honey bee – Brennah's Backyard

Honey Bees in March

For honey bee colonies that have made it through the winter, the month of March can still be a difficult and risky time. Especially towards the beginning of the month, there isn’t much of anything for them to forage on. Despite that hinderance, the bees are busily expanding their brood rearing operation. The colony’s growing new generation requires more resources than what the relatively small (and all fully grown) winter generation needed. If the colony was successful the previous season, this should be no problem; their stores of honey and pollen would be adequate for the job.

Honey bee foraging on flowers from our winter crops — Honey bee grooming pollen off of her antennae, to be collected in her pollen baskets.

But in the case of my colonies, which were started late last year, and then faced a weirdly early start to winter, they were a bit short on pollen, which is especially important for their developing brood. The warmth of spring also came fairly early this year, and so there was plenty of time before anything was blooming outside for the bees to be out and about, looking for something to feed their brood.

honey bee with pollen on tokyo bekana flowers — Honey bee gathering pollen from Tokyo bekana flowers. Tokyo bekana is a very mild green in the mustard family that we grow during the winter.

Meanwhile in the hoophouse many of the winter crops were starting to bolt (produce their flowers), and the warmer temperatures meant that the louvres were open most of the time… So before long, the bees discovered it and were flying in through the louvres to gather pollen from the bolting winter crops. This would have been just fine, if they were able to find their way back out. Unfortunately, although they were very clever about navigating their way in, when they decide it is time to return to the hive, they tend to try to fly towards the sun, rather than retracing their path. I guess maybe they need to orient themselves for a while before they can pick out their route home? However it works, the result was that with just the louvres open, most of them couldn’t find their way out, and with the sides also opened up, some of them still found themselves stuck in the corners. (Bumble bees don’t have this problem… they seem to be extremely good navigators. They’ll fly into a corner occasionally, but usually after trying unsuccessfully to escape for a minute they just go off and try another way.)

Honey bees foraging on flowers from our winter crops

My response to this was to gather flowers from the bolting plants and arrange them in what I hoped would be a tempting display not too far from the hives (but also not too close, because that can lead to robbing, sometimes) and to catch bees that got in the hoophouse and brush them out of the corners.

Honey bees foraging on flowers from our winter crops

The bees seemed to appreciate having a nearby patch of flowers to forage on, but some of them would still start flying into the hoophouse on the warmest days. One day toward the end of March, I noticed very few bees getting into the hoophouse despite it being a warm sunny day, and there were fewer on the patch by the hives. Finally, something else was flowering for them… but what was it? I didn’t see them on the hazelnut catkins that were just starting to open. Hazelnuts are wind pollinated and offer only pollen, which they would have gone for if something wasn’t offering them a better deal. It turned out to be the silver maples back in the woods.

Silver maple flower (I don’t have pictures of the bees on the flowers because most of the flowers were way up above what I could reach, and I actually had to trek quite a ways just to find a tree with a low hanging branch with flowers I could photograph. The bees, meanwhile, probably don’t find it worth their while to come down there much when most of the flowers are up high.)

So now, as more things join the silver maples (willows are also starting to open their catkins now), the colonies will start to grow, and turn their attention toward their next season, which is the swarming season.

Pollen dusted honey bee hanging from a willow catkin

Midwinter Hive Check

This past Sunday was very warm for this time of year and I decided to check on my bees and see how they were doing. I wanted to see if it looked like they had enough honey left to make it until spring, and make sure that it would be accessible to them. Sometimes, as the cluster of bees makes its way slowly through their winter provisions, they find themselves with empty combs between themselves and the combs filled with honey. They can’t cross the barrier to get to the honey, because the cluster itself moves very slowly (especially when raising brood), and individual bees would quickly become immobilized by the cold.

This is the first time I have done a midwinter hive check, so I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. The sun was shining, but it was windy, and the wind was chilly. I knew the bees wouldn’t like that, but it was only expected to get more windy as the day went on. (Since this needed to be a quick check since it was only marginal weather for beekeeping, all the photos in this post are courtesy of my mom.)

