I've now set up the calendar of visits for 2017. So, if you're a resident of the Widcome West area, why not come along and see the hives for yourself? You'll get to see inside a beehive, hold a frame of honeycomb, and maybe - if you have sharp eyes - you'll spot the queen!
There are a few things you need to know first - all of which are explained on this Information Sheet.
When you're ready, sign up to one of the sessions by clicking this link: http://tinyurl.com/Bees2017
Tuesday, 11 April 2017
Monday, 10 April 2017
What a Difference a Year Makes
Yesterday was very exciting - the first day this year that it was warm enough to open up my hives! Here's an obligatory action shot:
Both hives are doing really well and are very busy. To compare with last year, here's what both the hives looked like in early May 2016:
... and this was Caroline's hive yesterday:
As you can see, there are lots more bees! In fact, Caroline's hive is so busy, I had to put another box of frames (super) on to give them more space. This is the first time I've ever had to add a super to a hive during the first inspection of the year. It could be a bumper crop this year...!
Both hives are doing really well and are very busy. To compare with last year, here's what both the hives looked like in early May 2016:
... and this was Caroline's hive yesterday:
As you can see, there are lots more bees! In fact, Caroline's hive is so busy, I had to put another box of frames (super) on to give them more space. This is the first time I've ever had to add a super to a hive during the first inspection of the year. It could be a bumper crop this year...!
Wednesday, 5 April 2017
About... Drones
Science warning: this post contains actual science. You have been warned...
Adult themes: this post contains stuff about sex. If you're a teenage boy, this will be considerably less exciting than it sounds...
Bees are male and female. But whenever you see a honey bee, it will almost certainly be a worker bee, and they are all female. Also, they are sort-of infertile (but not completely, as I'll explain later).
Drones are the males. And they are most definitely not workers - in fact they don't forage, and don't do any work inside the hive. They are so lazy that they expect the (female) worker bees to feed them. In fact, they really only have one purpose - sexy time with a queen bee.
Before we get onto that, it's worth looking at the physiology (and a bit of biology) of the drone. Firstly, a picture:
They're a little larger than worker bees, and the abdomen is rounder at the end. This is because they don't have a sting. Drones also have a larger thorax, to accommodate bigger wing muscles. Although drones are lazy, they need to be powerful and fast flyers.
The other notable characteristic is a drone's eyes - they are much bigger than a worker bee's eyes, and cover almost the whole head.
So, why the differences? Since a drone's only job is to try to mate with a queen, he needs to make sure he's good at it. Drones will first locate a queen by the pheromones she emits. He then needs to get to her as quickly as possible, as there will be other drones competing with him. So - bigger wing muscles mean more speed. Once the queen is in visible range, he uses his visual acuity to make the final approach - hence the big eyes.
But why no sting? The tip of his abdomen, where the worker bees have their sting, is used for something else on a drone. It's his bee boy bits. y'know - his willy. Actually the proper name for it is an "endophallus". But it's still his willy, really.
The actual mating act is fairly brief - only a few seconds. After which the drone departs. Leaving his willy still stuck inside the queen!!! Yep - it snaps off. And, in case you're wondering - yes, that is fatal. Does he die happy? one can only hope...
Here's a picture of the underside of a (sadly deceased) drone. The orange "blob" you can see is the remains of where his endophallus was torn out while mating:
So, that's the physiology. The genetics are quite fun (you did read the science warning, didn't you?) If you paid attention in biology class, you'll remember that humans have two sets of chromosomes - one set from their mother, and one set from their father. And humans are female if they have two X chromosomes (XX), and male if they have an X and a Y (XY).
Bees are different. Female bees (i.e. workers and queens) still have two sets of chromosomes - a maternal set and a paternal set. But drones only have one set of chromosomes, all from their mother. Weirdly, this means than male bees have no father.
This all happens as a consequence of the way fertilisation is done. When a (poor, doomed) drone mates with a queen, he doesn't fertilise her eggs straight away. Rather, his sperm is kept inside a special organ in her abdomen (called the spermathecal gland). Then, each time she lays an egg, one sperm is released from the spermathecal gland to fertilise it - but only if it's to become a female worker. It's possible for the queen to lay an egg and not release a sperm - in which case the egg will develop into a male drone.
The mechanism for producing fertilised (female) or unfertilised (male) eggs is interesting, because it's under the control of the workers. Typically, they will make cells in the wax comb that are 5.2mm across. When the queen lays the egg, her back legs will be on either side of the cell, so they will also be 5.2mm apart. This particular distance triggers a reflex which releases the sperm.
