Apiary

Colony Collapse Disorder: I suspect that GMO’s and pesticides/insecticides play a huge role in the disappearance of honey bees. Bees are often fed corn syrup, which is, according to the EPA, an insecticide. Bees are an insect… Here is a link which contains some research to think about:

http://www.motherearthnews.com/honeybees-beekeeping/neonicotinoid-pesticides-zb0z1204zlon.aspx

Mon810 GMO corn has now been banned in Poland as they have found that it is partially responsible for Colony Collapse Disorder.

The USDA uses data from Beelogics for apiary information. Monsanto owns Beelogics.

Imidacloprid, pesticide manufactured by Bayer, has been found to weaken the immune system of bees as well as inhibit learning and memory capabilities.

Mary Jane’s Farm, Vol. 11 #5, pg 35

We’ve had trouble overwintering the bees, so I thought we could try a slightly different approach, with 8 frame boxes rather than 10 frame, a different bottom board and a different top cover.

4-2013: Heather painted a fabulous 8 frame hive 🙂 I wanted to try a garden style hivery cover as well as a screen base that is supposed to help keep varroa mites under control. We’ll see if that makes a difference.

The nucs came in cardboard boxes this year. I suppose it’s less expensive that way and the bee guys don’t have to worry about deposits on wooden nuc boxes. But the bees started chewing through the cardboard before we got them into their hives.

It was snowing when the bees arrived, so we couldn’t put them directly into their hives and they had to sit in the shop overnight to avoid freezing. They just came up from California four days ago, so they aren’t prepared for snow 🙂

On the left is the new 8 frame hive with a bucket feeder. On the right is a traditional 10 frame flat topped hive with a frame feeder.

The bucket feeder has a fine mesh screen covering a small hole in the lid of the feeder. This helps ensure that we made the syrup thick enough. If the syrup is too thin, then it will run right through the screen.

Pictured right: frame feeder with freshly installed nuc.

Andy was disappointed with the lack of brood and honey in the nuc frames this year. But we got two queens and a bunch of bees, so we’ll just roll with it.

I made hive covers for the hives until the weather warms up.

Hopefully, these will help make a difference in the hives.

02/15/2014 – update: the new style hive and hive cover have pulled these bees through a couple of subzero spells. The regular flat-roofed style hive, even with a hive cover, didn’t survive.

03/01/2015 – update: Andy made a couple of other garden style hive tops for the other hives. They made it through this winter. Yay!

Beehive Covers:

It was a whopping 29 degrees this morning, which is way too cold for bees that were in California only 4 days ago.

Somebody forget to inform Mother Nature that Spring started 3 weeks ago, according to the calendar.

I have been working on making hive covers and thought I’d share with you what I used.

Heather chose the outside fabric 🙂 She thought the bees would like the bright flowers 🙂

I didn’t have a pattern to start with, this is just something that I pulled together while walking around JoAnn’s Fabrics.

The inner layer is Insulated Shade Lining. It runs about $30 a yard. Thank goodness for coupons!

It has a layer of neutral fabric, a layer of insulation, a layer of mylar stuff – similar to emergency blankets, and then another layer of insulation.

It’s thin and flexible, yet fairly warm, so thought it might just do the trick 🙂

The outer layer is a heavy duty waterproof fabric. It was labeled as commercial tablecloth stuff. It runs around $13 a yard.

The inner layer is a heavy duty clear plastic. I went with it because I figured no one would see it anyway and it was only $4 a yard.

I just used a quilting ruler and mat, along with a rotary cutter to cut the fabric.

I purchased two yards of each type of fabric. Two yards is enough to go around an 8 frame hive, but I had to extend it to get it to go around a 10 frame hive.

I cut the clear plastic inner layer and the insulating layer the same width.

Then I stitched them together using waterproof/outdoor thread.

I cut the outer fabric an inch wider than the inner fabric and the clear plastic. This allowed me to fold over the outer layer 1/2″ all around, helping to prevent moisture from getting into the inner layer.

To help prevent moisture from seeping in through the needle holes, I stretched a piece of guerrilla tape around the inner seams.