The first hive I opened was the colony that had had the most honey going into winter. The winter cluster looked (from what I could tell having never looked at a winter cluster in person before), pretty good. It seemed like a decent size; there were still plenty of bees left. They didn’t seem very happy about having the chilly wind suddenly blowing on them, though.

I could see that they still had honey left, but it looked a little scattered, from what I could tell without really taking things apart. It also wasn’t something I could just rearrange to get the honey next to the bees. I did still have a couple of candy boards left over from last winter, though… I decided to go get those out to give to the bees, just in case.

The candy boards (and smoker). The candy boards are filled with hardened sugar, and have a mesh on the bottom that holds the sugar in place while being large enough for the bees to go through to eat the sugar.

That ended up being easier said than done; one of the candy boards was starting to come apart (I was pretty much improvising when I built them… the other one had turned out all right, though). Once I opened the hive for the second time, the bees really started coming out. Some of them seemed upset, and some of them just seemed confused, and cold. But they were all over the surface I needed to set the candy board on. Setting it down without crushing bees was going to be difficult. After I got it in place (I don’t think I crushed many bees, but it was kind of hard to tell this time) I noticed that there was a bit of a traffic jam at the entrance as all the bees that had flown out when I opened the hive tried to get back inside at once.

A traffic jam at the entrance. The entrance is reduced to a pretty small hole to keep mice out of the hive.

The second hive check went much smoother. At that point I was assuming I would have to put a candy board on for them, but they actually seemed a bit better situated than the others. I already had the candy board out and ready to go, though, so I put it on anyway.

Getting the candy board situated on the hive.

Now it has returned to cold and snowy, and the bees are back out of sight in their hives.

Honey Bees in the Winter

Honey bees flying in late November. — My honey bees flying in late November after an early cold spell.

When it gets too cold for the honey bees to leave their hives it can be much harder to tell how the colony is doing. The hives look pretty lifeless on a cold winter day. There may be some dead bees scattered at the entrance. This is actually a good sign, especially if they are recently dead and as long as there aren’t too many of them. It means there are still live bees inside, and they’re cleaning out the dead. If there’s a warm day and the bees can leave the hive, they’ll clean off the entrance board of their hive and fly the dead bees away from it.

A dead honey bee dropped off into the snow by another member of her colony. — A dead bee dropped off into the snow by another member of her colony.

Another sign to look for when there’s snow on the ground is little flecks of yellow in the snow: bee poop. Bees do not poop inside their hive unless they are sick or it stays very cold for a really long time and they just can’t get out.

Honey bee poop on snow — Bee poop on the snow

The snow also seems to melt a little faster right on the entrance board when the bees are doing well. Other than that, you can’t tell much unless you get a really warm day and are able to take a peek inside, or at least see bees flying around the entrance. But for most of the winter, the bees will be hidden inside their hive, clustered together around the queen, vibrating their flight muscles to generate heat, and eating the honey they stored away during the summer. And then, at some point, usually around mid February here (if not even earlier), the queen will start laying eggs and the bees will have to raise the temperature inside the cluster (to above 90˚F) because the larvae need it extra warm to survive.

Aster Season

The time of year when the asters and goldenrod are blooming (late summer to early fall) is the time of year when most social insects (insects that live in colonies) like honey bees are at their highest population for the year. The asters are one of the last major nectar flowers for the honey bees, and the asters are covered in them. At first glance it may seem to be all honey bees and other social insects (like hornets and bumble bees), but there’s actually quite a wide variety of pollinators drawn to them.

melissodes (longhorn) bee with pollen on aster — Melissodes (longhorn) bee with pollen on aster

probably an andrena bee, on an aster — This is most likely an andrena bee, but the andrena clan is one I’ve not gotten around to thoroughly figuring out yet, so I’m not quite sure.

Painted lady butterfly on new england aster. I often don’t have much luck photographing butterflies when I am specifically trying to, but while just photographing whatever I could find on the asters, this butterfly landed directly in front of me.

bumble bee on new england aster — Bumble bee on new england aster

Cucumber beetle on heart leaved aster. This aster is less common in my yard, and I’ve been trying to encourage it. These flowers are on some new plants found in the lawn this spring and preserved from mowing.

