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The Stark Reality of Being a Long-Term Beekeeper

By: James E. Tew

Overall, beekeeping is enjoyable – but it’s not always easy
Readers, in several previous articles, I have danced to this tune with you. Yet, for personal reasons, I feel a need to try again. Though many of us feel it, it’s not easy to explain what we feel about our bee efforts. I am an entomologist and I do not have a deep background in human psychological issues. Clearly, I should stick with what I know, but sometimes I just need to write about what I feel. Even so, I struggle to word it for you. My core thought is – Though beekeeping is generally rewarding (After consideration, I have opted to use the word “rewarding” rather than the word “enjoyable.” Cleaning dead-outs is not enjoyable, but as I prepare the fouled equipment for future use, I feel rewarded.), it’s not always easy.

I’ve done this bee thing for a long time
Having a long history in keeping bees is a helpful attribute for any beekeeper. You remember “when” and you acquire a lot of personal bee-related stories. You learn a lot.

Through the years, I have learned that my bee interests will cool a bit during Winter months. So, I adapt to that reality. During those cold, quiet periods, I read about bees, or I write perfunctory articles about understanding more about our craft. I assemble or repair equipment. I plan for the next season. I just try to stay busy in my craft during this down time. While it is a useful time, this quiet period cannot be called true beekeeping. Rather, those times are “preparing for actual beekeeping.” Try as I might, my bee interest drops to a lower ebb during these slack periods. How could it not?

From experience acquired during many previous quiet Winters, I know this bee-related seasonal feeling is coming. I expect it. It’s a normal part of my beekeeping psyche. I also know that when Spring comes around, I will – just like my bees – once again awaken and heat back to a higher level of beekeeping interest. In my earlier years, I don’t recall a mentor telling me that my bee interest would naturally rise and fall – usually based on the passing of annual seasons.

Building a fire
Successful beekeeping is much like building a glowing bonfire. Fuel must be accumulated. Dates are set. A location is selected. All is made ready. The fire is ignited, it starts slowly and, as more fuel is added, it steadily grows until it reaches its capacity. Then, invariably, it begins to ebb. Without more fuel and tending, it will die out and extinguish. Interest in beekeeping is much like building a fire. It waxes and wanes. Unfortunately, for some of us, the fire goes out. The good news is that the fire can be rebuilt.

In the May 2023 issue of this magazine, I broached some of the feelings that I have about beeyards that I have now vacated. That was one of my most recent efforts to write about beekeeping feelings.

Figure 1. Part of my beeyard in better times.

In that piece, I described the upcoming fate of my oldest yard – my home yard – and how I will need to adapt to having new, near neighbors and a new street abutting my beeyard. I covered my feelings about that issue in my writings for that month. All things change, don’t they?

Then came the wind storm
In early April 2023, a significant wind storm, lasting three days, blew through my area. Trees and apiary damage was all about me. My bee equipment was scattered helter-skelter. On two consecutive stormy days, I had a fifty-five-year-old Colorado Spruce come down. These trees abounded my apiary.

Figure 2. It is not easy working these hives.

On one hand, I can’t complain too much. One tree fell away from my beeyard while the other precisely fell in the only place it could to cause the least damage. I still had three colonies that were crushed. The high wind apparently blew the bees away. There were only a few remaining bees in those obliterated colonies. They did not survive. However, the damage could have been worse. On one hand, that’s the good news. On the other hand, I now have a huge tree down in the middle of my home yard and I have bee equipment either destroyed or scattered throughout my yard. (You must know that I will not be giving any tours of my beeyard any time soon.)

What a mess
I confess that I feel overwhelmed at the prospect of clearing this chaos. I suppose I will select equipment that is still usable, or can be made usable, and form a burn pile for the remainder. But it gets even better. In the middle of all this confusion, I must move the living colonies from the area. Here’s why.

The tree removal people

Figure 3. Part of my beeyard challenge.

I had tree removal people come to view the situation. Being professional arborists, I had hoped they would be reasonably comfortable around flying, confused bees. That did not happen! As the tree company representative reviewed the scene – and the bees – from the blue, he asked, “If the bees are a problem, do you mind if we spray them?” Readers, I was truly astounded. I think that I probably gasped. Again, I must write that I was stunned. Within that scenario, I would have even more dead bees and a new category of mess. Now I would also have pesticide contaminated equipment to deal with. After a few seconds, I was able to form sentences and was able to tell this uninformed guy that, “No, I will move these hives to a distant location so his workers could go about their business of tree removal.”

Much like the old late night TV commercials, I now tell you, “But wait, there’s more!” Probably sensing that he had just mightily offended me, he tried to rebound by showing feigned interest in bees. He asked, “There’s a queen in that box and the bees surround her – right?” I felt as though I was having some kind of medical exam. I just wanted this whole encounter to be over. I responded that he was somewhat correct but having NO interest in trying to teach beekeeping, I immediately returned the problem of the downed trees. He gave me a fair price and left to attend to my neighbor’s downed trees.

This was all a new and unfamiliar reality, being a long-term beekeeper. I have never had my apiary so discombobulated. Then in addition, having people so unfamiliar with bees be so intimately associated with my colonies and with my stressed psyche was a new learning experience for this old beekeeper.

I’m still learning
As I have worked to clean and reorganize my apiary site, I have clearly learned that having a large coniferous tree in the very middle of your apiary is not a positive beeyard feature. As a younger man, I would have fired up my chain saw and removed some of the barrier to my bees. I’m not a young man and I am paying a professional company to clear the mess. Let them earn their money has been my feeling. So, I have been trying to work around the big tree as I gather equipment and rearrange bee hives.

I wear high-quality ventilated bee suits. As if to make bad things worse, the needles on the dead tree grab my bee suit and puncture me. At first it was surprising, then it was frustrating, but the stabbing and sticking progressed to being outright annoying. I can hardly move in my apiary without my suit being grabbed by prickly needles that are strong and determined.

But wait, there’s even more!
You recall that I have other issues beyond the downed trees. Remember that I will be having new neighbors located near my beeyard. With this reality in mind, last Spring, I had what I originally thought was a genius idea. I will allow Multiflora Rose, an invasive plant, grow to form an impenetrable barrier between me and my new neighbors. After all, that was the original intent of introducing this obnoxious plant into this country. It was to be a hedgerow plant. Unfortunately, the plant went derelict and is now nearly uncontrollable.

Figure 4. Multiflora Rose in full bloom. Photo credit: Leslie J. Mehroff, University of Connecticut

Multiflora Rose and ventilated bee suits
Being otherwise cut back, this mega-prickly plant now grows at the edges of my beeyard, but in the storm, confusion and destruction, the unwelcome plant has also been upset. Its tentacles reach here and there and, in some cases, snakes through the branches of the downed tree. As bad as it is to have pine needles grabbing my bee suit, Multiflora Rose is profoundly worse.

It is as though the plant is alive. In snake-like fashion, it grabs my suit and dearly holds onto me. I literally rip it off only to have it whip back and grab me again. On two occasions, I had to remove my suit to get the vine detached from my suit. I must wear bee gloves to deal with the thorny plant, not for protection from bees. I can only candidly write that this is not an enjoyable episode in my beekeeping journey.

The stark reality of being a long-term beekeeper
This month, I will be seventy-five years old and I will have been keeping bees for fifty consecutive years. Yet, I am essentially starting over again in my home yard. I’m either impressively dedicated or a very slow learner.

As traumatizing as it has been for me, I have begun to accept the reality that my most personal beeyard was going to change anyway. I was preparing to deal with that reality. Now, part of my tree barrier has vanished. Even more changes are coming.

While trying to make lemonade from lemons within this fallen tree situation, I admit that, in a bizarre way, the trees coming down will assist in additional future fencing that I would be needing anyway. I have already been forced to relocate the remaining colonies to another temporary location. I was going to need to do that task later this Summer anyway.

For the first time in more than forty-five years, I will (temporarily) not have any hives at this location. The yard will essentially be wide open. No trees, no bees and heavy construction nearby. I have a rare window to completely restructure my core yard into a “new and improved” location. I plan to electrify my little bee storage barn and install cameras for security and observational purposes. So, is this a disaster or an opportunity?

Yet another reality of beekeeping
Several of my local beekeeping friends have offered to help, but so far, I have politely declined their offer. Why? Because of “feelings.” These are my bees and they are my responsibility. If I can’t do the job, then I shouldn’t take on the job. For reasons beyond my comprehension, I’m on a lifelong apicultural journey and it’s my thing. I should not seek help from others for the occasional distasteful aspects of my journey in order for me to be able to enjoy the positive aspects of my journey. No doubt, I will get back to you if any of this situation changes in even more unexpected ways.

My lifelong good friend once said…
I once had a lifelong professional friend tell me that I only wrote “disaster” articles. It was a passing comment that he made in jest that I have never forgotten. In fact, I do write about stressful beekeeping events because, to me, those are the events, the episodes, that make me grow in my chosen craft. These trying episodes give me unwanted depth and forced understanding. Also, my trying experiences make me compassionate when other beekeepers tell me of their issues and concerns. Therefore, in this article, I choose to use the word, reality rather than disaster.

I will clean this situation up and I will reestablish colonies in my home yard. It will take a lot of work that is not particularly enjoyable and it will require me to take a lot of naps. It’s beekeeping. Overall, I enjoy parts of it immensely.

Dr. James E. Tew
Emeritus Faculty, Entomology
The Ohio State University
tewbee2@gmail.com

Co-Host, Honey Bee
Obscura Podcast
www.honeybeeobscura.com

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Found in Translation

City Bee, Country Bee
By: Jay Evans, USDA Beltsville Bee Lab

In Aesop’s fable, City (Town) Mouse, Country Mouse, a city mouse regales her skeptical country cousin with a rosy view of high density living. Sampling both, the country mouse prefers to stay put, largely because “the country mouse lives in a cozy nest at the bottom of a tree. Her home is small, but it is warm and comfortable.” Plus… no cats!

Beekeepers and bee scientists like to contrast the lives of bees under our care in apiaries (dense cities of colonies) versus those out on their own in trees. Aside from giving general insights into bee biology, these comparisons can predict the risks of managed and feral bees sharing disease while also showing how well ‘city’ and ‘country’ bees deal with various stresses. We have great data for the numbers of managed colonies, but how many country bees are we talking about?

I have discussed before the achingly beautiful (and hard) work by Tom Seeley and students assessing feral bees in a U.S. forest. Borrowing from those and similar studies, we can get a rough estimate of how many country bees there are in hollow trees and other cavities. My Sunday afternoon and small brain can’t grapple with honey bee density in deserts and the vast tundra, but considering four adjoining states (New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia) with decent land-use data from the USDA (https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/major-land-uses/maps-and-state-rankings-of-major-land-uses/), we can estimate ‘suitable’ acreage (fallow fields, pasture and forests) at around 58 million acres total (60% of the available land). Using consensus estimates of 2.5 colonies/square-mile (one colony/square kilometer, 0.004 colonies/acre), one arrives at 233,000 feral honey bee colonies in these four states. According to USDA (https://www.nass.usda.gov/Surveys/Guide_to_NASS_Surveys/Bee_and_Honey/) ,there were 67,500 managed colonies in these states on January 1, 2021, surveying beekeepers with five or more hives. Even doubling this number to account for backyard beekeepers and those who evade surveillance, there are still fewer managed than feral colonies in these regions.

So, free-living bees are likely to be important for their own sake, and for the environment. What’s it like out there? Taking a disease angle, several studies have compared the relative disease loads of managed and feral colonies in the U.S. Amy Geffre and colleagues from San Diego sampled boxed and free-living colonies (three colonies each) seven times over the course of a year to measure virus levels for three common bee viruses (Preliminary analysis shows that feral and managed honey bees in Southern California have similar levels of viral pathogens. 2023. Journal of Apicultural Research, 62:3, 485-487, DOI:10.1080/00218839.2021.2001209). Both colony types were remarkably similar in virus levels, changing with the season but hardly differing from each other.

In Persistent effects of management history on honey bee colony virus abundances (2021. Journal of Invertebrate Pathology 179:107520, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jip.2020.107520), Lewis Bartlett and colleagues found similar patterns between free-living and managed colonies but noted that the style of management might play a role. Namely, colonies maintained in a larger commercial apiary (hundreds of colonies) tended to have the highest levels of most viruses, with feral and low-intensity ‘backyard’ colonies being about the same. As in most field studies, there is abundant variation for viral disease within each category, so these results will need even more sampling to see how viruses and bees fare under different management styles. Nevertheless, they suggest that beekeepers adopting a ‘country bee’ approach by spacing out colonies to reduce urban interactions will be doing their bees a favor.

In the most ambitious study to date, Chauncy Hinshaw and colleagues surveyed 25 colonies each from feral and managed colonies in Pennsylvania (2021. The role of pathogen dynamics and immune gene expression in the survival of feral honey bees. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 8, 594263. https://doi.org/10.1080/00218839.2021.2001209). They surveyed ample bee numbers per collection (75 worker bees), perhaps getting a better sense of average disease loads. Even better, they paired similar city and country colonies from a bunch of regions, which helps account for other factors that might change virus loads. In this study, managed colonies tended to have lower levels of mite-transmitted deformed wing virus, presumably reflecting mite treatments, and roughly similar levels of black queen cell virus and nosema. Perhaps reflecting pathogen exposure, feral colonies had higher levels of several immune response proteins as well. Given the higher number of sampled colonies, these researchers were also able to show how their measurements related to colony fates. As in prior studies, deformed wing virus, presumably alongside mite loads, was a good predictor of a bad colony outcome.

Colonies showing higher levels of two immune genes, once other factors were evened out, were more likely to survive the study period. Arguably, these proteins might be good predictors of genetic components that help bees survive in the face of disease.

More can be done to contrast the lives and successes of city and country bees. These comparisons can help improve bee management by those of us keeping bees in clusters of Langstroth high-rises. It is also fun to think of bees in the ancestral habits they have followed for thousands of years. Country bees almost certainly have more threats now than they did when humans were more scarce, and there has to be some level of contact between city bees and country bees that muddies all of these comparisons, but in many ways the presence of country bees at all is comforting. Left to their own care, they are making country homes work wherever they can, and that is a good lesson for beekeepers.

In full disclosure, the lives of country bees were not on my mind until a recent inquiry from British bee researcher Francis Ratnieks and his graduate student Ollie Visick. In their Laboratory for Apiculture and Social Insects (https://www.sussex.ac.uk/lasi/), they are comparing the lives of free-living honey bees in their native range to their hived cousins. As ecologists, their studies will give insights into how honey bees used to live in the forests and fields of England. I thank them for the prompt (and welcome hot tips from any of you) and look forward to reading their results!

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The Plastic Legacy

Are the toxic chemicals in plastic affecting you and your bees?

By: Ross Conrad

Plastic has become ubiquitous in our lives and is clearly responsible for significant advances in fields as varied as medicine, sports, aeronautics, electronics, food packaging, textiles and construction. Agriculture has also come to rely heavily on plastic, and as beekeepers, we have come to depend on plastic for a multitude of beekeeping uses large and small. This includes every part of the hive in addition to queen excluders, smoker bellows, honey packaging, mating nuc boxes, feeders, support pins, hive wrapping and netting, propolis and small hive beetle traps, hive straps, bee helmets and brushes, extracting equipment and more.

Unfortunately, this incredibly useful stuff is also responsible for slowly and quietly inflicting widespread damage that seriously threatens human and environmental health, as well as the economy. This is well documented in a recent report by the Minderoo-Monaco Commission, and the harm includes illness and death resulting from every phase of plastic’s life cycle, and the damage is getting worse (Landrigan et al., 2023).

The report’s lead author, Dr. Phillip J. Landrigan is the director of the Global Public Health Program and Global Observatory on Planetary Health at Boston College. Landrigran, who has spent decades researching the health effects of environmental pollutants, also worked on the first studies that looked into the dangers of lead exposure in children.

During the past couple decades, plastic hive parts and beekeeping equipment have become common and yet we know little about the impacts to bees that the chemicals that leach out of plastic can have on honey bee health.

