I was lucky enough to be one of the journalists who received funding from the Simon Cumbers Media Challenge Fund for a reporting project this year.

A few weeks ago I traveled to Kenya and Uganda. Going by road from Nairobi to Entebbe I reported on people who keep bees for a series of stories focused on food security.

I traveled alone with a backpack full of equipment: video camera, digital camera and lenses, audio recorder, plenty of tapes and leads and of course paper and pen. The aim was to come back with a multimedia project similar to a series I also did for RTE called Global Classroom.

Today, the first part of the series, The Humble Bee, went live on RTE.ie. It focuses on beekeeping as a means of improving food security on a macro and micro level. It looks at a family who keeps bees to make an income and a farmer who uses bees to improve pollination on his farm. There are videos and photos (more hopefully on the way) and an accompanying radio report, which was broadcast on RTE Radio One on World Report.

The rest of the series will look at other aspects of bee keeping in east Africa including women who keep bees, the environmental impact and the challenges some people face.

This has been a wonderful and challenging series to work on – I hope you enjoy it.

Check it out here
-B

Jonathan Wong, a professional photographer from Singapore came and did some product shoots for my advertising campaign. The results was astonishing! He had brought out the beauty of my work. Below are my two favorite shots!

Liquid Gold by Jonathan Wong

Simply Honey! by Jonathan Wong

Little angels of hope.

Here are the first batch of angels made out of 100% natural beeswax, getting ready to take their maiden flight to Singapore.

Our little angel candles are all natural substance made by bees in contrast to paraffin, a chemical byproduct of the oil industry. The burning characteristics of beeswax candles differ from those of paraffin. A beeswax candle flame has a “warmer,” more yellowish appearance than that of paraffin, and the color of the flame may vary depending on the season in which the wax was harvested. It gets its aroma from the honey and pollen packed into each honeycomb cell. Every individual angel is created from our hand poured mold.

Beeswax candles burn with the spectrum of the sun emitting a brighter, longer burning flame. It is a well established fact that while burning, beeswax candles naturally emit negative ions which clean the air and invigorate the body.

Beeswax is produced in the bee hive of honey bees of the genus Apis. Worker bees (the females) have eight wax-producing mirror glands on the inner sides of the sternites (the ventral shield or plate of each segment of the body) on abdominal segments 4 to 7. The size of these wax glands depends on the age of the worker and after daily flights begin these glands gradually atrophy. The new wax scales are initially glass-clear and colorless, becoming opaque after mastication by the worker bee. The wax of honeycomb is nearly white, but becomes progressively more yellow or brown by incorporation of pollen oils and propolis. The wax scales are about 3 millimetres (0.12 in) across and 0.1 millimetres (0.0039 in) thick, and about 1100 are required to make a gram of wax. Typically, for a honey bee keeper, 10 pounds of honey yields 1 pound of wax.

Western honey bees use beeswax to build honeycomb cells in which their young are raised and honey and pollen are stored. For the wax-making bees to secrete wax, the ambient temperature in the hive has to be 33 to 36 °C (91 to 97 °F). To produce their wax, bees must consume about eight times as much honey by mass. It is estimated that bees fly 150,000 miles, roughly six times around the earth, to yield one pound of beeswax (530,000 km/kg). When beekeepers extract the honey, they cut off the wax caps from each honeycomb cell with an uncapping knife or machine. Its color varies from nearly white to brownish, but most often a shade of yellow, depending on purity and the type of flowers gathered by the bees. Wax from the brood comb of the honey bee hive tends to be darker than wax from the honeycomb. Impurities accumulate more quickly in the brood comb. Due to the impurities, the wax has to be rendered before further use. The leftovers are called slumgum.

Beeswax is also used commercially to make cosmetics and pharmaceuticals including bone wax (cosmetics and pharmaceuticals account for 60% of total consumption), in polishing materials (particularly shoe polish and furniture polish) and as a component of modelling waxes. It is commonly used during the assembly of pool tables to fill the screw holes and the seams between the slates. Squeezebox makers use beeswax as an adhesive, when blended with pine rosin, to attach reed plates to the structure inside an squeezebox. Beeswax candles are preferred in most Eastern Orthodox churches because they burn cleanly, with little or no wax dripping down the sides and little visible smoke. Beeswax is also prescribed as the material (or at least a significant part of the material) for the Paschal candle (“Easter Candle”) and is recommended for other candles used in the liturgy of the Roman Catholic Church.

