Here’s an excerpt [...]]]> My daughter sent me a news article about bees on a rooftop restaurant in Kirkland, Washington. For those of you from elsewhere, Kirkland is an urban/suburban city outside of Seattle. If the name sounds oddly familiar, it’s because the city is home to Costco and its Kirkland Signature brand of products.

Here’s an excerpt from the article:

Now, as part of the Woodmark Hotel, Yacht Club & Spa’s latest program, “Bee on the Lake,” Seattle-area residents will have the chance to taste a buzz-worthy batch of golden honey produced by 180,000 Italian honeybees and six queen bees housed just steps from the property.

Once settled in, it is expected that the six hives of bees, which are located on top of a Carillon Point rooftop near the Woodmark, will begin producing honey around mid-July. At the end of production in September, the Woodmark will have approximately 1,200 pounds of honey to work with, and with that impressive number in mind, has already begun planning how to best use the locally-produced product.

Did you catch that? These six colonies, during a span of ten weeks, are going to produce 1200 pounds of honey for the restaurant. That’s 200 pounds per hive or 20 lbs per hive per week. And that’s just the amount the restaurant will have “to work with.” One has to assume they will leave some for the bees.

Maybe all those folks in Kirkland have Costco-size expectations, but that is nuts. According to a report by the USDA, the average honey production in Washington was 37 pounds per colony in 2010 and 38 pounds per colony in 2011. And that’s for the whole season, not a ten week period spanning the July and August nectar dearth. It makes you wonder where they get their information.

Impressive numbers like that are certainly attainable in some places—but not in western Washington in the middle of the summer. No way. I hope they have some other sources of local honey lined up. Maybe some of you Seattle beekeepers have a new market . . . just keep those prices high as the rooftops.

Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite

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According to the article, [...]]]> An article at the Discover Magazine website describes how tiny sweat bees sit on the rim of human eyes and drink tears. According to the story, researchers used themselves as guinea pigs in order to study the bees as they lined up along their eyelids for a smoothie of sorts.

According to the article, the sweat bees use both tears and perspiration as sources of protein and salt. A quote taken from a Wall Street Journal article on sweat bees indicates that, “These bees prefer sweaty people—over most animals—because the human diet usually is so salty that their perspiration is saturated with the essential nutrient.”

Apparently these little bees rarely sting and they do not climb into your eye. Oftentimes the “host” human didn’t even know they were there. The article explains that the researchers also tested “meat, Ovaltine, cheese, and other foods but the bees preferred human tears.”

Check out the story. It’s interesting and the pictures are, well, kinda gross.

Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite

In [...]]]> A small parasitic fly, Apocephalus borealis, may turn out to be one player in the failing health of honey bee colonies in North America. The parasite, a type of phorid fly, has long been known to parasitize bumble bees and paper wasps, but recent research shows that it may also attack honey bees.

In an article published yesterday in the journal PLoSOne, researchers explain that the tiny adult female fly lands on a honey bee abdomen and lays eggs by placing her ovipositor into the bee. The entire process takes two to four seconds. Seven days later the adult phorid larvae emerge from the area between the bee’s head and thorax. One to thirteen larvae emerge and leave the dead bee behind. The larvae then pupate elsewhere.

Oddly, honey bees parasitized by the phorid flies are attracted to light. Individuals are found to abandon their hives at night and fly toward sources of light where they remain until they die. In fact, it was large numbers of dead honey bees around lights on the campus at San Francisco State University that lead to the discovery of phorid fly activity in honey bees. Also of interest is the fact that many of the phorid flies were found to test positive for Nosema ceranae and deformed wing virus—pathogens often associated with dead colonies.

The authors of the paper speculate that the native phorid fly has recently evolved to accept the non-native honey bee as a host. If the fly had long been a parasite of honey bees, adult phorid flies, their larvae, or accumulations of dead bees around lights would have been noticed before now. As they point out, the honey bee is one of the most studied creatures on earth so it is doubtful this fly would have escaped detection.

If the fly has indeed shifted hosts, it is bad news for beekeepers. Unlike bumble bees and paper wasps—creatures without huge populations—a honey bee colony can provide a vast breeding ground for the flies. And at one to thirteen larvae per bee, it wouldn’t take long for the flies to overwhelm a colony. Furthermore, this tremendous population of flies could leave the hive and harm bumble bees and perhaps other wild bees as well. Scary stuff, great material for horror flicks.

I urge you to click on the link to the original article and enlarge the photo of a phorid larva leaving a bee. But I warn you, the image is graphic. It is enough to make me sick.

Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite

According to the article a man became ill after eating a portion of honey he had purchased at a local farmer’s market. He reported vomiting and “intestinal [...]]]> An article in today’s Seattle Times reports that three King County residents were recently affected by foodborne toxins. Unfortunately, one came from a sample of local honey.

According to the article a man became ill after eating a portion of honey he had purchased at a local farmer’s market. He reported vomiting and “intestinal difficulties” which began about an hour after consuming the honey. The honey sample was sent to the state department of agriculture, but tests were unable to confirm the presence of a toxin.

However, the man’s symptoms led officials to believe the honey contained grayanotoxin, a material found in rhododendron plants. The condition, also known as “rhododendron poisoning” or “honey intoxication,” is well-documented but rare.

Grayanotoxin is a naturally-occurring neurotoxin found in the nectar of rhododendrons. According to Wikipedia, symptoms include salivation, perspiration, vomiting, dizziness, and low blood pressure. The condition is rarely fatal and usually abates within 24 hours.

In a cruel hit to small honey producers, the author of the Seattle Times piece writes that local honey is much more likely to contain toxic levels of grayanotoxin than honey coming from large commercial producers because commercial producers mix honeys from many sources–a variation on “dilution is the solution to pollution.”

The ABC & XYZ of Bee Culture mentions that both the nectar and pollen of rhododendron are poisonous to bees as well as humans. Although the toxin can kill the bees, it is well diluted with water in the nectar. But as the water is driven from the nectar to produce honey, the grayanotoxin is concentrated to poisonous levels.

I didn’t find any references to how frequently honey intoxication occurs but the numbers must be low. The Puget Sound area is overrun with rhododendrons–in fact it is the Washington state flower–but few cases of poisoning are reported. My own property is loaded with both honey bees and rhododendrons but I have never seen a honey bee on a rhododendron flower. These observations lead me to believe that rhododendron is not a preferred forage for honey bees and they probably collect it only in rare circumstances when other more favorable blooms are not available.

If you are interested in foodborne toxins, the Seattle Times article is interesting. Besides honey intoxication you can read about toxic squash syndrome and combroid fish poisoning. So, what’s for dinner?

Rusty

Rhododendron ten feet from a busy hive