Bees are a Super organism

If you look at bees flying around its reasonable to assume each bee is leading its own separate life  albeit in the company of other bees, like fish swimming in shoals, flocks of birds.and herds of cattle.
However things are more complicated than that.

The queen only leaves the hive twice. Once to mate and then when the colony swarms.
I'm often asked why she doesn't leave the hive like the other bees and the answer is because its not in her job description. She is an egg machine that the colony depends on and if she left without a replacement the colony could die, so she doesn't leave. She lays eggs and does nothing else and she doesn't even feed or clean herself, this is the job of other bees.
Also, I have been asked if the the queen is the 'leader' of the colony but she isn't. In fact her brain is smaller than that of a worker bee.

Honey  bees live extremely ordered lives and the female worker bees have specific jobs depending on their age.

1 – 2 days	Cleans cells and keeps brood warm
3 – 5 days	Feeds older larvae
6 – 11 days	Feeds youngest larvae
12-17 days	Produces wax, builds comb, carries food
18-21 days	Guards hive entrance
22+ days	Flying from hive, pollinates plants, collects pollen, nectar and water

There is no deviation from this. A 3 day old bee cannot decide it fancies a go at making wax, its not her job, and won't happen for another couple of weeks.

The male bees, drones, have only one function and that is to mate and don't make honey or do of the above jobs

The female bees collect nectar and produce honey not for themselves but the whole colony.

Although new bees are produced to maintain the colony the bee colony reproduces itself by swarming.

This collective functioning led the German bee keeper Johannes Mehring in the early nineteen hundreds to suggest that bees colonies were not collections of individuals but  a single animal with similarities to vertebrates and mammals.

Johannes Mehring

About a hundred years later the American biologist A M Wheeler coined the word 'superorganism' where the whole consists of parts that are physically separate but functionally integrated.

The Oxford Dictionary defines a super organism as

A group or association of organisms which behaves in some respect like a single organism; a complex system consisting of a large number of organisms which itself behaves as if it were an organic whole, as human society, an ecosystem, etc.

This was taken further by Jurgen Tautz in his appallingly title book 'The Buzz about bees'.
Here he suggested that honey bees were 'honorary mammals' as they shared many similar attributes, such as:-
 - mammals and honey bees have a very low rate of reproduction
 - female mammals produce nourishment for their young in special glands. Honeybees produce nourishment [Royal Jelly] for their young from special glands.
 - the uterus of mammals provide a precisely controlled and protective environment for their young. Honey bees do the same thing with their comb in which bees develop.
 - mammals have a body temperature of ~36C. Honeybees maintain the internal temperature of the hive at 35C
 - mammals have the highest learning and cognitive abilities of all invertebrates, Honey bees have learning abilities above that of some invertebrates.

And finally.........

When I started selling honey at markets I was encouraged by other stall holders to do various things not least to do a lot of advertising. 'You've got to be on Facebook' everyone told me.
Despite my loathing off  Facebook I did so.
I also set up a website  here and did this blog.

The problem with the blog software I use is that it limits the size of videos you can embed in it, so I increasingly had to put them on YouTube and have a link to it from the blog.
This meant I had to:-
 - do the blog and publish it
 - put the video on YouTube and link the blog to it.
 - Put the blog on Facebook.

As I have now virtually stopped doing markets I finally have the chance to dump Arsebook.
I can do virtually the same blog but put it directly on YouTube and I will suspend the blog and delete the Facebook account.

So, if you want to continue to see the blogs please go to here
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As time went o

The Swarming Season is over

The Swarming Season is over. Its been much busier than last year and again about half the calls were about bumblebees, wasps or solitary bees.
I think the main feature of the season has been the number of times the swarm swarmed again and not all were captured.
I will do a few things differently to try and prevent this happening next year.

As I was warned it's not easy to home the swarms so I have added more colonies to my collection.
It takes time for a swarm to get to a viable size and I have checked them all to see how prepared they are for surviving the winter.

Click the button to see the video.

Wasp attack

Wasps are the pantomime villain of the insect world and I did a blog about them last year - here.