It is also used as a coating for cheese, to protect the food as it ages. While some cheese-makers have replaced it with plastic, many still use beeswax in order to avoid any unpleasant flavors that may result from plastic. As a food additive, beeswax is known as E901 (glazing agent)

Beeswax has been used since ancient times; traces of it were found in the paintings in the Lascaux cave and in Egyptian mummies. Egyptians used it in shipbuilding as well. In the Roman period, beeswax was used as waterproofing agent for painted walls and as a medium for the Fayum mummy portraits. Nations subjugated by Rome sometimes paid tribute or taxes in beeswax. In the Middle Ages beeswax was considered valuable enough to become a form of currency.

An adventure in Beekeeping, we are two beginner Beekeeping located in the Waitakere Hills in Auckland, New Zealand. Follow us to see how our Beekeeping is going. Feel free to comment on our posts.

Decided to not use my huge gloves today, to see what it would be like. Got stung as the Bee’s seem very aggressive today for some reason. Maybe it was the windy weather, it was bright and sunny but quite windy. But calm down by the hives.

Checked the new Brood Box and it was completely empty, bees but no wax. So I think my placement of putting at the bottom was a mistake. So I have switched them around, empty brood now on top.

The main Brood is almost full of wax, saw Queenie and evidence of lava and still haven’t seen any eggs yet. We didn’t inspect the last four frames as the Bee’s were getting annoyed and the smoker had gone out. Plus my hand was hurting because of the sting, I know but dear reader it hurt.

So put the Real Estate sign installation on the top between the hive mat and the tin roof, there was less condensation that the last time. So I think the hole in the hive mat is a good idea.

M also checked Honey 1, we will we await her blog for that visit.

Next Inspection 5 Dec 2009

Kate Langenburg/A&E Groove

Okay, so lately I have been a reading fiend. (Probably one of the main reasons why I haven’t posted in a bit.) I’ve been spending more time reading than any other thing (except going to work, bah.) My house is laid out randomly, but with bookshelves everywhere. Those shelves hold the key to my entertainment — tons and tons of books I’ve been storing away like a pack rat, but haven’t read yet.

The other day, I went perusing through my bookshelves and came across a little book called The Secret Life of Bees. It’s written by Sue Monk Kidd, an author that I had heard much about, but had never experience for myself. Published a little over two years ago, I have found the book to be a treasure in my library.

It’s about a young girl named Lily Owens, who is coping with the fact that she may or may not have accidentally shot her own mother when she was a toddler. Her father is abusive, and offers few answers to the mysteries that circle around her mother’s death. But still, she spends her days daydreaming about what her mother was like and the short-lived relationship they once shared.

The book is set during the Civil Rights movement. Lily’s black housekeeper, Rosaleen, tries to register to vote and ends up being locked away in prison, not to mention beaten by prejudice townspeople. So Lily busts Rosaleen out of jail and they both flee to a bee farm and live with a group of beekeeper sisters. The farm, however, draws Lily to it by the only clue her mother left behind: a small picture of a black Mary with the town of the bee farm written on the back of it.

Throughout the story, she tries to piece together things about her mother and learn how to care for bees as well. In the end, she finds out that her mother had spent time on the very same farm with the very same sisters. It is up to her to decide how to process all the information she finds about her mother.

I think Sue Monk Kidd’s writing style is one of the most eloquent and beautiful I have ever read. It gives you just enough, reels you out, then pulls you back in stronger than before. Her attention to small details makes it special and her words fill you up with a cozy feeling inside. This book is also great commentary on racial struggles during the Civil Rights movement. This is a great book.

A little while ago, I set up a feeding station for my bees, about 200 meters from the Smallholding. The recent mild weather has meant that the bees have been more active than normal, although the winds of the past few days has restricted their flying. Today was much more calm, and the bees took full advantage, taking in water, feeding on Mahonia, bringing in small quantities of Ivy pollen, and descending en masse onto the feeders. Here are some pictures of them, taken today. The insulating sleeve is sitting in the syrup to help prevent bees falling into the syrup and drowning.

