The science of the mite-bomb – by The Beehive Jive

Tags

beekeeping, management, varroa mites

In the backwaters of beekeeping, a bitter debate is raging between the proponents of the so-called ‘mite-bomb’ theory and its opponents who claim it is stuff and nonsense. It isn’t the friendly sort of discussion beeks may have over tea and cake; discussing if you need matchsticks under the crown board when overwintering bees, goodness…

Read more here: The science of the mite-bomb — The Beehive Jive

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Summer Starvation Warning by Paul at Oxfordshire Natural Beekeeping

Tags

beekeeping, feeding bees, management, seasons

Good information contained here no matter where in this world you are living.

Oxfordshire Natural Beekeeping Group

The National Bee Unit has just issued a starvation alert for parts of the UK. Here in Oxfordshire, we’ve had a great start to the year, the bees have boomed, hives were heavy with stores early in the year and swarms began about a month early. There are many flowers visible to the eye. So why do we need to worry?

The short answer is lack of rainfall. For some weeks we’ve had relentless sun and heat, which is lovely up to a point, but plants need water to make nectar. Without rain, that blossom is empty. Conversely, in some years we have excessive rain extending throughout peak forage periods, which can hinder nectar production in key plants.

And even if a hive has honey stored, bees can’t eat pure honey. They need to dilute it to make it digestible, so they need a water source not just for cooling…

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Beekeeping Vocabulary – C is for…

Tags

beekeeping, beekeeping vocabulary, comb honey

Having had great success with recipe Saturdays, I’ve decided to add Vocabulary Sundays. Short and sweet vocabulary building for beekeepers and those interested in learning more before taking the leap.

Today’s word is: Comb Honey

Comb honey is honey intended for consumption which is still contained within its original hexagonal-shaped beeswax cells, called honeycomb. It is eaten as produced by honey bees and has received no processing, filtering, or manipulation.

Before the invention of the honey extractor almost all honey produced was in the form of comb honey.^[1] Today, most honey is produced for extraction but comb honey remains popular among consumers both for eating ‘as is’ and for combining with extracted honey to make chunk honey. Hobbyists and sideliners can develop their beekeeping skills by producing comb honey, which takes more rigorous attention to beekeeping than the production of extracted honey.

More on the types of comb honey here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comb_honey

Honey Dinner Rolls by Culinary Tertulias

Tags

beekeeping, honey, recipe

Versão em português When I lived in Brasília, my friends from work and I would just say “screw this!” and have a nice long lunch at Texas Roadhouse Grill, where they had these lovely rolls. I would threaten to just eat the bread (and drink beer, obviously) instead of ordering lunch! I’ve never got around […]

Read more here: Honey Dinner Rolls — Culinary Tertulias

Simple Breakfast – Toast with Pears and Honey – by Honey Hunter

Tags

beekeeping, honey, recipe

In a rush in the morning? Us too! This simple recipe can be made in less than 10 minutes and is a great way to start the day. Ingredients Bread – brown is best Pears – organic where available Honey – preferably raw, as there are so many benefits (local honey, even better) Walnuts Optional…

Read more here: Simple Breakfast – Toast with Pears and Honey — Honey Hunter

National Pollinator Week: Shrews and Mongooses, too. – by Bad Beekeeping Blog

Tags

beekeeping, pollination

National Pollinator Week is June 19 – June 25, but summer is an odd time of year to celebrate pollinators. The big honey bee migration to California’s almonds ended in March. Bees, birds, bats, and butterflies have finished their work on spring fruit trees. Sure, zucchini buds beckon, but even Dipteran pollinators (flies) slacken visits to […]

Read more here: National Pollinator Week: Shrews and Mongooses, too. — Bad Beekeeping Blog

Happy Summer Solstice! — by ferrebeekeeper

Tags

beekeeping, seasons

In the northern hemisphere, today is the longest day of the year–the summer solstice! Go out and worship the sun and enjoy summer. To help guide you in your revels, here is a fantasy picture of wild druidic rituals among the megaliths of Stonehenge. I love summer, so this truly is a sacred holiday for […]

via Happy Summer Solstice! — ferrebeekeeper

Monoculture and The Honey Bee

Tags

bee health, beekeeping

Protecting pollinators through more sustainable farming practices.

