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the OmmatidiaMar. 2013 The monthly newsletter of the Mecklenburg County Beekeepers Association

President’s buzzz ...by George McAllister

It’s that time of year again for swarming. Bees in this area typically start swarming in March. However, last year I had my first swarm the last week of February which traveled about 3 blocks to my neighbor and fellow beekeeper’s backyard. As the spring progressed my bees swarmed several times. I was not able to capture any of the swarms because they either flew away when I was at work or they clustered 40 feet in a tree where I could not reach them. This year is going to be different. I am going to put bait hives (also called bait boxes or swarm boxes) in my yard. With a bait hive you are trying to get any swarms in the area to come to you. A swarm will travel a mile or more to find a home so any bait hive you hang will attract bees from a good distance.

This year I placed bait hives in my backyard and on land in Cabarrus County near Mt. Pleasant. Before I started the process, I did some research to make sure I built bait hives designed in such a way to attract swarms. I didn’t want to spend a lot of time on this project only to find I built the wrong size bait hives and placed them in undesirable locations. Luckily Dr. Thomas Seeley an entomologist at Cornell University did a study to identify the optimal bait hive design and placement.

Seeley built 252 plywood boxes and varied the characteristics to see which locations swarming bees selected. He designed bait hives based on nest volume, distance from the ground and entrance opening, direction and location. He distributed the plywood boxes in a county wide area and measured the results for two years. Each year over half of his 252 plywood boxes attracted a swarm. Yes, it’s worth repeating; over 50% of his boxes attracted a swarm.

Here are Dr. Seeley’s recommendations on building the optimal bait hive which I followed:

• Any type of wood will work. Bees may avoid new lumber until it weathers.

• Box shape is not important. Inside volume needs to

be around 1.4 cubic feet; about the size of a ten frame deep brood box. To meet the desired 1.4 cubic feet volume, Seeley built bait hives where the sides measured 14 inches wide by 15 inches tall before assembly. He used 5/8 inch plywood. I made my bait hives this size. I also designed my bait hives so the top and bottom can be removed to get to the bees inside.

• All the joints need to be tight so moisture and light cannot get in, especially around the top.

• The entrance needs to be close to the floor of the bait hive. The shape of the opening does not matter but it needs to be 1.5 to 2 square inches. I cut a 1.25 diameter hole for the entrance. To keep birds from nesting in the boxes I tacked a nail across the center of the entrance.

• The color of the bait hive is not important. I painted mine a camouflage pattern so they would blend into the woods.

• Adding wax foundation and/or a scented bee lure will increase your chances of capturing a swarm. The scented bee lure mimics the pheromones scout bees secrete to

see ‘Buzz’ page 2

March meetingNC Apiary Inspector Nancy Ruppert will be our

featured speaker at our March 21 meeting.

Nancy will speak on “Swarm Management”. She is a great speaker, as we found out last year. Don’t miss out. Our monthly meetings are the third Thursday of each month, 7 p.m. at Mouzon United Methodist Church, 3100 Selwyn Ave., Charlotte.

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cont’d from page 1

Buzzmark a desirable home site. However, adding these two items to the bait hive was not part of Seeley’s study. He was making this assumption based on other research. Do not put in comb since they will attract wax moths. Instead, put in a small amount of wax foundation or a frame with wax foundation. I placed foundation in all my bait hives and placed scented bee lure in one bait hive.

Dr. Seeley made the following recommendations concerning the placement of your bait hive:

• Distance from the parent colony is not an issue.

• Mount the bait hive securely about 15 feet off the ground in a shaded but visible location preferably with the entrance facing south. Bees prefer a southerly direction but will occupy bait boxes facing other directions. My bait boxes are facing more southwest and southeast.

To read all the details on how to build your own bait hives, Dr. Seeley’s publication “Bait Hives for Honey Bees” is online. The address is: http://hdl.handle.net/1813/2653

If you are not interested in building your own bait hives you can buy them from most of the bee equipment suppliers.

We all know the urge to swarm is strong. There are various methods for reducing a colony’s tendency to swarm but once the bees leave the hive, they are not coming back. Most people cannot watch their bees all day long to catch swarms as they occur. Even if you could watch your bees every day, the swarm needs to land where you can reach them.

Bait hives are a good way of reclaiming your bees when all other swarm reduction methods have failed. It doesn’t work all the time but it is better than nothing.

Have fun with the bees,

-George

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Great news!

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March in the Piedmont means it’s time for honeybee swarms! Sure you can go out and catch swarms but your attention should first be on keeping your own bees at home.

Add empty frames, make splits and keep a sharp eye out for swarm cells. Frames of capped brood can be moved from over-populated hives to weaker ones. Or, you can switch the positions of a strong hive and a weak one – the foragers will come back to their original location thereby adding bees to the weaker hive.

And if you prefer having a Plan B, put up some bait hives in case swarm prevention fails. Bait hives should ideally be about 100 yards from the apiary and about 15 feet off the ground (good luck with that part).

Swarms prefer old used combs and you can also add a swarm lure for good measure. Continue monitoring food

supplies, and feed thin syrup if food is short or if the queen doesn’t seem to be laying heavily.

