Oh Hai, I Need My Bike

My friend (and beehive namesake) Kitty forwarded me an email from a Jon Freestone who has a robin nesting in an inconveneint spot.
Jon says: "The nest was built between a Saturday and a Wednesday (that is the day it was first noticed) It has been there for about two weeks now, figure I will leave it to just to see what happens."

I think we can get an idea of how often Jon uses this bike.

My Life As A Part Time Park Ranger

So, in April, I got a part-time job as a park ranger for the Mississippi River and it is a great time! I work primarily at the Mississippi River Visitor's Center at the Science Museum of Minnesota but I do get a chance to get out in the field. Last week, a group of staff went canoeing along the Vermillion Bottoms. What a joy to canoe in spring and get to know some of the people who work for the parks like the Historian, Botany Bob, and Rock Girl (nicknames all based on their areas of expertise--although Non Birding Bill said that we sounded like some sad band of super heroes: "The Historian and Birdchick canoe the river using their magical interpretation skills to save the people!")

I had a great time, the birding was fantastic. I couldn't really take my digiscoping equipment in the canoe, but still could watch the birds. Above, you might notice a bright yellow spot in that pile of brush--that was one of about eight prothonotary warblers we saw. You can't really tell it from the photo, but we could see them very well with the naked eyes. We heard parulas (and other warblers), had a flock of caspian terns fly over, saw one sandhilll crane, lots of eagles and I was totally surprised to see a flock of common nighthawks hawking for insects above our heads. I figured these normally nocturnal birds were mid-migration and very hungry.

We stopped for bit and had lunch along the river. We were there at least thirty minutes and a few of us snuck off into the woods to...see a man about a horse. As I was working my way back, I heard a strange noise right about where the above photo was taken. I pished a few times and a few seconds later a HUGE turkey hen burst out of the grass...almost causing me to relieve myself on the spot. All of us should have noticed a turkey lurking in the grass during lunch...unless she was totally hunkered on a nest. I walked over to where she burst forth:

There were the eggs. Poor thing must have been terrified when we pulled up our canoes and started eating. We had finished our lunch so we packed up as quick as we could and left to give her a chance to come back to her nest of fourteen eggs.

You do see quite a bit of litter along the river, one of the most disturbing piece we found was this two liter bottle of 7-Up filled to the brim with used hypodermic needles. EW!

Canoeing isn't the only thing I've been up to. The week before the canoeing, I got to go out and follow along with some of the eagle banding happening along the Mississippi River.

Even though the bald eagle is off the endangered species list, it's a good idea to keep tabs on them. Because they are so high on the food chain on the river, the researchers are using the eagles as an indicator species--if something is affecting them, it's eventually going to affect the humans. The birds all have a bit of blood drawn that's DNA tested and also checked for pollutants. Because the research is still going on, I can't give all the details at the moment...but it does make me want to be a bit more choosy about what part of the river I would eat fish from.

Check out those eagle toes! I will say that it was fun to work with big birds in my banding comfort zone as opposed to those teeny warblers.

Professional tree climbers from out west were brought in to get the eagle chicks out of the nest. It was way cool to watch them work. They used a crossbow with an arrow and string attached. Once the arrow made it over an appropriate branch, a climbing rope was added and then the guys would climb the rope into the trees. It was impressive to say the least.

It was interesting to notice the animals living the trees with the eagle nest. One tree had an oriole nest a few feet away. Above, a guy from the DNR was measuring the circumference of the nest tree when he shouted, "Hey, there's something nesting in here...and it's furry." He didn't want to stick his hand in, so I gave him my camera to stick in the hole and snap a photo:

At first, we weren't sure what they were. I wondered if they were otter, but if you look at the back paws, that gives them away. Do you know? They're baby raccoons--prey, right in the base of a tree with an eagle nest!

There have been requests to see the park ranger uniform:

If you're thinking "Wow, a badge and a cool hat--that's gotta be fun!"

It is.

If you're at the Science Museum, stop in and say hello.

