Honey Run Apiaries-A Beekeeper’s Blog

The news reported this week (a Columbus TV station) that the winter loss of bees in Ohio this past winter was only 15% compared to a 72% loss last year.  And  a recent article from New Jersey reported that they are experiencing a 10-15% loss this year compared to 40% the year before.   Reports from elsewhere mirror these two reports. These reported losses make things appear completely normal and that last winter was just an anomaly.

But wait… The USDS is reporting that the loss of bees to CDD this year has increased to 37%, up from 30% the previous year.    This number comes from a study of commercial beekeepers and the hives they moved to California for pollination.  So things are clearly not better for the commercial operator and the bees that pollination our crops.   These increasing numbers aren’t reflected in the Ohio or NJ counts because these commercial hives aren’t in Ohio or New Jersey.  They may be later in the season for pollinating other crops, but they typically don’t call Ohio or NJ their permanent home.  So just because Ohio and NJ don’t have a big loss this year, they will likely still be affected by the loss of bees elsewhere. 

Unfortunately no one seems to have any real answers yet, though some possible causes have been ruled out, and there still is lots of speculation on what the cause may be.   There is interest in the senate now calling for money for research into this problem.  The bill calling for $20 million in funding for FY 2009 has passed the senate but (as of last Friday) is stalled in the house.  If this is something you are concerned about, you need to talk to your congressman (or woman) now.  (H.R. 1709 ‘Pollinator Protection Act’)

Today was the warmest day we’ve had in quite some time, reaching the mid 50’s.  All the hives were very active and there was more activity at the open fed pollen than I have seen so far this season.  Apparently there was too much  traffic at the bucket to satisfy some bees, so several hundred were working over the fresh pile of sawdust composting in the garden.  Bees are know to work bird feeders and animal feed for the dust that collects there, but this was the first time I’ve seen any significant number working on sawdust.   I’m not sure what value they can see in it.  Shortly after adding a second bucket of open fed pollen substitute an placing additional substitute on the bucket lids, more than half the bees abandoned the sawdust pile in favor of the substitute.  I saw a few bees nosing around the maple trees, but no significant pollen is coming in from them still.

 

It’s been in the mid 40’s and still below the average for this time of year for several days and we even received a light dusting of snow last night.  Still the bees have been active almost every day when it’s sunny and breaks 40 degrees.  I’m actually rather surprised by how active they are given the temperature.  While my father reported the bees at his house have been working the early blooming bulbs, there is not yet any significant pollen source for them to work and they continue to fee on the open fed pollen.

The weather forecast predicts this week will warm up some, but won’t get above 50 until next Monday.   The buds on the maple trees are swelling and it will only take a couple good days for them to really open up.  A few in my yard have just started to open, but aren’t yet producing pollen.  These unspectacular buds could easily be missed by most people but are typically the first good pollen source in the spring and there is nothing quite like walking under a maple tree in late March and listening to it literally humming with busy bees.  The maples do seem to be running a week or so behind previous years and it still could be a bit longer before they really bloom if it stays cool.

Most beekeepers use deep boxes (9 5/8") for their brood chambers.  So it’s almost universal when you see nucs offered or ’single story’ hives for sale that they are using deep frames.  But the deep is not the only size useable for brood chambers.  In fact, when hobbyist and sideliners were asked if there was anything they would do different if they could go back and start again they often answer that they wished they had started with all medium (6 5/8") boxes.  Why?

• Weight.  A deep box full of honey can weigh 90-100 pounds or more when full of honey.  This may not be a big deal for the young bodybuilder.  But most of us don’t fit that description and boxes seem to get heavier the more you have to move.  Plus we all are getting older and our ability to lift dozens of 100 pound boxes in the summer heat won’t be getting better.  It also may help prevent or delay back problems and may allow younger beekeepers to help out.
• Interchangeability.   (or One Size Fits All).  There is nothing better to start a swarm or package on than drawn comb.  But unless you have a dead out, who has spare drawn deep comb when you need it.  When you are running all medium boxes you simply need to grab a honey super and call it a brood chamber.  There is only once size you need to buy, assemble and carry around with you regardless of what you need to do with the hive.   When it comes to harvest time, if there is a frame of brood in the honey super because the queen got past the excluder (or you don’t use one), then just swap the frame with a frame of honey from below.  You can’t do that with a mix of medium and deep boxes.
• Cost.  Foundation and the frames themselves often slightly cheaper.  Plus if you build your own boxes, 1×8 boards are far more available and cheaper for building medium (6 5/8") boxes than the 1×12 boards required for deep boxes (9 5/8").
• Extracting.  Medium frames are simply easier to handle when uncapping.  Plus, many extractors will handle more medium frames than they will deep frames.  My extractor will only handle 10 deeps, but it will handle 20 mediums.

Of course it’s not all roses.  You will need 3 medium boxes to have the equivalent space of 2 deep boxes.  So this means you will need more frames and boxes and it will likely cost you a bit more in total (at least for the frames).    It’s also more frames to look though when trying to find the queen, though there are tricks like placing queen excluders between the boxes 4 days in advance that will actually make it easier.

