So A Drone Walks Into a Bar

That subject line was totally taken from Belinda who gave me an idea when I expressed my nervousness. Thanks, Belinda!

I'm feelin' a bit nervous. Tonight, I'm speaking to the Minnesota Hobby Beekeepers Association. When I was asked, I hesitated--what could I possibly have to share with experienced beekeepers apart from my mistakes? The person booking me was interested in how I document my bees--types of cameras, video, etc. That is something I can easily talk about--but I'm still nervous. I've done so many bird programs that I have a good sense of the audience, I have some tried and true bird jokes, I have a sense of when to use my phalarope joke and when to leave it unsaid. I know how to work that audience and give a bird talk at a moment's notice and know that I will slay the audience. I have no idea which jokes will work with beekeepers--this is new ground. But, it's good to shake up my program giving skills.

Speaking of bees, last time we were at the hives, Mr. Neil pointed out some new tracks around the hives. I think these are possum tracks and not skunk, so I'm not too worried, but if anyone has any ideas, I'd sure love to know what you think.

Kitty Hive RIP

Alas, the fear I had this past fall has been realized, the Kitty Hive has failed. The above photo is the last one I have of the hive alive. On January 1, I could hear some activity in the hive, but I have put my ear up to Kitty twice in the last two weeks and both times the hive has been silent. I had hoped it was just that they were tucked deep inside, but today we got confirmation. Mr. Neil checked the hives this afternoon and with the warm weather, the Olga hive was dumping out dead bees and pooping. The snow around her hive was completely melted. Kitty was silent with no visible activity and the snow was not melted around the hive. He opened the roof, looked in and found all bees inside to be dead (on the upside, that's not Colony Collapse Disorder).

I think it all started with my mistake of preventing the swarm, that led to a late requeening and having too few bees to keep the hive warm for the winter. Sigh.

We expected complete failure our first year, and were pleased as punch that we got as far as we did this fall, including harvesting a wee bit of honey from Olga. But, I still feel bad and will miss our girls. After all, they were the ones who I installed after my initial panic and unlike Olga, none of us have ever been stung by a Kitty bee.

I also got some of my best photos from the Kitty Hive. I loved the above shot of all the Kitty workers coming to lap up a river of honey that surged down a frame when I accidentally opened some cells. Kitty, you taught me lots. I'm sorry we couldn't keep you through the winter.

First Bee Post of 2008

Lots of snow has been falling in Mr. Neil's woods. There are some trails from the deer, some from the dog Cabal, and quite a few from rabbits, squirrels, and deer mice. This morning we took whoever was still around from the New Year's party out to the beehives so people could experience the magic of live buzzing bees while it was somewhere near zero degrees (Fahrenheit) outside.

As everyone was putting their ears to the Olga hive, I noticed a very steady trail of deer mouse tracks...

...leading directly underneath the Olga hive. This is not good. We have a mouse guard on the entrance, but our hives are elevated, so there is a space underneath the hive that a mouse could chew and gain access to the inside. It's a tempting abode for an enterprising deer mouse: bees keep it warm and you'd be surrounded by honey. Was the mouse just hanging out under the hive, or was it going up and into it? I stuck my camera into the space below Olga:

There was a pile of bee parts and some tiny wood scraps The bee parts could be decomposing dead bees that had fallen out, but the wood was a sure sign that some chewing was underway.

I tried to take a photo of the bottom of the hive, and low and behold there is a hole large enough for a deer mouse to gain access to the bottom of the hive. I think we have caught this early, I was just out a week ago and there were no tracks. Lorraine headed out and purchased some snap traps to place under the hive. I feel bad for the mouse, it's a clever way to survive the winter, but I have a responsibility to my girls to help them survive the winter--the mouse has to go. Funny thing--we had two traps, but had trouble setting one of them in the extreme cold because the metal was contracting.

But now to some very exciting news! We are prepping the hives for the coming spring! Last year, Non Birding Bill and I put the hives together and painted them. In preparation for this spring, we ordered assembled hives and Mr. Neil is commissioning artists paint them. The first artist?

Kelli Bickman came in from New York to paint one of the new hives! It is so incredibly cool(and isn't Kelli adorable?)! The colors, the dripping honey, the skulls! I love it, and I can't wait to see it alive with a colony of bees.

Here is the other side. Kelli has actually done three deep brood boxes and two of our comb honey supers. I'm going to find myself impatient to put this hive together through spring and summer in order to see the whole art, but it will be a gradual process.