Production
As the Minderoo-Monaco Commission report outlines, plastic is made from carbon-based polymers that combine many small molecules bonded into a chain or network. Polymers can be natural or synthetic. Natural polymers include rubber, hemp and silk. While synthetic plastics can be manufactured from plant materials, most synthetic polymers are made from fossil fuels and they include polyethylene, polypropylene, polystyrene (Styrofoam), polyvinyl chloride (PVC), and a host of other materials of which over 400 million tons are produced annually and the amount is growing. Single-use plastics account for 35-40% of current plastic production and represent the most rapidly growing segment of the plastic industry.

Various chemicals are then incorporated into these carbon-based polymers to impart certain properties to the plastic being manufactured. Among the properties chemicals impart to plastic are color, flexibility, stability, water repellency, sterility, fire resistance and ultraviolet resistance. Unfortunately, many of these added chemicals are extremely toxic. They include cancer-causing compounds, neurotoxins that disrupt the cells that make up nervous systems, endocrine disruptors such as phthalates that play havoc with the body’s hormones, bisphenols, per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (aka PFAS or forever chemicals), as well as brominated and organophosphate flame-retardants. These highly toxic chemicals are integral components of plastic. During production, these chemicals, along with plastic particles, leak into the air, water and soil polluting the landscape and sickening those that get exposed. Many of these chemicals are responsible for the majority of plastics’ harm to human and environment health.

Use
Due to their wide proliferation throughout society, plastic is present in almost everything we use in our daily lives. Consumers are exposed to toxic chemicals as they leach out of plastic; enter the environment, and cause pollution as a result of their normal use. Sometimes exposure occurs from direct contact with the plastic item, and other times it occurs through contact with a substance such as water or food that has been in contact with the plastic. Accidental and unintended exposures also occur such as when an infant sucks on a plastic toy.

Disposal
We have known for a long time that plastic itself does not decompose, and now we learn that some of the toxic compounds used in plastic (such as the PFAS family of chemicals) also fail to biodegrade which means they do not go away (hence the ‘forever chemical’ moniker). As a result, plastics are clogging our landfills, choking our oceans, and fouling our beaches. Additionally, some plastic chemicals undergo chemical transformation and form breakdown products and metabolites, that can be highly toxic and contribute further to the harm plastics create.

Unfortunately, our current patterns of plastic production, use and disposal occur with little attention to sustainable design or safe materials and a near absence of recovery, reuse and recycling. Plastic recycling systems are so inefficient and ineffective that studies have found that less than 10 percent of the plastic humans produce and use actually gets recycled and reused while the other 90 percent gets incinerated, or ends up in a landfill or the environment. Despite rising consumer awareness, government regulation and corporate attention, we are creating more single use plastic waste than ever before. Between 2019 and 2021 the world produced an additional six million metric tons of single use plastic waste, mostly from fossil fuels. The more plastic waste we create the greater the harm to human health, widespread environmental damage, significant economic costs and deep societal injustices.

In-depth research of advanced recycling of plastic (also called chemical recycling, molecular recycling or chemical conversion) in the United States finds this new technology is a lot of hype and not much reality (Denney et al., 2022; Singla & Wardle, 2022). These so-called advanced recycling facilities are themselves generating hazardous waste and causing environmental injustices under the false promise of recycling. Even worse, since the plastic we do manage to produce from “advanced recycling” is much more expensive than virgin plastic, much of the recycling output will likely end up as fuel for incinerators creating even more pollution.

Key report findings
The report points out that while manufacture and use of essential plastics should continue, the reckless increases in plastic production, and especially increases in the manufacture of an ever-increasing array of unnecessary single-use plastic products, needs to be curbed and their use greatly reduced. We also need to eliminate the migration of plastic into the biosphere across its life-cycle by embracing environmentally sound waste management.

Among the Minderoo-Monaco Commission’s findings are:

• Plastic causes disease, impairment and premature mortality at every stage of its life cycle, with the health repercussions disproportionately affecting vulnerable, low-income and minority communities, particularly children.
• Toxic chemicals added to plastic and routinely detected in people are known to increase the risk of miscarriage, obesity, cardiovascular disease and cancers.
• Plastic waste is ubiquitous and our oceans, on which people depend for oxygen, food and livelihoods, are “suffering beyond measure, with micro- and nano-plastics particles contaminating the water and the sea floor and entering the marine food chain.”

The Commission’s science-based recommendations include a global cap on plastic production instituted through a Global Plastics Treaty.

Plastic’s impact on our industry
So, what does the incorporation of plastic into beekeeping mean for our bees? Mostly, we don’t know. No one is looking closely to see how the myriad of plastic related chemicals impact honey bee health. No one appears to be researching the amount of toxins, like the PFAS forever chemicals, that may be leaching out of plastic and into honey from plastic containers, or leaching into beeswax from plastic foundation. What do the effects of these chemical have on honey bee larvae raised in plastic comb? How does the early exposure of queen bees to plastic (from being raised in plastic queen cups, to being shipped in plastic queen cages) impact their health and longevity?

We know from experience that bees do not like plastic. If a sheet of plastic foundation is not coated with enough beeswax, the bees will avoid the foundation, building their comb next to and parallel to the foundation rather than utilizing the hexagon-embossed plastic surface designed to encourage comb building. Are the bees trying to tell us something?

Thankfully, there are many alternatives to plastic available to us beekeepers. From leather smoker bellows, pure beeswax foundation, wooden hive components, glass jars and metal queen excluders, just about every beekeeping tool or hive part made of plastic has a non-plastic alternative available on the market. The only items I can think of that do not have plastic alternatives readily available are small hive beetle traps and large multi-gallon pails for honey. It’s not that these items could not be made from materials other than plastic (think wooden beetle traps or large metal tins for honey packaging like they used to use in the old days), it’s just that no one is currently making them and offering such alternatives for sale, at least not in the U.S.

It appears that long-standing concerns over pesticide chemical contamination of bees and bee hives has distracted beekeepers from plastic chemical contamination issues. I know I have not given the issue much thought in the past. The report from the Minderoo-Monaco Commission represents a wake-up call just as multinational fossil-fuel corporations that produce coal, oil and gas and also manufacture plastics are deliberately pivoting from fossil fuel production to making more plastic. As increased renewable energy production erodes fossil fuel use, the fossil fuel industry is looking to increased plastic manufacturing as one of the ways to help maintain a ready market for their global life-support system destroying products.

Ross Conrad is the Author of Natural Beekeeping: Organic approaches to modern apiculture, and co-author of The Land of Milk and Honey: A history of beekeeping in Vermont.

References:
Denney, V., Brosche, S., Strakova, J., Karlsson, T., Ochieng, G., Buonsante, V., Bell, L., Carlini, G., Beeler, B. (2022) An Introduction to plastics and toxic chemicals: How plastics harm human health and the environment and poison the circular economy, International Pollutants Elimination Network (IPEN)
Landrigan, Philip J., et. al. (2023) The Minderoo-Monaco Commission on Plastics and Human Health, Annals of Global Health, 89(1):23 DOI: 10.5334/aogh.4056
Singla, Veena and Tessa Wardle (2022) Recycling Lies: “Chemical Recycling” of Plastic is Just Greenwashing Incineration, Natural Resources Defense Council, https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/chemical-recycling-greenwashing-incineration-ib.pdf

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Beekeeping’s Future

Despite enormous environment challenges facing the honey bee and beekeepers, there are a number of reasons to believe that the beekeeping industry is better able to withstand the uncertain future than other agricultural industries.

By: Ross Conrad

Much has been written and said about the numerous pesticide, pest and pathogen issues beekeepers are wrestling with, as it should be. What has gotten somewhat less attention is the threat that impacts all beekeepers and honey bee colonies everywhere in the world because it threatens everyone, everywhere: the climate crisis. Across the globe, climate-induced temperature extremes, droughts and floods have in some cases had a positive impact on crops. Unfortunately, the general effect of climate destabilization has been an overall reduction of crop yields (IPCC, 2022). Reduced yields lead to increases in hunger, and the resulting malnutrition related diseases, poverty and dislocated populations of climate refugees worldwide.

Climate impacts are predicted to be most severely felt throughout South, Central and much of North America. As well as Africa, Australia and parts of Asia.

Bees sip rather than gulp
To date, beekeeping and honey production has proven itself to be more resilient to climate disruption than other agricultural crops. Of course apiaries can be devastated by floods that wash away hives, or wildfires that turn colonies to ash, but bees handle drought better than other agricultural pursuits. This is because they simply require less water than most crops and livestock.

For example, farmers in Zimbabwe have found that honey production is proving to be relatively stable even while crop production in general has decreased, or in some cases totally failed (Mambondiyani, 2023). This has led to an increase in beekeeping in parts of the African continent. A side benefit from the proliferation of beekeepers is that African apiaries are helping to conserve precious vegetation in arid regions, as villagers avoid cutting trees near apiaries out of fear of the bees.

Diverse forage
One of the reasons beekeeping is proving itself to be more resilient to our changing climate is because bees often forage on wild plants and are not totally dependent on agricultural crops. This is an important trait since feral and native vegetation are often more drought tolerant than cultivated crops. Wild and indigenous plants can make up for decreased foraging opportunities when agricultural crops suffer reduced nectar and pollen production from a lack of water. The wide foraging area that honey bee colonies utilize (over three miles in every direction) helps ensure that any plants within foraging range that do have access to water and are in bloom, will be discovered by the bees.

Modest land requirements
Compared to other agricultural endeavors, beekeeping activities require the least amount of land, so farmers are often able to add honey production to their farm plan without sacrificing space for other crops. Apiaries can also utilize infertile land, or areas otherwise not suitable for other forms of agriculture.

Since beekeeping doesn’t modify or permanently alter the area in which it is carried out, it is fairly easy for an apiculturist who doesn’t own property to find land owners that are happy to provide apiary accommodations on their property. This helps make beekeeping the most accessible of all agricultural efforts, especially in third world countries and among populations with modest incomes since land ownership is not a necessary requirement to keep bees.

The pollination dividend
Through the act of pollination, honey bees increase crop quality and yields, an attribute that often causes landowners to seek out beekeepers willing to place bees on their land. Instead of being accused of stealing from neighboring farms, beekeepers receive praise for the pollination services they provide. The pollination action of bees also helps ensure the presence of wild and native species of plants and trees, which indirectly benefits wildlife as well.

Climate destabilization is making things harder for farmers, especially in arid regions like Africa.

A model of sustainability
Beekeeping is not only proving to be somewhat more resilient in the face of climate destabilization, but it can be part of the climate solution. Depending on how it is carried out, the perennial nature of beekeeping provides the potential to have one of the smallest environmental footprints in all of agriculture (Mujica et al., 2016; Moreira et al., 2019; Pignagnoli et al., 2021). The bees do most of the work. The biggest energy demands of beekeeping are in traveling to and from apiaries or migratory pollination sites. Significant energy is also required for extracting, bottling and processing of honey and beeswax. By keeping beeyards close to the honey house or farm that need pollination services, using renewable energy sources for processing, and non-plastic packaging, many of the negative climate and environmental effects of apiculture can be reduced, if not eliminated.

Since every beekeeping operation is different it can be difficult to pinpoint the exact ecological footprint of beekeeping in general. Much depends of the variety of practices such as feeding regimens, treatment practices, honey yields and shipping and transportation distances used by the beekeeping operation. Migratory beekeeping operations for example have been shown to have greater disease problems and results in bees more likely to have compromised immune systems, all of which increases the need for treatments and expensive inputs (Brosi et al., 2017; Simone-Finstrom et al., 2016; Gordon et al., 2014; Jara et al., 2021). Generally speaking, the ecological footprint of backyard beekeepers is more than three times as small as your standard commercial beekeeping operation (Kendal et al., 2011).

Unlike most agricultural activities, the very nature of the beekeeping business model provides the potential to be more sustainable. Vegetable, grain and fruit farmers typically need to buy new seed, fertilizer and agrochemicals annually, while providing tilling, irrigation and weed control. Beekeeping is a perennial activity. Beekeepers can use the same hives season after season, and as long as they are able to keep their bees alive, the need to purchase expensive inputs on a yearly basis is minimized.

It is easy to focus on all the challenges and fall into a “Woe is me” attitude considering the constant flow of bad news facing our industry. While I am not saying that things are going to be easy, there are plenty of reasons to believe that the future of beekeeping is more secure than other agricultural industries, many of which are profitable only because they are being propped up by government subsidies and taxpayer dollars. Beekeeping has the potential to provide one of the most stable and sustainable agricultural business models during the uncertain climate future that threatens to destabilize much of agriculture as it is practiced today. While beekeepings’ ecological footprint is already better than most other forms of agriculture, we can improve the current carbon footprint of the industry by finding ways to reduce emissions by minimizing transportation and shipping distances of bees, increasing the adoption of stationary beekeeping practices and by localizing, or at least regionalizing our business models.

Many beekeepers initially get involved in this ancient craft out of a concern and desire to benefit the natural world, a world that is rapidly changing and not always for the better. Thankfully, beekeeping appears to be better situated than most of agriculture to weather the unstable and uncertain future that is envisioned. Despite the numerous very real and serious threats to honey bees, there is good reason to think that beekeeping, and therefore honey bees themselves, will continue for as long as the planet’s ecosystem can support it and us.

Ross Conrad is author of Natural Beekeeping: Revised and Expanded, 2nd edition, and The Land of Milk and Honey: A history of beekeeping in Vermont.

References:
Brosi, B.J., Deleplane, K.S., Boots, M., De Roode, J.C. (2017) Ecological and evolutionary approaches to managing honey bee disease, Nature Ecology & Evolution, (1)1250-1262
Gordon, R., Schott-Bresolin, N., East, I.J. (2014) Nomadic beekeeper movements create the potential for widespread disease in the honey bee industry, Australian Veterinary Journal, 92:283-290
IPCC Sixth Assessment Report: Food, Fiber and Other Ecosystem Products
Jara, L., Ruiz, C., Martin-Hernandez, R., Munoz, I., Higes, M., Serrano, J., De la Rua, P., (2021) The effect of migratory beekeeping on the infestation rate of parasites in honey bee (Apis mellifera) colonies and on their genetic variability, Microorganisms, 9(22)
Kendall, A., Yuan, J., Brodt, S.B., Kramer, K.J. (2011) Carbon Footprint of U.S. Honey Production and Packaging – Report to the National Honey Board, University of California, Davis, pp 1-23
Mambondiyani, Andrew (2023) Why farmers in Zimbabwe are shifting to bees, Yes!
Moreira, M.T., Cortes, A., Lijo, L., Noya, I., Pineiro, O., Lopez-Carracelas, L., Omil, B., Barral, M.T., Merino, A., Feijoo, G. (2019) Environmental Implications of honey production in the national parks of northwest Spain,
Mujica, M., Blanco, G., Santalla, E. (2016) Carbon footprint of honey produced in Argentina, Journal of Cleaner Production, 116(10): 50-60
Pignagnoli A, Pignedoli S, Carpana E, Costa C, Dal Prà A. (2021) Carbon Footprint of Honey in Different Beekeeping Systems. Sustainability. 13(19):11063. https://doi.org/10.3390/su131911063
Simone-Finstrom, M., Li-Byarlay, H., Huang, M.H., Strand, M.K., Rueppel, O., Tarpy, D.R. (2016) Migratory management and environmental conditions affect lifespan and oxidative stress in honey bees, Scientific Reports, 6(1):32023

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Found in Translation

Teaching Bees New Tricks

By: Jay Evans, USDA Beltsville Bee Lab

Bees have innate (think ‘robo-bee’) and learned (‘show me, sister’) behaviors. Recent work with bees has explored the boundaries of these two forms. While it is dangerous to put our own biases on animal behaviors, the complex behaviors measured seem to include ‘play’, ‘puzzling’ and ‘dancing’. Oh yeah, and they can count as well, even showing an awareness of ‘zero’ things, but that was yesteryear’s news from Scarlett Howard and colleagues (Numerical ordering of zero in honey bees, 2018, Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.aar4975).