(Note: The picture shows medium and deep frames and is from Mann Lake’s catalog, I didn’t have any new deeps handy for a picture). 

We have had some weather in the mid 40’s to 50’s in the past week, plenty warm enough for bees to fly on most days.  I have yet to see any real pollen coming in, and the activity at the pollen bucket pretty much confirms my observation.  When it got into the 50’s the bucket of pollen substitute looked like a swarm of black and white bees covered with pollen.   

Maple trees may be a bit behind where they were last year and the buds on the trees in my yards don’t look like they’ll be blooming anytime soon.  The 10 day forcast doesn’t show any warm days yet either.  Still, I can smell spring coming and it shouldn’t be long now.

One critical part in the honey stick machine is the optical sensor.  They will be used in several locations in the honey stick machine to determine if a straw is in position and when honey is in the straw at a particular location.  it consists of a very simple circuit containing an IR LED and transistor.  The output voltage is detected by the Phidgets UBS interface.

The circuit is setup so that the output voltage increases when the IR is blocked.  Testing showed that the circuit was plenty sensitive enough to determine the varying levels of light when a empty or full straw was placed between the LED and transistor.   I did observe one very interesting thing when the straw with honey (or water) was centered between the LED and Transistor.    In this case the IR intensity increased instead of decreased as one might expect.  I suspect in this case the straw is acting as a lens, focusing light on the transistor.  Offsetting the IR LED and transistor so that it lines up with the bottom half of the straw eliminates this problem and actually increases the voltage difference between honey and no honey in the straw.

I was hoping the silence on television, radio and the newspaper was a sign that CCD had gone away as quickly as it came, or at least wouldn’t be as big a problem as it was for many last year.  Apparently that may not be the case. Maryam Henein, who is working on a documentary about CCD, wrote in Kim Flottum’s blog that the largest beekeeper in the US apparently has been stricken by CCD.  She describes a sickening scene where nearly 40,000 hives moved  to holding yards in California in preparation for this years Almond pollination are now  were empty.

Maybe it simply hasn’t hit the news yet since many hives are still snow covered and beekeepers haven’t yet checked their hives.  But I’m still hopeful that the loss won’t be so widespread as last year.  My own hives seem ok at this point, but spring isn’t here yet.

Update: CBS ran a story tonight on the above including an interview with the beekeeper Kim Flottum’s blog mentioned.  No new news unfortunately, just a very ugly picture.

In keeping with the modular theme for the prototype, I’ve assembled the AC Driver board as a separate circuit.  It contains 4 of the very simple AC driver circuits designed earlier.  Assembly and testing was uneventful.  There is a lot of wasted space on this board that can be eliminated later with a custom printed circuit board, but I definitely wanted to keep the 120VAC circuit separate from the others for the prototype.

Yesterday was in the mid 40s and was a good time to do the first inspection of the season and install pollen patties on the hives.    The forecast was for a high of 50 with Monday being even warmer, but with a narrow window and rain being called for on Monday, today was the day.  Once the temperatures warmed up to 42 I headed off to the first yard hoping that what I found would be dramatically different than last year’s huge loss.  The bees weren’t very active at the first yard, but as it got a bit warmer though the day they were more active until the sun disappeared behind the clouds.  The timing for placing pollen patties was just about perfect.  While we are expected to get some very cold weather yet this week, it should only be 2 or 3 weeks until the maple trees begin blooming and the bees will quickly loose interest in the pollen patties when the real stuff is available.  So they really need to be on the hives soon so the bees will take advantage of them.

Much to my relief I found most hives were quite alive.  Most had fairly tight clusters still with the chill in the air from the snow pack, but many more hives than not were very strong.  Even with the smoker going to drive the bees down into the hive it was a challenge to place pollen patties on some hives without squishing any bees.  It was too cold to consider pulling frames a checking brood, but judging by a peak between frames and the warmth coming from the hives, they have started raising brood already.  It’s like night and day compared to last year where I could count the strong hives on my fingers.

It’s also very important this time of year to check the weight of the hives to evaluate how much honey they have left.  As the bees start rearing brood over the coming weeks they will accelerate their use of honey and hives that are strong now could quickly be lost to starvation.  I found a few hives will need some feeding soon myself, but most will be fine, at least until I get around to check them again in a couple weeks time.

The tally at the end of the day, 123 Live hives, 8 dead (including 2 I knew were dead months ago and 2 others that are so weak right now that I’m betting they won’t make it), and one very tired beekeeper.  Checking 131 hives in 5 yards in a matter of 6 hours by oneself, even if it was only a quick inspection, is exhausting work.  But it’s a good feeling when you get back home and peal off the soggy boots after finding only a 6% loss.

There is also be portions of the honey stick machine, including heaters and pump, that will need to be run on 120VAC and sill be switched on and off by the Phidgets interface.  Relays would be the simplest option here, but again these mechanical relays have a far less than desirable rated lifespan in number of cycles.   So I’ve opted to use solid state optically isolated AC relays.  They typically have a far lower amperage rating, but I only expect to drive a maximum of 0.5 amps presently on any given AC device.  The circuit pictured shows the very simply NPN driver circuit triggering an LED and the solid state relay.