As well as providing food for the bees, the syrup mix contains an essential oil mix, which I am using for varroa treatment, instead of conventional chemicals. I came across a couple of web articles describing their use, and noticed that Apiguard is just synthetic Thyme Oil, Api Life Var is a mixture of essential oils, and so is Vita Feed Green. All are much more expensive than using the essential oils themselves. There are links to these articles in one of my earlier posts, Hectic, Honey and Happy,  which you can find by following the link below.

LINK

The feeders are one gallon poultry water containers, and are hung up in a tree, a short distance form the Smallholding. If they were too close, it would probably lead to robbing of the weaker hives, as the returning foragers would not be able to give a bearing and distance to the new food source, only a message that it is close to the hive, leaving new foragers to investigate the immediate vicinity of the hive, including other hives.

In the pictures you can see that there are a few other insects taking advantage of the free food source. What the pictures do not convey is the noise, and level of activity. There were bees all around me as I moved in to get some close ups. It’s my 50th Birthday next month, and I’m hoping that a camera with a better zoom might be on it’s way, so that I can get better pictures. Watching the bees leaving the feeders, all of them were heading back towards my hives. There are two other beekeepers close by, but their bees don’t appear to have found the free food source.

Bees on Feeder2

More bees on Feeder

Yet more bees on Feeder

Take Care

Deano

Mary Beth: Winter is coming, I think, and even though the weather continues to be unusually warm for this time of year, I’ve been getting the bees ready.

So, what about the bees? Every time I tell someone that Ray and I are moving back to Colorado (Ch, Ch, Changes), I hear this question. I’ll say, “We’re leaving.” and then, wait for it, wait for it…a look of dismay and “What about the bees?!” Of course it’s logical, but I’ve been a little surprised and amused that the fate of my bees worries them. On the other hand it’s nice that my friends and readers have become so engrossed in this story that one of their first thoughts is for the bees.

So here is the answer.

Out of the three hives that I ended up with after the swarm season, the Top Bar Hive is the only one that survived.

The Hippie Shack

For some reason the other two lost their queens after they swarmed (read about it here and here) and I ended up shaking out the remaining bees in front of the TBH in hopes that they would be accepted into the hive. Losing the Blue and Green hives made me very sad — I was surprised by how much I’ve come to love my bees.

As for the Hippie Shack (named in honor of the laid-back nature of these bees), I checked it recently and it didn’t have as much honey as I thought it should. I think the hive was being robbed. I put an entrance reducer in to make the the hole smaller to give the guard bees less area to defend. Now, even with the warm weather prolonging the season, I’m worried that they won’t have time to store enough food to make it through the winter.

Since Ray and I decided to leave after the holidays, I’ve been trying to figure out how to leave the bees with enough food. I researched fondant ‘bee candy’ and it seemed like a good solution, so I made a frame to hold it and placed that in the hive.

This small frame holds 5 pounds of sugar fondant!

Another good thing about the bee candy is it won’t cause the moisture problems inside the hive that the sugar syrup did in the early spring. I placed the fondant between the false back and the last comb hoping it wouldn’t attract any more robber bees.

I hope the warm weather will last long enough to let them build up their supplies. Every day they’ve been coming in with a lot of pollen, which is a very good thing.

Dandelions and the last of the aster are blooming, so I think this is where they are getting the bright orange pollen.

Another sign that the bees are preparing for winter is each day a few more drones have been getting kicked out of the hive. I watched this play out one day — those girls are ruthless!

Poor drone!

One poor male was pulled by his leg and tossed out like yesterday’s paper. It’s a cruel, cruel world my friends, but there is not enough to go around in winter for lazy freeloaders.

I moved the hive from it’s original spot so it will get maximum sun exposure all winter. This should allow the bees to break cluster on sunny winter days.

I also wrapped the hive to give it a little more insulation and to keep the wind out. Now it’s up to the bees. Other than a few more feedings before we leave for Colorado, my girls are on their own until March.

You may wonder why I haven’t given the hive away. I did consider moving the hive to my friend’s property, but I was afraid if I moved it up the steep, bumpy road to my friend’s house, a comb or two might break off ruining any chance of the bees’ survival. So I decided to leave them where they are on my family’s property. I’ll fly back east in the spring for a visit and check on the bees and I’ve arranged for my beekeeper friends to check on them now and then. Fortunately the TBH needs little maintenance and the bees will take care of themselves.

