31 Tuesday Oct 2017
Posted in beekeeping, folklore
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It fell to me to tell the bees,
though I had wanted another duty—
to be the scribbler at his death,
there chart the third day’s quickening.
But fate said no, it falls to you
to tell the bees, the middle daughter.
So it was written at your birth.
(cont.)
Read full poem here: “Telling the Bees” by Deborah Digges — Words for the Year
From Trapeze by Deborah Digges.
31 Tuesday Oct 2017
Posted in beekeeping, beekeeping history
Tags
beekeeping, beekeeping customs, beekeeping history, beekeeping lore, Halloween, telling the bees
Charles Napier Hemy (1841-1917) – Telling the Bees
Telling the Bees
The telling of the bees is a traditional English custom, in which bees would be told of important events in their keeper’s lives, such as births, marriages, or departures and returns in the household. The bees were most commonly told of deaths in their master’s family.
To inform the bees of a death their hive might be hung with a black cloth, while a “doleful tune” is sung. Another method of “telling the bees” would be for their master to approach the hive and knock gently upon it. The house key might also be used to knock on the hive. When the master of the house had the attention of the bees they would tell the bees the name of the person that had died.
Food and drink from a beekeeper’s funeral would also be left by the hive for the bees, including the funeral biscuits and wine. The hive would also be lifted a few inches and put down again at the same time as the coffin. The hive might also be rotated to face the funeral procession, and draped with mourning cloth.
A section from John Greenleaf Whittier‘s poem “Home Ballads” describes the practice:
Before them, under the garden wall,
Forward and back
Went, drearily singing, the chore-girl small,
Draping each hive with a shred of black.Trembling, I listened; the summer sun
Had the chill of snow;
For I knew she was telling the bees of one
Gone on the journey we all must go!“Stay at home, pretty bees, fly not hence!
Mistress Mary is dead and gone!”
Source and to read more: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telling_the_bees
Video animation of John Greenleaf Whittier via YouTube posted by poetryreincarnations
Video of Holland beekeeper telling the bees via Youtube posted by Historical Honeybee Articles
30 Monday Oct 2017
Posted in beekeeping, beekeeping history
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The charred remains of 2,500-year-old honeycombs, as well as other beekeeping artifacts, have been discovered in an Etruscan workshop in northern Italy.
The findings included the remains of a unique grapevine honey produced by traveling beekeepers along rivers, according to a new study.
“The importance of beekeeping in the ancient world is well known through an abundance of iconographic, literary, archaeometric and ethnographic [or cultural] sources,” Lorenzo Castellano, a graduate student at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University and first author of the new study, told Live Science. (In archaeometry, scientists use physical, chemical and mathematical analyses to study archaeological sites.)
Even so, since honeycombs are perishable, direct fossil evidence of them is “extremely rare,” he added.
Read full article here: The Etruscans Were Expert Beekeepers, Ancient Honeycombs Suggest by Rossella Lorenzi
29 Sunday Oct 2017
Posted in beekeeping, honey
Above: Uncapping with an electric hot knife on an uncapping tub by Ben pcc
Today’s beekeeping vocabulary word is, “Uncapping Knife.”
From Wikipedia:
The first step in the extraction process is to break or remove all of the cappings. This may be accomplished using an automated uncapper machine or with a manually-operated uncapping knife. Usually, these tools are used together, along with a pronged cappings fork. To facilitate cutting off these wax cappings, the knife is often heated. The removed bits of wax, called cappings, are rich in honey which can be slowly drained off with the help of some heating. This ‘cappings wax’ is very valuable and often used to make candles or other products. Automated uncapping machines normally work by abrading the surface of the wax with moving chains or bristles or hot knives. This, while messy, makes the process easier than doing this task manually.