To make a good honey crop, you need maximum foragers in April and therefore you need maximum brood in March. Don’t forget the drone combs – pull them out when the drone brood is capped, freeze for 48 hours and return to the hive (after thawing). Doing a couple rounds of this in spring helps keep the varroa in check for a few months.

Finally, inspect and clean the honey supers and combs. Replace any damaged wax, scrape off the old burr comb and propolis from frames and boxes, maybe even add a coat of paint on boxes that need it.

Near the end of the month you may start to see quantities of nectar and white wax – that means the nectar flow is on!

It’s that Timeby Libby Mack

Dandelion Bee Supply

For all your beekeeping needs!

Woodenware

Protective clothing and tools

Fondant / Sugar syrup

Package Bees

Custom woodenware available upon request

Concord, NCContact:

704-796-2972 / bees@carolinanc.com

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We use only “Select Quality” Hive Wood ware and accessories

Available for you assembled and or painted your choice!

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*Call or email for current availability*

All Trees and Shrubbery are field grown and B&B, and are ready to

be transplanted into your landscape or Business jobsite!

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The first honey flow of the New Year. Light color, mild in taste with notes of cool mint.

Mid season flow. A bit more refined honey flavor and slightly sweeter.

An early summer flow. Much darker color and the old fashion honey flavor and taste.

This is a later summer honey flow. Bronze in color, with a fantastic robust honey flavor and aroma.

Email: Info@herbshoneypot.com

*Be sure to visit us at the Charlotte/Mecklenburg Farmers Market every Saturday Morning!

Hollies: From 3ft. to 18ft. in height ranges available |Dwarf Bufordi – 3-5 ft.|Needle Point 4-7 ft. | |Wert L Winn 6-10ft. | Nellie Stevens 6-12 ft. |

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Crape Myrtles: From 6-24 ft in height ranges available

|Natchez (white)| Biloxi (lt. pink)| |Tuscarora (med red)|

|Carolina Beauty (med red)| |Tonto (dark red)|

|Muskogee (lt. lavender)| |Catawba (med purple)|

Plus: numerous other Shrubs and Shade- tree selections are available!

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Keeping notes in beekeeping has more importance than we generally give it. We can either learn from the present bees and write down what we do or see, or we can skip the note-taking it and try to remember a few years or more down the road. The people most often mentioned in the beekeeping history books like CC Miller or LL Langstroth were excellent note takers who also reviewed their notes and learned again by reviewing them.

There are many ways we can take notes. Some notes are temporary, others more permanent. In the picture of the two hives, for instance, the outer cover can be used to write on. A Sharpie works fine, but only lasts for a week or two. This article will focus on some of the more temporary kinds of notes.

The hive body itself can be used for notes too. Just write on the hive. I marked mine indicating how much feeding they needed and how much they got last fall. In my notation last year, I wrote down the date, “6gH+” means “6 gallons Heavy syrup or more,” and then I made a mark when they got a gallon of heavy syrup. The red marks indicated Fumigilin, so this hive got 2 gallons of heavy syrup and Fumigilin and 8 gallons of heavy syrup total. This picture was taken a few weeks ago, so this marking is a little more permanent. A swipe of the paintbrush will make it ready for 2013. Or I could be an efficient beekeeper and just use a different color Sharpie.

Refer to the picture of the two hives (upper right). I also use the brick to indicate when a hive needs to be looked at again or some special attention paid to it. Just change the orientation of the brick. I’ve found that this can get difficult, so keep your bricks the same and be consistent with the

placement and orientation. The brick position shown simply means to me that “all is well.” Anything else and there is probably something going on. Or perhaps some of my joker beekeeper friends went out drinking and stopped by and re-oriented all the bricks for me.

You’ll also notice the green pushpin in the front of the hive on the right. This indicates that this hive has a drone frame in it. (Drones are needed for raising queens, but they also can be used for trapping varroa. Simply remove the frame once it is full of capped drone brood and freeze it for a few days. Keith Delaplane in the current edition of “First Lessons in Beekeeping” recommends putting it back in the hive for the bees to clean out. Or powerwash it if you prefer. Various colored pushpins can indicate different things. Many ways to be creative with these, but whatever you do should be consistent from hive to hive.

The painted symbol and bumper sticker help indicate which hive is which. Some beekeepers paint wonderful designs on theirs (see next page, ed.). Some use old cattle ear tags. Some have a better memory than I do. Some wish they had a system. Here are some photos from a few years ago of some hives from bee school students that ordered nucs. You’ll notice there are quite a few ways to identify a hive. I think there was even a collage of them in a fairly recent newsletter.

See ‘Notes’ page 6

photo by Kathleen Purvis

Around the Bee YardBeekeeping Notes – Part 1

by Wayne Hansen

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cont’d from page 5

NotesNext time, I’ll talk about

some of the more permanent ways to take notes. In the meantime, how do you take notes? Do you use that Smartphone or droid? Do you take photos? There is no single correct way to take notes, but there is for sure an incorrect way.