Becoming a beekeeper has been a wonderful journey. Learning about honeybees opened up new worlds for me, not just the world of honeybees in my garden, but the important roles of all pollinators and how critical every last one of them is. It’s led me to examine the negative impact we’ve all had on our environment. I’ve been reading about the decline of the honeybee from Colony Collapse Disorder — just one of many examples of our carelessness towards our environment. But the good thing is it’s made me more aware of what I’ve been doing.

So, with that new-found awareness, I try to do my part to help by adding native plants to the existing flower gardens. And I’ve decided that I will delay mowing the outer fields until after the first frost to allow time for the last of the butterflies to emerge from their cocoons and to let the wildflowers reseed themselves for next year.

Of course, at the center of it all is the honeybee, the incredible little powerhouse.  If you have not yet read any books on honeybees, you should. Some of the things you learn will astound you.

It’s been a great year even with the loss of two hives and no honey to harvest. And next spring I will have a hive in Colorado with even more challenges — bears, skunks and who knows what else, but I have a plan!

Register for a beginners’ beekeeping workshop hosted by the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff.

The workshop will be held Friday, December 4 at the S. J Parker Extension Auditorium (2300 L. A. “Prexy” Davis Drive) in Pine Bluff. Learn all about the biology, ecology and behavior of honeybees. Opportunities will be offered for questions and answers as well as hands on activities with bee keeping equipment.

Here’s the draft agenda:

• 8:00-9:00 Registration (coffee)
• 9:00-10:15 An Introduction to Honey Bees – Jon Zawislak
• 10:15-10:45 Break
• 11:15-12:00 How to set up a honey bee hive (video) – Yong Park
• 12:00-1:00 Lunch
• 1:00-2:00 Demonstration of hives and equipment for beekeeping – Danny Glover
• 2:00-2:30 Question/Answer
• 2:30 Workshop Adjourns

You must register by Friday, November 20, so hurry!

For more information, contact Dr. Leslie Glover (870-575-8822 or gloverl@uapb.edu) or Dr. Yong Park (870-575-7245 or parky@uapb.edu).

After a week of rest, we went back to organize our first colony of bees for our relocation exercise. The process is tedious but it is better to be safe than sorry. The colony will be placed in a bee proof cage for double protection. The bee hive itself will also be sealed except a small portion which we will only cover it with wire mesh.

All this were being done the night before because we have to wait for the foragers to come back. If not, when morning comes, some of the foragers will be left behind. We try to relocate the whole colony if possible.

It will be a slow two and a half hours drive from Kampala to Masaka. Setting off at 5am, hopefully with no traffic jams, reaching Timothy Centre by 9am. We have to abide to the schedule in order that we can quickly release the bees when we reach our destination.

Francis preparing to seal the top part of the hive.

Any gap that is more than 49mm must be sealed. If not the bees will escape.

We leave the last few bars free from tapes so that the bees can breathe through it. A fine wire mesh is place instead.

Wire mesh neatly covering the last few bars.

Francis is pleased that the whole process was done without aggravating the bees.

The colony is going to spend a night in my car.

Preparing to place the beehive inside the bee-proof cage.

Helmut came to assist while I was taking all these photos.

Colony safely inside my car.

The next morning at 5am, the journey starts. Luckily there wasn’t much traffic. We need to get out of town as quickly as possible just in case if there were any mishap or the bees somehow escape. We will then be endangering the public. Keeping our fingers crossed all the way.

Reached Timothy Centre around 9am. A black cloth is used to cover the cage to reduce the light from entering the hive. The bees will then be less active, less stressed.

Karl and his staffs were already waiting for our arrival.

The bees are going to their new home.

Timothy Centre bees haven.

The colony has reached its destination.

The bees are settling in for now.

Due to the aggressive nature of Api Meliferra Scutellata, relocation of these species, great care must be taken. One cannot slack in any of the procedure. Most important aspect when handling these bees is to minimize as much direct contact with them. The amount of smoke being introduced must be just right. Many Ugandan bee farmers are still having this idea of smoking too much, thus aggravating and suffocating the bees.