ABA Convention Scholarships for College Students

The American Birding Association (ABA), based in Colorado Springs, CO, is holding its annual convention this year just outside Salt Lake City in Snowbird, UT. The event will run June 23-29, 2008 and involves three days of field trips with professional leaders, two days of workshops and special presentations on bird-related topics, and outstanding speakers each evening. This year’s Keynote Speaker is noted artist and author, Julie Zickefoose. Other speakers include Bill Schmoker, president of Colorado Field Ornithologists and avid bird photographer, Ted Floyd, editor of Birding magazine, and the Migratin’ Raptors String Band of HawkWatch International. Award winners Kenn Kaufman, Bill Thompson III, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley and local birder Bill Fenimore will receive recognition during the week as well.

The ABA is offering a limited number of $650 scholarships to ABA birders age 18-23 towards attendance at the convention and participation in the birding events scheduled. The scholarship money is applicable towards the full convention package of activities, meals and lodging. This scholarship is designed to facilitate the introduction of the newest generation of ABA members to seasoned ABA members and encourage their connection with “birds of a feather”. Any student birder can apply for the scholarships, and include a request for Student Membership with their application if not already a member. For more information on the convention, please see our website. For details and availability of scholarships, please contact Brenda Gibb at 800.850.2473 x230. This limited offer will remain in effect until all scholarships are claimed.

Contact: Tamie Bulow,
Conventions and Tours Manager
American Birding Association
4945 N. 30th Street, Suite 200
Colorado Springs, CO 80919
(719) 578-9703 x233

Flight Of Nature Bluebird Videos

Flight of Nature has put up a bunch of bluebird videos from inside her nest boxes. You can see them on her website or over on her channel on YouTube. All the videos are really cool and give you a glimpse of the secret life of eastern bluebirds in the nest cavity. My favorite is the male feeding the female while she incubates (although the female forming the nest cup is pretty cool too):

I Needed A Bee Moment...I needed lots of them

Okay, the next time a hive goes queenless, I think I'm gonna leave it that way and let it go. It's just too much stress to requeen. Maybe I need some sleep to process what happened today, but the beekeeping today was not so much fun. We noticed on Sunday that there was no new eggs and larvae in the Olga hive and that was a sign that the queen had died or was failing. After consulting some beekeepers, I bought a new queen Monday morning and decided to try and requeen the colony. The queen comes in a cage with a candy door (and a few attendants). The idea is to put the cage in the colony, the new bees generally don't care for a new queen and want to attack her--the cage protects the new queen. The workers start to chew on the candy door to get to the queen and kill her. As they are chewing, the queen releases her pheromones and the workers start to think that this new queen isn't so bad after all. In about three to five days, they chew their way through the candy and in all that time, her pheromone has worked its way the colony and everyone has worked out their differences and loves the queen and hopefully, they show her around and she gets to some egg laying.

For this brilliant plan to truly come together, the old queen must be dead, or she will fight the new queen and possibly kill her and you are left with your old failing queen and soon to be dead hive. So, Fabulous Lorraine and I had to go through the whole colony, frame by frame to see if we could find the old failing Olga queen...and kill her. We were not thrilled with this task and were hoping against hope that we would not find her and not have to kill her. The colony did not sound happy as we started going through each frame, they seemed confused and their buzzing was a little off, I felt certain the queen was totally gone.

We made it all the way down to the bottom an I checked the contents of the varroa mite trap and was surprised at the amount of discarded bee pollen baskets--all colors. It never occurred to me that they baskets could be dropped and forgotten. There were mites mixed in there too--ew. The bottom box had a very small amount of unhatched brood and the Olga bees vehemently defended the hive at this point. Usually we get bonked on our hoods a couple of times in warning, this time, it was a steady pelting of bonks. Because we were out so long, our smoker stopped smoking (which is used to try and keep the bees calm and less focused on stinging us) and we periodically had to step away and relight it, all the while dodging angry and queenless bees.

Poor Cabal learned that hard way that he's not fatally allergic to bee stings. Since Mr. Neil wasn't around, Cabal's been lonely and clinging close to his pack. He came over to us while we were at the Olga hive and got stung by one angry bee (when bees sting, they release a pheromone that tells the other workers something bad is here and needs to be stung) and more soon surrounded him. Cabal did what comes natural to a dog--he started whipping his head around to eat the bees coming to attack him--which is the equivalent to humans flailing which just makes bees want to sting you all the more. I gave Lorraine the smoker and she dashed over and covered him with smoke to mask the angry stinging bee pheromone and make sure he didn't have any bees still attacking him. We think he got at least two stings, one on a back leg and one on a neck, but was otherwise okay.

