What you can do to help bees....

This article came across my desk today from Grit Magazine. Six ways to help the honeybees.

The list is quite similar to my list here on this blog but she suggests letting your lawn go to clover. That is a great suggestion. Bees love clover and it is a rich source of nectar for them. Best yet, it is green even during a dry summer and feels nice on your feet if you are inclined to walk barefoot.

The author also says that if you are going to use pesticides, do it when the bees are in their hives. This is good advice for chemicals that will break down quickly. However, many chemicals won't break down that quickly. Just DON'T use them. Find an organic alternative.

I wish this picture were from my yard, but alas it is not. I took this picture while in Disney Land. Somewhere nearby there are bees and they planted the mostly lovely gardens for pollinators.

Citizen Science

It's that time of year again where my email box starts showing signs of spring. Citizen Science projects that I've participated in previously are asking for my continued support and data collection.

Citizen Science programs ask lay people to collect data in prescribed manners and return it the lead researcher. This data is used to create a far larger database of information than a single scientist or even research team can collect in a season.

I've collected data on for a number of different projects including Christmas Bird Counts, Great Backyard Bird Counts, Monarch Watch, Herp and Odenate Atlases, FireFly Watch and The Great Sunflower Project.

But is this really science?

In part this question comes from my desire to get more people doing science starting at an early age (see my other blog Messy Fingers). When we collect information on clouds, dog poo, or even honeybees, are we really doing science?

Science at its heart is both a verb and a noun. The collecting or describing of lots of stuff or data is really just science as a noun. Citizens are merely collecting bits of information that are fed to someone else. Citizens are not analyzing the information or designing the experiment. Citizens might see themselves as working as scientists, but they don't generally collaborate with the scientists on the structure of a scientific inquiry or the analysis of the data. Perhaps, a citizen scientist may get to watch a presentation of the project they collected data for but they won't be presenting the information themselves.

So, what part is science?

In my mind, none. But don't for a second think that I don't support citizen science in every crazy, tangled, gorgeous way.

Citizen science gets regular folks thinking about science. Curiosity is fed and conversations started. This can lead some citizens to make deeper inquiries and ask richer questions about how data is used, analyzed, and shared. And that is worth the misconception.

So what am I going to do this summer?  I am continuing my role in Firefly Watch, The Great Sunflower Project, and I am going to join in the Lost Ladybug Project. Honestly who doesn't like to catch fireflies on a warm summer night right before bed?

If you want to add data to a project here are a few clearing houses of projects:
Citizen Science Alliance - astronomy and climate projects
Cornell Bird Lab - well bird related projects and great ones for kids
National Wildlife Federation - nature related projects for kids
wikipedia - lists a variety of projects but can be overwhelming so use this if you know what sort of project you want or can't find something anywhere else

February Update

We had crazy weather this week. Sunday was nearly 60' and all three hives had bees flying. They took time to do a cleansing flight and pee everywhere. I am still concerned about our weakest hive but so far so good.

Does this mean we are out of the woods and our bees survived the winter?

No. March is typically the hardest  month for bees. The new baby bees are starting to emerge and the overwintering bees are dying out. All that is happening while there is little to no forage. Skunk cabbage will be out in a few weeks but that yields only pollen.

Keep your fingers crossed and think good thoughts.

What Beekeepers get for Christmas

Every year in January I lament not going out to the hives in December to give the bees some bee candy. Usually by the time January rolls around temperatures are too low to really keep the hives open for more than a few seconds to slip in the disk of hard sugar.

This year we got a wonderful gift of a day that was near 70' and we remembered to go into the hives! And this was right before Christmas too. Bonus!  My DH and I suited up as bees disturbed this time of year are unpredictable.

Cerulean's hive is looking just fine. We are most concerned about these girls as they are the weakest. They were a sweet and gentle as ever.

Star's (daughter of Sunshine) is doing amazingly well. They built wax- yes, you read that right, they had built wax, which is a most unusual task for bees this time of year. When I opened up the hive to slip in the sugar disk, I ran into some wax comb that wasn't there early November. I hadn't opened up the hive that far since, so they've been busy. This meant that the whole top of the hive had to come apart. Their honey super is nearly empty but the hive is still hefty. These girls did  not like having their hive disturbed and flew all over he place. They settled quickly - whew!