Once the bees are settled in, we release them. As for the tapes, we shall remove them as we perform our regular hive management. We do not remove all the tapes immediately, if not we will experience the whole colony pouring out, attacking anything within 100m.

Interested in keeping bees? Wanna meet fellow beekeepers? Then, come to Central Arkansas Beekeepers’ Association’s monthly meeting, 6:30 p.m., Monday, November 9th at the Levy Church of Christ (5124 Camp Robinson Road) in North Little Rock.

We signed up for our beekeeping classes tonight!

The first 3 Saturday’s in March we will be occupied learning about the bees we’ll soon be getting! March is a long way off, but it’ll be here before I know it! I am really excited to see those glorious boxes of bees. How awesome will our honey ‘bee’ I tell you!

Now that it’s looking like an actual reality I need to purchase those beekeeping books. I have only a small list of them but I’d like to have them read before we undertake the class. That way I can get the most out of the classes. There is so much in the way of language to beekeeping. Things like supers, frames, brood, excluders and more.

Should be fun!

After yesterday BeeKeeper club meeting, I asked a couple of people how to stop condensation in the hive.

Goldie seems to have a big problem with water build up in the roof, most people agreed that cutting a hole in the Bee Matt which is actually the layer below the tin roof. May help this issue, as it causes the heat from the hive to rise up through the hole and push the water down the walls.

So we did this to our new hive matt and added it to Goldie today, we also added a second brood box at the lower level. This is to make the Bee’s fill it up quicker. We have been told…

The hive inspection went well, with signs of new bees and lots of new brood and capped food. Did see the queen near the middle, but then lost her in a crowd of bees.

Also removed all the door blockers as the hive is very strong now, hopefully it can fend off any attack from other bees or wasps (not strong this time of year)

Honey1 is also back up and running with a NUC placed in it today, M will tell you more in her blog post.

Hive looks good, will do another inspection in two weeks 22 Nov 2009.

See ya…G

Michelle Obama has brought beekeeping to the White House, and the New York Times has a lovely three minute video story about this activity that connects the president’s home with Washington DC’s seasonal trees and flowers, and school children. The honey is eaten at the White House and offered as a gift to world leaders.

With the First Family of the United States involved, ultra-local honey production is certain to influence residential and corporate beekeeping around the world. It is the first time that honey has been produced at the White House. This symbolic and practical activity is a great beacon for urban agriculture and ecology.

A related article talks about how the Obamas’ personal chef is involved with food policy making.

Barbara: I got a call this morning from Mary Beth directing me to Garden Rant blog. Today’s guest rant, “Who cares about honeybees, anyway?” by Xris, the Flatbush Gardener had gotten her all worked up, and rightly so. As I read it, I could feel my blood pressure rising. This rant, by someone who is mostly on the right side of issues we care about, had such a flip, dismissive attitude towards honeybees and CCD that we could barely contain ourselves.

So what’s a blogger to do when she’s spittin’ mad? Well, blog, of course. So here’s our rant — minus the typos in our original comment on the GR site — about today’s Garden Rant rant. (That’s a lotta rantin’!)

“While we agree with the idea of supporting native pollinators, we strongly disagree with Xris’ shortsighted dismissal of the importance of the honeybee which seems to be based on the notion that it is not part of the ecosystem and therefore expendable. Really?! Though not a native species, honeybees have been a part of the ecosystem (which is the relationship of living organisms and the environment), like it or not, since the colonists arrived.

CCD is important not only because it’s killing an irreplaceable agricultural asset, but because it’s a symptom of a greater problem. Honeybees are essentially the “canary in the coal mine”. They are in trouble because they are treated and managed as livestock — fed cheap, non-nutritious HFCs, trucked across the country, worked under extremely stressful conditions, and then dosed with chemical cocktails to eliminate parasites that have taken advantage of their weakened state. This mentality has gotten us into serious trouble with more than honeybees, as a tour of any feedlot will show.

Because of the CCD “alarmists”, scientists have discovered that our unsustainable practices, such as chemical pesticide usage and mono-cropping, have led to the die-off of native species as well — a fact that might have gone unnoticed until it was too late as it did in an area of China that was so overdosed with pesticides that the local population must HAND POLLINATE crops or starve.

