John was a 1950 graduate of Medina Senior High School, after which he attended Ohio Wesleyan University, earning a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration. Upon graduation, John moved to Texas where he served his country as a pilot in the United States Air Force, achieving the rank of Captain. In 1957, he completed his military service and moved back to Medina, Ohio with his young family. He became the fourth generation of the family business, The A.I. Root Company. John spent the last twenty years of his career at the Root Company serving as President & Chairman of the Board, officially retiring in 2008.

John was a true servant to his community. Most notably he cherished his time serving on the Medina City Council (1962-1976), the Medina General Hospital Board of Directors (1971-2008), the Board of Directors for Ohio Farmer’s Insurance & Westfield Group (1986-2004), the National Candle Association Board of Directors (1989-2010), and the Medina Municipal Airport Advisory Commission (1989-2004).

During his time at the The A.I. Root Company, John was the Executive Publisher of Bee Culture Magazine. He was President of the Honey Industry Council of America from 1962-1963 and 1976-1977, President of the Ohio Agricultural Council from 1973-1974, President and Chairman of the Board for the Eastern Apicultural Society of North America, Inc. in 1978 and Chairman of the Board from 1983-1984, as well as Key Advisory Commission of the Agricultural Technical Institute for nine years (1984-1993). There are numerous other organizations that John has served in over the years.

Early in his life, John garnered a deep love for aviation. This passion persisted through his entire life as a private pilot. During his “free time” John could be found at Medina Municipal Airport piloting his airplanes. A loving and kind man, John will be deeply missed by his family and friends.

John is survived by his beloved wife of 30 years, Elisabeth (Grotte) Root; children, Alan (Esther Morera) Root, Nanette (Harold) Waite, Brad (Kathryn) Root; grandchildren Meredith (David) Gilpin, Christopher (Ashley) Waite, Crystal (Jeremy) Doyle, Alex (Abby Araujo) Root, Kyle (Morgan Moritz) Root, Andrew Root, Emilie Root; great-grandchildren, Claire, Abigail, Evan, Samuel, Hank, Josiah, Owen, Oliver, Elijah, Amelia; siblings, Elizabeth Judkins, Stuart (Diana) Root. He was preceded in death by his parents, Alan and Emilie Root.

After three years in the United States Air Force, he worked 65-plus years for The A. I. Root Company from Advertising Manager to General Manager, to Vice President, to President, to Chairman of the Board, and as a valued member of the Board of Directors. He was also the Executive Publisher of Bee Culture Magazine for many successful years during his time in The A. I. Root Company.

John was on Medina City Council for 14 years with the last 10 years as President and 37 years on Medina General Hospital with 10 years as Chairman.

John was President of the Honey Industry Council of America from 1962-1963 and 1976-1977, President of the Ohio Agricultural Council from 1973-1974, President and Chairman of the Board for the Eastern Apicultural Society of North America, Inc. in 1978 and Chairman of the Board from 1983-1984, as well as Key Advisory Commission of the Agricultural Technical Institute for nine years (1984-1993). There are numerous other organizations that John served in over the years.

As I hope many of you are aware, we had our annual October event entitled BEEing Diverse: Inspiring Leaders in Beekeeping on September 30 and October 1, 2022. I am happy to report that it went fantastic!

Over the past three years, Bee Culture had been trying their best to host this event. Unfortunately both in 2020 and 2021, it was canceled due to the public safety concerns from the still on-going, COVID-19 pandemic. They chose to completely cancel rather than move it to a completely virtual event because they didn’t want to lose out on the spirit of having the event in-person, especially with the speakers we did. I am thankful they chose to postpone!

For anyone who does not know, I am the designer for Bee Culture Magazine. I started here in September 2021, just as they canceled the event that year. I got to spend the remainder of the year learning everything I could from Kathy and for some reason that didn’t include almost anything about the event. I got a couple small notes here and there for it, but since we weren’t planning it, it wasn’t at the forefront of the teaching. Learning the magazine was much more important. But that’s okay since Kim and Kathy are close by and always ready to help!

That being said, from behind the scenes it was wild, chaotic, crazy, basically any synonym you want to apply during the planning and lead up to the event. Since Bee Culture’s entire team is new as of November 2019, none of us have ever planned this event before. Two of us hadn’t even attended one! Luckily, back in early June, Kim came in and gave us a rundown of what we need, when we need it and a best course of action to get going. From there we enlisted the help of some people around the A.I. Root Company (if you didn’t know – that’s the company Bee Culture is owned by!). We needed help with getting our conference room booked, making sure we could actually get in the room, set-up of tables and chairs and a million other tiny details but most importantly, making sure we had food for everyone! A sincere thank you to all of the Root employees who were involved in helping us with this event. We could not have done it without you!

As we planned and time flew by, so many little details kept coming into play that none of us had even thought about! I can’t tell you how many pages of notes I filled up as we had meeting after meeting about the event. An event of our size (we had about 75 people in person) isn’t the biggest event, especially in the bee world, but for three people with minimal experience, it was tough! Planning 14 speakers, in-person and virtual tickets, catering, social media, many Amazon purchases for everything from hand sanitizer to table cloths and everything in-between was difficult to juggle while also putting out a monthly magazine, a daily email blast, some renewal mailings, posting articles online, plus everything Jerry and Jen do. I even went on a week vacation in there!

But overall, we somehow did it and we have received only positive comments. So many people were glad to finally be able to meet in person and have that many speakers with such a wide range of knowledge and expertise to share stories with and ask questions. We are so glad we finally made this happen and it was a great success. We want to do it again in the future, but check back in a few months to see if it’s a yearly event… we’re still tired.

Before I go, I wanted to announce that we will have the recordings of each talk available for purchase on our store website (www.Store.BeeCulture.com). I am writing this on November 7, and so far I have five recordings done out of 15 total recordings. Unfortunately, based on our previous knowledge of technology and programs, software limitations and various other reasons, I am the only one who can work on these. While I do that, I am also doing the rest of my job, so it’s a very slow process. We also had a surprise technical issue (because what good event happens without one), we almost didn’t have our microphone system. That being said, it was up and running but not at top quality. Our amazing IT person was able to get it up about two days before we started. But the day of, we noticed a slight buzz in the background and when he went to fix it, the microphone system broke again for about 10 minutes so we collectively chose that a microphone with a small buzz was better than no microphone at all. With this detail explained, the buzz was more apparent in the recordings than we originally anticipated. It’s not the worst thing in the world, but some of our speakers are soft-spoken people. We want to offer the absolute best product possible, so I am going through and editing everything, and at the same time, I am transcribing and subtitling each talk. Because of this, the recordings are taking significantly longer to finish and upload than we had originally thought. We will have them up on our store as soon as all the recordings are ready. Please be patient with us with the timing of this because as of now, I cannot guarantee or even estimate a date. We will make sure to let you know on our social media pages, in our daily email Catch the Buzz and in the magazine as soon as they are all ready! Until then, we hope you join us at our next event!

Some people say spring starts with the mating of great-horned owls in late December. These people are greatly outnumbered. For most of us, February is a month of darkness and cold extremities. Still, it is the first month for wishful thinking and definitely a month for all plans and equipment to be in place for a successful takeoff of new packages and overwintered survivors alike. Your bees are stirring by then as well, and there is new research detailing just how much they are doing to be ready for Spring flowers.

In temperate regions, including much of North America, worker honey bees are rarely seen outside during Winter. They might search for the few available flowering plants, but mostly they will defecate and return home promptly. This does not mean bees are ignoring the oncoming spring and the need to renew and rebuild. In fact, colonies often start bouts of egg-laying and brood rearing in the middle of Winter. It is an interesting management and breeding problem to sort out whether mid-Winter brood rearing harms or hurts colonies, whether certain breeds are more prone to flipping the brood switch mid-Winter, and the specific cues bees use to start their engines.

Alphonse Avitabile (still mentoring in Connecticut and the coauthor of a leading beekeeping book) sacrificed colonies monthly through a Connecticut Winter for a 1978 study in the Journal of Apicultural Research entitled ‘Brood rearing in honey bee colonies from late Autumn to early Spring’ (https://doi.org/10.1080/0 0218839.1978.11099905). Avitabile described substantial Winter brood activity, with sealed brood averages in the thousands per colony from January onward. This was despite the presence of a true Winter in his apiaries (average high temperatures of 41, 36, and 38°F for December, January and February, respectively, today and perhaps even colder in the mid-1970s). Similarly, Lloyd Harris followed brood production in Canadian honey bee colonies entering Winter in Manitoba, Canada, also describing his findings in the Journal of Apicultural Research (https:// doi.org/10.3896/IBRA.1.48.2.01). Italian bees from California were subjected to average ‘high’ temperatures of 18oF by the time the study ended in December. Still, they persisted in egg laying, showing an average of ca. 1000 sealed brood cells when sampled on December 5. Soon after, they were moved to warmer conditions in a climate-controlled warehouse (43°, constantly), and brood numbers expanded and continued until spring (as described in a follow-up paper from 2010 in the same journal (https://doi. org/10.3896/IBRA.1.49.2.04).

Fabian Nurnberger and colleagues used an experimental approach to determine when and why bees restart brood rearing in late Winter. They describe their results in the open-access journal PeerJ in a 2018 article “The influence of temperature and photoperiod on the timing of brood onset in hibernating honey bee colonies” (10.7717/peerj.4801). These researchers followed honey bee colonies in Würzburg, Germany (average high temperatures of 39, 37 and 41oF in December, January and February). They used controlled rooms to manipulate both temperature and the day length perceived by bees. While there were complicated interactions between forced daylength and temperature, they showed in general that temperature was the strongest predictor of the initiation of brood rearing. Once bees committed to brood rearing, they continued to do so even when temperatures were reduced substantially, and the authors propose this as a risk to rebooting brood rearing in the face of an unpredictable climate.

Many beekeepers treat their colonies for Varroa mites midwinter, especially with oxalic acid treatments which are highly effective against exposed mites but ineffective against mites in sealed cells. If treated colonies harbor patches of sealed brood, oxalic acid treatments could miss substantial numbers of mites. This concern was addressed by Hasan Al Toufailia and Francis Ratnieks in England, as part of their continuing efforts to identify sustainable ways to control mites (highlighted in another Journal of Apicultural Research article, “Towards integrated control of varroa: 5) monitoring honey bee brood rearing in winter, and the proportion of varroa in small patches of sealed brood cells“, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00218839.2018.1460907).

