The Strange Disapearance of the Russian Bees

June 25, 2012

Russian Bees Inspection

I had left the Russian hive full of bees, from nurse bees to foragers, lots of eggs, and different larval stages. The colony as a whole seemed healthy, smelled like flowers. They had lots of honey, and had collected plenty of nectar and pollen. The hive had grown from a package of 3,000-4,000 bees to a healthy 40,000 to 50,000 bees. they were vigorous and busy. The queen was laying well, and the brood pattern was even and beautiful.

Then horror and despair hit me. I was on my routine hive inspection mid morning, warm and sunny...a perfect day....until I approached the Russian hive. Not a bee could be seen, not a bee could be heard. Right away in my mind, like a slow movie, scenarios were unfolding. But my brains could not process it all. I opened the cover, removed the inner cover...no sounds, no bees. I then removed the 2 supers that I had placed on the colony the week before because the nectar flow had started and I did not want to miss this opportunity to get honey. Both completely depleted of bees, no one was working! I was starting to panic, where are my bees? I looked through each frame of the top hive box, which was full of busy bees, and brood the week before. Nothing, only this unfamiliar silence. I removed the top box as I could hear a faint almost imperceptible and soft buzzing. At last MY bees crawling on 3 rather empty frames, where the brood was reduce to the size of a fist. No adult bees or foragers could be seen, they were gone! As if to acknowledge my horrified presence... the Russian Queen (painted, so my original queen) walked across the top bar, looking rather mystified, seemingly not knowing what she was suppose to do. Beside looking a bit lost, she looked terrific, plump, and healthy. It was comforting for a brief instant...because where were my bees? They could not have starved to death, the hive is full of pollen, nectar and honey. In addition there were only a handful of dead bodies, 5-8 dead bees on the bottom board. So they did not die either. Where were they then? I ruled out swarming almost right away, because usually a swarm of bees leave with the old queen( in my case my painted Russian but she is home!), leaving the newly emerged queen and a good population in the hive. I did not see one mite, so Varroa was dismissed as a culprit. I looked in trees to see if they had decided to swarm anyway...nothing. I looked all around the hive looking for dead bees...still nothing. I was dumbfounded. Of course, I knew about the disappearance or vanishing of the bees in Europe and in America but still. I read a lot on the subject, scientific papers, new studies, even work with researchers who are trying to explain the phenomenon. But this happens to others, certainly not MY bees. Somehow, I did not want to believe it, to acknowledge what was happening. I was in complete denial. For goodness sake! I read about it, I am not suppose to experience it. This is what I wanted to believe, they left but they will be back...soon, very soon and everything would be all right and perfect again. My perfect little world of bees. However I knew at about 98% what had happened, but who likes bad news?

After a couple of email exchanges with one of the best experts in the world, the sober truth was unraveled. I was just experiencing all the symptoms of Colony Collapse Disorder or CCD. A deep sadness came over me, and strangely enough not totally because of my own colony succumbing to this mysterious disappearance, but because I was at that instance remembering a now "famous" commercial beekeeper who experienced this phenomenon few years ago. In 2006, David Hackenberg from Pennsylvania, lifted his wooden lids and did not found a single walking, buzzing honeybee anywhere. In my head I could see him opening his hives, one by one, and being frantic. That year he had lost 2,000 colonies or 80% of his apiary.

CCD is reported around the world. It can only be called CCD when the colony is devoid of adult bees but no evidence of dead bees are around, and that's a blunt reality.

It is always easy to read about something, but to experience it...that's another story.

So to help my colony, I have decided to feed the honeybees again sugar syrup and pollen. I am also giving them a frame of healthy brood with no bees from my other healthy colonies for the next three weeks. That's all  I can think of doing to help them hopefully rebound...since I still had a queen and  a few home.

Flowers, Flowers, Everywhere!

Birdsfoot trefoil

June 22, 2012

Last update of June 2012. Although we had a lot of rain and some stormy evenings, the bees are still busy; gathering the precious nectar and pollen. In Chanhassen, our 4 hives are doing well. We added 2 supers (boxes that we can harvest in the fall) per hive 10 days or so, but they seem to ignore them at the moment. They are actually working for themselves, lots of eggs, brood, nectar, pollen and some honey. During the hot days, the bees stay outside clustered on the hive...nothing to worry about but a bit unnerving if seen for the first time.

One hive #3, was so populous that we decided to add a third hive body (large box) for the queen to lay her eggs. Today I saw that she had visited the third "story" of her colony and detected plenty of eggs.

3 out of 4 colonies in Chanhassen  were calm, and gentle. The honeybees were minding their own business when I was doing my inspection  and thus required very little smoke. I did a VERY thorough   inspection, looking at every frame...one by one! And noting how many frame of brood, eggs seen, pollen , nectar and honey. It took me 2 hours! Doing so once in a while  is important. I can detect if something is not right, and deciding what to do about it. The 4th. colony was feisty, and very busy...flying everywhere. At one point I was in a cloud of bees, and I had to give up. I did not want to upset them more than I needed. I looked at about 12-13 frames before closing up the colony. Still it gave me a good sense. All bees seem healthy, no mites that I could see. I will keep my finger crossed.

Monday, June 18 2012
I went to Shakopee, where we have 3 and 4 supers on each colony respectively! The last super is over my head! The bees looked good and healthy! The supers are getting some honey and each time a little bit heavier, that's good for us :)

Tomorrow, June 23 I will visit the Russian bees.

The nectar flow is on going...look at all the beautiful wildflowers along the highways....precious!

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.

The Russian Bees are Settling

April 24, 2012

I went to see the Russian bees in the afternoon to make sure they were doing fine. After 20 some hours the bees had not removed the grass that Theresa had stuffed in the smallest entrance. I removed all of it, opened the cover to checked if they could drink the syrup, and the bees could. Obviously when I opened up the colony, the honeybees were flying all  around discovering their new surrounding, they were buzzing loudly with energy. I watched them for a bit, and could see that they were investigating the flowers on a tree nearby. I was also  observing closely if the foragers were getting in and out of the hive without any problems; and they were. Satisfied, I closed up everything watching the cloud of bees in the sun.  The honeybees seemed "happy" to finally fly instead of being contained. My inspection was done. I will return Sunday to check if the queen has been accepted and is laying. The Russian bees are settling in nicely!