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.

I [...]]]> This post is a follow-up to “Rethinking the triple deep hive” that I ran earlier in the week. One reader asked me to expand on the comment, “The triple-deep nests were more-or-less in a column rather than a sphere. Hive inspections showed the brood nests spanning all three boxes in the very center.”

I made that observation last October when I was getting ready for winter. In the double-deep hives, the bees were generally in a sphere in the bottom box. I say “sphere” because the clusters were seven to eight frames wide and as deep as the deep frames–okay, a slightly flattened sphere, although in some cases the nest extended into the upper box for a few inches.

In the triple deeps, however, I found the clusters in the center of the middle box and extending both into the lower boxes and the upper boxes. The clusters in these hives were in what appeared to be a column about five frames wide in the center box, and three to four frames wide in the upper and lower boxes. These were definitely long and narrow nests, as opposed to spherical nests.

The configuration in the triple deeps irritated me at the time. Since I normally overwinter in double deeps, I had planned to take one brood box off each of the triple hives. But when I got in there, I saw no easy way to winnow it down to two without destroying at least part of each nest. So I just left them that way and, of course, they were the ones that survived the winter.

Scott Famous, a beekeeper from Pennsylvania, wrote in with several interesting observations. Scott overwinters in two deeps and a medium. He says,

. . . I have had clusters survive in that amount of space that were no bigger than a softball. . . . I think it’s just an insulation factor . . . because they’re always smack dab in the middle.   I believe that staying in the middle of those boxes keeps them in “dead air” space better than anything smaller, and thereby allows them the least amount of draft and loss of cluster heat. . . . While the bees do benefit from a certain amount of air exchange, keeping it fresh, WITHOUT any drafts is just as important. Bees need “still air” in their boxes, in winter, with very little exchange, and NO DRAFTS.

I firmly believe it’s all about a balancing act of adequate air exchange, with NO fast moving air. . . . The combs/frames provide the perfect baffles against that type of air flow, while still letting the chimney effect of the cluster heat very slowly “pull” from the fresh air at the bottom, and ever-so-gently refresh the available air supply without active loss of cluster heat. . . .

It is very true that full combs of honey and pollen are very dense and have a high heat capacity. A high heat capacity means that their temperature will not fluctuate rapidly along with the outside temperature. So while the outside temps may rise and fall willy-nilly, the temperature of the full combs will remain much more constant.

If, as Scott points out, you can overwinter a softball-size cluster in a large hive, it stands to reason that all the extra honey is acting not only as a food source, but as insulating material.

The part I haven’t reconciled in my own mind is that a higher chimney has a greater draft. So, in theory at least, a taller hive will have more draft then a shorter one. And more air flow through the hive would remove more heat from the cluster. Yet, people consistently say that tall hives overwinter better. There are clearly factors here that I haven’t considered. If you have a theory, please chime in.

Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite

While fluids such as nectar, water, or royal jelly are being [...]]]> Trophallaxis is the direct transfer of food or other fluids from one insect to another. It is especially common among the social insects such as bees, wasps, ants, and termites. In many species, including bees, trophallaxis is an important part of colony communication.

While fluids such as nectar, water, or royal jelly are being transferred between bees, important information is transferred as well. For example, workers who have licked the queen pass on some of the queenly essence to other bees during the exchange. Not only does this inform the colony that the queen is alive and well, but it also suppresses the development of ovaries in worker bees. Trophallaxis is also used to distribute information about new nectar sources or about feeding conditions inside the brood nest.

The fluid is transferred through the proboscis, 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. 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.

In honor of Valentine’s Day, Zachary Huang, a professor of entomology at Michigan State University posted an amazing set of trophallaxis photos. He has captured images of one bee feeding one, two, three, four, and five other bees simultaneously–all of which appear to be kissing. The photos were taken in Australia (watch out for those Australians!) during one eight-minute period. Be sure to have a look. Other great bee photos by Zachary can be found throughout his website, Bee the Best.

Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite

I get a lot of questions about the wisdom of using triples and my usual answer is that the size of the [...]]]> In spite of the HopGuard fiasco of this past winter, some of my hives pulled through. With one exception, the colonies that survived were either in triple-deep Langstroths or a top-bar hive.

I get a lot of questions about the wisdom of using triples and my usual answer is that the size of the hive should be commensurate with the size of the colony. It seems logical that a colony should not be crowded into a small hive lest food shortages occur, nor should the colony be overwhelmed by a large hive that cannot be patrolled and kept warm.

One of the interesting things about losses is that you get to see what works and what doesn’t under adverse conditions. All my hives were treated the same way last fall, but it is obvious now that the large-volume hives did better. I don’t know the exact volume of the top-bar hive, but my rough calculations show it to be larger than a double-deep Langstroth, but smaller than a triple-deep.

So what is the difference? Of the hives that died, each had ample supplies of pollen and honey, and no obvious signs of disease other than deformed wing virus (which is transmitted by mites). But since all the hives were treated at the same time with the same (inadequate) regimen for mites, why did the larger-volume hives survive? The truth is, I don’t know.

I don’t think that the number of bees was much different in the doubles and the triples in the fall, but the bees were more spread out. The triple-deep nests were more-or-less in a column rather than a sphere. Hive inspections showed the brood nests spanning all three boxes in the very center.

Here are some theories:

• A larger brood nest encourages the queen to raise more brood. Even though more brood yields more mites, the vast number of clustering bees is able to overwhelm the phoretic mites.

• Triple deeps allow the bees more room to move straight up, rather than move laterally, for food. This idea, though, does not account for the top-bar bees which have to move laterally in any case.