This evening I took some stuff over to the apiary ready for a visit tomorrow and one of the hives was under attack from wasps.
Wasps had been building up over the last weekand decided to have a go at a small nuc colony that I had set up.

Click the button to see what happened

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kg7nPuD5d6M&feature=youtu.be

Biddenham Swarm

Although I collect swarms, a friend had collected a swarm from Biddenham, didn't want it and asked me if I wanted it. He had already put it in a skep and all I had to do was pick it up.
Tough decision.

Click the button to see the video.

Strawberry Grove Honey

Nearly a year ago I was asked by Fliss and Sam if I would attend an Open Day they were running on their farm in Granesden.

I did a blog about it here.

The nuc was installed and was joined by a colony I transferred from Scald End.

In the previous blog I said:-

'All being well Fliss and Sam will be able to offer Strawberry Grove honey for their customers next year.'

I didn't have too high expectations for the nuc and expected the other colony to produce the goods. However being the perverse creatures they are, the nuc has flourished and produced the first Strawberry Grove honey.
The honey has been extracted  - click the button to see how this was done.

We expect the other colony to produce a super of honey very soon.

Bees for the Top Bar and Warre hives

I've been keen to populate both my 'weird' hives.
Because of their structure it's not easy, nor cheap, to buy bees for them, so I decided I would rely on swarms to fill them.

It does mean I will probably have older queens in them and the conventional wisdom is that you should replace the queen from a swarm as soon as you can.
This is mostly driven by the issue of honey production.
You both know my view on this.

I'm quite happy having elderly queens provided the colony is healthy and has adequate food supplies.
They will get the same varroa treatments and food supplements when they need them as do my other colonies.
In time the bees will replace the queen themselves without having me to intervene.

The first swarm I collected for the Top Bar Hive absconded two days later so the swarm in the video is the second attempt.

Click the button to see the video about the Top Bar Hive.

There will be a separate video about the Warre Hive.

Tree Bumblebees

About half the calls I have had about swarms have turned out to be about Tree  Bumblebees.
They are quite small compared with other bumblebees and they often fly around the entrance to their nest and this can look like swarming.

They are particularly fond of bird boxes and I have collected two colonies that I have put at the end of my garden.

To download a leaflet about the bees click here

To see a video of them flying click the button.

Undertaker bees

Worker bees have a very regimented life and as they get older they have specific jobs to do before they are about 3 weeks old when they start to fly and forage.

When they are about 12 days old they become 'undertakers' for 2/3 days and have the responsibility for removing dead bodies from the hive.
They also remove rubbish and general debris.

I was aware they did this but today I saw a bee doing it from a swarm in a skep that had only been there for a few hours.
Looks like they take their responsibilities very seriously.

Click the button to see the video.

Bait Hives

As swarms of bees are cruising the countryside looking for a new home, you can wait for them to settle and collect them or put out a bait hive and catch them.

I have put them out for a few years now and generally get one a season.
I wasn't going to bother and I think I have enough bees [yes, I admitted it !!!!!], but I would really like to put something in my Warre hive so I will try again.

Apologies if the video perspective looks a bit odd but its the first time I have used my GoPro which has a very wide angle lens and it will take a while to get used to it.

A bit of hive cleaning

Bees are very conscientious about keeping the hive clean. Worker bees who are
about 12 days old have the job of keeping the hive clean and removing any rubbish that builds up in the hive.

One of my colonies at Ravensden was a swarm from last year and some of the comb from the swarm was transferred with the bees to a hive box in a frame and was held in with elastic bands.

The bees would then attach the comb to the frame securely with their own wax.
I knew that once they had done this they would chew through the elastic bands and get rid of them.


Today when I checked the hive I saw this.

Varroa - catching and counting them

Varroa are nasty little beasties. They eat the body fats of bees that weakens them and they spread diseases like Deformed Wing Virus.
If untreated they can kill a colony.
There's no way of completely eradicating them but bee keepers use various methods to try and keep the mites in check.

I treat for the mites twice a year, once in the Autumn and again in December/January time.