Our use of honeybees as pollinators is not the problem. The problem is how we treat them and the rest of the ecosystem as if it were there only for our benefit. Until we realize that we are a small part of the bigger picture and treat the earth and all its creatures as if they matter and with respect for their needs, we are in danger of killing the very things that keep us alive.”

At this point, having gotten it off our chests, we might feel better, except that we don’t. It all matters, every last little bit and time is running short, people. Every one of us needs to give a crap and DO SOMETHING! So, yes, create hedgerows and other habitats for pollinators, keep some hives, plant native species and use organics for pest control. But, please don’t downplay the issue of honeybee disapperance and Colony Collapse Disorder as old news or as not important. The stakes are too high.

Mary Beth and Barbara

Soon all these colonies will be transported to Masaka to start the training school. We will have to do a pre flight check to make sure we understood the stucture of each and every one of the hive in order to have them transferred without any hiccups.

Helmut and I had been keeping bees in our garden in Kampala for the last 5 years. All good things must come to an end. He will be leaving Uganda soon and I had taken the task to adopt his bees. They will come in very handy for my training school at Timothy Centre, Masaka.

An amazing friend that shared the same passion as I. In fact his experience in beekeeping is far more greater than mine for he has been based in a few African countries and he had always kept bees.

We went to his place around 1930hrs but the rain had disrupted our schedule and finally at around 2045hrs, the sky managed to clear and we proceed on with the checks.

Francis, my bee master, who will be the overall in charge of the training school at Timothy’s, assisted me is making my rounds. So far I am very pleased with his performance and the way he handles the bees, although there are still a lot of rooms for improvement.

We had to perform our harvest and check in the night because Kampala is really saturated with residential housing and we do not want the bees to disturb the neighbors should they became cranky.

There are a few reasons why we are harvesting some of the honey. When the volume of honey is reduced, the bees tend to be less aggressive because they have less honey to protect. At the same time, the hive will be much lighter for us to transport them for the 2 hrs drive.

Comb honey is highly in demand from the expatriates community because these “Muzungus” honey lover truly appreciate fresh comb honey harvested directly from the hive without going through any processing or filtering. Honey at its purest!

The fascinating sight of having the comb honey being sliced open, watching the liquid gold flowing down onto the platter, makes one wonder how nature had created such a small yet dynamic insect, being able to interact socially amongst themselves without a single conflict.

Although African bees are known to be very aggressive, they still do display its gentle side, provided we as human being, listen to them more attentively and not try to force ourselves onto them during harvesting. No clashes will occur.

The result – beautiful comb honey with little or no casualties on both parties. Many a times, bee farmers are too eager to get the job done. They approached the hive with only one intention…… get the honey and go. Whether the bees are destroy or not is secondary. To me, this is honey hunting.

Whenever I harvest honey, I will always think of this friend of mine, Joanna Yue. We used to play squash together back home occasionally and will always share her squash knowledge when we played. She once told me that in order to play good squash, I have to think of the process, not the outcome. So long as I set the process right, the outcome will be right.

In beekeeping, I applied the same principle. Thinking of the process, by listening to the bees, observing their movement and behaviour, practicing patience. The outcome will see me having that beautiful comb taken out from the hive successfully with little or no stings. I do feel a great sense of achievement whenever I managed to harvest fresh comb honey without agitating the bees and being able to keep their temperament at bay.

Every road that we walked, every path that we take, it’s all about life experiences. It’s just a matter of how one adapt to the situation and environment. Even a young lady nearly half my age, had shared a life skill so valuable that I am applying it now.

Anyone care to have a taste of fresh comb honey?

Quelques soucis avec le varroa que je surveille de pres,car l’année derniere c’est a cette epoque qu’il m’avait laminé les populations,je passe un temps fou a compter les varroas qui tombent sur les langes,il reste entre 50 et400 varroas dans les ruches et la question est:sont elles capables de supporter ça jusqu’au traitement d’hiver a l’acide oxalique,oui et non ca depend des popus! et les popus sont décroissantes jour apres jour,je pense que je vais avancer le traitement car elles sont en arret de ponte total depuis la derniere gelée autant en profiter pour  dezinguer les varroas, ce qui soulage beaucoup les ruches.Le probleme avec l’oxalique c’est qu’il est difficilement supportable par les petites populations et qu’en bio il n’y a pas d’autres alternatives,alors soit il faudra utiliser l’amitraze soit ne pas traiter les ruches trop faibles ce qui risque de pas les aider à demarrer au printemps tout  en infestant le rucher!!!que faire??

