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The best in sanitary practices?

Sunshine made an unexpected appearance yesterday afternoon, so I got my camera and went looking for . . . well, I really didn’t know. Just something. The big-leaf maples were heavy with blossoms, the bees were soaring, and it seemed like an all-around good day for photos. What I found was completely unexpected.

I started photographing a honey bee on a dandelion. Why I do this, I have no clue. I have hundreds—maybe thousands—of photos of bees on dandelions, but I was shooting even more when I saw something I’d never seen before. She pooped . . . right there on the dandelion while I watched.

I think the photos are instructive because they demonstrate how easy it is for diseases—especially those transmitted through feces like Nosema—to move from bee to bee, hive to hive, or even species to species. For some reason we don’t think of bee feces on flowers, we tend to think of it on cars, porches, bee hives, and bee suits. But as these photos demonstrate, they even leave it on flowers—in a place where the next unsuspected bee may land while she’s looking for food.

Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite

Bee on a dandelion, just hanging out.
Bee on a dandelion, just hanging out.
Suddenly, she poops in the flower.
Suddenly, she poops in the flower.
And then more.
And then more.
A sticky mess for an unsuspecting forager.
A sticky mess for an unsuspecting forager.

Bumble bee defecation

I came across this on Wikimedia while I was researching something else. The photographer describes it as, “Slowed down footage of a bee squirting a clear liquid from its anus, taken at the Auckland Botanical Gardens. Originally the event happened fast enough, 4 frames at 30 fps, that it was only viewable upon being slowed down. Since my camera scans from top to bottom, and the bee was positioned in the lower portion of the video, I believe this event actually took more like a tenth of a second instead of an approximately an eighth.”

The original by Athen Ananda is available to view on Wikimedia.[CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons].

I hope you find it . . . let’s say . . . entertaining.

Bumble bee defecating.
Bumble bee defecating.

Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite

Yellow rain

Although it is late fall here in the northern hemisphere, it is late spring in New Zealand. Down there the honey bees are rocketing from nest to nectar and back again, feeding their young and leaving telltale yellow splotches everywhere.

Earlier this week I received a fascinating e-mail from a man on the northern end of the South Island who it trying to help an elderly beekeeper friend. The beekeeper, who maintains five hives, has been called before the local district council to answer a complaint about bee excrement. He is being accused of letting his little darlings defecate on his neighbor’s windows.

Right away I suspected this was more of a neighbor problem than a bee problem because these disputes usually are. It turns out I was right—in a previous complaint the neighbor attested that the beekeeper’s house is four inches too high. Obviously, the neighbor needs to get a life, but I digress.

The man who wrote—not a beekeeper—says his elderly friend is non-confrontational and requested help with the district council. He, in turn, asked for my help. So here are the facts as I understand them:

  • The five hives are within 80-100 meters (260-330 feet) of the neighbor’s property line.
  • Although these hives are the closest to the neighbor’s house (the target), about 30 other managed hives belonging to other beekeepers are within a half-mile of it.
  • The surrounding area is heavy with bumble bees, other native bees, and wasps.
  • Pollen is particularly heavy this year, and it drifts onto window sills and other surfaces.
  • The district council has already decided these five hives are the problem and it has threatened to use DNA analysis to prove it.

And this is the way I see it:

  • A half-mile is nothing for a honey bee. Any of the 35 colonies could be hitting the target house.
  • The distance from the target is not as important as the direction of travel. So, if the bees have found a good nectar source to the south, for example, it may be the colonies north of the target that are marring it. This will change constantly, of course, as different things come into bloom.
  • With honey bee season in full swing and forage plentiful, any number of swarms may have nested in the area. The target neighbor could have a feral nest on his own property and not even know it.
  • The native bees are also dropping feces. In fact, in some years I have seen it dripping down the front of my mason bee houses like mustard.
  • I don’t believe anyone is going to do a DNA analysis of bee poop. For one thing, it’s way too expensive. But even if the target neighbor is rolling in money, what would DNA tell him? A newly issued swarm and its parent colony are going to have virtually the same genetic make-up, so how do you decide who done it?