Its recommended that a beek should monitor mite levels in a hive so if they start to increase steps can be taken before things get too far advanced.

I do check my bees for mites but I will admit I don't do it regularly enough.
However this year I am going to try to be more methodical and check the mite levels on a [fairly] regular basis.

As with all bee related activities there are numerous methods of doing this and the way I do it is to use what are known as sticky boards.

Click the button to see the video.
However this year I intend doing it monthly.

Click the button to see the video.

I will do another blog about the results  and what happens next.

Bee afraid, bee very afraid.

A sense of fear fills the air.

Birds stop singing.

The temperature drops and clouds fill the sky.

Dogs howl at an unseen menace.

A nameless dread chills the soul.

People don't dare leave home.

Yes it's that time again.

The time millions of crazed, blood thirsty insects roam the countryside looking for small children, puppies and old age pensioners to terrorise.

The time when the Great British Press demonstrate their outstanding journalistic standards and start thoughtful, informative debates with headlines like this:-

The time when local newspapers produce articles about how a heroic local bee keeper saves their terrified community from certain destruction.

An alternative view would be to say it's the time of year when, as they have done for millions of years, honey bees swarm to try and maintain their population and far from being dangerous, they are at their calmest and pose no threat to anybody.

Even Daily Star readers.

The warm weather has meant that the swarming season may start earlier this year.

To download a leaflet about what to do if you have a swarm click here

Warre Hive - Finishing up

At long last its finished and given my limited woodworking skills, I'm reasonably happy with it.

As with everything I do , if I did it again I would do some bits differently, but whether I will make another one is doubtful.

A hive like this can cost about £250 but cedar is used whereas I used cheap box wood and bits of timber I had laying around and I imagine it cost me about £50 to make.

Like the sadly vacant Warre Hive, I intend occupying it with a swarm and I am on the association's swarm collectors list again this year.
Last year was very quiet for swarms but things are far more advanced and the calls could start in a few weeks.

Click the button to see the video.

Getting your retaliation in first

The swarming season approaches and I never cease to be amazed at the endless discussions/ debates that bee keepers have about swarming.
It is an entirely natural process that happens every year usually between May and July. There is something on my web site about it here.
I think the reason bee keepers are obsessed with it is that an unplanned/controlled swarm can reduce the honey yield.
As I have no interest in honey I'm not too bothered.

There are two types of approach to managing swarming - proactive and reactive.

Proactive, or getting your retaliation in first as I call it, is doing things before the swarming process starts.
Reactive is what you do when the swarming process has started and you try and control it.
Most years I hope to do the former but finish up doing the latter

Probably the main trigger for swarming is a lack of space so the simplest proactive thing to do is to give them more space and the easiest way of doing this is to add a super to the hive. Supers are where the bees produce 'our' honey and filling this up with hopefully reduce their swarming instinct.
The weather has been a bit odd lately but I thought I would have a quick look at the hives to see what is going on before it became cold again.

Click the button to see the video.

Apologies for shaky camera, although I always have my camera with me, I didn't intend videoing anything so didn't have my tripod with me.

Spring Bee Feeding

The last blog about the WBC was a draft and shouldn't have been published - sorry!!!

The weather improves but there still a need to take care of the bees.
The bees are becoming more active and the queen is starting to lay again. There will be a huge increase in the population of the colony and the risk is that there will be insufficient forage to support the increasing number of mouths to feed and the colony could fail.
This happened to one of my colonies last year.

So the food available to the bees still needs to be monitored.
In winter the bees cannot fly and get out of the hive so dysentery is a risk if they are fed something with too high a water content so are fed with baker's fondant.
 In spring they are fed a syrup solution of 1lb sugar to 1 pint of water.

Click the button to see the video.

Warre Hive - The Roof

The roof is the last thing to do.
The original plans I used weren't too brilliant but I found some more and it wasn't too bad to make.
Click the button to see the video.

March Update

Slowly the weather gets better and the bees are starting to fly. Their initial flights are what are called 'cleansing flights [they poo a lot].
They don't go far from the hive but gradually start looking for forage. The first bee visited my shed to see what I was up to on the 12th Feb.
They start to fly when the temperature is about 10C but the hive cannot be opened until the temperature is about 15C.
I will take the winter wraps off  and remove the entrance reducers sometime next week.