rangement des  hausses

phacelie au 1er novembre,elle a supporté les gelées et fleurs à nouveau!vous pouvez tous en semer dans vos jardins,exelent engrais vert,piege a nitrate,protege le sol été comme hiver,tres facile a eliminer(roulage),on trouve de la semence dans les coop agri car les agriculteurs la decouvrent en grand…(5 à 10 euros le kg de semence)

une experience d’apiculture intensive

c’est un rucher de 19 ruches mises en hivernage fin 2008,au printemps 2009, 17 ruches sont vivantes et tres saines,elles recoivent un nourrisement stimulant(0,5l) les 1,10,20mars et1,10,20avril,date a laquelle 7 ruches sont prelevés pour partir sur l’accacia puis la montagne et on  divise toutes les autres (10 ruches) en 2 , on deplace la souche contenant la reine,10 jours plus tard on passe moissoner les cellules sauf 1 ou2, pour distribuer  à des nucleis,faits dans un autre rucher mais qui sont orphelins,on continue à nourrir  celles qui ont une reine en ponte et vers fin mai on equilibre les populations ,arret nourrissement et debut pose des hausses,suivi de la miellée ,fin juillet recoltes

debut mars:17 colonies           debut aout:27 colonies ,18 nucleis,12 reines utilisées par ailleurs,1 seul essaim naturel

miel:accacia:145kg toutes fleurs:345kg montagne:150kg   640kg/17=37,6kg moy

comme ça parait simple et facile mais il n’en est rien,il faut suivre  comme le lait sur le feu,nombreuses visites, heures a scanner les cadres à bout de bras, et petits ajustements qui font toute la difference…

Mais ce n’est pas fini car on peut continuer avec  un orhelinage de toutes les vielles reines(2008) au 14 juillet,9 jours plus tard,flash formique ou autre(nettoyage varroas),destruction des cellules et intoduction de 2 reines en ponte dans 2 ruchettes recevant chacune la motié des cadres, suivre et nourrir leger avec tous les soins on peut esperer une petite cinquantaine de ruches à jeune reine,l’année suivante…

Cette conduite est pour nous trop intensive et demanderai trop de travail si nous l’appliquions à toutes nos ruches,mais on continue à la valider sur un petit effectif au cas ou cela devienne encore plus difficile d’elever des abeilles,ce qui est dejà le cas aujourd’hui au vu des problèmes rencontrés  sur la terre entiere.( surmortalités inquietantes et degats à l’environnement )

en savoir plus ici :19 petits films avec interviews des acteurs et observateurs:  http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=Ananda4h20#p/u/14/e55SoTaQowc ( debut avec le 00 puis 01 etc…)

Autre essai cette année avec les reines selectionnées pour resistance au varroa,j’ai peu de chose a dire pour le moment,on les a installé ,la comparaison c’est pour l’année prochaine ,erik avec qui je fais cet essai veut en acheter 10 de plus pour accroitre la base genetique, à suivre…plus par celui qui aurait pu y arriver:frere Adam

http://www.pedigreeapis.org/biblio/artcl/FAtoulouse91fr.html

autres liens vers ses dernieres recomandations:   http://perso.fundp.ac.be/~jvandyck/homage/artcl/FAcolmar87fr.html

http://perso.fundp.ac.be/~jvandyck/homage/artcl/FAgrenoble87fr.html

un reseau apicole qu’on a du mal à s’ installer en france,mais qui marche pourtant au quebec:

http://www.agrireseau.qc.ca/apiculture/

tiens tiens, le larvicide fenoxycarbe  utilisé en france(arbo viti) et suspecté d’effondrements de ruches est suspendu en suisse?:  http://www.blw.admin.ch/psm/produkte/index.html?lang=fr&item=239 c’est vrai que chez nous, les nuages empoisonés  s’arretent aux frontières!

on finit en musique cette moisson du web un peu trop serieuse:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6FImGGsEjw&feature=related

et puis un petit jeu video bien drole:http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xar260_copier-coller_webcam

et l’initiative formidable d’un ami:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80n6JSNMyzI

This is probably the most difficult article I’ve ever written for GSM. Why?

