Yes, fellow beekeepers: I'm baaaack!

It has been seven months since my last post on this blog.  So needless to say, I am a little behind.  Nay, I'm way behind.  Even thought I had the best intentions of jumping online and update my blog, something would come along and my ambition would be set aside.  But I do appreciate the messages or emails from several of you who just wanted to make sure that I'm still alive and kicking. The good news is, yes, I'm very much alive and kicking.  The bad news is that the realities of life got in the way of me keeping everyone updated on what was going on.  So let me catch everyone up from then until now.

The last part of 2011 was somewhat of a mess for me.  I'm fond of telling people that I was wide awake on New Year's Eve, not so much to celebrate the grand entrance of 2012, but to make sure 2011 was gone for good (and good riddance too).  

My mom was sick quite a bit in 2011 which included several hospitalizations, so my brother and I had to make sure my dad was taken care of while she was away.  Plus there were countless trips to and from the hospital too.  Luckily she got well and was able to finally come home.  Once she was stable and settled at home again, we got to go on vacation in September and spent a great week at the beach.  But it seemed as if once I got back home, life got hectic with work and other things that took up a lot of my time so many things fell by the wayside.  From Labor Day to the New Year, especially during the holidays, it is a really busy time in the broadcasting business anyway. 

I started feeling really bad in mid October, physically ill, and thought I may have developed an ulcer.  But as the days passed, the pain I felt became more localized, so I finally went to see a doctor (after changing my self-diagnosis to a hernia).  Thank goodness I'm not a doctor.  It wasn't an ulcer or a hernia; it was my appendix which was at the point of rupture.  After having a CT scan, the doctor would not let me leave the hospital and they started pumping me full of antibiotics for an early surgery the next morning.  Thank goodness it all came out just fine and I only had to spend two and a half days in the hospital.  My only real pain afterward was the bills that started rolling in.  I think I received a bill from every doctor within 10 miles of the hospital.

But then November rolled around and more problems came along.  As I started feeling better, our beloved Fritz, a Dachshund we adopted from the local pound, started feeling poorly.  We took him for several visits to the veterinarian to find out what was wrong, but an ultrasound revealed the worst fears we had.  He had cancer of the liver.  In the thirteen years he was with us, he had been through so much.  He had survived several surgeries to remove stones in his bladder and various cysts here and there too.  In the last three years he became totally blind, but he did really well with it because he had learned his way around the house and was always with us.  But this cancerous tumor was something he couldn't fight and we knew time was running out and running out fast.  Two weeks after the diagnosis, old and weak, he lost his fight.  With us surrounding him with all the love we could muster, he drew his last breath and left us for good.  Truthfully, it was one of the toughest moments in my entire adult life. And four months later, it is still hard and not a day goes by when I don't think of him.  I plan to post more on him later.

The Christmas holidays rolled around on time, and while I had finished everything I needed to do (including shopping and cooking)..I started feeling really worn down on Christmas Eve.  Thinking that I was just physically and mentally tired from the holiday rush, I finished what I needed to do and had dinner that night with my family at my parent's home.  After dinner, I went back to my own home and was so tired that I just couldn't hold my head up so I went to bed.  You guessed it!  Just a few hours later, I was really, really sick.  I'll spare you the gory details, but it turned out to be a really nasty case of the flu.  I finally got to see my family doctor on the day after Christmas (being a cheapskate, I wasn't going to fork out $500+ for an emergency room visit) and one shot and two bottles of medicine later, I finally started to feel better. So much better that I stayed up on New Year's Eve to watch 2011 leave for good.  It was a really bad year and I'm glad it is gone forever.

I'll spare you January and February of this year other than to say they were pretty good months overall.  And March has been pretty darn good too.  My area of North Carolina was in spring weather way before it arrived officially on the calendar.  Luckily all four of my bee colonies survived the winter although I probably wasn't as attentive to them last fall as I should have been.  Over the last month, hardly a day goes by that I don't see a flurry of bees in front of each hive although one of them appears to be weaker than the rest.  I plan to spend some time over the next few days with them and see what is going on internally.  But as you can see from the picture, my girls are definitely taking advantage of the nice warm days of spring.  

So yes friends, I'm back.  I plan to try to post regularly and let you know what is happening with me and the bees at our humble apiary in the Triad area of North Carolina.  And once again, thanks to everyone who sent a message to check and see if I'm still around.  It means so much to know that even though I haven't met many of you personally, you still care.  Beekeepers are like that!   We're a special lot!

