Bees Being Bees!

The weather is still pretty strange this spring but our bees seem to be doing just fine. In Chanhassen, the four hives are bringing some nectar and pollen. The bee population is increasing rapidly in each hive. Friday May 25, 2012 when we visited them, we gave them 1/2 gallon of sugar syrup each, they had completely drank their almost full pails from last week. They still had a bit of pollen patties , so none were added.

The Russian bees of Chanhassen, were very calm and humming in unison. So much so that 2 young ladies came out, and were watching us only 3-4 feet away, wearing shorts and flip-flops! Not a problem, the bees were more interested in their own little world. We took the time to show them, a couple of frames with bees, larvae and eggs. I think they also saw the queen very quickly. The best was when they enjoy tasting fresh honey by dipping their finger on a frame full of honey :) Always wonderful to spread our love for the bees.

It might seems odd that the honeybees still take the food that we give them, but with all the stormy weather that we had recently, and still the small amount of foragers...the honeybees don't have to go too far to eat during those "tricky" days.

Right now, there are many flowers in bloom : Yellow sweet clover (Melilotus officinalis),  White rattlesnake root (Prenanthes alba), Leafy spurge (Euphrobia esula) and Garlic mustard (Alliaria peliolata). Those are the ones that I have noticed on roadsides, there are many more.

So, nothing special to report, just that everything is going well...can't complaint!

Honeybee with White Eyes and Thorax

Drone with white eyes and thorax. Photo: Ben Pouliquen

In April we were visiting our bees in Shakopee, one of our first Spring inspections and at the entrance lying dead on it's side I found this bee. From standing up, I could see that the honeybee had some white marks, and wondered why it was "painted" white! To my surprise, when I knelt down to pick up the cadaver, I realised that it was not paint but part of its body. It was obviously a male (drone), wider and stouter body and huge eyes. I had never seen this in my life. I took the little body and place it in a small match box, placing it in my pocket as if it was a great treasure.

I went to the University of Minnesota and started showing my bee around, no one could answer me. I then decided to see Dr. Marla Spivak...right away without hesitation: "It is a gene mutation! But I have never seen one (honeybee) with its thorax white." She went on to explain that drones are developed from unfertilized eggs giving them only one set of chromosomes, meaning that all recessive genes are expressed in drones, and nothing can be hidden by any dominant genes. Dr. Spivak also mentioned that although it a rare occurrence,  drones can live in the hive for quite some time as it is dark and no one  need to see (all bees use their antennae and are guided by pheromone). Although mine had pearly white eyes and thorax, she had seen some variations ranging from ivory, garnet, reddish and even chartreuse! Those drones are blind and as  they fly out of the hive they will get lost, unable to get back and will soon die.

I looked on line and found this interesting diagram of possible combinations of white eyed honeybees. So far I have not heard of or seen another white eye and thorax honeybee. I brought a picture to my Hobby Beekeepers Club, no one had seen one in their beekeeping's lifetime! I guess I was lucky!

www.glenn-apiaries.com/oddball.html

The Russian Queen Project

Primorsky Krai region in mustard color.

Russian bees (Apis mellifera) originated from the Primorsky Krai region of Russia. From this region, Dr Rinderer collected 50 queens from different local beekeepers, and decided to set up a resistance-test apiary in the Primorsky territory of Russia.

Experimental bee yard in Khorol, Primorsky (about 200Km NW of Vladivostok)

These Russian bees have been coexisting for the last 150 years with the parasite Varroa which is decimating  colonies in the States and around the world. Russia went through a very difficult period of loss of bees (all documented) for many decades, until the Russian honeybee modified its behavior protecting herself from mites, and started grooming each other. This new acquired "mite-resistant" trait was really appealing to American scientists. A new stock of bees was about to come to America.

Marsh Island, LA

 In 1997,  Dr. Rinderer imported 100  Russian Queen honeybees to the United States and were quarantined on a barrier island in Louisiana, called Marsh Island. For about two years, the USDA tested whether this new stock of bees had evolved resistance to Varroa. The scientists concluded that it had and then from this original 100 Queens, in 1999 24 lines were selected from early data in long term test, and were ready to be propagated for field trial.