What is fascinating about work coming out just this year is that not only do bees show complex behaviors, but they seem to get better at those behaviors by watching their nestmates. Bee dances will be familiar to most beekeepers and students of animal behavior. Successful foragers often tell their sisters where the good stuff is after finishing their foraging flights. Specifically, foragers signal both direction and distance to flower sources using the waggle dance. True to its name, and shown graphically to the right, this dance involves a bee streaking across the comb and shaking its abdomen for the edification of sister foragers. The angle of this dance on a vertical patch of comb signals the direction of a good food source relative to the current position of the sun relative to the hive. The length of each dance streak provides an estimate of the distance to flower patches (or to sugar baits planted by curious naturalists). By repeatedly dancing, they drum up interest and lead future foragers to a better understanding of how far they might have to fly to get these rewards. The discovery of this dance language is decades old, and justified a share of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1973 for Austrian bee researcher Karl von Frisch. The recent work ups the game by showing that much of this behavior is learned by watching older, more precise, dancers.

Shihao Dong and colleagues set out to study Social signal learning of the waggle dance in honey bees (2023, Science, DOI:10.1126/science.ade1702). Specifically, they judged the dancing skills of self-starters relative to those of bees that were mentored by older, experienced, dancers. To produce a swarm of naïve dancers, they established colonies comprised solely of like-aged bees, so that all bees reached foraging age together and were therefore less likely to benefit from matching the skills of a senior dancer. Bees from these ‘Animal Farm’ colonies were compared to marked bees of the same age which had grown up gazing at the dances of experienced dancers in colonies with a typical age profile. Naïve bees consistently over-stated the distance they had flown to flowers, in effect telling nestmates to fly right past suitable food sources. They also showed more ‘Dance Disorder’ than both older bees and bees that had been exposed to older dancers. Dance accuracy for all dancers improved over time, it just improved much more quickly when bees had older mentors to watch. So what is the lesson here for beekeepers? No, you can’t force your teenager to watch you dance and expect them to get it, but you CAN see how bees in colonies with an abnormal age structure, thanks to rapid premature death of foragers, might continue to slide by spending unnecessary time looking for food. Long-lived bees are those free of chemical stress, raised with adequate protein nutrition, and arguably bees that have avoided mites and other disease. When you protect your bees from these stresses, just think of how their dance lives will improve.

In a study that, for me, deserved two SMH’s, bees were trained to take on puzzle behaviors, or behaviors that simply don’t present themselves to bees when scientists aren’t around. Working with bumble bees, Alice Bridges and colleagues first taught their bees to open small food boxes by pushing on colored (red or blue) tabs. This a behavior I am not sure I could teach my dog, but she is a bit slow. They then checked to see if bees could follow the lead of a nestmate who had already figured out the box trick. While self-learners emerged in the control colonies sometimes got the knack for opening boxes, bees who observed a nestmate open a box were more likely to successfully mimic that behavior. Over time, bees with a teacher opened more boxes, faster, and were rewarded with more sugar treats. Honey bees and some other bee species are known to spontaneously ‘rob’ flowers by chewing directly into nectar pools when those pools are too deep in the flower for their tongues to reach. It would be neat to see if such nectar robbing is also a learned trait, passed on by adventurous foragers who had to learn the trait the hard way. If so, can such teachers target their lessons to their nestmate sisters?

All of these studies push the known boundaries for bee awareness and behavior, showing all the more how lucky we are to have formed bonds with honey bees and other insects. Clever behavioral scientists will no doubt continue to discover profound, and maybe a bit unsettling, awareness by insects. This awareness is likely to be most evident in the highly social honey bees and bumble bees. What’s next, spelling bees? Stay tuned. In the meantime, get out, find a friend and improve your dancing.

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Honey Bee Cannibalism

And some other quirks of our beloved bees

By: James E. Tew

I don’t know how to start this conversation
A question came to me that found me unprepared and uneducated on the queried subject. This is not an uncommon situation for me. I have an abundance of bee questions for which I have no answer, but my interest in this question lingered far beyond its derived answer.

Becca F., a beekeeper friend from north Florida, phoned to ask me, “Why are some of the bees in one of my colonies eating some of its brood?” The colony in question was from a cut-out (A “cut-out” is a colony that originated when a beekeeper relocated it from a natural nest site, such as a hollow tree or the wall of a house, to standard hive equipment.)  from late last season. Other than some destroyed brood, all other biological characteristics of the colony seemed in good order. You should know that, at the time of the phone call, the 2023 Spring season was well underway in Becca’s area.

From nearly nine-hundred miles away, I really could not say what was causing this disappointing behavior in her distant colony, but I felt that we could, at least, narrow the possible reasons. Narrowing the issue is not the same as answering the issue. If there is a food shortage (probably protein) or if a perceived pathogen is present, I surmised that nurse bees sometimes eat larval brood. I proffered a guess that if all other brood stages seemed healthy, and copious food stores were present, and a pollen and nectar flow was still yet to come, this mysterious issue would most likely resolve itself.

Figure 1. Small Hive Beetles, the cause of brood destruction.

Indeed, it did. Apparently, a Small Hive Beetle (SHB) population had grown within the colony to the extent that some of the bee brood was damaged. Selected bees were striving to regain control of the situation and were eliminating damaged or dead brood. Providing some beetle traps and some microfiber cloths seemed to help the bees regain control in the afflicted colony.

From afar, I was able to do nothing that was helpful. The beekeeper and the bees had seemingly won this battle, but the situation lingered in my thoughts. That some of the bees from one of Becca’s colonies was actually killing and eating some of its brood was a curiosity that stayed with me. Such cannibalism is documented colony behavior in the beekeeping literature. You and I both know that fact, but exactly how does it work? When and why does it work?

Through the decades
Through the passing decades, many times I have alluded to the fact that bees will, at times, “eat” some of their young. With superficial confidence, I have told audiences that these cannibalistic bees are selecting older larvae first. Why? Older larvae are the colony’s major food consumers. Younger larvae seemingly would be on the short list and would be consumed as the older larvae were eliminated. Honey bee eggs will have not yet become food consumers and developing pupae have already completed the eating stage. They are reasonably safe. However, larval stages would be in serious trouble if food stores were stressed.

For hygienic reasons, bees will also remove diseased brood from the colony. At this point, I have few answers, but many questions. Will nurse bees intentionally consume the larval contents as they dispose of their diseased brood? If so, are they re-purposing the larvae’s fluid contents as food or are they removing the contents to expedite getting the dead brood member to the colony entrance? Or both? I have more comments on this concept later in this piece.

Mature honey bees
Let’s just get this out of the way. I cannot recall of an instance where it was documented that an adult bee consumed another adult honey bee. Maybe – and completely hypothetically – I suppose that under specific undocumented situations, if a nectar-ladened worker was killed (i.e., crushed, mashed or just died) and the contents of her honey crop was somehow available, that sweetness could be of interest to other living house bees.

Yes, that scenario is a wildcard, but a scenario like that one is the only incident in which I can envision an adult bee having an interest in cannibalistically eating some of the contents of another adult bee. So again, adult honey bees do not see other adult bees as a food supply.

Maybe for another time, and on a different subject, birds, toads, spiders and other insects certainly do view adult honey bees as food sources. Adult honey bees are readily eaten by these animal species.

Laying workers
When lauding the productivity of a beautiful queen, I have sometimes stated to audiences that, “Nurse bees will police any defective or incorrectly placed brood by eating/removing it.” In effect, this has the effect of making the queen’s output look very good because the workers corrected her mistakes. Well, in a way, she is good at her genetic job, because her offspring had that innate ability. But what about defective queens or even laying workers?

Though I feel a bit shaken, I still support the concept that healthy workers will eat/remove laying worker eggs when they find one. Just exactly how the worker perceives the defective egg is far beyond my knowledge. But I again write that I have lost some of my nerve. Are the workers eating the haploid egg or only removing it? I have been told, and I have re-stated to others, that viable workers truly eat the defective egg.

Indeed, I have read, and subsequently repeated to others, that to a greater or lesser extent, laying worker eggs are commonly found even in healthy colonies – especially when the brood and adult population are high and healthy queen pheromone levels are stretched across the large population. During those times, viable adult workers are constantly removing these sly, worker-laid eggs. Then again, I would boldly say to an audience, “They eat them.”

Whereas, I was once confident in this statement, I have recently grown more reticent. In my fifty plus years of beekeeping, I have never seen an egg anywhere but in a cell. Are these undesirable eggs really being eaten or did I simply not notice a tiny, white egg laying outside on the landing board as it was being discarded? I don’t know. Maybe I just missed it. I will try to be more observant.

Immature queens and drones
I feel that you and I could agree that immature queens and drones are “eliminated” when they are no longer needed. Queen cells are frequently torn down and contents removed if such cells are unneeded.

Figure 2. Dismembered drones at the colony entrance.

As have you, I have seen partially dismembered drones that were being removed from cells. Were they dismembered to ease the removal process or were juices and cellular fluids consumed? I don’t know. I offer this thought at this point; I dangerously assume that liquid contents would be eaten – if for no other reason that nest cleanliness.

Hygienic behavior
Where would honey bees be without this cleanliness behavior? Queen breeders select for this attribute. Scientific careers have been built on this concept. We wish all our queen stocks exhibited this characteristic. But there are instances when the process turns negative for both the bees and their keepers.

For instance, while removing infected brood, nurse bees’ brood food glands may become contaminated with bacterial spores of American foulbrood (AFB). Those nurse bee carriers then feed susceptible young larvae along with pathogenic bacterial spores that perpetuates AFB within the colony’s young brood population. In many presentations, I considered it humorous to tell audiences that nurse bees did not have small stainless-steel buckets and cleaning cloths. Therefore, the only way they could remove the diseased larval debris was to eat it. In retrospect, this may not have been as funny as I thought.

There is abundant published literature (2Posada-Florez, F., Lamas, Z.S., Hawthorne, D.J. et al. Pupal cannibalism by worker honey bees contributes to the spread of deformed wing virus. Sci Rep 11, 8989 (2021). https://rdcu.be/c8o25) that explains how hygienic cleaning spreads deformed wing virus. At this point, I am left with nothing to write. If the colony does not keep itself immaculate, the viral disease spreads. If it cleans itself and keeps colony conditions immaculate, the viral disease spreads. This is a true conundrum.

This spread occurs because bees are in direct contact with virus particles as they clean/eat the diseased brood. I sense that the best solution is to prevent varroa-vectored viruses from gaining a hold in the colony; therefore, the alert beekeeper should constantly suppress varroa populations. At this point, I am forced to admit that if I don’t manage varroa first, I will have much greater problems managing my bees later. This too, is a topic for another time.

Seasonal adjustments
It’s harsh. As humans, we are nearly unable to tolerate the concept, but to bees, brood is potentially food in a form other than bee bread or honey. At this moment, as I write for you, my Spring season is just beginning. Maple is in bloom as are other early season food sources. So, of course, the weather swings between being nice and warm to absolutely wintry.

If my bees have been on time, there is a significant brood population being developed within my colonies. Suddenly, due to cold weather returning, there is no pollen coming in. Not only must the brood be fed, but it be kept warm. What should nurse bees do? It seems that they heartlessly cut their losses. If they perceive that protein is in critically short supply, they stop feeding the oldest larvae, consume them to re-purpose their body fluids to power their nurse bee brood-food glands, and await the restart of the seasonal pollen flow. Such seasonal fluctuations occur everywhere, not just cold climates.

During serious dearths, using brood as food is a brutal but logical thing to do. Could it then be written that bees’ diet is honey, pollen and in trying times, its own bee brood? Yes, this seems harsh to human beekeepers.

Honey bees eating process
Through the years, I have spent significant time trying to understand the “chewing-lapping” mouthparts system that bees use to consume their food. While I think I understand the basics, I readily admit that I do not grasp the finer details of this complicated process. Lacking typical chewing jaws and essentially only consuming a liquid diet, how do bees actually eat a larva? Indeed, how does a bee eat pollen or anything else solid?

Figure 3. The complex honey bee mouthparts (Snodgrass)

While searching a plethora of complex literature on honey bee mouthparts, I stumbled across a very old pamphlet from the Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections by N.E. McIndoo (3McIndoo, N.E. 1906. The sense organs on the mouthparts of the Honey Bee. Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collection, Vol 65, No. 14. https://repository.si.edu/bitstream/handle/10088/23540/SMC_65_McIndoo_1916_14_1-55.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y). This author reported that bees, using enzymatically reducing saliva, convert some solids to liquid forms thereby allowing the bees to “drink” the heretofore solids. Alternatively, if the solids are small enough, other supporting mouthparts, “in crane-like fashion” lift the small particles to the bee’s mouth where they are subsequently swallowed. For the hyper-interested reader, in clearer description, this bit of information was deeply buried in the fifty-five-page document and can be found on pages 39-41.

An aside…
Through the years, I have admonished honey bee enthusiasts to understand and respect all insect and animal life – not just honey bees. All species have some astonishing characteristics and abilities that seemingly make them stand above their other animal peers. Ergo, honey bees are amazing, but so are many other animal species. But I want to get sappy for a bit. The function and complexity of honey bee mouth parts astound me. Admittedly, I am not a honey bee anatomist, so I struggle to understand this complex system that honey bees whimsically use. I suggest that these hidden mouth parts and their functions are every bit as elegant as the dance language behavior and orienting capabilities of honey bees. In my opinion, bees’ mouthparts deserve more respect than they have gotten.

So, are honey bees vegetarian?
Under dire conditions, some bees will eat some of the colony’s developing brood. Can we agree on that point? If that is true, then can it be stated that honey bees are vegetarians? Maybe not. In fact, things are even more complicated. When bees gather and store pollen, they also collect microbes that live on and in pollen4. Those microscopic animals are also eaten by bees. Some researchers feel that this “meat” is an important overlooked food nutrient for honey bees. As you would expect, this is causing some consternation within scientific circles, but the concept seems to have a toehold at this time. So, are honey bees truly vegetarian? Maybe not.

Just one more thing – robbing behavior
I am out of space, but just one more thing. If robbing bees are maniacal for any food from anywhere, why do they not murder all the larvae in the colony being robbed and imbibe their body fluids? Do they? Honestly, I have never looked. Those large larvae are certainly a potential food source in the weakened colony.

As you know, a robbing episode is NOT the best time to pull all brood frames out of the robbed colony to have a look at whether larvae have been killed, but maybe I should have a look just one time. Please let me know if you see something in your robbed colonies.

Thank you.
To Becca and her bees, I offer a thank you for spurring me to think. To the readers who struggled through this piece, I thank you for your time and dedication to our bees.

Dr. James E. Tew
Emeritus Faculty, Entomology
The Ohio State University
tewbee2@gmail.com

Co-Host, Honey Bee
Obscura Podcast
www.honeybeeobscura.com

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Found in Translation

Bees have an increasing say in soybeans

By: Jay Evans, USDA Beltsville Bee Lab

Farmers and scientists debate the extent to which one of our country’s favored crops, the soybean, benefits from honey bee visits. Nor are they sure that having bees visit soybean crops is a net positive for the bees. Despite research documenting strong benefits to soybeans from honey bee visits (dating since the youth of former Bee Culture editor Kim Flottum, https://www.beeculture.com/found-in-translation-19/), a perusal of thousands of studies related to soybean farming shows little emphasis on how and when bees should be deployed. As one metric, a March 2023, Google Scholar search of papers mentioning “soybean yield” and “honey bee” provided 276 references. The same search excluding the term “honey bee” provided 62,200 references. This overall trend has not improved in recent years; papers mentioning soybean yields that do not mention honey bees number 5,110 since 2022, while only 32 papers mention honey bees. Fortunately, those 32 papers provide some really important advances. The upshot is that bees can greatly improve soy production, while potentially gathering a resource for themselves and their keepers. What remains to work out:

1. How can beekeepers practice safe soy?
2. How can growers choose varieties and management practices that harness bee visits to boost production of a vital row crop?
3. How can the two sides meet up to work out deals that benefit both industries and the environment?

