Last Warm Days of Fall

Both September 22 and September 29 weekends' have been dedicated to feed the bees sugar syrup. They are still drinking a lot, and storing it for winter. In my car I have 10 gallons of sugary solution...6 white pails and 2 Jerry cans!

It is still very dry, and relatively warm. Most flowers are spent; few asters and goldenrods can be seen along the roads among the desiccated flora. 

 We are in a strange transitional weather pattern, with many fluctuations. But the honeybees seem to live their lives and continue to gather pollen, and some floral nectar. The drone ares still home but are  roaming a bit more... they may fell that their days are counted. The foragers are collecting their last food of the season. The "winter" bees will be born soon and will live until spring. The queen is laying fewer eggs as the cold and shorter days are approaching. All must be ready, and final touches are underway.
I will check their syrup levels again at the end of the week. It is supposed to be colder with a couple of nights in the 30's. That means the bees will form a ball to keep warm and will stop drinking the sugar solution.

This bee seemed to have fun in the sun...flower! She will bring all that bounty home.

Honey bee gathering pollen Photo: L. Vogel

Extracting the Harvest!

Uncapping the frames of honey with hot knife

Saturday September 8, 2012

Around 11:00 am, we started extracting our honey. Each frame has to be uncapped: removing the fine layer of wax that the bees diligently placed on every cell full of ripe honey. Ben uses a hot knife which melts the wax,opening the cells and  exposing the honey.                                                                                                                                                             

                                            

      

Uncapped frames are lined up in the extractor

Then the frames are placed vertically in the extractor. This machine uses centrifugal force, so the honey is "ejected" on the side of the extractor gliding to the bottom of the cylinder.

Working hard!

Ben has  a helper:Jamison

  

Soon the honey starts to trickle slowly into our large bucket. We use a double filter, to strain. This keeps the debris and  most of the bees legs and wings out!

It was a rather cool day, so the honey was not flowing so well. Liz got the solution...more heat was  needed. Since she is raising a few chickens, she has those heat lamps and an electric heater. After plugging everything...the fuse could not handle all that power! We had to scale down after tripping the fuses twice! Finally the garage was warm enough, and the honey was percolating nicely.

We collected 185 lb (84kg) of honey, and 1.28 lb (578g) of wax. The honey is still in huge buckets, we will bottle later.
 We had a wonderful day, and were happy to see our friends  Jamison and Liz.

Honey Harvesting: Day One and Two

Set up in the garage

As fall comes,   harvesting our honey was our ritual the weekend of September 6,7,8 2012. Friday 6, we set up our extraction station in the  garage.... until we can have a proper honey house! One day:)

Saturday 7th. We headed to Shakopee with our friend Liz. Peter, the farm owner got his ATV ready for us. Ben was happy  and had fun driving  all the way to our 2 hives at the end of the field. We had to clear the squashes, and vines before driving on the made up path.

Once at the hives we had to take each frames from each box (super) and brush gently the bees off. The honeybees were good but a bit sneaky...finding their way back to the cleaned frames from time to time.

Happy beekeeper!

Brushing the frames

Carrying the "bee" free honey supers

Beautiful frame of capped honey

Honey bee drinking the nectar on a frame

Our ride is almost ready to go!

While Ben and I were brushing, Liz was ready with a towel to cover the frames so the bees would not settle again on them. We had to work fast but with grace and slow movements. No need to upset the honeybees unnecessarily! In all it went very well, we got only a handful of bees in the car while driving home. And no we did not wear our veils all the way home... that would have been suspicious! Thanks to Liz who took all of the pictures to document this blog post. Next harvesting day.

New Research about CCD (Colony Colapse Disorder)

A new research on Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) lead by Dr. Jay D. Evans from the Bee Research Lab (ARS) in Beltsville, Maryland  was just released on August 21, 2012. Here's the link to the article: http://home.ezezine.com/1636/1636-2012.08.24.13.30.archive.html

Today I will try to explain what I have read and understood from this new release. As you have probably heard the honey bees are "disappearing"(remember it happens to one of my colony.. ..most of my Russian bees were gone without any traces, leaving the queen, a little brood and a handful of workers), at a rate around 30% of colony loss or about 400,000+ colonies each winter in the USA alone! That is tremendous! This decline has been going on for about 6 years now and the implications are substantial to our economy as well as to our well being.

