On the cover of Rolling Stone – not quite…

Who is that hooded man?

Eastern Apiculture Journal Fall 2018: http://www.easternapiculture.org/images/journal/Fall_2018.pdf

The Honeybee and the Maple Tree by Rock Bridges Trees

Tags

maples, trees for bees

The Honeybee and the Maple Tree have an interesting relationship. In the very early spring when the perfect combination of freezing nights and warm days allow, the maple tree runs sap. This process is what allowed the ancient Americans to learn to harvest maple sap to create Maple Syrup and Maple Sugar.

All of our North American maples produce a sweet sap in the spring. The Sugar Maple-Acer saccharum is the most famous. Sugar Maple has the highest sugar content and is the most efficient source for sap to make Maple Syrup. Red maples and Silver Maples are the other two large maple species that are most familiar to us and likely to produce sap for the bees.

Read the complete article here: The Honeybee and the Maple Tree — Rock Bridges Trees

Sticking with Propolis by PerfectBee

Tags

bee space, honey bee behavior, propolis

Ask a non-beekeeper what bees collect when they forage and you will probably hear of nectar and pollen. But few will mention propolis. Yet propolis is an essential material bees use to maintain and protect the hive.

To be factually accurate, bees don’t collect propolis. Instead, they create it inside the hive from other substances they have foraged.

Read the full article here: Sticking with Propolis — PerfectBee

Honey-walnut-almond cupcakes by The Lowland Homestead

Tags

cake recipe, cupcakes, honey, honey recipe, recipe

These cupcakes might look plain, but they’re far from that! Cut up bits of walnut give a warm, earthy flavor and together with the cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves it makes a great, wholesomely warm fall/winter dessert. These cupcakes retain a moist texture thanks to these walnuts and lend themselves well to being decorated creatively.

Begin by mixing all dry ingredients in a large bowl. Add the butter, when the butter is well mixed in, add the eggs and honey. Scoop them in muffin forms and bake at 180°C for 20 minutes. Mine are way too big for this recipe as you can see in the pictures, I used old-fashioned sized ones that weren’t suited to the muffin tin. Decorate as you wish. I mixed almond essence with honey and almonds. You can also decorate with whole walnuts.

Read the full recipe with ingredients here: Honey-walnut-almond cupcakes — The Lowland Homestead

Thank Bees for Your Thanksgiving Dinner by Married with Bees

Tags

food, pollination, Thanksgiving

Millions of Americans are about to celebrate Thanksgiving, and the grocery stores are bracing themselves for the onslaught of customers.  The fact that hundreds of millions of people in the US can eat a meal that consists of roughly the same menu on the same day is a miracle of modern agriculture as well as a testament to good supply chain management at that nations’ grocery stores.  Have you ever considered how your Thanksgiving meal is impacted by bees?  Many of your Thanksgiving favorites would not make it to the table without the pollination services provide by bees.

Let’s consider a typical Thanksgiving meal that consists of the following: turkey, stuffing, yeast rolls, green bean casserole, cranberry relish, pumpkin pie and coffee.  How would the menu be impacted if there were no bees?

Cont.

Read the full article here: Thank Bees for Your Thanksgiving Dinner — Married with Bees

Happy Birthday Karl von Frisch

Tags

beekeeping, birthday, famous beekeepers, honey bee behavior, Karl von Frisch, waggle dance

By (Figure design: J. Tautz and M. Kleinhenz, Beegroup Würzburg.) – Chittka L: Dances as Windows into Insect Perception. PLoS Biol 2/7/2004: e216. http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.0020216, CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1374858

 

Karl Ritter von Frisch, (20 November 1886 – 12 June 1982) was an Austrian ethologist who received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1973, along with Nikolaas Tinbergen and Konrad Lorenz.^[2][3]

His work centered on investigations of the sensory perceptions of the honey bee and he was one of the first to translate the meaning of the waggle dance. His theory, described in his 1927 book Aus dem Leben der Bienen (translated into English as The Dancing Bees), was disputed by other scientists and greeted with skepticism at the time. Only much later was it shown to be an accurate theoretical analysis.^[4]