Astrid's hive is doing quite well. They are just as gentle as ever. I am concerned that there is a gap in their hive. I've tried covering the gap with duct tape (my favorite fix-it in the apiary) but it won't stick well on the outside of the hive this time of year. I am open to suggestions.

This was one of the other fun gifts I received for Christmas. I have a friend who travels a lot and he got me honey from south Asia and some buckwheat honey. I love the packaging on the honey that looks like a tube of lotion. What a clever idea. The honey came with two beautiful cards that were hand drawn.

Hope everyone has a sweet New Year!
Go bees!!

Baking with honey

I love to bake with honey. This was true even before I became a beekeeper. Honey keeps your baked goods soft and chewy longer than sugar.

Here is a link to one of my favorite honey recipes. I am going to experiment this year with making with just honey as the sweetener. Promise to keep you informed.

Do we have CCD?

A question that we are often asked, is are we having a problem with Colony Collapse Disorder?

The simple answer is no, CCD doesn't usually affect hobbyist beekeepers. Nevertheless, there have been record losses of beehives in this area over the past few years.  A couple of different organizations are working to tease out the causes, but with 30% losses each winter, we aren't far from having no bees.

What is causing this sort of loss?  There are many reasons that all add up to some serious worries. 

1. Weak bees.  Bees are assaulted by various pesticides as they go from flower to flower. In addition, the variety of flowers bees visit is diminishing. 

If you use any kind of pesticide (for grubs in your lawn or pests in your garden) think twice. Is there an alternative that is gentler or can I even live without the pesticide. While these many not directly kill the bees, they can diminish their ability to fight diseases. 

If you only at one kind of food, even if it is healthy, the lack of variety will weaken you.

2. Poor queens. The genetic diversity of bees is diminishing. The queen breeders have smaller and smaller stock each year. 

3. Diseases and pests. With the globalization of beekeeping comes a globe-ful of pests that attack bees. Just in the last year I have seen a rise in the number small hive beetles in our hives. 

4. Poor management. Beekeeping is an intense hobby that requires continuing education. No beekeeper wants to admit that they made bad decisions but it does happen. 

So what can we do? 

1. Support local bees. Buy local honey, reduce or eliminate the use of pesticides in your yard, and plant native plants.

2. Think local bees. Advocate with your neighbors and town government to do the same - support local beekeepers and reduce pesticide use.

3. Support small farmers. Most small farmers plant a greater variety of produce than large scale farms. The greater the diversity of forage, the stronger the bee.

4. Use your charitable dollars. Support organizations like Heifer International and buy bees or Mass Audubon.

Go bees.

Varietal Honey

How does a beekeeper harvest varietal honey?  Once again just like wine, when you have a varietal honey it is from a single source. That means that blueberry honey is harvested from blueberry flowers, orange blossom honey from orange blossoms, and ...well you get the picture.

So how could that work?

A beekeeper will put a honey super, the smaller box where the honey is stored, on top of a hive near at least two acres of a particular kind of flower, say cranberries, just as the flowers are getting started. Then the bees go and suck up all the lovely nectar from the cranberry flowers, bring that  back to the hive, and make honey in the super.

Bees have this really wonderful single-mindedness that varietal honey makers exploits. When a forager  bee has a strong nectar source, think acres and acres of cranberries, she tells all her sisters about it. They go out and enjoy it returning to the hive to tell more bees about it. Soon the whole cadre of foragers is on the cranberry flowers and little or nothing else.

Just as the blossoms are fading, the beekeeper returns to the picture. She cannot be late or the bees will start adding honey from the next flower in bloom in the area. She will take the honey super off and do one of two things. She can put a new super on or move the bees.

The beekeeper extracts the honey and now has a varietal honey, in this case, cranberry honey.  What is the point of doing such a thing? I think it is two things. First taste - varietal honey has a wonderful palate of colors and flavors. Second money - varietal honey commands a premium price. There are some terrifically rare honeys that are quite expensive.

Some of my favorites are:
*Lavender - super light and floral
*Clethra - also light and delicate with a delightful aftertaste
*Blueberry - medium colored with a strong fruitiness - rarely crystallizes

A few others I've tried are:
*Manuka - tea tree honey - medicinal and camphory {shiver}
*Buckwheat - dark, mahogany colored - I can't get over the grassy taste