- Dear Subscribers:
Our drought is back with a vengeance. And the heat that’s been promised has also arrived for a record Memorial day forecast to be in the dreaded “triple digits.” These conditions reveal themselves in the suffering of plants turning brown in the Florida sun. Time to get the watering devices out or risk losing what’s been gained by the landscape group of our new community. Fortunately, most of us here at Gainesville Cohousing have gone with “florida-friendly” plants, which require less water, although we’re still stuck with patches of St. Augustine turf. And then there’s the heat; yet another record for May here at 99 degrees F. and pushing even higher today and tomorrow. Those of us who are “heat stricken” might get some solace by reflecting on colleagues at Kiwimana in New Zealand, who are now publishing information on wintering honey bees.
The nectar flows are now history in north central Florida. So bees must “hunker down” to survive the next few months until fall flows kick in, hopefully at the proper time, and they have their population correctly programed. Meanwhile tropical development has resulted in the first-named storm of the 2019 season, Andrea, which looks to be petering out in the north Atlantic but is no doubt a harbinger of things to come.
It’s now less than a week before the Kickstarter project, developed around the Bee Heath Guru smartphone application, comes to an end. See the recent Beekeeping Today Podcast featuring the app here. The Montana developers hit their goal early on and are now reaping the fruits of their advertising campaign, almost doubling what they asked for, now at $24,326 from 546 backers with three days left. This is an exciting project, but not without its detractors. It is possible to see some of the recent debate concerning the possibilities of this “accoustic app” on the Bee-L discussion list. Contributor Ron Miksha is a fan it looks like, given his recent post on the Bad Beekeeping Blog.
The beekeeping journals this month have some articles that deserve attention. Bee Culture features the accoustic app mentioned above, “Decoding the Songs of Bees,” which provides a little more complete background on the workings of the app, than the American Bee Journal effort, which I wrote “If Bees Could Talk,” although there’s much more to this than both of these contributions can cover adequately.
The Bee Culture article on True Source Honey is a must read for anyone interested in the future of the sweet. Honey adulteration continues to be a huge global issue, as noted in the December 2018 Apimondia Newsletter, which contains the Association’s view of “honey fraud.” It concludes: “Apimondia recommends that all operators who produce, import, export or process over 20 tons/year of honey should have a documented and periodically reviewed food fraud vulnerability assessment procedure in place in order to prevent honey fraud. The problem of honey fraud is highly complex. Its solution will require the investment of significant human and economic resources, and will involve all the actors of the honey chain. This seems in the same vein as the True Source certified program, which invites all beekeepers to become a member.
A special case is honey adulteration of manuka found in New Zealand by an oufit called Evergreen: “Demand for honey, which is believed to have health and cosmetics benefits, has been growing globally, especially for manuka honey, collected from the flowers of plants native to New Zealand and Australia.
“Different species of the plant grow in other parts of the world but they do not produce the flowers needed for the honey, making manuka more expensive, with a small jar selling for up to a few hundred dollars.
“Manuka is also considered to have better antibacterial properties than other honey, partly because it naturally contains an omega acid called DHA and an antacid known as MGO.
“Evergreen had been allegedly adding synthetic chemicals to increase the levels of the anti-bacterial agents, allowing the company to sell the honey at a higher price, according to the Radio New Zealand public-service .”
In the U.S. there is some evidence that the honey industry has somewhat of a handle on honey adulteration given a Catch The Buzz release, which might be in fact due to efforts of the True Source crowd: “An independent test of top selling honey products sold in U.S. grocery stores found zero instances of adulteration. In all, the 30 top selling products were tested, all of which represented the top items in the honey category as determined by Nielsen’s recent 2018 honey category research. These brands account for approximately 40 percent of the honey sold in the U.S. retail market.
“The study was commissioned by the Honey Integrity Task Force, an organization made up of representatives from the entire honey industry including importers, packers, producers, marketing cooperative members and an organization that specializes in honey supply chain management.
“An independent third party company, RQA Inc., was hired to conduct the study. They pulled two sets of each of the 30 samples from retail shelves across the country. The honey sample brand names were masked, and the samples were sent to two independent German laboratories that specialize in honey testing, QSI and Intertek.
“Each lab conducted two adulteration tests, the AOAC-approved 998.12, 13C-Isotope Mass Spectrometry and 13C-IRMS (EA IRMS)/ +LC-IRMS method for C4/C3 adulteration. Both tests are well recognized methods designed to determine if any sugar was added to the honey.
“Of the 28 products that were labeled at retail locations as pure honey, the tests from both labs confirmed the samples were not adulterated. Two of the 30 products were actually labeled as honey blends, not pure honey.
“Both labs correctly identified them as ‘adulterated.’ One was an imitation honey made with maltitol syrup and the other was a combination product with both corn syrup and honey.”
