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How to remove propolis from your camera

I hate to spend time re-inventing the wheel, but that’s exactly what I’ve been doing.

Whenever I take pictures for this blog, I always end up getting propolis stuck to my camera. I’ve tried wearing gloves or not, tried wrapping plastic bags around my camera, and tried cleaning my hands between shots. Nothing works. When I’m done, I can’t even let go of it. I have to pry it off my hand.

When I really examine it, I see that cameras are made of metal, plastic, and glass with a variety of finishes and textures. The non-slip grip is especially annoying because the little slip-resistant interstices become filled with propolis. Prying it out with a toothpick just isn’t my thing.

So I began searching for a non-polar solvent that would not damage metal, plastic, or glass, and that would leave the finishes intact but still remove the propolis. It should dry quickly and be readily available, not too expensive, and not dangerous to breathe. So what was it?

It’s embarrassing to say it took me a long time to come up with alcohol. As for re-inventing the wheel, those little lens cleaning wet-wipe thingys are soaked in the stuff. Duh.

So I ended up trying 91% isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol and, by golly, it worked. My camera looks great and—an added benefit—it still works. After such success, I went around cleaning propolis off all kinds of things that shouldn’t have it.

I would have preferred ethanol (ethyl alcohol) for this purpose because it’s not nearly so poisonous. But here in the states it’s impossible to find any that’s not mixed with something sticky, expensive, or highly taxed. So, under the pretext of protecting me from myself, the government wants me to buy ethanol made more poisonous by denaturing it, so I’ll stick with isopropyl for now and try to understand my government later.

At any rate, if you need to clean propolis off a hard surface, isopropyl alcohol will do the trick. It works on fabric as well except that stains from the plant tannins (or whatever they are) in the propolis tend to remain. I cleaned some propolis off my jeans and I can still see a faint outline of where it was—but at least the propolis itself is gone and won’t be able to transfer to something else in the dryer.

Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite.com

Wednesday wordphile: bee space

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.

What is entombed pollen?

Entombed pollen is pollen that is stored in a honey bee hive and encapsulated under a layer of propolis.

The phenomenon was first described in a paper by Dennis vanEngelsdorp et al and published in the Journal of Invertebrate Pathology (2009). In that paper, the authors described cells of stored pollen that were covered by propolis and/or wax cappings. Since pollen is not normally coated in this way, the researchers performed chemical analyses on the pollen samples to discover why they may have been capped.

What they found were cells of pollen containing elevated levels of certain pesticides. The original researchers found especially high levels of the fungicide chlorothalonil in the capped cells. They also reported that the pollen in these cells was brick red.

VanEngelsdorp and his group theorized that the worker bees sensed the pollen in these cells was not good and subsequently covered it so it would not be consumed. Bees often coat offensive items with propolis—such as dead mice or snakes—to keep them from contaminating the interior of the hive. So coating contaminated pollen is consistent with other well-documented bee behavior.

In the months since the original paper was published, other beekeepers have reported the presence of entombed pollen. Entombed cells have been found to contain various colors of pollen and various types of chemicals, including those chemicals used to combat Varroa mites. It has also been documented that colonies containing entombed pollen are usually in the process of dying. Entombing contaminated pollen may be a last-ditch effort made by a colony trying to save itself.

Many questions remain to be answered, such as why the pollen gets collected in the first place. Current theories suggest that the pesticides may undergo chemical changes while stored in the hive, or that the accumulation of pesticides in a confined space is more apparent to bees than the same pesticide in an open field.

While entombed pollen by itself does not answer the larger question of bee die-offs, it does add an intriguing element to the pesticide puzzle.

Rusty

Wednesday wordphile: travel stain

“Travel stain” is a phrase often heard in conjunction with comb honey. Travel stain is the discoloration of wax cappings covering the honey due to the “dirty feet” of honey bee workers.

In the normal course of walking from place to place in the hive, the worker bees track pollen, propolis, and other debris across the surface of the comb. The cappings take on an unpleasant yellow or brownish cast that is darkest in the main pathways and lighter toward the edges of the frames or section boxes—much like a carpet in a busy room.

In order to reduce travel stain some beekeepers eliminate the upper entrance. Forcing the workers to use the main entrance means they must walk further to get to the comb honey supers. During all this walking, a large part of the debris is left in the brood boxes and never makes it into the honey supers. Other beekeepers try to remove the comb honey sections as soon as they are are capped, or at least move them to the outside rows of the super where they will receive less traffic.

Travel stain is one of many problems that makes the production of comb honey more labor intensive than the production of extracted honey.

Propolis is easy to remove in cold weather

If you are a new beekeeper you might not realize that propolis is very easy to scrape from your equipment once it gets cold. I don’t even try to remove the stuff in summer because it strings out like bubble gum and refuses to release from whatever it’s stuck to—which is first your bee equipment, then your hive tool, then your hands, then your pants.

As soon as it gets cold, however, it breaks like glass. It actually shatters. So now is the time to start removing it—at least up here in the north.

Although I’m not compulsive about removing it from everything, I do try to get it off my section honey equipment simply because I want my section boxes to look as nice as possible when they are complete. Since there is forest all around my apiary, my bees collect a fair bit of propolis in a very short time.

Today I worked on veneer separators and section holders. It was going pretty well until the day warmed up enough for the bees to fly, then they decided to see what I was doing. They lurked around for a while licking the separators before and after I scraped them, then ducked back home when the shadows started to stretch.

Rusty

Veneer separators ready to scrape. Photo by the author.
Veneer separators ready to scrape. Photo by the author.