Help stomp out the varroa mite!

The varroa mite is the number one killer of honeybees today!

This little blood sucking mite creates wounds in the body of a developing baby bee and then infests them with viruses which spread quickly to the entire colony.  In proportion, it would be like a human having 4 or 5 ticks the size of a basketball on their bodies. Ewwww, I can’t even imagine this! Can you?

Varroa mites on a bee pupae (baby bee)

Here is your chance to ask the EPA to help the bees combat these nasty little blood suckers!

Oxalic acid, a naturally occurring chemical found in many of the foods we eat, is a very effective control mechanism for varroa mites. Oxalic Acid has been registered and used in Europe for around 20 years. It kills the varroa mite by desiccating the mite's mouth parts. The disruption caused by oxalic acid to the honeybee is minimal and far less devastating than the loss of the entire colony:  which is sure to follow in the event of a varroa mite infestation.

Currently, the EPA is reviewing the use of oxalic acid as an in-hive miticide. For those unfamiliar with the process, the government opens up a comment period to new product registrations such as this one. It is during this time frame that we need to be proactive and state that oxalic acid needs to be available as an option for beekeepers in the United States.

If you like to eat, this applies to you too. Honeybees pollinate over 30% of the food we eat. This treatment method is by far one of the most effective and safest ones out there for the bees as well as the consumers of honey.

We need to have oxalic acid approved in the United States as an option for beekeepers.

If you can copy and paste, you can help!

The 4 step comment process is fairly simple and your comments will appear in the ‘docket’ within 24 hours.  The Pollinator Stewardship Council has created a draft of a letter (see below).:
The comment period for oxalic acid ends on March 6, 2015. 

1.    Copy the text of the letter below:
Susan Lewis, Registration Division (RD) (7505P)
Office of Pesticide Programs
Environmental Protection Agency
1200 Pennsylvania Ave. NW.
Washington, DC 20460-0001

Re: Docket ID number: EPA-HQ-OPP-2015-0043; Oxalic Acid Dihydrate.

Dear Ms. Lewis,

Registering oxalic acid to aid beekeepers in controlling their Varroa mite populations is an important tool in managing the health of honey bees. Beekeeping is a diverse industry of commercial, sideline, and backyard beekeepers. Our honey bees encounter different stresses; pests, pathogens, pesticides, and poor forage in varying levels of severity. The registered use of oxalic acid will be another tool to help beekeepers. As a beekeeper, I may not use this pending registered product, but other beekeepers will need to use it. Honey bees experience a broad area of the environment, and work tirelessly to pollinate our crops and wild lands. Having another tool to aid in controlling Varroa mite would help reduce the pest and pathogen stress upon our honey bees.

I support the approval of oxalic acid for in-hive use to control Varroa mites.

Formally,


2.    Click the link to the Docket at Regulations.gov
http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=EPA-HQ-OPP-2015-0043-0001

3.    Click on the blue COMMENT NOW button on the right side of your screen
 
4.    PASTE your letter into the Comment box (optionally add your own comments), include your name at the bottom, and follow prompts to submit.


Additional information about oxalic acid used as a miticide for bees can be found at these links:

• Oxalic Acid: A prospective tool for reducing varroa mite populations in package bees by Nicholas P Aliano and Marion D Ellis University of Nebraska
• Oxalic Acid:  Questions, answers and more questions Part 1 of 2 by Randy Oliver, Scientific Beekeeping
• Oxalic Acid:  Questions, Answers and more Questions Part 2 of 2 by Randy Oliver, Scientific Beekeeping

IF YOU KEEP BEES . . .KEEP ONE OF THESE

If you keep bees, it is great to be proactive when it comes to potential allergic reactions to bee stings.

Keeping an Epi-Pen on hand could help save someone's life.   

Mylan Specialty makes it very economical by again, in 2015, providing a coupon for a $0 co-pay. This makes these somewhat expensive auto-inject pens FREE!

I was skeptical but used this co-pay card last year at CVS without any hassles.  

During the time frame when I'm actively working with the bees, I keep an Epi-Pen in my bee toolkit and another near the honey house.  I haven't had to use it but it gives me piece of mind to know it is there.

A PRESCRIPTION IS REQUIRED.  So, talk to your doctor the next time you visit. Also talk to your doctor about the difference between a localized reaction and a systemic reaction, and other individualized cases which could indicate whether to use or not use the Epi-Pen.  Knowing this important information just might save someone's life.

HERE'S THE LINK FOR THE $0 COPAY OFFER

What can a beekeeper learn from a dairy farmer?

As most of you know, I’m enamored with learning about drones - male honey bees, not the small flying machines. I truly believe that you can’t have a great queen without some awesome drones. With all the attention given to queens, drones are often taken for granted and forgotten. However, since the promiscuous queen mates with 15 and sometimes as many as 20 different drones, they really should not be overlooked.

Brandon Hopkins teaching queen breeders about his work in cryopreservation

 Fairly recently, I’ve jumped into the ever fascinating world of instrumentally inseminating honey bee queens. Having participated in artificial insemination projects with my sheep, I’ve been taken aback by how far behind honey bees are in this area especially when compared to other livestock. Dairy cattle, for example, have seen tremendous gains in milk production by using artificial insemination and are often able to extend great genetics from one bull to many cows. Because of this, it is very rare to find a modern day production milk system where the farmer uses natural cover. Instead, semen from a bull is collected, evaluated, stored, frozen and shipped all around the world to use for insemination. Often times, the bull can be dead and still father calves. It’s all pretty amazing.
So let’s get back to the bees and the associated problem at hand. Due to the Honey Bee Act of 1922, the importation of honeybees and honeybee germplasm from other countries was stopped in order to minimize tracheal mite infiltration into our US honeybee population. However, in doing so, it has also resulted in a smaller genetic resource pool.

To combat the decreasing genetic possibilities, special permission was granted to Sue Cobey and a group of researchers to obtain drone semen from old world countries like Slovenia, Germany, Italy, and the Republic of Georgia. The introduction of new genetics using only semen can take 5 or 6 mating cycles – nothing happens overnight in the world of honeybee biology. The problem is that freshly collected drone semen quickly loses viability when stored at room temperature – although it amazingly lasts much, much longer than its mammalian counterparts. Therefore, without a better preservation technique, it was going to take several trips to gather germplasm to convert a US bee to one that contains 90%+ ‘old world’ stock by using drone semen only. Although previously attempted, a technique to collect, evaluate, store, and freeze drone semen like our dairy farmer friends use didn't provide for a high enough worker progeny ratio so it was seldom used.

Brandon Hopkins is demonstrating some of the equipment used in cryopreservation.

This is where Brandon Hopkins, a reproductive biologist, enters the picture. While working with Dr. Steven Sheppard on his Ph.D. at Washington State University, he recently developed better methods and techniques of freezing and storing honeybee semen. These advancements are allowing researchers to collect germplasm from the 'old world stock' and use it many years later. Now, the honeybee industry can work toward a more efficient stock improvement plan which also includes a repository.

A great group of queen breeders looking to learn new ways to help bees

So, when the opportunity arose to attend a knowledge sharing session with Dr. Steve Sheppard and Brandon Hopkins to learn about cryopreservation of honey bee germplasm, you better believe I jumped on it. I would like to thank the Mountain State Queen Producers for the welcome invitation. We learned some new techniques and strategies that will hopefully allow for advancements in queens in Indiana as well as the Heartland Honey Bee Co-op.

Reflections on the year

As the year draws to an end, it is a time to reflect.  It is also a time to plan for the future; but right now, I’m stuck in the reflecting frame of mind.  My beekeeping passion started without a club and without a mentor.  In the first 2 years of this hobby, I started with 2 hives, a Beekeeping for Dummies book, and a lot of perseverance.   I jokingly tell others that I experienced every possible scenario and problem imaginable during these initial years.  A quick view of the propolis stained pages from the book which resided in my beginning toolkit can quickly ascertain these claims.  I will admit that I wasn’t very profitable and my bees didn’t flourish but I did learn a lot. 

I can certainly tell stories that occurred over the past 13 years.   Some are sad while others are sure to make you laugh until tears run down your face.  But what about this year?  What special things happened in 2014?

I could tell you about the 5000+ kids that had an opportunity to view my bees in an observation hive or the happenings with the USDA NC-SARE research grant which has taken up a considerable amount of time during the past two years.  Maybe you’d like to hear about the politics endured with state associations, the first queen that I instrumentally inseminated which laid eggs, the experience of marking 800 drones with tiny paint dots as they emerged, the successful formation of a local beekeeping club, the thousands of miles driven to assist other beekeepers, the hundreds of emails and phone calls responded too, the nucs and queens that went to beekeepers young and old, or the dozen or so presentations given to the non-beekeeping community about our crazy winged friends called the honeybee?  

Yes, these are things of special note but instead, there is something else that I want to share.  It is something that made me smile.  To some it won’t mean much, but to me it means a lot.   First, let’s set the stage.  We are at one of our local monthly club meetings.  There is a new attendee who recently found our club through our wonderful website.  I don’t want to embarrass her because I’d like to be sure she comes back; but she was very new to beekeeping and had a lot of questions.   But, I have to ask:  Who doesn’t have a lot of questions about bees?  Right?  If someone had all the answers, this beekeeping thing would be easy and we’d all be succeeding at it.

This scenario seems pretty normal for our meetings.  So, what about it made my day and year for that matter?  What could it possibly be? 

Well, you see, the questions were being answered by club members who had just started keeping bees this summer.    They had regularly attended the meetings and unbeknownst to themselves, they had learned a ton.  They were giving great answers! 

This thing we call a bee club, it does work.  It does have a purpose! 

Although I’d love to visit with every person who keeps bees, I realized I just couldn’t physically do it.  By using this club as a tool to teach others instead of adding even more miles onto my vehicles, I had hoped to be able to spread my knowledge and experiences even further and watch it grow exponentially.   Heck, I’m hoping to learn some things too.

