Colorado Natural Beekeeping classes announced 2013

We have announced our 2013 spring bee guardianship classes in Colorado!
We are excited to offer beginner, intermediate and advanced classes in
Boulder, Fort Collins, Carbondale, and Paonia.
You can register for the classes and find out more information,
at BackYardHive.com

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Excellent presentation on bees by Cornell University Professor, Thomas Seeley

Honeybee Democracy by Thomas Seeley

We were fortunate enough to attend the presentation in Denver given by Cornell University professor and bee researcher, Thomas Seeley.  Seeley has been researching bees for the past several decades and in particular the communication of bees in a swarm. He calls it “swarm intelligence” and

Here is a link to his presentation:

http://multimedia2.geneseo.edu/GreatDayKeyHinted.mov
((he starts his presentation about 1/4 way into the video))
This presentation was not as relaxed as the presentation we saw in Denver as the crowd was asking questions and Selley was telling funny stories along the way. What an inspiration to see such positive enthusiasm towards the bees!

Seeley has written several books we recommend:
Honeybee Democracy – a great read, fun and interesting comparison to human democracy, but also fascinating information about bees communicating in a swarm
The Wisdom of the Hive -this is much deeper read,  really delving into the details of his studies

Here is a great synopsis of his work studying bees swarms:
Thomas Seeley’s work

enjoy!

Bearding Bees

As the days are getting hotter and the hives are all brooding up for the nectar flows, it’s the time of year that you’ll see large clumps of bees hanging on and around the entrance of the hive to keep cool and let more circulation of airflow into the hive. It’s totally normal and occurs when the hives are all brooded up in the spring and summer as the weather gets hotter both night and day.

During this time of year and into the hot summer months, be sure to check that there is adequate airflow around your hives, your hives are well shaded for a good portion of the day and be sure to keep replenishing the source of water for the bees as they can go through a lot of water on those hot summer days!

Swarm Season 2011!

The smells of spring are wafting in, dandelions and trees are flowering, the days are getting longer and the bees are buzzing. The honeybee colonies that did well over the winter are flying about in search of early nectar and pollen while deciding that it’s time to spread some of their genes off into the world in the form of swarms. The old queen prepares to swarm just when things are barely getting going again in the spring and she lays an egg in a special cell designed for a future queen bee. The old queen takes off with part of the colony just when the new queen is about to come out of her cell. The rest of the colony stays in the hive with the new queen who shortly thereafter goes on a mating flight and begins her life as the new egg-layer while the old queen and group of workers head off in search of a new home. This process is called swarming and usually happens in the first few months of spring, roughly end of April- early June in Colorado.

When bees first swarm they usually collect on a branch or bush to recollect while sending out scouts to search for a new hive. This is a great time to hive a new colony because in addition to having a stronger genetic knowledge of the area (having overwintered in the local area) through the swarming process, they are also determined to find a new home and are on a mission to build up a new hive starting from scratch.

~~~ BackYardHive Offers Free Honeybee Swarm Removal~~

Swarm season is over for 2015

If you have bees in a structure
(soffit of your house, hollow pillar, attic,or anywhere else)
and you want these bees removed
we don’t do this service

If you see a swarm please call
Bee Swarm Hotline
720-443-2331

 

~~~

For more info follow this link to the BackYardHive website Read More….

WikiNews: Honey bee decline spreading globally

I like the precise and direct information about our WORLD honey bee collapse as stated by the United Nations Environment Programme scientists. Read on!

Angels in the blue: Honey Bees

Saturday, March 12, 2011
Scientists working for the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) reported Thurdsay that the collapse of honey bee colonies is becoming a world wide phenomena and will continue unless humans work to restore habitats for bees. The insects are necessary for pollinating crops and the report calls for profound changes in how humans manage the planet. The decline in managed bee colonies, first noticed in Europe and the U.S., is now seen in China and Japan, and there are signs of colony collapses in Egypt. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, honey-producing colonies in the U.S. have declined from 5.5 million colonies in 1950 to 2.5 million in 2007. A co-author of the report, Peter Neumann, said changes in rural areas during the past 50 years have contributed to decline of wild bees and other pollinators. Additional factors include the declines in flowering plants, the use of harmful chemicals and insecticides, the increase in air pollution and a worldwide trade system that spreads bee pathogens and pests.

The world’s growing population means more bees are needed to pollinate the crops to feed more people. According to the U.N. report, of the 100 crop species that supply 90 percent of the world’s food, bees pollinate more than 70 percent. Noting that humans seem to believe that they can operate independent of nature through technological innovations, Achim Steiner, the executive director of the UNEP said, “Bees underline the reality that we are more, not less dependent on nature’s services in a world of close to 7 billion people.”

The report calls for such measures as incentives for farmers and land owners to encourage them to restore habitats that are friendly to pollinators.

WikiNews

Michael McCarthy “Honey bee decline now global phenomenon” — Independent Online, March 10, 2011

…collapse of honey-bee colonies is becoming a global phenomenon, scientists working for the United Nations have revealed.

Declines in managed bee colonies, seen increasingly in Europe and the US in the past decade, are also now being observed in China and Japan and there are the first signs of African collapses from Egypt, according to the report from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

“The way humanity manages or mismanages its nature-based assets, including pollinators, will in part define our collective future in the 21st century,” said Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director.

Blue Angel Solo: Honey Bee Pollinating

The Associated Press “World’s bee hives to decline without human changes” — Las Vegas Sun, March 10, 2011

“Human beings have fabricated the illusion that in the 21st century they have the technological prowess to be independent of nature,” said Achim Steiner, the executive director of the U.N.’s environmental program. “Bees underline the reality that we are more, not less dependent on nature’s services in a world of close to 7 billion people.”