Ross Conrad describes the Africanized honey bee as perhaps a savior of beekeeping in North America in the May Bee Culture. At first, this seems outlandish, but is an idea that is gaining steam, given the bee’s now well-known attributes, including collecting lots of propolis, quickly adjusting population levels to localized conditions, and employing “absconding” as a way to decrease potential environmental stresses and disease and pathogen levels. All these behaviors have a potential downside, however, which must be taken into account, less potential honey production. The May American Bee Journal also has an article by Wolfgang Ritter and crew entitled, “The African Way,” which adds evidence to Mr. Conrad’s beliefs concerning this honey bee’s behavior in its native habitat.
Peter Borst takes up the concept of “ethical beekeeping” in the May American Bee Journal. The idea here is not to mistreat or even “kill” bees, but attempt to work with them considering the following question: Do insects feel pain as humans do? “We may not know if insects feel pain as we do, and we may never know,” Dr. Borst concludes, but “there are reasons for treating them as if they do.” This is part and parcel of a new flavor of beekeeping that is more in tune with honey bee behavior, called “Apicentric.” It turns out that some humans may also no feel pain as we know it, making the whole realm more complex. For example, there’s something in humans called congential insensitivity to pain. The May issue of the Smithsoniancontains an article about an Italian family that doesn’t feel pain; research here is looking at the roots of “chronic pain.” And the Smithsonian museum itself has several exhibits on the subject.
Evidence suggests that honey bees along with other organisms are “sentient beings,” which comes from Buddhist tradition . Even though they are invertebrates (no spine), they share many of the same kinds of structures humans do, including basic neuronal structure.
In this realm, no one has looked at honey bee behavior in more detail than Polish Scientist Zbigniew Lipiński. His Essence and Mechanism of Nest Abandonment by Honeybee Swarms is jam-packed with references concluding that honey bees react to environmental stimuli in many ways. The work won a gold medal at the 2001 Apimondia meeting in Durban, South Africa. It is possible to get a feel for the book by looking at this excerpt. The volume was just re-released by Northern Bee Books.
On page fifteen, Dr. Lipiński states: “…insects probably do not feel pain in the same manner as mammals (Wigglesworth, 1980, Eisenmann et. al. 1984). Nontheless honey bees seem to be more sensitive to pain than other insects (Wigglesworth, 1980). The sensitive of bees to high temperature is well-known. And they are also sensitive to electric current and strong magnetic field (Horn, 1982; Bidnokas and Greenberg, 1984).
May 20, 2019 is World Bee Day as noted in the March edition of the Apimondia Newsletter:“At it´s general assembly in 2017 the United Nations designated 20 May the World Bee Day. In 2018 the day was celebrated in several countries. First of all Slovenia who´s beekeepers association together with the authorities of Slovenia was instrumental in the process leading to the designation. But as far as India we saw celebration of the day. Let the day be celebrated all over the world. We need the bees for pollination.” .
This signal day has not been heralded much in the U.S. as Ron Miksa reveals in his Bad Beekeeping Blog, concluding: “World Bee Day is immensely important. Maybe that’s why there are two world bee days. A group of Americans petitioned the USDA to create a World Bee Day of their own – on August 20th. While the Americans worked their idea through the US Congress, the Slovenes asked the United Nations to recognize May 20th as World Bee Day. I’m not sure how all this will play out, maybe the two world bee days will merge and be observed sometime in June or July. But I suppose both world bee days will persist, one on a world-scale, the other in the USA. As they say back at the bee lodge, ‘You can’t have too many World Bee Days, eh?’ ” Perhaps this conundrum can be further reconciled in that the U.S. version appears to be strictly for honey bees, whereas the other is more cosmopolitan referencing all “bees.”
A recent release reveals that the U.S. EPA has canceled registrations for 12 neonicotinoid pesticides. It appears to be following the European lead here. Read about the history of these and related controversial substances here.
The season is nigh for the three regional beekeeping societies to have their meetings. The newest kid on the block, Heartland Apicultural Society (HAS), meets in Bowling Green, Kentucky July 8-10 at Bowing Green University. The Western Apicultural Society (WAS) meets July 12-14 in Ashland, Oregon, and the grandaddy of them all, Eastern Apicutural Society (EAS) will be held in Greenville, South Carolina, July 15-19. These meetings are some of the best and most complete in the country. As an example read about the 50th Anniversary of EAS at Kent State University in 2005.
Bee Scientifics Australia recently put out a newsletter discussing among other topics a queen-breeding relationship brewing with Purdue University, The Ohio State University and the Baton Rouge USDA honey bee laboratory:
“Jody Gerdts of Bee Scientifics was recently awarded a travel fellowship to learn about Varroa tolerance selection techniques in the United States. She will be visiting a beekeeping operation in Hawaii that recently employed the VSH breeding framework and is seeing some great results. From Hawaii to Washington State to learn about stock importation and assessment.