For some reason, when Lorraine walked back to me at the hives, Cabal decided to follow. We're not sure if he was needing reassurance after being stung or if he was trying to warn us about the danger. As soon as he came over, the bees started attacking him again and he tried to eat them. We had to put him in the truck to protect him.

Have you ever been doing some spring cleaning and you suddenly look around after three hours of work and notice that everything is messier than when you started? That's kind of the way I felt when the above photo was taken. As the bees kept attacking and trying to sting us, Lorraine announced, "I need a moment to de-bee." She sensibly walked away to get away from the buzzing and wipe some bees off. About that time, I felt a tickle on my neck--holy crap, did a bee work its way into my suit? I decided to take a bee moment like Lorraine and confirm bees were not in my suit. Fortunately, it was just my hair brushing my neck. Whew!

After that we went back to work. Lorraine suddenly shouted, "Oh no! Is it on the inside or outside?!" I looked up and noticed that the hood of her beesuit was half unzipped and there were angry Olga bees on the screen in front of her face and a sort of collar of bees working their way to the open zipper. She scampered off and I followed, helpfully shouting, "I'll smoke you! I'll smoke you!"

We go the bees off of her, zipped her up tight and went back to finish our grueling beekeeping task.

We noticed that most of the brood was almost hatched out in the Olga hive and no new brood behind it. Since the other hives were going like gangbusters, I decided we should take a a frame of brood from one of the other hives. The MimiKo hive appeared to have the most brood and so I took a frame from them. We ended up feeling terrible about it. Because MimiKo and Bickman are new hives, they are fairly friendly right now, we can work in them pretty easily. When I took the frame out, I had to take off all the MimiKo workers, the easiest way seemed to be using a bee brush. Boy, bees don't like the bee brush very much. The sweet, docile MimiKo bees suddenly became incredibly angry--even the ones who didn't get caught in the bee brush bristles.

We went through the whole Olga hive with the frame of brood. After going through each and every frame in the hive, we did not find a life queen. We did find one small, very black, shriveled up bee which I wondered was the dead queen--Olga I was very dark.

We put in the new queen cage and the workers looked in and went straight for the candy. We slowly put the hive back together, our backs sore from lifting the heavy boxes and being bent over searching each frame for the nonexistent queen. Lorraine pointed out that if we had found the failing queen alive it would have been easier to kill her after being pelted by angry bees all afternoon.

We tried to wipe off all the bees on or suits, gathered our equipment, and loaded up the truck to drive back to the house. A couple of tenacious bees were still following us and we thought it best to keep the full bee suits on in case a bee was still in the vehicle. As I sat down, I felt a tickling on the middle of my chest. I told myself that it was just my hair and to not worry about it. Then it suddenly occurred to me that I no longer have long hair and that could not be the source of the tickling on my chest...something was crawling there. I was still sealed in my bee suit and assumed it was a tick and I pressed it a bit. The tickling got a little faster.

Lorraine had already started the vehicle and was driving through the field (chock full of dandelions) back towards the road. I shouted, "I NEED A BEE MOMENT! I NEED A BEE MOMENT!" and leaped out of the slow moving truck. Lorraine slammed on the brakes and was in hot pursuit. Trying desperately to have an out of body experience I said, "There's something crawling on my chest." We carefully unzipped my hood and took it off. Lorraine slowly unzipped the front of my bee suit--there, crawling from my chest to the inside of the suit was a bee.

Now, I always thought that when it came to the fight or flight response that I was more of a fight kinda girl. My goodness, was I wrong. I totally took flight. Without a word, I took off running, although, it was hard to run since Lorraine had hold of the arms of the suit and my legs were still in the bottom of the suit. I pushed through the suit and the rest of the zipper ripped open and I tried desperately to keep running while Lorraine pulled on the suit from behind. "I'm trying to save you!" Lorraine shouted. I said nothing but continued to try my awkward run. We got the bee suit off of my legs, along with my shoes. Lorraine, still thinking the bee was in my shirt, helpfully tried to take it off. Overcome with anxiety and and humor of the situation, we just started laughing maniacally.

It's points like this where I'm really grateful that our beekeeping operation is in a remote area and the chances that anyone actually witnessed this strange little tug of war and personal bee removal striptease are incredibly slim.

We took a moment to breathe and then realized that we were still surrounded by bees foraging on the dandelions surrounding us--and I was out of the bee suit and not wearing shoes. We eventually made it back to the house, spent and emotionally drained. Up until this point, the beekeeping had been a fun discovery of cool natural history. Today, it was just hard, messy work.

When we got back to the house, I said, "You know, someone is going to have to check the cage in about three days to make sure the queen is released."

"I like how you said 'someone' like you're not going to be here to do it," she said. We decided it would be best to get some sleep and find our love of beekeeping again before deciding who would check to see if the queen were released.

I am about to collapse from exhaustion myself as I type this. When I came home, I did crawl under a blanket for about five minutes and was a tad weepy. Non Birding Bill came into the bedroom and asked what was the matter and I started recounting the day: we squished bees, we lost the old queen, will the new queen make it, and worst of all, I broke the MimiKo Hive's trust when I took their frame of brood away and used the bee brush on some of them.

NBB started laughing. "You realize that you are upset about breaking the trust of some insects?" NBB asked.

Well, when it's put that way, it does sound kind of silly and I had to chuckle at my self pity.

You can read Lorraine's version here.

Sapsucker Still Hanging Around

I can't believe it, Mr. Neil still has a yellow-bellied sapsucker hanging around! We've seen them during migration, but they've never really hung out at the feeding station before. I wonder if it's going to nest here and where that will be.

I would like to say I took these photos, but the person who took them would rather remain anonymous to maintain his non birding status.

I have the new queen for the Olga hive. Should be an interesting day tomorrow.

Plotting Some Regicide

I went out and did a hive inspection with Non Birding Bill and Fabulous Lorraine today. Afterwards, we sat down to a cup of tea and talked some treason. I suddenly regret being the head beekeeper.

There's trouble afoot in the Olga Hive. She is now a parent colony, as we split her recently to make a second hive. When we opened Olga up to see if she was ready to add some honey supers, we found no new eggs or larvae in the top box. We down deeper into the second box and still no eggs, a tiny bit of sealed brood that is mostly emerged, but nothing new. We went into the bottom box where I found fresh larvae the day we did the divide and there was nothing but sealed brood...not good.

After consulting some bee books and putting a call for help on the blog, I got in touch with some helpful local beekeepers and the consensus is that Queen Olga has either died (perhaps accidentally crushed during the divide) or was "mated poorly" (maybe only hooked up with a few drones instead of 15 or so) and has run out of fertile eggs. Either way, something needs to be done and now.

Once again, Nature's Nectar is saving my beekeeping butt. Non Birding Bill and I are heading to his place tomorrow morning to pick up a replacement queen...but here's the hard part: I have to totally inspect the hive and if I find the old queen alive, I have to kill her in order for the hive to accept the new queen. I don't know if I can do this. I have to, but wow, this not crushing an ordinary bug, this is the queen who brought forth all the workers. As much as I hate to admit it, I'm attached to my bees and it's not like when a pet is ill and it's time to take it to the vet to be put down (boy, would love to see the face of my vet if I brought in a failing queen bee asking to euthanize her, I know my file is full of odd stuff as it is, this wouldn't help). I have to do this for the good of the hive...as Spock would say, "The needs of the many, out weigh the needs of the one."

On to happier hive news:

Kitty Hive

Kitty, the daughter of the Olga Hive is doing well. The workers have accepted the new queen and she is putting eggs in any available cell. Above is a frame with some sealed brood that was from the Olga hive, some new larvae from the new queen, and LOTS of pollen.

The new hives that we installed this year are rarin' to go. Queen MimiKo seems to have little patience for the workers, she's even laying eggs in half constructed cells. I spoke with BeeGirl today about the Olga situation and mentioned MimiKo's impatience. She recommended adding in a frame of drawn out comb without any brood from another hive to give the workers a chance to catch up and a place for the queen to lay eggs. I'll do that when I go out to put in the new Olga queen.