This makes me so uncomfortable...

Because I hate bees. I HATE them. I used to leave classrooms because of them, I hide behind people because of them, and I stare with paranoia into soda cans when drinking them outside, because of this stripy little insect.  I won’t go into the real details of this phobia, however (we’ll just cite an overly dramatic 90s TV show about anaphylactic shock, and a little bug chasing food into my mouth), because they need help.

There are many types of bees: bumblebees, yellow jackets, wasps, carpenter bees, honeybees, and hornets (I don’t like any of them). But the most biologically important of this crew is the honeybee, Apis mellifera. The list of crops they pollinate is astounding – fruits, veggies, and plants as essential as onions, mustard, watermelon…even coffee! (Clearly coming at this from an American perspective, HA). One estimate I read said every one in three bites of our food would not be possible without a pollinator like the honeybee.  (This is also due to the fact that they pollinate the food our livestock consume, but that’s a whole other green issue).

Honeybee & Milk Thistle

The global population of honeybees is being affected by something known as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). It sounds like the plot of some insect thriller flick! Honeybees might have a colony with somewhere between ten and fifty thousand bees – and they all at once up and leave, never to return. And there aren’t even any dead bee bodies left around by the hive (insert evil laughter). We don’t have definite answers as to why this happens, but it probably is a combination of some of the following: insect diseases, malnutrition, pesticides, genetically modified (GM) crops, other environmental stressors or even cell-phone radiation. I’m envisioning a honeybee version of I Am Legend.

Varroa mites seem to be one of the most likely culprits of the die-off thus far (and they’re ugly as hell): “These are parasites that attack hives and suck out the honeybees fluids, leaving them weak and prone to infections”  (www.honeybeesite.info). Now THAT is a movie I’d watch under a pillow. Yuck.

Beekeeper - www.thedailygreen.com

 Beekeepers began reporting the loss of hundreds of thousand of their bees in 2006, but they may not have all fallen victim to CCD. During the winter of 2008-09, 28.6% of honeybees were reported lost, with 15% being attributed to CCD (vanEngelsdorp, Hayes, & Pettis 2009).

Fortunately, a Science Daily article gives us a promising look at the future of our food, with an antibiotic called flumagillin.  It seemed to allow for the recovery of a hive infected by CCD, but I can’t find much follow up research on the drug. Does it work long-term, does it create other issues, and is it readily available for most bee-keepers? Other than that, many websites recommend purchasing your honey (which will become increasingly expensive) from local famer’s markets. Plant lots of flowers (like alliums, mints, most beans, and daisy-shaped flowers) that will keep them well-fed. And for the extremist among you (or just the US Presidents among you)… keep your own hive!

Bees have also been gaining some corporate sponsorships from Haagen Dazs and Burt’s Bees. Sorry, bees. I don’t love you anymore than I did this morning. But I’ll keep hiding, and let you live.

More on this topic: Room for Debate, NY Times, September 09

Over a year and a half ago, Josh decided he wanted to embark on the journey of beekeeping – as a hobby.  So one Saturday morning, we drove to an industrial area in downtown where there is (believe it or not) a beekeeping supply warehouse.  The old guy at the counter had incredible knowledge of all things bees.  Anything and everything you wanted to know about bees, this guy knew!

A couple hundred dollars later, we had our very first beehive.  So where were we going to put this thing?  We begged Josh’s grandmother (who has the biggest backyard in the world) and she hesitantly agreed that we could keep the beehive in her backyard.  We promised her that the benefit to her would be a LOT more fruit on her fruit trees the following Spring and Summer.  She said ok but was still a little nervous about it.
It only took a couple weeks for her to warm up to the bee’s and in no time they were some of her best friends!

Fast forward to this year (about a month or so ago) and this is the liquid gold that was awaiting us in the hive.   It’s as if it were a thank you gift from the bee’s for letting them have the opportunity to do their very hard job in privacy.. yet also an apology for the times they may have been difficult (like when they swarmed and stung Josh repeatedly – he was sore for days).
But after tasting this amazing honey (raw and fresh from the hive), you can’t help but forgive them and hope they stay for a very long time.  They are like family now.