See you around the beeyard,

Wayne

Feral Bees in a Very Special Place

by Elizabeth Martin

I’m spending the school year in New Delhi so no beekeeping for me right now. It doesn’t stop me from searching out the bees! I’ve spotted “bee boxes” in fields while driving in rural areas and many colonies of rock bees (apis dorsata) on various historic monuments. My favorite location I’ve seen is in the attached pictures. The first picture is of fresh comb on a mosque’s entry arch. You can clearly see evidence of previous comb in the same spot. I don’t know if it was removed for the honey or to get rid of the bees. The second picture provides the context. The comb is located on the roof of the tall archway of the red sandstone mosque. Those bees are living in a special place!

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Flowers’ methods of communicating are at least as sophisticated as any devised by an advertising agency, according to a new study, published today in Science Express by researchers from the University of Bristol. However, for any advert to be successful, it has to reach, and be perceived by, its target audience. The research shows for the first time that pollinators such as bumblebees are able to find and distinguish electric signals given out by flowers.

Flowers often produce bright colours, patterns and enticing fragrances to attract their pollinators. Researchers at Bristol’s School of Biological Sciences, led by Professor Daniel Robert, found that flowers also have their equivalent of a neon sign – patterns of electrical signals that can communicate information to the insect pollinator. These electrical signals can work in concert with the flower’s other attractive signals and enhance floral advertising power.

Plants are usually charged negatively and emit weak electric fields. On their side, bees acquire a positive charge as they fly through the air. No spark is produced as a charged bee approaches a charged flower, but a small electric force builds up that can potentially convey information.

By placing electrodes in the stems of petunias, the researchers showed that when a bee lands, the flower’s potential changes and remains so for several minutes. Could this be a way by which flowers tell bees another bee has recently been visiting? To their surprise, the researchers discovered that bumblebees can detect and distinguish between different floral electric fields.

Also, the researchers found that when bees were given a learning test, they were faster at learning the difference between two colours when electric signals were also available.

How then do bees detect electric fields? This is not yet known, although the researchers speculate that hairy bumblebees bristle up under the electrostatic force, just like one’s hair in front of an old television screen.

The discovery of such electric detection has opened up a whole new understanding of insect perception and flower communication.

Dr Heather Whitney, a co-author of the study said: “This novel communication channel reveals how flowers can potentially inform their pollinators about the honest status of their precious nectar and pollen reserves.”

Professor Robert said: “The last thing a flower wants is to attract a bee and then fail to provide nectar: a lesson in honest advertising since bees are good learners and would soon lose interest in such an unrewarding flower.

“The co-evolution between flowers and bees has a long and beneficial history, so perhaps it’s not entirely surprising that we are still discovering today how remarkably sophisticated their communication is.”

The research was supported by the Leverhulme Trust.

Researchers: Bees, Flowers Use Electrical Fields To Communicate

by Dominic Clarke, Heather Whitney, Gregory Sutton and Daniel Robert in “Science Express,” Feb. 2013, University of Bristol

Ed and Marianne Moyers’ took this photo Jan. 28 during an unusually warm break (which seems to becoming more and more usual). Says Ed, “We’ve thought maybe we’ve seen robbing behavior in the past, but this time there was no doubt. We have no idea where the robbers came from, but we know there are other beekeepers in the area, supposedly one just a block away. The weather, as you might recall was quite warm and pleasant. Perfect day for robbing, I guess. As you can see, we had top feeders on with sugar water, which our bees have been taking. I’m not sure they really needed it, but both hives are so strong, with one already supporting three frames of brood, that we thought the sugar water would help them. Maybe not such a good idea. Maybe this is was attracted the offending bees. Maybe using sugar candy at this time of year would have been a better idea.”

Have an interesting photo? Send it in to the Ommatidia! Email Tom Davidson, tom@tsbeeshoney.com

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‘Beekeeping For Dummies’ Event with Cumberland BeekeepersOn March 23, 2013 the Cumberland County Beekeepers

Association will host a presentation by Howland Blackiston author of “BeeKeeping for Dummies” and “Hive Building for Dummies”.

Mr. Blackiston in his unique way will provide and informative presentation on the honeybee and beekeeping, while keeping learning fun and light hearted. A couple of lucky people will have the opportunity to play a game of “Jepporbee”. Throughout the event there will be drawings for door prizes from local retailers and bee suppliers

The presentation will be Saturday, March 23rd from 3-5 PM. The event will be held in the Cumberland County Agriculture Extension Office on East Mountain Dr, Fayetteville NC. The planned time is for only two hours of the day however we believe it will be educational and fun for all. The CCBA asks for a small fee of $4 be paid at the door to defray some of the costs. This also is an opportunity for us to get to know and fellowship with other beekeepers. If anyone would like to discuss any of this with me please feel free to contact the CCBA’s president, James Bullard at (910) 988-8871 or via email at jcbjr@intrstar.net .

Club Officers& associate members

President, George McAllister

Vice President, Tom Davidson

Treasurer, Libby Mack

Membership Secretary, Sam Bomar

Associate President, Wayne Hansen

Chaplain, Jimmy Odom

Webmaster, Kevin Freeman