The “waggle dance” is used to relay information about more distant food sources. In order to do this, the dancing bee moves forward a certain distance on the vertically hanging honeycomb in the hive, then traces a half circle to return to her starting point, whereupon the dance begins again. On the straight stretch, the bee “waggles” with her posterior. The direction of the straight stretch contains the information about the direction of the food source, the angle between the straight stretch and the vertical being precisely the angle which the direction of flight has to the position of the sun. The distance to the food source is relayed by the time taken to traverse the straight stretch, one second indicating a distance of approximately one kilometer (so the speed of the dance is inversely related to the actual distance). The other bees take in the information by keeping in close contact with the dancing bee and reconstructing its movements. They also receive information via their sense of smell about what is to be found at the food source (type of food, pollen, propolis, water) as well as its specific characteristics. The orientation functions so well that the bees can find a food source with the help of the waggle dance even if there are hindrances they must detour around like an intervening mountain.

As to a sense of hearing, Frisch could not identify this perceptive faculty, but it was assumed that vibrations could be sensed and used for communication during the waggle dance. Confirmation was later provided by Dr. Jürgen Tautz, a bee researcher at Würzburg University’s Biocenter.^[11]

Source: Wikipedia

Online Book: The Dancing Bees by Karl von Frisch

Chicken Wings Marinated in Cranberry and Honey Sauce by Estonian Cuisine.

Tags

chicken wings, fall recipe, honey, honey recipe, recipe

Sounds like a game changer for Saturdays. But only one tablespoon of honey? I don’t think so. ! ~sassafrasbeefarm

Chicken Wings Marinated in Cranberry and Honey Sauce

Delicious sweet and sour marinade from honey and cranberries softening tender poultry.

Horseradish gives a taste and flavour. Wonderful warming dish for autumn dinner.

Get the full recipe here:  Chicken Wings Marinated in Cranberry and Honey Sauce. Kanatiivad jõhvika- ja meemarinaadis — Estonian Cuisine. Eesti Toit.

Why Sherlock Holmes Retired And Became A Beekeeper by Buzz About Bees

You may have heard that Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous consulting detective, Sherlock Holmes became a beekeeper when he retired.  But how do we know he took up beekeeping, and why did Sherlock become a beekeeper?  Below, you’ll find a quote from the book, and possible reasons why Sherlock Holmes decided to take up beekeeping as a hobby.

We are not given the specific reasons why Sherlock Holmes took up beekeeping and what lead him to this hobby, however, beekeeping seems a fitting hobby for the master sleuth!  Here are my suggestions:

cont.

Read the full blog article here: Sep 7, Why Sherlock Holmes Retired And Became A Beekeeper — Bees Blog from Buzz About Bees

Happy Birthday Everett Franklin Phillips

Tags

beekeeping, beekeeping books, beekeeping library, birthday, Everett Franklin Phillips

 

Born November 14th, 1878

Died August 21st, 1951

From The Hive and the Honey Bee Book Collection at Cornell:

In 1925, a Cornell professor of apiculture named Everett Franklin Phillips set out to create a major repository of literature on bees and beekeeping. He envisioned this library as an “accessible storehouse of our knowledge of bees and beekeeping.” By 1926, Phillips had persuaded over 223 people from twenty-nine states and twenty-six foreign countries to donate thousands of books and pamphlets, and the E.F. Phillips Beekeeping Collection at Cornell was born.

Perhaps Phillips’ biggest coup was his ingenious plan for raising the money necessary for creating the library’s endowment: he convinced hundreds of New York state beekeepers to set aside one of their hives for the library. When a hive had raised $50 from honey sales, the beekeeper’s obligation was completed.

