August 2019 – Brennah's Backyard

Prepping the Honey Bees for Winter

At this time of year, honey bees can be reluctant to build comb. Comb takes a lot of resources to build, and empty comb is not of value to a colony heading into winter. (It is actually a liability.) So bees don’t want to build new comb if they might not be able to fill it with honey before winter, and usually this time of year they are focusing on filling the comb they have with nectar. Wax that the bees do produce is often used to cap cells of ripe honey or even elongate cells intended for honey so that they can pack the space they’re already using with even more.

honey bee making wax — Honey bee making wax. Honey bees secrete wax from glands in their abdomens after eating large amounts of nectar or honey.

At the moment, the little colonies I started this summer are still quite… little. They don’t really have enough comb to fit the amount of honey they require over the winter. I actually have a box of comb that I can give each of them as soon as they each finish filling the box they are in now. (The reason they have to finish filling the box they’re in is due to differences in hive part compatibility.) In the meantime, I have been feeding them ‘bee tea’, which is a sugar syrup made with herbal tea to help them digest the sugar. It is earlier in the year than I would normally feed them, since I only feed sugar if they are likely to starve if I don’t. The goldenrod and asters are still on their way; in the past, I’ve fed them after most of the nectar sources are done for the year and they haven’t collected enough. This year, I’m feeding them to produce the comb to be able to store enough.

honey bees on mint flowers — My view while harvesting mint for the bee tea. There were lots of honey bees foraging on this little patch of mint. The bee in the foreground is an older forager, as her slightly frayed wings and slight bald patch on her back indicate.

Herbs for the bee tea: yarrow, sage, mint, lemon balm, chamomile, stinging nettle. I also had hyssop, but I realized that it’s buried under the sage in the photo. The chamomile and stinging nettle are the dried herbs on the edge of the photo.

The recipe for the bee tea comes from the website of Spikenard Farm Honeybee Sanctuary.

https://spikenardfarm.org

https://spikenardfarm.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Healing-Tea-for-Honeybees-2_15_15.pdf

Willowherb

Willowherb is a plant with a very small pink flower, that I’ve always looked at with mild curiosity, but it wasn’t until I noticed its seedpod that I decided to identify it (there’s always a variety of things to identify, vying for my attention). I’d not seen a seedpod quite like it before, although I’d seen plenty of other interesting seedpods. Both the flower and the seedpods of willowherb are small and all these photos are larger than life size. The seeds are probably about the size of poppy seeds and the flowers about the size of a lentil. I don’t know a whole lot about them yet, but they did finally manage to catch my attention!

Queen Anne’s Lace, the Wild Carrot

wild carrot (queen anne's lace) flower — Wild carrot flower (also known as queen anne’s lace)

A very common wildflower (or weed, depending on one’s perspective) in my area is a plant known as queen anne’s lace, but it is also called wild carrot, because it is the ancestor of the carrots most people are familiar with eating. It is actually even the same species as domestic carrot. Its presence in large number in the area is a clue that domestic carrots can grow well here (and I have found that to be true). But ironically, its presence also makes it almost impossible to save seeds from domestic carrots grown here, assuming you want the domestic carrots to stay domestic; they will cross with the wild carrots and eventually revert back to wild carrots themselves.

wild carrot (queen anne's lace) — A thick patch of wild carrot by the woods

Tachina fly on wild carrot (queen anne's lace) — Tachina fly on wild carrot

At this point in the year, the wild carrots that are in their second year of life are flowering (carrots are biennials, meaning that they live two years). The flowers are food for many pollinators, but I’ve noticed bumble bees seem to especially like them. Bumble bees race around the flowers while foraging on wild carrot, somehow gathering up pollen while on the run.

Mud dauber wasp on wild carrot (queen anne's lace) — Mud dauber wasp on wild carrot.

honey bee with pollen foraging on wild carrot (queen anne's lace) — Honey bee foraging on wild carrot flower. Honey bees actually don’t seem to like wild carrot flowers all that much but they will forage on it when it is abundant and not much else is. Also, there tend to be a few bees in each colony that will do things differently from their sisters, like bringing home wild carrot pollen, while everyone else is bringing home oregano nectar (which is the case here; the nearby oregano was covered in bees, while this one lone bee foraged on the wild carrot).

In their first year, wild carrots produce a long taproot to store energy for overwintering. In their second year they flower, grow seeds, and die. Domestic carrots are pretty much the same, but with a slightly more exaggerated, and more colorful, taproot. (Wild carrots have white roots.)

wild carrot (queen anne's lace) seeds — Wild carrot seeds ripening

A fascinating Silk Moth (Antheraea Polyphemus)

A couple of days ago, I spotted a very large moth in the hoophouse. It was apparently nocturnal, and seemed to be sleeping. When I went out a little later to photograph it, I found it resting on the side of the hoophouse, with its wings spread and the light shining through them. This made for a very good opportunity for pictures since I had all the time I needed, and… mostly enough light.

antheraea polyphemus moth? — The moth in the hoophouse. I think it may be an antheraea polyphemus moth, or at least something closely related. It doesn’t seem to even have a common name (at least, I haven’t found one, it seems to just be referred to as ‘polyphemus moth’) but the subfamily it is in has a common name: silk moth.

I returned at dusk to make sure it was able to find its way out of the hoophouse, and it became even more clear that it was nocturnal.

A Sweat Bee on my Finger

I caught this tiny little sweat bee trying to find her way out of our hoophouse. She had obviously been foraging on something, probably thistle, judging by all the white pollen she had acquired around her back legs. Sweat bee is a common name given to a family of bees that like to lick sweat for the minerals it contains. This particular type of sweat bee is the smallest bee I see around here. As small as they are, female sweat bees can still sting a human, but they reserve this ability for when they are in immediate danger of being crushed to death. And yet, they are one of the more likely bees to be stung by simply because they are tiny and have a habit of landing on people, who may not notice they’re there. Fortunately, their venom is extremely mild (maybe just because there’s so little of it); for me, the effects last less than five minutes.

sweat bee with pollen — Sweat bee with pollen on my fingertip

After I had carried her out of the hoophouse, this little bee let me take some pictures of her before she flew off. She even seemed a bit curious about my camera, crawling too close to the lens to focus on, and landing briefly on the camera as she flew away.