Glenn Apiaries Blog

Honeybee Democracy

2010-11-23T20:01:00.000-08:00

The more we learn about bees, the more we find that they have already made many of the great advances that were once thought only to belong to mankind. Things like air conditioning, the benefits of hygiene, and a language based on dancing have been used by honeybees for millions of years. Now it turns out that they even have been practicing democracy, and compared to our own imperfect electoral process, they do it much better.

A new book out, "Honeybee Democracy" by Thomas Seeley, beautifully describes one of nature's most mysterious and intelligent processes, how tens of thousands of bees collectively decide the best site for their new home for their reproductive swarm. The stakes are high, as a bad choice can mean doom for them when winter comes. Choosing a tree hollow which doesn't have enough room to store a winter's worth of honey, or one with a large vulnerable entrance is a mistake which must not be made. The instinct of bees has been honed for countless generations to make sure they do whatever it takes to survive, and for a bee colony that means good collective decision making.

Dr. Seeley has spent most of his career at Cornell University studying the intricacies of how bees communicate and make the collective decisions which allows them to be so efficient and productive. And fortunately for us he is one of those rare scientists whose gift for writing and sharing what he has learned matches his outstanding scientific skills. In this book he not only describes in a very readable fashion what the bees are up to, but also how he figured out clever ways to decipher the inner workings of the hive. So as well as a fascinating story of bee biology, we also get to see how the mind of a great scientist works.

Dr. Seeley is Chairman of the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior at Cornell, and it is interesting to note that while his research may seem far removed from practical application, that is not the case. By exploring the principles governing collection decision making, he is showing us what we can learn from millions of years of evolution of insect societies. Read his recent article in Harvard Business Review, The Five Habits of Highly Effective Hives, for how we might apply these principles.

"Honeybee Democracy" is Seeley's third book, and together with the other two, "Honeybee Ecology", and "The Wisdom of the Hive" they are all among the very favorites in my library.

Avocado Pollination by Honeybees

2009-03-01T08:24:00.000-08:00

This is the season for avocado pollination in our little town of Fallbrook, known as the avocado capitol of the world. Avocado trees come from Mexico where a native stingless bee provides the pollination. Since that pollinator doesn't live here, honeybees have taken over the job. Every fruit produced depends on pollen being transferred from one flower to another, so honeybees become the most valuable citizens in town during the few weeks when the trees are in bloom.

Avocados have an odd system of pollination to insure cross pollinization. Each of the inconspicuous green/yellow flowers has both male and female parts, but only one sex is open at a time to prevent self fertilization. There are two kinds of trees, A and B types. The A type trees have their flowers open in the mornings as females. The flowers close by afternoon, and remain closed until the following afternoon, when they reopen with the male parts now producing pollen. The B type trees open their flowers as female in the first afternoon, they close and reopen as males the following morning. Each flower only opens twice. If a grove is properly planted with both types of trees, and if pollinators are present then a good set of fruit is likely. Honeybees do the vast majority of the pollination here, but wild bees, flies, wasps and even hummingbirds are also seen working the flowers.

Fallbrook was founded by the Reche family in the late 1800's, and they just happened to have been beekeepers. Back then the landscape was dominated by the native chaparral plants which are superb honey producers. At one time San Diego County was the number one honey producing county in America. Today, with only about 10% of the chaparral left, this is no longer the case. Urbanization has forced those beekeepers that are left to flock to areas like Fallbrook where bees are still welcome. So a symbiotic relationship has formed between growers and beekeepers; we both need each other.

Read more about avocados and bees here or Wikepedia

The bees thank you Mr. Lincoln

2009-02-13T18:09:00.000-08:00

Few people in history have changed the course of the world more than Abraham Lincoln. Besides holding the union of the states together and ending slavery, one other lesser known decision proved to be just as monumental. It was way back in 1862 that Lincoln decided that the country needed a United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to help the farmers of the nation use the latest knowledge and technology to produce the food necessary for a growing country. After saying that farmers were neither better nor worse than other people, Lincoln continued: "But farmers, being the most numerous class, it follows that their interest is the largest interest. It also follows that that interest is most worthy of all to be cherished and cultivated -- that if there be inevitable conflict between that interest and any other, that other should yield." The world has certainly changed since then. Today less than 2% of the U.S. population is involved in agriculture, but the mission of the USDA remains the same. In fact, the USDA has been perhaps the most successful institution in the world for diffusing scientific knowledge and practices to the people that can put them to use. The USDA has been a prime reason that so few can feed so many.