If however, the workers make the cells slightly larger - around 6.5mm across - then the queen's legs are further apart. Actually, they are too far apart to trigger the sperm reflex, so when she lays the egg, a sperm isn't released. The unfertilised egg will have only one set of chromosomes - from the queen. But in the weird world of bee sex, an unfertilised egg will still develop - it grows up to become a male drone.
I mentioned earlier that (female) worker bees are sort-of, but not completely infertile. They're not capable of mating, as their "lady parts" aren't fully developed. And normally they don't lay eggs - partly because the instinct to do so is suppressed by hormones that the queen produces. However, they are capable of producing eggs, and every so often a worker bee will lay an egg. These are normally dealt with fairly quickly, because there are worker bees who have the job of tidying up any stray eggs that have been laid by their sister workers.
However, in a hive which has lost its queen, and which also doesn't contain any developing queen cells, things get strange. The hormone to suppress the laying instinct in workers is absent (because there's no queen to produce it). So, worker bees start laying eggs - and more than can be tidied up. Now, remember that none of these workers are capable of mating, so these are all unfertilised eggs. So, they all develop into drones. The hive is now in trouble - it's incapable of producing new workers, and instead is creating increasing numbers of drones. Who will do the work in the hive? The answer is - after around 6 weeks - nobody, because there will be no workers left. The hive is doomed.
So, why does evolution allow such a suicidal mechanism to occur? The drones are the answer. Once the queen is lost, the hive can't produce workers so it is doomed anyway. But the mass production of drones in the final few weeks means that the hive has increased its chances of its own bees mating with queens from nearby hives. Even though these particular bees can't carry on, they can still propagate their genes to other hives, and those genes will build the future workers and drones of those neighbouring colonies. Life finds a way!
Adult themes: this post contains stuff about sex. If you're a teenage boy, this will be considerably less exciting than it sounds...
Bees are male and female. But whenever you see a honey bee, it will almost certainly be a worker bee, and they are all female. Also, they are sort-of infertile (but not completely, as I'll explain later).
Drones are the males. And they are most definitely not workers - in fact they don't forage, and don't do any work inside the hive. They are so lazy that they expect the (female) worker bees to feed them. In fact, they really only have one purpose - sexy time with a queen bee.
Before we get onto that, it's worth looking at the physiology (and a bit of biology) of the drone. Firstly, a picture:
They're a little larger than worker bees, and the abdomen is rounder at the end. This is because they don't have a sting. Drones also have a larger thorax, to accommodate bigger wing muscles. Although drones are lazy, they need to be powerful and fast flyers.
The other notable characteristic is a drone's eyes - they are much bigger than a worker bee's eyes, and cover almost the whole head.
So, why the differences? Since a drone's only job is to try to mate with a queen, he needs to make sure he's good at it. Drones will first locate a queen by the pheromones she emits. He then needs to get to her as quickly as possible, as there will be other drones competing with him. So - bigger wing muscles mean more speed. Once the queen is in visible range, he uses his visual acuity to make the final approach - hence the big eyes.
But why no sting? The tip of his abdomen, where the worker bees have their sting, is used for something else on a drone. It's his bee boy bits. y'know - his willy. Actually the proper name for it is an "endophallus". But it's still his willy, really.
The actual mating act is fairly brief - only a few seconds. After which the drone departs. Leaving his willy still stuck inside the queen!!! Yep - it snaps off. And, in case you're wondering - yes, that is fatal. Does he die happy? one can only hope...
Here's a picture of the underside of a (sadly deceased) drone. The orange "blob" you can see is the remains of where his endophallus was torn out while mating:
So, that's the physiology. The genetics are quite fun (you did read the science warning, didn't you?) If you paid attention in biology class, you'll remember that humans have two sets of chromosomes - one set from their mother, and one set from their father. And humans are female if they have two X chromosomes (XX), and male if they have an X and a Y (XY).
Bees are different. Female bees (i.e. workers and queens) still have two sets of chromosomes - a maternal set and a paternal set. But drones only have one set of chromosomes, all from their mother. Weirdly, this means than male bees have no father.
This all happens as a consequence of the way fertilisation is done. When a (poor, doomed) drone mates with a queen, he doesn't fertilise her eggs straight away. Rather, his sperm is kept inside a special organ in her abdomen (called the spermathecal gland). Then, each time she lays an egg, one sperm is released from the spermathecal gland to fertilise it - but only if it's to become a female worker. It's possible for the queen to lay an egg and not release a sperm - in which case the egg will develop into a male drone.