Seventy-five years after beekeepers helped Phillips create one of the world’s finest collections of books and journals in beekeeping, a new generation of apiculturalists is leading efforts to digitize major parts of that collection. The idea for The Hive and the Honeybee emerged following the 2002 conference of the Eastern Apiculture Society, which was held on the Cornell University campus in Ithaca . In the years since then, individual beekeepers and beekeeping organizations from around the country have contributed funding to make some of the greatest works from American authors on beekeeping available via the Internet. With this generous support, collaborating staff from the University of Delaware, Mississippi State University, Mary Washington College, the Finger Lakes Beekeeping Association, and Mann Library at Cornell University launched The Hive and the Honeybee site in the spring of 2004, offering to the public the full text of ten rare books from the Phillips Collection, chosen by a team of scholars for their historical importance and usefulness to beekeepers today.

Ongoing giving by American beekeepers has continued to expand the collection, and we are proud to announce that the Hive and the Honeybee today consists of the full text of over thirty books from the Phillips library as well as the first forty volumes of a landmark American publication, the American Bee Journal, an influential English language beekeeping journal read by scholars and practicing beekeepers and still being published today.

We hope that eventually The Hive and the Honeybee will contain every major pre-1925 beekeeping work in the English language. The texts in this digital collection are fully searchable, and will also become part of the Core Historical Literature of Agriculture (CHLA).

How fitting E.F. Phillips would find that beekeepers are again playing a central role in realizing a major new development for the Phillips collection. And how thrilled he and his original beekeeping collaborators would be to see the internet make a storehouse of beekeeping knowledge accessible to the world today.

Mann Library would like to extend special thanks to the Eastern Apiculture Society and Mike Griggs for providing the initial inspiration and funding to create The Hive and the Honeybee online library. We are equally grateful to the many generous beekeeping associations, extension agencies, and individuals across the United States –from Florida to Maine and New York to Washington State –who have provided funding for the continued development of this digital collection.

A downloadable bookmark showing the website address for The Hive and the Honeybee collection is available for desktop printing. To make a gift toward The Hive and the Honeybee please make your check payable to Cornell University and mail to Albert R. Mann Library, Cornell University , Ithaca , NY 14850 . To find out more about supporting this growing collection, please contact Eveline Ferretti, Albert R. Mann Library (tel.: (607) 254-4993; email: ef15@cornell.edu).

Digital Books Available at: http://bees.library.cornell.edu/b/bees/browse.html

E,. F. Phillips Obituary: https://academic.oup.com/jee/article-abstract/45/6/1124/2205462/Everett-Franklin-Phillips-1878-1951?redirectedFrom=PDF

Honey Bee Genetics by PerfectBee

Tags

haplodiploidy, honey bee genetics

Most of us have heard of the importance of genes, how a mother and father each contribute their important element and so on. We accept, without question, that the mother contributes chromosomes from her egg and the father from his sperm. Much of the animal kingdom operates with these principles.

But that is not the case with honey bees.

Read the full article here: Honey Bee Genetics — PerfectBee

Egg-less Honey Cake Recipe by Malini’s Space

Tags

cake recipe, egg-less honey cake, honey cake, honey recipe, recipe

This cake is one of my favorites in school and college days, Most people in my friends circle used to love chocolate flavor, I was the one, who always wanted this flavor. I was that addicted to this so much. Sadly, nowadays when I go to the cake shop, I don’t find this cake, they have 100’s of other flavors, but not this. Fortunately, some small bakery shops still have this cake to save me. 🙂

That’s how, I really wanted to make this myself at home and treat me with strawberry and honey flavor, whenever I get the cravings. This one is very easy, just like other cakes, with simple extra two steps. Check below for detailed explanation with step by step pictures.

Read the full recipe with lots of pictures here: Egg-less Honey Cake Recipe — Malini’s Space

Henry David Thoreau Learns a Lesson From the Bees by New England Historical Society

Tags

bee lining, Henry David Thoreau

Sept. 30, 1852, was a fine clear day, and Henry David Thoreau decided to go bee hunting. He ended up feeling richer for the experience, and not just because of the honey.

He was 35 years old, living in Concord, Mass., as the town’s principled eccentric. Two years earlier he had published A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, but it wasn’t a success. He had finished his sojourn in the woods, though he had yet to publish his masterpiece, Walden.

