Bee Basics

Bee Basics – Pheromones

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Pheromones are a family of small, volatile chemicals commonly employed in the insect world as a means of communication; they are chemicals which elicit specific responses and have a large role in colony cohesion/dynamics. The purpose and actions of pheromones within a community of social insects could be said to be analogous to those of hormones within the body of a single organism.

The number of pheromones active within a honeybee colony is unknown but here are some of them:

Queen substance: A cocktail of substances including 9 oxydecenoic acid and 9 hydroxydecenoic acid which are the main ingredients. Queen substance licked from the queen is passed around the hive by workers. It has a calming effect and prevents the building of queen cells. If the dosage of queen substance per bee is reduced below a certain level the inhibition is lifted, the bees become agitated and the production of queen cells will commence. Here are two scenarios when this will happen:

  1. Queen substance production is reduced such as in the aging queen;
  2. A colony builds up very strong and very quickly.

In the former, supersedure will commence. In the latter – swarming is initiated.

One of the ingredients of queen substance – 9 oxydecenoic acid attracts drones to the young queen who is out to get mated.

9 oxydecenoic acid will also hold a swarm together when it is hung up on a bush – it tells them ‘Mother is with us’. If ‘Mother’ is not with them they will go home.

Heptanone: Not clear what this is for. It is released from the mandibular glands of worker bees and it attracts the attention of other bees. Could be some sort of marker (‘hey, come and look at this thing!’) or an alarm pheromone. It has been found to have anasthetic effects on wax moth…

Isopentylacetate: Released when a bee stings and causes other bees to sting the same spot. I hate that.

Nasonov gland pheromone: Released from the Nasonov glands of worker bee – the visible white dot in the open tail of fanning bees. Carries a ‘come and join us’ message to disturbed bees.

Drone phermone: from drones and attracts other drones to drone congregation areas

Brood pheromone: from larvae and pupae – prevents laying workers

Click here for more about the life cycle of honey bees and how it is governed by pheromones

Click here for more on Supersedure

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Bee Basics, Forage, Honey

Bee Flora

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Here is a table showing the flowering periods and pollen load colours of some of the more important  plants – click it for the bigger picture. Mahonia, snowdrops and hazel are important as early sources of fresh pollen, as is willow. However, in an exceptional spring there could be a honey flow from the willow; something which would never occur with the other three. Especially the latter as it is wind pollinated and as such never bears nectar.

Bee Flora Table

Here are some links to photo’s of pollen loads for the various flowers:

Or click these links for more detailed month by month tables:

Click here for Bee Flowers – March

Click here for Bee Flowers – April

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Bee Basics, Things to do in December, Things to do in January

Winter Feeding of Bees

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This autumn was a good one for the bees and they seem to have brought in plenty of ivy honey and the hives are very heavy now – at the end of December 2013.

However this is not always the case and December and January are months when the beekeeper needs to keep an eye on the winter stores. It is not possible to feed bees with syrup in the winter because they are simply unable to ripen it so instead if the hives seem light and the bees are clustered close to the top of the frames it will do no harm to put a lump of fondant over the feed hole in the crown board and cover it with a sheet of plastic to stop it from going hard.

If they seem on the edge of extinction, fondant should be placed directly onto the bees. You need to use your imagination and/or ingenuity here if the bees are not directly beneath a feed hole. It may be possible to turn the crownboard so that they are, or fondant can be flattened to a patty which can be placed under the crownboard.

Alternative place an eke on the brood box, then a cake of fondant covered in plastic is placed directly on the bees and the eke is filled up with old jumpers, blankets or sacking and the crownboard is put onto the eke.

Swienty are now selling 15kg blocks of Apifondant which can be set directly over the bees inside an eke as described above. Click here for details of those things

In February you might like to consider giving the bees a pollen supplement such as Neopoll which will give them an early boost. This is especially useful if you are considering taking bees to the oilseed rape as it should prompt the colony into early build-up. Click here for details of Neopoll from Swienty.

You can feed a light 1:1 (1kg:1litre or 1lb:1pint) sugar syrup from St.Patrick’s day onwards using a contact feeder. If you are using a specially prepared beefeed such as Ambrosia you could water this down with a little water for spring feeding.

Click here for how to prepare Wintering Bees

Click here for Michaelmas, bees and wintering

Click here for Which Feeder

Click here for how to feed a wintering apidea

Click here for mid-winter feeding of bees

Click here for mid-winter oxalic acid Varroa treatment

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Disease

Mid-winter Varroa Treatment – December 2013

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Copyright © Beespoke.info, 2014. All Rights Reserved.

