Honey Run Apiaries-A Beekeeper’s Blog

I’m not really sure if Winter is here or not.  So far this year  we’ve had 0 degree weather followed by temperatures in the high 60s.  Then snow, temperatures in the teens and sustained 40-50 mile winds.  Followed by 50’s, thunderstorms and significant flooding.   And it looks like it will be snowing and in the single digits again this weekend.  Feels like we are on a roller coaster.

So how are the bees fairing in all this?  I still find it amazing they are able to cope with all this with no more protection than a drafty wooden box.   I was able to do a quick check when the temperatures hit 67 degrees in January and all 61 hives at the house were flying.  Only one showed signs of trouble, the tell tale marks of dysentery on the front of the hive.  It wasn’t unexpected, that particular hive wasn’t really thriving in the fall.   It’s cluster was far too small when I inspected it and it looks like it froze in the last cold spell since then.   You will always loose a few hives over the winter and I expect that one won’t be the only one.  Still, the hives looks far better than they did last year and I expect losses to be well within the normal range.  But we still have a month and a half until maples will bloom and nearly 2 months until April, so there is still plenty of time to worry.

Haagen-Dazs announced this month at the National Beekeeping Conference announce a ‘vigorous and ambitious’ program supporting honey bees, honey bee research, and a plan to generate awareness of the plight of the honey bee.  This includes a donation of $250,000 to fund sustainable pollination and CCD research.  Any guesses who received this money?  It certainly wasn’t OSU since they’ve closed the Rothenbuhler Bee Lab.   The money instead went to Penn State and UC Davis, both of which are still doing research and are increasing their research efforts in recent years.  UC Davis is also where Sue Cobey now works after leaving OSU.

I guess it isn’t completely fair to say the Ohio State University rejected the funding.  I’m sure they weren’t even considered a recipient for the funding since they had already dumped the beekeeping program at the main campus and have seriously downsized the program at the Wooster campus.  And why would any give OSU money to research an area they have no program?  But it does make it even more unfathomable that OSU has decimated their beekeeping program just as the honey bee has gained national attention from the media, legislature and even corporate America including significant monetary contributions to research.

The Agricultural Research Service (ARS), part of the USDA , has released results of their research of their detailed genetic screening of honey bee samples dating back to 2002.    They have found the Israeli acute paralysis virus (IAPV) has been in the US since at least 2002.  So it appears as though Australia off the hook and the suggestion from the original research suggesting IAPV was a cause of Colony Colapse Disorder is wrong.

Of course the argument was that IAPV didn’t come in with the Australian imports in 2005-2007 because bees have been imported into Canada for many years prior to that with no CCD issues.  So what do we know now?  Other than IAPV itself didn’t arrive by way of the imports into the States initially and that IAPV can exist without CCD, not much.   IAPV quite likely still has a connection to CCD, and IAPV still may have come from Australia, just by a different route, though on this second point I don’t think anyone has the samples to find out with any certainty and I really don’t think it matters.    Research on IAPV now is focusing on "understanding differences in virulence across different strains of IAPV and interactions with other stress factors".

I know everyone is in a rush for answers and solutions, but it really isn’t helping when the scientific community starts jumping to answers based on tidbits of information.

Simply closing the bee lab in Columbus was apparently not enough for the Ohio State University.  The University has now decided to destroy the Historic Rothenbuler Lab located on the Ohio State University property in Columbus.

Dana Stahlman from the Ohio State Beekeepers Association is organizing a " Save the Building" project.  Dr Tew is checking to see if he can place the building near the bee lab in Wooster.   Meanwhile, a group of volunteers are organizing to remove the building from the OSU property to a location for safe keeping until a "New" home is found.

Funding is needed for this project and some clubs have already made their pledges.  The purpose of the building relocation in Wooster will be to house the OSBA Queen Project activities. 

Any monies donated and not used in the moving will be earmarked for the queen project from which we all benefit.  All donations should be sent to OSBA Treasurer, Bob Hooker,  100 Pyle Rd, Oberlin, OH  44074, email beekeeperbob17@hotmail.com,  ask Bob to "earmark" this for the bee lab relocation.

Frost has been on the ground the past couple of mornings and the trees are turning from green to gold and red.  Not a hard freeze yet, but enough to kill the more delicate plants and some trees have only just started changing color.  At least it looks and feels like the the beginning to middle of October.  By the calendar its November 2nd.

As of just a few days ago, the hives were still bringing in a fair amount of pollen and were collecting propolis from any unoccupied equipment they could get to.  The hives are looking much better than this time last year and most are very heavy with honey.  If anything they may be too heavy and I’ll have to pay special attention to the amount of empty area they have for brood this spring.

I’m hoping this is a good sign for this coming winter and spring.  The hives still are quite populous and busy once it gets warm.  The picture to the right is from 1 1/2 weeks ago, but they were still just as busy mid afternoon today.  It’s a big change from their condition this time last year.

So we don’t have many answers yet when it comes to CCD.  We know several things it is not (cell phones, power towers, aliens…), and know a few things that may be a symptom or part of the cause (most notably IAPV and nosema).  But at the end, the only thing that we really know for certain is the name assigned to it, CCD, and that it has brought more media attention to beekeeping that I think we’ve ever seen before.

