What a very busy few weeks ..

Last year my patience was like a soft rubber band, ever stretching, becoming longer and longer. My wonderful bee NUC was delayed owing to a dreadfully long Winter spell and a damp and inclement Spring that extended itself well into a third of the year. Every book, every article I had read advised that a late brood of bees would not come close to swarming the year after receipt. I was therefore unprepared when my little colony exploded with growth and virtually tumbled out of the hive.

First course of action is apparently to checkerboard the main brood box. This meant the use of a second brood box. Half the colony was placed in the second brood box and new frames and wax were place in between on both brood compartments. I hadn’t the time to purchase a complete new hive and so the second box was placed above the three supers on the original hive. A new entrance was made by pulling back the mesh. Another entrance was also created in the supers. This action, I thought would be enough but the following week during inspection the queen had obviously lost a considerable amount of weight. Oh no! That must be a bad sign, I thought. And, of course, it was.

Measures to prevent the swarming of honey bees – splitting the colony and checkerboarding the brood box

The Masons

Deep in the roots of mankind, embroiled in their history, secretive and seemingly solitary in their existence are the masons. It may be years before you come to recognise their presence but once you do and the spark ignites the fire of inquisitive yearnings of the desire to know more you will never turn away from them. This is such a lovely solitary saviour that you need to encourage.

We have both the Red Mason Bee (Osmia rufa) and the Blue Mason Bee (Osmia caerulescens) in our garden. We had an unusual Winter in that there was no snow just rain, plenty of water which led to an early Spring. This weather pattern appears to have confused all of the insects as they are all behaving quite differently to normal. We usually see the Red Mason Bee nest first, followed by the Blue Mason Bee and Leaf-cutter bee which usually build their nests in June. This year the Red Mason Bees arrived in late March. They were still squirrelling away at their nest sites, clearing out the chambers ready to lay this year’s eggs when they were met with the early arrival of both the Blue Mason Bees, and the slightly larger and perhaps a little more aggressive (at least when it comes to the arrangement of their nesting sites), Leaf-cutter bees. There are arguments breaking out constantly and I have never witnessed this pattern of behaviour before.

A new secret crusade trying to find enough laying space all in the same time frame and not over the several months which is the normal pattern of behaviour of these beautiful solitary bees.

Red Mason Bee Osmia rufa and a Blue Mason Bee Osmia caerulescens

A Red Mason Bee Osmia rufa chasing off a Blue Mason Bee Osmia caerulescens trying to prevent the use of a communal insect house in the holy grail quest of finding the perfect and safe place to lay this year’s eggs for the new brood.

Bee embryo

Although being an insect bees do not have a form of embryo like those in mammals, they do have a stage betwixt the egg and the grub which is the nearest the insect world has to the embryo. I was very fortunate when I was able to capture this stage of bee development.

Bee embryo (the stage between the egg and the grub)

 

First stage of the honey bee grub

 

Honey bee eggs laid in the wax cells of the comb

Bee eggs–honey bee first lay

The warmer spell of Spring weather has energised the honey bees and the Queen has begun laying new brood in earnest. Here are two of her eggs. It is the first time that I have seen bee eggs and I don’t know why but I found their shape and tiny size quite surprising.

 

Buckfast honey bee eggs, just laid

Pet bees

It is surprising just how easily a person becomes quite attached to their honey bees. I wouldn’t have thought it possible but once the bees are established and you get over the initial wariness of the possibility of getting stung then you experience the pleasure of entering the wonderful world of the insect.

I have always loved honey and usually have a little every single day, so whether my skin oozes a small amount of its smell or not I am unsure. What I do know is that the beautiful lady worker bees land on my skin and dip their tongues onto it and appear to lick me. This tickles just a little but after a short while they take off and go about their business. They do appear to like strolling about on bare skin. The variety of these bees is called Buckfast. They are noted for their gentleness and their ease of establishing themselves in the average garden.

When they leave the hive, they do not fly straight across the garden but always go upwards and then choose a particular direction that they wish to take. So they are up and away from both yourself and your neighbours. As with any other pet you must make sure that you supply fresh water for your bees. This is often best placed into a bird bath or earthenware dish that is filled with large pebbles before adding any water. This ensures that the bees are able to drink without drowning. The next important thing to remember is that there are no flowers during the early part of the year and unless you know that your bees have ample honey stores to eat then you do need to feed them. They do fairly well on inverted sugar syrup and honey which you can easily make yourself.

Basic recipes involve white cane sugar, water, a small squirt of freshly squeezed orange or lemon juice and a pinch of food grade citric acid. It is the orange, lemon and/or citric acid which inverts the sugar mixture and this helps the bees to digest it easily. In real emergencies then sugar may be given straight from the packet – it is better to feed instantly than leave the bees to starve.