Honeybees have not been left behind in what Mr. Lincoln called the "people's department". The USDA Bee Breeding Lab in Baton Rouge, Louisiana is a good example of scientists putting the results of their research into the hands of beekeepers who desperately need help to keep their bees healthy. Two successful programs have been the importation of Russian bees and the development of Varroa Sensitive Hygiene (VSH) bees. Both of these lines of bees have been proven to be effective against the worst of the honeybee pests, Varroa mites. If Abe came back today I think he would be proud.

Read more about the USDA Bee Breeding Lab in Baton Rouge and the dedicated scientist who work there.

Bee hunting

2009-01-11T12:00:00.000-08:00

We recently went out to one of our favorite camping spots, Coyote Canyon in the Anza-Borrego desert. This is a unique spot because it is one of the few places in this vast desert that has a year round water source, Coyote Creek, which is actually the longest creek in San Diego county.

Because of the reliable source of water and the abundant spring wildflowers, it also supports a good number of feral honeybee colonies, now mostly Africanized. Finding a wild colony in this sort of landscape though is a bit like finding a needle in a haystack. But using some knowledge of bee behavior, a little logic and a keen eye and ear, it's possible to let the bees tell you exactly where their hive is located.

Here is a picture of a feral colony we first located back in 1997. We return every winter to check on it, and it has been occupied every year. In the summer the hot sun shines into the rock crevice and melts a good part of the hive away, the floor is covered with melted wax. We'll return in a couple months to see the desert carpeted in wildflowers. At that time we'll put up a little thatched sun shade to help them through the summer heat.

Many years ago I spent a week on Santa Cruz Island off the central California coast, learning how to hunt wild honeybees from a real expert. Dr. Adrian Wenner, Professor Emeritus at the University of California at Santa Barbara, was working with the Nature Conservancy to bring the island back to a more natural state by trying to eliminate non-native species. One real problem were the European honeybees pollinating imported European plants such as fennel, which was taking over the island. In the 1870's a few hives were taken to the island where they prospered, swarmed, and soon filled every niche on the island. Dr. Wenner's plan was to locate all the colonies so that he and his team of graduate students could systematically eliminate them. As a bee breeder I was interested in obtaining some of these survivors as breeding stock before they were eliminated, that's how I ended up spending a fascinating week learning the long lost art of bee hunting.

Dr. Wenner is perhaps best known for his challenge to the validity of Karl von Frisch's theory of honeybee dance language, for which von Frisch was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1973. Dr. Wenner's contention that odor cues alone were enough to explain the remarkable nectar finding skills of honeybee colonies sparked a heated controversy which continues to this day nearly four decades later. Dr. Wenner used his own theory to develop a technique of bee hunting to locate more than 160 colonies on Santa Cruz Island over the years. But as hard as they tried to eliminate the colonies, they never could keep ahead of the reproducing colonies. In the end they decided to introduce Varroa mites which wiped out the island bees in a few years. Although the last time I talked to Adrian he thought there was perhaps one colony still hanging on. As a beekeeper I'm rooting for their comeback,this time as mite resistant bees. The island has now become a part of the Channel Islands National Park.

View Larger Map
Explore the island by zooming in with the plus button on the map controls, or just double click where you'd like to see. Zoom way out with the minus button to see our favorite camping spot in Coyote Canyon.

A great new book

2009-01-03T16:25:00.000-08:00

I just finished one of the best books about bees that I've read over the last 40 years. This book was recently translated from German into English, and thank goodness it was. I had many "aha" moments while reading it, hearing about much recent European research which I had never known before. Especially astounding were some of the details of the communication system and feedback loops that are taking place in every colony of bees. Honeybee colonies have evolved to the very pinnacle of living matter, the superorganism, they are truly one of the wonders of the natural world. Jurgen Tautz's presentation of his understanding of the nature of bees brings to mind Karl von Frisch's comment that "the honeybee is like a magic well; the more you draw from it the more there is to draw". This easy to read book has some of the best close up photos of bees and their behavior ever taken. The paper and binding is of superb quality and at a price of about $39 from Amazon it is well worth your time and money. You can also preview it at Google Book Search.

