February 24, 2018
Dear Subscribers:
Our small apiary is history for this season. Hard to know exactly what happened. Unseasonably cold weather early forced us to postpone examining the colonies longer than I wanted to. My partner also recently had some health challenges making it impossible to visit the bee yard at his place. By the time we finally got to them it was too late. We both are scratching our heads.
I knew the colonies were probably behind schedule, and that our emergency nucleus was critical, but postmortem examination revealed no bees period in all four colonies! No evidence of brood disease; no honey bee corpses; lots of ragged cells that mostly had been robbed out, yet one colony was left with at least 20 pounds of sealed unprotected honey that we were able to salvage and put into a freezer!
Go figure. We looked into repopulating with some local nucs, but found ourselves number 35 on a local waiting list, with no guarantee of delivery, and have decided to forgo trying to replace them his season. Should we blame Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD)? Mites and associated viruses? Starvation (lack of pollen early is a possibility)? Loss of queens, perhaps but in all four hives? We are left with the typical beekeeper conundrum when faced with unexplained honey bee losses.
The Patreon page has now finished its first month and I’m still learning what is possible with this platform. The concept of producing a “digest” of certain key topics is still incubating as part of a partnership between this newsletter and the Apis Information Resource Center itself. The list of posts has been updated to include last months’ newsletter (free) all found at https://patreon.com/beeactor.
First Queen Rearing Station in the Middle East—paid
Charged to patrons on Jan 22, 2018
The Latest on Colony Collapse Disorder—free
Posted January 18, 2018
Pesticides and Sugar: Lethal Combination—paid
Charged to patrons on Jan 13, 2018
Bee Audacious Program – One Year Later—free
Posted January 12, 2018
Thomas Carrol’s Video—free
Posted January 12, 2018
National Honey Show Lecture Videos—free
Posted January 11, 2018
ABF Conference and Trade Show—paid
Charged to patrons on Jan 9, 2018
It now contains last month’s Apis Information Resource News—free
Posted Feb 23rd 2018 at 10:01 pm and
Organic Honey Issues – Glyphosphate and Other Contaminants—paid
Charged to patrons on Feb 23rd 2018 at 10:32 pm
As noted last month, free posts are rather straightforward, being not much more than standard one-dimensional releases. Paid posts consist of several information resources compiled into a “digest,” accessible to patrons only (those honey bee larvae that have pledged their support).
Reiterating last month’s information, I have provided an example of a paid post from the list above that readers can access for free at the present time in order to compare the two types (The Latest on Colony Collapse Disorder). Like the other paid posts, it is a “digest,” which includes a summary of the latest information on CCD, linked to a wikipedia post on the subject, a listing of scientific papers published about the condition, and finally associated with an article from the website discussing the historical occurrence and significance of unexplained bee kills in general.
The digest format provides space for comments from the readership, which will add to the information presented, making it more of a “community resource.” The discussion about organic honey and glyphosate found in last month’s newsletter has been fashioned into a paid Patreon post this February with links to the USDA organic honey label and more detailed explanations of Roundup, glyphosphate and neonicotinoids. Again, the plan is for the Patreon posts to be a collection of “curated” digests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_curation, oriented to beekeepers not be found elsewhere on the world wide web.
Updated information on what is being called medically-important-antimicrobials for honey bees has been published in a Bee Culture Catch the Buzz. This is the kind of thing that will be fashioned into a paid post in the future, incorporating a history of antibiotics and beekeeping and other relevant information on this topic.
Here’s an exciting development: “Researchers have now uncovered an unexpected property of the bee social network that may someday help us design more effective human and machine communication systems. A team, which included researchers in computer science, entomology, physics, and mechanical science and engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Leipzig University, described the work in a new publication in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Their behavioral monitoring system was designed to take advantage of recent advances in imaging and image analysis. Surprisingly, it revealed that a particular pattern of social interactions, associated with slow spread of information in human communities, appeared to allow for fast spread of information among the bees.”
To conclude, “This interdisciplinary collaboration is one step in an effort to uncover and be inspired by the secrets of self-organized natural systems.” Even those, however, are not without their failures. See the note below on the so-called “The Honey Bee Algorithm.”
Bee Culture Editor Kim Flottum recently was recently quoted, providing a somewhat “dystopian” view of what is being called “Extreme Urban Beekeeping.” From his book, The Backyard Beekeeper he concludes that apiculture “has changed significantly now, and beekeeper and honey bee colony populations in urban areas have increased dramatically. The result is that isolation has decreased just as dramatically, and beehives are much closer together now than before the influx. This clustering has turned many large urban settings into what is, essentially, a very large beeyard, and with it came all the issues of Varroa-infested colonies disintegrating, bees leaving for better parts, and finding them in nearby colonies, sharing their wealth of Varroa and the viruses.
“Add to this that every beekeeper has a different Varroa-control strategy—from absolutely none to extreme chemical use—and you can begin to imagine the problem. Chaos can be the result and the only remedy is to be on constant vigilance for Varroa population buildup, viral symptoms showing up, and practicing defensive controls all season long.” This is worth a read.
