When someone informs you of a swarm, it is critical that you ask some important questions and take down some information before heading out to catch it. These important items include the following: • You need to know the height of the swarm to determine if you can reach it by standing or if a ladder will be required. • It is also important to determine that they are actual honey bees; the best way to do this is ask questions. Many calls come in but in fact, are for wasp nests or some other insect. • Are they on a branch you can cut…
Month: December 2011
Coconuts
I ended my day last Thursday by using a hive tool to break into a fresh coconut with Lauren Rusert on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. From December 4-18, I was in Hawaii working with the queen breeders to introduce them to the BIP program. Lauren and her boss Danielle Downey run an apiary program for the beekeepers across the Hawaiian Islands. They run tests for beekeepers, certify for shipping queens, teach classes, take samples for the National Survey, monitor for swarms, along with a host of other tasks. The program has been in operation for just over a year, and they have really established…
The Cost of Freedom
Rob and I tore this hive apart today to have a look at what was going on inside. If you listen closely you may be able to catch parts of our conversation. The video tells the story of these bees and its struggle to survive...It can be viewed at the link below: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdSnVxtQSUo
Entrance Reducers
What is the purpose of an entrance reducer? Entrance reducers can be used for different things at different times of the year. Entrance reducers are most commonly used in the fall when forage becomes limited and bee traffic slows down. It is also important to seal up any other holes in the colony around this time of the year to prevent robbing or access for pests. Beekeepers will decrease the size of hive entrances to limit the space that the bees have to protect. They also change the temperature and ventilation unless using screen bottom boards. Reducers can keep unwanted pest like chipmunks and mice…
How to store soft bodied insects
In my last blog I explained how to pin and label bees. In this blog I am going to talk about another way to store and preserve soft bodied insects or larvae. This is particularly useful when you want to store the larvae or pupae of bees. There is an image above of different bee caste I found in clay soil over the summer of 2010. For larvae, I like to use Pampel’s solution, a general purpose preservative. Two other common fixatives are KAAD larval fixative and Peterson’s solution. They are available from Bioquip.com. These are a bit more expensive than what we store common…
Tying Knots
Knots can be an important part of keeping bees, which is kind of unfortunate for me since I really struggle with both learning and remembering how to tie different types of knots. One beekeeper we went to had issues in the past with lids flying off die to wind. Their solution was to use rope to keeps the lids down and protecting the inside of the colonies, so we had to learn how to tie the knots to properly close up the colonies after sampling. I took a few pictures to help me remember. The ropes are long enough to reach under the pallet the…