Our beautiful lady Buckfast honey bees

Award and front page from Pixabay

Although I have only been a member of Pixabay for one month I was delighted today to find one of my pictures had not only received an award from them but also prime position on the front page of their website. I hope that you don’t mind but I wanted to share my pleasure with you all.

The picture is of my beautiful Buckfast Honey Bees and was taken yesterday during the Spring cleaning of our beehive

 

This is the actual photograph and it was taken on the first day of Spring, 21 March 2014

The variety of bee are Buckfast Honey Bees – they are extremely placid and very gentle, which is why they make an excellent garden bee. They are very good for New Beekeepers to have for their first pets whilst learning all about the art of beekeeping.

The honey bees in February

There is a gentle hum coming from the hive. After a quick inspection we decided to spoil the sweet ladies to some liquid feed, some crunchy candy standing in syrup and a bag of candy pollen. They have been coming out for a quick fly during the last week and yesterday some of the ladies came back with their pollen sacks stuffed full. There are crocuses about now, so maybe this current hoard is from the pollen of these.

On Saturday we rubbed the small landing step with some fresh Danish oil to keep it nice and weather-proofed – and with all of the rain that we’ve had over the last couple of months it really was in need of a new coat.

Honey bees anticipating Spring – Buckfast honey bees are active ….

Swaddling bee; baby bee; bee abortion

Until we decided to become bee keepers and invest in a garden beehive, the only contact I had had with bees was purely observation from a distance.

Insects are the most successful of all life forms. Insects of all types, have been on the Earth much longer than most other life forms. They have changed little over the years and they are immeasurably successful because they always place the entire group as a priority over their own life and wellbeing. When living in a group or colony they reside in some type of nest and they have one purpose and that is to breed.

Since having the beehive, I have been privileged to experience the wonderful richness of the life of the honey bee. Many of the things that I have seen in this secret world of bees I have found to be both intoxicating and magical.

During the Autumn, a worker bee (the nurse bees are the younger worker bees that are not let out of the hive – the female bees just after hatching are referred to as the nurse bees) flew just in front of me. She was carrying a package with her front four legs. She gently laid the package down on the path, then proceeded to slowly turn the little bundle left and then right. She did this a few times, then with one of her front legs she softly poked it. She turned it over then back. Eventually she flew away and left the little bundle on the path. Curiously I went over to it and found that it was a swaddling bee – a bee that had been pulled out of the brood chamber – probably it had died in the cell. I picked it up on a sheet of paper so that I wouldn’t damage it and checked it over under a microscope. It appeared to have no wings. I was amazed by the tenderness of the worker bee and the way that she appeared to double-check for signs of life or to see whether a mistake had been made but she had to eventually give in.

Life is both beautiful and cruel.

Swaddling bee (the baby bee formed in the brood chamber)

Close-up of swaddling bee baby

Swaddling bee – under side

Swaddling bee – close-up of leg

The first picture that I took of a swaddling bee within a couple of minutes from being abandoned

The head of a swaddling bee

Close-up of the swaddling bee flesh

Detail of the skin and hair forming on the swaddling bee

The swaddling bee – aborted from the brood chamber and carried some distance away by a worker or nurse bee

Drone and worker bees

Today I went to the hive to make a quick inspection and quite by chance, as if awaiting me I spied a drone and shortly afterwards a busy worker arrived. This gave me a chance to take a few quick pictures so that the size of each could be appreciated.

  The Drone – large eyes and rounded bottom – no sting

  

The Drone alongside the Worker Bee

A little secret fact: all worker bees are female and if the Queen of the hive is placed in peril and dies the younger worker bees will become fertile and lay eggs. These worker bees have never mated and so any offspring that is produced will develop into male bees (bees that are drones). Drones do not have stings, they cannot harm anyone. The more healthy a hive is the less likelihood there will be for any or at least more than a few of these drones will be spotted. 

The rush to Winter

The bees are almost crashing into the hive at the moment to pack as much pollen as possible and add to their Winter stores. There are still several colours and types of pollen being collected and it is fascinating to watch each worker leave the hive and see which pathway into the sky she takes. Once a bee has a favourite direction they appear to choose the same route. This only became obvious through observing my white hourglass ladies which still appear to be finding their precious Himalayan Balsam flowers.
Here are two videos of the honey bees:

White Mohawk bees; white hour-glass head bees; last of the Mohican bees

The other week on my quick daily inspection of the hive I found that the hive was being visited by bees that I had never in my life seen before. They had white hour-glass patterns on the top of their heads. I expected that there would be an altercation or two. Maybe the drones would appear and push these strangers away or perhaps my lovely ladies would gather around these new comers and make short shrift of them sending them back to where they had come from. In fact not one bee took the slightest notice of these white-headed bees. I wondered if they had come from another hive. Perhaps our hive was more attractive to them. Each day I carried on my inspection of the entrance and found more and more of these white hour-glass honey bees going in and coming out of the hive. They were industrious bringing back pollen packed basketfuls. I knew that I had to find out more information about them and chose to Google to find out what they were. I could find nothing even on the bee forums. The nearest answer was sugar coating from sugar water feed. Our bees however had no sugar water, the weather was hot and sunny and the bees required no extra feed so this wasn’t the answer I was looking for.