Fran Bach continues publishing “Items of Interest to Beekeepers” from her desk at the Western Apicultural Society (WAS)
WAS PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE & 2018 CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT
SPECIAL BEEKEEPER PRESENTATION
NSF PROVIDES $225,000 GRANT FOR BEEHIVE MONITORING SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT
COLONY HEALTH AND PATHOGEN COMPOSITION IN MIGRATORY OPERATIONS INVOLVED IN CA ALMOND POLLINATION
VIRUS AND dsRNA-TRIGGERED TRANSCRIPTIONAL RESPONSES REVEAL KEYCOMPONENTS OF HONEY BEE ANTIVIRAL DEFENSE
RESEARCH JOBS
ELEPHANTS ARE VERY SCARED OF BEES. THAT COULD SAVE THEIR LIVES
HONEY BEES HAVE GONE FROM ENDANGERED TO DANGEROUS – AND THAT IS A SCIENCE JOURNALISM PROBLEM
HAWAIIAN BEEKEEPERS – JOIN “THE MIGHTY NETWORK BEE COLLECTIVE”
FAKE HONEY IS A PROBLEM AND SCIENCE CAN SOLVE IT – IF GOVERNMENT GETS OUT OF THE WAY
BULLYING IN BEEKEEPING
RESEARCH JOBS
THINK OF HONEY BEES AS ‘LIVESTOCK’, NOT WILDLIFE, ARGUE EXPERTS
WAR DANCE OF THE HONEY BEE
BEEHIVES AS INDOOR-OUTDOOR DECOR
THE MORE KINDS OF BEES, THE BETTER
RESEARCH JOBS
BIOLOGICAL BEEKEEPING – THE WAY BACK
If you have to pick one of the the articles mentioned above, look at the one on bullying. The abstract caught my eye:
“Bullying is not just exhibited by students, it may be the office jerk who you wish would just quit. Bullying is a form of control where the instigator is wanting to usurp power or force an ideology on another person. Society as a whole sees differences as not necessarily bad, evil, or corrupt – just different. What is good for one is not always good for all. One thought, method, practice, an application is rarely universal as many situations can exist that need variation. In beekeeping, many think one system or practice or belief should be universal and should not be questioned. Many beliefs are shared in books written by those in the bee world that claim to be the “way it is”. However, beekeeping is a regional thing and adaptation to the environment, local conditions, personal limitation, and needs all play a part in what method, hive, system, or application is, will, or could be used.
“Regularly there are posts where the ‘all knowing’ seasoned beekeeper will share his ‘word’ on what should be followed in relation to a hive type. Many times, this insight is not wanted nor sought but comes and can be critical and demeaning. Bullying in any form is ignorant, short-sighted, and displays character weakness and faults.”
This brings to mind a recent post by the Riskmonger on what he calls Naturapathic Populism: “Over the last decade, there has been a concerted attack on scientific expertise, authorities and conventional practices by a coalition of gurus, anti-industry campaigners, interest groups and environmental NGOs. Naturopaths (defined broadly as those blindly favoring natural methods, substances and treatments over conventional scientific ones) operate across a wide range of disciplines from homeopathy, alternative medicine, organic food and supplements, utilizing a network of retailers, producers, lobbyists and media actors. They are zealots (eco-religious fundamentalists) putting forward a naturopathic populism based on fear campaigns, simplistic alternatives and outright lies. Anti-vaxx, anti-chemicals, anti-pharma, anti-industry, anti-trade, anti-science … these agitators have done well by fostering doubts and distrust of experts and regulators while raising an heroic profile of brave naturopathic guru leading individuals who resists the status quo. This blog will consider how their techniques fit within a populist cult playbook.”
These are difficult conversations. There are often no pure “truths” here. Reasons exist not to trust “experts,” who have compromised themselves in many ways over the years. Experts are not always right; they make mistakes. On the other hand those who have stepped into what is seen is as a “void” all too often have no realistic answers to the complex questions raised either. The simple mantras (“throw the bums out!” or “drain the swamp!”) sound good, but the results often do nothing to address actual problems facing humanity, in many cases simply exacerbating them.
In conjunction with this, it is relevant to look at an American Bee Journal Extra, which concludes: “Known for his work on The Honey Bee Algorithm, which tamed web traffic instabilities on servers by mimicking the behavior of bee colonies, systems researcher Craig Tovey has seen plenty of nature-inspired technological feats, but also foibles. He shared them in a talk on Sunday, February 18, at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Austin, Texas.
Note that many of the above have also been characterized as “foibles,” again revealing that few “pure truths” exist, even in nature.
Part of the problem in many of the conversations that currently exist concern asking the right question. This is true in pesticide discussions; are all pesticides bad for the environment? Perhaps, but another question needs to be answered as well. Should agriculture practice be abandoned in favor of no chemical inputs? And then there’s the issue of honey bees as an “agricultural activity,” as opposed to their importance in conserving “biodiversity.”
As a Bee Culture Catch the Buzz concludes: “Both wild and cultivated pollinators are afflicted by pesticides such as neonicotinoids, as well as other anthropogenic effects – from loss of hedgerows to climate change – which drive the much-publicized die-offs among farmed bees and the decline in wild pollinator species over the last few decades. Honeybees may be necessary for crop pollination, but beekeeping is an agrarian activity that should not be confused with wildlife conservation.” .
Episode 88 (March 23, 2016, 1 hr 6 min) is my pick for this month’s Kiwimana podcast: Follow The Honey Human Rights Program of Mary Canning.
Mary Canning is from Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her company partners with beekeepers around the world to give them a fair and honest price for their honey. Mary opened the Follow The Honey Shop in 2011 along with her husband and business partner Ingo Winzer. Here’s what you will discover.
What is Follow the Honey
Honey is a precious resource and should be greatly valued
Third world honey is under valued.
About Mary’s project in Tanzania
How to say Bee in Swahili
How she is working to “Get Honey Money to the People”
Ways to market your honey
How Mary’s Honey Money is changing lives
As always, check the latest extension efforts at the Bee Health Extension site. See the section on Basic Beekeeping Techniques Read about Aaron Hoshide University of Maine in the School of Economics and serves as the lead on agricultural farm economics for the Pollinator Security for Northeastern Corps project. He is developing economic analyses on management decisions and providing end-user information.
98 units of Storey’s Guide to Keeping Honey Bees were sold on Amazon.com January 22 through February 18, 2018. Denver, Colorado led the way.
