Hi everybody, My name is Liana Teigen and I recently joined BIP to be a part of the FL/GA tech team. I am based out of the Honey Bee Research and Extension Lab (HBREL) at the University of Florida in Gainesville where I’ve had the pleasure to work with Jamie Ellis for the past several years on everything bees from Varroa research to native bee conservation. For the most part I’ve worked on sustaining native bee populations for crop pollination and while I run my own bees on the side, I am thrilled to get back to honey bees full time! HBREL is primarily an extension…
Year: 2013
EAS Meeting Follow Up
WOW beekeepers know how to throw a conference! I recently returned to Maryland after attending the eastern apiculture society meeting and it was really fun. Andrew and I talked to tons of people at our booth about BIP, but we also got to enjoy several of the talks and other activities offered at EAS. Sometimes people would come by the booth just to say something nice about BIP. I really enjoyed talking with people who were already participating in some of our initiatives, such as the management survey, or our Tier 4 pilot program. It helps get through some of the more tedious tasks…
Hive Assessments and Taking Notes
The purpose of a hive assessment is give you a idea of what is going on in the colony and to see if you need to do any type of management. Taking notes on the results of the hive assessments helps you remember what the colony looked like on a specific date. I gave a talk at the Eastern Apiculture Society last week where I talked about performing hive assessments and taking notes. I showed a general checklist that people expressed interest in, so I am posting it here. Here is the checklist of what I look for and record. Yard information: Date Name of…
National Management Survey Results
Our initial National Management Survey Results for 2011-2012 are posted here. In the coming weeks we will post accompanying vlogs and explinations for each section that explain the results in a broader context. Keep your eye out for these results, and in the coming months 2012-2013 results will be released as well.
Solar wax melter made even easier…
It is hot, oppressively hot. At this time of year in Maryland, no one wants to work in the colonies and the bees don’t really want you in there either – they make that perfectly clear. Most beekeepers have extracted some honey by now and may have a stockpile of wax lying about. It is on these hot sunny days that solar wax melting season begins at our home. My background and training is in engineering so I’m not likely to go out and buy a solar wax melter – I’d rather reuse something I have and make it work with very little work from…
Watch out Hollywood!
One of the projects I have been working on this summer is making a few movies for BIP. As a journalism major, getting my hands on a camera again has been exciting. As an environmental science major, getting to make videos dealing with this subject matter has been very rewarding. I won't bore you with the intricacies of creating the videos, but I did want to give you a behind-the-scenes look at the movie making process! One set of videos are vlogs (video blogs) for our annual National Management Survey. In these videos Dennis vanEnglesdorp gives a quick summary of the major findings from each section.…
Neglected Drone Brood
Throughout the year several honey bee diseases can be noted in stressed or sick colonies. There are also other stress factors that cause colony conditions to deteriorate and look very similar to sick or diseased colonies. One condition is neglected drone brood. It is caused by either a drone laying queen, laying workers, poorly mated queens, or failing queens. The size of the colony will determine how long it takes to dwindle down and show signs of neglected drone brood. Most of the photos are from a colony that had a poorly mated queen. The symptoms appeared 10 days after she started to lay. In…
Coming soon – BIP Hive Scales
We have been working for over a year to develop a BIP hive scale that will enable beekeepers and beekeeping clubs to gather and use data from their own hives to follow nectar flows, honey production, swarm alerts, theft alerts and other valuable data about what is happening within their own colony. Having these data are helpful in making timely and educated management decisions. Owning a BIP scale will also enable beekeepers to become plugged into a national network of hive scales and receive live feedback about what is happening in their region as well as around the country. Being part of this project makes…
BIP Ad. June 2013
How did you start a new colony? Those who did not install packages lost 33.5% less colonies than those who did install packages. Those who bought existing hives lost 13.5% less colonies than those who did not buy hives and beekeepers who split hives to increase their colonies lost 23.% less colonies than those that did not split colonies.
Building a Humidity Chamber
Right now we’re experiencing an extreme heat wave in Maryland. The rising temperatures combined with high humidity would make beekeeping pretty miserable in this weather. So for all of the folks tending their hives this week, be careful! Andrew and I are taking advantage of being trapped inside (thank you, AC!) and are using this opportunity to get the GigaPan up and running again. After numerous phone calls to tech support in CA and playing with wires the rig is now ready for action. The GigaPan is a camera mounted on a robotic rig that is designed to take multiple pictures of a frame and…