The Bickman Hive was full of fresh eggs and larvae too. I really love hanging out at the new hives. The workers are so docile and friendly, you barely need to smoke the hive to work in it. Ah, young colonies with no preconceived notions of humans and have been untouched by pesky skunks. They are so young, so industrious, so friendly. A perfect antidote for the puzzling Olga.

Olga Hive Has No Eggs Or Larvae!!!!

Okay, any beekeepers with any kind of advice, I could use it now. Our Olga Hive that we overwintered and just divided about a week and a half ago appears to be in trouble. When we took away the box with brood for the divide, we left behind the box that had some fresh larvae in it. We just checked her today and there is absolutely no new brood, no larvae, no eggs. There is some sealed brood but it is all about to hatch. The hive has several workers, but is this a sign that the queen has died or can no longer produce eggs? Should I get a new queen for Olga?

Any advice appreciated, I'm now going to sequester myself into some bee books.

Wild Flowers And Blue-winged Warblers

Last fall, I went on a tear to get rid of some buckthorn and start replenishing the woods with bee and bird friendly plants (with mostly native plants) in Mr. Neil's woods. I've tried to make a sincere effort to learn my wildflowers and if I've learned anything, it's that if I find a flower very attractive, it's non-native.

I got some large-flowering trillium last fall and planted that on the slope where the big fallen oak has been hosting sparrows all winter. Alas, it does not appear to be popping up. As I was feeling sorry for myself and wondering what I could do differently, I noticed this, mere feet from where I planted the trillium:

Nodding trillium! Growing all on its own, without me planting it! Has it always been growing on this hill and since I'm always bird watching that I have just never noticed it? That's quite possible--really, the only wildflower I knew before this was Dutchman's breeches and Jack-In-The-Pulpit (which we have a ginormous amount of Jack's this year). Refreshed and excited, I decided to head into the woods to see what other flowers might be popping up and to try and get some warbler shots. I head to the spot where a major buckthorn removal had taken place and found:

A butt load of garlic mustard. One of the reasons I have never bothered to learn my plants is that I didn't want to know too much. Once you know what the invasive species are and how quickly they spread and how hard they are to get rid of--you begin to see it everywhere and feel a sort of powerlessness about it. This area floods every spring. So if we begin a garlic mustard removal plan, more will just be flooded in. As I was thinking in my head about what I'd read on the Internet regarding garlic mustard removal, I noticed higher up on a hill, a patch of flowers surrounded by garlic mustard...

It was a large patch of native wildflowers including large-flowered trillium and some rue anemone (and if I misidentify any flowers, please someone correct me, I'm still learning and need all the help I can get). I also found spring beauties, wild geranium, phlox, and something I cannot identify in my books and online:

Does anyone know what this is? I have a feeling it's non-native since I find them so pretty. Here's a shot so you can see the leaves:

So, even though there is still buckthorn and now oodles of garlic mustard, there is still some hope in the woods with some native flowers and our bees out there using them for nectar.

After I finished inspecting the wildflower situation, I headed towards the spot where we find giant puffballs because blue-winged warblers have nested there since I have been coming to Mr. Neil's. I heard one singing right away, found a spot with some open areas so I could aim my digiscoping equipment and waited. It wasn't long before a pair of blue-winged warblers were out and foraging. The birds seemed to have a circuit that they would follow from tree to tree, searching for tiny insects. By watching the circuit a few times, I got a sense of their route and could kind of follow along with the scope and digiscope some photos.

The blue-winged warblers were not bothered by my presence whatsoever and a few times foraged for insects about two feet above my head. Blue-wings are an interesting species. They hybridize with golden-winged warblers and may be contributing to the decline of the golden-wing. When blue-winged warblers move into the same range as the golden-wing--the pure golden-wings disappear to hybrids and eventually all become golden-wings. You can read more about it (and maybe even participate in a study) at Cornell's Golden-winged Warbler Atlas Project.

What a pleasant way to enjoy the evening sun with a blue-winged warbler. I even managed to get a video of the warbler singing his buzzy "bluuuuuuuuuuuuuue wing" song and foraging--enjoy!