On the soy side, honey bee pollination impacts were described this month in a freely available paper from Decio Gazzoni and João Paz Barateiro (Gazzoni, D.L. & João Vitor Ganem Rillo Paz Barateiro. 2023. Soybean yield is increased through complementary pollination by honey bees, Journal of Apicultural Research, DOI:
10.1080/00218839.2022.2161219). These authors showed that, with the right conditions and soybean varieties, honey bees increased soybean yields in controlled environments by 8.5-18.2% in four trials across three years. This increase is not as dramatic as other studies from different cultivars, but still reflects a lot of beans. Hannah Levenson and colleagues at North Carolina State University also showed recently that supporting bees merely by expanding local non-crop habitat led to a significant difference in soybean seed (bean) weights. In an exhaustive survey of 7,000 bees in the field, they found that 30+ bee species had collected soybean pollen but honey bees tended to be more faithful than others for soy versus alternatives (Levenson, H. K., A. E. Sharp, and D. R. Tarpy. 2022. Evaluating the impact of increased pollinator habitat on bee visitation and yield metrics in soybean crops. Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment 331:107901, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167880922000500).

If bees are generally good for soybeans, are these visits doing bees any good? Chia-Hua Lin and colleagues at The Ohio State University have been on that story for some time and recently published a complex study asking whether bees 1) make it to abundant local soybean fields and 2) bring home resources for their colonies (Lin, C.-H., Suresh, S., Matcham, E., Monagan, P., Curtis, H., Richardson, R. T., & Johnson, R. M. 2022. Soybean is a Common Nectar Source for Honey Bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae) in a Midwestern Agricultural Landscape. Journal of Economic Entomology, 115(6), 1846-1851. doi:10.1093/jee/toac140). In a citizen-science twist, the scientists asked members of the Ohio State Beekeepers Association to bring honey collected by bee colonies from across the state to their Fall meeting. This honey was screened for the presence of different pollen types under microscopy. As indicated by the title, soybean pollen was commonly found in Ohio honeys. More than half of the screened honeys held soybean pollen, and this increased for honey derived from foraging in July and August, when soybean flowers were most common. Finally, the authors used the waggle dance, the signal bees use within their colonies to direct nestmates to good foods, to show that returning bees are eager to tell their nestmates about soybean rewards. For medium-distance flights, returning bees were more likely to ‘dance’ that they had visited soybean fields than other fields, complementing the pollen collection data and saying that bees preferentially target soybean fields over the alternatives. Dr. Lin has backed up this work with some truly remarkable studies covering the attractiveness of dozens of soybean cultivars to bees in common gardens (e.g., https://ohiocroptest.cfaes.osu.edu/soy2022/2022_OSPT_pollinator_report.pdf) and is working relentlessly to improve cross-pollination between beekeepers and soybean growers.

Team B & B (Bees and Beans) collecting flowers in soybean plots last Summer. The white stakes are Karlan Forrester’s audio recorders. Photo provided by Chia-Hua Lin from the Rothenbuhler Honey Bee Lab at The Ohio State University

In ongoing work, graduate student Karlan Forrester (working with Chia-Hua Lin and Reed Johnson at Ohio State), has worked out innovative methods for tracking bees as they zero in on soybean flowers, while also confirming that certain soybean varieties are more rewarding, and hence attractive, to discerning bees (Forrester, K. C., Lin, C.-H., & Johnson, R. M. 2022. Measuring factors affecting honey bee attraction to soybeans using bioacoustics monitoring. BioRxiv, 2022.2011.2004.512777. doi:10.1101/2022.11.04.512777).

In looking for soy-bee stories that describe ways to enhance this partnership, I came across a series of fascinating works from the other side of the world. Dr. Dolapo Bola Adelabu, a researcher from the Free State of South Africa, and his colleague Angelinus Franke, found remarkable increases in soybean yields that can be attributed to visits by bees and other pollinators (Adelabu, D.B., Franke, A.C. 2023. Beneficial Role of Pollination and Soil Fertility for Soybean Production in Mountainous Farming Conditions. In: Membretti, A., Taylor, S.J., Delves, J.L. (eds) Sustainable Futures in Southern Africa’s Mountains. Sustainable Development Goals Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15773-8_5). These yields were greater than 50% when combined with optimal fertilizer supplementation of crops (Nitrogen and Phosphorous), with less striking increases under poor soils. Farming in this region of southern Africa, in a rugged corner of the Free State, is distinguished by “smallholder” farms, where farms are interspersed with homes and natural areas. This farming scheme allows for both wild bee habitat (honey bees are not routinely kept in hives here) and presumably a range of alternate food sources for bees when soybeans are not in flower. In conversing with Dr. Adelabu, the studies did not distinguish Apis mellifera from other bee species, but it seems likely that honey bees were a major member of the pollinating community. Thanks to this research, the services bees provide in terms of local soybean yields, among other crops, justifies the work needed to keep healthy bee habitat. The two scientists in this work are also more broadly interested in schemes to provide healthy nutrition to a fairly dense human population, while maintaining a sustainable environment, ( e.g., https://www.ufs.ac.za/aru/aru-team/aru-team/prof-angelinus-franke). Hannah Levenson phrases it well in her article, “As such, pollinator habitat should be designed to provide resources across the entire active season to help these important pollinator populations, especially since many crops have short bloom durations.”

One hope from all this research for the U.S. will be improved dialogue between beekeepers and soybean farmers, ideally driven by profits on both sides. This dialogue will help bees collect soy flower resources while minimizing collateral damage from agricultural practices, including the need to treat for crop diseases and insect pests. In the meantime, what are the best practices for beekeepers around soybean farms? The Honey Bee Health Coalition has focused on this issue, leading to a draft of guidelines led by Adam Dolezal at the University of Illinois showing how management practices, from pesticide applications to habitat, can be more bee-friendly (https://honeybeehealthcoalition.org/resources/soybean-best-management-practices/). Making more food on fewer acres is good for the planet and the economy, and it is great that scientists and farmers on both sides are tackling the soy-bee system in a rigorous way.

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Tropilaelaps

Part 2

By: Ross Conrad

Last month, we looked at the Tropilaelaps mite and its potential impact on North American beekeeping. While Tropilaelaps has yet to appear on the shores of North America, it can be found in the middle of a spat between the American Beekeeping Federation (ABF) and the Canadian Honey Council (CHC) over package imports.

A Warning Issued
On February 1, 2023, the ABF released a statement issuing a call for American beekeepers to encourage their congressional delegations to support the opening up of the Canadian border to honey bee package importation from the United States (Winter & Miller, 2023). The ABF letter notes that “the threat of the T mite (Tropilaelaps) being found in a southern hemisphere package and introduced to Canada is a real threat to all North American beekeepers.” The letter goes on to say, “This would be devastating to the North American beekeeping industry and production agriculture.” Furthermore, “ABF believes a new expedited risk analysis is needed” for both U.S. packages and those from other countries currently approved to export bees to Canada, in order to properly assess the current risk of a possible Tropilaelaps infestation.

Tropilaelaps’ need to access uncapped brood in order to feed every two days or so is the primary reason why it has not spread around the world so rapidly and extensively as the Varroa mite.

So far, Tropilaelaps has spread among South Asian countries including India, China, Pakistan, Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Sri Lanka, Philippines, Afghanistan, S. Korea, Vietnam and Papua New Guinea. New Guinea and Australia are about 150 km (93 miles) apart at their closest shores: roughly the distance between Cuba and the U.S. mainland. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) currently allows the importation of honey bee packages into Canada from Australia, New Zealand, Chile, Ukraine and Italy. Queen imports into Canada are allowed from the same five countries as well as from the United States, Denmark and Malta. Given the close proximity of Canada’s Australian source of bees to a known Tropilaelaps infested country (New Guinea), the ABF is sounding the alarm concerning the risk of the mite making its way to Canada and then to the U.S.

Canada Weighs In
On February 22, 2023, the Canadian Honey Council responded to the ABF with their own statement (Scarlett, 2023). In it, the CHC called it “unfortunate that the American Beekeeping Federation, the American Honey Producers Association and those Canadian operators having an interest in importing American packaged bees are attempting to capitalize on the fear of introducing Tropilaelaps mites.”

The CHC goes on to say, “last year, Canadian beekeepers from most areas in the country experienced devastating losses and the demand for stock increased dramatically. Calls to open the border to U.S. packages intensified… The Canadian Food Inspection Agency put out an open call for additional research to see if there were any changes to the risks that had been identified in a 2013 risk assessment of U.S. packages.” The risks identified in 2013 were: Amitraz resistant mites, small hive beetle, American foulbrood resistance to antibiotics and Africanized bees. “The CHC has indicated that if the science supports the decision to open the border, the border should open,” the statement emphasized.

The CHC went on to note that since U.S. beekeepers can import bees from just two countries, Canada and New Zealand, and “New Zealand is just as close or closer to where Tropilaelaps is found…” they suggest that the U.S. could also import bees with the potential to harbor the mite. The CHC statement concludes by stating, “a North American concern is justified but it is far more likely that the mite will arrive by ocean liners than it is by packaged bees. The U.S. has 162 ocean freighters arriving every day and many of those are from China and Japan, two countries much more likely to have unwanted ‘visitors’ aboard. That is why calls in the USA for sentinel hives at ports have increased… This is not a trade issue, and it is always looked at as an animal health risk issue.”

Reality or Hype?
There is a high demand right now among Canadian beekeepers for packaged bees to replace heavy losses. Meanwhile for the first time in decades, almond production is contracting due to low almond prices and water issues aggravated by prolonged drought, and U.S. beekeepers are looking to replace some of this lost income. Opening up the Canadian border to U.S. package imports could help replace lost almond pollination fees.

American beekeepers certainly do not need another stressor on their bees, should Tropilaelaps make its way to America. However, as I pointed out last month, the T mite’s impact is not likely to be as devastating to the beekeeping industry as Varroa was in its initial years. Unlike the situation when the Varroa mite first arrived in North America, today we have approved mite treatments available for Varroa that are reported to also work on Tropilaelaps. We also know more about the biology of the T mite and its critical vulnerability of having to have constant access to its primary food source (uncapped brood) or they starve to death. These facts make the dire warnings spelled out in the ABF letter appear exaggerated.

Real World Impact
So how likely is a mite infestation into Canada from packages or caged queens really? Since no combs of brood are shipped within packages or queen cages, the chance that T mites will infiltrate North America through a bee shipment is slim. As numerous researchers have all pointed out, any mites that make it into the package or cage when it is initially populated with bees, are likely to be dead within two to three days at the most (Woyke, 1984 & 1987; Koeniger & Muzaffar, 1988; Rinderer et al., 1994). This is primarily why Varroa, which also originated in Asia, has spread to the four corners of the earth while Tropilaelaps is still largely confined to its native range.

There are a couple theoretical possibilities where mites could survive importation in packages and queens. If there are package producers or queen breeders that are super efficient and ship orders out the same day that they are packaged or caged, it is possible that the receiving beekeeper will install their shipment into a hive the same day that it arrives via overnight airfreight. Thus, any mites that happen to be riding along in a package or cage would only be without food for a day or so and could survive the trip. To protect American beekeepers, a simple requirement that bee shipments must be held for a minimum of 48 hours before they are introduced into hives containing uncapped brood, would help ensure no Tropilaelaps mites that hitched a ride along with the bees are able to survive the journey. This would mostly affect queen imports since packages are usually installed into hives with foundation or empty frames of drawn comb, or perhaps combs containing some honey and/or pollen. It is rare that packages get installed into hives in which uncapped brood is already present.

The other possibility is that there are occasional reports in the literature of Tropilaelaps being observed sitting at the base of an adult honey bee’s wings. This is significant since the base of the wings is one of the few locations where the hard exoskeleton of the bee is soft enough for the Tropilaelaps mite to be able to pierce it with their mouth parts and feed on hemolymph (Khongphinitbunjong et al., 2012). Thus, it appears that sometimes a T mite figures out that it can feed on an adult bee.

While it is certainly a possibility that Canada will become a Tropilaelaps host country and spread the mite to America, the availability of approved Varroa mite treatments that are also reported to work on Tropilaelaps means that should such an infestation take place, is unlikely to cause a major catastrophe for American beekeepers.

The Scofflaw Factor
Unfortunately, we beekeepers are notorious scofflaws. This tendency exposed itself clearly after Varroa arrived and many beekeepers turned to off-label (illegal) uses of pesticides to control the mites. Since there are likely to be some beekeepers that cannot be trusted to honor a 48 hour delay before installing bees into hives that contain uncapped brood, Canadian bee breeders that supply the U.S. could also be required to wait 48 hours after packaging or caging bees before shipment. This way if one person in the supply chain “bends the rules” the other acts as a backup to ensure the mites are unlikely to survive. Of course, the extensive border between our two countries would almost guarantee that should Tropilaelaps make its way to Canada and spread throughout the country, at some point natural swarms will carry the mite across the border into the United States. However, unless a Canadian swarm usurps a U.S. colony and replaces the mother queen with their usurping queen (a highly unlikely situation), natural swarms are not expected to cause Tropilaelaps to spread across the border. The extended broodless period when a swarm emerges from a hive and when it begins raise new brood in a new location also prevents swarm castaways on an ocean liner from carrying the mite far.

There is always the possibility however that the mite could be smuggled in illegally. Some people claim that back in the 1980s, Argentina was getting bees from Asia, breeding queens, smuggling them into Florida under the radar and ended up bringing the Varroa mite to the U.S. Folks worry that something similar might happen should Australia end up getting the mite, and export the mite to Canada. Please note, all this is still theoretical. As far as anyone knows, while Varroa has recently arrived in Australia, Tropilaelaps has not yet made its way to the island continent.

You Catch More Bees with Honey Than You do With Vinegar
Rather than point fingers at our Canadian neighbors and make them out to be the “bad guy”, U.S. beekeepers would do better to focus on the positive impacts Canadians can expect should they open up their border to U.S. honey bee packages. The main one that comes to mind is an improved environmental footprint.

The American beekeeping industry is very fossil fuel intensive. Regularly transporting bees throughout the country on 18-wheeled, diesel powered trucks and shipping bees overnight by airfreight creates a lot of green-house gas emissions. Dramatically reducing the distance that packages must travel by air, will greatly help the beekeeping industry start to address the festering issue of heavy fossil-fuel reliance that has mostly been ignored to date. This means doing exactly what the ABF recommends, localizing and regionalizing industry so we no longer are relying on extensively long supply chains. The global COVID pandemic exposed the serious drawback of relying on products and supplies that have to be shipped from overseas and the global climate crisis is exposing another. Relocalizing as much of society as possible will be required if we are to successfully reduce energy use and GHG emissions, prevent global ecological collapse, save our bees and maintain organized human existence. An additional benefit is that reduced shipping distances should result in lower overall costs, allowing U.S. bee producers to compete competitively with bees from down under while allowing Canadian beekeepers to enjoy lower prices.

I get the ABF’s concerns. Declining almond prices and a lack of available water from increasing droughts out west is causing many almond producers to pull their older trees from production. For the first time in well over a decade, almond growers will be requiring fewer hives for pollination, not more. For those beekeepers that fell into the economic trap of relying on almond pollination fees for a large percentage of their annual income, the severe economic hit they are going to receive will be challenging. The greater the share of their annual income from almond pollination, the more difficult it will be for the beekeeper to stay afloat. Opening up a new market in Canada for U.S. packaged bees, while certainly not enough to entirely replace the lost almond pollination income, will help take some of the sting out of the loss. Efforts to use the fear of Tropilaelaps to facilitate such a trade agreement is a weak approach.

