Magical Orientation Flights

As soon a new Bee hatches it takes on a house work, like cleaning, feeding larvae, turning nectar into honey, etc ... once it becomes 3 weeks old she will spend another 3 weeks as a Forager Bee. Worker Bees live no more than 6 weeks (much longer during the winter time).
The first day of flying the Bee will perform something called an Orientation Flight, scanning the hive and the immediate surrounding to memorize where it lives. After that she will begin to forage for nectar, pollen, water, propolis and minerals (one can often see bees collecting something from chicken or cow feces, even wet soil).
Each time they do orientation flights I make sure to sit near the hive and let their magical buzzing fill my mind :)
I hope you will enjoy this video;

Queen Cell opened at the end tip and the side - Explained

I believed that all Queen Cells opened at their side are the ones where that virgin Queen was killed by the Queen which emerged first or killed by the bees in case they don't need her.

I also found in most bee books and net that a QC opened at the end tip indicates that a young Virgin Queen has emerged. But this is not entirely so :)

In one of my nucleus hives I assumed after seeing the QC being destroyed/opened at its side that they have killed the young queen and I gave them another comb with fresh eggs but as it turned out they already had a Virgin Queen.

I was puzzled until I went to my beekeeping friend last week and looked at his Queen Mating stations. He breeds Queens in small cassettes which have glass walls on two sides for easy inspection and MOST of the Queen Cells were opened at their sides !!!
I don't get it! Why would worker bees release the queen through the side wall which is much thicker than the thin end tip wall???

This experience have shown that bees can release their virgin queen in both way; through the end tip and through the side wall.

This was a great lesson learned for me so I felt to share it.

Fireweed is blooming

Hive Inspection June 23rd

I have inspected all 6 Top Bar Hives 2 days ago but had no time to blog about it so I'm going to do it now.

Both mother colonies which have lost their old Queens due to me making splits have raised new Queens :) They are not virgins anymore since they have started laying eggs :) so happy about it :) They look very long and absolutely beautiful :)

The first two splits have 3 year old Queens and they are developing nicely. I gave them more space (empty top bar on each side of the brood nest and spacing in the honey area).

I have also made 2 queenless nucleus hives and one has a gorgeous Virgin Queen (not yet mated) and the other one has a very short Queen which very much looks like a Worker Bee. Such Queen is called an Intercast Queen which was made from a worker larvae older than 3 days resulting in a inferior Queen. Such Queen can start laying only Drone eggs but in some cases beekeepers report that she will also lay worker eggs and the bees will supersede her after a couple of month. I will get a few 2 year old Queens from my bee inspector for free and will very likely re-queen this nucleus and make one or two more depending on how many mated Queens I get from him.

All in all Im happy with the results so far :)

 Here you can see how I rearranged the honey comb to encourage the bees to continue building them faster. I always try to have one whole honey comb at the end so to avoid cross-combing. Usually I would place one empty top bar just before the last comb but this time I spaced the brood nest also so I didn't want to create too much work for my ladies

 Borage has begun to flower. I hope the bees will find it

 I have found this flowering plant on one field nearby and decided to plant it around our property. I have seen a few bees on these flowers. I don't know this plants name but it seems to be a perennial plant?

Betty seems interested in the flowers ... 

Apparently Honey Bee stings are very healthy

I forgot to report that I've got stung a few ... well dozen times yesterday while helping the Mykorrhiza group to move bees from their frame hive into the Kenya Top Bar Hive. I'm not go into the details why bees got pissed off with us but they were VERY PISSED OFF indeed :) at least a few hundred bees were in FULL ATTACK! Here are a few photos of some of the worst stings (I've got one in the head and a few more on the body which didn't cause much redness) By the way I was fully dressed; bee suit, veil, rubber boots and thick rubber gloves which stopped at least 30 more stings to get to my skin. I know this because I took them out of the suit and veil later on.

I do feel ok though, just itching is present today.
Apparently bee stings are considered very healthy if not allergic to it :)

"Bee venom therapy is the part of apitherapy which utilizes bee venom in the treatment of health conditions. Apitherapy is the use of beehive products, including honey, pollen, propolis, royal jelly, bee venom. It has been used since ancient times to treat arthritis, rheumatism, back pain, skin diseases and in this modern age as an alternative therapy to treat multiple sclerosis, Lyme disease and chronic fatigue syndrome. Bee venom comes from the stingers of honey bees who use it in defense of the bee colony.

Bee venom is a rich source of enzymes, peptides and biogenic amines. There are at least 18 active components in the venom which have some pharmaceutical properties. The effect mechanism of the venom is not entirely know yet. Scientists believe it can modify the way the immune system functions in the body and contribute to increased cortisol production.