Bee good!

-Mark

Here we go again? Scientist claims cell phones to blame for bee deaths...

Mark's note: Greetings fellow beekeepers! While I think I'm pretty open to the various theories of Colony Collapse Disorder, I'm not so sure that I buy the cell phone theory as the cause.  Several years ago, this theory made the rounds and was later debunked by scientists as complete hogwash.  But now there appears to be a new cell phone/CCD theory making the rounds thanks to Dr. Daniel Favre who previously worked as a biologist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.  Now he claims that his study shows that an active cellular phone disturbs bees.  The reason I don't necessarily buy it is because in my years of working in radio and television broadcasting, I've noticed that some insects like wasps and hornets seem to be attracted to the signals emitted from transmitters.  While I'm not a broadcasting engineer, my own eyes have spotted countless wasp and hornet nests around the "dog houses" that encase AM/FM/TV transmitters and antenna equipment.  Even a good friend of mine, who is a broadcast engineer, said that he's noticed throughout his career how they're attracted to the signals.  And even though cellular signals are different than AM/FM/TV broadcast signals, I just don't believe that cell phones are driving bees away from their hives.  For right now, I lean towards the chemical poisoning theory and believe that bees are bringing something home (which they share) and that causes the bees to leave and forget how to find their way back.  But of course, I could be wrong.  Anyway, now that I've finished my stand on the soapbox, now its your turn to read the article and decide for yourself.  The article appeared in "The Daily Mail" (United Kingdom) with reader comments afterward.  Be prepared, many of those that posted their own comments aren't buying the theory either. -Mark

Why a mobile phone ring may make bees buzz off: Insects infuriated by handset signals
By David Derbyshire

Signals from mobile phones could be partly to blame for the mysterious deaths of honeybees, new research shows.

In the first experiment of its kind, a bee expert placed a mobile phone underneath a hive and then carefully monitored the reaction of the workers.

The bees were able to tell when the handsets were making and receiving calls, and responded by making the high pitched squeaks that usually signal the start of swarming.

Dr Daniel Favre, who carried out the experiment, believes signals from mobile phones and masts could be contributing to the decline of honeybees and called for more research.

But British bee experts say there is still no evidence that mobile phones posed a risk.

They blame the vanishing honeybees on changes in farming, the decline of wild flowers and pesticides.

The number of honeybees in the UK has halved in the last 25 years while in America bees have been badly hit by 'colony collapse disorder' - the sudden disappearance of entire colonies over winter.

Experts say bees have been badly hit by the varroa mite, a blood-sucking parasite that makes colonies vulnerable to disease, freak weather or poisoning.

Some experts say the latest generation of pesticides may disrupt the nervous systems of bees, causing them to get lost and confused.

And most bee experts say the creatures are suffering from the loss of wild flowers, meadows, rough pasture and untidy gardens.

However, a handful of experts say mobile phones could also be partly to blame.

Dr Favre, a teacher who previously worked as a biologist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, said: 'This study shows that the presence of an active mobile phone disturbs bees - and has a dramatic effect.'

He placed two mobile phones under a beehive and recorded the high pitched calls made by the bees when the handsets were switched off, placed on stand-by and activated.

Around 20 to 40 minutes after the phones were activated, the bees began to emit "piping" calls - a series of high pitched squeaks that announce the start of swarming.

Within two minutes of the phone call ending, the worker bees calmed down.

In the study, the bees did not swarm - even after 20 hours' exposure to mobile phone signals. However, the onset of unexpected swarming triggered by mobile phone signals could have 'dramatic consequences in terms of colony losses', Dr Favre reports in the bee keeping journal Apidologie.

The study did not show that mobile phones were deadly for bees, he said.

"But one hypothesis is that electromagnetic fields could be contributing to the disappearance of bee colonies around the world," he added.

But British bee expert Norman Carreck of Sussex University said: 'It's an interesting study but it doesn't prove that mobile phones are responsible for colony collapse disorder. If you physically knock a hive, or open one up to examine it, it has the same result.

'And in America many cases of colony collapse disorder have taken place in remote areas far from any mobile phone signals.'

You can read reader reactions here.

Anatomy of a dead hive...