Trickle treated 35 hives of bees with oxalic acid for Varroa today at 4 apiary sites. The temperature was 6 degrees, windy and beginning to rain. It took from 1.15pm to 4.15pm including travelling time so it has to be said it is the quicker of the two methods. If we had only the one Varrox Vaporiser it would have taken 10 minute per hive – which is nearly 6 hours and without the travelling time. Continue reading Mid-winter Varroa Treatment – December 2013 →

Bee Basics

Bee Basics – the Colony

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Honey bees are social insects which means they are unable to survive as individuals – instead they live together in colonies.

Each colony is made up of three types of bee or ‘castes’:

  1. One queen bee;
  2. Up to 50-60 thousand worker bees in summer or 10 thousand in winter;
  3. Up to one thousand drones. Generally there are no drones in the colony in the winter as they are evicted in August.
  • The  queen bee is a fertile female. She lays all the eggs and is the mother of the colony. She also secretes pheromones or messenger chemicals which contribute to the social cohesion of the colony.
  • The worker bees are infertile females. They do all the work in the colony.
  • The drones are males. They don’t do any work. Their job is to mate with a new queen after which – they die. Otherwise they are evicted from the colony at the end of summer.

The colony consists of honeycombs made of beeswax and suspended in a hollow tree, chimbley, roof space or similar in the wild. Otherwise the honeycombs are contained in moveable wooden frames inside a beehive. Honeycomb is a system of hexaganol cells made of beeswax.  The wax is secreted by the worker bees, processed and moulded into position, then strengthened and varnished with propolis.

 Generally honey is stored in an arc at the top of the frame, then there is an arc of pollen, in the centre is the area where the queen lays eggs and the larvae, or ‘brood’, are reared.

The Brood

The queen produces two sorts of egg, fertilised and unfertilised. Fertilised eggs become workers and unfertilised eggs become drones. Worker eggs are laid in worker cells and drone eggs are laid in the larger drone cells. The mechanism by which she decides whether or not to fertilise the egg with a little squirt of the stored sperm is unknown but it is thought that she can gauge the size of the cell with her forelegs and acts accordingly.

Larvae hatch from eggs after 3 days and they are fed ‘brood-food’ by workers. On the 8th day, the cells of worker brood are sealed and the larvae pupate for a further 10 days during which metamorphosis occurs after which the pupa moults and the young worker bee hatches on the 21st day after the egg is laid. The drone takes rather longer and doesn’t hatch until the 24th day

When the colony is ready to reproduce, or when the old queen needs to be replaced, especially large cells, queencells, are made by the workers and she lays fertilised eggs into them. Queen cells hatch and new queens emerge after a mere 16 days.

Swarming

If the colony is strong and well in itself the bees will probably decide to swarm. In this case several to many queencells will be raised – usually along the bottoms, edges or top bars of the frames. When the first cell hatches and the virgin emerges, half the flying bees will leave the colony with the old queen. If the weather is good and the colony is still strong even after the first, or prime, swarm has left – other smaller swarms, or casts, may continue to leave – each with a newly hatched virgin queen. In some cases they will continue to swarm out until there are no bees left!

Swarms hang up in a cluster on a nearby tree, shrub or fencepost and wait for scouts to come back with news of a new nesting site – a hollow tree or a roof-space. If scouts come back with news of more than one possible site, the bees will visit each, after which a democratic decision is made and the swarm will depart to the chosen site.

Meanwhile, back in the old colony – there can only be one queen. Any virgins that do not fly off will fight each other to the death. When only one virgin queen remains in the colony she will go through it from frame to frame dispatching any unhatched cells. After 4 days maturing, young virgins fly out to be mated and the cycle begins again.

Supersedure

If the bees only want to replace a failing queen this called supersedure. This tends to occur at the beginning or the end of the season when the colony is not over-strong. Only a few queencells, perhaps just one, will be raised – usually on a single frame and generally towards the centre. When the new queen hatches she will usually dispatch the old queen and take her place immediately. Sometimes though, they will tolerate each other even after the new queen gets mated and begins to lay – the two queens can be seen often on same frame and the old queen will continue egg laying till she drops.

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Forage, Pollen Load Colours, Things to do in January

Snowdrops

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Bee on Snowdrops

Early spring bulbs are beginning to show in sheltered places. The first flower for the bees is usually the snowdrop. There are many species but the native in these parts is Gallanthus nivalis – coming into bloom perhaps as early as December but more commonly from January through to March. While not an important crop, the bees will visit snowdrops any mild or sunny day for a little nectar and of course pollen which is good for the bees but also cheering for the beekeeper to watch. Pollen loads are orange.

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Information For Humans Beeing