Source and to read more: Wikipedia
28 Saturday Oct 2017
Posted in beekeeping, honey, honey recipe, recipe
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This time of year we have an abundance of sweet potatoes at our local farmer’s market. We love them; our dogs love them. It’s quite simple to place a sweet potatoes in water and boil, or the microwave, or oven. I like mine slightly undercooked. Upon removal the skin should slide off. Dice the potato and toss with some honey and cinnamon. I recommend sitting on your porch with a cup of coffee to compliment the experience. Enjoy!
Honey Cinnamon Roasted Sweet Potatoes
via: Honey Cinnamon Roasted Sweet Potatoes — Abigail Wallace
27 Friday Oct 2017
Posted in beekeeping, beekeeping management, management
Palmer has a direct, no-nonsense speaking style that gets right to the point and stays there. In the course of his decades long career in beekeeping he has listened, tested and learned…and fortunately for the rest of us is generous in passing along his field-tested findings.
It would not be possible to set down his points in detail: Palmer simply presented too much that was useful, often ground-breaking and always interesting. Hence the links, below, to his full lectures. But I will try to summarize his famous “Sustainable Apiary” approach and touch on any topic that as a beekeeper I found particularly valuable.
Read the full article here: Michael Palmer and The Sustainable Apiary — Here We Bee
26 Thursday Oct 2017
Posted in beekeeping, beekeeping management, beekeeping seasons, management
It’s only 62 degrees this morning, but bees in the English hive are already out foraging. It’s no wonder that these bees are well set up for the cold weather that is just around the corner; of all our hives, they have the most honey stored. This is our go-to hive for requeening because the colony has always been friendly, the queens have always been great producers, the bees are hygienic, and the bees are the first out the door to forage.
At the other end of the spectrum, we have a hive that has no stored resources despite all the goldenrod that surrounds the apiary. Our records show that they haven’t stored any resources since we brought them back from the sunflower patch — and they had nothing then. If I’d been able to find the queen yesterday, I’d have combined them with another weak but productive hive. Those guys have increased their numbers by a full frame of bees and they have nectar and bee bread stored. I can’t risk combining them without eliminating the lazy-genetics queen, so they have two weeks to pick up their game! We put a candy board on the hive yesterday (and reduced the entrance down to a single bee width), so maybe that will help them. Maybe it will make them more dependent on us.
Read full article here: Preparing for Winter — Lazer Creek Apiary Blog
24 Tuesday Oct 2017
Posted in beekeeping, honey
Tags
How many of us learned in grade school the phrase: “A pint is a pound the world around.”
This, unfortunately, is simply not true.
Note that a pint is 16 ounces of volume, while a pound is 16 ounces of weight.
If you’re measuring water the number of ounces in volume is similar to the number of ounces in weight. This may be where the phrase comes from. But it isn’t true for most other substances. Ex. a pint of gold would not be one pound.
In beekeeping a pint of honey is not a pound. Depending on the density (thickness) of the honey, a pint (volume) of honey actually will weigh approximately 22oz. (One pound, 6 ounces).
Exactly why is this important? Because, at least here in the US honey is typically sold by weight rather than volume. So, if you purchase a pint jar filled with honey it will say 1lb.6oz. If you purchase a 1 pound jar the jar will read 16 ounces but by volume you will be purchasing approximately 12 ounces.
23 Monday Oct 2017
Posted in beekeeping
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Nice picture from my beekeeping friend and photographer 67steffen:
Our backyard ivy remains abuzz with honeybees. I’d say multiply this shot by a thousand to get a sense of how many bees are at work. Their hive is only a few feet away, so this may explain the high activity.
22 Sunday Oct 2017
Posted in beekeeping, honey
Above: For your entertainment, Van Morrison singing Tupelo Honey
Today’s beekeeping vocabulary word is, “Tupelo.”
Tupelo Honey is the gold standard by which all other honey varieties are measured. For two weeks every spring, White (Ogeche) Tupelo Trees in the Southeastern swamps bloom with fine sunburst-shaped flowers that glisten with nectar.
From Wikipedia:
Tupelo /ˈtuːpɪloʊ/, genus Nyssa /ˈnɪsə/,[3] is a small genus of deciduous trees with alternate, simple leaves.[1][4] It is sometimes included in the subfamily Nyssoideae of the dogwood family, Cornaceae, but is placed by other authorities in the family Nyssaceae.[5] In the APG IV system, it is placed in Nyssaceae.[6]
Most Nyssa species are highly tolerant of wet soils and flooding, and some need such environments as habitat.[7] Some of the species are native to eastern North America from southeastern Canada through the Eastern United States to Mexico and Central America.[1] Other species are found in eastern and southeastern Asia from China south through Indochina to Java and southwest to the Himalayas.[2][4]
Honey
Tupelos of the species Nyssa ogeche are valued as honey plants in the southeastern United States, particularly in the Gulf Coast region.[17] They produce a very light, mild-tasting honey. In Florida, beekeepers keep beehives along the river swamps on platforms or floats during tupelo bloom to produce certified tupelo honey, which commands a high price on the market because of its flavor.[17] Monofloral honey made from the nectar of Nyssa ogeche has such a high ratio of fructose to glucose that it does not crystallize.[18]
The Apalachicola River in the Florida Panhandle is the center for tupelo honey. The honey is produced wherever tupelo trees (three species) bloom in southeastern USA, but the purest and most expensive version (which is certified by pollen analysis) is produced in this valley. In a good harvest year, the tupelo honey crop produced by a group of specialized Florida beekeepers has a value approaching $1,000,000.[19]
Source and to read more: Wikipedia
Tupelo Honey is also the fifth studio album by Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison. It was released in October 1971 by Warner Bros. Records. Morrison had written all of the songs on the album in Woodstock, New York, before his move to Marin County, California, except for “You’re My Woman”, which he wrote during the recording sessions. Recording began at the beginning of the second quarter of 1971 at the Wally Heider Studios, San Francisco. Morrison moved to the Columbia Studios in May 1971 to complete the album.
21 Saturday Oct 2017
Posted in beekeeping, honey, honey recipe, recipe
Tags
Love the color of these biscuits and how easy they are to make. Not only are they a hit for breakfast …but they are also perfect by themselves. The pumpkin in the biscuits and the honey butter are a great combination to stand alone for a mid morning snack or with afternoon tea.
19 Thursday Oct 2017
Posted in beekeeping, biology, honey bee biology
Some social insects have proved to be adept invaders. Assisted by the international trade of the modern world, these species have spread far beyond the ocean and mountain barriers that once determined their distributions. In some cases, these range expansions have brought previously isolated sister species back into contact. What happens when such species try to mate?
We were interested in this question of interspecific mating in the case of two honey bees: the Western honey bee Apis mellifera and the Eastern honey (or hive) bee, Apis cerana. These species diverged from a common ancestor at least 6 million years ago, with A. mellifera native to Europe and Africa and A. cerana native to Asia and India. Western honey bees have of course since been transported, in association with agriculture, to every human-inhabited continent on earth. Eastern honey bees meanwhile, have been quietly expanding their range too in recent decades, invading both Papua New Guinea and Australia. Thus what were allopatric (or separate) ranges for millions of years have suddenly become partially sympatric.
Read entire article at: Sex between species: what happens when invasive honey bees meet the locals? — insectessociaux
18 Wednesday Oct 2017
Posted in beekeeping, beekeeping history
I just can’t resist sharing this wonderful post by Adventures in Beeland. Facinating stuff!
Today we visited the Lost Gardens of Heligan and saw the old ‘bee boles’. These are recesses in a wall big enough to hold straw skeps. The wall would have provided shelter and typically would have been south or east facing. At Heligan most of the boles have removable wooden doors in place. I would be interested to know how the wooden doors would have been used. I’m guessing they may have been in place over winter to provide extra protection from the wind and rain and then removed come spring?