Here is a close up of the eye. Kelli's cousin, Jen did all the detail work here, down to a bee in the middle of the pupil. Beekeeping is fun enough, but to have an artist create such a space for our bees, really takes it to a new level. This is just such a gift and this beekeeping thing combines so many elements I love: art, natural history, learning, and friendship. Kelli's work is so vibrant and the color composition has a way of taking me to a peaceful, vibrant world. Can't wait to see what the personality of this hive will be.

So, here we have it: The Kelli Hive. I like this new rule, you paint the hive, we name it after you.

Bees In The Snow

Thank you to do Stacy Kagiwada for getting this awesome photo of Cinnamon! This is from the Indianapolis book signing, you can see more here--wow, Stacy has really nailed how to get a disapproval out of my bunny. I just love this one below--Cinnamon's totally disapproving of me in the background. Stacy also got a shot of Non Birding Bill and I together--we have so few of us in the same shot, I love it!

Whoa, doggies! Sounds like I'll be signing lots of Disapproving Rabbits books tomorrow. About a month after the book came out, we learned that Harper Collins had run out of the DR book and were going to print more. According to UPS, the packages will be dropped off tomorrow and I'll be signing away so we can mail them out on Friday and get them to people in time for Christmas.

It continues to be super cold here, but very lovely--like this puffed up little downy woodpecker. This morning I woke to 5 degrees but I am assured by the weatherman that it will warm up to twenty degrees before the sun sets at 4:30pm. I went out check on the beehives.

Single digit temperatures are much easier to take in when there is snow. Also, between all of my layers, hand warmers and the marching motion I have to do to maneuver over unplowed paths in the woods, I can work up quite a sweat. It's a strange quiet in the woods, and all you hear is the chip note of a chickadee, the industrious soft tapping of several woodpeckers, and crow caws echoing off of the hillsides. So different from the cacophony of warblers and vireos in spring and the dry humming and buzzing of katydids and grasshoppers in late summer.

I took a very long route to the hives to enjoy the scenery in the snow. The creek on Mr. Neil's property is almost completely frozen, apart from a few pockets that the birds are using for drinking water. I can't believe I've seen some ice fishing houses out already on some of the lakes in town--it's too soon. If there is still some slush on the lake, it's too soon, you crazy fishing people! As I was working my way to the field near our hives, I noticed a strong aroma.

Hoo-wee, you've been warned of yellow snow...how about brown snow? Someone must have run a manure spreader right after our last big snowfall. It was still very pungent--and rock solid.

The path to the hives was dug deep into the snow with splatters of hard poop. I know the kind of enjoyment I get from walking through fresh snow...I wonder if it's the same when one is riding a manure spreader. There's a huge field full of pristine snow and you're gonna cover it with some hot liquid manure. Good times. Actually, I had to chuckle, because the field is part of a network of snow mobile trails...I would wager that there have been some very disappointed snow mobile drivers who were raring to go after our first big snow of the season only to come upon that road block of several acres.

But I made my way to the hives and found Kitty nestled in the snow. I put my ear up to the hive and you could hear all the bees inside buzzing softly keeping the hive warm. Incredible.

You will note that the snow just around the hives is melted away--they keep it that warm! Again--Incredible. And now in French--Incroyable!!

There were some dead bees outside of the hives, here's a little pile in front of Olga. I had closed the entrance reducer, but Mr. Neil read about some Canadian beekeepers, leaving it open a little bit for some air circulation. The bees seemed to have covered the entrance holes with dead bees on the inside, so I'm not sure if they need in ventilation or not. There's a small hole at the top as well, so they can take cleansing flight. I'm not too worried about. After all, our bees have insulation around their hive, in the wild, they don't have anything, but their honey and their little wings to maintain temperature. I put my ear up to Olga and you could hear the humming in there too. Amazing, just amazing to hear them living on the other side of some thin pieced of wood while it's in the single digits outside. Ah, my bees, I miss you. Can't wait to play with you next spring.

Indoor Bees

Sunday, when the snow had stopped, Non Birding Bill and I took a stroll (or trudge in snow boots would be a better description of what I do). It was in the teens and you could see the edges of the lake freezing up. This is a popular destination for gulls right before it freezes. Within twenty-four hours after this photo was taken, someone posted on the listservs that the lake had frozen and the gulls have moved on.

Okay, someone had questioned of the sanity of NBB and I taking a walk in the morning in the single digit temps, well this is what we walk in, the Minneapolis Skyway--we can walk for a few miles without taking a step outside, most of the buildings are connected in some way in downtown.

