Der Lebensweg der Arbeitsbiene

I found this great illustration of the life cycle of the worker bee. What great drawings! I found it here: http://www.nordwestreisemagazin.de/bienen/wunderwelt2.htm

Today was warm with a mix of sun and clouds. I only visited the hive once today and there was mad traffic.

rainy days

The last two days have been pretty rainy and cool, but the bees were still flying.
Today is cloudy but hopefully the sun will come out for a while, before tonight's forecast rain.

sun and cloud

There was lots of traffic at the hive today, they were coming and going faster than I could count them.
This evening, it was 7ish, as I was standing by the compost bin watching the bees come and go as I usually do, there was a lull in the action for a short while. so as I was just standing there looking at the entrance, a worker came out and stood for maybe 30 seconds on the board, then took flight, but didnt go up and away like a foraging run, but flew straight at me and stopped to hover for a second maybe 6 inches from my chest. She moved to the left and then to the right very quickly, back and forth a few times, then she flew around me 2 times and went back inside.
I imagined her reporting back to the queen: "Yes, It's out there again today. It smells pretty bad but it seems harmless."

Rainy day

Grey drizzly day, but it didnt stop the bees from going out.



Check out this guy's article on beesource.com
He gives 10 principles of beekeeping backwards:
Principle #5: Beekeeping is not about honey.

beesource.com/point-of-view/charles-martin-simon/principles-of-beekeeping-backwards

"The mass-productionization of bee culture is the single most damaging process in our world. The great pioneers of modern beekeeping created vast empires without knowing what they were doing. The motivating point was and always has been, how to get the most out for the least put in. Those great men had no idea what old fools they were, and how universally pernicious their principles would become.

Take the drone situation for example. They reasoned correctly that since it only took a few drones to fertilize the queens, this business of a colony supporting hundreds or even thousands of drones was wasteful. So great minds went to the drawing board and described a hexagonal cell base parameter based on worker-bee size, uniformly embossing foundation with this pattern, thereby rendering it more difficult for the colony to raise drones. A war developed between the colonies attempting to raise drones and the keepers attempting to subvert their natural inclination. The apotheosis of this process was reached with plastic worker brood foundation, making it impossible. But even then, the bees drew cross-comb and tried to raise their drones there. Human ingenuity and technology prevailed, and drone populations decreased, honey production increased, the practice was deemed brilliant, and worker foundation was simply another unquestioned standard of the industry."

he is a real minimalist

Weather Report and Talked to the Neighbor

Yesterday's weather started out grey and cool but developed into a lovely sunny afternoon/evening, but its been gray skies and sprinkles all day today.
The bees have stayed mostly inside today with just  few sent out with only one or two bees arriving and leaving every minute or so, as opposed to 16 or more every minute observed on bright sunny days.

The Neighbor said the bees had been all over his thyme and that they had been drinking from his bird bath. I told him, "No charge for the pollination service."
He asked me, "How many bees are there?" and i didn't know what to say. "Hundreds and hundreds of them" was my best guess.
According to http://www.badbeekeeping.com/, there are about 3000 worker bees to the pound so I guess I could have said "thousands" and still been right.

Lithuanian Museum of Hives (still making honey!)

Found on Wikipedia... from Stripeikia Honeymaking Museum
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beehive

Somethin Goin Down in Bee Town

 

At about 2:30 today I noticed a large cloud of bees around the hive, their sound was pretty loud  and I thought they were mad about something, but I couldn't tell what might have upset them. They kept buzzing around for almost an hour before settling down again.

4 drones


orange pollen and yellow pollen.


Today's weather was mixed sun/cloud this morning but it broke out into a lovely sunny afternoon.
The thermometer is currently showing 20C but im sure its much warmer in the sunshine.

Grey Skies and Water

Today the weather is overcast and breezy, the temperature has not gotten over 16C. The current reading is 14C. Traffic today has been steady but rather low volume.

The bees need a safe source of water. They had been going to the stream, but Danna took away the rocks that made the slow moving part and set up an aquarium with rocks and moss for them to drink, and it is a pretty popular spot:

the key is having something safe to stand on while drinking, and this bee drinking fountain is perfect in that regard. however, the bees have also been going to a bowl that was left out for the birds, and it has proved a dangerous place

I fished several bees out of the water. i put them on the rock in the middle to dry out, hoping theyd make it back home none the worse for wear, but the two on the rock pictured above just stayed there moving very slowly -i think its too cold for  them to recover very quickly from a dunking like that.  I since dumped the water out of that bowl, but of course theres nothing to be done about the many dangerous puddles all around that a bee might fall into. Bees are not good swimmers.

Not to linger too much on danger and death, but there was a dead worker right outside the hive entrance this morning, then several hours later there was another. I dont know at what rate bees normally die off but i thought i might mention it here just in case, because they were lying on the board literally right outside the door.

i also witnessed a couple drones buzzing very loudly and moving back and forth in the air very rapidly outside the door before going inside. what are they doing when they leave the hive? my guess is they are looking for flying queens.

Pictures from Today's Inspection

Today's pictures didn't come out great, a lot of senselessly blurry ones, including some mysterious pictures of the ground. Sorry, but there were many factors that prevented good picture taking: i was really excited to look into a real live occupied beehive, then i became really nervous as the bees were walking all over my arms/hands/camera. It was easy to be nonchalant beforehand, but when they are walking on you its a whole different thing.
In addition to that, i used a old crappy camera... I had picked up PJ's good camera and looked at it, and i couldnt figure out how to turn it on. i didnt want to admit to being lame or technologically chalenged, ands suddenly the lid was coming off the hive and i just grabbed the other camera. so heres a few views of todays event:

This is a picture of what i thought was the queen. you can just see her body at the very top of the picture.

frame #3

All i can say is that it was tremendously awesome to look into bee city.

Opening the Hive

It was a lovely sunny afternoon when we took a peek inside today, a week after installing the 4 frame nuc. Lots of bees, but not sure if we saw the queen after checking all the centre frames. Saw at least some capped brood, but not really sure if there is more than last week. The bees have done a great job of cleaning up the old hive frames, and--except for the 3 black frames on the edge that weren't drawn out when installed--they're into the old hive frames' honey nicely, cleaning, and making more. Lots of foraging going on, pollen coming in from all over, different shades of yellow and orange. Looks good! Hope to see more in a few weeks, compare pictures. Growth?

DON'T BEE SKUNKED!

The Striped Skunk is widely distributed, easily recognized, and hard to forget. Opportunistic omnivores, skunks can find a meal anywhere. The apiary offers skunks a bountiful feast. On skunk can decimate the entire population of a hive in as little as three nights. Scratching at the entrance the animal alerts the guard bees to a disturbance at the door. As they respond to protect the hive, the skunk quickly devours the workers. As more bees emerge, they too are consumed. Satiated, the skunk will waddle away to sleep off its delectable meal and return the following evening. This behavior will continue until the hive is vacant. If it finds any way to access the hive, the wax, pollen, and honey would also be eaten.
http://www.jonesbee.com/skunked.html

Lorenzo Langstroth

Thanks to Rev Lorenzo Langstroth, inventor of the modern bee hive as we know it today.

Here are 10 bee keeping axioms from his book, A Practical Treatise on the Hive and the Honey-Bee, published in 1853:

There are a few first principles in bee-keeping which ought to be as familiar to the Apiarian as the letters of his alphabet :

1^st.  Bees gorged with honey never volunteer an attack.

2^nd.  Bees may always be made peaceable by inducing them to accept liquid sweets.

3^rd.  Bees, when frightened by smoke or by drumming on their hives, fill themselves with honey and lose all disposition to sting, unless they are hurt.

4^th.  Bees dislike any quick movements about their hives, especially any motion which jars their combs.

5^th.  Bees dislike the offensive odor of sweaty animals, and will not endure impure air from human lungs.

6^th.  The bee-keeper will ordinarily derive all his profits from stocks, strong and healthy, in early Spring.

7^th.  In districts where forage is abundant only for a short period, the largest yield of honey will be secured by a very moderate increase of stocks.

8^th.  A moderate increase of colonies in any one season, will, in the long run, prove to be the easiest, safest, and cheapest mode of managing bees.

9^th.  Queenless colonies, unless supplied with a queen, will inevitably dwindle away, or be destroyed by the bee-moth, or by robber-bees.

10^th.  The formation of new colonies should ordinarily be confined to the season when bees are accumulating honey ; and if this, or any other operation must be performed, when forage is scarce, the greatest precautions should be used to prevent robbing.

    The essence of all profitable bee-keeping is contained in Oettl’s Golden Rule : KEEP YOUR STOCKS STRONG.  If you cannot succeed in doing this, the more money you invest in bees, the heavier your losses ; while, if your stocks are strong, you will show that you are a bee-master, as well as a bee-keeper, and may safely calculate on generous returns from your industrious subjects.

Sunshine and Rain

Yesterday was rainy in the morning, but that didn't stop the bees from going out. The sun came out in the afternoon and traffic increased.
Today is slightly overcast and warm (thermometer is showing 22). The girls are proverbially busy with much coming and going.

Spider vs. bee

I'm afraid the bee lost this battle. 





Looked up what kind of spider it might be and discovered this blog and pics on this spider.

"Misumena vatia, the flower crab spider, lives only in North America, usually on flowers—and you can see why. Apparently it has the power to change colour over several days from white to yellow or vice versa to match the flower it's on."

Another good pic of this type of spider.

Regular Monday and Thanks

The bees seemed to have a regular workday today. There was a steady stream of workers coming and going; most workers arriving with their baskets full of yellow but a few come back with their legs loaded up with red.

The People of Davesland  want to thank PJ for bringing the bees to our small nation, and for teaching our people the ways of the bee. Now the Daveslandian countryside is even more rich with life and activity. Thanks PJ!!

Where pollen pants come from.

Who is this?

The Bee Chair

We found the local watering hole.

Busy busy bees

bees observed at 9o'clock collecting pollen. they seem to be coming and going more quickly than yesterday.

The first morning

At around 7:00 the sun was just starting to hit the yard and the temp was around 11 - 12 degrees. There were a few bees coming and going. They seemed to be the clean up crew as I saw a few bodies being carried away.

The first evening

at about 7:30PM, seven dead bees observed on the ground around the hive.

4:45PM many many bees observed entering the hive wearing fat bright yellow pollen-pants.
woo hoo!
i think they like their new place.

Putting the bees into their new home

bees arrive today!!!!!

This morning at about 10 o'clock the bees were put into their little house. nice sunny day, a few clouds , gentle breeze. pictures to follow