The mechanism for producing fertilised (female) or unfertilised (male) eggs is interesting, because it's under the control of the workers. Typically, they will make cells in the wax comb that are 5.2mm across. When the queen lays the egg, her back legs will be on either side of the cell, so they will also be 5.2mm apart. This particular distance triggers a reflex which releases the sperm.
If however, the workers make the cells slightly larger - around 6.5mm across - then the queen's legs are further apart. Actually, they are too far apart to trigger the sperm reflex, so when she lays the egg, a sperm isn't released. The unfertilised egg will have only one set of chromosomes - from the queen. But in the weird world of bee sex, an unfertilised egg will still develop - it grows up to become a male drone.
I mentioned earlier that (female) worker bees are sort-of, but not completely infertile. They're not capable of mating, as their "lady parts" aren't fully developed. And normally they don't lay eggs - partly because the instinct to do so is suppressed by hormones that the queen produces. However, they are capable of producing eggs, and every so often a worker bee will lay an egg. These are normally dealt with fairly quickly, because there are worker bees who have the job of tidying up any stray eggs that have been laid by their sister workers.
However, in a hive which has lost its queen, and which also doesn't contain any developing queen cells, things get strange. The hormone to suppress the laying instinct in workers is absent (because there's no queen to produce it). So, worker bees start laying eggs - and more than can be tidied up. Now, remember that none of these workers are capable of mating, so these are all unfertilised eggs. So, they all develop into drones. The hive is now in trouble - it's incapable of producing new workers, and instead is creating increasing numbers of drones. Who will do the work in the hive? The answer is - after around 6 weeks - nobody, because there will be no workers left. The hive is doomed.
So, why does evolution allow such a suicidal mechanism to occur? The drones are the answer. Once the queen is lost, the hive can't produce workers so it is doomed anyway. But the mass production of drones in the final few weeks means that the hive has increased its chances of its own bees mating with queens from nearby hives. Even though these particular bees can't carry on, they can still propagate their genes to other hives, and those genes will build the future workers and drones of those neighbouring colonies. Life finds a way!
Wednesday, 22 March 2017
Signs of Spring
The weather has been a little variable over the last few days, but there have been some sunny periods and the bees have been making the most of it. Here they are, a couple of weeks ago, on their first busy day after winter:
This worker bee has found a nice flower to forage on, at our local garden centre:
Further afield, up in Birmingham, I took this photo of a bee foraging on some heather:
... And even further away, I was at a cactus garden in Lanzarote last week, and saw this solitary bee foraging on a cactus flower!
There's plenty of blossom out now, which means nectar and - more importantly - pollen. The bees will be raising this year's first generation of new workers, and they need the protein from the pollen to feed the new brood.
If the weather gets warm enough by the end of next week, I may be able to open the hives for the first time and see how well the queens are laying.
This worker bee has found a nice flower to forage on, at our local garden centre:
Further afield, up in Birmingham, I took this photo of a bee foraging on some heather:
... And even further away, I was at a cactus garden in Lanzarote last week, and saw this solitary bee foraging on a cactus flower!
There's plenty of blossom out now, which means nectar and - more importantly - pollen. The bees will be raising this year's first generation of new workers, and they need the protein from the pollen to feed the new brood.
If the weather gets warm enough by the end of next week, I may be able to open the hives for the first time and see how well the queens are laying.
Tuesday, 21 March 2017
About... Propolis
I mentioned propolis in a couple of blog entries last year, and you may have heard it mentioned in newspaper/magazine articles about bees. One company is even adding it as an ingredient to shampoo(!) So what exactly is it?
Well, from the beekeeper's point of view, it's a very sticky, general purpose brown "gunk" that bees use. And it looks like this:
Propolis has a couple of important jobs in the hive:
Job one is as a disinfectant for brood cells. One of the properties of propolis is that it inhibits the growth of pathogens. Bees make use of this - every time a bee finishes the process of metamorphosis, and emerges for the first time as an adult bee, it leaves an empty cell ready to be re-used. But before the queen lays a new egg in the cell, it needs to be "cleaned". One of the worker bees (specifically a house bee - one of the younger bees which has not yet started foraging) enters the cell, and lines it with a thin layer of propolis. This (partially) inhibits any pathogens passing through the wax into the cell, so after the queen has laid an egg and it hatches and starts to grow, it reduces the chances of the larva picking up any infections.