Just kind of think of it as one of those tunneling systems you can get for hamsters. In one two mile stretch, we pass six different Caribou Coffees--and that doesn't include the other coffee shops, I'm sure we pass between 12 - 15 coffee stops. Most of the snow from Saturday has been cleared around, and just in time, tomorrow we are supposed to get an Alberta Clipper and another 2-3 inches in my neighborhood. I hope it holds off, there's been a report of a great gray owl in Hastings, and I'd like to go look for it after my shift at The Raptor Center tomorrow.

I found some photos that I took last Friday that I took at Hyland--they have an indoor beehive. Mr. Neil and I have kicked around the idea of an indoor hive but have no clue as to how to maintain it without letting bees run amok in his house. I talked to the staff there about how they maintained the hive. They said that because it's such a small box, you have to feed the bees all winter--there's a top compartment, that's kind of an ante chamber so you can put the food there, there's a hole for the bees to access the food from inside, so very few if any get out. So, essentially, these indoor hives appear to be educational tools and conversation pieces, not a means to produce honey.

I opened the side to take a look at the bees on the inside, they were moving slow, but they were moving.

There's a little tube that goes from the hive to the outdoors. It was in the teens when I took this photo, so most of the bees were opting to stay in the hive.

A few would work their way down the tunnel and as soon as they got to the edge the hightailed it back to the hive.

They did have one hive by the bird feeders, and unlike our hives, this one wasn't insulted for the winter--another example of how every beekeeper does something different (and I asked, this is a hive the staff plans to overwinter). I suppose bees in the wilds don't have insulation, so I'm sure it's possible for them to survive without it.

Speaking of bees, I got the sweetest gift at the Paper Session on Saturday--blog reader Kathy gave me some of her own honey from Lake Isle of Innisfree Apiaries--Thanks, Kathy!

Cold, Quiet Bees

First, a big shout out to Jennifer Tanner! Thank you so much for sending me the bee song! I love it! I have been listening to it all week. Go to Mirah and Spectratone International and download the song "Community" (it's free and legal). I now imagine the bees singing that while we're working the hives.

There's not a huge amount going on with the bee hives right now. We're feeding them, trying to get the girls fully stocked with honey for the winter. Today, the temps were in the forties and the girls were clustering together for warmth and moving very slowly. I even took a video to show how quiet they are. A month ago there would have been loud buzzing, now there is this:

Very quiet. Compare that to this.

We're feeding them a nectar solution to substitute the current lack of natural nectar sources to build up their stores. Olga is chock full, her hive is very busy, but I'm feeding her anyway because the book says I'm supposed to. Kitty is a different story. We didn't harvest any honey from her hive, but even still she is behind on comb and honey production from swarming this summer. Her hive is light. I don't know. If we have a warm winter with milder temps, she just might make it. But if we have the type of winter this part of the northern United States is known for, I'm afraid we will lose her. Ah well, we're doing all we can to keep her going and the bottom line is that this year is our first year beekeeping and it's all a learning experience.

I will say that Kitty has done an outstanding job of gathering pollen. In this undeveloped comb, you can see on the other side of the comb, all the many colors of pollen that is in the bottom of honey cells.

Since the bees were calm and we were feeding them, I had Mr. Neil try his luck at hand feeding the bees. The bees were happy to feed from his fingers. Non Birding Bill learned from the QI tv show that bees can recognize individual people, so this hand feeding business may prevent future stings. Here's the blurb from the Telegraph:

"Bees can recognise human faces. Given that many humans struggle with this once they have turned 40, it seems utterly remarkable in a creature whose brain is the size of a pinhead. Yet bees who are rewarded with nectar when shown some photos of faces, and not rewarded when shown others, quickly learn to tell the difference. Not that we should read too much into this. Bees don't "think" in a meaningful way. The "faces" in the experiment were clearly functioning as rather odd-looking flowers, not as people they wanted to get to know socially."

In a couple of weeks, I will have to close up the hives for winter. How long this winter will seem without being able to look in on the girls.

Sigh.

Lot Sicker Than I Thought

I went out to Mr. Neil's to make some nectar to feed the bees. Lorraine was out there too, busy working, but every time she saw me, she offered to make me tea. I think I looked and sounded so miserable, her care taking instincts kicked in and just wanted to give me some soothing tea. As I was feeding the bees, I began to sweat profusely beneath the bee suit--and it was a cool day, I shouldn't have been sweating. It then occurred to me that I might be sicker than I realized.