I did eventually find out that these were our bees and these markings were caused through their tops being dyed by the pale white pollen from Himalayan Balsam, which lines the water courses, streams, brooks, creeks, canals and rivers in the area. Although the pollen dyes the tops of the bees where there is a small amount of fur on the back of the bees heads, it is harmless. I am also advised that if the pollen from Himalayan Balsam is found and collected by honey bees it makes the most superb honey.

White hour-glass headed bees

 

… and here is the culprit the flower with the white pollen that dyes the top of the fur heads of the honey bees in a beautiful hour-glass shape or Mohawk .. at least I have found the solution to my white headed bees!!

Himalayan Balsam wild flowers

Houses to let

Houses this year are very popular. Both the Mason and the Leaf-cutter bees have practically filled up all of the vacancies and there have been very few homes left empty and as yet, apart from some being obviously too narrow or too wide, I have not been able to find out why the remaining homes, which look perfect from the outside are left and not taken up some years.

The bees appeared to be keener than ever this year to increase their numbers and they moved with amazing alacrity to fill as many suitable crevices within both the wooden Insect tenements. First the Mason bees had their pick and packed the tube houses with mud – then just before they had finished possessing as many properties as they were able, the slightly larger Leaf-cutter bees shook themselves about and proceeded to claim all of the remaining suitable vacancies. Never have I seen such an array of colours and materials being stuffed into the entrances to make the front doors secure.

This shows one of the larger Leaf-cutter bees scraping around the edge of the bamboo making sure that it is spick and span before sorting it out as a suitable nesting home

 

 

This shows the variety of materials used to seal the front doors of each of the compartments. You can see the mud or clay used by the Mason bees as well as the large variety and colours of the leaves used by the Leaf-cutter bees.

Attack, attack!!

Recently we found a grub or larvae, on three separate occasions, inside the top of the hive. On the first occasion the small grub/larvae was moving on a level piece of wood just under the Perspex viewing lid. On the second and third occasion the grub was cocooned in a long silky ball which it appeared to be still making.

We found out that this was the larvae of a wax moth. It is difficult looking at the grub/larvae to tell which out of the two varieties of wax moth that enter hives this one could be. There is a Greater Wax Moth and a Lesser Wax Moth. The Greater Wax Moth is said to chew out small alcoves in the wooden parts of the hive in which to pupate whilst the Lesser Wax Moth has no need to make a groove in the wood before pupating. With that in mind, we concluded that what we had would appear to be the larvae of the Lesser Wax Moth, as we could find no damage to any of the wooden areas of the hive.

 

Greater Wax Moth - Galleria mellonella or Lesser Wax Moth Achroia grisella

Little note for bee lovers:
Bees are noted for their cleanliness and tidiness. So as long as the brood is healthy and plentiful and well inspected there should be no need to worry about the appearance of occasional wax moths. Both types of wax moth (especially the Greater Wax Moth) are more dangerous if there are areas of stale and dirty cone in the hive or if the bees have been assaulted by Varroa Mites or devastated by other enemies or attacked by a long, bleak, cold Winter or indeed a long, cool wet Spring.

Pollen planet; balls of pollen

It is fascinating that so much valuable food is produced from the fertilization of flowers. Honey bees collect pollen from the flowers and store it on the lower part of their hind legs where the tiny balls of pollen are grouped together to form an elongated ball.

The first picture shows the honey bee ball of collected pollen that was accidentally dropped by one of the female worker bees at the foot of the hive. It is made up of thousands of pollen grains that look as though they have all been collected off one particular species of flower.

 

 

 

The three pictures above are a close-up of all of the pollen grains that make up the top picture of the pollen ball. The individual pollen grains look like eggs or particles of sand. Amazingly the pollen grains all stick together to form the shape that the bee carries back to the hive. The actual ‘pollen ball’ looks nearer in colour to the first few pictures and the camera has lightened the last picture whilst I was trying to focus and enlarge the pollen grains.

Pollen is a protein and is used by the bees when rearing their young.

Pollen has also been found to be a health food for humans and so if an extra amount has been collected by the bees then excess may be gathered and eaten by humans.

It’s all about the entrance ..

The beautiful Buckfast honey bees making their entrance at the hive. The weight of the pollen that they carry on their back legs occasionally falls through the gap between the frames and lands on the floor beneath the hive. When this happens they appear to leave it well alone rather than trying to pick it up to save it and use it inside the hive. Watch to see how industrious they are both entering and leaving the hive.

Bee picture perfect

To view an insect, especially a bee, up closely is to see nature’s perfection. Here are some pictures showing a bee drinking some water ..

Close-up of a beautiful lady Buckfast honey bee drinking water from a bird bath