Read the entire article at: Bees and Bee Boles at the Lost Gardens of Heligan — Adventuresinbeeland’s Blog
17 Tuesday Oct 2017
Posted in beekeeping, honey, honey as food
Tags
Having delivered many talks to non/new beekeepers on honeybees and their importance, the Egyptian tomb honey question is asked more often than not.
Now Georgia (in the Caucasus region of Eurasia, not the US.) appears to trump Egypt by more than 2000 years!
Georgians have long laid claim to being the first winemakers in the world, but could they also be pioneer beekeepers? After a thorough examination of some five-millennia-plus-old jars unearthed in Georgia, archeologists have declared that the artifacts contain the world’s oldest honey.
The honey stains found in the ceramic vessels, found 170 kilometers west of Tbilisi, are believed to be made by bees that buzzed around in Georgia 5,500 years ago — some 2,000 years older than the honey found in Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamen’s tomb, which had been considered the oldest before, Rustavi2 proudly pointed out.
As in ancient Egypt, in ancient Georgia, honey was apparently packed for people’s journeys into the afterlife. And more than one type, too — along for the trip were linden, berry, and a meadow-flower variety.
Read the entire article at: The Science Behind Honey’s Eternal Shelf Life — BEEKeeperTom’s Blog
15 Sunday Oct 2017
Posted in beekeeping, equipment
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Photo by Robert Engelhardt, CC BY-SA 3.0
Today’s beekeeping vocabulary word is, “Smoker.”
From Wikipedia:
A bee smoker (usually called simply a smoker) is a device used in beekeeping to calm honey bees. It is designed to generate smoke from the smouldering of various fuels, hence the name.
The fact that smoke calms bees has been known since ancient times; however, the scientific explanation was unknown until the 20th century and is still not fully understood. Smoke masks alarm pheromones[1] which include various chemicals, e.g., isopentyl acetate[2] that are released by guard bees or bees that are injured during a beekeeper’s inspection. The smoke creates an opportunity for the beekeeper to open the beehive and work while the colony’s defensive response is interrupted. In addition, smoke initiates a feeding response in anticipation of possible hive abandonment due to fire.[3][4][5] When a bee consumes honey the bee’s abdomen distends, making it difficult to make the necessary flexes to sting.[citation needed] (The latter has always been the primary explanation of the smoker’s effect, since this behavior of bees is easily observable.)
Smoke is of limited use with a swarm, partly because swarms have no honey stores to feed on. It is usually not needed, either, since swarms tend to be less defensive as they have no home to defend, and a fresh swarm will have fed well at the hive it left behind.
Source and to read more: Wikipedia
14 Saturday Oct 2017
Posted in beekeeping, honey, honey recipe, humor, recipe
Tags
beekeeping, chocolate, cinnamon, honey, honey recipe, recipe
Every struggled to fall asleep at night? Yep, us too. Here is a soothing cinnamon honey and hot chocolate recipe to relax your body and mind before getting under the covers. 1 tsp cocoa powder ½ tsp cinnamon powder A cup of milk (soy, almond or oat alternatives work just as well) 1 tbsp raw…
Read full recipe here: Cinnamon, Honey and Hot Chocolate Recipe — Honey Hunter
13 Friday Oct 2017
Posted in beekeeping, ecology
Ed. Note: What’s amazing, at least to me, isn’t so much the shift from coal mining to beekeeping. Rather it’s the reversal of the destruction that had resulted from mining. The return of bees to these areas actually changes the land. The bees support the flora which, in turn, supports various species of animals and other pollinators. A transformation begins to take place with the assistance of the honey bees.
Former coal miners or citizens whose lives have been shaped by the coal mining industry in southern West Virginia spent their summer learning how to establish and operate bee colonies thanks to help from the University of Delaware’s Debbie Delaney.
Delaney, associate professor of entomology in UD’s College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, spent her summer in Summers County working as a consultant through Appalachian Headwaters which is a non-profit organization that formed the Appalachian Beekeeping Collective. Delaney said that the goal was to help get the socioeconomic growth program up and running for displaced miners in 14 counties in southern West Virginia.
