That’s just one of the things I learned after Helen, a [...]]]> The things I learn while writing this blog! In case you didn’t know—and I didn’t—the word “lounge” is a collective noun for a group of lizards. This is akin to a school of fish, a flock of sheep, or a pod of whales.

That’s just one of the things I learned after Helen, a reader in Louisiana, wrote to say that a number of lizards were sitting on her hives and she was concerned they might have an appetite for bees. She also wrote that, “The lizards are the green ones that can turn brown and pump blood in the skin under their mouth to attract a mate. They don’t get very big—perhaps 5 inches, nose to tip of tail. I live in Louisiana about 45 miles north of New Orleans.” Hmm. She had me on this one. I had no idea.

I went to the Nature Blog Network (a reliable source of people who know all sorts of esoteric things) to find someone who knew about lizards and what they eat. I ended up e-mailing David Steen who is a professor at Auburn University, a specialist in reptiles, and author of the blog Living Alongside Wildlife. This is what he said:

The lizards your reader is describing are Green Anoles, Anolis carolinensis. The species eats invertebrates, but most prey items are smaller than honeybees. I think it’s possible that an anole could occasionally eat a bee, but I don’t see this as much of a concern for the hive/population. I imagine the lizards find the hives nice places where they can bask in the sun. I hope your reader is comfortable letting the lizards persist in the area.

Good news. And now that I was armed with a species name, I did a little reading on my own. I learned that the green anole is native to North America and is most commonly found in the southeastern United States and some of the Caribbean islands. It is generally 5-8 inches long (13-20 cm), is arboreal (found living in and around trees—and apparently beehives), and can be very territorial. According to Wikipedia, the lizards eat small moths, crickets, grasshoppers, and locusts.

But the plot thickens! Quite by accident I next clicked on a site called Reptile Expert. The author of an article on the anole lizards mentioned they are partial to wax moths. Wax moths! How cool is that? Maybe those lizards are hanging around the hives waiting for a wax moth to happen by. Maybe we all need a lounge of lizards staking out our hives and feasting on the bad guys. What a concept.

Look closely at the photos below and you can see these cute little reptiles. In the first photo you can see two tails hanging down from beneath the telescoping cover. And although some look like leaves, I count eight lizards in the second photo. How many do you see?

Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite

Note the tails hanging from beneath the lid. Photo by H. Cocran.

I count eight lizards in this pic. Photo by H. Cocran.

Green anole lizard. Wikimedia Commons photo by Ira Eskins.

Dave at Georgia Wildlife Services, Inc. wrote to [...]]]> After Monday’s post on yellowjackets I learned a lot about wasps. A representative of the Rescue Corporation–the people who make those plastic yellowjacket traps that I love–sent a positive i.d. on my nest: Vespula vulgaris. These are known as common wasps or, in North America, yellowjackets.

Dave at Georgia Wildlife Services, Inc. wrote to say the nest and surrounding envelope is called a carton. The nest is made from chewed wood mixed with saliva. Although it looked like wood shavings to me, it disintegrated when I touched it. So now this all makes sense.

When I went back up the hill the next day to look at the nest again, it was gone. Some of the wood and saliva material was still stuck to the branch but the rest had disappeared. I’m assuming the brood is especially yummy to things like opossums, raccoons, birds, or many of the other critters that live here in the Northwest woods. It’s no surprise that we don’t often see things like a fallen nest–what is a catastrophe for one species is a windfall for another. Such is nature.

A special thanks to everyone who helped with words of wisdom and species identification. I learned a lot from you all.

Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite.com

It is so cool. It was lying on the [...]]]> I love these photos. Yesterday my top-bar hive was bursting at the seams. My husband kept urging me to check it for swarm cells and I kept putting it off. But finally, I dug through an egregious number of bees only to find a skeleton!

It is so cool. It was lying on the screened bottom, covered in bees. I gently lifted it out and laid it on the top bars so I could see it better. It was perfectly intact and most of the bones were clean.