So when you ask me to come to your bee yard and I ask if you might have time to take some photos of your bees and attend the upcoming meeting, I’m really not shirking my duties.  Instead, I’m able to tend to my bees – with 70 hives and counting that’s a lot for one person to do along with all my other responsibilities in life.  And you win too!  You win because not only will I be at the next meeting; but you’ll be able to pull from a vast array of experience from other beekeepers too.  Others win as well!  They get to hear about your bees and it just might help them keep their bees healthy. 

WIN!  WIN! WIN!

As you can see, our club is for beekeepers of all experience levels.  There is something for everyone to learn or share!   The 2014 December meeting marks the one year anniversary for the Hanover/Madison chapter of Southeastern Indiana Beekeeper Association.  Bring a friend and we’ll see you at the meeting!

Neonictinoid seed treatment targets the wrong bug

Very interesting news from Penn State.
 

You got to put this pesticide issue in terms that makes sense to those using it. Maybe this will do it!

Slugs are a huge issue for no-till soybean growers. Slugs have a natural predator: the ground beetle.  Neonicotinoid treatment on soybean seeds doesn't kill slugs (not an insect). BUT, the slugs can transmit the pesticide to ground beetles resulting in the destruction of 60% of these beetles. The result in the tests was a 5% reduction in yield. Yikes....

I say spread the word. What farmer wants a 5% reduction in their profit?

Read the story on the Penn State website

I have free bees for you

At our last club meeting, a newer member said, "My neighbor has some bees if anyone wants to come and get them.  They are free."  Immediately a hand rose in the air.  Because, after all, we all love free bees.  Right? 

"But wait a minute", chimed a more seasoned veteran.  "Are these bees in a hive?  Or, just exactly where are they living?"  A few text messages later, the response was "they have been living ON my neighbors pine tree".    How quickly the tone of the discussion changed but it became a quick lesson for all.  Honey bees don't typically live ON trees.

Yes, they may swarm and land on trees.  But, that isn't typical in mid October.  And, if they do, it is only for a day - not a permanent residence. 

There are many insects that are colored black and yellow.  Many of them are very aggressive and can put out a wallop of a sting.  So, before traveling 3 counties over for some free bees, be sure you ask a few questions first. 

 

Which leads to a question posed by the club members.  Can we have someone come and talk about the other types of insects that resemble honey bees? So, I'm looking for a speaker that can discuss bees - good, bad, and ugly as well as those that want to be bees but really aren't bees.  Any suggestions?

 

Moisture boards are a great help

For those of you who purchased ‘Easy Bee’ starter hives form me in the spring,  you may have noticed that your hive differs from some ‘traditional’ set up as you have a screened inner cover instead of the traditional wooden inner cover with a hole in the middle.  

Screened inner cover

Traditional wooden inner cover

I have found that the screened inner cover really helps with ventilation during the summer but you might be wondering, what do I do with this over the winter?   I recommend using a moisture board which fits nicely inside of the top of the screened inner cover.  

So what could cause the demise of your bees during the winter?  It is either starvation or moisture.  And, I have added a third item to this list – diseases from mite infestation.

      Mites are a whole topic by themselves.   Mites are basically virus machines.  They are out-producing the bees in numbers during August.  So, this was the ‘critical’ time to address them and curtail the spread of viruses to your young bees that will be expected to live all winter long.  These tiny menaces do not have a foolproof method for eradication so develop your plan and stick to it.

2    Sixty pounds of reserve honey stores is the minimum recommendation for our area.  A deep frame full of capped stores can weigh anywhere from 6 to 10 pounds.  So, that’d be 6 to 10 frames of deep foundation full of capped stores and some say you should plan on having as much as 12 –18 deep frames.   If you don’t have this by now, start feeding ASAP as time is running out.  Now, we switch to 2:1 syrup – that’s 2 parts sugar to 1 part water.  The days are shorter and cooler so the bees do not need the extra moisture to help cool the hive. (See the post about feeding.)

3    As for the moisture, the huddling cluster of overwintering bees produces a water vapor similar to the exhaled breath of air that we produce.  The cooler outside air can cause the moisture particles to condense and fall back down on the bees as water drops.  This in turn causes them to freeze.  So be cognizant of excess water in the hive and provide ventilation all winter.  By using a moisture board, it will absorb the moisture instead of allowing it to condense.  The screened inner cover therefore becomes a multipurpose tool to be used not only in the summer but also serves a purpose in your winter care.

The boards are fairly heavy and therefore if you are only purchasing 1 or 2 boards, it will cost over twice as much to have them shipped.  Therefore as a courtesy and to help keep costs down for our local club members, I have purchased a few more moisture boards than I need this year.   I will be bringing the extras to the October SIBA- Hanover/Madison meeting (Oct 9, 2014, 6:30PM at Hanover College).  They will be available at my cost which $5.50 per board at the meeting only.