Monitoring colonies in Sussex (high temperatures of 46, 45 and 45oF in December, January and February, respectively) they confirmed that December is the quietest month in terms of brood activity, with between nine and 52% of colonies having any brood at all across four study years. Variation across years in December brood incidence likely reflects warmth in late Fall and continued pollen availability. Substantial brood rearing began in January, where all colonies in each of four years had some sealed brood, averaging 1400 cells each across all years. From a management standpoint, oxalic acid treatments in December would have a more lasting impact on mite levels than treatments in January or any other month. The authors even suggest gouging out the small pockets of Winter brood prior to mite treatments as a way to achieve better Varroa control. They provide detailed methods and justification for broodless oxalic treatments at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fMP9QjNy94.

Another adverse outcome of Winter brood-rearing is that female mites could both increase their progeny and improve their own health. While some Varroa mites no doubt survive months hitchhiking on adult bees, Varroa populations as a whole suffer severe Winter declines as female mites reach their limits and die. Winter brood provides a significant bridge for declining mite populations. Crudely, if there are 1400 sealed worker brood during January, approximately 110 bees will emerge daily, or 3410 in the whole month. Assuming 30% of these cells contain mites, with two female mites/ cell emerging on average, these Winter brood cells can be factories for >2000 new mites in January and maybe twice as many in February. These mites are younger and presumably more fecund than mites born months earlier. And their moms might benefit as well, since a bout of reproduction involves feeding on plump bee pupae, arguably a richer food resource than overwintering adult bees.

Early starts on brood rearing are likely to be positive on the whole, since a younger and larger bee population will be ready for Spring flowers. Still, there is a downside in terms of mite numbers and compromised mite treatments. Next year, start your Spring oxalic treatments in early December, before the owls mate.

by Scott Ouderkirk

Bees – We hear so much about them lately, but most people still aren’t aware how much work bees do around them each day. Honey bees are constantly flying above us, back and forth on their business, unseen and unsung. My friend, Marty Snye, is a blacksmith and beekeeper, and I am a glass artist and beekeeper. We often work together on hives and other projects, but our love of bees caused us to truly collaborate for the first time on this piece called The Queen.

My name is Scott Ouderkirk, and I am lucky enough to live in the Thousand Islands, which is a section of the St. Lawrence River on the border of New York State and Canada. I do most of my work alone in my studio overlooking the river, so I don’t often have to answer to anyone about my art…until my wife tells me something needs to be changed. Working together on a project with another artist isn’t something that I am used to; but Marty and I had been talking about creating some work together so that we could have a show of collaborative pieces using my glass work framed by his iron work. I had created a small bee piece for an illustration in my book, The Wind in the Islands, which Marty had framed with iron. We thought, why not scale this piece up to make a more powerful statement? Thus, I began sketching some ideas.

At about the same time, a call for entries for the American Glass Guild’s 2015 exhibit in the National Cathedral in Washington DC arrived. We decided to enter this piece. The next thing you know, our entry was accepted, and we got to work.

My first drawings were fairly simple following the small original. I showed the drawing to Lorraine Austin, who is a glassblower and my go-to person for design help. Her ideas made the design much more organic and complicated. She also created the glass ball which sits at the top of the piece. Marty made a few changes to the full size drawing; then he built the frame. The frame is made of steel which is heated and hammered into shape. Marty works with very traditional methods; only using more contemporary methods when appropriate. In this case, it was easier for me to create glass pieces to match the frame rather than the other way around.

Once I had Marty’s finished frame in my studio, I began creating fused glass pieces which would fit into the frame sections. As many as eight layers of colored and clear glass were stacked up and fused together. I included in the painting a selection of flowers and plants which honey bees visit during their busy lives. The small bees are painted on the back of the glass to create depth. The technique of glass painting used on The Queen consists of adding black and brown outlines and shading to colored fused glass. The image of the glass pieces on the light table shows the glass before the final firing. In the final firing, the glass was silver stained, which involves applying a silver compound to the back of the glass and firing it. This causes a yellow staining of the glass and is where stained glass gets its name. The silver staining was not added to the wing areas, allowing them to remain clear.

The Queen lived in the National Cathedral in Washington, DC until July 31, 2015. We hope that it made the many visitors to the cathedral think about honey bees and how they help all of us. It is a partnership that more people need to be aware of. The plight of the bees should be taken into consideration when environmental decisions are made because it is our plight as well.

It is important for an artist to step out of his or her comfort zone occasionally. Every collaboration leads to new ideas and growth for all parties involved. A person who is unfamiliar with a process may ask for something to be done which needs new techniques to be learned or even developed. Marty and I find this to be true whether we are working as artists or beekeepers; and this project was no exception. Fortunately, as I grow older, I find my thirst for knowledge continues to increase.

I sell well-established working beehives, with their honey stores, to buyers far and near, from Spring through Fall. During hot or muggy weather I always stress over my girls welfare during the trip, moving to their new home site. Most beekeepers, or apiarists, close the entrance with a 1” X 2” piece of wood, or a solid entrance reducer. I started selling bee hives with the same method of confinement, and then changed to a better way, using plastic screening stapled to the brood box on top and to the landing board on bottom to prevent the bees exiting through the entrance opening. The impact of stapling would agitate the colony and they would try to leave the hive, clogging the entrance opening by crowding against the plastic screening, to shut off the airflow. A similar piece of screening would cover the opening of the inner cover.

On some occasions where their journey would take some time, the bees coordinated their combined efforts to push through a weak fitting screen and create an opening large enough for many, or all, to escape, leaving the new bee keeper feeling somewhat cheated in their purchase.

Having been a beekeeper for over 35 years, I had an abundance of scrap ¼” hardware cloth lying around from constructing hive beetle traps and screened bottom boards. Frugality is a must to be profitable in beekeeping, even as a hobby. After experimenting with a couple of designs I found that trimming a piece of scrap hardware cloth down to approximately 15” X 6” makes a very effective entrance ventilator and bee excluder using a 20-inch plus long, ¾” dowelling, and a 4” wide duck bill welding vice grip pliers, or use a length of 1” X 2” board to bend the hardware cloth tightly around. The individual wires creating the ¼” openings in the hardware cloth should be checked to ensure against misalignment or broken wires. If the wiring is misaligned or broken, the resulting opening could be enlarged enough by the bees to allow them to escape. I have found that a pair of small needle-nose pliers will work well in realigning the wires. I have since graduated from the welding vice grip to a three-foot wide metal brake for a more finished insert. A metal brake is a piece of equipment used for bending sheet metals. Smaller brakes can be as narrow as two foot wide, or smaller, and can be purchased relatively cheap.

The finished product resembles an open capital “P”, sitting on it’s side. I made a 180-degree half circle bend in the middle of the width by wrapping the hardware cloth tightly around the length of dowelling.

Using the metal brake or duck bill vice grip, I bent a 90-degree upward angle, ¾” from the top of the half circle. I continued the hardware cloth, running out from the bottom of the 180-degree half circle.

The half circle is inserted into the entrance. The top bend is adjusted so that there is pressure under the entrance top surface and the flat surface is pressed against the landing platform. The top 90° angle is adjusted to put pressure against the outside surface of the brood box just above the entrance opening.

An alternative to using a dowelling is just squaring out the half circle with the metal brake, vice grip pliers or a length of 1” X 2” board. The curved section in the middle of the scrap piece of hardware cloth could also extend into the brood box a little more to allow for a larger number of bees to collect before shutting off the air circulation. The entire operation only takes a 180-degree curve and one bend, or if using the alternative method, only takes three bends. A very simple operation once visualized.

Since all bee boxes are not made equally, the sides of the hardware cloth can be trimmed back with a tin snips, heavy-duty scissors or shears. If the insert is a little too short, or if the transport trip is really long, two plugs can be made from a soft wood to seal the ends, and/or put extra tension pressure on the hardware cloth insert, to ensure a more secure fit. Just make sure the wood plugs extend over the hardware cloth to the end of the opening.

A beekeeper can adjust the measurements to suit his own requirements, and with a little practice find the perfect fit for his needs. I have also thought of soldering a bent narrow “U” shaped tin strip along the raw edges of the hardware cloth to cover the sharp barbs of wire. Bending the tin would also require the use of a soldering gun and a metal brake. This would also stiffen the unit making for a tighter fit in the entrance, and maybe eliminating a need for wooden plugs at the ends of the unit.
A second method to safely cover the sharp wire end barbs would be to dip the sides of the hardware cloth into a shallow tray of liquid latex several times to build up a coating. Liquid latex is relatively cheap and easy to use, just be sure to adequately dry the applied liquid before handling.

I would welcome any response, positive or negative, from readers on how well this design has worked for them, or how they improved on the basic design to meet their needs. I can be reached at: Charles Schwend, 2930 Woodland Lane, Marine, IL 62061; 618.363.9104; www.schwendcharles@yahoo.com.

Introduction

We know that honey bees and beekeepers contribute greatly to American agriculture and to our dining pleasures. We recognize the Langstroth hive as an optimized design for large-scale honey production and crop pollination beekeeping, and we recognize that it is also suited for many small-operation beekeepers. However, there are good-intentioned rebellious beekeepers among us, including the authors of this article, who choose to keep bees in “Top Bar Hives.” We propose there are good reasons to keep bees in top bar hives and for top bar beekeepers to use top bars of standard design and dimensions.

The authors are members of the Albuquerque, New Mexico, Beekeepers Club, one of two larger beekeeper organizations in New Mexico. The other major organization is the New Mexico Beekeepers Association, whose past president is Les Crowder. Les has kept bees for more than 30 years, is largely unequaled in his knowledge of beekeeping, generously shares his wisdom with others, and is an advocate of top bar hives. There is no better discussion of pros and cons of top bar hives than is found at his website. If you have internet access, please read what Les says at www.fortheloveofbees.com/. And, for another discussion of top bar hives and their use, there is an excellent article in the online Wikipedia encyclopedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top-bar_hive.

The authors hold copyrights to specific fabrication drawings for a proposed standard top bar and for a hive design that uses it. We make the designs and drawings freely available for use by other beekeepers or for commercial production. Electronic copies of the drawings are available in Adobe Portable Document Format (.pdf), which can be printed on standard 8-1/2 by 11 inch paper. Adobe Reader software is available for free downloads and use from http://get.adobe.com/reader/.

The drawings and a pre-publication draft of this article are available for downloads at the following websites: http://mistressbeek.com/2009/05/03/diagram-and-plans-for-a-top-bar-hive/; www.nmbeekeepers.org/page/topbar-hive-plans

You may choose to obtain a copy of the drawings for reference while reading this article.

Some Reasons to Use Top Bar Hives

Although Langstroth hives are typically produced by commercial hive manufacturers, top bar beekeepers often build their own hives. Moderately skilled craftsmen can make top bar hives using relatively simple woodworking tools, and they often make the hives from scrap or surplus materials. Thus, top bar hives may provide a substantially lower cost for entry into beekeeping, and they are the predominant hive in some developing and under-developed countries.

In comparison to the Langstroth hive, top bar hives provide an environment much closer to the conditions found in nature by wild and feral bees. No comb foundation material is used in top bar hives. The bees hang comb down from the top bars, in essentially the same fashion as in a wild hive, and the bees determine the cell size to suit their needs. Bees kept in a top bar hive devote resources to wax and honey production in about the same proportions as in a wild hive.

The beekeeper harvests honey by cutting off the comb at its junction with the top bar, and comb cut from the top bars is not recycled within the hive. There is far less danger of chemical residue build-up in a top bar hive than in a Langstroth hive. Honey extracted from new comb that was never used for brood or pollen storage can be of uniquely high quality. We believe that colony survival rates may be enhanced by the natural conditions found in top bar hives.

Bees kept in top bar hives will tend to produce less honey and more wax than bees kept in Langstroth hives in the same bee-food-source environment. This may not be at all important to a small beekeeper with a well-pollinated orchard and vegetable garden and with honey on the table. The extra beeswax can be a resource for candles and other desirable handcrafted items.

Why Use a Standard Top Bar?

One of the primary advantages of the standard Langstroth hive is the interchangeability of hives and hive components within an apiary and among beekeepers. Top bar beekeepers have largely forgone this advantage in exchange for the freedom to build our own hives to designs of our own choice. The advantages of using interchangeable top bars are so great, however, that some loss of individual freedom is justified.

Experienced beekeepers will have no problem finding many reasons why top bars should be interchangeable. Interchangeable top bars are required when splitting or merging colonies. When introducing package bees or swarm bees to a hive, the presence of a couple of brood combs from another colony will help ensure that the newly-installed bees do not depart the hive.

Standard top bars can be exchanged with other beekeepers, and standard bars have potential sale and re-sale value.

As with the forms and function of common tools of carpentry and other crafts, the shape and design of the proposed standard top bar has evolved through years of use in which variant shapes and configurations have been tried. Faulty, inferior and unnecessary features have been discarded. What remains is a bar that produces optimum results in the top bar apiary.

Dimensions and Features of the Proposed Standard Top Bar

We propose a standard top bar with a main body that is 19-1/2 inches long by 1-1/2 inches wide by 3/4 inches thick. This bar can be temporarily used in a Langstroth hive, and its size falls within the range of bar sizes currently used by most American top bar beekeepers. A top bar with 3/4 inch depth has adequate stiffness and is light and easy to handle. When bees hang comb along the bottom centerline of the 1-1/2 inch wide bars, adjacent combs are separated by a proper “bee distance.”

The proposed standard bar features a wooden spline that is 17 inches long by 3/8 inch wide and extends 1/4 inches below the bottom surface of the bar and into the hive interior. This protrusion into the hive encourages the bees to hang comb along the long axis of the bar and deters cross-combing. The spline also supplies additional surface area at the junction of comb and top bar, so that a stronger connection is formed. Our experience indicates that the bees form a stronger comb to spline connection when the spline has a rectangular shape than when the spline has a triangular shape.

When the standard bar with 17 inch spline is used in a hive where a centered bar leaves a gap of about 3/8 inches between the bottom ends of the splines and the hive side walls, the bees will tend to terminate the comb at the spline end, and, thus, will not attach comb to the side wall at that height and location.

There are experienced top bar beekeepers who advocate use of top bars narrower than 1-1/2 inches, in one case as narrow as 1-1/8 inches. We note that a variation in top bar width is one deviation from our proposed standard that would not preclude the exchange of top bars between hives or between beekeepers. We also note that a top bar thinner than 3/4 inches would not preclude its temporary use in a hive designed for use with our proposed standard top bar.

Features of Our Top Bar Hive Design

The authors are proposing widespread use of a standard top bar to facilitate flexibility and efficiency in the individual apiary and to facilitate top bar exchange and cooperation among top bar beekeepers. We are not proposing or advocating use of a standard hive design. A beekeeper might prefer a hive of shallower depth to ensure lighter weight combs and reduced chance of comb breakage. This might be a sound decision, especially in the case of hives that are to be routinely transported to different locations. A beekeeper located in an area of strong nectar flow might prefer a hive of greater length and volume. Top bar beekeepers will continue to build hives to their own designs, desires and judgment. However, even the experienced beekeeper might learn something from review of our hive design and methods, as might the novice beekeeper who is just starting to build hives.

As discussed in the Wikipedia article referenced above, top bar hives with vertical side walls are often referred to as “Tanzanian,“ and top bar hives with sloped side walls are referred to as “Kenyan.” Widespread experience indicates that bees have fewer tendencies to attach comb to the sloped side walls of the Kenyan top bar hive. Our hive design has side walls sloped at an angle of 60 degrees to the horizontal, which is the same slope as the side walls of the hexagonal wax cells produced by the bees. The reader may also note that 60 degrees is an important axis of symmetry in the arrangement of the cells within the comb. We do not pretend to understand the rational processes of the bees, but we speculate that the bees find it relatively easy to build comb so that a bee distance is maintained between the parallel sloped sides of the comb cells and the hive side wall.

Hives should provide a cavity shape and volume that the bees find receptive, and top bar hives with dimensions approximately the same as ours have been successfully used for years by many top bar beekeepers. Consistent with that, we chose specific dimensions to make efficient use of readily available materials and to minimize wood-working operations in fabrication of hives. Nominal 1×2 white pine, finished four sides, has finished dimensions of 3/4 by 1-1/2 inches, which can be used unchanged in producing top bars. Nominal 1×12 white pine, finished 4 sides, has standard dimensions of 3/4 by 11-1/4 inches. Our bottom board width and inner side wall width are called at 11-1/4 inches.

We call for red oak for top bar spline material. Red oak finished to a precise 3/8 inch thickness is readily available. We call for Hardie Board, a cement-fiber product commonly used for structure siding, for the hive cover. It comes in 4 by 8 or 4 by 10 feet sheets which can be cut to make four or five hive covers with scant waste.

We use only natural wood for surfaces exposed to the hive inner cavity (other than glass at the viewing window), and we avoid plywood for fear of out-gassing by adhesives used in plywood manufacture. We do call for the top bar splines to be glued into a groove, but commonly available wood glues are relatively benign materials that cure without noxious vapor and are quite inert when cured.

Our bees have demonstrated a preference for entrances through the side walls rather than through the end walls. However, an end wall opening can be quite handy for use of Boardman entrance type feeders. We provide both side wall and end wall entrances, which can be either open or closed at the beekeeper’s discretion. The Landing Board Closure (LBC) is used to close the end wall entrances. When mounted in one of two positions the LBC also provides ventilation through “perforated metal.” The authors have used Lincane 0.020 inch thick decorative sheet aluminum, product bar code 040395520622, sold in 24 by 36 inch sheets. A Google search reveals a variety of online and local store vendors. Hive builders may already have, or may identify, other suitable perforated metal or screen products.

We have typically located and oriented hives with the entrance pointing to the south. When using this hive in the northern hemisphere one might typically face the front wall to the east and open the left side wall entrance, so that that the active bee entrance faces to the south.

Our design includes a viewing window, with shutter. The window can provide useful information about bee activity with minimal disturbance of the bees, especially when used at night and with a flashlight. If hives are clustered in pairs it is handy to have windows at the outsides of the pairs. The hive-building beekeeper might choose to build one of two hives with the window located on the left side wall, so that each hive of the pair has a window facing to the outside. The hive builder might decide to omit the window to simplify construction. One acquaintance builds windows on both sides, with one window to view the brood area and one window to view honey storage.

Hives made to our drawings measure 18-1/4 inches across the horizontal line between the tops of the side wall inner surfaces. When the standard top bar with 17 inch spline is centered between the side walls, the distance from the spline bottom end to the closest point on the side wall is about 0.4 inches, slightly more than 3/8 inch. As previously discussed, we think this gap helps the bees maintain a bee distance between comb and side walls. If the standard top bar is accidentally displaced toward either side of the hive, the spline will come to rest against the side wall and will stop the lateral movement before the bar moves far enough to cause it to fall into the hive cavity. We recommend building hives that provide this 18-1/4 inch dimension, even if other dimensions and features are modified.

The reader will observe that the heights and upper widths of the front and back end walls are different. The upper surface of the front end wall lies 3/4” above the tops of the slanted side walls and lies flush with the upper surfaces of the top bars. The top bars are pushed against and parallel to the front end wall. The hive cover is supported on the plane formed by the upper surfaces of the front end wall and the top bars.

The upper surface of the back end wall lies flush with the tops of the side walls and with the bottom surfaces of the top bars. In the event that the combined width of 29 top bars is slightly greater than 43-1/2”, the last top bar can ride slightly over the back end wall. If there is a gap left by installing the maximum number of top bars that will fit, the gap can be closed by a non-splined filler bar of suitable width.

In Summer months in hot climates the hives should be located in a shaded area. If a shady location is not available, we support a separate piece of plywood above the hive cover on four bricks and add bricks or other weights on top to keep the plywood in place when the wind blows. The plywood should be large enough so that sunlight does not fall directly on the hive cover.

The experienced beekeeper may want to have one or two nuclear hives available. These are easily manufactured from the drawings by shortening the longitudinal dimensions. The hive builder should decide how many top bars are to be removed to make the nuc hives and should shorten the longitudinal dimensions of side walls, bottom board and cover by 1-1/2 inches for each bar that is to be deleted. Nuc hives with 15 top bars are common. We omit the window for nuc hives.

Practical Tips for Fabricating the Top Bar Hive

Beekeepers who build hives to these drawings will bring a wide variety of woodworking skills and tools to the task. Those with high skills and the most precise tools and equipment will have little trouble maintaining accurate hive dimensions. However, achieving accurate dimensions of the end walls will be difficult unless the 60 degree side wall angle is accurately maintained. A large 30-60 degree triangle, of the type used by graphic designers and in traditional pen and ink drafting, can greatly assist accurate layout and accurate setup of an inexpensive table saw. If the hive builder does not own or cannot find such a triangle, she or he might be able to get someone with a precise table saw or radial arm saw to cut a good template.

The end walls can be laid out without use of a drafting triangle or template. Starting with a board width equal to the required height of the end wall that is to be drawn and cut, the hive builder draws a line across the board perpendicular to the long dimension of the board. At one side of the board and starting from this perpendicular line the hive builder measures and marks in each direction half the top width of the end wall. At the other side of the board one measures and marks in similar fashion half the bottom width of the end wall. The slanted sides of the end wall are then drawn by connecting corresponding marks at each side of the board.

Photo by Jeff Dickson.

The beekeeper will want the hive to be structurally stable, even after considerable handling, and might want to disassemble it at some time in the future. We recommend that major components be assembled using only wood screws. If required, nails should be used only temporarily during assembly, and nails should not be used in the finished product. Screws should be stainless steel or screws manufactured and designated for exterior exposure. Such screws are commonly used in exterior wooden deck construction and are readily available.

Dadant entrance feeders come in slightly different designs. It is a good idea to have on hand a sample of the specific entrance feeder that will be used, and the hive builder should ensure that the end wall openings are suitable to accommodate that feeder. The hive builder may need to modify the Landing Board Closure, LBC, shown on sheet 16 of the drawings, to accommodate the specific entrance feeder that is to be used.

All interior hive surfaces should be left unpainted, but the hive exterior surfaces will last longer and be more attractive if given a good paint job of prime and finish coats. Do not paint the screw heads if you may want to disassemble the hive in the future. White paint is preferred. In summer months, a well painted white hive may have interior temperatures 20 degrees Fahrenheit lower than hives painted a darker color.

Fabricating Bars and Hives from Alternate Materials

The authors have used other materials in building top bars and hives, including oak scavenged from shipping pallets, side walls laminated from surplus 1 by 8 tongue-and-groove flooring, and long leaf pine previously used circa 1920 to remodel an even older house.

Use of alternate materials will usually entail more work. Care should be taken that no material that is potentially deleterious to the bees is used at the hive interior. The vertical depth of the hive should not be substantially increased, because this could result in heaver comb more likely to break away from the top bar.

If side wall material has a width other than 11-1/4 inches, then end wall dimensions will need to be adjusted to maintain the desired 18-1/4 inch distance across the top of the hive cavity. In the case where we have used 11-1/4 inch wide side wall material, the bottom width of the end wall trapezoids is called at 7 inches. The reader may observe that 18-1/4 inches minus 11-1/4 inches equals 7 inches. This relationship results from the use of a 60 degree angle and the fact that the numerical value for the cosine function of 60 degrees is an even 0.50.

As an example, if one uses nominal 1 x 10 inch side wall material with actual width of 9-1/4 inches, one calculates the required bottom width of the end boards as: 18-1/4 minus 9-1/4 equals 9 inches.

The height of the back end wall can be calculated as the width of the side wall boards multiplied by the sine of 60 degrees, which 6 place value is 0.866025.

In the case shown on our drawing where the side wall material is 11-1/4 inches wide, the height of the back end wall was calculated as:
11.25 times 0.866025 equals 9.743, shown on the drawings as 9-3/4 inches.

The height of the front end wall is 3/4 inches greater than the back end wall height. In the case shown on our drawing where the side wall material is 11-1/4 inches wide, the height of the front end wall was calculated as 9-3/4 plus 3/4 equals 10-1/2 inches.

In the case where side wall material is 9-1/4 inches wide and we calculated a required bottom width of end boards at 9 inches, the height of the back end wall is calculated as: 9.25 times 0.866025 equals 8.011 inches, approximately equal to 8 inches.

The height of the front end wall would then be: 8 plus 3/4 equals 8-3/4 inches.

Conclusion

Healthy bees pollinating plants in our garden and surrounding area gardens benefit all. Pure, raw honey in the pantry and on the table is a great pleasure. A wide dispersal of bee colonies and varied beekeeping practices help ensure honey bee genetic diversity and species survival. Top bar hives are a logical hive choice for many beekeepers, and we hope those beekeepers consider use of a standard top bar and find our designs and comments helpful.

What seems to be a rather routine procedure may not be. At various times a beekeeper finds that the queen needs to be replaced. Different reasons for this replacement might be: the queen is old or failing, the attitude of the hive is not what you would like it to be, the hive is non-productive, the hive needs a break in the brood cycle to clear up disease, you may want to retard the hive from swarming, or there is no queen in the hive.

When introducing a queen to a hive, there are the different techniques or procedures that can be used: introduce a mated queen, introduce a virgin queen, introduce a queen cell, or encourage the bees to raise their own queen. The percentage of acceptance by the bees in the installation of a laying queen is rather high. The acceptance of a virgin queen by the bees in a hive is the range of 50 to 60%. While putting in queen cells or allowing the bees to raise their own queen may also have a high percentage rate of acceptance, there are further conditions that the hive must have in place. When raising a queen from a cell more time is required for the queen to develop, get mated, and start laying eggs. The amount of time could be critical if the nectar flow is missed or the drones have been eliminated from the other hives, or the weather is not conducive to bee flight.

There are many devices that beekeepers have invented for queen introduction and some of the situations within a hive make queen introduction difficult. It also seems that every beekeeper has their own way of doing things and their way seems to be the only way to do things. So when you talk to other beekeepers, the more confused you will become. When you add all of these factors, the “simple task of introducing a queen” is not so simple.

If you decide that you are going to requeen a hive by installing a laying queen, the normal procedure is to order a queen. A day before you install her, you either catch the old queen and put her somewhere other than in that apiary or kill her. You need to be assured that the hive is queenless. There is some debate on whether you leave the body of the old queen in the hive or remove it if your choice was to kill her. One thought is to have the bees carry out the body of the old queen so they are absolutely sure that they are queenless. Another thought is that even a dead queen could emit a residual amount of the queen substance pheromone indicating that they are queen right. Perhaps in your efforts to kill the queen, you only stun her or injure her and thus the situation is worse by having a wounded queen in the hive emitting pheromones when you believed that she was dead. If your choice was to remove the old queen and move her to another yard, you will have the advantage of having a queen in case something goes wrong. However she may still have the problem that caused you to want her replaced.

If you wait too long before introducing the new queen and the hive is queenless for a while, there is the possibility that a worker(s) will assume the duties of laying eggs. This is known as a laying worker(s) and all these eggs will develop into drones.

Laying workers are very difficult to find as they look like all of the other workers and the hive has accepted them as queenlike. A tell tale sign of laying workers, is that the eggs in the cells are not well centered and in many cells there are multiple eggs. Some say that solving a laying worker situation can be solved by multiple attempts in introducing queens, while others say that the hive is hopeless and the hive should be combined with a strong queen right hive. The reason that the combining method works is that the pheromone of the laying queen is stronger and usually the hive has a larger population.

A California queen cage.

A queen that is failing sometimes will lay only eggs that will develop into drones, thus she is called a drone layer. Because of her appearance, she can be identified easily and caught so the situation can be corrected by requeening.

By requeening every year you generally prevent having a failing queen for whatever reason. A new or young queen tends not to swarm as much as an older queen and usually the disposition of the hive is calmer.

Many beekeepers believe that the bees are a better judge on the condition of the queen, and if she needs to be replaced they will develop supersedure cells. You can tell the difference between supersedure cells and swarm cells usually by the position that the cell occupies on the frame. A supersedure cell can be anywhere on the frame as it was built out of necessity, but usually it is in the middle part of the frame. A swarm cell usually is on the bottom part of a frame and usually there are several cells. You should also be aware that many times bees will build queen cell cups on the frames and it is worth inspecting to see if the cup is polished and being primed with royal jelly or already have eggs present.

A general rule is that you do not destroy supersedure cells. If you start destroying swarm cells in hopes of preventing swarming, you may end up with a hive that swarms and leaves your hive queenless. If you see the swarm cells, the bees have made the decision to swarm and there is little that you can do to prevent it. You can split the hive, and use the cells to queen the split(s), while keeping, or replacing the queen in the original hive.

Swarm cell hanging from the bottom bar of a frame.

It is also handy to know how to read what is happening to the queen cells in a hive. When you see open queen cells, you should look at the bottom of the cell to see if the queen emerged from the cell or was killed. An emerging queen chews the bottom of the cell open so the bottom of the cell will swing open like a trap door. A queen that has been killed in her cell will have evidence where the cell was opened from the side of the cell.

More controversy exists as to how long a queen may live and store semen. Most of the books indicate that queens living under normal conditions will last approximately two years. As proof, the books point out that when a hive swarms, the swarm begins to make supersedure cells in the newly established hive. However if a beekeeper can keep the hive from swarming, there will be days where the queen cannot be found in the hive and there are no eggs but a few days later everything is back to normal and a queen is present. This indicates that the original queen took another mating flight or was superseded.

Supersedure cells in the middle of a frame.

You also should know the usual timing procedure of a swarm. The bees around the queen decide when the hive should swarm and build many queen cells and start reducing the diet of the queen. The queen stops laying eggs and shrinks in size so she can fly. When the swarm issues, we call it the primary swarm and because it may have the old queen and the bees usually settle at a low location. Scout bees are already looking for a new home and when decided which of possibly several locations is best they go directly there.

If the weather is good, a queen will emerge from a cell in the original hive and take her maiden flight about three days after the primary swarm issued. Sometimes the timing gets off and another swarm issues from the hive and this is called a secondary swarm. Because the old queen has gone in the previous swarm, the queen or queens in this swarm are virgin queens.

I have seen a secondary swarm with seven queens and was busy catching them and putting them in mailing cages. A secondary swarm usually settles on higher objects and once hived takes longer to start up as there is the decision which queen will be dominant and the mating flight or flights will be done after the hive is established. If too many secondary swarms issue from the same hive, there is the possibility that the hive can go queenless as there aren’t eggs or larvae that are of the right age to make a queen.

A very successful method in getting ready for the introduction of a new queen is to build a Nuc (nucleus hive) by removing the frame that the queen is on along with a frame of honey and a frame of brood with the hanging bees and take them to a new location. I mentioned three frames but you could have more, it just depends upon the size of the Nuc, most beekeepers prefer five frames. You may take frames from other hives and put into the Nuc as long as you do not include the hanging bees.

Essentially what you have done is remove the old queen from the original hive in preparation for the introduction of a new queen and provide the old queen an opportunity to build up a small hive while also giving you a backup queen in case something goes wrong with the original hive.

Sometimes this is considered a method of swarm control. In the old hive you have the essentials for queen rearing such as larva of the correct age, plenty of bees to provide the bees with heat and hive duties, and plenty of food. In case the introduction of the new queen does not work, they could raise their own queen. If in the case you didn’t purchase a queen, you could use this technique as the hive may develop supersedure cells. You must take the nuc to a new location as they will return to their original hives if left in the same yard. As the nuc grows, it may be transferred to a regular hive.

A five-frame nuc.

If you purchase a queen, normally that queen has been mated and has been laying eggs. She is sent to you in a mailing cage which over time has had many configurations. The mailing cage can be made of wood with two or three “holes”, metal, or plastic. There will be room for the queen and a few attendants, ventilation, and a compartment that holds queen candy. There usually are two outlets in the cage so that the queen may be released directly or released after the candy has been eaten.

Queen candy is usually made of a mixture of finely ground confectioner’s sugar and high fructose corn syrup. If you were making a queen candy for your use, several beekeepers have used a mixture of honey and powdered sugar. Some people have claimed that using honey in the mixture may contain pathogens. Getting the candy to the correct consistency is very important as if it is to thin, it will not stay in the correct location of the cage and if it is too hard, the bees will have trouble eating it. The hardness of the candy has led to the idea that you should poke a hole through the candy with a nail.

Some beekeepers have used marshmallows instead of the conventional candy to get away from the consistency problem. The idea of using the candy is to provide the queen with food during her transportation to her new home and to provide a slow or timed release of the queen. The timed release is very important as the bees in the hive need time to accept the queen. However, there are still a bunch of questions. Where and how do you place the cage? Do you remove and replace the workers? Do you direct release the queen? Do you treat the hive for mites and other diseases while introducing the queen? Many of the answers to these questions depend upon your own experiences, training, and schedule.

If you are putting a queen in an apiary that is miles away from your home, you may wish to remove the “cork” from the candy end because it may be some time until you return to the yard. If the hive that is receiving the new queen is in your front yard, you may wish to keep the cage corked until you choose to release the queen at a later date.

Many years ago, it took nearly a week for a package of bees to be delivered in the mail, allowing the bees’ time to become accustomed to the queen. Thus beekeepers got in the habit of releasing the queen directly into the beehive. Today, some beekeepers are receiving packages that were shaken within the last 24 hours, so there needs to be some time where the queen is kept caged.

When you place the mailing or introduction cage in the hive, care must be given to not put the cage directly underneath where a top feeder is located. This is just a precaution in case the feeder malfunctions and drowns the queen in her cage.

There is a lot of discussion about how to place the cage in between the frames. Generally the candy end of the cage is higher than where the queen is located. The reasoning for this is that if an attendant bee dies and covers the candy, she traps the bees in the cage. Thus some suggest removing the attendant bees, while others suggest that the attendant bees should be replaced by bees from the colony where the queen is being introduced. Some queens are sent in bulk packaging meaning that several queens are in their own mailing cages without attendants. The balance of the bulk package is filled with loose bees to feed the various queens in the package.

I would suggest that no chemicals be used to treat diseases and mites during the period of time that a queen is being introduced as it could interfere with the pheromones of the queen. Once the queen is released and laying eggs, the chemicals for mite control could be started.

Some beekeepers advocate that the laying queen should be confined to a certain frame or within a special area. It seems that once a queen is laying eggs in a hive, her acceptance is very close to 100%. Other reasons for confining a queen is to be able to determine the age of larva in queen grafting situations or to cause a break in the brood cycle without destroying a queen.

In making nucs and splits you may transfer frames that have queen cells on them. Other times you can cut the cells out of a frame for transfer or have the queen cells that have been developed from a specially designed queen cell base or cup. In hives where there might be many queen cells, a cell protector might be used until you put the cell where you want it to belong. Cell protectors have been made out of wire or plastic.

In difficult situations where you need more time for the bees to accept the queen or the weather has been inclement, there is an introduction frame available where you can insert a wooden mailing cage and let the queen be released into an area where she can be attended by the bees in the hive. After you feel that she will be accepted, you can open the release hole in the top of the frame. This idea is very similar to the Miller Queen Catcher and Introduction cage of the 1920s, but solves the problem of catching and handling the queen.

You can see that there are many options in introducing queens.

Many of the illustrations came from the 1920 and 1930 Root Catalogs.

Introduction:

Spring is here again and you have decided to double your hive count. Of course that mans that there will be a significant investment in woodenware. There is also another investment that is easy to overlook. It is the feeder required to get your new hives off to a roaring start. They can easily cost $3.65 for a Boardman style feeder or $6.00 for a frame feeder to $32.00 for a full hive top feeder. But available at a very inexpensive price is the old canning jar feeder. Used canning jars are readily available in pint and quart sizes at many of the used merchandise stores such as Goodwill or Salvation Army.

You will need a device that allows the bees access to the syrup. You can make a number of feeder jar stands very quickly. It is actually easier to make many at a time as compared to making one or two. The members of your bee club will be happy to relieve you of the extra ones you make.

Material:

⅜” x 9” x 8’ Plywood base (1) – makes 24 stands

¾” x ⅝” x 8’ Stand legs (4)

Special tool:

A hole cutter that will cut a 2¾” diameter hole is needed. One of the most inexpensive ones is an adjustable circle cutter pictured here. Most hardware stores carry this type of cutter.

Construction:

This article will describe making 24 feeder jar stands.

Because:

1) It is safer

2) It is easier than making one

Step 1: Working from one side of part #1, mark a line 2 1/8” for the length of the plywood. This is one of the center lines for the drill. Then duplicate this line on the other edge of the wood. You should now have 2 parallel lines for the length of the plywood.

Step 2: Now mark the cross line for the centers by starting 2” in from one end and then marking every 4”. Do this on both of the center lines marked in step #1. The picture shows the drill marking as circles and the cutting lines as dashes. You do not need to mark the cutting lines. They are there for illustration purposes only.

These drilling centers will provide for a 4” x 4” platform base for the jar with a 2 ¾” hole in the center.

Step 3: If you are working with an 8’ length of plywood then I recommend that you cut it into two 4’ sections. This will make handling the wood much easier.

Step 4: Drill 2 ¾” holes at the marked locations. To make a smoother cut only drill ¾ of the way through the plywood and then turn it over and finish the hole from the other side of the wood.

Note: A drill press is best used for this operation. It makes drilling significantly easier and safer.

Caution: Using a hole cutter like the one pictured can be very dangerous. The bar that holds the cutter heads can fly around at a speed that makes it difficult to see. If your hand or anything else gets in the way, it is guaranteed to hurt.

Step 5: Once the holes are drilled, cut the plywood in half lengthwise.

Step 6: Using ¾” wood cut parts #2. One piece is needed for each edge of the plywood.

Step 7: Glue & nail or staple legs (parts #2) to the bottom of the base. It is easiest to nail from the top through the plywood into the leg. Use one nail or staple on each corner of the hole to ensure a solidly attached leg.

Make sure that the leg does not cover any part of the hole in the base

Note: I bet you didn’t know that circles have corners. They don’t but this was the easiest way to explain the positioning of the nails.

Step 8: Once the glue is dry you can cut individual stands from the strip.

Usage: After filling your jars with syrup, invert them and place them in the hole in the stand. Place the stand on the inner cover and place an empty hive body over/around the stand to protect it. A stand with pint canning jars can be covered or protected with a medium hive body. A quart jar will fit inside a deep hive body.

Warning: In the Spring and Fall, the temperature differences between night and day can cause the syrup to be pushed out of the feeder jar. Make sure the jar is away from the hole in the inner cover so the liquid does not drip on to the bees.

Conclusion: During the times of the year when the bees are feeding heavily you can add as many feeders as there is room for on the inner cover. If you overlap the filling of the feeders, you can make sure the bees always have food. When the feeding slows down and there is a possibility of the syrup fermenting, all you need to do is remove the extra feeders and the spoilage will be kept to a minimum.

Addendum: Creating feeder jar lids

Lids for the canning jar feeder can be made very easily by pounding small nails in the lid. An easier way is to use a brad gun with an 18 gage brad to pierce the lids. Place a stack of lids on a piece of polystyrene and then use the brad gun to make the holes. The insulation is used so the brads do not nail the tops to the workbench. It may take a little work to remove the brads from the lids, but it is easier than using a small nail or a punch and hitting your fingers.

Get a copy of Ed Simon’s book Bee Equipment Essentials with detailed drawings, construction hints and how-to-use instructions for dozens of beekeeping tools and equipment from www.wicwas.com. Ed can be contacted through Ed@TheBeeShed.com. Now online are all of Ed’s Bee Culture magazine articles. They can be accessed through The Bee Shed website at www.thebeeshed.com/publications.html.

The plight of the honey bee has national attention, now can our political process really “Give Bees a Chance?” There are a few baseline assumptions to help us all understand these threshold issues. The issues I see are:

1. Political action is always human – humans with varying degrees of experience, education and other biases. Political activity always, ALWAYS has an agenda and an outcome of preference.

2. It is important to recognize that there is a well-funded campaign at all levels of government land management, to eradicate certain invasive plants. Many of these plants are key sources of pollen and nectar for honey bees. Implementation of this policy results in the loss of natural, unadulterated habitat for bee forage.

3. Having a clear understanding of the total volume of land and attendant bloom to meet food requirements for a colony of bees north of the frost line in the continental U.S. To support current levels, these lands and bloom sources cannot be reduced.

4. Human beings, whether beekeepers, farmers, Extension Services Staff or politicians, make every day decisions which impact their natural environment.

To thrive, that is produce brood and honey, bees need continuous forage that is safe for them – what you have is knowledge of beekeeping practices in the places where you keep bees. What we intend to unlock are phrases, practices and outlines for actions that you can take to change the policies, which are a result of the politics, surrounding forage plants and colonies of honey bees. In this first article, we – beekeepers and policymakers – need to set as a priority the protection of pollinators from policies which seek to destroy important honey plants.

Currently, there is a movement – politicized – against non-native plants. In my part of the world, where I am a Selectman – part of the three person governing board of my Town in Southern New England – Salisbury, Connecticut – there is pressure on committees in the Town from well meaning residents. Governments, local, county, state and Federal, manage large tracts of land throughout the country. This is where citizens and residents have traction – political traction. Town Planning & Zoning Boards in Connecticut (Connecticut has no counties) have almost exclusive power to control the land use within their borders. This is the political world where individuals have impact. In this world of discussions, decisions and open meeting laws, this is where the world is run by those who show up. There is pressure for us, in my local government, to eradicate non-native plant materials, and if the plant is invasive and aggressive, the pressure increases. Our local beekeepers need to (a) know about these plans, and (b) challenge the plans that are seeking to destroy honey plants.

When I was first elected, I attended a Ten Mile River, Watershed Management meeting (6/7/2014) – the two states in this watershed are New York and Connecticut. I wanted to listen and see how the issues were presented by the various groups – a partial list of presenters: Housatonic Valley Association, Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Dutchess County Soil and Water Conservation District, Cornell Cooperative Extension of Dutchess County, NY State Department of the State Office for Planning and Development. The presenters had studies and plans for controlling and managing this watershed. The attendees were from the Towns in the two states in the Watershed – Planning boards, Conservation Commissions, Water Commissions and council members and selectmen. The presented purpose, as it evolved, was to encourage all the small towns present to apply for grant money to act within the plan that the presenters involved had for the land area. These towns are largely served by volunteers, all local of course, and the presenters were largely entrenched bureaucrats with degrees, salaries and influence. The locals, eager to explore the possibilities for grant money, tried to understand what the bureaucracies deemed “priority actions.”

Honey/nectar producing plants around here, by season, include: dandelion, tulip poplar, basswood, willow, loosestrife, aster, goldenrod, spotted knapweed, glossy buckthorn, sweet clover and sumac. There were no beekeepers at this meeting, and there were no advocates for honey bees or pollinators in general. The presentations and discussions focused on watercourse construction, public access, and species eradication. I must admit that I have a bias toward and for honey bees, so I was shocked that “a benefit to changing drainage would be discouraging purple loosestrife.” I raised my hand and brought out many of the points I am raising here.

Loosestrife.

I, in Salisbury, Connecticut, started 10 colonies of bees from nucs. They did great from dandelion through the end of basswood bloom. There was lots of tree pollen and tulip poplar bloom for the colonies, but after basswood, there was not enough naturally occurring bloom, not enough loosestrife, not enough Joe Pye weed, or goldenrod, aster. And not enough spotted knapweed nor Japanese knot weed. No nectar. I had to feed. I got a few frames of honey, and only two colonies had enough to live through the Winter.

Bee facts and Numbers

A colony, from January 1 through December 31 needs 44-88 pounds of pollen (depending on quality, weather, etc.) and 150 pounds of honey (including that needed to make wax) to thrive – make the necessary brood and to collect all that they need to survive the year. Honey harvested for human consumption is above this base number of pounds for colony health, so for this example we are pulling a 55 pound average. Total requirement per colony per year is 205 pounds of honey. The general ratio of nectar to honey is 32mg of nectar yields 17mg of honey (Canadian Honey Council “How to Make a Pound of Honey”). This is dependent on weather and the nectar source. Bee math – one ounce has 28,350 mg in it. To make 205 pounds (76,586,435.763mg) of honey, the bees need to collect 92,988,000 mg of nectar. Each worker bee, weighing about 80 mg herself, can carry about 70 mg of nectar in the honey sac. So, per colony, about 1.5 million bee honey sac loads of nectar are needed annually. About 100 flowers nectar yields 17mg of honey, so 2.6 million flowers yield one pound of honey. So, to make 205 pounds of honey, workers must make 533 million flower visits. This quantity is not in your neighbor’s “Bringing Nature Home” flower planting. (also Hive and the Honeybee, Dadant, 7th printing of 1992 edition, Honey Bee Nutrition, Ch.6)

A bee can fly about 2.5 miles from her hive, which is a circle five miles in diameter = 23.75 square miles X 640 = 15,200 acres. Average commercial beeyard has 60 colonies. For this fly zone there MUST be more wildness than say, corn, or pavement, or flower gardens, or hay fields or forest.

An important component of modern large numbers of bees in beekeeping is having natural environments large enough for the bees to survive. Large environments. Fields of bloom with good nectar and pollen. Since most tillable acreage is in row crops how many acres of volunteer weeds, non-native and native like goldenrod does it take to support the New York State beehive population? So, what can be done to preserve habitat, healthy habitat, for honey bees? And what do bees actually need? These questions need answers.

On March 4th 2015 H.R. 1264, the Pollinator Protection Act, was introduced to the committee on agriculture. Broadly, this Bill called for the suspension of the registration of certain insecticides, along with creation of a plan to monitor native bee populations.

This Bill did not make it out of committee. In June 2015 The National Strategy To Promote The Health of Honey bees and other Pollinators also known as The Pollinator Health Task Force was introduced by President Obama to achieve the following goals:

• Reduce honey bee Winter mortality from 30% to 15% within 10 years,
• Increase the eastern population of monarch butterflies to 225 million,
• Restore or enhance seven million acres of land for pollinators over the next five years.

This Federal Order calls for planting seven million acres across the nation of a pollinator “friendly” mix. The focus for this plan is in the central part of the country because most of the managed bee colonies spend their Summers there – on sweet clover.

Members of the Xerces Society wish to focus on pushing toward native plants rather than sweet clover (and star thistle and spotted knapweed). Sweet clover is probably the most productive honey plant in America. In the December 2015 issue of Bee Culture, the cost for the “pollinator mix” is given as $400 per acre versus $15 per acre for sweet clover. To spend $2.8 billion dollars on the seed for this project, without including the cost to prepare of the land for planting, or the resources spent doing the planting is unrealistic. If the Xerces Society continues unopposed with this plan, the attention of all interested in the plight of the honey bee will be focused on a non-solution AND there will be an incredible waste of resources. The goal needs to be preserve, protect, support the honey bee, not to support a not-for-profit interested in planting an artificial mix of plants while eradicating the very plants that bees love.

Another political agenda which evolved out of the presidential directive, was the creation in New York State (as in all states) of a pollinator task force. This occurred in April of 2015. The surprising thing to me was that of the 12 member advisors, only two were beekeepers. There were three representatives to represent pesticide interests, three seats given to agriculture – farm bureau, fruits and vegetables, three were NGOs and the co-chairs NYSDAM (New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets) and NYSDEC (New York State Department of Environmental Conservation). Only two beekeepers? And this group seems to be focusing primarily on pesticides as a necessary component of agriculture. The group has not been called to meet again, yet.

But what about bee forage? How do we protect enough bee pasture to support NY State’s 80K colonies? An important component of modern large numbers of bees in beekeeping is having natural environments for the bees to forage. Large environments. Fields of bloom with good nectar and pollen. Without pesticides.

Kudzu.

To understand the scope of the attack on non-native invasive plant species, you need only to “Google” invasive, non-native plants. When doing so you’ll find most states with long lists of plants considered invasive along with elaborate plans to eliminate them. Minnesota has a common approach to what it defines as ‘Noxious Weeds’ – go to mda.state.mn.us – the bee forage targeted is – brown knapweed, yellow star thistle, meadow knapweed, spotted knapweed, purple loosestrife, knotweeds, Canada thistle & glossy buckthorn. The plans for eradication include mowing, removing them by the root, the introduction of insect predators, and in most cases remedies soon digress to poison with any of several herbicides. Two problems (1) the eradication process means a year or two of no bloom of anything, then (2) at least one more year while the introduced “natives” are growing and maturing.

Honey bees, also, are not native to this continent. The plants that they super pollinate, sweet clover, star thistle, spotted knapweed, purple loostrife – have bumper seed crops every year, and become more and more prolific, forming healthy populations. Beekeepers depend on these large tracts of wildness, with the bloom of these deemed noxious pests, and return year after year to place their bees in these wonderful locations.

Who gets to define invasive non-native? What list of native plants do we use as the source for the consternation? Plant native here in 1603? Before any European Settlements? The world is not the same – the species currently in the continental USA include “all the birds of Shakespeare” released in Central Park in 1890 and 1891. Eugene Schieffelin (member of the American Acclimatization Society) purposely introduced English sparrows (a.k.a. house sparrows), starlings, magpies, and other European birds that failed to become “invasive non-natives.” But starlings and English sparrows are successfully suppressing native species. Parakeets, too, in South Florida, are pests.

Who gets to define noxious and who gets license to destroy? In the Ten Mile Watershed meeting, it was very clear that the carrot of grant money was used to give guidance and to influence local government officials. Decisions regarding strategies to mow or spray plant life in roadside ditches or medians, or public parks and public lands are often left to people at the public works departments of local counties or communities. Their decisions regarding which herbicide to use, or whether or not to use manual labor, are often influenced by the chemical salesman or, even more sadly, by individuals, often well meaning citizens who have decided that any and all invasives are somehow dangerous to the environment and must be destroyed.

In many cases where crops are planted “fencepost to fencepost” the only food sources not tainted by systemic pesticides and fungicides are the invasive weeds along fencerows and hedgerows. Indeed most non-crop pollinator forage is “volunteer” occurring in gullys, steep hillsides or wetland swales. Local Conservation Commissions and Inland Wetlands Commissions need to not believe all that they hear from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The importance of the preservation of these plant stands cannot be overstated.

As beekeepers, either as individuals or at the club level, we need to make our local public aware of the dichotomy between beneficial invasives and non-beneficial invasives.

We need to create a list of the plants that cause us to choose locations for our colonies, remembering that honey bees fly up to 2.5 miles from the hive. We will thus at the same time provide an explanation of why these plants must be protected. As beekeepers we should always oppose the application of herbicides to the environment anywhere.

Spotted (purple) Knapweed.

Finally, we need to educate people of the importance of preserving these plants in large quantities as essential diverse food sources of all pollinators through open meeting discussion, news outlets and social media.

Returning to Saving America’s Pollinators Act of 2015; it has not yet passed. But the Bill has words that pretty accurately describe the loss percentages experienced among beekeepers large and small. It clearly states: one third of all crops produced in the U.S. require honey bee pollination services, and it further states, “according to scientists at the Department of Agriculture, current losses of honey bee colonies are too high to confidently ensure the United States will be able to meet the pollination demands for agricultural crops.”

Hobby beekeepers, as important as we are, cannot provide this necessity for agriculture. But what we can do is advocate for habitat for all bees, and other pollinators. But honey bees must be the focus.

Commercial beekeeping, or any beekeeper with more than 20 colonies knows that the secret to success is, Location, Location, Location. The best honey and the healthiest bees come from places unadulterated by humans – where the plants have gone wild.

From Thoreau’s essay, Walking “…and what I have been preparing to say is, in wildness is the preservation of the world.”

I’ll talk politics and chemicals next time.

Please contact me, Katherine Kiefer beesweet1@gmail.com – Let’s work together.

BroodMinder was started by Rich Morris, a hobby beekeeper from Stoughton, Wisconsin. Rich has been keeping bees for eight years. He is not a bee researcher by any stretch of the imagination. However he has worked in ultrasound research and development for many years (20+ patents) and has been deeply involved in both high and low volume product development. A core belief of BroodMinder is that data of few parameters from many sources is more valuable than data of many parameters from few sources and stands a chance of having a major impact on the apiary community.

The BroodMinder is currently being sold for $60 on our Indigogo site igg.me/at/BroodMinder. Please visit http://broodminder.com/ for more information.

HopGuard® II also provides beekeepers another option to avoid the development of resistance toward other products. Rotating products to combat Varroa mites is an important tactic to prevent resistance development and to maintain the usefulness of individual pesticides.

BetaTec Hop Products is the application arm of the Barth-Haas Group, the oldest and largest hops company in the world. As part of the Barth-Haas Group, BetaTec Hop Products draws on over 200 years of hop experience. It’s vertically integrated operations include the growing, harvesting, processing, marketing, distribution and sales of hops products.

For information about BetaTec and our range of hop products, contact: BetaTec Hop Products, info@betatechopproducts.com; www.betatechopproducts.com.

Sarah has divided her book into sections – First, Cultivation, that is raising bees, and pesticide issues, especially the neonicotinoids in several countries in Europe. The discussion of how several countries in Europe, especially Germany and France studied, and then banned these chemicals was enlightening however, as she related a timeline that should have been instrumental in avoiding the planting dust issues we discovered here. This book is getting attention because of this chapter, but the remaining chapters are just as useful. She moves on to other countries in Europe looking at genetic diversity and purity, Carniolan bees and sustainability, then moving next to northern Sweden, where winter is eight months long and climate change is already an issue. Finally, Conservation. Urban beekeeping. Reconnecting with nature within the city. There is an enormous amount of information in this small book, as John Phipps says. He’s right. ]]> https://www.beeculture.com/climate-change/ Tue, 26 Jan 2016 20:51:34 +0000 https://www.beeculture.com/?p=14931 A bee problem we can potentially solve – Part 2

by Ross Conrad

Last month in part one of this three part series on greenhouse gases, climate change, and their impact on beekeeping we looked at some of the changes that are being observed and their potential impact on honey bees and beekeepers. Rather than debating whether climate change has an influence on extreme weather events (floods, droughts, hurricanes, etc.), over the past couple years the scientific debate has transformed to focus on the magnitude and extent of its influence, while politicians debate what our response should be.

We also explored some of the basics of soil science and how a healthy microbiome in soil is essential in order for the plants growing in that soil to thrive. Thriving plants produce abundant forage for pollinators, as well as provide crops and biomass while at the same time, the plants pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and exude it into the soil in the form of simple carbohydrates (sugars) that feed soil microbes. It turns out that there are agricultural practices that have proven themselves successful over time at helping plants to maximize the sequestration of carbon into the soil. These are the same practices that ensure plants robust health thus maximizing the quantity and quality of crops and pollinator forage.

Keep the soil covered with plants and plant matter

Bare soil oxidizes carbon in the soil, while plants protect it and add to it. Not only do plants sequester carbon through photosynthesis, they slow carbon emissions by soil microbes by forming a barrier between the air and the soil, and they reduce soil erosion a major factor in soil carbon depletion. Every time soil is exposed, whether it is because the ground is being tilled, a crop has been harvested and the land left fallow, or we leave space between row crops, soil carbon is reduced. Practices such as mulch farming and under-sowing with legumes and cover crops to keep soils covered throughout the year increase soil carbon, keep soil organisms healthy and prevent erosion (Azeez 2009).

France’s “4 per 1000 – soils for food security and the climate” is based on the fact that an annual increase of soil carbon at a rate of just 4% would be enough to stop the present increase in atmospheric carbon. This national effort by France will focus on ecological agricultural practices to sequester carbon to restore stability to our climate.

This also means that tilling the soil needs to be minimized if not abandoned. Not only does tilling or turning the soil ruin the soil structure, it exposes the soil to air so carbon can oxidize and escape. Tilling also disturbs the micro-organism ecosystem in the soil, destroying pore spaces in soil that hold air and water, both vital components for healthy soil organisms. In addition, the act of tilling itself often releases carbon into the atmosphere through the burning of fossil fuels. Research indicates that the highest levels of carbon sequestration are achieved through cropping systems that practice no-till farming and add plenty of organic matter (e.g. compost or cow manure) to the soil (Khorramdel 2013).

Imitate nature’s diversity

Nature shows us that the more diverse a system is, the healthier and more resilient that system is, so to promote healthy soil microbes monocultures should be avoided (Lal 2004) just as honey bee monocultures should be avoided by keeping a variety of families and races of bees rather than just one type of bee from a single source. Monocultures invite pest and disease infestations, while diverse plantings help keep infestations from spreading. A mixture of plants on every square foot of ground provides the opportunity for a larger diversity of soil organisms to fill the greater variety of niches. Mixtures of cover crop varieties are now available to help encourage biodiversity. While crop rotations help support biodiversity, rotations with continuous cover cropping prevent fallow periods of bare soil and increase the activity of soil microbes and enzymes. Research also indicates that when legumes are included in the crop rotation, microbial biomass is increased (Six 2006).

Grazing animals can be an important part of building organic matter in soils, particularly in pastures. Perennial pasturing when properly managed has shown rapid increases in organic matter and soil carbon (Machmuller 2015). Not only do animal hooves break up the soil surface allowing plant seeds, water and air to infiltrate, their manure and urine which are rich in carbon, nutrients and microbes inoculate the soil with biological diversity. I have more to say on the importance of grazing ruminants below.

Discontinue the use of pesticides and synthetic fertilizers

Synthetic agricultural chemicals (herbicides, fungicides, insecticides, etc.) destroy soil carbon. Not only are pesticides lethal to soil organisms, chemical fertilizers have also been shown to destroy organic matter in soil. The Rodale Institute’s Compost Utilization Trials showed that composted manure combined with crop rotations resulted in carbon gains of up to 1.0 ton/acre/year, while the use of synthetic fertilizers without rotations achieved carbon losses of 0.15 ton/acre/year (LaSalle 2008). Meanwhile, 50 years of farm trials at the University of Illinois showed a loss of five tons of soil organic matter per acre on fields where 90 to 124 tons of carbon residue was added on each acre, but a synthetic nitrogen fertilizer was also applied (Khan 2007).

Reforestation and reversing desertification

The release of carbon that had been stored in the ground for millions of years has been accompanied by the destruction of about a third of the world’s forests and grasslands. There are indications that the proper management of woody plants can lead to sizable soil carbon gains (Quinkenstein 2011). The re-establishment of our lost forests and grass lands can play a significant role in helping to restore the atmospheric carbon balance. The work of Kenyan Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai’s Green Belt movement, has assisted African women in planting more than 20 million trees and serves as an inspiration.

Another inspiring effort is the work of Allan Savory who demonstrates how holistic planned grazing that mimics nature can stop the process that causes land to turn into desert and help reverse climate change. Approximately half the surface of the Earth is currently desert or in the process of desertification, and a significant part of the reason for this has been the way ranchers and nomadic peoples have grazed their animals. Savory shows that by allowing hundreds of times more animals to graze on a piece of land than the land itself can support, for just a short duration, the land can be regenerated and desertification reversed. Rather than take up more space talking about it here, I encourage you to view Allan’s Ted Talk on mob grazing for a truly inspirational 22 minutes at: https://search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?p=ted+talk+desert+grazing&ei=UTF-8&hspart=mozilla&hsimp=yhs-002

Can we act in time?

Researchers who study soil carbon sequestration to mitigate climate change estimate that we have removed 136 Gigatons of carbon from the soil as a result of land clearing and agriculture since the industrial age (Lal, 2007). This is less than the amount of carbon we need to put back into the soil in order to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide levels to 350 ppm, the level that NASA climate scientist James Hansen says is a relatively “safe” level. Depending on who’s numbers you look at, agriculture contributes anywhere from seven to 15 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. Other major contributors to GHG emissions are categorized as industry (manufacturing, packaging, transportation and storage), and changes in land use (such as through deforestation and desertification). Unfortunately these categorizations ignore the fact that agriculture is one of the world’s major industries accounting for much of the processing, packaging, shipping and storage activity in the world. Agriculture is also a major cause of deforestation and responsible for much of those emissions as well. As a result, our current industrial agricultural model is both directly and indirectly responsible for about a third of GHG emissions worldwide. Clearly our agricultural system must change from being a major contributor to the problem, to being part of the solution.

Given that we are currently at 400 ppm carbon dioxide and in order to keep climate change to a minimum we need to reverse the CO2 buildup and get back to at least 350 ppm quickly, we need to remove and store 50 ppm of carbon dioxide in the soil. This works out to about 106 Gigatons of carbon. Since we have removed about 136 Gt since 1750, we know the carbon will fit back in the ground. All it will take is to convert all of the world’s agriculture to incorporate practices that sequester carbon: such as the use of cover crops, no-till, no chemicals, replanting our forests and holistic planned grazing. Since the agricultural practices that are needed are the same practices used by many organic, biodynamic and permaculture farmers, what it will ultimately take to reverse climate change is tens of millions of new eco-agricultural farmers all around the globe, supported by hundreds of millions of conscious consumers. That is how simple, and how difficult, the challenge before us is.

Of course there are the naysayers who will claim that this will never work – that organic agriculture will never produce enough food for our ever growing world population and we need modern industrial agriculture in order to feed the world. This argument ignores the fact that currently there are millions of people starving and going to bed hungry every day even with industrial agriculture. Various studies point to the fact that the future will not be dominated by the corporate model of agriculture we see today. (DeSchutter 2011, Foley 2011, Natural Resource Council 2010, FAO 2012) Instead the world’s increasing demand for food can only be sustained by smaller, more localized forms of ecological agriculture that are much more efficient (both in terms of energy and in terms of the amount and quality of food produced from a given area of land).

Not only will our effort to reverse climate change improve the chances for our bees (and much of the rest of life) to survive in the long-term, but the bees will benefit greatly in the short-term from the removal of toxic pesticides from the environment. Of course this also means that the face of the beekeeping industry will also have to change dramatically (along with the rest of the agricultural industry). The huge monoculture farms that are only able to sustain themselves through the use of pesticides and fossil fuel burning machinery will become a thing of the past, as the world realizes the grave mistake it has made by embracing industrial agriculture.

Along with the phase out of these mega-farms will be the phase out of large-scale migratory beekeepers that not only rely on the existence of these inefficient farms for their existence, but contribute to the problem by requiring fossil fuels to power the trucks that run the bees around the country. In its place we are likely to see many farms returning to the days were bees are kept on the farm in order to meet pollination needs, and migratory beekeeping operations are likely to be much smaller in scale and more localized in their activity.

As I write this article, the 21st United Nations Climate Change Summit is taking place with 195 negotiators from around the world gathering in Paris, France for what organizers called the largest-ever gathering of its kind. Known as COP 21, the climate conference objective is to reach a legally binding and universal agreement on climate from all the nations of the world. Given that world leaders have been meeting like this for 20 years now and have so far failed to reach any meaningful agreement that has actually had the effect of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, this year’s summit is unlikely to succeed as well. In large part this failure is a result of our unwillingness to change. Until the vast majority of us are willing to change how we live and do things, heads of government and business leaders are unlikely to change the way they do things to any meaningful degree.

Although Monsanto used the occasion of the COP21 meeting to promote how much they are doing to help support agricultural practices that sequester carbon, the data suggests that chemical pesticides and herbicides like Monsanto’s Round Up actually cause carbon levels in soils to decrease.

Whatever the result of the COP 21 summit, I can guarantee that it is not going to be enough. We have reached the point where drastic changes are going to be required if we are going to limit climate impacts to severe rather than catastrophic consequences. But even if we miraculously stopped burning all greenhouse gasses tomorrow, reduced our energy use and waste, ramped up our renewable energy production, and transformed industrial agriculture to an ecologically harmonious model, the climate changes that we are seeing today will continue to get worse before they get better. As beekeepers, we will have to learn how to assess our vulnerability to the changing climate, plan and prepare mitigation measures and evaluate our capacity to adapt to keep bees in such an unpredictable world. This will be the focus of next month’s installment.

Special thanks to the Massachusetts Chapter of the Northeast Organic Farming Association and Jack Kittredge for the white paper: Soil Carbon Restoration: Can Biology do the Job?, which formed the basis for this article series. www.nofamass.org/content/soil-carbon-restoration-can-biology-do-job

Ross Conrad is the author of Natural Beekeeping, Revised and Expanded 2nd edition.

References:

Azeez, G., 2009 Soil Carbon and Organic Farming, UK Soil Association, www.soilassociation.org/LinkClink.aspx?fileticket=SSnOCMoqrXs%3D& tabid=387

DeSchutter, O., Agroecology and the Right to Food, United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner, Report presented at the 16th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, 8 March, 2011

Foley, J.A., et al., Solutions For a Cultivated Planet, Nature 478, 337-342, 20 October 2011

Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Toward the Future We Want: End Hunger and Make the Transition to Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems, 2012

Khan, SA., et. al., 2007 The myth of nitrogen fertilization for soil carbon sequestration, Journal of Environmental Quality; Nov/Dec 2007; Vol. 36

Khorramdel, S., et. al., 2013 Evaluation of carbon sequestration potential in corn fields with different management systems, Soil and Tillage Research, 133: 25-31

Kittredge, J., 2015 Soil Carbon Restoration: Can Biology do the Job?, Northeast Organic Farming Association/Massachusetts Chapter

Lal, R., 2004 Soil carbon sequestration to mitigate climate change, Geoderma 123, 1-22

Lal, R., et. al., 2007 Soil carbon sequestration to mitigate climate change and advance food security, Soil Science 0038-075X/07/17212-943-956
www.ars.usda.gov/research/publications/publications.htm?seq_no_115=222066

LaSalle, TJ., Hepperly, P., 2008 Regenerative Organic Farming: A Solution to Global Warming, Rodale Institute, pg 1 grist.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/rodale_research_paper-07_30_08.pdf (accessed 11/1/2015)

Machmuller, M., et. al., 2015 Emerging land use practices rapidly increase soil organic matter, Nature Communications 6, Article number 6995

Natural Research Council, Toward Sustainable Agricultural Systems in the 21st Century. The National Academies Press, Washington, DC, 2010

Quinkenstein, A., et. al., 2011 Assessing the carbon sequestration in short rotation coppices of Robina pseudoacacia L. on marginal sites in northeast Germany, in Carbon Sequestration Potential of Agroforestry Systems: Opportunities and Challenges, 2011 Kumar BM and Nair PKR (editors) Advances in Agroforestry 8

Six, J., et. al., 2006 Bacterial and fungal contributions to carbon sequestration in agroecosystems, Soil Science Society of America Journal 70:555

Inspecting the Hive
Have you ever wished that you could check your bees without having to suit up, get the smoker going, and dismantle each hive for inspection? How about in the winter, when it’s too cold to inspect bees without chilling the cluster? Or maybe, you want to remove a bee colony from a wall or ceiling, but don’t know where it is or how big it is?

Television shows and movies portray spying on people behind walls. That’s a microwave technology, expensive, not readily available, and not yet adapted to looking at beehives. Infrared imaging, on the other hand, has been used to image bee colonies, although it is not true through the wall imaging.

Objects, including living organisms, emit energy as electromagnetic radiation (heat) and light. The full range of wavelengths, extending from gamma rays to long radio waves, is referred to as the electromagnetic spectrum. Colors that we see are only a very small part of the light spectrum. We can’t see the IR light from a television remote, and we feel infrared radiation from heat lamps and electric heaters. IR or thermal cameras image the surface heat emitted and reflected by objects.

First developed and used by the military in Korea, thermal cameras were used to find things like a tank covered by a camouflage net. The net makes the weapon invisible to most people, unless you are color blind like my father. Since his visual perception of the world was different, this masking failed to fool him; although he couldn’t see cherries on a tree except when the round shape was highlighted against the sky.

In the same way that heat from a tank can be easily imaged by an IR camera, the heat of the cluster of bees in a beehive that is radiated from the outside surface of a beehive can be imaged by an IR camera. It’s not truly through the wall imaging, but if the cluster is reasonably strong, it’s heat signature can be readily seen and sized. Properly used, an IR camera will almost always detect a strong cluster, but it may miss a weak or small cluster, particularly if the cluster inside the hive is far from the hive surface at which the camera is aimed. Also, frames full of honey retain heat, so a full frame or two on the outside of the cluster may mask the cluster from that vantage point.

A colony cluster has a distinctive shape and heat gradient, with the hottest part in the center core. A queenless colony usually yields a diffuse heat pattern, since the bees aren’t clustering tightly, if there is little or no brood. Side views can be misleading, especially if there are full frames of honey next to the wall of the box. The best imaging position is from directly in front or behind a hive and down from the top, if there aren’t honey supers above the brood nest. Since honey retains heat and reflected sunlight masks emitted heat from inside the hive, the best time of day to use an IR camera is early morning, when night time ambient air temperatures are lowest and clustering tightest.

Why IR and Why Now?
We started testing IR cameras for hive inspections for the U.S. army about a decade ago. Our objective was to allow a soldier to quickly determine whether colonies used for surveillance and search purposes were adequately strong and healthy. The first camera that we used was a custom-built, research grade instrument, built by our colleagues at Montana State University at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars.

In 2011, we published our findings and tips for use. At the time, the only thing about IR cameras that was readily available to most beekeepers was the article itself. Some contractors were using hand-held IR cameras for energy audits, a few plumbers and electricians were using them, and law and fire departments had begun to purchase and use them. But the price was just too high to be cost effective for beekeepers.

I purchased my first, low-cost, thermal camera for about $4,000. Then in 2013 the IR camera market rapidly shifted from military applications to other sales, with a 23% non-military sales increase projected by 2018. By October 2014, entry level cameras were being sold at retail prices of $1,000 or less, and in 2015, the price barriers dropped to $400-700, with at least one camera currently available for $150. At the same time, off-the-shelf availability, ruggedness, image quality, and camera options increased dramatically. Prices have dropped precipitously and overall camera features and quality have dramatically increased; much like we’ve seen with laptop computers.

Pitfalls
First, and most importantly, buying an IR camera does not automatically make you a thermographer. You need to learn how to use the camera, and never forget, it only measures heat at the surface of the beehive. Factors like distance from the hive, wind, rain, snow affect accuracy. Also, the material composition, wood versus plastic or foam, the thickness of the hive wall, and the color of the hive will alter camera temperature readings. Higher end cameras provide adjustments to compensate; lower end point and shoot cameras normally don’t.

Second, if you buy your camera from a reputable IR camera distributor for companies such as FLIR or Fluke, their technical staff should know their product line well, but do not expect them to know anything about applying this technology to bees and beehives.

Also, be careful of “new to the market” visible thermometers. If it’s surprisingly low cost and is referred to as a dual-spot, imaging, or visual thermometer, it probably will not work for your purposes. Many of these entry level visual thermometers only measure temperatures on two or more points, then generate a picture that approximates the temperature gradient on the surface. Prices for these visual thermometers range from about $130-400; but this technology is not going to do the job you need.

Selecting A Camera
Over the next few months, I intend to review cameras from simple point and shoot to full featured auto-focus cameras with interchangeable lenses. I’ll also provide detailed instructions for use. If you must have a camera right now, I recommend renting. You can rent by the day or week from online sources, some contractor equipment suppliers, and in some locations, even box stores like Home Depot. Before you buy or rent, I highly recommend that you contact me for guidance at beeresearch@aol.com.

In choosing a camera appropriate for your use, the major considerations are thermal resolution and sensitivity. Digital thermal cameras tend to have low resolution compared to visible digital color cameras. Low end thermal cameras have about 4,800 pixels. Each of these pixels should provide a calibrated temperature data point. For imaging beehives, 4,800 data points may be a bit marginal. The next step up are cameras with 19,200 – 19,600 pixels. Better cameras have 76,800 pixels – that’s a lot of temperature data points in an image, maybe more than you need. The more pixels the finer the thermal detail and the easier it is for a human eye to detect subtle changes like evidenced by a queenless colony. Top-end, hand-held, IR cameras bump up the resolution to more than 700,000 pixels; at a hefty price. As per sensitivity, virtually all cameras other than the least expensive should be adequate for imaging beehives. The combination of higher resolutions and sensitivities will improve accuracy at greater distances. Low resolution cameras are only accurate when close, within a few feet of the colony being imaged.

If you really want to buy an entry level IR camera, there are four low cost options:

1) the original FLIR ONE that snaps onto the back of an i5 iPhone (and only the i5 models)

2) the newer FLIR ONE camera dongles that plug into the Lightning and microUSB port of a iOS or android phone or tablet

3) the competing IR plug-in camera from SEEK

4) the FLIR C2 point-n-shoot camera.

The first three options keep overall costs low by using the digital camera in a phone or tablet to increase detail, but these phone-based IR add-ons rapidly consume batteries (I get less than an hour), and the small plug-in camera dongle is likely to be quickly lost or broken. The current bargain is the first generation FLIR ONE for $150 while online supplies last, but it only fits the i5 series iPhone. The snap on camera makes for a sleek camera combination.

I’m impressed by the FLIR C2. This pocket-sized, entry level, point-n-shoot camera is ruggedized, with a hole for a lanyard in one corner. Thread a strong cord through it, put the cord around your neck, and the camera in your shirt pocket. This is a dedicated camera aimed at construction workers who need to spot things in the infrared but don’t necessarily have thousands of dollars to spend. At $699, it is more expensive than the $250-300 second generation FLIR ONE or SEEK XR which also require a camera or tablet. The C2 has its own built-in visible camera. SEEK has just released a similar camera that looks like a small GPS, but I haven’t had a chance to test it.

Finally, if you must have a camera immediately, purchase a visible/IR camera combination; now standard across the entire FLIR line and also available in some other brands. Aim a thermal (IR) camera at a sheet of paper, you’ll only see a blank heat image. Add a visible camera to the IR camera, and you’ll be able to read printing superimposed on the heat image. That’s useful for reading hive identification labels. Dual visible/IR cameras usually allow you to overlay visible and thermal pictures to outline things, and store both images as separate pictures, one visible, and one IR for reference.

In following articles, I’ll cover what IR cameras can be used for, more on how to use them, and review specific cameras by cost and brand, covering and comparing what can be a bewildering choice of features.

•Shaw, J.A.; Nugent, P.W.; Johnson, J.; Bromenshenk, J.J.; Henderson, C.B.; Debnam, S. Long-wave infrared imaging for non-invasive beehive population assessment. Opt. Express 2011. 19, 399-408.

•Yole Development. The faster shift toward commercial applications is due to military budget cuts and growing commercial markets. Uncooled infrared imaging technology and market trends report. September, 2013.