So, I left, stopped at the grocery store, loaded up on fruits for our juicer, came home, and started boiling a left over roasted chicken for some broth. And then slept.

I'm a bit better today, but I think I need more sleep. Now, here is the question:

Non Birding Bill believes our box of Disapproving Rabbits books that people have ordered on the website that I'm supposed to personalize will arrive today. Do I begin the personalization process today, or wait until I'm healthy so as to not risk shipping my germs to the people who ordered a book?

MN Pioneer Press Bee Article

We know it's not cell phones, in the scientific community, that was never a possibility.

I really like this article for not being so Chicken Little about it, the way most of the stories about Colony Collapse Disorder have been. You can read the full article at the Pioneer Press, but here is an excerpt:

A new ailment had emerged over the winter, causing bee colonies to mysteriously flee, and fueling scary stories about the vanishing honeybee - and the threat to crops that depend on bees for pollination.

But Minnesota's honeybees are still here. In fact, most honeybees thrived this summer, state beekeepers report. Minnesota's crops were richly pollinated. Apples, berries and pumpkins are abundant. There's even plenty of honey here in America's No. 5 honey-producing state.

David Ellingson, an Ortonville beekeeper and past president of the Minnesota Honey Producers, told Congress this spring about losing 65 percent of his bees while wintering in Texas. Now back in Minnesota, he's still having problems among his 3,400 hives.

"We did see probably 20 percent of our colonies go from excellent to poor, at the end of June and into July," Ellingson said. "Some of them have rebounded, and others have gone away."

Losing bee colonies is one of the gloomy facts of life for beekeepers, and over the years, bee losses have been worsening. Bee mites, viruses and pesticides have taken a toll.

"Twenty-five years ago, if you lost 5 to 7 percent of your bees (during the winter), that would be normal," Ellingson said. "But today, we look at normal as being 20 percent."

"We know it's not cell phones," said Katie Klett, a University of Minnesota bee specialist, who added that, "in the scientific community, that was never a possibility." But it did grab lots of media attention.

Since last spring, scientists have identified an imported virus that appears linked to collapsed colonies. They're also examining a long list of other suspects, including a class of insecticides and an array of bee diseases. Beekeeping practices are coming under scrutiny, too.

"We've got a 50-piece puzzle here, and we've only got 10 pieces that we know are going on," Ellingson said. "There's too many unknowns."

Klett, whose family runs a North Dakota farm breeding queen bees, said it suffered big losses in 2006. Yet 2007 was "the best year we've ever had," she said, with production "through the roof."

So it's a riddle and a concern. Winter will test the state's honeybees again. But thus far, they're hanging tough.

White Pollen Mystery

Some may remember that I blogged about some of our bees coming back to the hive with white pollen and wondering where it was coming from. Well, Michele may have the answer:

If you look on the bottom flower here you can clearly see someone has left behind a trail of while pollen. :) This is ipomoea purpurea or common morning glory. Bindweed, a member of the same family that has smaller white flowers and grows tenatiously also appears to have white pollen. Both are hard in zones 3-8. This picture is from my yard. Here in my neighborhood they are everywhere.

Thanks, Michele!

Death By Propolis?

Well, here's something unexpected. I went to put some feeder pails out for the Kitty and Olga hives today. When I opened the lid to Olga, I found a drone stuck by the head to the propolis trap.

I could see him hanging when I lifted the lid. When I set it on the ground, he remained rigid in this head stand position. He's been dead awhile, but he sort of looks like he's in some weird yoga pose. I wonder how he managed that? Perhaps the workers did it because they are tired of the drones eating the honey and doing nothing but going on their daily flights to look for a queen to mate with and return day after day, unsuccessful virgins. It's easy to tell if a drone is still a virgin--because it's still alive. Once they mate with a queen, they die in process.

The Olga hive has been in propolis overload. When I went to switch the feeder pail, they had glued it to the boards with propolis. I admire their efforts, but it makes feeding them a bit of a challenge.

In other news, I found a fifth edible fungus in Mr. Neil's yard today--a shaggy mane. I've read different explanations of how tasty it is, but I didn't try it because I didn't have time to prepare it and once you pick it, the fungus will quickly autodigest turning into a black liquid--bleh. It will do it a little slower if you don't pick it, which is what give this mushroom its folk name, the inky cap. Plus, Mr. Neil isn't in town and no one else around seems as interested in the wild edible shrooms.