He had already spent a night in jail for refusing to pay his poll tax as a protest against slavery and the Mexican War. He was hiding escaped slaves in his family’s home and taking long walks in the surrounding woods and fields.

He recorded in great detail his observations of nature in his journal. On the day he went bee hunting, he described how he went with three friends in a wagon to Fair Haven Pond. They brought with them their bee-hunting apparatus: a small round tin box and a small wooden box.

At first they had no luck, as they couldn’t find flowers. The goldenrods were dried up and the asters were scarce. They tried the pond, a brook and a tree where Thoreau had found a bees’ nest that summer. No luck. And then,

Read the full article here: New England Historical Society

Beekeeping and Political Elections by sassafrasbeefarm

Tags

beekeeping, change, elections, opinion, political

Reposted:

It seems a parallel exists between bees, bee yards, and Political Elections. The ebb and flow, rhythm, and normal fluctuations all fall within the big picture.

Beekeepers accept the growth of the bee yard during the spring. Things expand on their own with little or no help from the beekeeper. Most beekeepers assign that expansion a positive value but, in fact it’s neither positive nor negative – it’s just a direction. In the autumn there is a corresponding reduction of colonies and things change, again neither good nor bad – just change. Beekeepers learn over the years that flux is the norm and without the connotations our beliefs wish to assign to individual events. It is what it is, we merge with the changes – or we don’t and become angst ridden. But how do we get to an acceptance of the flux? One way I have learned to adapt to the flux is by taking a step back and looking at the bigger picture.

Some colonies thrive for a season and then unexpectedly go out with a mighty thud. Other never build up. Still others chug along fully average in every way. But regardless, all can expect to come and go with time. Another example is the notes I write on the tops of my hives. After some time passes my notes become meaningless. Sometimes I look at those notes and try to remember the urgency that inspired my note written last season. In the bigger picture of the bee yard, after the bees swarm and the new queen comes in with her genetics it’s only a short time before the bees of the former queen are gone having been replaced by a new queen and her offspring. A new queen brings her genetics yet in the big picture things simply continue. And so it goes on every organizational level. Changes take place in the bee yard with hives being moved, replaced, swarms captured, queens failing. It’s all birth, change, flux, and impermanence. That’s okay, it works out, the bees offer us the opportunity to learn to enjoy the variations within the journey.

Reading the book, The Buzz about Bees – Biology of a Superorganism by Jürgen Tautz, I am reminded that the changes above are both disruptive as well as beneficial to the species. The biological makeup changes and the fate of the species is strengthened by these disruptive events. However to see this as beneficial we must back up and look at what’s happening from a long term point of view. Short term we only see disruption, possible loss of a honey crop, colony, or other inconvenient situation for the bees and beekeeper. Taking the long term view however, we see that flux is key to a balancing taking place in the colony, the bee yard, and even the species itself.

Beekeepers are slow people; I mean that in a good way. We patiently look to spring, then we make plans for summer dearth, then fall nectar flows, and then we prepare for winter. We are both methodical and boring. While mostly dull, we are also reassured that all is as it should be and we remain excited with each predictable change of the season. We learn that change and disruption is normal, even beneficial, and not to be feared. It’s only disruptive in the short term but not if we consider the long term. How could it be otherwise?

So, the colony has been disrupted. The big picture is it’s seeking balance again – be patient! It’s neither good nor bad – it’s just what is. As we often say, “we do our part and the bees will work it out if we let them.” Maybe not today, nor tomorrow; maybe not this week or this month. If we are patient, in time we’ll see change that pleases us the bee yard next year. For now though, maybe we can sit down and think things through and come up with a plan to help things along next season. Regardless, the big picture is so much larger than we are that we struggle to fully see how change is beneficial to seeking balance. As humans in an inpatient world we struggle with concepts of time, change, and balance. Don’t be alarmed; everything in this world is subject to disruptions and change yet always seeks balance.