I had always heard that bees will coat dead things with propolis to control the spread of bacteria, but this little guy had been neatly parted and carried away. I speculated that during the winter the bees may be more apt to coat something, but in flying weather they may prefer to remove it. I don’t know . . . but it sure was fascinating to see.

Rusty

The open area is where I found the mouse.

The skeleton was lying on the screened bottom.

I moved it to the top bars for a closer look.

Nevertheless, yesterday between rain storms I took my camera up to the bee yard to photograph whatever [...]]]> I received a complaint that, lately, my posts have lacked pictures. Well, dah! It’s December! It is very hard to photograph bees or beekeeping when everything is on hold and waiting for spring.

Nevertheless, yesterday between rain storms I took my camera up to the bee yard to photograph whatever I could find. What I found was–don’t be surprised–fungus! After all, this is the Pacific Northwest.

Living in the mold and mildew capital of the New World, it is easy to become inured to the charms of fungus because they are everywhere. For the most part, the only ones I can identify are the ones I can eat. The rest I pretty much ignore or else I don’t see them at all–background noise of a sort.

After the first freeze of winter–which we already had–many of the larger fungi are pretty much destroyed. The slippery, slimy and brown remnants mush into the ground and disappear. But I found a few–just so you can’t complain about the lack of pictures.

Rusty

Forest floor mushrooms just below the hive stands.

Mushrooms in the winter stream.

Some of these white ones were just popping out of the ground.

Tiny cup-shaped mushrooms called "bird's nest fungi" on a twig.

No idea, but kind of pretty.

These are drooping off the side of a moss-covered tree.

Growing on a downed log near uppermost hives.

A simple leg count is probably the easiest way to tell an arachnid from an insect. Insects—including bees—have six [...]]]> So what is a mite anyway? Generally, a mite is an invertebrate animal in the class Arachnida—a name that comes from the Greek word for spider. Like most other arachnids, mites have eight jointed legs.

A simple leg count is probably the easiest way to tell an arachnid from an insect. Insects—including bees—have six legs. In addition, arachnids have no wings or antennae. However, since both arachnids and insects belong to the phylum Arthropoda, they have many structures in common—one of these being a protective exoskeleton.

As a general rule, mites tend to be smaller than insects; some are even microscopic. Many types of mites—at least fifty or more—can be found inside a beehive, and most of these were carried there by the bees themselves. For the most part these are harmless, non-parasitic mites that were feeding on flowers, pollen, nectar, detritus, or other mites when they were picked up inadvertently and flown to the hive. These will usually die and become part of the frass that routinely collects on the bottom board.

Since mites have no wings, they often attach to insects and hitch a ride to a new location. Mites that move this way are called phoretic. Whether the mites in a colony of bees arrive by design or by accident, an overwhelming majority do no harm and may even be beneficial for consuming detritus.

However, some mites are parasitic, and two of these are famous for wreaking havoc on honey bee colonies. The first of these, Acarapis woodi, is known as the tracheal mite. As the name implies, this microscopic creature lives and reproduces inside the tracheae (or breathing tubes) of the honey bee. They bite into the wall of the trachea and suck the hemolymph or “bee blood.” This not only weakens the bee, but the wound allows the entry of secondary infections.

The most famous parasitic mite, Varroa destructor, is found on the external surface of both pupal and adult bees where it also feeds on the hemolymph. It is closely related to several other species of mite that have long been known to affect Apis cerana, the Asian honey bee. By mite standards, Varroa destructor is very large, and it is huge compared to the size of the host honey bee. Besides weakening the bees by consuming their body fluids, it is thought that Varroa mites carry a number of bee viruses that transfer to the bee through its bite.

Mites are spread easily and quickly from hive to hive. Beekeepers spread them during routine hive management and migratory beekeepers spread them from one apiary to another and one region to another. Bees also spread them when drifting, swarming, or robbing. Mites can even be spread when the bees are foraging. Several other species—including bumble bees, scarab beetles, and flower flies–have been found to carry Varroa mites from place to place. Although Varroa are harmless to these species due to their vastly different life cycles, the mites are glad to hitch a ride whenever the opportunity presents.

Rusty