Warmest October in more than 100 years

Yes, this whole year was the warmest year in more than 100 years in Denmark, Sweden and Norway. As a matter of fact I read that even UK and other EU countries say the same.
2 days ago it was 17'C which is END of October and I was out in a T-shirt and the bees were foraging like its Summer time. The climate change is most differently NOT a MYTH :) For the first time we are getting some serious flooding in the coastal areas of Denmark, so serious that the government is making plans to build protections around the coast. Soon we will look like Holland ;) and Holland ... well if the sea continues to raise will have to be evacuated!

 Honeybees foraging on the Mexican Aster

Bees gone missing ???

I was visiting my father-in-law this week and we went to check on his bees in the out-apiary. He has 3 colonies there together with another beek who has 2.
We opened 2 hives and found many bees in there, very strong and healthy looking. Then we opened the 3rd one and we were faced with a life-less hive :(

No bees between the frames. No buzzing, no life :(

He treated these hives in september so he is sure they were very strong and looking good, lots of brood and lots of stores as well as pollen. He is puzzled. We opened the hives of his fellow beekeeper too and found that one of his hives is also empty of bees! Lots of pollen, honey but no bees at all!

There are no dead bees nor chewed wax on the bottom board which would indicate robbing or even disease. Its most defently no CCD because in that case there would still be some dead bees in there or even a Queen with a small amount of house bees.

I checked the brood comb and found many small white spots, which are Varroa feces, in the cells indicating high Varroa load. There are also a few capped brood cells which I have checked for AFB but that was not the case. My father-in-law thinks they have absconded because the Varroa load was too great. This is the only colony he never culled drones from (integrated pest management). I told him that I never cull drones and for the last 3 years I did not have such issues.

The hive had plenty of stores. Not sure why the ladies left so much food just to swarm into certain death? We also considered that someone stole these colonies but after inspecting the frames we quickly realized that is out of question because all frames were propolized and braced with wax. If someone did steal them the propolis and wax would have been broken. One of his hives was stolen from this place last summer which was the reason we suspected someone stealing them.

We are both very much puzzled with this mysterious bee disappearance 

On the positive side I am soon turning 40 and he gave me one of his traditional Danish bee hives as a birthday present :) sweet!

This horizontal hive is traditional in Scandinavia and is called Trugstade in Danish and Trågkupa in Swedish. It is a very well insulated hive.

Cell Size

I have got a few pieces of feral comb from a hollow tree. Some comb was for brood and some for honey storage. The photo beneath shows a honey comb with extremely long cells :) Some cells are up to 35mm deep !!!

 I did not photograph the brood comb but the cell size is 5,3mm-5,4mm.

Cell size in my hives is 5,1mm in the brood. When it comes to small cell Im sure Africanized bees build small cell naturally but this might not be the case with European Honeybees. Its known in Sweden that Dark Nordic Bees build 5,1mm in the center of the brood nest.

Honeybee Super-organism is not a "Colony"

When we think of Honeybees we mainly picture Worker Bees, Queen Bee and Drones but is that all there is to this being we call the Honeybee "Colony"?

First and foremost we are approaching this organism from a wrong perspective; we think of them as a "colony". But are they really a colony? If Honeybee Super-organism is a colony then our very human body is also a colony.
Our body is made of millions of cells and bacteria, all sorts of microscopic phenomena like neurons and atoms forming molecules which all interact with one another and all that without our will or control. Of course our body is not a colony but an organism.

Now, if you place dozen humans into a collective they would be a colony. If we place dozen Honeybee families together that too would be a colony (we call that an Apiary). But unlike humans those separate "colonies" do not help one another as humans would do in a colony.

That said, Honeybee "colony" is rather a Super-organism made of many "cells" we call Queen, Workers and Drones but that is not all of it. We know today that various beneficial yeasts, bacteria and mites are part of Bien (Honeybee Super-organism).
Bees can not survive without yeasts because they are the ones creating the so called "bee bread" which they feed to their brood and which is made from pollen-honey and is fermented by the yeasts.
There are over 8000 bacteria associated with Honeybees and over 170 different kind of Mites like the beneficial Stratiolaelaps scimitus which feeds on Varroa mites.

Stratiolaelaps scimitus mite

Worker bees are very much like our cells feeding and building the body and protecting it. Queen and Drones are like our sexual organs. None of the mentioned can survive on their own. Humans can leave the colony and still survive but if a Drone, Queen or a Worker bee leaves the "colony" they sure will perish very fast. Hence "colony" is not the name for them since it is misleading and creating so much confusion about Honeybees today. One of the confusion are the Treatments against Varroa mites. By trying to kill the Varroa we also kill beneficial mites and micro-biome hence creating unbalanced condition within Bien.

Wax Comb is another aspect of Bien; It is their very skeleton, womb for raising brood, storage for Honey and Pollen, it is used for thermo-regulation and bees use it as a telephone line to communicate with each other via vibrations. Take out the wax comb and bees will not be able to survive.
The hollow cavity is their protection from predators and ever changing weather. The hollow conserves the so called hive scent and is used to condense the humid air into water which is used by the bees. It also helps thermo-regulate the inner atmosphere. The hollow cavity is very much like our own skin.
Jurgen Tautz, a very well known Honeybee biologist from Germany (book; Buzz About Bees) compares the Bien to a mammal rather than a colony of individuals for a good reason.

So next time you approach your hive try and look at it as a complex organism rather than a "colony" and see what happens in your mind.

Top Bar Hive Workshop with Che at Makvärket in Denmark

Makvärket is an old abandoned brick factory which is now occupied by a passionate group of visionary people. People who believe in sustainable living on all levels; forest garden, permaculture, natural beekeeping, etc ... 

They are investing a great deal of creative energy into this place

 This place is huge! So much potential!

 The conference room

 They are making their own pressed apple juice which they sell. They dont have an orchard but instead they go around the neighborhood and collect apples which people dont want to use. Smart :)

 Out door pizza oven made from Cob, nice one :)

 Art studios

 In case I didnt mention :) this place is HUGE!

The conference room

I was asked to run a Top Bar Hive workshop to help them start their first Natural Apiary. They plan to have 5 hives in total. 

 New top bar hive beekeepers in action, building their first top bar hives

One hive got legs :)

I will very likely hold a power point presentation about top bar hive beekeeping in February next year and in Spring we will try to start the practical beekeeping part.

 And the vegan food they make here is so tasty :)

Eating in a fine company

We talked a lot about bees of course and in the midst of discussion one young lad said that they have bee colony inside of their wall! I was so excited since this is the first time I have witnessed a feral colony :D In this image above you can see the red circle marking the very small entrance in the wall. The hole is no bigger than 2cm. And sure, the bees were flying in and out of the wall :)) If this colony survives the winter we will make sure to catch it and hive it into the Top Bar Hive. Feral colonies which survive on their own are great candidates for treatment free beekeeping. 

6 meters under the entrance there were a few old bees crawling on the ground. They sure are feral Honeybees :) So exciting!

The never ending flowering of Heutchera Firefly

I am truly amazed by how long this marvelous plant can flower :) Its name is Heutchera Firefly and it started blooming in Spring and still doing so now in October ! :) I am truly amazed and so are the bees it seems :) I must buy some seeds and get them growing on our farm next year!

The newly sown White Clover is growing strong

We have sown 1 Hectare with White Clover and grasses for our Sheep and Bees. Im happy to see it is growing very well and I can expect some serious nectar flow next year. White Clover flow never really fails because Clovers need humid climate to be able to make enough nectar and we always have humid summers.

Some Clover has already started to bloom :)

 Field on the South side of our young forest

and field on the West side. In this shot you can see a long row of Willows :) my bees will be so glad when they discover those next Spring :))

By the way this land was used for mono-crop agriculture for a few decades and Im sure there are some Neonicotinoid pesticides still active in the soil. I hope Im not doing more damage than good for my dear bees. I could have waited 2 more years and then plant because it take 3 years for them to break down. Time will tell. Any who this land of ours is to become a Bee Sanctuary from now on so all the local Bumblebees and Solitary Bees as well as Butterflies and Syrphid Flies can find refuge here.

A nearby farmer has sprayed his field with Roundup before plowing it. When you see the plants changing color from green to reddish-yellow its Roundup for sure. How come this can be legal. Im not sure I trust our politicians anymore.