Can you hear me now?

New research suggests that radiation from cell phones could be a cause of colony collapse disorder. Scientists in India have attached cell phones to hives and observed that the colony reduced in size. So far, I have not been able to look at the study to see for myself whether it was well designed and whether their conclusions may be due to chance. But for now, I'll leave my phone behind when I visit my bees.

Here is a video from CNN about the finding:

She looks so Russian!

My bees are Russian, so called because they are from the Primorsky region. I decided to try this particular variety because it is known to have natural resistance to varroa mites, which often plague hives in North America.

In reading the beekeeping forums, I've learned that Russian queens can be hard for some people to find. I'm not sure why though- she is very distinct! She has a really long black abdomen that is unlike any other bee in the hive.

When Ellie and I inspected the hives together, we spotted the queen in Droogie 2, the hive which isn't doing very well. Here is a picture of the frame with her on it. Can you spot her?


Here's the same picture with her circled:



And here you can see her walking around of the frame. Ellie provides some color commentary.

The Beekeeping Bible

One of the books I'm reading about beekeeping was originally published in 1853 and was written by Rev. L. L. Langstroth, who is considered to be the "Father of American Beekeeping." He was a pastor in Massachusetts and redesigned the beehive so that frames could be removed, which made manipulating the hive without enraging the bees possible. His design is still in use today and the basis for my hives.

The book is great. I love reading old texts and realizing that he probably knew more about bees in the 1830s than many authors know about them now. The language is also wonderful. Here is a passage where Langstroth quotes from an earlier text on the ANGER OF BEES:

"Listen to the words of an old writer:- If thou wilt have the favour of thy bees, that they sting thee not, thou must avoid such things as offend them: thou must not be unchaste or uncleanly; for impurity and sluttiness (themselves being most chaste and neat) they utterly abhor; thou must not come among them smelling of sweat, or having a stinking breath, caused either through eating of leeks, onions, garlick, and the like, or by any other means, the noisomeness whereof is corrected by a cup of beer; thou must not be given to surfeiting or drunkenness; thou must not come puffing or blowing unto them, neither hastily stir among them, nor resolutely defend thyself when they seem to threaten thee; but softly moving thy hand before thy face, gently put them by; and lastly, thou must be no stranger unto them."

Not wanting to elicit the wrath of my bees, I will try not to be slutty and will drink a cup of beer before every inspection.

Ellie and Emerson visit the Droogies

I had to work on Saturday and so we decided to make a family trip to visit the bees. Ellie and I first took a class on beekeeping together in June of 2009 and she was excited to finally be able to visit our hives. Emerson couldn't be left behind in the car, so, as responsible parents, we wrapped his car seat in mosquito netting and brought him along with us, where he slept peacefully through the entire event.

Ellie took some wonderful pictures. In this picture, you can see the bees festooning from the frame, holding on to each other while they form wax into comb.




Here are a few more from the inspection.






It was clear from the inspection that Droogie 1, which was started on foundationless frames, is doing much better than Droogie 2, which was started on standard foundation. Droogie 1 has two full boxes of frames drawn and is working on the third, with lots of honey and brood, while Droogie 2 only has about 6 frames drawn in each of the two hive bodies. There are also many fewer bees in Droogie 2. Ellie and I did see the queen in that hive, so we know she's there, but for some reason they aren't thriving. I'm wondering if she just might not be a great layer. The brood pattern was not awesome. I removed the super that I put on the other day and added a couple foundationless frames in place of undrawn wired foundation. I don't know what else to do other than watch and see if they improve.

Buzz, Buzz, etc.

"Vuvuzela" goes on the list of new words I've learned this year, behind "beastmode" and before "blowout preventer," which is actually two words. As I understand it, the vuvuzela is a traditional South African plastic horn that is blown en masse at soccer games and has been one of the controversies surrounding this year's World Cup. Many find them annoying and think they should be banned.

I've read several articles that describe the drone of many vuvuzelas blasting at once as bee-like, and I agree. However, bees buzz at different frequencies, which allows one to know if the bees are happy or pissed off. Vuvuzelas have just one pitch. Which leaves me wondering, are the fans particularly pleased with what is happening, or are they blasting away as a way of voicing disagreement? Or both? It all sounds the same to me, which isn't bee-like at all.

Snapshots

I use a Flip HD video camera when I film my hive inspections. The quality of the video is awesome and the software has an easy way of taking stills from the video. Here are a few from the last hive inspection.


In this image, the bees are in the process of making comb and you can see it isn't drawn all the way to the bottom or sides of the frame. You can also see some uncapped honey glistening in the cells.