Read more here: Monoculture and The Honey Bee — Prime Bees – College Station Bee

What Affects Pollinator Health? — National Post

Tags

beekeeping, management, pests, varroa mites

The biggest threat to honey bee health is the varroa mite. These parasites feed primarily on the honey bee by attaching themselves to its body and drinking the blood of both the adults and the young.

via What Affects Pollinator Health? — National Post

Beekeeping Vocabulary – B is for…

Tags

beekeeping, beekeeping vocabulary, honey bee vocabulary

 

Having had great success with recipe Saturdays, I’ve decided to add Vocabulary Sundays. Short and sweet vocabulary building for beekeepers and those interested in learning more before taking the leap.

Today’s word is: Bee

Bees are flying insects closely related to wasps and ants, known for their role in pollination and, in the case of the best-known bee species, the European honey bee, for producing honey and beeswax. Bees are a monophyletic lineage within the superfamily Apoidea and are presently considered a clade, called Anthophila. There are nearly 20,000 known species of bees in seven recognized biological families.^[1][2] They are found on every continent except Antarctica, in every habitat on the planet that contains insect-pollinated flowering plants.

Tons more to read at Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bee

Honey Yogurt Popsicles

Tags

beekeeping, honey, recipe

YIELD: 8

INGREDIENTS

2 cups – plain yogurt

1 cup – milk

⅓ cup – honey

1 teaspoon – vanilla extract

¼ lb. – cherries pitted and quartered

¼ cup – blueberries

DIRECTIONS

In a large bowl, stir together the yogurt, milk, honey and vanilla extract. Taste the mixture and add a little more honey if needed. Divide half the fruit among 8 ½-cup popsicle holders. Add ¼ cup of the yogurt mixture to each popsicle holder, then add the rest of the fruit. You’ll need to press the fruit down a bit to distribute it evenly in the popsicle. Top off with more yogurt mixture if needed, leaving at least ¼ inch of space at the top of the popsicle holder because it will expand as it freezes. Freeze the popsicles for several hours, until completely solid.

Source: National Honey Board

Happy Birthday Thomas D. Seeley

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beekeeping

Dr. Thomas D. Seeley is the Horace White Professor in Biology at Cornell University. He is based in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior, where he teaches courses on animal behavior and does research on the behavior and social life of honey bees. His work is summarized in three books: Honeybee Ecology (1985), The Wisdom of the Hive (1995), and Honeybee Democracy (2010). He teaches biology and performs research at Cornell University.

More here: http://nbb.cornell.edu/thomas-seeley

Apicultural Issues – from pesticides to land use change

Tags

beekeeping, education

Norman Carreck, the International Bee Research Association’s science director, tells PEN about some of the challenges facing bee colonies – from pesticides to land use change Scientists are pretty much in consensus that the major driver for bee declines is changes in land use, meaning that wild bees have fewer places to nest and less…

Read more here: Apicultural Issues – from pesticides to land use change — BEEKeeperTom’s Blog

Amino Acids in Honey Bees by deltavalleyapiary

Tags

beekeeping, feeding bees, honey bee biology

Amino Acids are building blocks of proteins. All amino acids are comprised of 4 groups. The first three are common in all amino acids. They are: Alpha Carbon (C-H) Amine Group (N-H-H) Carboxyl Group (O-C-OH) The last is the R Group. The R Groups are what defines the individual amino acids. Some are polar […]

To read more visit:  Amino Acids —

5 Eyes – A Study

Tags

beekeeping, honey bee biology

Bees have amazing vision that is very different from ours – here’s how they work!