Traditionally, bee venom was administered with live bees by stimulating them to sting in the affected area, trigger points or acupuncture points. Depending on the nature of the disease, the standardized venom can be used in a cream, liniment, ointment or injection form. Bee venom is most effective when it comes directly from the live bee during the late spring to early fall season when bees have a good pollen source to produce potent venom. Their venom during the winter period is less potent. Next to the effect of a live bee, injectable venom solution is considered to be a standard method to administer bee venom. Venom solution is prepared from pure bee venom (Apis Venenum Purum) and is a homeopathic preparation. It is administered intradermally just between the skin layers or subcutaneously under the skin to imitate the effect of a bee sting. Each injection is equivalent to or is less than the average dry venom sac content of a honey bee. Bee venom is also used topically in creams, liniments and ointments. The application of venom solution with electrophoresis or ultrasonophoresis is practiced in Europe and China.

Bee venom therapy is practiced by health practitioners and lay apitherapists. There are treatment protocols available to follow. In general, the therapy starts with the determination of whether the patient is allergic to the venom by administering a small amount of venom intradermally. If no allergic reaction develops within a certain time, the therapy is continued with the administration of one to two bee stings or injections. The therapy is carried out every other day (three times a week) by gradually increasing the number of bee stings or injections. The length of the therapy is determined by the nature and severity of the condition.

There is discomfort associated with the administration of bee venom including pain, itching, swelling, inflammation and redness. Symptoms like redness, swelling and itching are desired effects of the therapy showing the response of the patient to the venom. The more severe the reaction, but not anaphylaxis, the faster the recovery. Anaphylactic reactions which can be life threatening are also reported from bee venom, but they are rare.

The literature of bee venom therapy is very extensive and lists over 2,000 titles. There are basic guidelines of the therapy which need to be followed. The education on the part of the patient and the therapist is critical and the obtained result is proportional to the knowledge and experience of the administrator of the venom.

Bee venom therapy is an alternative form of healing. In the hands of a licensed practitioner, it is considered to be safe and can be used when the patient does not respond to conventional treatment methods."
Source

Network Mykorrhiza moved bees into their Kenya Top Bar Hive

It has happened :) Network Mykorrhiza moved a Queen-right split from their frame hive into their first ever Top Bar Hive :) which we have built several weeks ago. Not many keep bees in Top Bar Hives in Sweden. I know about 9 beeks doing so which is not that many so this was a very important day for the bees indeed :)
We placed this hive in a small shrubbery behind the University of Agriculture in Alnarp.

Kenya Top Bar Hive in action

After we moved the Queen with 5 combs into the Top Bar
Hive we assembled the frame hive

The ladies are inspecting their new top entrance

After we finished with transferring the bees into the Top Bar Hive we
went back to the gardening lab to have a chat about what has to be done
next week. 

Why do I keep bees?

Let us whisper now ... contemplate ... why do I keep bees? ...
I remember last year reading in The Barefoot Beekeeper book by Phil Chandler about honey bees being in great trouble thanks to the overuse of pesticides and thanks to the bee unfriendly conventional beekeeping practice. Since I am interested in living on a farm as a self-sufficient homesteader I quickly realised that without bees there will be no food. They are way too important to just ignore this fact!

So I looked into this so called Natural Beekeeping in Top Bar Hives (TBH) which is bee friendly. I have built 2 TBHs last year and bought one colony and caught one prime swarm. My beekeeping journey had begun!

But am I a beekeeper really? The word "beekeeper" in my opinion has a very negative connotation, mainly focusing on honey production, making money from pollinating mono crop fields and bee unfriendly manipulation. I just can't call myself a beekeeper!

So what am I then? I'm not in it for the honey or money from pollination, nor from selling nucleus hives nor Queens.

Some people call themselves Bee Guardians. They mainly focus on preserving the bees, both honey bees and solitary bees. Just like me.

Words are very important for us humans and words bring energy with them. Energy which can bring you up or down. Words like idiot and darling will create different effect in a person when spoken to them, no?
The same can be applied to calling oneself a Beekeeper or Bee Guardian.

Bee Guardian has a clear purpose; creating a bee friendly environment both in the hive and in the environment. Bee Guardian does not rob bees off honey and then feed them with sugar syrup. Bees are to live as natural as possible in any given locality. We live in a era of large pesticide laden mono-crop agriculture so talking about bee friendly natural ecosystem based on healthy biodiversity is part of a fairy tale these days.
But Bee Guardian does plant for bees constantly to enrich their diet.

So next time someone asks me are you a beekeeper I will say with a smile on my face "No, Im not :) I am a Bee Guardian :) "

What are you?