Washington beehives in the snow

2009-01-02T13:07:00.000-08:00

Mark Adams up in Arlington, Washington writes in.
"I was checking out your new blog and saw the picture showing pollen starting to come in. I just had to run outside and take a picture. This winter has been much colder than usual. It takes pretty tough bees to survive this damp cold climate."

Thanks Mark, this reminds us just how adaptable honeybees are, able to live anywhere from the tropics to near the arctic circle. I hope Spring comes soon and the bees do well this year.

If anyone else has pictures or news of how their bees are doing, please send them in, we'd love to hear from you.
glennapiaries@gmail.com
www.glenn-apiaries.com

Cold butterfly warming up

2008-12-30T13:32:00.000-08:00

This morning this butterfly was on the ground too cold to fly, so I was able to pick it up for some photos. It is called a California Sister butterfly, Adelpha bredowii californica. They eat the leaves of the California Live Oaks, Quercus agrifolia, and winter in them also. These large oak trees surround our property, so she probably fell out of one last night. As I photographed her in the sun, she warmed up and flew away. I wonder what she thought of the experience.

Yellow jacket wasps attacking beehives

2008-12-28T12:58:00.000-08:00

The biggest threat to our bees here this year were yellow jackets, which become a problem in the summer and autumn. They probe each hive looking for the one which is least capable of defending itself. Once they find the weakest hive they recruit their nest mates to join in on the attack, robbing the honey and pollen stores as well as the brood and adult bees. When they clean out one hive, they go on to the next weakest hive, eventually they can wipe out an entire apiary.
Usually wasp colonies perish in the winter cold and wetness, their nests being in the ground. Late in the season they raise new queens which will find a protected spot to winter. In spring, the queens will each begin a new nest by themselves. As her offspring workers hatch to help her, the colony grows over the summer to contain huge numbers which can overwhelm a beehive. In dry years, such as we've had here lately, many wasp colonies don't die over the winter. These perennial colonies have a head start in spring and develop even more massive and destructive numbers.
In the apiary, we have to trap yellow jackets to keep them under control. A simple trap we use is a long neck beer bottle (Corona works well), which is filled halfway with sugar syrup. The wasps are lured in, where they drown. These can be fed to our chickens, to be turned into eggs. This system is pretty effective at protecting the bees without using toxic chemicals.

A yellow jacket worker and queen

Yellow jacket trap with 1:1 sugar syrup

Early pollen coming in

2008-12-27T09:23:00.000-08:00

Pollen foragers are out as soon as it warms up in the morning. A quick taste of one of these pollen baskets taken from a worker's leg tells me it is from a blooming eucalyptus tree. The fact that pollen is coming into the hive indicates that the queen is laying eggs and that brood is present that needs to be fed. This is a good sign that the bees are doing well and that they are raising the new bees that will strengthen the colony for the spring build up.

Flowers starting to bloom

2008-12-26T11:33:00.000-08:00

Unlike most of the country, in southern California, winter is the growing season for many of our plants. Once the rains begin things start to rapidly grow and bloom. This year we've been getting some good rain, 6.7" so far in December alone. If this keeps up it should be a good year for the bees.

Here are a few pictures from our garden this morning.

Narcissus

Yuletide camellia

Debutante camellia

Christmas Berries

2008-12-24T13:56:00.000-08:00

Christmas Eve and there are abundant berries on the Toyon. This native Californian plant is valuable for a number of reasons:

Berries provide food for many species of birds and animals

Flowers are a good source of nectar and pollen for bees

Drought tolerant and frost tolerant

Fire resistant with some summer irrigation

Excellent erosion control on slopes

Here's an informative link about Toyon (Heteromeles arbutifolia)

Rainy day hummingbirds

2008-12-22T14:32:00.001-08:00

A rainy day in Fallbrook brings a full house of Anna's hummingbirds to the sugar bar on our front porch. Our property has been a popular feeding station for decades. We usually feed about one gallon of sugar syrup each day, twice that amount sometimes in summer when the Black chins and Allens are migrating through. The formula is one part sugar to 4 parts water. Red coloring is not necessary or desirable. Never feed them honey in the syrup, as it can promote a harmful fungal growth on their beaks. Here's a good site on hummingbirds