“Following on, Jody will spend a month at the United States Department of Agriculture’s Honey Bee Breeding and Genetics Lab in Baton Rouge LA to participate in the maintenance of three separate Varroa tolerant lines of bees and learn about breeding propolis gathering bees. Her trip will conclude with a visit to Purdue University and a visit with the Ohio State beekeepers Association to learn about selecting for mite biter bees and forming collaborative breeding programs.”
The Australian Queen Bee Breeders association was established in 2012 and contains the following purposes:
•Provide a means whereby members can support continued enhancement of Australian honey bee stocks. •Safeguard and protect the biosecurity interests of the Australian beekeeping industry.
•Provide a platform whereby members can raise specific areas needing scientific investigation for the improvement of Australian honey bee stocks.
•Cooperate with relevant government departments and institutes in instructional and experimental work relevant to the prevention of the spread of bee diseases.
•Increase demand for and beekeeper access to quality queen bees suitable to Australian honey producing and pollination industries.
•Promote gooadequate return for labour and capital investment needed to produce high quality queen bees
•Secure suitable export markets Australian queen bees.
•Provide a platform where all beekeepers interested in stock enhancement can learn best practice techniques.
This concept is something that has not taken hold in the U.S. since the decline of the American Bee Breeders Association (ABBA) back in the 1980s. At Apimondia in Australia, myself and Martin Braunstein attempted to form a Global Bee Breeders Association, but it never went anywhere. The message at the time to the organizers was that the incentive was not there to develop an association, given anyone with the desire could simply set up a business and basically sell more queens than they could produce. This may be something, however, that will be more possible given the rise of smaller associations like the Kentucky Queen Breeders that organized in 2016, and which presumably Ms. Gerdts will now be visiting from Australia.
I have always been interested in beekeeping in Yucatan since the time I visited the peninsula conducting research for masters degree in Geography in 1973. The place had changed a lot in twenty five years since, as I wrote in 1998 . In addition, it was hit pretty hard in the in the 1990’s by the Africanized honey bee. So I was delighted to see an update on conditions there in a recent posting and realize that Yucatan appears to be doing well in the current beekeeping environment.
Rosanna Mattingly, Editor, Western Apicultural Society Journal has published her latest items of interest for beekeepers:
Bee Viruses: Ecology, Pathogenicity, and Impacts
The Whole Food Diet for Bees
Bee Health Guru
Economics can help us protect the world’s wildlife
Washington state to set up task force on pollinators
Kenyon becomes Bee Campus
Are native bees and honey bees competitors?
ARS entomologists highlight latest research tools
Biologists warn of peril from biological invasions
Biocultural Approaches to Pollinator Conservation
Study Findings on Pollinator Declines: Neonics Increase Honey Bee Vulnerability to Mites
NCGA releases pollinator protection guide
Project Wingspan
How can I tell if my fruit trees need pollinators?
A 60-mile bee highway is forming across the Triangle’s corporate offices
California almond acreage increases in 2018
Are buyers willing to forgo quality for locally grown?
Nature News: Planting For Pollinators Following California’s ‘Super Bloom’
World Beekeeping Awards
See also posts from Bee Culture’s “CATCH THE BUZZ” and Americana Bee Journal“EXTRAS”
Lazy bees?
‘Preserving Pollinators’ on the Coast
California Environmental Protection Agency Acts to Ban Chlorpyrifos
Pesticides and pollinators: A socioecological synthesis
WASBA At Work for Washington State Beekeepers
Twin Falls beekeeper pursues Bee City USA designation
7-Mile ‘Bee Corridor’ of Wildflowers Will Feed London’s Pollinators This Summer
Experts address how to bolster bees at home
Blackburn College to break ground on new solar project
The untapped potential of Africa’s honey bees
Lisle Park District going pesticide-free at 4 parks
Colony of hungry ants vital for trilliums to blossom
See also posts from Bee Culture’s “CATCH THE BUZZ” and Americana Bee Journal“EXTRAS”
More and more podcasts are out there catering to the beekeeping crowd. Contributor Ron Miksha likes the Kiwimana and along with the Pollination Focus at Oregon State University. The Beekeeping Today Podcast is also a winner from my perspective. The latest in fact features the Bee Health Guru App noted elsewhere in this newsletter.
Check out the May 2019 Bee-L discussions. This list has changed its format, and unfortunately, it has become more complex and less useful than the previous version. Annoying! Welcome to the continually shifting World Wide Web, sometimes not for the best.
As always, see the latest extension efforts at the Bee Health Extension site. Check out the article on small hive beetle. Note that recently the genome of this organism has been decoded, which hopefully will open more doors to control the pest.
One hundred and seven units of Storey’s Guide to Keeping Honey Bees, second edition were sold April 22 through May 19, 2019. Pittsburg and Tacoma, WA led the pack in sales.
>From the editorial endorsements:
“Written in a readable style, this book blends sound scientific information about honey bees with practical information about beekeeping and is suitable reference for beginner to serious beekeeper. It has been selected as the text book for the University of Montana’s Online Beekeeping Certificate, Apprentice Level Course.” — J.J. Bromenshenk, Bee Alert