The second job is a general-purpose filler. Bees don't like gaps in the hive walls, and they notice the small cracks between the stacked boxes that make up the hive. So they tend to stick them together with propolis. They also like to stick the frames together where they touch. Basically, bees will fill any gap between two non-wax surfaces, that is less than 4mm, with propolis. This is particularly important for the hive walls, as it prevents draughts and also prevents small intruders (such as wax moth) from entering the hive.
The third job is, again, related to hygiene. Normally, if bees find something inside the hive that they don't like (for example, a dead wasp - quite possibly one that they've just killed) they'll carry it out through the hive entrance and dump it away from the hive. This prevents mould and diseases, if it starts to decompose. But sometimes, the thing will be too big to remove. The best example I heard was a mouse that had got inside a hive (not one of mine) to try to hibernate over the winter. For some reason, the mouse had died during the winter. When the beekeeper came to open the hive in spring, the bees had been unable to remove the mouse from the hive because, of course, it was just too big. So the bees had instead encased the dead mouse in a layer of propolis, and mummified it...!
So, where does propolis come from? It's basically a mix of resins and wax. Bees will use various sources of resins, but the most common are tree sap and the sticky stuff that is secreted by some leaf buds.
I've taken a couple of photographs so that you can get a sense of what propolis actually looks like when the bees are using it:
This is a strip of propolis that Miriam's bees added to the bottom corner of one of the brood frames. They did this to a number of brood frames last summer. I must admit, I'm not entirely sure what the function of this is, though I suspect it's related to airflow/ventilation in the hive.
This photo was taken from a solid board that I was using as a temporary hive floor last summer while I was doing some work on the hive stand. I'm almost certain it's a wax-moth caterpillar which has been encased in propolis and mummified. Normally, I'd expect the bees to kill the caterpillar and then remove it. However, it may be that it was pupating and the cocoon was too difficult for the bees to remove, so they just covered it in propolis instead.
I was very lucky to get this photo - and very pleased! It's a worker bee who has recently been out to collect resin for making propolis. You can see that she has attached a blob of resin to each of her back legs (in the same place where she would carry pollen) so that she can bring it back to the hive. After I've re-assembled the hive, she will mix the resin with wax to make propolis, and then probably use it to fill a crack between the boxes.
Well, from the beekeeper's point of view, it's a very sticky, general purpose brown "gunk" that bees use. And it looks like this:
Propolis has a couple of important jobs in the hive:
Job one is as a disinfectant for brood cells. One of the properties of propolis is that it inhibits the growth of pathogens. Bees make use of this - every time a bee finishes the process of metamorphosis, and emerges for the first time as an adult bee, it leaves an empty cell ready to be re-used. But before the queen lays a new egg in the cell, it needs to be "cleaned". One of the worker bees (specifically a house bee - one of the younger bees which has not yet started foraging) enters the cell, and lines it with a thin layer of propolis. This (partially) inhibits any pathogens passing through the wax into the cell, so after the queen has laid an egg and it hatches and starts to grow, it reduces the chances of the larva picking up any infections.
The second job is a general-purpose filler. Bees don't like gaps in the hive walls, and they notice the small cracks between the stacked boxes that make up the hive. So they tend to stick them together with propolis. They also like to stick the frames together where they touch. Basically, bees will fill any gap between two non-wax surfaces, that is less than 4mm, with propolis. This is particularly important for the hive walls, as it prevents draughts and also prevents small intruders (such as wax moth) from entering the hive.
The third job is, again, related to hygiene. Normally, if bees find something inside the hive that they don't like (for example, a dead wasp - quite possibly one that they've just killed) they'll carry it out through the hive entrance and dump it away from the hive. This prevents mould and diseases, if it starts to decompose. But sometimes, the thing will be too big to remove. The best example I heard was a mouse that had got inside a hive (not one of mine) to try to hibernate over the winter. For some reason, the mouse had died during the winter. When the beekeeper came to open the hive in spring, the bees had been unable to remove the mouse from the hive because, of course, it was just too big. So the bees had instead encased the dead mouse in a layer of propolis, and mummified it...!
So, where does propolis come from? It's basically a mix of resins and wax. Bees will use various sources of resins, but the most common are tree sap and the sticky stuff that is secreted by some leaf buds.
I've taken a couple of photographs so that you can get a sense of what propolis actually looks like when the bees are using it:
This is a strip of propolis that Miriam's bees added to the bottom corner of one of the brood frames. They did this to a number of brood frames last summer. I must admit, I'm not entirely sure what the function of this is, though I suspect it's related to airflow/ventilation in the hive.
