Seasons Turning

We are always seeing the changing seasons, aren't we? Fall really lets us know it, though.

At the beginning of August, something fun happened this season that I wanted to share here before I give an update on our hives. Some friends of ours said they had bees going in and out of a knot hole in an old oak tree. 

When we visited, we observed the activity and saw that they were honey bees!  Over the years of beekeeping, we have lost many bees to early season swarming, when half of a hive leaves with a queen to make a new colony.  We have always comforted ourselves that, although we are losing something, we are contributing to nature, but this was the first time we have ever seen a colony like this for ourselves. It was so amazing to see a colony "in the wild!" 

I have heard positions on either side of whether honey bees should be considered "native pollinators" since they were brought to the U.S. from England. Honey bees have stolen a lot of the public attention as the main pollinator species, when there are, in fact, 4,000 species of native bees in the U.S. plus TONS of other pollinating species like bats, birds, beetles, flies, wasps, and moths and ants that we also need to think about protecting (US Forest Service). That being said, honey bees do live on their own in the wild and they have been for hundreds of years. Beekeeping and the beekeeping community have taught me to acknowledge honey bees as an important species, especially for our food crops, and they have also have inspired me to learn more about other pollinators, wildflowers and how we can work to protect honey bees and many other species that are vital for our environment - and for us! 

As for our hives, we had the most we have ever had in one season.  We had six for a while, until we had to combine two that were agressive and in queenless, respectively. Well, we thought they may not make it, but we decided to wait one more inspection before taking action, just to find  during that next inspection that they hatched their own queen and were thriving. That ended up becoming a very productive and normally-temperamented hive! 

Mid-summer, we brought one hive home that we thought may have been replacing their queen and we wanted to supervise them a little more closely. Spoiler alert: this is now our strongest hive going into winter. 

In the last couple of inspections, we worked on taking out extra space in each hive in preparation for fall feeding. We removed extra honey frames and got all the hives down to 2 or 3 boxes.  The idea for this is that we then feed them syrup, since there is less nectar available outside, and they use the syrup to backfill all of the remaining space they have with honey so that it is within close reach for them during the frigid winter. 

Reminder here: honey bees eat pollen, nectar and honey. They make honey as a food reserve for when there is no pollen and nectar outside. Beekeepers have to decide how much honey to take and how much to leave in hopes that a hive can eat it to survive the winter months. 

In the process of reducing the hives' space, starting feeding, and getting them ready to transport back to out home for fall feeding, we discovered that our strongest and most honey-producing colony this year was gone.  The hive boxes were there, of course, but there was no syrup eaten, there were almost no bees inside and there were many wasps who were coming to rob the honey for their own use. 

We are fairly certain the bees were even from the neighboring hive and that this colony fell to Colony Collapse Disorder. This can be caused by a lot of factors, but we believe the main factor for our bees was the varroa mite. It is, unfortunately, a widespread parasite that affects honey bees. We lost one more hive before the transport home and our chance to test all of the hives.  Varroa mites are a tiny parasite that feeds on the blood of adult honey bees as well as the developing larvae and pupae in a hive. They can be devastating to a hive if left unchecked and they can make it almost impossible for a colony to be strong enough to make it through winter. We took some time last weekend to test our hives for mites. Our little man suited up and helped the whole time, which was super cool.

Here is a quick snapshot of how we look at mites during testing: 

These specks are the mites, which are just over 1 mm wide, that fell off of bees that we tested. We currently have three hives and one seemed especially weak.  It would be lovely to try to get all three through winter, so we will treat them for the mites and give them the best chance we can. 

For the next weeks, our responsibilities beyond mite treatment will include feeding the bees syrup and maybe doing some quick inspections. We will also be trying to fit in some fall activities while we have this weather here and before the seasons change again!