Ross Conrad is the author or Natural Beekeeping: Organic approaches to modern apiculture and the Land of Milk and Honey: A history of beekeeping in Vermont. Ross will be teaching a beginner organic beekeeping class the weekend of May 20-21 and an intermediate class June 4th in Vermont. For more information visit: www.dancingbeegardens.com

References:
Khongphinitbunjong, K., de Guzman, L.I., Burgett, M.D., Rinderer, T.E., Chantawannakul, P. (2012) Behavioral responses underpinning resistance and susceptibility of honey bees to Tropilaelaps mercedesae. Apidologie 43: 590–599 https://doi.org/10.1007/s13592-012-0129-x
Koeniger, N., and Muzaffar, N. J. J. O. A. R. (1988) Lifespan of the parasitic honeybee mite, Tropilaelaps clareae, on Apis cerana, dorsata and mellifera. Journal of Apicultural Research 27(4): 207-212.
Rinderer, T.E., Oldroyd, B.P., Lekprayoon, C., Wongsiri, S., Boonthai, C.,Thapa, R. (1994) Extended survival of the parasitic honey bee mite Tropilaelaps clareae on adult workers of Apis mellifera and Apis dorsata, Journal of Apicultural Research, 33(3):171-174, DOI:10.1080/00218839.1994.11100866
Scarlett, Rod (2023) Canadian Honey Council letter, https://honeycouncil.ca/
Winter, Dan & Jay Miller, (2023) American Beekeeping Federation letter, https://www.beeculture.com/abf-statement/
Woyke, J. (1984) Survival and prophylactic control of Tropilaelaps clareae infesting Apis mellifera colonies in Afghanistan, Apidologie, 15(4):421-434
Woyke, J. (1987) Length of Stay of the Parasitic Mite Tropilaelaps Clareae Outside Sealed Honey Bee Brood Cells as a Basis for its Effective Control, Journal of Apicultural Research, 26(2):104-109, DOI:10.1080/00218839.1987.11100745

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Beeyards Come and Beeyards Go

An apiary location is just for the moment

By: James E. Tew

An unusual topic
A strange topic this article has – Beeyards that I no longer have. Old, abandoned beeyards have played a major part in my personal beekeeping history and development. They are like long departed friends. Many of you have your old beeyard memories, too. I’m not special in this regard.

As the years have passed, I have steadily cut both the number of hives I manage and the number of yards I keep my bees in. Throughout my career, I estimate that I have had – at one time or another – about 45-60 permanent bee locations. At my peak, I (with help) maintained about sixteen different locations. Now, I have reduced my yards to only two apiaries, both reasonably near me. Yep, that’s quite a change for me.

My emotional attachment to some of these phased-out yards has surprised me. They have names that are totally meaningless to you, but they have been part of my life for years; the Metz yard, the Shreve yard, the Chipley yard, the County Home yard, Matt’s yard and the Fredericksburg yard are some of the many names of places that have now reverted to non-bee areas.

Figure 1. The Metz yard, twenty-five years ago

Specifically, the Metz yard and the Fredericksburg yard were locations that I personally established as a brand-new entomology professor at OSU in 1978. It seems impossible that I had some of these locations for 40+ consecutive years only to close them out. As a young man, I guess I just assumed that these yards would somehow continue forever.

In the case of the Metz yard, it was located off Metz Road, right here in Wooster, Ohio. At that location, through the years, I survived stuck trucks, swarms, American foulbrood, tall grass, the introduction of mites and ground hogs, but on the positive side we made a lot of honey there. Being located near a stand of pines, I, and my help, would gather bags of pine needles for our smoker fuel needs. At the time, it was a major part of my beekeeping psyche.

We were there so long that many years ago, the Senior Mr. Metz died requiring us to get permission from Mr. Metz’s surviving son to continue the use of the yard. He allowed us to stay so I passed into my second generation at this location. Then after decades of use, I finally gave it up, too.

Where is this reminiscing going?
Eliminating these yards made me realize that I have evacuated far, far more yards than I will ever again maintain. Yet each of those now abandoned locations was, for a while, a part of my beekeeping life. Stories and bee events came and went. Now nothing of a bee nature remains at these locations. In fact, there are only a very few people who could even remember the hives were ever there. That’s okay. It’s only important to me anyway.

Memories of some of my long-gone yards
Not all the memories that follow are specifically my yards, but they all contribute to my beekeeping memories. Here are some examples.

The Unit-Two Yard
The reason for the clumsy yard name is unimportant, but the now long-beeless yard has several significant memories for me. It was in this yard that I had the very personal experience of having a mouse run up inside my pant leg as I was removing supers from a hive. I have relived the story literally hundreds of times at meetings across the country, and I choose not to relive it again here, but you can believe that I will NEVER forget the experience I had in that yard (and neither will the mouse).

Reason for giving up the Unit-Two yard. Pesticides. The yard was located near university field plots and every year, the hives located there were seriously damaged by pesticide kills. I now wonder, in light of decreased pesticide use, if that yard could be reoccupied.

The Eck Yard
Mr. Clarence Eck was the grand old beekeeper in Wooster for many years. He was keeping bees long before I moved here. Mr. Eck is no longer with us, but he and others, including Jim Thompson, a frequent contributor to Bee Culture and longtime beekeeping friend, initiated a small beekeeping workshop for helping new beekeepers. This past March, the 44th annual version of this workshop, with hundreds of people in attendance, was conducted. Mr. Eck’s home beeyard, and one in which he conducted early beekeeping classes, was north of Wooster. That yard, too, is now gone.

Reasons for Mr. Eck giving up this apiary site. Concerns from the local Ford Motor Company dealership was the reason for abandoning the yard. The newly located dealership could not figure out where all the “birds” were coming from that defecated on their fine, new cars. It took them a while to figure out that it was neighboring bees – not birds – causing the issue, but when they did discover that it was bee poop on all their cars, under threat of lawsuit, a historical bee location was forced into oblivion.

The Sawmill Yard
In fact, the sawmill and the beeyard are now both gone. About thirty-eight years ago, I wrote a series of articles for the old Gleanings in Bee Culture under the mast head, The Solitary Beekeeper, from experiences I had in this yard. It was from this apiary, that I took a good friend to the hospital emergency room after he had a systemic reaction to multiple bee stings. His tongue was swollen and had become bluish. He recovered in good order, but he won’t ever forget this bee place. Neither will I.

This yard was located on the property of a large, creepy, abandoned state mental hospital. While moving beehives past midnight one dark, quiet night, I inexplicably became spooked – one of those sixth sense things. I couldn’t talk myself out of the threatening feeling. I unhooked the bee trailer from the truck and left some of the hives open and in disarray. When I returned the next day – nothing. No Big Foot – no monsters – no nothing. I recently did a podcast describing this recollection. Now, nothing remains there but memories.

Reasons for giving up the Sawmill Yard. American foulbrood outbreaks and agricultural encroachment. The yard is now a soybean field and the sawmill building is standing derelict.

The Chipley Yard
During the early ‘80s, I kept a yard of about 80 hives of Ohio State (OSU) hives in Chipley, Florida. At the time, I had a thriving international beekeeping program made up of people who wanted to learn more about migratory beekeeping. I wintered OSU bees in Florida and produced Springtime queens there.

I have many, many memories of driving trucks to Florida, loaded with palletized beehives, dead tired, stressed, but being a real migratory beekeeper. It was a spectacular amount of work. No one got hurt. We kept good bees and we all had a good experience. To this day, this yard makes up the bulk of my migratory beekeeping experience. I have a life-long collection of memories of “stuck trucks and late nights” from this yard. As usual, I wrote about my experiences.

Reasons for giving up the Chipley Yard. Bee program redirection, transportation costs and mud (accessibility). I understand that watermelons are now planted where our beeyard was once located.

Figure 2. The Ohio State University football stadium, circa 1940s. There are no bees there today. This photo shows how much society has changed.

Multiple Ohio State University Beeyards
I don’t even know how to review all the Ohio State University honey bee program yards that have come and gone. One of the most famous was beside the football stadium. If I put bees that near the stadium today, people would freak but in the 1940’s, it was fine.

The first beeyard here in Wooster at the OSU Research Center where I worked is now a parking lot that I frequently drive past. While looking at several hundred cars in that parking lot, who would ever believe that it was once a grassy beeyard?

Reasons for giving up these various Ohio State yards. Civilization encroachment in nearly every case.

Figure 3. The Bee Barn and Beeyard in 2002.

The Bee Barn

In an earlier life, the Bee Barn was a university swine facility, and then a turkey facility. Then in its later life, and after a thorough steam cleaning, it became the Bee Barn. It had everything – even a restroom and was partially heated. It was absolutely filled with eighty years of beekeeping equipment and supplies. In 2010, a tornado utterly destroyed it – completely. Today, nothing remains of the bee barn, the beeyard or any of the equipment that it stored. It’s an open, grassy field. Nothing but memories remain.

Figure 4. The Bee Barn and Yard after the 2010 tornado. Today, nothing remains but an open field.

Reason for abandoning the yard was complete destruction of the facility and the hives.

My oldest remaining yard
I have kept bees at the back of my home property for forty consecutive years. One of the primary reasons that I moved north of town was to be able to keep bees on my property. From that apiary, I have produced multiple videos, written tens and tens of articles, made several thousand photos and produced podcasts. I have sat in that yard, watching my bees, for thousands of hours. It was my haven during the covid pandemic. It was my private, quiet place.

Figure 5. Jim Tew, with some of his bees in his home yard that will have to be relocated.

Now, as I have written before, within twenty feet of my colonies, a new housing subdivision with multiple housing units is being built this Summer. Heretofore, the area behind me was a soybean field. The access road to the division will be hardly ten feet from my some of my current bee hives. It does not matter that I was here long before the housing project. I will surely get complaints from construction people and subsequent home owners.

Figure 6. C. Eck and Jim Tew forty years ago (1982)

Do you recall Mr. Eck, the Wooster beekeeper, who I wrote about earlier in this piece? He had a beeyard behind his house, too – just like me but even closer to his home. The City of Wooster built a grade school on the property that joined the rear of his house.

For years, Mr. Eck, the bees and the school kids lived together agreeably. Only a wire fence separated them. Quite a while ago, Mr. Eck passed and his bees were sold. Then, recently, the school was permanently closed. A Caribou Coffee Shop stands on the location now. In this case, everything is gone – the beekeeper, the bees, even the school, but for many years, that was a hive hot-spot. I cherish the memories.

But times have changed. Now, I don’t think I can have bees so near new homes that could possibly have children – especially curious ones who go exploring. So, yes… I am making plans to move my colonies until the construction phase passes. Apparently, in my life, no beeyard location is sacred.

But again, times have changed. I am now much older. In the past, I kept 20+ colonies in my back yard – far more than I should have. But I lucked out and nothing ever happened. I no longer want nearly that many colonies there. Maybe… just maybe, I can put two to three colonies there again. I have some fencing up already and I will install even more.

So, the beekeeping humor here is that, due to aging, and passing time, I have reduced my apiary locations to only two sites. Of the remaining two locations that I now have, one is having a housing property built nearby and the other is apparently home to a roving bear that destroyed one of my colonies this past year. Readers, presently, I have zero good locations. Beeyards are weird like that. Good for a while and then not good.

Here’s the truth
If you have hung on to this point, you must have figured out that I am writing this piece for me as much as for you. I must have several hundred slides, digital photos and videos of various beekeeping events in yards that are now beeless. Most of these pictures recall good memories of bee times past.

Though not the only reason, but a primary reason for me evacuating most of the yards that I have deserted was some kind of encroachment—not just urbanization. In some instances, farmers wanted their land to put back into cultivation. For example, watermelons in Chipley and soybeans in Ohio. The Ford dealer causing Mr. Eck’s yard to be move is an instance of commercial encroachment. I am now experiencing housing encroachment.

Secondly, a common reason for giving up yards was accessibility – mainly mud and narrow gates – that would trap my bee trucks. Here’s the oddity. I have never once left a yard because of a lack of bee food sources or limited water supply or a damaging frost pocket or because my hives couldn’t be faced to the east or some such. I left all these locations because of encroachment, mud and in a single case – pesticides. It doesn’t help that I am aging. I gave up some locations for that reason. When I pass by these abandoned apiary sites, I usually have a look and think, “I used to have bees there.”

A beeyard is a bit like the circus coming to town. Lots of planning, preparation, activity and work, only then to be gone. All that remains is memories of the circus. Some yards last much longer than others, but sooner or later all beeyards give it up only to become memories for unique people like you and me.

You just wait
If you keep bees long enough, you will get your own “abandoned yard” memories, too. But shake them off. No doubt, right now you should be out in your present yard doing bee stuff. Let the future take care of itself. Thank you for reading.

Dr. James E. Tew
Emeritus Faculty, Entomology
The Ohio State University
tewbee2@gmail.com

Co-Host, Honey Bee
Obscura Podcast
www.honeybeeobscura.com

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Found in Translation

Social Nature and the Hive Life

By: Jay Evans, USDA Beltsville Bee Lab

Picturing the Spring that will be upon the northern hemisphere when this essay is published, I feel a deep longing to see our bees in full growth, bringing back diverse pollen baskets and crops full of abundant nectar. Spring is my favorite season and it is almost painful to think of it as I write this in February (to many of us, the longest month). As a passionate beekeeping ally, I firmly believe that on the whole and in most settings honey bees are not only a tremendous asset to humans but intrinsically worthy in their own right. As messy as it might seem, this is true in both their introduced and native ranges (Eurasia and Africa for the ‘western’ honey bee).

Except for one 14 million-year old flattened specimen that fossil-hunters feel is in the genus Apis (all species of which have comb-forming, stinging, honey-storing social habits), there is no firm evidence that honey bees lived in North America before European colonists arrived a few centuries ago. Once here, however, honey bees flourished, swarming from their woven homes and making themselves an important part of both agricultural and natural habitats. In the midst of Winter, I feel the need to celebrate this flourishing.

That said, this is not another economic essay on the value of honey bee pollination or colony products, although $20-25 billion added to the U.S. economy in diverse, nutritious foods is not trivial. Nor is it another diatribe that bee-mediated pollination nourishes people throughout the world, nor that honey bees provide a cash crop for millions of families, with little startup costs, in communities that are stressed for both cash and nutritious foods.

And this is not a tribute to all the hardworking beekeepers, with from one to 80,000 colonies, who battle a variety of stresses to stay in the game (though I am not above pandering to that crowd).

It’s not even a worshipful look at how pollinators have shaped our world over 100+ million years, not simply by supporting billions of humans but in making every landscape just a bit more colorful and dynamic. This collaboration between bees and flowering plants, which started early and ended well for both, is wonderfully described by Sophie Cardinal and Bryan Danforth in their 2013 paper Bees diversified in the age of eudicots, Proceedings of the Royal Society B, https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2012.2686. I will tackle the larger economic and environmental benefits of honey bees and other pollinators in the future, this essay is more personal.

I would argue that we socially aware humans just need honey bees beyond their great services. To me, this need comes from two drivers. First, honey bees mirror our own inescapably social natures and teach valuable lessons therein. Second, if you try even half-heartedly to place yourself in the mindset of honey bees and other pollinators you can’t escape thinking about, and striving to improve, the plant resources and the overall environment they fly over and visit on their foraging flights.

First, the social connection. It is easy to revere a species in which selfless workers provide for relatives they most likely will never meet. There are so many facets of honey bee communication, biology and nature that are mirrors for our own, leading to profoundly interesting behaviors that resonate with the good and bad of our communities. My gateway to social insects and ultimately a life studying honey bees opened with a single lecture by an ant biologist, after which I went to my dorm and decided it was inconceivable to fritter my life away without studying these special creatures who build empires largely because they choose, 90% of the time, to drop their conflicts and work for a common goal. Ignoring their preferred diets, ants and honey bees are quite similar. Most importantly, both have succeeded in no small part because they divide tasks efficiently in colonies and can thereby both out-compete their solitary neighbors and regulate their home environments. Thomas Seeley’s book The Lives of Bees: The Untold Story of the Honey Bee in the Wild (2019) is a great entry into the wonder of bee inner worlds, while German professor Suzanne Foitzik shares similar life stories for ants in her 2021 book Empire of Ants: The Hidden Worlds and Extraordinary Lives of Earth’s Tiny Conquerors. In my case, the itch to learn about social insects became a full-on rash after opening a small student beehive for the first time while devouring the many stories of how honey bees and humans have been partners for thousands of years. From “busy as a bee” to “dance language” and “guard bees”, how we think of bee societies is hard to decouple from how we view our own. Not surprisingly then, neither bee nor human societies are perfect. Both show conflict within, vulnerabilities to parasites of all sorts and an occasional tendency to trample other beings, but both are marvels to behold, and exhilarating to compare and contrast.

