax where it warms up that cell and the adjacent cells. For a long time it was thought these bees were simply standing still resting, but on closer study it was discovered they were busy working.

Bees of all ages will carry out the task of heater bee.

Did you learn something new? Stay tuned and I'll report on how similar honey combs are to dish soap bubbles and how bees can communicate their dances through vibrations in the wax.

You've got to get this book. Out of 5 stars, I'd rate it 10. It's full of great close-up photos too which are a pleasure to see. You can find it on Amazon at Buzz about Bees.

(My bees are doing great and I'll report on them later this week.... Gosh life gets busy in the spring doesn't it?!).

They're Bringing In Pollen!

Yes pollen. In March. If you don't live in southern Canada, you may not know that it's still winter here. In fact, next week we're booked to have some snowy weather again.

(look carefully at the single bee sitting on the plastic wrap - she has yellow pollen on her back legs).

This week though we're having terrific warm weather with lots of sunshine and temperatures around 15 and 16 degrees Celcius. Many Canadians go to Florida during this week which is the Spring Break holiday for most Canadian children. But the weather is so nice that staying home is very pleasant indeed.

Yesterday we went to the bee yard to check on the bees and to give them pollen patties. As soon as I arrived I could see that there were lots and lots of bees flying around outside the hive.

The sun was starting to set, but still warm, and shining directly on the hives. When I opened the inner cover I could see many very healthy and young bees running around on the top bars.

I laid two pollen patties on the top bars of both hives. The bees were already landing on them before I had them in place. They must smell really good.

We had the smoker lit although we really didn't need smoke other than to clear the bees from the top bars so they wouldn't be crushed when the patties were set inside. (I forgot the camera so I only have small cell phone photos on this trip).

I was shocked and surprised to see yellow bumps on the back legs of a few bees returning to both hives. Was that pollen I wondered? I had to lean close and watch a minute. It didn't take long until I saw that the bees were actually finding pollen and bringing it back to the hive.

My respect and admiration for the clever bees grows all the time. How smart, to forage in old flowers from last fall for bits of pollen that wasn't collected last year. The bees are so resourceful it's amazing.

I'm very grateful to see the hives have survived our winter. This winter was not as cold as usual and we did not get the fluctuating temperatures from warm to cold to warm again. That is what my friend Henry says causes problems for the bees.

I am very much looking forward to another year with the bees. They've never been far from my thoughts.

I have ordered two more nucs for this spring so I'll be increasing from 2 hives to 4. Hopefully that'll mean enough honey for all the sweet tooths in the family.