This photo was taken from a solid board that I was using as a temporary hive floor last summer while I was doing some work on the hive stand. I'm almost certain it's a wax-moth caterpillar which has been encased in propolis and mummified. Normally, I'd expect the bees to kill the caterpillar and then remove it. However, it may be that it was pupating and the cocoon was too difficult for the bees to remove, so they just covered it in propolis instead.
I was very lucky to get this photo - and very pleased! It's a worker bee who has recently been out to collect resin for making propolis. You can see that she has attached a blob of resin to each of her back legs (in the same place where she would carry pollen) so that she can bring it back to the hive. After I've re-assembled the hive, she will mix the resin with wax to make propolis, and then probably use it to fill a crack between the boxes.
Tuesday, 21 February 2017
It's a Trap!
Regular readers (that's all of you, right?!) will remember that a few months ago I started preparing an Asian Hornet trap, based on the instructions helpfully provided the National Bee Unit and DEFRA.
Well, having taken an unnecessarily long time getting my act together, I finally finished it this weekend. Here's a picture of the assembled and baited trap, hanging from the willow tree in the apiary:
There are various options for baiting the trap. The DEFRA guide says: "In the field we have ... found that a protein bait of mashed fish e.g. prawns or trout, diluted to 25% has also proven effective. Other effective baits include sweet mixtures of wine, sugar, cassis, and water." And this amusing observation:
"French beekeepers often use a mixture of dark beer, strawberry syrup and orange liqueur for this purpose."
Well, of course they do. How very French...
Anyway, it looks like fishy, sweet and alcoholic are the tastes that really pique the interest of queen asian hornets. I assume the alcohol is attractive because it replicates the smell of fermenting fruit, which wasps and hornets are certainly attracted to. Hence fruit-based alcohol such as wine, cassis and orange liqueur.
My own bait of choice is cat food (white fish), mixed with cherry liqueur and a little water. Many thanks to our cat, Patsy, for sparing part of her lunch yesterday. Here's the mixture in the trap - I'm sure it looks delicious:
OK - that's maybe not so appetising for humans!
If I do trap an asian hornet, then the next step will be to photograph it and then send it off to DEFRA for analysis. But hopefully, none of them survived the winter - fingers crossed...
Well, having taken an unnecessarily long time getting my act together, I finally finished it this weekend. Here's a picture of the assembled and baited trap, hanging from the willow tree in the apiary:
 |
| Come and get it! |
There are various options for baiting the trap. The DEFRA guide says: "In the field we have ... found that a protein bait of mashed fish e.g. prawns or trout, diluted to 25% has also proven effective. Other effective baits include sweet mixtures of wine, sugar, cassis, and water." And this amusing observation:
"French beekeepers often use a mixture of dark beer, strawberry syrup and orange liqueur for this purpose."
Well, of course they do. How very French...
Anyway, it looks like fishy, sweet and alcoholic are the tastes that really pique the interest of queen asian hornets. I assume the alcohol is attractive because it replicates the smell of fermenting fruit, which wasps and hornets are certainly attracted to. Hence fruit-based alcohol such as wine, cassis and orange liqueur.
My own bait of choice is cat food (white fish), mixed with cherry liqueur and a little water. Many thanks to our cat, Patsy, for sparing part of her lunch yesterday. Here's the mixture in the trap - I'm sure it looks delicious:
 |
| Mmmm... tasty... |
OK - that's maybe not so appetising for humans!
If I do trap an asian hornet, then the next step will be to photograph it and then send it off to DEFRA for analysis. But hopefully, none of them survived the winter - fingers crossed...
Saturday, 11 February 2017
Bees on the Radio
Bees are quite a hot topic on the radio at the moment. In fact, last summer I was invited to the studios of BCFM Radio in Bristol to do a short interview about bee stuff. Being somewhat disorganised, I hadn't actually got round to uploading the interview until now...!
Anyway, here it is - some musings on honey bees, hornets, solitary bees and other stuff:
There are also a couple of interesting programmes on BBC iPlayer. This one is from The Life Scientific (with the always-excellent Jim Al-Khalili):
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04nrrbr
... and this one takes a look at the social behaviour of honey bees, and compares (and contrasts) it with our own:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b087qjd4
Anyway, here it is - some musings on honey bees, hornets, solitary bees and other stuff:
There are also a couple of interesting programmes on BBC iPlayer. This one is from The Life Scientific (with the always-excellent Jim Al-Khalili):
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04nrrbr
... and this one takes a look at the social behaviour of honey bees, and compares (and contrasts) it with our own:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b087qjd4
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