Read more at: 5 Eyes – A Study — Prime Bees – College Station Bee

Comb Honey

Tags

beekeeping, comb honey, honey

 

Looks like I get to cross another one off my beekeeping bucket list. Comb honey! When I started beekeeping I read Richard Taylor’s book, The Joys of Beekeeping and have had the idea of making comb honey ever since. I crowded this hive after the first month of the flow by removing a super when they actually needed one, and replaced it with a super of Ross Rounds. Now, about three weeks later, all 32 rounds are beautifully capped.

 

 

I realized after pulling it that I had no space in the freezer so I put it back on top after inserting a medium. They deserve the space for all their hard work! Currently when foragers return at the end of the day it looks like a package of bees hanging from each entrance.

 

Beekeeping Vocabulary – A is for…

Tags

beekeeping, honey bee vocabulary

Having had great success with recipe Saturdays, I’ve decided to add Vocabulary Sundays. Short and sweet vocabulary building for beekeepers and those interested in learning more before taking the leap.

Today’s word(s) are:  Apis mellifera – def. The western honey bee or European honey bee (Apis mellifera) is a species of honey bee. The genus name Apis is Latin for bee, and mellifera means honey-bearing. Thus: honey-bearing bee.

There is a huge body of information on Apis mellifera. I’ve been told more has been written in the honey bee than any other animal. After becoming interested in honey bees, I spend my first year or so reading online books from the 1800s and early 1900s. Most of it was excellent even though science has added and corrected some earlier misconceptions. If you’re considering beekeeping or just want the quick notes version so you can hold your own over a dinner party here is the Wikipedia entry:  Western Honey Bee.

5 Victorian Beekeeping Facts by Victorian Trading Company

Tags

beekeeping, beekeeping history

Have you a guess as to which fictional icon tended to a hive in his retirement…?

Read the entire article here: 5 Victorian Beekeeping Facts — Victorian Trading Co. | The Official Blog

The Foot of the Pyramid – Varroa Control

Tags

beekeeping, management, varroa mites

Often neglected IPM Strategies against Varroa By Dr. Ewan Campbell The mantra of pest control in any livestock / cultivated crop or invasive species is integrated pest management (IPM). It is a holistic approach that draws on a range of different control methods to keep the numbers of a pest at a minimum. We, as […]

via The Foot of the Pyramid — Aberdeen and District Beekeepers’ Association (SCIO)

Second Lady Karen Pence, Secretary Perdue Unveil Beehive at Vice President’s Residence, and Asks Public to Help Boost Pollinator Population

Tags

beekeeping

Caption: Secretary and Mrs. Perdue joined Second Lady Karen Pence to unveil a new beehive on the grounds of the Vice President’s residence.

WASHINGTON, June 6, 2017 – Second Lady Karen Pence and Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue today unveiled a newly-installed beehive on the grounds of the Vice President’s residence, drawing attention to the plight of pollinators whose numbers are in decline. Together, the two urged Americans to do their own part to help reverse the population trend among the creatures, which are essential to producing much of the nation’s food.

“All types of pollinators, such as bees, butterflies, birds and bats, are critical to providing our nation’s food, fiber, fuel and medicine,” Mrs. Pence said. “However, our beekeepers have been losing colonies for many years. This presents a serious challenge to our ability to produce many of the agricultural products that we enjoy today. The bees at the Vice President’s Residence will provide an added bonus to the vegetable and flower gardens by making them well pollinated and taste even better at harvest.”

Perdue released a proclamation he has signed declaring June 19-25, 2017 as “National Pollinator Week” (Proclamation can be viewed online at https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/files/documents/national-pollinator-week-secretary-proclamation.pdf (PDF, 97.5 KB)). Perdue noted that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Environmental Protection Agency led efforts to create a National Pollinator Health Strategy. The two agencies are working with a number of other federal departments to implement that strategy, which includes significant USDA research.

“Most farmers and consumers have no better friends and few harder workers than the honey bee, as more than one-third of all U.S. crop production requires insect pollination,” Perdue said. “But our honeybee population has been losing ground at an alarming rate. The problem represents a diverse mix of challenges requiring a wide range of solutions. And at USDA we are leading the way in research to help out our pollinator friends.”

