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Wednesday wordphile: terroir

Rusty — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 16:29:54 +0000

Foodies are familiar with the term “terroir” especially as it relates to wine, coffee, tea, olive oil, and even cheese. The term comes from the French and literally means “land.” The idea here is that the special physical characteristics of the place where an agricultural item is grown affect the way it tastes. These unique environments provide the food with a “sense of place” that is different from the same food grown in a different region.

As varietal honeys began to take their place in gourmet kitchens around the world, more and more began to be labeled with their terroir. For example, the label on a bottle of cat claw honey (Acacia greggii) may read something like, “produced in the poor, dry soils along southern Arizona’s desert arroyos.” Presumably the cat claw grown along an Arizona desert arroyo (a dry creek bed or wash) will produce a slightly different flavor of nectar than the cat claw grown, say, along a California desert arroyo.

The physical characteristics of a growing area may include the climate, rainfall pattern, soil type, topography, and geology. The soil is particularly important because each local soil contains different minerals, retains different amounts of moisture, has a different pH, and supports different microorganisms. All of these characteristics affect the plant communities–the type and number of plants that will grow in the immediate area–as well as the flavors of those plants. The surrounding community of plants can greatly affect the taste of honey, depending on how much of their nectar makes its way into the varietal honey.

All of this helps to explain why one jar of honey can taste very different from another, even when it’s derived from the same species of flower. It’s one of many factors that give varietal honeys their charm, and one of the reasons they command a higher price than blended honeys of multiple origin.

Rusty

HoneyBeeSuite.com

Wednesday wordphile: vitellogenin

Rusty — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 20:58:30 +0000

The protein vitellogenin has long been known to play an important role in colony health. It is known to regulate queen bee and forager life span, and it affects social behavior, immunity, and stress response. Previous research has shown that worker bees with suppressed vitellogenin levels forage earlier, prefer foraging for nectar, and live shorter lives than bees with normal amounts of the protein. Conversely, bees with extra-high levels of vitellogenin begin foraging much later and prefer to collect pollen.

New research from the Norwegian University of Life Sciences shows that the vitellogenin carries fat through the bee circulatory system and deposits it at various locations in the bee’s body. Previously, it was believed the protein became permanently attached to the fat molecules rather than releasing them. According to researcher Heli Havukainen, this new understanding of how the protein works will aid in understanding the mechanisms by which vitellogenin operates and how it affects honey bee health.

Wednesday wordphile: precocious foraging

Rusty — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 22:20:41 +0000

Precocious foraging describes a situation where “underage” bees are required to take up foraging duty. Precocious foraging may result from any situation that causes a large percentage of the field force to die, including pesticide kills, disease, predation, or shortened lifespans due to chemical exposure.

When large number of nurse bees are re-assigned to the field force, the effect on the colony can be devastating. The loss means fewer bees are available to feed the larvae, process and store food, moderate the hive temperature, care for the queen, remove dead and diseased bees, and build comb. In short, the balance of colony activity is disrupted and the orderly progression of bee “employment” is broken.

If the situation persists for more than a few days, the entire population may spiral out of control. With a shortage of nurses, the colony cannot raise enough bees to replace the losses. And if even more precocious foragers are pulled from the hive, the colony may soon dwindle and die.

Wednesday wordphile: honey flow

Rusty — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 13:00:15 +0000

Honey flow is one of those confusing terms, especially to new beekeepers. What is flowing during a honey flow is actually nectar. Technically, it should be called a nectar flow.

A honey flow is simply a period of time when one or more species of nectar-producing flowers is in bloom and actively producing nectar. During these times, honey bees collect the nectar and bring it back to the hive to be processed into honey. A honey flow may or may not coincide with a “pollen flow”–another weird term since pollen isn’t liquid and doesn’t actually flow. Whether the bees are collecting only pollen or only nectar or both depends on what types of flowers are in bloom at any given moment. It will be different in every location.

Signs of a nectar flow in progress include the appearance of snow-white wax in the hives, bees that seem especially intent on coming and going without a lot of dorking around, and a hive that increases in weight daily. Once you develop an “eye” for honey bees, you can often see the distended abdomens of nectar-laden bees.

Rusty

HoneyBeeSuite.com

Wednesday wordphile: proboscis

Rusty — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 16:05:30 +0000

Honey bees have two sets of mouth parts. The mandibles or “jaws” are used for chewing. The proboscis is a straw-like tongue used for sucking liquids and also for tasting.

Although it may look smooth and uniform, the proboscis is actually quite complex, composed of several different parts. You can think of it as a tube within a tube. The outer tube is useful for sucking in large quantities of liquid such as water or honey. For example, honey bees may vacuum up large amounts of honey when they are robbing another hive, when they are preparing to swarm, or when they are exposed to smoke.

