As part of this post, you will find our PowerPoint as well as a narrated version of our presentation on YouTube. Please feel free to share, download, and distribute this information - we are eager to have people know that there are wonderful options out there! Drop us a note if you have a chance, too, to let us know how you'll be using the information! **Please note that the footnotes in the PPT are active links to detailed reports and meta-analyses.**
The Roadside Maintenance Task Force, comprised of members of the Durham community (Michael Bisceglia, Mark Shadle, Joanne Nytch, Claudia White, and Tina Hurlbert) presented its final findings and recommendations at the May 11, 2015 Board of Selectmen meeting with regard to the Public Works Department's use of Roundup and Vacate on town property, including curbside and rights-of-way. The Board of Selectmen agreed to cease the use of these toxic products and will move forward with the recommendations made by the committee. To our knowledge (and we have done extensive research), Durham is the first town in the state of Connecticut to cease using glyphosate products on public property and rights-of-way. I am so proud of everyone who worked together to make this happen, and incredibly grateful to our Board of Selectmen for encouraging us to dig in and work with them. As part of this post, you will find our PowerPoint as well as a narrated version of our presentation on YouTube. Please feel free to share, download, and distribute this information - we are eager to have people know that there are wonderful options out there! Drop us a note if you have a chance, too, to let us know how you'll be using the information! **Please note that the footnotes in the PPT are active links to detailed reports and meta-analyses.**
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Sofia (age 9) and I went out and did our first full hive inspection of the spring, where we take everything apart, examine frames, honey stores and search for eggs, larvae and brood. We also observe for evidence that the bees are bringing in nectar and pollen. The goal isn't necessarily to spot the queen, but to find evidence of her, which we certainly did! Sofia really wanted to find the queen and I wasn't sure that we would see her, but after about the 8th frame or so there she was! You can see her on the top right photo, a little bit above center. Her body is darker and with less distinct striations. She is unmarked in this photo - and I know that the queen that was originally placed with this hive last spring was marked, so the hive successfully requeened at some point since then. Thinking back, this was the hive that swarmed at the end of June 2014. Now it makes sense! When a hive swarms, the existing queen, having run out of room within the hive bodies, leaves with about half of the existing colony. The marked queen is the one who left with the swarm! Prior to her departure, the colony prepares swarm cells in the hopes of raising a replacement queen. The queen in the photo above is of the queen who 'won the crown'. Beautiful. There are some beekeepers out there who say the strongest queens are not the ones that you order when your existing queen starts slowing down her egg production or the one that you get delivered with your new 3 lb. package in the spring. They argue that the strongest queens are the ones who who have to fight for survival and who mate with a larger pool of genetically diverse drones. This queen was not artificially inseminated back at a queen farm, but perhaps did battle with other potential queens and won, then flew up and found a drone congregating area and mated, and then safely returned to the hive, all on her own, all via her own inborn instinct. And that, some say, makes her stronger, which means her offspring will also be stronger. Here's hoping! There is very little left in terms of honey stores in this hive, but the bees' pollen pockets were full and there was uncapped nectar in many of the cells. I have my fingers crossed for a successful season and a bursting colony. Video of our Queen: It's October 29. Mid-autumn. It was 70° yesterday, and 72.8° today. The bees are flying when it's that warm, and at this time of year there is nothing left for them to eat. Or is there? I went out to the beeyard today to put another pollen patty on the hives and was pleasantly surprised to see the girls flying in with full pollen pockets. The pollen patties that I put on at the beginning of October were completely gone. I didn't want to keep the covers open for too long, as the yellow jackets were very interested in what we had going on, but the boxes were full of bees with not a drone to be seen (see the last post if you're wondering why). The video below is from today and shows some ladies hard at work cleaning, sealing cracks with propolis and bringing in food. I've read about it. A lot. When I talk to kids about roles in the hive it's always a favorite. "What do you mean they kick out the drones? Why? The drones do nothing?!?" It's true. Drones don't do much. They mate - but not with the queen of their own hive....she's their mother! They fly up to 'drone congregating areas' and wait for a virgin queen to come by in hopes of mating with her before they die a terrible, literally gut-wrenching death. The drones just eat up honey stores, don't help with housekeeping, brood-rearing or foraging, so when the temperatures start to drop, the ladies kick them out. I'd never seen it before today. Enjoy the photos, courtesy of my photographer friend, Cas.