“We got about 500 nucleus colonies or nucs, which are small colonies of bees, and a queen and all summer we’ve been erecting bear fences and creating bee yards so we can grow the colonies over the season and get them through the winter,” said Delaney.
Beginning next year, local partners will come on board and get hives which will be a way for them to generate income.
Delaney said that how much income will vary depending on what kind of forage is available during that time of year—and that since the initial installation began after foraging season, they have had to feed the bees a lot to get them up to weight to make it through winter.
Read the full article here: CATCH THE BUZZ – Former Coal Miners In Southern West Virginia Spent Their Summer Learning How To Keep Bees Thanks To UD’s Debbie Delaney — Bee Culture
12 Thursday Oct 2017
Posted in beekeeping, biology, honey bee biology
Honeybee larvae develop into workers but not queens, in part, because their diet of beebread/pollen is enriched in plant miRNAs. While miRNAs are generally negative regulators of gene expression in eukaryotes, they also negatively regulate larval development when honeybee larvae consume beebread/pollen and take up plant miRNAs. Xi Chen and Chen-Yu Zhang’s group in Nanjing University, report this finding on August 31, 2017 in PLOS Genetics.
How caste has formed in honeybees is an enduring puzzle. Although queens and workers are genetically identical, queens are reproductive and have a larger body size, develop faster and live longer than workers. Prevailing view is that differential larval feeding determines caste differentiation: royal jelly stimulates the differentiation of larvae into queen, whereas beebread and pollen consumed by the rest of the larvae lead to the worker bee fate. However, it is still not fully understood how alterations in diet modify so thoroughly the developmental trajectory of honeybees.
In previous studies, Chen-Yu Zhang’s group has reported a striking finding that plant miRNAs are ingested from plant diets and pass through the gastrointestinal tract, enter into the blood, accumulate in tissues and regulate endogenous gene expression in animals. Their findings suggest that ingested exogenous miRNAs can regulate endogenous gene expression and reshape animal phenotypes. Interestingly, since the components of beebread/pollen are mainly plant materials and royal jelly is a glandular secretion of nurse bees, the diets for worker- and queen-destined larvae are differentially derived from plant- and animal-sources. Therefore, Xi Chen, Chen-Yu Zhang and colleagues decide to investigate if miRNAs from different larval diets may have distinct impacts on honeybee development.
Here, they report that plant miRNAs are more enriched in beebread/pollen than in royal jelly. While plant miRNAs of beebread/pollen are fed to larvae, they cause developmental delay and reductions in body and ovary size in honeybees; in contrast, miRNAs in the royal jelly are not sufficient to reach a functional level, therefore queen-destined larvae evade this regulation. Mechanistic studies reveal that amTOR, a stimulatory gene in caste differentiation, is the direct target of miR162a. Interestingly, ingested plant miRNAs have a similar inhibitory effect on fruit fly development, even though fruit fly is not a social insect. In summary, this study uncovers a new mechanism that plant miRNAs in larval diet of worker bees delay caste differentiation and keep ovaries inactive, thereby inducing sterile worker bees.
The findings of this study are important for the following reasons:
Read full article at: Cross-kingdom regulation of honeybee caste development by dietary plant miRNAs — Save The Bees Concert
11 Wednesday Oct 2017
Posted in beekeeping, biology, honey bee behavior, honey bee biology, honey bees
A beehive is a busy place; many bees are working together to produce honey. Working so hard makes bees tired, and they need to rest. Lovely honeybee on a flower, pollen baskets loaded to the gunnels
Same as humans, bees get rest by sleeping. But, even though that seems logical, up until 1983 scientists didn’t know that bees sleep. The scientist who discovered that bees sleep is Walter Kaiser. He noticed that bees sleep by bringing their head to the floor and their antennae stop moving, some bees even fall sideways. The beehive seems like a hectic place, so it makes you wonder, where do bees sleep? But, before getting into that, we should explain why is sleep so important for bees. What happens if bees don’t sleep?