The smaller tube inside the larger one is used for collecting tiny amounts of liquid such as that found inside flowers. This tube is equipped with a hairy spoon-like tip that helps to mop up the small drops of nectar. The tip also has taste receptors.

The proboscis is also used for food exchange between honey bees, a process called trophallaxis. Food is transferred from bee to bee during the honey-making process, but trophallaxis is also a method of information exchange.

The extended proboscis is about 6.5 mm (1/4-inch) long, a length needed to reach deep into many different flowers. When not in use the proboscis is folded up and stored in a groove-like structure in the bee’s head.

Rusty

A honey bee cleaning its proboscis.

Wednesday wordphile: bee sting cake

Rusty — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 15:57:59 +0000

Recently, a friend in Virginia was invited to dinner where he was served a bee sting (Bienenstich) cake. The woman who baked the cake is of German decent and likes to cook in a traditional German style. This cake is one of her specialties.

A little research on the web shows a host of variations on the bee sting cake, but most sources describe it as being made from a brioche-style dough which is slathered in honey just before it is baked. Afterward, the cake is sliced horizontally and filled with a custard cream filling and topped with honey-glazed almonds.

I found two stories behind the name. One says the baker who invented the cake was stung as he applied the honey glaze. The other story asserts that the dough swells up like a bee sting when it is baked.

The French, it seems, disagree. They call the cake “nid d’abeilles” which means “bee’s nest” and their stories don’t mention anything about stings. C’est la vie.

Wednesday wordphile: bee space

Rusty — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 15:39:46 +0000

Bee space is a passageway 1/4- to 3/8-inches wide (6-10 mm) that bees use for moving throughout the hive. In 1851 the Reverend L. L. Langstroth realized that spaces narrower than this were treated like cracks and filled with propolis. Spaces wider than this were treated like construction zones–bees donned their hardhats and filled the areas with burr comb.

Bees–being a little neurotic–like to have their passageways just large enough to fit through: no more, no less. And they never build tunnels through their comb. Every bee, following the unwritten rule, walks around the edges of comb to get to the other side.

Langstroth made good use of this information when he designed his now-famous hive. In order to make the frames moveable, he designed all the areas above, below, and around the combs to fall within the tolerance of bee space. He knew that if he could prevent the combs from being cemented to the hive–or to each other–the frames could be removed, inspected, and replaced.

Many other successful hives have been developed over the years, but they all rely on the concept of bee space to make them work. And as any beekeeper knows, you violate this rule at your own peril. Leave out a frame–or a top bar–for a week and you will have a mess on your hands.

Almost any time you find burr comb, brace comb, cross comb, or propolis seals mucking up the interior of a hive, it is due to a violation of bee space. One of the most common sources of error occurs when equipment purchased from different manufacturers is mixed. Although the pieces seem to fit, in truth, there is often enough difference to give the bees an opportunity for creative engineering.

Wednesday wordphile: hygienic behavioral disorder

Rusty — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 19:50:44 +0000

Let’s back up for a moment and first define Varroa sensitive hygiene or VSH. VSH is a trait found in some honey bees that causes them to remove Varroa-infected pupae from the brood nest. A number of breeders around the country have developed lines of honey bees with enhanced VSH. When these bees detect the presence of Varroa mites beneath the cell cap, they rip the cap off and haul the pupa out the front door. Videos of this process are amazing in a lurid sort of way.

For many years the VSH trait has been seen as the potential savior of honey bee populations. However, a number of beekeepers are now reporting colonies of VSH bees that have gone out of control, ripping out not only the infected pupae but all the pupae. While this certainly takes care of the mite population, it also takes care of the bee population. Oops. This trait is sometimes called hygienic behavioral disorder.

So what causes it? Researchers are not exactly sure. Perhaps all the brood in those hives were infected. Or perhaps the bees become so sensitive to Varroa that even the brood near to infected brood is hauled away.

It seems likely, though, that there is a distribution of Varroa sensitivity in the VSH lines. In other words, some bees will be extremely sensitive, some moderately sensitive, and some barely sensitive. So occasionally you will get a queen who has the extremely sensitive gene which she passes on to her daughters. These bees, in turn, rip out all the brood.

This trait should be somewhat self-limiting. If the queen can’t produce new queens because they all get ejected from the hive, the trait would eventually disappear.

Another complaint I’ve heard from some beekeepers is that VSH bees are poor honey producers. However, most beekeepers say there is no difference in honey production between VSH bees and other bees. It would be interesting to know whether those beekeepers reporting poor honey production have the extremely hygienic type. If so, it may be that low brood survival is causing low honey production in some VSH hives.