The population of the weak hive that I combined with a stronger one looks good; the major issue at this point is that they have no honey or pollen stored and will be fully dependent on the strong hive below them. I went out today to add winter pollen patties to the hives as added insurance. The patties contain Megabee and Honey-B-Healthy, with 2.5% protein (which is supposedly relatively low and will not stimulate brood rearing - good for winter). I've used pollen patties in the past without a shim between the patty and the inner cover and it causes everything to stick together with little room for the bees to move around. This time, I added shims to provide adequate space for the patty. The bees looked happy and were incredibly calm. SO much improved from their mood when they were being robbed two weeks earlier. I was thrilled to see pollen still coming into both hives. I also witnessed (for the first time in person) workers actively removing drones from the hive! It was incredible to watch three or four strong ladies dragging the poor fellas to the edge of the bottom board and pushing them off. One gentleman attempted to return four times while I was watching! How persistent! In the video below, you can see the girls chasing him. They start in the middle of the video frame and end in the bottom center where the entrance reducer meets the side of the bottom board. I'd read a lot about bees being robbed, especially during autumn when pollen and nectar sources are becoming more and more scarce. I'd read a lot about feeding, that when there is a dearth in food sources for the bees, they are at greater risk of going into the winter and clustering months with low supplies. Since I was suspicious that I'd lost some previous hives to early winter starvation, I decided that it would be in their best interest (and mine) to feed them. I put the front entrance feeders on on a Sunday afternoon, and by Monday afternoon they were both empty, so I refilled them. When checking on Tuesday afternoon, I found an empty feeder on one of the hives and an absolute frenzy. From observing from afar, things just didn't look right. Honeybees were flying around in rapid circles over and in front of the hive. The calm, leisurely flight patterns in and out of the hive were nonexistent, and when I approached even the sound of the bees flying had a higher pitch to it. If you watch the videos below, you will see, under the feeder, a cluster of bees that are clearly at odds over the sugar syrup. Bees drop down every few seconds as they are being pushed away. The hive on the left didn't seem to be affected at all, but to be safe I removed both front entrance feeders, battened down the hatches with entrance reducers and covered both hives with wet sheets. Sometimes a strong colony can successfully fight off robbers, but because honeybees fight to the death and die when they sting trying to defend their hive, they could be overpowered by robbers desperate for food. I decided not to take any chances. The sheets will stay on for a couple of days and then I will remove them and hope for the best.
You know that feeling you get, mid-week, when you're at work and things are a little nutty? The feeling that you need to slow down, take a deep breath and center yourself? Usually that feeling means I'm due to visit my bees. They have that zen-like effect on me; I breathe in and out, focus, and move slowly and with purpose. I am always in a better mood after a visit with my girls. Today was no exception. After a Saturday of nagging the kids to do their chores and sifting through the rubble of the previous week, I cajoled my husband into coming along with me to check on the bees and photograph the inspection. The photos below were taken with his cell phone camera - not bad! I first inspected the hives that I combined last Monday evening. They had chewed through the newspaper and were very mellow - some fly-bys around my head but no warning swoops or intensified buzzing. The weak hive had bees and brood on one frame and just a little bit of honey. Below the weak hive and the newspaper, the stronger hive was bursting with activity and bees and lots of honey in many of the frames in the upper box. I didn't remove the upper box to check the lower, larger nest box, but from the looks of bees flying in and out, the volume of honey at various stages of finishing, as well as their mood, I'm going to guess, for now, that they are well. The other hive with the two deep boxes (on the left in the photos below) is doing beautifully, as well. We got to see three bees being 'born' in one of the frames, chewing through the cappings and waggling their antennae - it was Scott's first time and he was appropriately impressed. (When asked later, he said he had never even thought about the fact that bees are 'born' and that it seemed like something out of a science fiction movie.) The brood pattern is beautiful. Lots and lots of capped brood, plenty of honey, no drone brood or any drones to be found for that matter. This queen has it going on and I'm very proud of her. I will go back tomorrow to add feeders; the goldenrod here is at its end and there was very little pollen coming in on the foragers returning to the hive this afternoon. I'm feeling good about the girls going into winter. They seem strong and prepared. I went out tonight to take my weaker hive that I caught as a swarm in early July and combine it with one of my stronger hives that is doing very well. Initially I thought about just feeding them, but they only had about a half a frame of honey stored. I went out at dusk, thinking things would be pretty quiet and it would be a quick process, so I didn't use the smoker. For the most part it was, but thankfully I had a veil and gloves because these ladies got MAD. I removed the outer and inner covers of the strong hive and laid the newspaper over the exposed frames. At this point I had to step away because someone small was attacking my veil with a vengeance. After two more attempts, I got the weak hive situated on top of the stronger one and covered things up. I found a little lady curled up trying to sting the heck out of my skirt, and two more were on my veil all fired up. So I learned a few things tonight. First, bring the smoker. Second, my docile girls can get tough when need be. And third, bring the smoker. Hive inspections require focus, concentration and purpose. A beekeeper should never open a hive without a reason for doing so; each time the cover comes off of the hive the bees become distracted from their work and alarmed. Honeycomb that the bees, through hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, have perfected in its hexagonal form pops open or breaks as frames are moved around, undoing days of their work. The bees will scramble to assess the damage after the hive is closed up again and immediately go to work repairing and restoring order to their home. My purpose(s) this weekend in checking on the bees was to 1) see if there was capped brood, which would let me know that the queen was still laying and in good health, and 2) estimate honey stores as we go into the colder fall/winter months. The goldenrod bloom is nearing its end, so nectar and pollen gathering will slow down over the coming week. Fortunately, two out of my three hives were bursting with honey and brood; I'm going to have to combine the third, weaker hive with one of these stronger two. |
AuthorSuburban homesteading through trial and error. Archives
May 2015
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