But what can we do to prevent CCD from making our hives disappear now?  The 10+ step lists published in newsletters and beekeeping magazines should leave most beekeepers asking ‘is that all?’.  In short it’s simply ‘Be a better beekeeper‘.  The slightly longer version is minimize stress, monitor and treat disease, re-queen frequently, and keep strong healthy hives.  Isn’t that what we were trying to do already?  Of course the bee-havers out there are probably staring at the list in disbelief wondering how they could possibly start doing even a 4th of what’s on the list.  I shouldn’t be to harsh.  These people make good regular customers for package bees.

The only thing possibly new is that given the possible connection with nosema, treatment for Nosema (with Fumadil-B) is considered important.  Personally I’ve never treated for it and have not had a problem with it.  The samples our bee inspector sent in to Beltsville found no nosema this past spring and I really don’t expect to see any difference this winter. So for now I’m taking my chances.  This is about the time it started being noticed last year and so far no disappearing bees here.

The official word is that the scope of the beekeeping research on the Columbus (Ohio State) campus at the Rothenbuhler Bee Laboratory has been ‘reduced’ for the present.  While the OSU Entomology administration recognizes the importance and contributions of the lab, restricted funding is a fact within university systems across the US.

From those I’ve talked to, that’s short for: the Lab is closed until we can find someone who can bring in the grants to fund the lab.   The sad fact is much of beekeeping research and breeding programs simply don’t bring in the big corporate grants because there isn’t a product at the end of the research that can be sold to millions of people, directly at least.  While the high-tech science brings in the dollars with it’s promise for new drugs and treatments down the road (and only a few hives are needed for that).  Much of the research wanted by beekeepers involves the labor intensive and sometimes tedious task of running 100’s of hives.  All to develop a bee that doesn’t need treatment or inexpensive treatments that only 10,000s of people will buy.

It’s disappointing, but really not surprising.  The bee scientist position at the lab has been vacant for several years and Sue Cobey who ran the NWC program at Ohio State left for the Laidlaw Bee Laboratory at the University of California at Davis.  Sue will be a great asset there, and I have a feeling the Lab may still have closed eventually even if she had stayed.  The days when the university will do research for the public good even if a particular program can’t generate the direct income are gone.  Even with bee research in spite of the fact we all benefit every time we eat an apple, almond, blueberry, pear, or 100 other fruits and vegetables.

Now, if you could train bees to play football, then you would have a nearly endless stream of money.  The average coach in the BCS conference has a 1.4 million dollar salary.  Couldn’t we take just 10% of that and hire someone to do real research.  A fraction of the profits from football would fund the entire research program.  Are our priorities in the right place?

Among the many interesting pieces of information the speakers talked about at the North Central Queen Assembly was a piece on the Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus or IAPV for short.  Recently scientists claim to  have found a significant connection between IAPV and Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD).  It is still a great matter of debate if IAPV causes CCD, is a contributing factor, a symptom, or something else. 

However, Greg Hunt of Purdue University, who does research on the genetics of bees stated that they have found that some honey bees have incorporated some of the DNA from IAPV into their own DNA.  More interestingly, these bees that have part of the IAPV genes copied into their DNA seem immune to IAPV.  Thus, IF IAPV causes or is a major contributor to CCD, and IF someone with the money , time and the expertise to run a real breeding program, and IF someone contributes the funding to test the DNA of bees in a breeding program with all the fancy new and expensive machines, then it would be possible to breed a line of bees resistant to CCD.  And that’s assuming CCD is even a concern a year or month from now (another matter of considerable debate).   And that’s an awful lot of IFs.  We’ll have to wait to see how the first big IF turns out.

Small hive beetles are another one of those pests imported into the US (discovered in 1998).  While they can be a serious problem  in the Southeastern US, making a fermenting mess of the comb in the hive, they have yet to cause serious problems for most here in Ohio.  No one I’ve talked to has had a serious infestation with most only seeing a few on the bottom board or under the inner cover.  I myself have never seen them in my hives, that is until this year.  In my year end inspections I did find 2, one each under an inner cover of two hives at different apiaries.  I did catch one and am nearly sure but not 100% positive it’s a small hive beetle as there are many similar beetles in appearance.  I did not get pictures until it was dead for some time, so it’s body has shrunk and it’s legs and clubbed antenna have folded in.  You can see the clubbed antenna from the bottom view, and wing covers shorter than the abdomen.

Top of the small hive beetle

Bottom of the small hive beetle

I had the opportunity last weekend to attend the North Central Queen Assembly held in Troy, Ohio.   It was entitled ‘Selecting and Rearing Your Own Queens’, which did make me think the information was going to be rather introductory and basic and that I wouldn’t get all that much out of it.  It’s the downside of beekeeping conventions after a while and you are really into bees, the conventions tend to target those at the beginner level and there just isn’t that much new information for some of us.

But the list of speakers included some very notable people such as Gary Reuter who works with Marla Spivak in Minnesota, Greg Hunt from Purdue University and John Harbo who worked at the USDA Honey bee lab and is responsible for the Harbo syring, SMR/VSH queens and much more.  Not to discount Larry Connor and Jim Tew, both entertaining speakers, and Joe Latshaw whom I blame for my queen rearing obsession.  So I had some high expectations.

It ended up being well worth attending, and if you have any interest in rearing queens (or even just buying a queen) you should be kicking yourself for not attending.  Enough basic information was presenting for the beginner, yet had plenty of good information for us that have been rearing queens for some time.  Even had good information for those just wanting to buy a queen and what they should look for in a breeder.  It was very interesting and very worthwhile.  I sincerely hope they hold it again next year.