Hover fly (sryphid fly) on aster — Hover fly (sryphid fly) on an aster

First Harvest

Over the last month, we’ve been working on planting crops for the fall and winter. Now we’re starting to be able to harvest our first greens from our efforts, but they aren’t the ones we planted! Those ones are still coming along, but aren’t ready yet. The plants we’ve been harvesting are weeds. Many of the weeds that commonly pop up in gardens are actually edible and nutritious, and if you know which ones they are, they can add variety to the harvest (and make it come sooner as most of them are very quick growing and are best harvested young). Here’s a look at what we’re harvesting.

Amaranth

Amaranth is not just a weed, it is a plant that is often grown as a crop, but it also grows wild and is often treated as a weed when it does. We have a wild variety, and we also have a variety that is a cultivar that has probably crossed with the wild variety, and just pops up in the chicken yard now (and wherever the soil from the chicken yard goes, like our garden).

This red amaranth is the descendant of a cultivar.

Wild mustard

This is one of our most prevalent weeds and as a stronger green, much more comes up than we can eat. Fortunately, the chickens love it, and we like to share it with them. Especially in the winter when greens are scarce, wild mustard growing in our hoophouse (along with bittercress and some greens from our crops) helps satisfy their constant appetite for greens.

honey bee in flight over wild mustard — Honey bee flying over wild mustard. Bees like to forage on the flowers of wild mustard, and it often blooms fairly late into the fall.

Wild Spinach (chinopodium album)

This plant has a lot of common names, many of which are also used for other unrelated plants. In other words, the common names of chinopodium album are a bit of a disorganized mess. I like wild spinach since it is fairly descriptive (it is related to spinach, although technically it is more closely related to quinoa), and I’ve never heard anything else being called that. Other names I’ve heard this plant called are goosefoot, lamb’s quarters, fat hen, and pigweed (this name is also applied to amaranth).

chinopodium album leaf — Young wild spinach leaf with mineral salt secretion. Young leaves look powdery, but with an extreme close up like this, it looks almost like water drops or little marbles.

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

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

Sights from the Bee Hives

I recently got a couple new colonies of honey bees. These were nucleus colonies, which are just tiny honey bee colonies in small (and more portable) boxes. They rapidly outgrow such small boxes, so moving them into new boxes (and looking them over and taking photos while I was at it) was my first task. Here’s a bit of what I encountered.

honey bee eggs and just hatched larvae — Honey bee eggs (mostly on the left) and just hatched larvae. The liquid around the larvae is their food; probably royal jelly. (All larvae are fed royal jelly until they are three days old, after three days, only queens are fed royal jelly.)

The black background to these photos is foundation, a template that the bees construct their comb on inside the hive. Foundation is a sheet of wax, or plastic (or wax coated plastic) printed with a hexagon pattern that the bees draw out into comb. In this case it is black plastic, which is often helpful for beginners to be able to see the bee eggs and young larvae, which is useful in assessing the health of the colony. (You actually literally have to train your eyes to see them; I had good eyesight and knew what I was looking for when I started, but I simply wasn’t able to see them through my veil so I would take it off temporarily. Now I can see them just fine through my veil.)

honey bee eggs and young larvae, with two eggs in one cell — Honey bee eggs and just hatched larvae. One cell contains two eggs. Very young queens sometimes do this when they are still learning how to lay eggs properly.

honey bees on comb — Close up of a few bees on the comb. The light in this picture highlights their fur (they even have fur on their eyes). Young bees are especially fuzzy.

honey bees with eggs and just hatched larvae — Honey bees with eggs (mostly on the left again) and just hatched larvae.

worker honey bees with queen — Worker honey bees surrounding their queen. This queen is marked with a white dot on her back (this is also something that can be helpful for beginners to be able to spot the queen among the thousands of worker bees, but it can also be helpful for people who have a lot of hives, or are breeding queens and need to keep track of them more carefully).