A second preeminent reason to value honey bees is that they truly provide a gateway to understanding nature. When beekeepers see their bees exit the hive, circle-wave their home and sail off, they marvel at what that tiny bee will see on a journey across the landscape, wishing the bee luck and the memory cells to return after a successful foraging trip. This care for one’s bees inevitably leads to a greater appreciation for the flowering world, leading beekeepers to seek ways to improve and diversify the green world their bees encounter. Beekeepers fret over, and are noisy about, any ill winds that arise from degraded environments within two miles of the colonies they host. Habitat loss, climate, land practices and disease all impact the health of honey bee colonies, and beekeeping forces us to learn about each of those topics. Every beekeeper also has a keen sense of weather and the seasons. Okay, the same is true for gardeners, birders and hunters… and by some stretch of the imagination even golfers, although better if they let their ‘greens’ revert to wildflowers. Similarly, beekeepers are among the most knowledgeable humans with respect to how diseases spread, how to slow infections, and when it’s time to seek a doc, even if we neglect that knowledge sometimes with our own health and that of our colonies.

It’s not an easy path, and beekeepers often stumble. But, bees and beekeeping give back incredible riches to those who listen to the buzz and hitch a ride with their bee teachers. Hope springs eternal and here’s hoping your Spring is bountiful.

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James E. Tew with two splits (Circa 1995)

Buying and Establishing Bee Colony Splits

Lots of suggestions, but not many rules

By: James E. Tew

No doubt, you’ve heard this before
When either presenting or listening to a discussion on increasing bee colony numbers, there is always an informational requirement to list the four major ways to increase colony numbers: (1) Buy a package of bees, (2) Buy a colony split, (3) Capture a swarm or (4) Purchase a fully functional colony from another beekeeper (Removing bees from a building or a tree is an unlisted specialized method of acquiring bees. For most of us, such events do not routinely occur).

Nearly always, the presenter then elucidates the advantages and disadvantages of each option. Procuring a swarm requires good luck and purchasing a colony requires just about as much luck, but much requires more monetary investment. The two surest options for increasing (or replacing) colony numbers are buying a package or buying a split.

Package bees
Purchasing a package of bees is the tried-and-true option for getting new bees at a time when you are most prepared for them. While I have always enjoyed installing packages, some common problems can present. Maybe something goes wrong with the queen. Maybe the bees drift to other colonies. But I suspect the most routine negative characteristic of package installation is the adult bee population drop that begins to occur within a few days after the package is installed. This happens every time and in every package.

In total, it takes a serious amount of time for the queen to become established, begin laying, brood to develop and then twenty-one days later, for new workers to emerge – maybe four to five weeks. Therefore, four to five weeks after the installation date, the beekeeper has significantly fewer bees in the hive than when the package was originally installed. Any worker bee that died during that broodless period was not replaced.

Colony splits
Colony splits with established queens on a brood nest eliminate the characteristic population decline that is experienced with package bees. Those are the main selling points for colony splits. The split comes with an introduced queen that should be laying the entire time that the colony is being established in your yard. So why does anyone ever buy a package? Because they are readily available.

Figure 1. A five frame split awaiting transfer to standard equipment.

There has never been an established bee industry infrastructure for routinely producing and distributing splits. Every season, you and I must search for someone who has decided to split their bee colonies and equipment from their established colonies, provide a queen, and sell these “baby” colonies. The cost in time, and energy from both beekeeper and bees is significant, so the selling cost of the split is always more than the selling price for a package.

In general, I prefer splits over packages, but the split-purchasing and installing procedure can be more complicated and costly than the simplicity of package usage.

In all my years of buying packages and splits, I have found that for me, personally, the confusion is in the details. What details? Well, there’s quite a few. In no order of priority, I would like to review some of these characteristics below.

Detail #1 – Split vs Nuc
Splits and nucs are essentially the same bee hive component, but not exactly. In my opinion, a split is a type of nuc that is intended to grow into a fully functional colony. That can’t be said of all nucs (aka nucleus hives or nucleus colonies). For instance, some nucs are only intended to be a component of queen production. They will never grow to full-sized colonies. Other nucs have specialty functions such as populating an observation hive or possibly being used as a component of a colony cut-out procedure (removing a bee colony from a building). Various sizes and components of nucs frequently have significant use in the scientific community and research organizations. A nucleus hive is frequently just for the moment.

In a way, a nucleus hive could be said to be comparable to a cutting taken from a plant. How big was the cutting? How was the cutting rooted? When, during the season, was the plant cutting taken? A nucleus hive is just a bee colony “cutting.” Details and specifics abound.

Detail #2 – Where to find a split colony purveyor?
A few paragraphs ago, I wrote that a nucleus hive is frequently just for the moment. In a way, I want to write that finding someone to sell you colony splits is also for the moment (or season). I ask around. I have contacts from previous seasons. I read advertisements in journals and newsletters. I see online messages. In general, I try to make good luck happen when searching for a producer. In a few instances, the producer was actually just doing me a favor and was not in the split-producing business. In fact, only in a couple of instances have I purchased splits from the same person more than two consecutive seasons. Why? Let’s go with that discussion in Detail #3 below.

Figure 2. Paper nucs boxes filled with a colony split ready for the ride home.

Detail #3 – Why produce splits for sale?
There is no single standard reason that jumps out to me that justifies someone splitting their colonies. Monetary income is the clear and present reason, but that is always hard-earned money. Other than money, it could be local reasons. Maybe the beekeeper who is interested in selling splits is in an area that provides good early Spring buildup and is followed up with a good main nectar flow. They have bees, but those bees do not make a lot of honey. So, they sell bees and not honey.

A producer may be trying to prevent upcoming swarming behavior. To limit that behavior, the beekeeper simply removes some of the bees and brood from the brood nest. Maybe the beekeeper has more colonies than can be maintained. Maybe the beekeeper is interested in doing something different that will provide a needed flush of extra income.

Bottom line? I don’t know exactly why someone decides to produce splits for sale. Other than large production companies that have management sophistication beyond that of a typical beekeeper, most split producers have limited production capacity and are local. In my bee life, providers vary from season to season.

Figure 3. Nuc boxes improvised by cutting a deep hive body in half. J. Kerns photo.

Detail #4 – What am I paying for?
You are paying for whatever you have negotiated. Unlike three-pound packages, there is no “standard” split. Three, four or five frame splits are common. The producer should tell you how much honey, pollen, brood and bees will be in the split. Yes, you will probably be buying the beekeeper’s older combs. In some instances, you will want to phase them out as soon as possible.

Nowadays, producers rarely require the frames and equipment to be returned to them. The equipment is included in the selling price. It becomes yours. Being an old guy, I can tell you that in decades past, I was required to provide new frames and foundation and to return the nuc box, but mites and viral diseases have put a damper on that requirement. Though it surely increased the selling price, not requiring equipment replacement made the split transition simpler.

Throughout this entire encounter, if the provider is marketing to others and not only doing you a favor, be sure they are inspected by the state apiarist and are approved for selling “baby” colonies. In fact, you want to know that answer even if the provider is a friend who is trying to help you out. Without a doubt, you are going to be buying varroa mites in the deal but you do not want to be buying American foulbrood, too. Always be alert.

Detail #5 – Speaking of nuc boxes
In what kind of box do you transfer the split to your home yard? For sure, ask that question during the transaction period. I have had experience with two broad types of transfer boxes – wood and temporary (paper or corrugated plastic). I felt best about the wood boxes but acquiring a permanent five-frame wooden nuc box obviously increased the selling price. Years later, I still have several wooden boxes in my bee operation that I acquired from various nuc-split deals.

Wax-coated paper nucs are popular as temporary bee hive boxes, especially for splits. In my mind, I live in a perfect bee world, so in that perfect world, I plan to bring these small colonies to my home yard and immediately transfer them to standard equipment. There, they will live happily ever after. However, the following saga describes what happens in the real bee world.

I bought about twenty five-frame splits from a respected provider about one hundred miles from me. I made the trip and loaded the splits onto a small, open trailer. Using common duct tape, I attached the lid to each paper box and then ratchet-strapped rows of boxes to the trailer. Of course, it was going to rain on me and my new bees on the trip home. It did.

Upon arriving at home, I found that on two boxes, the dampened lids had bent back – due to the wind velocity – and had exposed the internal colony to highway wind speed. I essentially scattered some bees up and down the interstate. Worse, one lid was completely gone. I still had some bees in the open boxes, but the populations had been reduced. But the story does not end here.

After I arrived at home, the weather prediction only grew worse. I hurriedly got the boxes set up in my yard and placed a brick on each corrugated paper colony. After getting back to my easy chair at home, it became official. Within a few hours, a storm was to pass through my home town with high winds and heavy rain. Back to the yard I raced, with a different enclosed box trailer that was not truly road worthy. I hurriedly placed the colonies within the enclosed trailer scattering bees everywhere. As I was working, I took a second to wonder if the high winds would now destroy both the bees and the trailer.

The storm passed. The trailer, and the protected the paper-housed hives, survived without incident. The next day, I got the bee splits set out again and transferred to them to standard equipment. Yep, there was flight confusion and drifting, but ultimately everything settled out.

My point for this long story? When I casually agreed to wax-papered nuc boxes, I did not envision a rainy drive home and subsequent high wind and rain storms before I could get the splits into permanent boxes. As usual, I envisioned a perfect bee world. I suggest that you have a doomsday plan for what to do if things do not go as planned.

Figure 4. Some of the paper nuc boxes the next day. I left lids askew to aid lost bees in finding a home.

Detail #6 – All things queen-related
No doubt, the reason more beekeepers do not produce splits is queen availability needed to head the splits. Yes, some rarified few beekeepers are set up to produce a few queens of their own, but many of these producers must buy queens at a time when they are most in demand. The type and caliber of the queen will vary from producer to producer.

Honestly, this is difficult to put into practical wording, but I must try. Your goal with this split is to get the colony established. In the real world, your primary requirement is that the queen’s ability is great enough to establish a successful brood nest and stabilize the colony with her pheromone output. I would suggest that if she is able to do that, the producer has met their obligation to you.

In the perfect bee world, you would get a high-dollar, fancy-bred queen that would lead the young colony to population greatness in a short time. In the real world, you just hope to get a queen that can lead the young colony to accumulate enough colony resources to survive the next Winter that is still months away. In my case, I am only trying to get the small colony stabilized. Once the split colony is on firm survival ground, I may then decide to upgrade the colony’s queen leadership.

What’s to prevent the provider from selling me an old queen? Honestly, not much. The good news is that the provider will probably not have a large inventory of old queens. But while I don’t really want a queen that’s already approaching her supersedure time, if she is productive enough to stabilize the colony and importantly, if the colony’s worker bees have shown that they are okay with her, then so be it. I just wrote before that I may very well be considering replacing the queen anyway. Even a new, young queen may be superseded by finicky nurse bees. Nothing is assured. At the risk of repeating myself, I feel that the primary goal is to get a stable, established colony that I can work and manage as it develops into a full-featured colony.

Detail #7 – The season
If the split provider let the baby colony produce its own queen, then I and my new bees have already missed the early Spring nectar and pollen flow. That part of the season had to be used to grow the queen. I need to be prepared to feed this young colony as it tries to accumulate enough resource wealth to Winter its first major dearth. To assist this small colony, in addition to supplemental feeding, I will need to perform all the beekeeper assigned tasks like varroa control and small hive beetle suppression.

The queen’s output and the season are interrelated. Sometimes the queen just does not work out. If you have enough of the season remaining (you must decide that answer), then replace her. If the season has progressed to the typical Summer dearth – or even into Autumn – you and your new colony may be better off to pass the Winter with a subpar queen leading the colony. Hey, no one said beekeeping was always easy.

Detail #8 – Failure
What recourse do you have if the splitting project fails? Honestly, not much. I am not defending producers, but many things and seasonal events are beyond their control but it’s not just about failed splits. What recourse do you have if a package project fails? Not much. Are all hived swarms successful? No. As you know, there are no guarantees in any aspect of beekeeping.

If you truly feel that what was in your nuc box when you got home was not what you negotiated, certainly you can complain, but I doubt much will come of it. I am sure you will not return to that provider next season and I also expect that you will quietly let others know of your negative experience. I feel a need to say that I have never been given a split that seemed to be significantly less than what I bargained for. No doubt, some of you have other stories.

Have you heard Bee Culture magazine?
By clicking on the computer code (QR Code) at the beginning of this article, you can go to Bee Culture’s audio-article web page. In the audio version of my article, in addition to my monthly article, I have posted extra comments and details that I don’t have space to address in written form.

Have you heard Honey Bee Obscura?
Some weeks ago, Kim Flottum and I posted a podcast at HoneyBeeObscura.com where we discussed conversational aspects of buying and managing splits. It’s free. Have a listen.

As always, thanks for reading (and listening).

Dr. James E. Tew
Emeritus Faculty, Entomology
The Ohio State University
tewbee2@gmail.com

Co-Host, Honey Bee
Obscura Podcast
www.honeybeeobscura.com

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Tropilaelaps

Is this mite really going to be worse than Varroa? Yes and no.

By: Ross Conrad

Our experience with Varroa has shown how much of a challenge dealing with mites can be. Trying to identify miticides that will not contaminate honey and wax, dealing with mites that develop resistance to our most toxic chemicals, relying on treatments that don’t always work due to weather or temperature issues, the list is long. This is part of the reason that scientists and others have long issued dire warnings should the Tropilaelaps mite ever make its way to European and American shores.

So far Tropilaelaps’ territory has been limited to its native Asia and bordering areas, and four distinct species of Tropilaelaps (T. careae, T. Koenigerum, T. mercedesae, T. Thaii) have been identified to date (Anderson and Morgan, 2007). Tropilaelaps careae and mercedesae are considered to be the most economically important since they are the primary mites that have jumped from their native giant honey bee hosts (Apis dorsata, Apis laboriosa, Apis breviligula) to the western honey bee (Apis mellifera) (de Guzman et al., 2017).

Like varroa destructor, which is also indigenous to Asia, mature Tropilaelaps mites are a reddish-brown color and although the mite is smaller in size (about a third of the size of a varroa mite), the life cycle of Tropilaelaps is similar to that of varroa. Adult female mites enter cells containing older larvae, are sealed in the cells when the workers cap the brood and produce offspring that feed on the developing honey bee pupae. Like honey bees, fertilized eggs develop into female mites and unfertilized eggs produce males. Just like with varroa, the female offspring of a single Tropilaelaps mite are able to mate with their brothers and initiate an infestation. Tropilaelaps moves much quicker than Varroa, reproduces faster than varroa laying eggs in quicker succession and has a much shorter phoretic stage where the mite exists outside the brood cell. While varroa are known to create a single wound and repeatedly visit the site to feed, Tropilaelaps mites create multiple small wounds from which they feed. Unfortunately, just like varroa, Tropilaelaps is known to vector honey bee viruses like Deformed Wing Virus. Tropilaelaps can also spread naturally within a colony, between colonies in the same apiary and among apiaries via hitching a ride on robbing workers or drifting drones (Rath et al., 1991).

Although smaller than a varroa mite, the Tropilaelaps mite is visible to the naked eye and moves much more rapidly than their varroa cousins.

Tropilaelaps also have a severe weakness, the mites are not able to easily feed on mature bees apparently due to the inability of their mouthparts to pierce the hard cuticle layer of adults. While there are some soft areas on an adult bee that the mite could take advantage of, such as at the base of the wings, it is unusual to find Tropilaelaps feeding on adult honey bees. Tropilaelaps primarily feed on the soft-bodied larvae and pupae and must do so regularly or they will die after two to three days. Without a constant supply of larvae and pupae, Tropilaelaps is unable to maintain its rapid reproduction rate and stay alive. This means that in northern climates where honey bees experience a natural period of prolonged brood interruption due to the dearth of Winter, a brood break that is known to severely reduce varroa populations, can also be expected to impact Tropilaelaps in a similar manner, although the mite’s establishment in the temperate regions of South Korea and northern China suggests that a minority of mites (about 15%) are able to somehow adapt to such broodless periods (de Guzman et al., 2017). This may help give northern beekeepers an edge on dealing with Tropilaelaps compared to southern beekeepers whose colonies are unlikely to stop all brood production during the season unless exposed to drought conditions. This also means that swarming, which is known to reduce varroa populations in colonies, can also be expected to reduce Tropilaelaps populations. Also, starting a colony without brood such as through a package of bees is a great way to ensure a colony is Tropilaelaps-free, at least during its initial startup phase.