Honeybees are the nation’s primary pollinators, adding at least $15 billion a year in value to about 90 crops by increasing yields and helping to ensure superior-quality harvests. Those crops include nuts, fruits, berries and vegetables, which add color, taste and texture to our diet.

The number of honeybee hives in the U.S, has declined from 6 million during the 1940s to only about 2.5 million today. Those losses have been attributed to a number of factors, ranging from a syndrome known as “colony collapse disorder” to stress caused by factors such as parasites and pests, transportation of bees, sub-lethal exposure to pesticides, and poor nutrition.

Mrs. Pence and Secretary Perdue pointed out that a lack of supportive habitat near hives also contributes to the declines. Even if people don’t set up their own hives, they can help by planting bee-friendly flowers and flowering herbs in their yards and gardens. Honeybees particularly love wildflowers, lilacs, poppies and Black-eyed Susans, as well as herbs and vegetables like mint, sage, squash, tomatoes, oregano, and rosemary. In addition, bees get thirsty, and that placing birdbaths and small basins of water could help relieve their thirst.

Mrs. Pence installed a beehive in the Indiana governor’s residence in 2014, when Vice President Mike Pence served as the state’s governor. She said more than 80 percent of the land in Indiana is dedicated to agriculture, and its crops are very dependent upon pollinators.

The hive unveiled today is located on the grounds of the Vice President’s Residence. It is a triple-deep “Langstroth” beehive that holds traditional frames and was obtained from Eco Honeybees of Falls Church, VA. The hive contains almost 20,000 bees and continues to grow.

via: USDA Press Release

Selling Honey

Tags

honey, honey judging

Spring Harvest

Tags

beekeeping, honey

Honey Harvest time has arrived.

Is this RAW Honey?

Tags

beekeeping, food, honey

Excellent write up on the topic of raw honey. Many, if not most, of my customers ask for specifically “raw honey” for the health benefits. They often have many requirements such as non-filtered, non-heated, and local sourced. This article by The Apiarist explores the topic of raw honey.

Source: ‘Raw’ honey — The Apiarist

How many times have your been asked that?

Define ‘raw’

Chambers 21^st Century Dictionary defines ‘raw’ as meaning: 1. said of meat, vegetables, etc: not cooked. 2. not processed, purified or refined. … and then wanders off into definitions of ‘raw’ silk, weather and wounds, though no mention of raw honey.  Clearly honey is both a foodstuff and ‘not cooked’, though if it’s heated excessively it has to be sold as ‘Bakers honey’.

However, is it processed, purified or refined? I operate my extractor with the gate open. I run the honey through a coarse filter (~2 mm) directly into 30 lb. buckets. This removes the worst of the lumps that really shouldn’t be in honey … big pellets of pollen, scraps of brace comb and bits of bees. I really don’t want any of these on my toast in the mornings, and I don’t want them floating on the – inevitable – scum when the jar is opened as I would really like to attract repeat customers. I store the 30 lb. buckets until I’m ready to jar the honey, re-filtering it through a fine mesh and removing the scum before bottling. The end product looks great and has a good shelf life.

Since ‘purified’ means to remove contaminants I suspect the pedantic would consider the honey is no longer raw.

Raw honey on labels

Honey labelled for sale must carry one of the following reserved words that describe the product … Honey, Blossom Honey, Nectar Honey, Honeydew Honey, Comb Honey, Chunk Honey, Cut Comb in Honey, Drained Honey, Extracted Honey, Pressed Honey, Filtered Honey and Baker’s Honey. If the predominant nectar source is known the reserved word can be prefixed with the source e.g. heather honey.

It’s notable that raw, organic, unfiltered or unheated aren’t reserved words and yet are regularly found on honey labels, sometimes immediately preceding the word ‘honey’.