A Metaphysical Life by Bad Beekeeping Blog

Tags

beekeeping, birthday, Dr. Richard Taylor, famous beekeepers

Happy Birthday Richard Taylor.

Richard Taylor (November 5, 1919 – October 30, 2003), born in Charlotte, Michigan, was an American philosopher renowned for his dry wit and his contributions to metaphysics. He was also an internationally known beekeeper.

Today is the  anniversary of the birth of one of my beekeeper-heroes, Professor Richard Taylor. He was an early champion of the round comb honey system, a commercial beekeeper with just 300 hives, and he was a philosopher who wrote the book on metaphysics. Really, he wrote the book on metaphysics – for decades, his college text Metaphysics introduced first-year philosophy students to the most fundamental aspect of reality – the nature of cosmology and the existence of all things.

Although his sport of philosophy was speculative, unprovable, and abstract to the highest degree, Richard Taylor was as common and down-to-earth as it’s possible to become. I will write about his philosophy and how it shaped his politics, but first, let’s celebrate his beekeeping.

Read the complete article at: A Metaphysical Life — Bad Beekeeping Blog

Honey Garlic Pork Chops by What’s for Dinner Moms?

Tags

dinner recipe, honey, honey recipe, pork chops, recipe

This was such a simple dinner to make that it made me very happy. The kids happily ate it and we all sat around the table and talked. It was wonderful! I added buttered egg noodles with garlic and some brown beans to complete the meal. This is a recipe that is going back in our rotation.

Read the full recipe here: Honey Garlic Pork Chops — What’s for Dinner Moms?

Midlands Beekeeping Calendar for November

Tags

beekeeping, beekeeping calendar, management

As always, All beekeeping is local. Here’s my offering for the beekeeping calendar for the South Carolina Midlands for the month of November:

Plan on checks once this month but otherwise do not work unless necessary to prevent the triggering of robbing behavior. Try to not be too disruptive in order to allow them to get their house (brood box) in order for winter.

November:

1) Make sure bees have stores enough for winter and proceed accordingly. Last month we suggested aggressively feeding colonies that were underweight using 2:1 syrup. The goal was to increase their weight to approximately 30 – 35 lbs of stores. This month with the cooler weather we increasingly start to concern ourselves with excessive moisture in the hive. If your colonies are still lagging behind in stored nectar / syrup you may be forced to continue feeding 2:1 syrup. If they have stored enough syrup, later this month you may wish to add some insurance in the way of a candy board or mountain camp style dry sugar feeding.

2) Moisture containment becomes a major management concern this month as we move into cooler weather. Moisture within the hive can not be avoided. The bees breathe and, like humans, express humidity which condensates in the cooler weather. Additionally, the process of eating and metabolizing honey results in the release of water molecules. Important reading: A review of methods to control moisture within the hive can be found here.

3) Further reduce entrances if not yet done. The appropriate amount of reduction is what your bees can guard. Colder weather will result in the bees staying inside more and clustering. Lack of forage will also reduce their need for a larger entrance. You probably won’t see as many guard bees on your landing board. Rather than struggling with removing the current reducer, simply place a small piece of wood across the front of the current reducer to attain a smaller entrance. Addition of an upper entrance such as a notched inner cover is advisable prior to entering colder weather to allow for ventilation and allow moisture to escape. If the colony is small a piece of screen across the upper entrance will insure no unwanted guests have access.

4) Make repairs on your equipment, assemble new equipment, and make some of those time saver gadgets.  Replace any bad equipment.

5) November is an excellent month for selling honey as customers prepare for the holiday season.

6) Make plans to attend your association’s monthly meeting. Mark your calendar for the annual holiday dinner. Start hinting at what books or equipment you’d like this year for holiday gift giving. Start setting your goals for next season.

The above are general guidelines for the average bee colony in the Midlands of South Carolina. We all have hives that may be outperforming the average. We also have colonies that underperform the average. Use your judgement in making changes suggested here. Beekeeping is an art as well as a science. Only you know the many, many particulars associated with your physical hives as well as the general health and population of your colonies.