The Velcro is commercial grade. Although it’s really, really sticky, I went ahead and stitched it in place also, just as a precaution.

Just as a note of experience: the 8 frame hive measures 14×20 inches. I figured that I should need 68 inches for that. I also figured I would need 1/2″ extra for each of the corners, which would add 2 inches. I also figured 2 inches for the Velcro overlap, bringing the total number of inches in length to 72 inches, which is two yards. As you can see on the taller hive, it barely made it around the hive. For the 10 frame hive, I added an additional 7 inches of fabric, bringing the total length to 6’7″. It probably didn’t need to be quite that long – probably 6’5″ would have sufficed. But keep that in mind when you go to buy fabric.

04/03/2015 – The covers have made it through two winters now and still look pretty good.

Bee Feeder:

An old-timer brought over a really cool bee feeder 🙂

On the bottom are four holes where the bees can crawl up through to the sugar water.

Then they crawl up over this little board.

You can see where the sugar water goes in the large area on the left. The dividing board on the left is raised just enough to allow sugar water to flow underneath.

The dividing board on the right is lowered just enough to allow the bees to crawl over.

The screen allows the bees to crawl down into the sugar water without drowning.

The sugar water area has silicon around the edges to help prevent leaks.

This feeder is built for a 4-5 frame nuc box; however, the concept could certainly be expanded to fit an 8-10 frame hive.

What I love about this design is I won’t have to get into the hive body and disturb the bees. I just have to pop the top of the hive, and pour in the syrup. Yay! I don’t mind feeding the bees, I just don’t like it when they ‘reward’ me for getting into their hive!

Bee Semen:

When the sheep shearer was here, he was telling us about a friend of his who works for WSU in the entomology department, and had just returned from a trip to Europe collecting bee semen. We had a brief discussion on how in the world you even go about collecting bee semen. 🙂

But here is an excerpt and link with more details. I suppose with the Caucasian queens (from Caucasus) selling for $10,000 a piece, it would be worth the effort to extract the bee semen.

http://weather.yahoo.com/photos/washington-state-u-starts-sperm-photo-142459481.html

PULLMAN, Wash. (AP) — There’s a lot of buzz at Washington State University over work to develop the first sperm bank for honeybees.

Entomologist Steve Sheppard and his crew are using liquid nitrogen to preserve semen extracted from the industrious insects that pollinate much of the nation’s food supply but face environmental threats. The goal is to preserve and improve the stock of honeybees and to prevent subspecies from extinction.

“We do that frequently with horses and cattle and chickens,” said Susan Cobey, a research associate on the project. “Finally, we have the capability to do it with bees.”

Honeybees are serious business. Washington’s $1 billion apple crop, for instance, needs 250,000 colonies of bees each year to pollinate the orchards. California almond growers need 1 million colonies per year to pollinate their crop.

As a result, there is incentive to find ways to strengthen bee colonies.

I still want to know how they go about extracting bee semen! Well, maybe not…

For a cool video on the flight of the queen bee :

Baby bees being born:

For beeks who are way more advanced than I am, and want to try their hand at making their own queens, here is a queen rearing calendar:

http://www.thebeeyard.org/queen-rearing-calendar/

To make a winter feeding board for colder climates, visit

http://www.tillysnest.com/2012/12/a-winter-beehive-candy-board.html

Not only will this board help feed the bees through the winter, but it will also help absorb excess moisture that accumulates in the hive through the colder months.

The Slovenian Beehive looks very intriguing to me. It has been around for centuries over in Europe, but is just now making it’s way to the US.

http://keepingbackyardbees.com/the-slovenian-beehive-arrives-in-the-us/

A picture to the inside of one of these hives:

http://www.goglasi.com/frame?eid=75506067&q=az%20kosnice%20polovne

For some history on this type of hive:

http://www.slovenianbeekeeping.com/index-one.html

To take a bee keeping tour in Slovenia:

http://premiobiol.it/biolmiel/wp-content/blogs.dir/4/files/2014/01/Mojca_Korosec_BiolMiel_2013.pdf

For a great idea on a bee house: