Give Bees a Chance...

Give Bees a Chance.  That's what is on the back of the colorful shirts you can see here at the most recent outdoor meeting of the Worcester County Beekeepers Meeting. This one was in Sutton and it was a nice hot day with clear weather.

Ken Warchol, Bee Inspector and fabulous teacher is showing how to do an assessment for mites.  This isn't for the faint of heart or the casual beekeeper, this is serious science. The idea is that you should test to determine if you you need to treat for mites by sampling about 150 bees from a hive. Ken demonstrated the sampling in a lovely and elegant fashion. Ken scoops just the right number of bees into alcohol and the rest remain undisturbed.

Me, well, lovely and elegant my sampling is not. I shake a frame of bees, nurse bees specifically, into a wash tub and scoop them with a measuring cup.  One cup of bees is about 150.  I knew you'd want to know.

After you have soaked the bees in the alcohol, you strain out the bees and pour the liquid through a coffee filter. Then you count. I love data!

Look closely at the filter. Really closely... there are three mites on the paper. You should treat if you have more than eight or nine mites. This sample is post treatment.  If you treat early in the year, you should retest. 

So how did my bees do? Our girls were fine. We had a good but not crazy high mite load in August so I treated. I did treat all three hives even though it might not have been necessary to treat the split hive (Cerulean's hive). They haven't really had enough time to get high mite levels. Nonetheless, I treated all the hives since they are in close proximity to the other hives.

Treating for mites can take many forms. We use formic acid and this is normally found in a hive but in low levels. We want to blast those nasty mites away from the bees. Blast we did and there are two potential consequence to this treatment in addition to fewer mites. First, and I quote here, the queen will have a  renewed  vigor in laying. That is exactly what happened in two hives. The queens are laying like crazy.

And second, you can lose a queen. That is exactly what is happening in one hive. The queen didn't die from the treatment but it messed with her something fierce. Her laying pattern is terrible and there aren't many larvae. It isn't a laying worker, it is a queen but a bad one. And the workers know it.  They are ready to toss her to the curb. The new queen should be out in the next week and I already have a great name for her. Just wait!

Finally, thank you to everyone who has purchased honey, hand cream, beeswax, and honey sticks. This helps to support the bees. We are not sold out, but there isn't much summer honey at the moment in our store. If you want some, drop me a line. Fall honey, hopefully, will be on the way in another month.

In my next post, I will give you some of my favorite uses of honey.  And it isn't just eating.

Awards

The girls are doing great - enjoying the warmish weather. I have completed their winter preparations with some extra insulation. I am trying to get them to take a ton of honey and nectar that I extracted this fall.

On a beekeeping note, I attended the Worcester County Beekeepers Association Thanksgiving Banquet. It was there that I got to pick up my spiffy silver cup award for having the Best In Show Honey from the Spencer fall this fall.

This cup I get to keep for a year. You can see my name right below Peter Niemi's name. I asked Peter last winter for his secrets to winning Spencer and he generously gave them to me. I followed them to the letter and ta da! the cup is mine for a year (and Peter didn't enter the fair this year!). If you ask me what he said, I will share.

This pretty glass trophy I get to keep forever. It is really beautiful.

But the evening wasn't over.

A few weeks ago, I got a call from Ken Warchol, the Bee Inspector. I got a management award for beeing a good beekeeper.

I got a beautiful plaque - sorry about the glare - it is such an honor to be thought of as a good beekeeper and be recognized by my fellow beekeepers. This is still a pretty new award and I am still blown away that Ken thinks I am doing a good job.

I am still gobsmacked.

Bee porn, slutty queens and vegetarianism...

We had three speakers at the fall Massachusetts Bee Meeting - a queen breeder, a researcher who studies queen quality among other things, and Harvard profession who studies public health.

What a great day! One of the speakers was late so we heard both talks by the Joe Latshaw (http://www.latshawapiaries.com/). While he produces queens for commercial beekeepers and works on a scale that is way beyond my wildest dreams, he explained to us - hobbyist beekeepers - how to use what he's learned and some of his techniques to become our own queen breeders on a small scale. What I took away from Joe's talks is that I need to think about the sustainability of my own apiary and I now have the tools (ok at least the directions) to select and rear my own queens to make that happen. Joe also stressed keeping records. This resonated with the scientist in me!

Our second speaker was Alex Lu from Harvard. He titled his talk "Putting your health in your hands" and was a great talk. I can see how much of what he spoke about being applicable to my hives - preventative care is way less expensive and more sustainable than treatment. I love the reminder to eat vegetarian before 6pm - save the world and your body by consuming less meat which contains high levels of chemicals and antibiotics.

The final speaker was David Tarpy from North Carolina State University. He explained why we need genetic diversity in our bee yards and that slutty queens are better. On average, honey bee queens mate with a dozen drones - but some will mate with that many in one day and still go out the next day for more! He showed us a great video of a queen on her nuptial or mating flight. Wow - bee sex is brutal and a one shot deal for the drone! Aside the idea that more is better for the queen, I learned a great deal about the reproductive health of honeybee queens. They are pretty amazing girls!

Bee meetings are great for socializing with other beekeepers too. I got to sit with two of the other beekeepers in Millbury - always a good time!

Bees and beer

The Worcester County Beekeepers Association held their Feb. meeting last week and decided on what they call a chefs supper. I call it a pot luck!

And while many folks felt that this was not the best pot luck, there was very little left over at the end!

The program was how to make wine and beer. I was particularly interested in learning how to make wine. The wine maker, Peter West, is also a beekeeper and farmer. Dave Richardson, pictured below, is a fairly new beekeeper and knows a tremendous amount about beer making.

Both making wine and beer are complex processes. We had the opportunity to taste the wares of both wine maker and brewer. Mr. West had a vast array of wines from his own orchard. It takes a boatload of fruit to make wine.

As always, I learn the most from talking with other beekeepers. While most everyone has been listening to their hives or cracking the top to check on their bees, I have not. There really isn't anything I am going to *do* to or for the bees right now, so opening the hive is just for me. I just cannot justify harassing the bees just to satisfy my curiosity. Nonetheless, I am going to try hard to find a way to hear my bees without bugging them. My favorite husband has a car tool that acts like stethoscope. Looks like I might be raiding the garage for a new beekeeping tool!

I cornered the man who won the most awards for honey this year, Peter Niemi. Poor man - must have thought I was stalking him! He was kind and generous with his knowledge and gave me some tips on honey exibiting next year: bottle early, store in a warm spot, and keep the honey out of the sunlight.

At the end of a lovely evening spent with wonderful folks, I took home one new piece of knowledge: I don't think wine or beer making will be in my future.