Anyway, that’s where they stand at the moment. Apparently, the district council in its infinite wisdom will be examining the situation on Friday and I hope my correspondent tells me the outcome. In the meantime, I’ll tell you a little secret: The neighbor makes me wish I could fly.

Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite

Honey bee dysentery and water

Dysentery in honey bees is one of those unfortunate terms that results in nothing but confusion and misconception. It’s right up there with the word “organic” to describe food grown without manmade fertilizers and pesticides. If you apply the traditional meaning of organic—which, with a few exceptions, refers to chemical compounds containing carbon—then the large majority of chemicals used in conventional agriculture are definitely organic, including all those pesticides. No wonder people get confused.

In humans, dysentery refers to a condition caused by a pathogenic organism, but honey bee dysentery refers to a form of diarrhea caused by too many solids in their feed. To add to the confusion, honey bees also get diarrhea from pathogenic organisms such as Nosema, and it appears just like the other kind. If you feel confused, you are not alone.

Excess water is often blamed for honey bee dysentery, but the condition is actually caused by too much bulk in the honey bee intestine. You can compare it to a human eating too much fiber. During the winter, when honey bees cannot take cleansing flights due to the cold weather, the amount of solids stored in their intestines continues to increase. These solids come mostly from the honey they eat. Some honey has more solids than others and, typically, dark-colored honey has more solids than light-colored honey.

Since bees can only retain about 30 to 40 percent of their body weight in fecal matter, when the time between cleansing flights is too long, they will void inside the hive or just outside of it. This is what we call dysentery. Although solid material—not water—is the cause of dysentery, it confuses people no end.

For example, here is a statement from the Mid-Atlantic Apiculture Research and Extension Consortium (MAAREC) website: “Dysentery can also be caused by feeding bees anything with a high water content in the early spring.” This is a true statement. But to see why it is true, you have to look at how they qualify their words. They are not saying that water causes dysentery; they are saying too much water fed in the early spring may cause dysentery.

Why is this true? It is true because by early spring the honey bee’s gut is loaded with solids. It is probably approaching its limit of 30 to 40 percent of the bee’s body weight. So if the bee drinks a lot of water, the solids may absorb some of the water and push the bee over its 30 to 40 percent-by-weight capacity—sort of like the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Nevertheless, water all by itself does not cause dysentery. This may seem like a subtle point, but if the bee’s gut were empty in early spring (or any other time), the bee could drink quarts of water and not get dysentery.

One final note, although honey bee dysentery is not a disease, it can cause a hive to fail. Colony death may result from stress, diseases promoted by unsanitary conditions, or a breakdown in the internal communication system due to the overpowering odor inside the hive.

Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite

Fecal retention in bee larvae

During its growth and development, a honey bee larva increases its weight approximately 1700 times. This amazing increase in body mass occurs in a period of just six days and is fueled by food prepared and delivered by the worker bees. The food—first royal jelly then a combination of pollen and nectar—is pooled in the bottom of the cell where it surrounds the larva.

In order to keep its food supply free of contamination, the larva retains its feces during the entire six days of development. Then, when it has reached full size, it defecates just once right before it spins a cocoon. Since the cocooned pupa doesn’t eat, defecation is no longer a problem.

The larvae manage to retain their feces because the large midgut where the feces accumulates is not attached to the hindgut from where it will be expelled. In short, there is no place for the feces to go. Then, just after larval feeding is complete but before the cocoon is spun, the midgut and hindgut unite into one long, continuous tube. At that point, the larva defecates in the form of dry pellets.

The feces deposit is mostly removed from the cells after the adult bee has emerged. Nurse bees—usually newborns—clean and polish all the brood cells between uses, removing any loose debris. However, some feces may remain embedded within the sticky cocoon material that remains attached to the cell wall. Pressed into the fabric of the cocoon, this material becomes relatively inert and does not contaminate the next generation of honey bee larvae.

When a beekeeper melts brood comb to collect beeswax, he must separate this sticky leftover stuff called slumgum from the rest of the wax. The slumgum includes the fragments of cocoon and feces the bees couldn’t remove, along with pollen, bee parts, and dirt.

Although the mechanisms vary, all bee species have some type of system to keep feces and food supply separate during the larval stage of development.

Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite