Adventuresinbeeland's Blog

At last my years spent blogging have paid off. After the previous lovely gift of a mug from Waltons for being named one of their ‘10 Brilliant Beekeepers‘ (well, a brilliant beekeepers’ blog anyway, not just generally brilliant!), another surprise email came through from Mal at Waltons.

I have won an award! For ‘Best Beekeeping Blog’. And it even comes with a prize – an enormous bird feeder that I have to find a garden for. Maybe it can be fitted somewhere at the apiary. You can see a list of all the blog award winners on the Waltons website; there were various categories including best gardening, best ‘grow your own’, best flowers, best shed etc. Some of the blogs look really interesting. My Ealing beekeeper buddy Thomas Bickerdike won second prize for his fascinating and practical Beekeeping afloat blog – Ealing bloggers must be the best in the country!

But enough talk of awards. How are our bees doing?

Well, last Saturday was sunny and the nuc bees were bursting out of their box. There was a proper pile-up at the entrance as we had forgotten to move the mouse-guard dial off. A lot of frustrated bee butts were trying to squeeze through at once. Another Ealing member, Sue, kindly helped me smoke the entrance so I could move the dial round and give them more space to zoom in.

Emma had ordered a eke for the poly nuc which I fitted on top to give room for extra fondant and pollen, as the nuc is feeling light and we were worried about a possible food shortage. Tomorrow I’ll come back with extra frames and move them into a full sized hive, as they are absolutely bursting and ready to expand. I’m expecting a lot of brace comb to have been built in the gap the eke has created above, but that’s ok as it means delicious warm honey to eat!

This is the fondant and Neopoll pollen substitute.

Ealing is looking beautiful at the moment as many of the trees lining our streets are in blossom. Below is a photo of a magnolia at Kew.

And here’s a few from my walks a few weeks ago when all the snowdrops and crocuses were still out. Time and flowers go so fast!

Crocuses in Hanwell cemetery

Snowdrops in Hanwell cemetery

Crocuses in Lammas park

On Saturday I went to the Federation of Middlesex Beekeepers’ Associations annual ‘Federation Day‘. Each year the Middlesex associations (Ealing, Enfield, Harrow, North London, Pinner & Ruislip) take it in turn to host a day of beekeeping talks; this year it was Ealing’s turn, which was nice as last year it took me nearly three hours to reach Enfield!

Dr Martin Bencsik

Unfortunately I could only stay for the first speaker, Dr Martin Bencsik. Martin is a Reader in Physics at Nottingham Trent University – we were lucky as he had travelled down from Nottingham to speak for us. His research focuses on novel applications of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and more recently on bioacoustics, including honey bee colony condition monitoring. His use of accelerometers to measure vibrations in honey bee hives led him to become involved in The Hive artwork at Kew, supplying the measurement technology and software which animates the work.

Martin began by explaining that accelerometers are used to sense vibrations. People often confuse sounds and vibrations. For honey bees and most insects, sounds are actually probably irrelevant. Perhaps 70% of insects prefer vibrations to sounds for communicating (crickets are an exception). Like a mobile phone, small insects find it easier to produce efficient vibrations than sounds.

For his research he set up an apiary in France with an accelerometer in each hive. It takes a few seconds to implant each accelerometer in the comb, but it’s expensive – at £500 per accelerometer. He sent an accelerometer round the audience for us to look at, which he emphasised he definitely wanted back! The technology has revealed some fascinating insights, particularly around swarming. The accelerometer picks up the sound of the swarm preparing to leave as the bees become so excited their vibrations shake the comb. Martin played us an amazing recording of a primary swarm from 20 minutes beforehand up to the moment of departure (condensed into a shorter clip, not the full 20 minutes). The buzzing filled the room as if we were inside the hive – it was quite intense and everyone clapped after it finished.

Martin mentioned that he has recorded the old queen piping before she swarms. This has happened twice in thirty primary swarms he’s recorded, so is fairly rare but shows it’s not just virgin queens that pipe. The time of day of the primary swarm has always been between 11am-3pm, but usually nearer 11 than 3.

Some swarm definitions:

• Primary swarm = the first swarm to leave the parent colony, usually with the old queen.
• Secondary swarm = a smaller swarm after the primary swarm has left, containing one or more virgin queens. Also called an ‘afterswarm’ or ‘cast’ swarm.

As well as putting the accelerometers in the comb, Martin has tried putting them in the brood box walls. However, the wood has different resonances that affects measurement, whereas comb is very stable and soft, so measurements from accelerometers in comb are more reliable. External sounds like planes, wildlife, birds etc can also affect the accelerometers placed in the brood box walls and drown out the vibrations of the bees. It is commercially appealing to put accelerometers in brood boxes though, as they might sell well.

He went on to tell us a little about how Wolfgang Buttress produced The Hive installation – see my post ‘The Hive at Kew‘ for more about this. I was impressed to hear that every cell in its lattice is different and each layer has been cut slightly differently, to a budget of £8m. Kew are now hoping to keep the installation until 2020, as visitor numbers are up since they hired it.

The Hive at Kew

In response to a question on his future research, Martin revealed that he hopes to secure further funding for his work on honey bee monitoring. He feels passionate about directing his work towards helping bees and the environment, as he has become tired of the selfish actions of humans and the effect we have on the natural world. Ingenious and clever though humans are, so often we destroy all that is beautiful.

I hope everyone enjoyed the Federation day. I know a lot of hard work went into it by people such as Clare, Elsa, Sue, Jonesy, Andy, Tom and many others. Below is the cake table, which was very popular!

A shout-out to the lovely people at Waltons, a British shed and gardening supply company. Until recently I hadn’t heard of Waltons, but then they contacted me to ask if I was happy to be included in a list of ’10 brilliant beekeepers blogs’ on their website. As it was a list of ‘brilliant’ beekeepers rather than ‘bungling’, ‘clumsy’ or ‘absent minded’ (all of which might be more accurate in my case), of course I said yes.

Here’s the list: 10 brilliant beekeepers’ blogs.

But that wasn’t the end of Waltons’ kindness. They then offered to send me a mug – twice. At first I accidentally deleted their emails, thinking the offer sounded too good to be true and must be spam. But then I saw a photo by Tanya Weaver (Girl Meets Bee) on Instagram of the lovely mug and realised the offer was real! A hasty email later and this beauty of a mug arrived in the post.

I have drunk tea from it already whilst feeding Tommy his breakfast this morning, and a very nice cuppa it was too.

The ‘About Waltons‘ section of their website sheds (ha!) some light on their fondness for beekeepers:

In 1878, a man named E.C Walton began a small beekeeping venture, and from there, the first shoots of the company we know today began to grow. Over time Waltons has changed, making summer houses in the Victorian era; after WWII switching to making bungalows; to creating some of the UK’s best quality garden sheds.

That’s why we have the latest machinery, and only use ethically sourced wood and hardwearing materials. Whether it’s something as grand an insulated garden room, or as small as a garden planter to grow your own, you can be sure of the same attention to detail that Mr E.C Walton used to put into his beehives.”

So if you’re a beekeeper into sheds and garden equipment, think of Waltons!

It’s fun to investigate what people search for to find my blog. I’ve noticed a wiggling, shaking and bum-raising theme:

A bee bum.

‘Why do bees wiggle their bums’
&
‘Why do bees shake their bum’
&
‘Why do bee butts pulse’
&
‘Why do bees put their bums in the air’

Well, here’s some potential answers…

1. Why do bees shake their bum?

One reason is to dance! The well-known waggle dance tells honey bees where food sources over 100m away are located. It’s a figure of eight shape with the bum waggle in the middle. The dancer will stop to exchange the nectar she’s collected with ‘watching’ workers so that they know what they’re looking for (I say watching but they’re really feeling her vibrations, as the dances are done in the dark of the hive).

The direction of the dance on the vertical face of the comb indicates the direction of the flowers in relation to the sun. As honey bees can see polarized light, the sun does not have to be shining for the dance to be successful. The nearer and more high quality the forage, the faster the dance and the more waggles in the middle.

There are also other types of honey bee dances that involve abdomen waggles/vibrations:

• round (tells other foragers there is food somewhere within 15m of the hive)
• transition (halfway between a round and waggle dance, if food is between 15 and 100m away)
• buzzing runs (an excited dance. The worker runs through the colony buzzing her wings. Other workers she runs into will pick up her movement and start running around buzzing too. It’s used as a signal for a swarm to exit the hive or take off once a new home has been found.)
• DVAV (dorsoventral abdominal vibrating dance) (get a move on – a worker will mount or grab another bee and vibrate their abdomen on top of her. Used to recruit more foragers during a nectar flow.)

In my previous post on Bee communication I went into more detail about the various meanings of honey bee vibrations and movements.

2. What does it mean when a honey bee butt moves in and out or pulses?

This search suggests the observer was not seeing a communication dance but something else – breathing!

Bees have no lungs but move oxygen into their bodies through breathing tubes (tracheae), which are connected to surrounding air through multiple holes in their body called spiracles.

In his book ‘The Biology of the Honey Bee’ (1987), Mark L.Winston explains that “When the bee is inactive gas exchange can operate simply by diffusion, but during periods of increased activity bees pump their abdomens to increase gas exchange” (p.34).

This pumping movement makes the abdomen move rhythmically as oxygen goes in – which could be the ‘in and out’ movement the searcher was thinking of. A bit like us breathing more heavily and panting after we’ve been running fast.

3. Why do bees put their bums in the air?

Honey bee workers will raise their abdomens in the air to expose a gland called their Nasonov gland. An scent attractive to other bees is released by this gland. The bees will fan their wings while raising their bottoms, to disperse and spread the Nasonov scent.

Nasonov is used by the bees to mark previously scentless locations such as water or a new colony location. I have seen my bees do it when their hive was moved a couple of feet, presumably to help returning foragers find their way home. Similarly, when a virgin queen leaves the hive to mate, workers will mark the entrance with Nasonov pheromone to guide her back.

Nasonov gland scenting

A bee bum.