Wednesday words: queen-rearing terminology

Rusty — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 13:00:46 +0000

Before you begin queen rearing, it helps to understand the lingo. Authors of queen-rearing instructions often use a variety of synonyms which make a confusing subject even more difficult. Below are some of the most common terms—and their synonyms—I found in recent publications.

Artificial insemination (or instrumental insemination): The manual transfer of sperm from drones to the genital organs of virgin queens.

Banking box (or holding box): A queenless colony used to hold caged queens until they can be used to re-queen different queenless colonies. With plenty of nurse bees, honey, and pollen, queens can be banked for several weeks.

Banking frame (or queen cage holder): A special frame designed to hold multiple queen cages in a banking box.

Breeder colony: A colony having desirable traits that a beekeeper will use as a source of eggs for queen breeding.

Breeder queen: The queen of the breeder colony that will lay the eggs used for raising new queens.

Cell (or peanut): To a beekeeper, a cell is the peanut-shaped structure that contains a developing queen. It is short for “queen cell” and should not be confused with the normal hexagonal cells found in wax combs.

Cell bar: A horizontal bar made to fit inside a regular frame. A frame may hold two to three cell bars, each designed to hold 15-20 cell bases. Once fitted with cell bars, the frame is called a cell holding frame or rearing frame.

Cell base: Cell bases are made from plastic or wood and are permanently mounted to cell bars. They are designed to hold cell cups.

Cell cup (or queen cup): This is the beginning of a queen cell. It is called a cell cup when it has a spherical shape—before the bees start to build it into a peanut shape. The term “cell cup” is also used to refer to plastic or wax artificial cups that are used for queen rearing.

Cell finisher (or finishing colony): A very populous queenright colony used to grow queen cells that have been started in a cell starter colony. The growing queen cells are separated from the queen with a queen excluder and kept in the cell finisher until they are capped.

Cell holding frame (or rearing frame): A regular frame fitted with cell bars for supporting cell bases.

Cell protector: A plastic or wire covering for a queen cell used to protect it from attack by other bees or the resident queen.

Cell starter (or starting colony or cell builder or swarm box): These are queenless colonies containing a large number of very young bees and brood. When the beekeeper is ready to “start” a new batch of queens, he removes the frames of brood and replaces them with frames of queen cups containing young larvae. The nurse bees will feed royal jelly to the larvae and thus get the queens “started.” The queen cups are removed after 24 hours.

Cloake board: A Cloake board is a piece of equipment that allows one populous hive to be used as both a cell starter and a cell finisher with minimum hive disturbance.

Grafting: The manual transfer of young larvae (12-24 hours old) from brood comb into cell cups.

Laying box (or comb box): In no-graft systems, a laying box is a plastic box in which the queen is confined with a series of plastic cell cups in which to lay eggs. Once the eggs are laid in the cell cups, the cups are removed to a cell starter and the queen is released.

Mating nuc: Each capped queen cell is put in a mating nuc, which is a small queenless colony. Here the queen will emerge and eventually take her mating flights.

Swarm cell: A swarm cell is a queen cell that was built in preparation for swarming. Multiple queen cells are usually found hanging from the bottoms or sides of combs in the heart of the brood nest. The old queen will leave with the swarm and a virgin queen from one of the swarm cells will become the new queen.

Virgin queen: an unmated queen. Virgin queens hatch 15-16 days from the time an egg was laid, or 11-12 days after grafting. A virgin makes her first mating flight about 7 days after hatching and will mate with about ten drones.

Rusty

Plastic cell cups and the back of a laying box.

Wednesday wordphile: survivor stock

Rusty — Wed, 25 May 2011 17:52:31 +0000

Recently, during a discussion with a professor of entomology who is also a beekeeper, I used the term “survivor stock.” He looked at me as if I’d just left my ship hovering above a corn field, slid down the chute, and landed on three feet.

It reminded me of why I write Wednesday Wordphile in the first place: because a word or term that is obvious to one person may be completely foreign to another. Nothing jeopardizes communication faster.

Okay, so survivor stock can be any organism that survives a stressful event and lives to tell about it. The “event” can be anything that a scientist wants to study. With honey bees, the event may be winter. Or it may be a predator, pathogen, parasite, or poison. The survivors of the event are then used to breed more bees in the hope that the genetics that allowed survival will be passed on to the next generation.

Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn’t. Some other random or unknown cause may have allowed certain individuals to survive, and this external (or exogenous) variable may have nothing to do with the bees’ genetics. But you don’t know that in the beginning, so you experiment. You raise bees from the survivors and see if those bees can survive similar conditions.

Today the term is most often associated with Varroa mites. The survivor stock is comprised of bees that successfully overwintered in the presence of Varroa mites with no chemical treatments. If the offspring of these bees is also able to survive in the presence of mites, breeders will be on their way to producing a Varroa-resistant strain.