The taste test

The jar at the top of the page is coarse filtered ‘raw’ honey run straight from the extractor into the bottle. It’s slightly cloudy and has bubbles and a sort of swirly, almost birefringent, appearance when you hold it against the light. It will almost certainly crystallise unevenly and unpredictably. It might have an antenna lurking in its murky depths.

It tastes absolutely delicious.

But then so is honey that’s been allowed to settle in the buckets, gently warmed in a honey warming cabinet^†, filtered through a fine mesh filter, allowed to settle again, skimmed (to remove the bubbles that rise to the surface) and then carefully bottled in pre-warmed jars. This is still ‘raw’ – as in uncooked – honey but it’s also certainly a more refined product. It’s beautifully clear, it looks great on the shop shelves or the breakfast table, it sells well and it attracts a premium price. Like all pure honey that hasn’t been heated to very high temperatures or filtered excessively it will eventually crystallise, but it has a long shelf life and will remain attractive for the duration.

It might be interesting to conduct a blind taste test of a jar of ‘raw’ honey with one refined just enough – as described above – to look really good and sell well. It might also be interesting to auction an unlabelled jar of each and see which is more attractive to the customer … or see whether customers who find bee legs in the jar make repeat orders

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^† Going by the number of visitors who come to this site having searched for a ‘honey warming cabinet‘ I suspect that the ‘raw’ honey sold by most beekeepers is at least partially refined. As an aside that last link also takes you to details of the cabinet sold by Abelo’s, which looks lovely (a lot more aesthetically pleasing than my DIY effort), but costs an eye-watering £599 and doesn’t enable you to pre-warm supers before extraction. A missed opportunity.

 

Read more at:  ‘Raw’ honey — The Apiarist

Book review – Bad Beekeeping by Ron Miksha (2004)

Tags

beekeeping, beekeeping history, book review, commercial beekeeping

Ron is the author of the excellent Bad Beekeeping blog, which has recently been selected by Beesker as “the world’s very best website on bees and beekeeping”. Bad Beekeeping by Ron Miksha – available on Amazon Bad Beekeeping is no ordinary beekeeping book. Instead it’s a memoir of Ron’s time as a commercial beekeeper, spending […]

Read more here: Book review – Bad Beekeeping by Ron Miksha (2004) — Adventuresinbeeland’s Blog

Honey Chia Yogurt

Tags

beekeeping, honey, recipe

One of my favorite foods in the world is yogurt! You can do so much with it and you can have it ANY TIME OF THE DAY!!! I dislike buying it pre-done in the store; in my opinion it is loaded with unnecessary sugar and tastes way to sweet. Plus, I want my little ones […]

via Honey Chia Yogurt — The Honey Cottage

Yogurt with fruits and honey

Tags

beekeeping, honey, recipe

This is my number one choice for breakfast but also a good snack throughout the day when I crave something sweet. At the moment I like kiwi fruits and pink lady but any fruit could be used. I used to add artificial sweetener to the plain yogurt but lately I prefer honey. 🙂 Ingredients: 4 […]

via Yogurt with fruits and honey — kattygee

Making a Decapping Tank

Tags

beeswax

How to make a decapping tank. Find storage containers with internal length dimension about 21 inches. (Take a frame with you to purchase). Buy two. Cut about 80% of bottom out of one container. Place metal queen excluder in bottom which will strain the cappings. Measure and make rails such that frames will rest and can’t fall into container. (An empty frame can now double as a decapping rest also.) Now slide (nest) this container into the second container which will collect all the dripping honey. Have extra money? Install a honey gate in the bottom container.

Pinching the Queen by Bad Beekeeping Blog

Tags

beekeeping, management, queens

Today I’ll write a few words about finding and murdering the old queen. We’ll assume that you have decided the queen must die. Harsh as that sounds, sometimes it’s the only way to save a hive. Think of the colony as a living creature (superorganism) and the queen as the heart. Or more to the […]

Read more  here: Pinching the Queen — Bad Beekeeping Blog