After many, many manipulations of selection in 2005 daughters from 18 selected breeder Queens were propagated and set up in yards for final evaluation. These known as block A, and block B were released to American breeders in 2006 and 2007 respectively.

It is sometimes in 2007 that the Russian Honeybee Breeders Association's members received drone (male) stock in preparation for propagation, maintenance and selection of best Russian Queens. Soon after, Russian bees were available to the beekeepers.

2010-now, the Baton Rouge Bee Lab continues to work on best selection of other traits of Russian honeybees like overwintering, build up and swarm characteristics.

Beautiful Russian Queen

The bees have been proven to be mite resistant and apparently beekeepers have been using them with great success. Beside the mite resistance, Russian bees are known for their survival of harsh winters, they also have a quick build up in the spring, and match the nectar and pollen flow. Therefore brood rearing and and colony populations tend to fluctuate with their environment. Another interesting characteristic is that bees of this stock have the urgency to have queen cells present in their colonies almost all the time; other honeybees rear queens only during times of swarming or to replace a frail queen.

This is the story of the Russian honeybees. Since I installed MY Russian bees in Chanhassen on a beautiful prairie; they have been beautiful, busy, very calm and quiet. As I place my ear close to the hive, each time I can hear a distinctive, uniform and soft humming. A sign that they must be happy!

The Scoop on Russian Bees

USDA-ARS www.ars.usda.gov

A while ago I said that I would tell you the story of the Russian bees, and why I have decided to raise them this year in Minnesota.

As I love my honeybees, I read a lot about them, and always look around to improve what Ben and I  are doing with our colonies to make our lives and the bees' more enjoyable!

When one takes a beekeepers' class more than often it is encourage to raise Italian bees because of their docility, resistance to several diseases and large amount of honey production. They were imported to the United States in the late 1880s and early 1900s, and became very popular. Even today Italian bees are favored by most queens producers in North America today. So, as a good student this is what I did, I started with Italian honeybees. They were and are fabulous, easy going and very gentle. However, as my knowledge of beekeeping developed, and the mites came along, and the losses started happening....I started to wonder.

Maybe I should look into a bee that is better adapted to my climate, and my region. I then decided to raise the honeybees developed by Dr. Marla Spivak from the University of Minnesota, called Minnesota Hygienic: They were bred for their sensitivity to detect when a bee at the very early stage(pupa) is sick, and remove it from the colony preventing a possible "crisis". I was successful with those, and still have many MN hygienic queens in most of my colonies.

But, still this bee is mostly raise in California or warmer climate, and is after all originally from the temperate region of Northern Italy. The fact is: I live in Minnesota! Not is some nice, sunny, blue sky 72-75F every day kind of weather . Oh, I wish I did:) I got very interested in the study done by Dr. Thomas E. Rinderer, a bee geneticist. Over the past 20 years, leading scientists observed the continued decline of the honeybee population around the world. At the beginning this important vanishing of the bees was solely associated with a pest (Varroa destructor) that had been found in Wisconsin in 1987 in colonies belonging to a migratory beekeeper. This pest was probably in the United States several years prior its detection.
For more than a hundred years, all American beekeepers were relying on honeybee stock imported from one European place, and were bred, and bred and bred without any new "blood". In the last decade or so, importation of new stock of honeybees have happened, and new breed have emerged, making the honeybee population a little bit more diverse.

In 1994 Dr. Rinderer working for the USDA, Honeybee breeding, Genetics and Physiology Laboratory in Baton Rouge, Louisiana took a trip to Russia to investigate some honeybees which were possibly resistant to the Varroa mites, in response to the terrible bee population decline in the USA. The Russian Queen Project was born!

The latest in Chanhassen is all good news: All new colonies started from packages are well on their way. The bee population is now increasing rapidly. I mostly stopped feeding pollen patties as I am assuming pollen is available, and also the foragers' population has increased allowing them to feed the colonies adequately. I still give them some sugar syrup because the weather has been very strange...very hot for a couple of days, then rainy, windy and gray! Honeybees are finicky, they love sunny, calm and dry weather...otherwise they get grumpy, and stay home!

In Shakopee, the colonies are strong and are very busy, collecting a load of nectar and pollen. We have 2 supers already (will be our honey later) on top of the hives, and summer is not here yet.