Read full article at: Where do bees sleep? — BEEKeeperTom’s Blog
10 Tuesday Oct 2017
Posted in beekeeping, beekeeping management
A gentleman at our bee meeting posed a challenging question a couple of weeks ago: “What should I do with a weak hive? I think it might be queenless.” Well, it depends, of course.
I’m continuing with the series of questions which I overheard at a bee meeting not long ago. Today, it’s about weak/queenless hives. As in all bee questions, we are given just a bit of information. It’s not the beekeepers’ fault – they might not know what clues to look for and what information to bring to the club when they present their questions. (Actually, if they knew what information is needed to answer the question, they’d probably already know what to do.)
Read full article at: Double or Nothing? — Bad Beekeeping Blog
09 Monday Oct 2017
Posted in beekeeping, beekeeping chores, extracting, hive products, honey
It’s the time of year that we all love . . . Whether honey is a motivation for your beekeeping or not, it’s always exciting to see those shining jars full of beautiful honey from YOUR bees. Talk about job satisfaction! And yet a new beekeeper said to me the other day that they are…
Read more here: Tips for a hassle-free honey extraction — The Beehive Jive
08 Sunday Oct 2017
Posted in beekeeping, biology, honey bee biology
Larva floating in royal jelly By Waugsberg (Own work)
Today’s beekeeping vocabulary word is, “Royal Jelly.”
From Wikipedia:
Royal jelly is a honey bee secretion that is used in the nutrition of larvae, as well as adult queens.[1] It is secreted from the glands in the hypopharynx of nurse bees, and fed to all larvae in the colony, regardless of sex or caste.[2]
When worker bees decide to make a new queen, because the old one is either weakening or dead, they choose several small larvae and feed them with copious amounts of royal jelly in specially constructed queen cells. This type of feeding triggers the development of queen morphology, including the fully developed ovaries needed to lay eggs.[3]
Royal jelly has long been sold as both a dietary supplement and alternative medicine. Both the European Food Safety Authority and United States Food and Drug Administration have concluded that the current evidence does not support the claim of health benefits, and have actively discouraged the sale and consumption of the jelly. In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration has taken legal action against companies that have used unfounded claims of health benefits to market royal jelly products. There have also been documented cases of allergic reactions, namely hives, asthma, and anaphylaxis, due to consumption of royal jelly.
Source and to read more: Wikipedia
07 Saturday Oct 2017
Posted in beekeeping, honey, honey recipe, recipe
Tags
Everyone loves a cheeky Chinese every now and then right? But how often do we make our own Chinese food at home? This is my adaptation of Satay Chicken – using all nourishing ingredients for your body and tasting ‘Friday-night-feasting’ mega good! This is a great meal full of healthy natural fats and protein – and is simple and quick…
Read full recipe here: Clean Satay Chicken w/ Courgette and Carrot Noodles — thebeechick
03 Tuesday Oct 2017
Posted in beekeeping, biology, honey bee biology
@AuburnAg‘s Bee Lab and biologists from @acadiauniversity recently published a paper in the journal Ecology & Evolution about the quality of food encountered by bees in agro-ecosystems.
Unsurprisingly, diet quality and pesticide exposure heavily depends on crop type!
Check out the full Open Access article here!
02 Monday Oct 2017
Posted in beekeeping, beekeeping management, biology, honey bee biology, queens
The death of a monarch is never simple. There’s a vacuum of power that needs to be filled, an anxiety of influence that requires the successor to establish their power quickly, and a challenging period in which the memory of the deceased is negotiated and shaped (in some cases — hello, French Revolution! — this phase can last centuries). In a lovely essay at Nautilus, John Knight explores the war of succession that followed the death of the original queen in his Brooklyn-rooftop beehive. It’s a conflict not just between a wannabe-queen and her reluctant subjects, but also between human and insect, each following their own complex protocols for survival.
Read the full story here: Changing of the Guard, Bee-Style — Longreads
Beekeeping365 