Who Keeps Bees?

[UndercoverElephant]

Bees store honey to keep them going during the winter. If they get to the point where they are "producing more than they need" (they produce other things than honey, such as wax and more bees) then that's when they swarm. So taking honey just means they will take longer to get to the point where they swarm (unless you take it at the wrong time and then they will starve during the winter.)

[clv101]

Bees store honey to keep them going during the winter. If they get to the point where they are "producing more than they need" (they produce other things than honey, such as wax and more bees) then that's when they swarm.

I don't think that's right. They produce wax and more bees irrespective of honey state. They have to produce wax before they can do anything - and don't produce wax unnecessarily. If they fill all the available space with stores - such that the queen isn't able to lay, then the colony is very likely to swarm to find a new home.

So taking honey just means they will take longer to get to the point where they swarm (unless you take it at the wrong time and then they will starve during the winter.)

This isn't typically the case. The queen is in the brood box - where she lays eggs and around these eggs the workers store pollen and honey. This honey is never taken by the beekeepers. Above the brood area is a queen excluder and above that another box where the workers store honey. Taking this honey as no impact on space the queen has to lay (she never goes up there) and therefore doesn't have any impact on swarming.

[Blue Peter]

As a side note is it odd / wonderful / lucky that there are some species (e.g. honey bees, cows) which produce more stuff (honey, milk) than they seem to need?

I doubt that's commonly true in nature; it wouldn't make much sense really. Milk cows have been bred to produce more milk than they need and are routinely and often raped by humans to ensure they do. They then have their calves taken from them and have various compounds fed to them to maximise milk production. Bees often have to be fed non-honey stuff during the winter to make up for what's stolen from them.

Milk from another species and honey from bees are at best non-essentials for humans.

Certainly with honey, you can, take some honey, but leave enough to get the colony through the winter.

I believe, but am not sure (so happy to be corrected), that cows naturally are able to produce more milk than they need without the breeding, which certainly has occurred in our high-tech, mold-em-till-they-almost-break whizzy world,


Peter.

[emordnilap]

As a side note is it odd / wonderful / lucky that there are some species (e.g. honey bees, cows) which produce more stuff (honey, milk) than they seem to need?

I doubt that's commonly true in nature; it wouldn't make much sense really. Milk cows have been bred to produce more milk than they need and are routinely and often raped by humans to ensure they do. They then have their calves taken from them and have various compounds fed to them to maximise milk production. Bees often have to be fed non-honey stuff during the winter to make up for what's stolen from them.

Milk from another species and honey from bees are at best non-essentials for humans.

Certainly with honey, you can, take some honey, but leave enough to get the colony through the winter.

I believe, but am not sure (so happy to be corrected), that cows naturally are able to produce more milk than they need without the breeding, which certainly has occurred in our high-tech, mold-em-till-they-almost-break whizzy world,


Peter.

Under normal circs, there are undoubtedly some small surpluses in many areas - eggs for instance; many females menstruate if they're not impregnated. It's just generally not in their evolutionary interest to produce surpluses of mammary fluid.

[raspberry-blower]

There are some important features of man-made hives. Having a mesh floor means varroa mites, when the bees brush them off, fall out of the hive bottom and can't climb back up. Insulation improves the colony's energy budget - they have to maintain 33-36C when raising brood and a well insulated hive means they don't have to burn as much energy to do so. The entrance should be able to be covered by a mouse guard in the winter - mice find hives very attractive winter accommodation. Also, it's good to be able to reduce the size of the entrance if the colony is small or there are a lot of wasps around to they can more easily defend it - prevent robbing. Having a hive of variable size means it can be small when the colony is small (again helping to maintain heat) and larger as the colony grows.

So, yes, any natural void will work - but there are advantages to the bees of using 'conventional' hives.

When using insulation for beehives, please ensure that you use something that does not have any outgassing issues otherwise you'll end up with a dead bee colony.

How much insulation is there in an ordinary hive, which to my eye looks rather like a wooden box? And is the benefit of the box somewhat negated by the mesh (and so open-ish?) floor?

WRT beehive insulation, a lot of it comes down to what material you use.
WRT the box being open at the bottom - the simple answer to this is no.
Not only does the mesh floor allow for ventilation, there is another important side to this.
Bees, unlike many members of the human race, are very fastiduous in keeping their "homes" clean! Therefore, a lot of colony detritus gets cleared through the mesh floor every year - assuming the colony makes it through the winter.

[raspberry-blower]

This isn't typically the case. The queen is in the brood box - where she lays eggs and around these eggs the workers store pollen and honey. This honey is never taken by the beekeepers. Above the brood area is a queen excluder and above that another box where the workers store honey. Taking this honey as no impact on space the queen has to lay (she never goes up there) and therefore doesn't have any impact on swarming.

This is not true if you use natural beekeeping methods because you do not employ a queen excluder. If using a Top Bar Hive, be prepared to accept the probability that you won't collect any honey in the first year as you will need to gauge how much your colony will need to survive the winter months. Then only take what you guage will not be detrimental to the wellbeing of the colony/colonies
BTW I have heard that some of the swarms actually have the old queen and her workers - these have come from TBHs and associated beekeepers before you ask...