Another reason to think that Tropilaelaps will not be a major catastrophe for American beekeepers should the mite arrive in North America is by observing the experience of Chinese beekeepers who have been dealing with Tropilaelaps for decades and continue to be the largest producer of honey in the world. Chinese beekeepers are reportedly able to control Tropilaelaps with sublimated sulfur. Additionally, there is evidence that many of the currently approved varroa treatments available in the U.S. are also effective against Tropilaelaps. Current approved varroa mite treatments that have been shown to also reduce Tropilaelaps infestations include formic acid fumigation, Amitraz and fluvalinate (Webster & Delaplane, 2001), Hopguard® and Mite-Away Quick Strips (Pettis, 2017) and formic acid and thymol (Raffique et al., 2012).

As in the case of Varroa Sensitive Hygiene (VSH) where bees are able to detect when varroa are feeding on capped brood, worker bees appear able to detect brood cells parasitized by Tropilaelaps, and have been known to uncap and remove infested pupae (Webster & Delaplane, 2001).

As mentioned before, Tropilaelaps mites need larvae and pupae to feed on or they will die after two to three days. This suggests that bio-mechanical controls such as caging the queen periodically and depriving the colony of brood can keep Tropilaelaps mites at bay by beekeepers that do not wish to use pesticides on their colonies. Another easy way to take advantage of this Achilles heel is to simply divide the colony, moving all brood combs and adhering bees into a new box and leaving the queen and broodless combs and bees in the original hive. The queenless colony will begin rearing a new queen, but the resulting interruption in brood production will kill off all the Tropilaelaps mites. Meanwhile, the mites will also all die out in the queenright half of the hive since there will be no brood to feed on and it will be approximately three days before any new eggs the queen lays can hatch and form larvae that the mites need for food. If this process is carried out at the end of the nectar flow, no honey production need be sacrificed and colony numbers can either be expanded by keeping the newly created hives or hive populations can be maintained by recombining the colonies.

Due to their short phoretic phase, traditional varroa detection methods such as the sugar shake or alcohol wash, are ineffective in detecting Tropilaelaps. Instead, beekeepers will have to rely upon brood uncapping, bump testing, sticky board inspection and thorough colony inspections. Tell-tale signs of Tropilaelaps infestation are irregular brood patterns and perforated brood cappings caused by sanitary behavior of the bees. Similar to hives heavily infested with varroa, adults in colonies heavily infested with Tropilaelaps are likely to have stunted abdomens, deformed wings and exhibit parasitic mite syndrome symptoms. It is commonly reported that heavily infested colonies will abscond from their hive.

When varroa first arrived, American beekeepers didn’t know much about the mite’s biology and we didn’t have any approved treatments available. We were basically starting from square one. With Tropilaelaps, things are much different and therefore should the mite appear in American beeyards, there is every reason to expect a much less destructive and disruptive experience for most beekeepers. Good news is not easy to come by these days so we should take it wherever we can find it.

Ross Conrad is author of Natural Beekeeping, Revised and Expanded 2nd edition and The Land of Milk and Honey: A history of beekeeping in Vermont. Ross will be teaching a beginner beekeeping class the weekend of May 20-21, 2023 and an intermediate class on June 4, 2023. For more information or to register for either class visit dancingbeegardens.com

References:
Anderson, D. L. and Morgan, M. J. (2007) Genetic and morphological variation of bee parasitic tropilaelaps mites (Acari: Laelapidae): New and re-defined species, Exp. Appl. Acarol, 43:1-24
De Guzman, L.I., Williams, G.R., Khongphinitbunjong, K., Chantawannakul, P. (2017) Ecology, Life History, and Management of Tropilaelaps Mites, Journal of Economic Entomology, 110(2):319-332
Petis, J.S., Rose, R., Chaimanee, V. (2017) Chemical and cultural control of Tropilaelaps mercedesae mites in honey bee (Apis mellifera) colonies in Northern Thailand, PLOS ONE
Raffique, M.K., Mahmood, R., Aslam, M., Sarwar, G. (2012) Control of Tropilaelaps clareae mite by using formic acid and thymol in honey bee Apis mellifera L. colonies, Pakistan Journal of Zoology, 44(4): 1129-1135
Rath, W., Delfinado-Baker, M., Drescher, W. (1991) Observations on the mating behavior, sex ratio, phoresy and dispersal of Tropilaelaps clareae (Acari: Laelapidae), International Journal of Acarology, 17(3): 201-208.
Webster, Thomas C. and Delaplane, Keith S. (2001) Mites of the Honey Bee, Dadant & Sons, Hamilton, IL
Woyke, J. (1985) Further investigations into control of the parasitic bee mite Tropilaelaps clareae without medication, Journal of Apicultural Research, 24(4): 250-254

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For the Eager Honey Producer –

The Classic System of Two-Queen Colony Honey Production

An old technique for the modern mega-management beekeeper

By: James E. Tew

Beekeeping then and now
Happily, beekeeping has kept up with many modern-day advances, but that evolving characteristic means that beekeeping today is not the same as beekeeping was many decades ago. Advances in protective equipment, improvements in honey processing equipment, introduction of new pest complexes and large migratory operations are only a few of the myriad of changes that have been occurring in our beekeeping industry.

I surmise that one of the biggest changes is that modern beekeeping is now primarily known for pollination while honey production is now the second factor for which beekeeping is known. That is exactly opposite of what beekeeping priorities were thirty or so years ago.

In the golden years of beekeeping past, honey production was the Number 1 goal of dedicated beekeepers. Nectar flows determined the beekeeper’s management schedule and then, when possible, supplemental pollination services were sometimes provided. In many instances, neither the grower nor the beekeeper felt that it was financially feasible to use added honey bee populations. That concept has radically changed. Priorities have evolved.

Figure 1. A post card from Amasa Holcomb, Southwick, MA, that was sent to Dr. C.C. Miller in 1883. Note that 300 pounds of comb honey were produced in 1882. There was no mention of extracted honey.

As a young beekeeper all those years ago, I was familiar with the beekeeping priorities of the day. Yes, even then, liquid honey ruled, but even that emphasis was a change from what honey production was decades before my time. I roughly estimate that eighty to one hundred years ago, comb honey was preferred to liquid honey because it could not be adulterated with sugar syrup. Comb honey was “pure.” Books were written about comb honey production. Talks were presented at meetings. Techniques abounded.

While comb honey is still produced in newly developed plastic containers, the old tried and true way of producing honey in basswood section boxes has seemingly died a long, slow death. Basswood boxes for comb honey production are only available from a few remaining vendors – if you can find them at all. The loss is not horrendous, but it is significant.

Figure 2. Basswood section boxes of comb honey. C. Killion photo, 1951.

It always bothered me that perfectly good nectar sources – basswood trees – had to be harvested to produce the unique wood that would bend into a box shape. But in obvious ways, moving from basswood boxes to plastic containers has only brought us different challenges. I suppose that could be a discussion for another time, but not today.

My belabored point is that beekeepers once produced comb honey in basswood boxes and now we don’t. That technology is gone. That’s a big change that took decades to develop.

An aside…
In this vein of bee things that are gone, a rarely lamented change is the move from 60# metal tins to common white plastic buckets. The tins could be tightly stacked on a truck while round buckets do not stack tightly. But current plastic buckets have more comfortable handles than the small metal handles on honey tins. But you should know that the change was rapid. It seems to me that in just three to four years, metal tins were dropped from catalogs to be replaced by plastic buckets. Now, I can’t even find a photo of a honey tin on the web. Things change. They always do.

Figure 3. Double crates of honey tins. Each crate weighed 125 pounds.

The classic double-queen system of honey production
Everything I have written in this article, has been to get to this point. Why write about a dated technique that few modern beekeepers still use? It was the rage then but as with basswood comb honey boxes and metal honey tins, things change. But if you have the energy and the interest, this is a technique you can still use in your bee operation.

When I began beekeeping, one of the advanced concepts was to use two queens to build up an abnormally large population of worker bees just in time for the nectar flow. Just as the flow started, the colony, that had two queens, whose brood nest was separated by a double screen or a modified inner cover, produced a double bee population. Excessive honey crops were the desired results.

A disclaimer…
I have not tried to manage bees in two-queen colonies in about thirty-five years. Readers, due to my current energy and strength capabilities, I doubt that I will ever try again. Never in my entire beekeeping career have I been an accomplished two-queen beekeeper, but all the advanced beekeepers were giving it a try. Talks were presented at meetings. Success stories were staggering. You had to be there. At this moment, I do not know a single two-queen beekeeper. But in its day, this management scheme was widely touted.

To put this article together for you, I relied heavily on the pamphlet published by C.L. Farrar in August, 1958 (Farrar, C.L. Two-Queen Colony Management for Production of Honey. ARS-33-48. Available in archival form at: https://archive.org/details/twoqueencolonyma48farr/page/4/mode/2up).

Quoting Farrar from his work,
“Two-queen colony management represents an intensive system of honey production designed to obtain the maximum yield from each hive. During any short honey flow (about two weeks) one large colony will produce more honey than two or more smaller colonies having the same aggregate number of bees. In single-queen colonies the production per unit number of bees increases as the number in the colony increases up the maximum (60,000 bees). This efficiency relationship remains high when populations are further increased through the use of a second queen. Because small colonies increase in population with time, their production efficiency over long honey-flow periods will rise. However, colonies with large populations throughout either long or short flow produce the greatest amount of honey, because their efficiency is high over the entire honey-flow period.”

To emphasize his point, a large population of bees will produce more honey than the same population housed in two or more hives. Getting an abnormally large bee population – before the flow started – was the reason for using a second queen.

Figure 4. An old photo comparing two-queen colonies with standard colonies. The small colonies were in bright sunlight while the tall colonies were deeply shaded. My photo editing skills were stressed.

Everything about the double queen system was big. Big bee populations, big (tall) colonies, big honey and pollen crops, and big management inputs. The results were to be big honey crops with powerful colonies passing into the following Winter. A five-hundred-pound crop (yes, 500 pounds) was not considered impossible when using this technique. A fully functional double-queen colony could have the amazing population of twenty-five to thirty pounds of bees in it.

It’s all in the management details
Pollen reserves
In 1958, our industry had not yet developed artificial pollen products. At that time, to produce large bee populations, a beekeeper would need extensive pollen sources. Obviously, your colonies cannot produce brood without pollen. That same pollen reserve later became important to wintering colonies. The desire was to produce large colonies going into Winter to have strong colonies for the two-queen system during the next season.

Queens
For this system, queens need to be purchased and be readily available. In 1958, they were and the cost was not as great as today. You should be wondering if allowing the split part of the colony to produce its own queen was an option. The is answer is, “not really.” While it clearly could be done, valuable seasonal time would be lost while the bees were growing queens and not growing a worker bee population. It would seem to me that modern two-queen beekeepers would be confronted by queen availability during the early season of the year.

Hive equipment
Two queens with a double worker population naturally results in a tall hive. Due to that fact, the two-queen colony would need to sit on a firm foundation that was essentially on the ground. Hives that were seven deep boxes tall were not uncommon. Hive stands would not be used.

To forestall bees storing honey in the valuable brood nest area, supers were never allowed to be more than half full. As boxes were filled, they were removed and processed and then the wet equipment was returned to the tall hive.

Other than purchase costs and assembly labor, shallower equipment was not held in disfavor. The reduced weight of full supers was the obvious reason. But a lesser-known reason was that some researchers felt that bees wintered better in shallow boxes. It was felt that bees’ wintering cluster had more interactive space to share Winter food stores in the spaces between the boxes. In fact, Dr. Farrar wrote, “The size and shape of the hive units have little effect on production if enough (boxes) are used for brood rearing, food reserves, and the storage of surplus honey.” That is an interesting observation that goes beyond this honey production discussion.

Farrar added the comment that the most efficient management was possible when all brood boxes were uniform and therefore interchangeable. The same would be (mostly) true for super sizes.

Shallower supers were preferred to deeper supers. Apparently, bees fill and cap the shallower equipment faster than deeper equipment. Again, weight would be another prime reason for using shallow equipment.

Figure 5. The position of the two brood nests in a full functional two-queen system.

Figure 6. Late season two-queen system with brood nests combined and excluders removed.

Management points
To produce stronger colonies, you need to begin with strong colonies headed by young queens. Weak colonies had no place in the two-queen system. Make everything large. Beginning five to seven weeks before the flow, begin the two-queen development process. Two weeks later, make a strong divide from the original colony and either use a double screen or a screened inner cover to separate the split from the parent colony. In his paper, Farrar provides intricate details for quantities of brood and bees that will need to be moved to different locations with the developing mega-hive.

After the new queen was installed and was producing copious amounts of brood in the split above the screen inner cover (usually ten to fourteen days), the screened inner cover was removed. The colonies were kept separated by queen excluders.

Empty brood nest space was provided above the lowermost colony. A queen excluder was used above the bottom colony. This was a necessity. At this point, the beekeeper had a strong queen in the lower unit with an empty box of drawn comb (preferred to foundation) atop of the lower unit. The extra space allowed for continued brood production.

Above the lower queen excluder was the recently introduced queen with a second brood nest with a similar configuration of brood and empty brood nest space. Then yet another queen excluder was put above the second top colony between the top brood nest and the supers. The dual queen excluders confine the queens to their respective spaces and became an aid to keeping up with the two queens when the colony was opened to remove full supers and for inspection.

Most of the surplus honey storage occurred above the second colony in the top of the tall colony. Again, it is important to write that the supers were inspected and additional space was added when supers were only 50% full. The intent was to discourage the bees from storing honey in either brood nest area.

Swarming and supersedure were not thought to be any more relevant than swarming and supersedure in single-queen colonies. If swarming was becoming an issue in a two-queen unit, the recommendation to use the “shook swarm” technique to attempt to get things back into order. That sounds like a management headache.

Not a technique for colony increase
As I began to write this piece for you, I envisioned the two-queen system having the possibility of ending the season with two colonies. While I feel that could still be accomplished, Dr. Farrar discouraged using this two-queen system as a technique for making colony increase.

Indeed, as the season ended, he suggested just removing the excluders and allowing the bees to select the better queen. Presently, the current cost of queens would be a hinderance to that recommendation. Having a $40 queen only produce for a single season feels extravagant. However, outside of the two-queen system, this general setup could be used to assist a “weaker” colony in becoming stronger but is a totally different discussion.

Figure 7. Former two-queen system
prepped for Winter.

The reason for this recommendation of not using the double-queen system for colony number increase was presented in his summary included in his paper. “The larger pollen reserves accumulated after the colonies have been reduced to a single queen status make it possible to overwinter stronger colonies for the next season.”

Times have changed. I extensively discussed that. Does the development of modern pollen supplements obviate some of the old two-queen management recommendations?

This is not for the faint-hearted
After my experience all those years ago and after reviewing my sources for this article, I can clearly write that this is not a management scheme for all beekeepers. Only those beekeepers with the time and the penchant for intensive colony management should take it on. The payoff is great, but so is the labor and monetary input.

Then why bring it up?
Like so many other things and recommendations within beekeeping, managing bees for a double queen scheme is an idea dating back to the 1930s. Does it still work? It certainly worked at one time, but I can’t speak for the present.

In the 1950s, herbicides were nonexistent. Queens were available and were not as costly. Honey was the Queen of Beekeeping. But we now have ready access to pollen substitutes and other improvements. So, I bring this subject up for those rarefied few of us who want to push the beekeeping envelope. That will not be me doing the pushing. If you try this technique, I would like to know how it works out.

For more information and instruction, in addition to the reference already provided, I refer you to the sources that I have provided below.

Current information on the two-queen system is included in:
The Hive and the Honey Bee. 2015. Pp 505-507.
ABC & XYZ of Beekeeping. 2020. Pp 679-680

As always, thank you.
If you are still reading, you are one tough beekeeper. A sincere thank you for your beekeeping dedication. I have not been able to do any more than introduce you to this old, advanced concept. I know you will have questions. I certainly do.