Spring Feeding

As the bees start to emerge from the winter the concern for bee keepers is that the bees will have nothing for forage and their winter stores will be very low if not gone altogether and its not uncommon for colonies make it through the winter only to starve in the Spring. It happened to one of my colonies last year
Therefore its advisable to give them a kick start by making food available to them.
Usually this is done by feeding syrup but because they can fly and therefore excrete, the syrup is a 1:1 mix - 1 pint of water to 1 lb of sugar, rather than the thicker 2:1 mix in winter.
I buy 25kg sacks of sugar from Bookers and have spent a few evenings making the syrup up and putting it in 25ltr dispensers that will be taken to the apiaries.

.
They are very heavy but at Scald End and Stevington I can drive right up to the bees to drop them off.
Ravensden is more problematic as access with bulky/heavy items is more difficult.
This year I will be adding something called Hive Alive which adds natural nutrients to the syrup and also has the benefit of preventing the syrup from fermenting.

Snelgrove boards

As I said in a previous blog, this year I will be using the Snelgrove method of swarm control.
An advantage of this method is that you don't need to have as much spare equipment such as roofs and brood boxes as other methods, but you do need to use a Snelgrove board.
These cost about £25 each but they aren't complicated so I bought a sheet of plywood for £21 which makes 10. In all I probably spent about £30 - £3 each.

Although I know the basic principles of the method, I bought something called 'A Simple Guide To The Uses Of A Snelgrove Board'. The author appears to have a different idea of what the word 'simple' means as it is 20 pages long.

I will do a blog about this about April time.

Emerging bees

The prospect of a new season is exciting but waiting for the bees to emerge [hopefully] is a worrying time as you wait to see if they have survived the winter.

Until the temperature is a minimum of 15C you shouldn't open the hive but bees will start flying when it gets to 10C.

Recently the temperature has risen and checking the fondant supplies gives me an opportunity to get an idea of what the survival rates might be.
Click the button to see the video.

The Warre Hive - Part 5- Making the quilt and feeder

The quilt is an unusual feature of the Warre Hive and its just a box that sits on top of the brood boxes.
The purpose of the quilt box is to insulate the top of the hive during cold weather, which helps the bees stay warm and, more importantly, prevents water vapour from condensing into water droplets at the top of the hive and then dripping onto the bee cluster.

There are three ways of populating a hive - buy a full colony, split an existing colony or get a swarm.
Because the Warre hive is a different size to my other hives its easier [and cheaper!] to get a swarm.
New swarms will need feeding to help it build up but in the plans I am using there is no mention of a feeder.
In Warre's book 'Beekeeping for all' [which I don't have] there are plans for one but I am going to make something simpler.
Click the button to watch the video.

Winter Oxalic acid treatment

One of the main problems facing honey bees is the varroa mite. It originated in Asia and has spread across the world.
It can weaken a colony to the point where it eventually dies but there is no silver bullet that can deal with it and a bee keeper can only try to control the levels of the mite in a hive.
Usually this is done in Autumn and winter.
The winter treatment involves using oxalic acid which is effective in reducing the mites but it is corrosive and kills any bee brood in the hive. Therefore it is administered after the queen has stopped laying.
The acid can be administered in liquid form by using a syringe but I prefer using what is called a vapouriser,

Click the button to see how it is administered.

The Warre Hive - Part 4 - Making the top bars

Making the Top Bars

The Warre hive, like the Top Bar Hive, has a series of wooden strips rather than the conventional frames.
They are easy to make and there are a couple of ways they could be improved.

Click the button to see the video.

The Warre Hive - Part 3 - Making the floor

Making the Floor

The floor is pretty straightforward. However Warre's plans didn't allow for the varroa mite. The mite didn't arrive in Europe until the 1960's and didn't get to France until the 1982, long after Warre's death.
I have made something similar to the floors I have on my National Hives

Click the button to see the video.

There is something on my website here about varroa.