The bees are getting close to filling this frame with honey. The sections on the top are capped and I imagine that the rest of the frame will also be capped by the next inspection. Once the frame is all capped, it can be harvested!



This frame has a lot of honey in it, but also has some capped brood in the lower center. I'm surprised that the bees are filling so much of the area with honey if the queen is also laying in the frame.

In and Out

From what I've read, just monitoring the activity at the hive entrance can tell an experienced beekeeper a lot about what is going on with the hive. It takes time to learn this skill and hopefully I'll also have such Jedi-like abilities in the future. Here is a short video in which you can see the comings and goings of both hives.

The video was taken on June 10th, which was a sunny day. It is interesting to compare the amount of activity in this video, taken a month earlier.

Wildflowers

The El Niño has brought more rain to the area than usual, which has been great for wildflowers. I pass a huge field of them everyday when I'm riding my bike in to work, and everyday the same Tom Petty song gets stuck in my head.

Fifth Hive Inspection

I decided to put another hive body on both hives today. I suppose they could be called supers but I wouldn't mind if the queens were to lay in them. I didn't put an excluder on either hive, so the queens are welcome to move up if they'd like.

In Droogie 1, which you can see in the video below, the bees had drawn out nearly all the frames in the second hive body, and the lower body is also full. Most of the second hive body is filled with lots of capped honey and nectar, with a few frames having brood in the center. The super I added has foundationless frames as well as some frames where I installed wireless wax foundation. I moved two drawn frames filled with nectar and capped honey up to the super, and replaced the feeder. I may stop feeding after this week, but I want to make sure they are able to continue to draw comb.

Here is the video of the inspection. You can see some of the bees fanning on top of the frames.




It is clear that the hive started on foundationless frames (Droogie 1) is doing much better at drawing frames and expanding than the hive started on traditional wired foundation. Although I cannot attribute this solely to the difference in foundation, I'm going to use foundationless frames from now on. They are so much easier to prepare and the bees seem to love them.

Lavender Honey?

Stanford seemed to weather the "great recession" rather well. Their endowment certainly took a hit, but that didn't stop them from building two new, state-of-the-art buildings on the Medical School campus. As part of the new landscaping around the buildings, they also kindly planted rows and rows of lavender, which I noticed yesterday is covered with bees!

The beekeeper who allows me to keep my bees in his apiary said that the spring honey from his hives already had a nice lavender flavor, and it will probably increase with these new plants. I cannot wait to try my honey and see what flavors are present.

Bee Books

Ellie and I have been taking full advantage of the Potrero Hill branch of the San Francisco public library. It was recently renovated, has the best views of San Francisco, and is only two blocks away from our apartment (although they are two steep, uphill blocks). Ellie has been taking advantage of their extensive DVD collection to catch up on The Wire while on maternity leave, and I've been requesting every beekeeping book that they have in the SF system. Here are the books I'm currently reading:

A Year in the beeyard / Roger A. Morse

Hive management : a seasonal guide for beekeepers / Richard E. Bonney

Keeping bees / John Vivian ; illustrated by Liz Buel

The New comb honey book / by Richard Taylor.

Starting right with bees : a beginner's handbook on beekeeping / John A. Root.

The backyard beekeeper : an absolute beginner's guide to keeping bees in your yard and garden / Kim

These are currently checked out but I have a hold placed on them:

Beekeeping for dummies / by Howland Blackiston ; foreword by Kim Flottum.

The backyard beekeeper's honey handbook : a guide to creating, harvesting, and cooking with naturalhoneys/ by Kim Flottum

Langstroth's hive and the honey-bee : the classic beekeeper's manual / L.L. Langstroth.

Some of the books have been much more helpful and are more reader-friendly than others. I'll try to write a couple posts about the books I've especially enjoyed.

More videos of the Droogies

Here are a couple videos of the last hive inspection. The first shows the amount of activity at the entrance of both hives. I still have the entrance reducers on and read somewhere that the smaller entrance helps the guard bees keep tabs on everyone and doesn't hurt the productivity of the hive, sorta like the velvet rope at a club enabling the bouncers to control the flow. I may leave them on all season unless I read something to convince me otherwise (always a possibility!)

It is better if you click on these videos to watch them on Youtube. For some reason, I cannot get blogger to show the widescreen versions.




This video is long and shows the hive inspection of Droogie 1 from above. I thought you might enjoy being able to see into the hive this time.

Fourth Hive Inspection

I was able to visit the Droogies today. The hives are both doing well and drawing out more comb in the second hive body. I still do not see any capped brood in the top body, but perhaps it is still a bit too early for that.

I did take some pictures of one of the frames from Droogie 2. You can see a brood in the center of the frame with some capped honey around the upper edges.