Dr. James E. Tew
Emeritus Faculty, Entomology
The Ohio State University
tewbee2@gmail.com

Co-Host, Honey Bee
Obscura Podcast
www.honeybeeobscura.com

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Found in Translation

Bees Good

By: Jay Evans, USDA Beltsville Bee Lab

Waiting for Spring makes one hopeful and, simultaneously, a bit reflective on why we all keep at this, despite heavy Winter losses and expenses. This year, massive floods in California will wreak havoc with bees and beekeepers in holding yards and during the first commercial stop of the year in almond plantations. Most years the opposite is true; crippling droughts decrease yields from almonds and other crops, diminishing the agricultural benefits of bee pollination. Still, most of the time, bees and beekeepers get a break and honey bees and other pollinators provide a solid boost to the production of healthy foods. This essay is devoted to the bees and beekeepers whose actions improve food production and human welfare.

Our sister branch of USDA, the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), provides quarterly and annual views showing how honey bees impact humanity in the USA (https://www.nass.usda.gov/Surveys/Guide_to_NASS_Surveys/Bee_and_Honey/index.php). These reports document how the hard work to keep bees alive pays off in the farming economy and the food supply. Jennifer Bond and colleagues at the USDA’s Economic Research Service pulled data from NASS and other sources to generate a full view of the bee industry and its drivers in Honey Bees on the Move: From Pollination to Honey Production and Back (2021, https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/101476/err-290.pdf). This short book shows the challenges faced by beekeepers and the targets that keep them on their toes, highlighting that 80% of annual pollination income to beekeepers is derived from one early-season source (almond plantations, flooded or otherwise). Bees and their migratory keepers then disperse widely for additional pollination events and, weather and habitat permitting, the production of honey and wax. Overall, beekeepers receive $320 million in pollination fees for their efforts, and these efforts have a twenty-fold greater impact on U.S. crop production.

Pollination of crops not only provides an economic engine for growers and (some) beekeepers, but pollination by bees is literally saving lives. A recent global analysis generated values for pollination impacts on world crops by estimating decreased productivity when bees were limiting (Matthew Smith and colleagues, Pollinator deficits, food consumption, and consequences for human health: A modeling study, 2022, Environmental Health Perspectives, 130(12) 127003-1 https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP10947). By looking at peaks versus observed productivity across farmed regions, the authors estimate that inadequate pollination decreases yields for fruit and nut crops by 5%, on average. Similarly, vegetable yields are reduced by 3%. These estimates cover 60+ crops that supplement the diets of billions of people on all continents except Antarctica. Using conservative measures, the authors estimate that 500,000 people die annually due to decreased food yield or quality caused by missed pollination events by bees. This human toll differs across countries, with some populations suffering from all-out hunger and malnutrition while others (including the United States) are impacted more by shifts in diet tendencies away from more nutritious pollinated crops such as fruits and nuts. In a second recent paper (Pollination deficits and contributions of pollinators in apple production: A global meta-analysis, 2022, Journal of Applied Ecology, DOI: 10.1111/1365-2664.14279), Aruhan Olhnuud and colleagues present data for one critical worldwide fruit (the apple) and argue for even greater impacts of missed pollination on yields and seed set, in the range of 40% and 20%, respectively, much higher in some countries. Seed set for apples does not limit the industry overall, but fertilized seeds lead to a more attractive fruit shape. Honey bees, of course, are not the only insect pollinators of crops and both of these papers take great pains to account for the impacts of diverse pollinators. Nevertheless, in many counties, including ours, honey bees are the primary pollinators of crops, especially for larger farms.

While these studies focused on pollination impacts, honey bees provide a bounty for beekeepers small and large that was not accounted for in these two studies. The nutritious value of honey, and to a lesser extent pollen and brood, improves nutrition in many countries. Further, the receipts from honey and wax sales have a huge impact on human health worldwide and are arguably one of the most important sources of small-farm income in developing and industrialized incomes. Bernard Phiri and colleagues analyze yields from hive products worldwide in Uptrend in global managed honey bee colonies and production based on a six‑decade viewpoint, 1961–2017, 2022, Scientific Reports 12:21298, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-25290-3). This fascinating synopsis highlights the losses and (mostly) gains of beekeeping across continents alongside the economic and population drivers behind those changes. As has been well documented, North America has seen a 30% decrease in honey bee colonies since 1961, while Europe (including Russia) has lost 12% of its colonies. South America, Africa, Australia and Asia have more than compensated for those losses, doubling or even quadrupling (Asia) managed hives in that time frame. Overall, the number of managed honey bee hives has doubled since 1961, matching a doubling in human population. All regions have perfected honey and wax harvesting, with honey yields even in North America surpassing those of prior years, despite lower colony numbers. This North American increase reflects heavier harvests in Mexico and Canada that outweigh decreased honey yields in the U.S. (https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/mapped-food-production-around-the-world/). Asian countries increased honey harvests by eight-fold over this time frame. It would be fascinating to estimate how greatly honey production impacts populations worldwide, not simply in local consumption but as an attainable and sustainable cash crop in developing and more industrialized countries. My guess is that the impacts of honey harvesting on lives improved and saved from premature death would rival that achieved by increased pollination from managed hives.

Whether you are keeping bees for family munchies, selling honey on a table or fully engaged in commercial pollination and the production of hive goods, you are playing a role in an essential partnership with one of the planet’s truly extraordinary animals. Thanks for doing that.

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Time to Expect the Unexpected

“Beekeepers commonly claim that during times of nutritional stress or dearth, the queen will stop laying eggs… Unfortunately, this common belief does not appear to be totally accurate.”

By: Ross Conrad

Last season I killed off a perfectly good colony of bees. Not purposely, mind you. Believe me, I thought I was doing what was best for the bees – until I thought again.

It was mid-September when I noticed that a colony in one of my Vermont beeyards had no brood. This is a situation I have gotten somewhat used to. After harvesting the honey supers between the end of August and early September, all the bees get crowded down into the equivalent of two to 2½ deep supers and they sometimes send off a late season swarm. I figure that the part of the colony left behind following these late season swarms have a more difficult time successfully replacing their queen due to the cooler weather, lower drone population and reduced forage that typically occur here in the northeast at that time of year. All too often in September and October, I have seen colonies become queen-less, or turn into drone layers, and I have typically attributed this situation to the poor mating conditions that exist at this time of the season. It’s beekeeping and stuff happens.

Rather than simply let these queenless colonies slowly fizzle out, and possibly get invaded by wax moths, I have always preferred to place any full honey supers from the queenless hive on colonies that could use more honey for Winter. The hive bodies full of bees get temporarily placed on top of the inner covers of colonies that could use a boost in their bee population. As I was breaking this queenless hive up to share its resources between some of the other colonies in the apiary, I noticed that the hive was unusually full of bees. The population was much more than I would expect for a hive that didn’t have a laying queen. Then I saw the queen. She looked perfectly normal. In fact more than normal; she looked good. But I judged her on her performance and there was no brood, and without the ability to raise new workers a colony is doomed.

Now, I don’t normally subscribe to the management style of killing off queens and replacing them, but when combining a colony with a queen that is no good with a queenright hive, I will kill the failed queen just to be sure she doesn’t somehow replace or injure the good queen. This queen was not laying eggs so she had to go.

Then about two and a half weeks later, well into November, the weather finally turned cold enough to kill off the wax moths. I went around removing the empty supers I had stored above the inner covers of my hives to place them in an unheated shed for Winter. I like to go out early in the morning to do this while it is still cold and the bees have not warmed up and broken out of the cluster around the brood nest. This makes taking off the empty supers much easier and faster since I don’t have to light a smoker because the bees are all down below the inner cover and slow to take flight.

My Ah-Ha! Moment
I didn’t think much more about this queenless hive until the holiday season when I ran into another beekeeper and we did what beekeepers tend to do when they get together: we talked about the bees. This beekeeper told me that he had noticed some of his colonies shutting down their brood rearing much earlier in the season than normal. He attributed this to the very dry weather we had experienced late in the Summer and that’s when I got this sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach and realized that it was highly likely that I had destroyed a perfectly good colony of bees.

Science has already determined that in a high carbon dioxide atmosphere, plants on earth produce more carbohydrates and less protein which has resulted in a dramatic decrease in the protein content of pollen over the past century. When this greenhouse-gas induced protein reduction is combined with drought induced protein declines in pollen, the resulting dietary deficiency of protein on honey bee colonies can be severe.

The Drought Response of Plants
The impacts of drought can be much more subtle than the increased incidences of wildfires we have seen around the globe in recent years. Plants in temperate climates typically need much larger quantities of water than bees do, and the negative consequences of dry weather conditions on flowering plants is well documented.

One effect of drought on vegetation is a reduced rate of photosynthesis (Pinheiro and Chaves, 2011), which leads to a reduction of energy available for plants to invest in the production of flowers. This means fewer and smaller blossoms are produced by effected plants (Kuppler & Kotowska, 2021).

When plants are able to produce flowers during drought conditions the blossoms produce less pollen (Waser & Price, 2016) and the pollen produced is more likely to be of low quality with reduced protein content and less reproductively viable (Al-Ghzawi et al., 2009; Rankin et al., 2020; Descamps et al., 2021). Even the scents that flowers use to attract and influence pollinators are impacted by extremely dry conditions (Burkle & Runyon, 2016; Rering et al., 2020).

Nectar production in flowers is likewise negatively impacted by drought. Generally speaking there needs to be water in the soil in order for plants to produce nectar. Reduced water availability is linked to lower nectar volume in flowers (Carroll et al., 2001; Phillips et al., 2018; Gallagher & Campbell, 2017; Halpern et al., 2010; Villarreal & Freeman, 1990). Sometimes, even the sugar concentration of the nectar produced under drought conditions is negatively impacted (Wyatt et al., 1992; Waser & Price, 2016; Rankin et al., 2020).

Droughts Effect on Bees
Since drought conditions cause plants to produce less pollen and nectar and any pollen and nectar that is produced tends to be of lower quality, it is generally accepted that drought conditions result in nutritional stress to honey bee colonies. Beekeepers commonly claim that during times of nutritional stress or dearth, the queen will stop laying eggs. This is commonly observed in northern climates during the Winter months when brood production slows dramatically and often stops altogether during Winter. Unfortunately, this common belief does not appear to be totally accurate.

Back in 2004, Austrian researchers found that in times of nutritional stress the queen does not necessarily stop laying eggs or even reduce her egg laying, but she does reduce her walking activity within the hive (Schmickl & Crailsheim, 2004). The colony response that does appear to be consistent with lack of adequate food availability is that worker bees will cannibalize eggs and larvae to conserve nutrients (Webster et al., 1987). Eggs and middle-aged larvae are the most likely to be cannibalized. This causes the colony’s larvae demographics to change dramatically within days resulting in a rapid decrease in the older larvae population. During nutritional stress events such as those that occur during a prolonged drought, cells containing the oldest larvae are capped earlier for pupation, while the eggs and younger larvae are cannibalized (Schmickl & Crailsheim, 2001). Researchers found that the less pollen stored by the hive during larvae’s development, the earlier the larvae are capped. This is a logical decision by the bees since the oldest uncapped brood represents the greatest investment in brood care resources. Prior to capping, older larvae also have the greatest need for pollen, so by capping their cells early, the colony is able to compensate for a food supply shortage by reducing the young with the greatest demand. This leads to a quick reduction of older unsealed brood in response to a shortage of available protein. If a period of dearth extends long enough, all the capped brood will hatch and there will be no brood left in the hive due to the egg cannibalization efforts of the nurse bees. This explains why my broodless colony had a queen that looked perfectly normal and she was not shrunken and small from a lack of egg production like a virgin queen who has yet to lay eggs.

A Taste of Things to Come
Under climate change, extreme climatic events such as droughts are projected to increase in frequency, duration and severity (IPCC, 2022). In temperate regions, the consequences of water deficit during the peak growing months can be expected to be more severe because drought has not previously been an important environmental factor on plant evolution like it has been in arid regions (Chen et al., 2013).

Current predictions suggest that in temperate zones such as those throughout the northeastern U.S., climate change will increase the frequency of extreme events such as Summer droughts, leading to deficits in water availability for ecosystems. This is expected to result in plants more often experiencing water stress during the Spring and Summer. As beekeepers we need to be conscious of the fact that the current pace of climate destabilization will continue to accelerate due to our slow transition away from fossil fuels, rampant consumerism and materialism. This will cause our honey bee colonies to behave differently than what we have grown used to during previously more climate stable times.

I definitely learn more from my mistakes than from my successes. In sharing this experience, I am reminded that we all have something we can teach others, even if we only act as a stellar example of what not to do.

Ross Conrad is the author of Natural Beekeeping: Organic Approaches to Modern Apiculture and coauthor of The Land of Milk and Honey: A history of beekeeping in Vermont.

References:
Al-Ghzawi, A.A.M., Zaitoun, S., Gosheh, H., Alqudah, A. (2009) Impacts of drought on pollination of Trigonella moabitica (Fabaceae) via bee visitations, Archives of Agronomy and Soil Science, 55(6): 683-692
Burkle, L.A. & Runyon, J.B. (2016) Drought and leaf herbivory influence floral volatiles and pollinator attraction, Global Change Biology, 22: 1644-1654
Carroll, A.B., Pallardy, S.G., Galen, C. (2001) Drought stress, plant water status, and floral trait expression in fireweed, Epilobium angustifolium (Onagraceae), American Journal of Botany, 88(3): 438-446
Chen, T., van der Werf, G.R., de Jeu, R.A.M., Wang, G., Dolman, A.J. (2013) A global analysis of the impact of drought on net primary productivity, Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 17: 3885–3894, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-17-3885-2013
Descamps, C., Quinet, M., Jacquemart, A.L. (2021) The effects of drought on plant-pollinator interactions: What to expect? Environmental and Experimental Botany, 182: 014297
Gallagher, M.K. & Campbell, D.R. (2017) Shifts in water availability mediate plant-pollinator interactions, New Phytologist, 215(2): 792-802
Halpern, S.L., Adler, L.S., Wink, M. (2010) Leaf herbivory and drought stress affect floral attractive and defensive traits in Nicotiana quadrivalvis, Oecologia, 163: 961-971
IPCC – International Panel on Climate Change (2022) IPCC Sixth Assessment Report: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/
Kuppler, J. & Kotowska, M.M. (2021) A meta-analysis of responses in floral traits and flower-visitor interactions to water deficit, Global Change Biology, 27(13): 2095-3108
Phillips, B. B., Shaw, R. F., Holland, M. J., Fry, E. L., Bardgett, R. D., Bullock, J. M., Osborne, J. L. (2018) Drought reduces floral resources for pollinators, Global Change Biology
Pinheiro, C. & Chaves, M.M. (2011) Photosynthesis and drought: Can we make metabolic connections from available data? Journal of Experimental Botany, 62: 869-882
Rankin, E. E. W., Barney, S. K., Lozano, G. E. (2020) Reduced water negatively impacts social bee survival and productivity via shifts in floral nutrition, Journal of Insect Science, 20(5): 15
Rering, C.C., Franco, J.G., Yeater, K.M., Mallinger, R.E. (2020) Drought stress alters floral voatiles and reduces floral rewards, pollinator activity, and seed set in a global plant, Ecosphere, 11(9)
Schmickl, T. & Crailsheim, K. (2001) Cannibalism and early capping: strategies of honey bee colonies in times of experimental pollen shortages, Journal of Comparative Physiology A, 187: 541-547
Schmickl, T. & Crailsheim, K. (2004) Inner nest homeostasis in a changing environment with special emphasis on honey bee brood nursing and pollen supply, Apidologie, 35: 249-263
Villarreal, A.G. & Freeman, C.E. (1990) Effects of temperature and water stress on some floral nectar characteristics in Ipomopsis longiflora (Polemoniaceae) under controlled conditions, Botanical Gazette, University of Chicago Press
Webster, T.C., Peng, Y.S., Duffey, S.S. (1987) Conservation of nutrients in larval tissue by cannibalizing honey bees, Physiological Entomology, 12(2): 225-231
Waser, N. M., Price, M. V. (2016) Drought, pollen and nectar availability, and pollination success, Ecology, https://doi.org/10.1890/15-1423.1
Wyatt, R., Broyles, S.B., Derda, G.S. (1992) Environmental influences on nectar production in milkweeds (Asclepias syriaca and A. exaltata), American Journal of Botany, 79(6):636-642