• A fall nectar flow, especially one occurring after the honey supers have been removed, encourages bees to backfill the brood nest with honey. Sugar syrup fed in the fall does the same thing. As a result, the queen has little room to lay, so she slows egg production earlier than she should. The lack of brood forces the colony into winter with an older population of bees that are not robust enough to raise spring brood. By using three deeps, you give the bees more room for storage while allowing the queen more space to lay eggs in the fall.

• A larger brood nest yields more bees to help keep the colony warm and hygienic. Even though a large colony uses more food, it is available in the three boxes.

• Triple deeps have better ventilation because a taller hive increases the “chimney effect.” Damp air and mold spores go out the top; fresh air comes in the bottom.

Whatever the reasons, advocates of triple-deep hives report fewer winter losses, less need for spring feeding, earlier build-up of spring populations, and fewer swarms. I was never a believer. But based on my own experience this year, I think I will plan for triples in the coming season.

Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite

Valentine Bee

The answer is “no.” Tilting a hive forward is important for anyone using a solid [...]]]> Maybe I’m becoming too cynical, but here’s another beekeeping discussion that makes me crazy. It usually begins when someone asks this reasonable question: “If I’m using a screened bottom board, do I still need to tilt the hive forward?”

The answer is “no.” Tilting a hive forward is important for anyone using a solid bottom board because rainwater or snowmelt can accumulate on the alighting board or blow through the entrance and become trapped inside the hive. A driving wind can blow in a substantial amount of precipitation. But a hive tipped forward allows the water to drain back out.

On the other hand, a screened bottom board is—for want of a better word—screened. Water that comes in through the entrance drops out the bottom. Even with the Varroa drawer in place, the water is removed from the bees’ living quarters and eventually slides off the edge of the drawer and out the bottom of the hive.

Fair question. So far, so good. But then, like clockwork, someone offers this truly bazaar bit of advice: “Even with a screened bottom board you need to tilt the hive so moisture condensing on the inner cover will run to the edge and drain instead of dripping on the bees.” You’ve got to be kidding. Are these people serious? Would they treat malaria with a bandage?

If you have so much condensation at the top of your hive that it flows when tipped, what you need is not a system of diversion drains and downspouts. What you need is a solution to the problem.

Even if you could prevent water from dripping on the bees by draining it off the inner cover (which I doubt—some would drip anyway), much of the water is just going to run down the inside of the hive and wet the interior wall. Some of this water will evaporate and, since evaporation is a cooling process, it will further cool the hive. The saturated wood will not dry easily, but it will sprout a nice assortment of mold, mildew, and fungus.

The same holds true if you skip the inner cover and use only a telescoping outer cover. If the cover is in contact with the edges of the hive (which it probably is) the water will drain down the inside, not the outside, of the hive. This is not what you want.

Most of that moisture can be controlled by providing adequate through-ventilation, insulating the cover, and/or providing a moisture quilt to collect water vapor. Although some humans have water cascading down the walls of their living rooms and call it art, the bees will be healthier if you omit the water feature and prevent the moisture from accumulating in the first place. Dry bees are happy bees.

Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite

I prefer a level hive.

This particular article wasted a lot of ink on how to wean yourself from gloves. You go from thick leather, to thin leather, to dishwashing gloves, to [...]]]> I just read another lengthy diatribe about gloves. Apparently, if you wear gloves you are not a “real” beekeeper. This kind of BS irritates me no end.

This particular article wasted a lot of ink on how to wean yourself from gloves. You go from thick leather, to thin leather, to dishwashing gloves, to latex, to nothing. It talks about psyching yourself up for the task of bear-handedness. The first day you stand in the apiary—gloveless. Next day, you take off the outer cover—gloveless. And on and on. How inane.

The article has you “becoming accustomed” to your bees by smoking everything—the bee yard, your hands, clothing, outside the hive, inside the hive. Smoke, smoke, smoke. Clouds of it everywhere. That is moronic. That is not “becoming accustomed” to bees, that’s just replacing one suit of armor with another.

Speaking of smoke and psychology reminds me of a roommate I had in college. She was deathly afraid of snakes and signed up for a series of sessions designed to cure her fear. The first day she had to be in a room with a snake in a cage. The next time, she had to take one step closer. Then two steps . . . and so on, for weeks and weeks. But between sessions, she became so anxious she went from smoking a pack a day to two. Long term, which is worse? A fear of snakes or a two-pack a day habit?

I’ve seen a form of this in beekeepers, as well. Some newbees, in their lust to become “real,” simply avoid inspecting their hives altogether rather than having to do it gloveless. Sure, a thick glove my kill more bees than a bare hand, but long term, which is worse? Squishing a few extra bees or not checking them at all?

Beekeepers who have recently shed their gloves are the worst when it comes to giving advice. They are just as self-righteous as reformed drinkers, smokers, and sinners. Seriously, I’m happy for those people; they have accomplished something. But must they rub it in your face?

My advice to beekeepers? Forget it. Wear what makes you comfortable. You will do the best for your bees when you are relaxed around them.

The first time I did a gloveless hive inspection I didn’t even realize it until I was almost done. I was worried about the hive and had a mental list of things I wanted to check. I was so intent on not forgetting the list that I forgot my gloves instead. As I was putting the hive back together I got stung on the finger—and suddenly realized I was gloveless. That was easy enough.

This will happen to you, too. It will happen naturally—at the right time for you—without any stress or strange rituals. In the meantime, don’t make a stigma out of nothing. I still wear gloves when I feel like it. Or I don’t, if I don’t. If someone decides my gloves indicate I’m not a “real” beekeeper, that is their problem, not mine.

Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite

Wear them as long as you like.