In the article "Pathogen Webs in Collapsing Honey bee colonies" recently published, the new study seem to indicate that the collapse of honey bees in the United States differs from one region to another. However pathogens were in greater abundance  and incidence in colonies showing CCD than healthy controlled colonies. Colonies affected seem to be more susceptible to a diverse set of pathogens, the co-infections acting together in synergy producing a rapid reduction in worker bees a characteristic of the disorder.
The scientists also showed that  individual bees can have this "mix"and interaction  of pathogens without affecting the colony as a whole. This shows that pathogen interactions is an important factor of bee disease. Many microorganisms affect honey bees in general, and/ or the colony entirely but  their effects is not well known today.
One thing is clear from this paper: CCD colonies did have more pathogen species present than did non- CCD colonies. However these pathogens are also present in non-CCD colonies but not at the level of CCD hives. Some specific viruses have a higher incidence as well as gut parasites N. apis, and C. mellificae. N.apis...some 20-fold higher! In addition, what is remarkable is that it is a certain combination of viruses is needed to show the symptoms of CCD.
Conclusion:

• Honey bee pathogens exist in healthy colonies as well as those affected by CCD
• Many honey bees can be infected with pathogen loads but without affecting the colony as a whole
• Higher pathogen loads is a hallmark of CCD but not necessary the colony's size.
• A specific set of pathogens, in a certain amount working together show symptoms CCD colonies
• No single pathogen or virus is responsible for CCD
• Novel strains of virus (LSV) "provoke" a shift in the composition of gut bacteria: may be a bio marker for CCD detection

However, having observed and quantified scientifically the role and relationship between pathogens, honey bees and the tremendous decline all over the world...the cause of CCD remains ambiguous. Researchers will continue their quest to find an answer which perhaps will save our honey bees.

The USDA now estimates that every third bite we consume in our diet is dependent upon honey bee pollination. In the US alone, the total contribution of pollination in terms of added value to fruit crops exceeds $15 billion per annum (Kaplan, http://www.ars.usda.gov/IS/pr/2007/070906.htm 2007). CCD-related losses (direct and indirect) have been estimated at $75 billion (Swinton et al., Ecological Economics volume 64, pages 245-252; 2007). (taken directly from Beelogics.)

Honey bee Pollination Helps!

Harvest in Chanhassen!

September 2, 2012
Look at the beautiful vegetables, melon and eggs! All harvested from the Chanhassen apiaries where Liz and her Mom have a huge garden. Today, I am making a big salad for lunch using these veggies and eggs. For dessert a slice of melon! I have to believe that our bees helped a little in pollinating some of their crops. Liz and Gayle tell me that they see honeybees foraging all the time in their garden....That makes me very happy!

Friday morning Liz helped me with the Fall bee "chores". From the four hives at this location, we removed the supers that were empty: the bees did not give us a surplus this year. They worked mainly on building their hive, caring for the young bees , gathering pollen and nectar, and keeping the queen healthy. Together we placed in each brood box 2 cardboard strips that were soaked in  natural hop and food grade products mixture, it is called Hopguard. It is highly effective against Varroa mites, the number one enemy of honeybees.

Hops female flowers

Hopguard strip (picture: Beta Tech Hop Products)

Hop plants belong to the Cannabaceae family which include the well known Cannabis (hemp) and less known Celtis (hack berries). You may know about this plant as it is use in flavoring and stabilizing  beer! To make this natural medication, only female flowers or cones are used, the species is Humulus lupulus. Now you know everything :)

At this time of year, honeybees are very protective of their nest (hive) because they have gathered a lot of food since Spring which will be their reserve for this winter. So, when we started moving boxes and adding the hop strips a couple of colonies were really mad. We were in a cloud of terrified bees, hopefully Liz was there to "puff" the smoker around us! As soon as we were done, they would calm down...but it can be unnerving to work in this situation. Liz did an awesome job! I was glad she was by my side.

We refilled the water pans that I had set up in July when the temperatures were 80-100F . In two weeks, I will do it all over again...hopefully the bees will remember that I am not a horrible intruder, I just want to protect them against the big bad mites!