[clv101]

BTW I have heard that some of the swarms actually have the old queen and her workers - these have come from TBHs and associated beekeepers before you ask...

This is likely - it's the bees' primary way of procreation.

There are two types of swarms, prime and cast. The prime swam is indeed the old queen and a large proportion of the workers. When the colony decides to swarm they raise new queen cells and when these cells are capped over, the old queen + workers will leave - prime swarm.

Remaining in the hive are some workers and several queen cells. The first to emerge is likely to kill all the others, go out to mate and within a few weeks will start laying - rebuilding the colony. It's also possible that she won't stay put or that other queens will emerge. In this case the virgin queen swarms with a good chunk of the remaining workers - cast swarm.

We caught two swarms last year, a prime swarm, which remains today a strong colony and a cast swarm, which died. The queen of the cast swarm didn't manage of mate successfully - due, most likely, to the bad weather during the short period she needed to mate.

[biffvernon]

And to add a little colour to the discussion click here.

[biffvernon]

RSPB has issued this statement calling for a ban on neonicotinoids:
http://www.rspb.org.uk/Images/Neonicoti ... 327906.pdf

[RenewableCandy]

Are they Polish beehives? ("Med" = Honey)

[biffvernon]

Maybe Turkey?

[biffvernon]

Diversity and abundance of wild-insect pollinators have declined in many agricultural landscapes. Whether such declines reduce crop yields, or are mitigated by managed pollinators such as honey bees, is unclear. Here, we show universally positive associations of fruit set with wild-insect visits to flowers in 41 crop systems worldwide, and thus clearly demonstrate their agricultural value. In contrast, fruit set increased significantly with visitation by honey bees in only 14% of the systems surveyed. Overall, wild insects pollinated crops more effectively, because increase in their visitation enhanced fruit set by twice as much as an equivalent increase in honey bee visitation. Further, visitation by wild insects and honey bees promoted fruit set independently, so high abundance of managed honey bees supplemented, rather than substituted for, pollination by wild insects. Our results suggest that new practices for integrated management of both honey bees and diverse wild-insect assemblages will enhance global crop yields.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early ... ce.1230200

[biffvernon]

Here's the neonicotinoid research just published by DEFRA "Effects of neonicotinoid seed treatments on bumble bee colonies under field conditions March 2013" http://www.fera.defra.gov.uk/scienceRes ... 1Mar13.pdf

[Little John]

Just knocked up some home-made waterproofing with beeswax to re-wax my wife's bike panniers a well as some of my work clothes seeing as this winter seems like it is set to continue for some while longer than the thirteen or so months it has already pertained.

1 Part beeswax to 9 parts candle wax (parrafin wax). Chop them both up and place in something like a heatproof clear measuring jug. Place in a large pan and fill the pan up with water to about half way up the sides of the measuring jug. Put on a cooker ring and heat up. The wax will all melt. When it has melted, pour out into an old margarine tub. Leave to set for about an hour and knock out.

You rub the bar of wax onto any cotton or poly-cotton-mix fabric and then run a hair dryer over it. This will cause the wax to melt and be wicked into the fabric. Repeat two or three times for full waterproofing.

As it happens, I am about to have a go at making my own shoes. To that end, I looked up the price of shoe leather. It costs a frigging fortune! In lieu of the above, I have been experimenting with laminating 3 sheets of heavy drill cotton together and then wax waterproofing, as above. But, to the point of total saturation. That is to say, I kept applying coats of wax and melting in until it stopped wicking into the fabric and started to form a sheen on the surface. Once that was done, I then applied a few coats of normal boot polish and buffed it up. It looks and feels like leather now, albeit with the faint impressions of the weave of the cotton. Though this barely shows now.

The three initial sheets of drill cotton were laminated together with latex adhesive of the Copydex kind. This is because it is very strong but also flexible and completely water repellent. I also sewed across the sheets a series of squares in order that if the laminations ever start to come apart, any separation is limited to a single square cell and so cannot continue because of the stitch lines.

The idea for this kind of fake leather was inspired by my remembering when I was a lad and the bikers who could not afford a proper leather jacket who used to wax their denims to saturation like I did above and then apply boot polish and buff up.

I'm going to make a project pair of simple shoes and then wear them to destruction to see how they hold up. I'll be using rubber soles. The shoe uppers will be top stitched to the sole as opposed to under stitched cos it's easier.

Top stitching looks like this (see round the edge of the uppers):



Anyway, I've completely drifted off topic and so apologise. I won't bring it up again on this thread.

Edit to add:

It would appear that the kind of waxed cotton I have worked up for myself is already used in some commercially available boots/shoes. So, that bodes well for their durability.

[biffvernon]

Parliamentary Environmental Audit Committee calls for ban on neonicotinoids: http://www.parliament.uk/business/commi ... ications1/

"The environment department seems to be taking an extraordinarily complacent approach to protecting bees given the vital free service that pollinators provide to our economy," said Joan Walley, the chair of the EAC. "We believe that the weight of scientific evidence now warrants precautionary action."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... pesticides