The bees are needed to pollinate crops that feed the world’s growing population. Of the 100 crop species that provide 90 percent of the world’s food, more than 70 are pollinated by bees, the U.N. report said.

Vanishing of the Bees film showing in Boulder

Where: Boulder Public Library
1000 Canyon Blvd., Boulder, CO 80302

When: Oct 27th -Wednesday

Time: 6pm doors open,
Film Starts: 6:30pm promptly

Cost: $10 donation

Why: Because we LOVE the bees!

http://www.vanishingbees.com/trailer/

Solving The Mystery Of The Vanishing Bees

All admission fees go directly back to
supporting the honeybees through a public outreach program
to bring awareness to pesticide spraying (residential
and commercial) that is adversely effecting the bees.

Lemon balm hive transfer nuc swarm is doing well

The lemon balm swarm hive (transfer nuc) is doing really well and they’ve already built pearly white comb on several of the bars toward the front of the hive! I’m hoping that they’ll be ready for the Linden tree bloom coming up here. There is a beautiful linden tree about 100′ from this hive and every year the bees go wild with excitement over this mid summer treat.

Mmmhmmm….. I can’t wait to taste the lovely linden flower honey this year! Yummy!!

Harvesting Honey with Karen

The other day Karen and I got up bright and early and met at 8:00 am in Eldo. to harvest honey from a totally full and very large custom built hive. We met early  to beat the heat but at 8:00 am it was already 75°. Whew! We could tell it was going to be a hot one that day!  As we opened the hive we realized they had built all the way to the back of the hive and were actually attaching to the false-back of the hive. We came just in the nick of time. What a vibrant colony of bees!!

As we worked through the hive, the bees stayed pretty mellow despite the heat.  While working in an efficient yet calm manner, we were able to successfully harvest a few bars of honeycomb with very little stress or agitation to the bees.

We had a large clean metal pot with a lid to place the clean comb into that we wanted to harvest, a crate for resting bars with bees on them to give us extra space while working in the hive (we would put these combs back into the hive when we closed it up) and a few empty bars and spacers. After herding the bees off of the false-back with the hive tool (slowly moving the flat side of the hive tool over the comb and into the hive), we cut off the attachment comb into our metal pot making sure to scrape off any pattern they  created from the comb on it so they won’t have an incentive to build comb on the false-back in future. Then, we went through the hive as if going through a filing cabinet, detaching the brace comb and inspecting the honeycombs for harvesting.

After setting the first few (smaller) combs in the crate to give us space to work in the hive, we got to the first fully built comb with about 80% capped honey. We decided to leave this one in the hive and go back to it later if we decided to harvest it. It was such a perfect comb that we thought it might be good to leave for the bees because of how straight it was. This turned out to be a good call because as we suspected from looking in the window of the hive, the combs started to get a bit wonky and not necessarily straight on the bar. This hive has the older style top bars with only a small notch in the wood as a guide for the bees to build their comb and many of the hives with these bars (rather than the triangle bars) didn’t stick to the part of the bars we would have like for them to build on. They built their combs across several bars making it harder for us to work in the hive without braking any comb as we worked. The triangle bars solve this problem by giving the bees a very clear indicator as to where the best place would be to build their comb. We worked our way through a few more bars bit by bit and chunks at a time to prevent any of the crossed comb falling into the hive. The comb was getting a bit melty at that point because of the heat. We knew we should finish up fairly quickly.

As we continued to work through the hive, we ended up harvesting quite a few of these little honeycomb sections, making sure to scrape off the old (crooked) pattern on the bars. When we started to see brood and the temperature kept climbing, we decided it was time to close up the hive and to put the combs we didn’t harvest back into the hive making sure to keep the combs in the correct order they were in the hive and the same orientation (front-back facing) they were in before we took them out. We harvested the equivalent of 4 top bars from a custom size hive similar to the golden mean hive but longer.

As we closed up the hive, we replaced the 4 bars we harvested with 3 empty tri-angle bars near the outskirts of the brood nest and 1 in the very back leaving all the other comb with bees on them near the same place they were in the hive originally. We also added spacers in between all of the honeycomb bars in the hive to help them keep in line with their natural “bee space” (1.38ths for brood and 1.58ths for honey).

Hopefully these bees will start building straight comb on the new triangle bars and have a great rest of the summer season.

Karen and I brought up the pot filled with honeycomb and crushed what we weren’t using for comb honey with our clean hands feeling a bit like wine makers as the comb and honey squished through our sticky fingers (what a treat licking our hands was afterword. Yummy!). We then poured the mashed up honeycomb into a strainer secured over the top of another stainless steel pot with the lid over it so the honey could strain down into the pot without attracting more bees.

We were both totally sweaty and hot by that time as it was nearing 11:00 am and with a mutual unspoken need to get cool, we jumped in the river (ah, the cool relief) before venturing forth to the next honeybee endeavour of the day!

(Written and photos by Claire Anderson)

Transferring a top bar nuc into a hive

For the intermediate class, Corwin and I demoed transferring a top bar nuc into a normal golden mean hive. Everything went smoothly and I’m really excited to have another hive of honeybees! The weather was perfect at about 75 F with just the right amount of sun!

Black Bees in Boulder ~ spotted by a bee guardian

Just this last week, Anggie one of the local beeguardians saw a black bee fly into her house to pollinate her geraniam plants. It looks pretty dark to me! How cool would it be if this was a real Apis mellifera mellifera living in Boulder!?! The search for black honey bees continues….