If you read my last post, you saw that my big mother hive, the yellow hive, died without warning.  I was suspicious that the colony died of starvation, but wouldn't know until I did a thorough exam of the inside.  So with the weather being in the 60s for the last few days, I decided to take the hive apart to see what I could find.  And sadly, what I found confirmed my suspicions.

But before I get too far ahead of myself, let me say that just the other day, I noticed quite a few bees flying in and out of the big yellow hive.  I started to question if the bees in the yellow hive were really dead or if they were just cold and in some type of suspended animation.  Maybe the warmth had stirred them from their slumber and they were now alert and back to being honey bees?  But sadly, I learned that I was right all along and the colony really was dead after all. 

As you can see in the picture above, there is plenty of honey left in the yellow hive.  You can see where the bees ate their way along the honey frame from the bottom.  And the two surviving hives, the orange and the lime, knew there was honey here.  The bees I saw flying in and out of the yellow hive were robber bees from the neighboring hives who knew that a honey gold mine lay next door.  It was easy to tell they were mine because the robbers were darker Carniolans, while the deceased inhabitants of this hive were yellowish colored Italians.


Here is the frame where I found the dead cluster.  Looks are deceiving.  While they look alive and just standing there, they're very much dead.  Its as if they just died where they stood...frozen in time forever.  When I raked the dead bees away, you could see dead bees inside the cells, head down, trying to get food.  While there was plenty of food in several of the frames all around them, and candy patties just above them, they didn't move because of the cold and that caused them to starve to death.

The dead monarch lies among her daughters.  You can see the dead queen here, easily identified by the green dot on her back (indicating she was of 2009 stock).  This cluster on the left was in the same clump of bees as above but they were on the opposite frame.  As you can see, the queen was in the middle of the mass and died where she stood along with her daughters.  I will miss this queen and wish all of mine were of the same dynamic quality she was.  As I mentioned before, she was a terrific layer and kept this colony going with beautiful brood frames ever since arriving in 2009.  

A sure sign that the colony starved.  Here you can see that the bees, trying to get food from the cells, died head down.  These bees were covered by the bodies of their sisters who died where they stood.  It baffles me that the bees didn't move over one frame where lots of honey waited for them.  Instead, they died trying to get what was left out of these cells.  I didn't try to remove the bodies from the cells and will leave that for next colony that moves in the yellow hive weeks from now.

The good news, I have a package of bees coming from Mark Bennett at the Chatham, Virginia, branch of Dadant and Sons in early April.  With the frames in the yellow hive already drawn with wax, and honey still available too, it will give the new colony a leg up on establishing themselves.  And I plan to split the orange hive this spring too, so I should have plenty to keep me busy.

Until next time, "bee" vigilent in keeping your colonies alive until the spring thaw which I hope is very soon.  Until then, you have my very best wishes!

The silence of the hive...

The yellow hive is silent.  That's because all life inside her has ceased.  Suddenly and without warning, all of the life and activity that makes a honey bee colony exciting came to a cruel and abrupt end.  And I've thought about it extensively since I discovered it days ago.  Needless to say, it has broken my heart.

Last Thursday night, I decided to go check the hives by "listening" to them.  As many old-time beekeepers will tell you, you may not see a lot of activity around a hive in winter, but you can always listen for life inside.  While many beeks will put their ear to the hive and tap the sides it to arouse the colony, I use a medical stethoscope instead.  Just as a doctor will listen for signs of life through his stethoscope, I listen for life with mine too.  The stethoscope works well because you can put it all on the sides of the hive and better find where the colony is positioned.  Plus you don't have to do all of that bending and stooping to put your ear to the boxes.

I listened to the orange hive first and heard the distinct sounds of buzzing inside the top brood chamber.  Then I moved to the green hive, and while not as loud, I could hear the bees in the top box.  But when I moved to the yellow hive, the strongest colony in my yard, I could find no sounds anywhere.  I moved the scope to the sides and the front and back, and no matter where I moved it, there was no noise of any kind.  That's when I immediately knew that something was seriously wrong.

Not being able to stand it, I carefully opened the top of the hive...and my heart sank.  I could see dead bees all in the bottom, and a small cluster in the middle of the frames at the top -- all dead.  There were no bees anywhere else.  Trying not to panic, and thinking they may be so cold they couldn't move, I closed the top and went inside the house.  But in my heart, I knew they were all dead.  I was so upset that I sent my friend Jared a text message with the news.  I guess I just had to tell to someone.  After we talked, I decided that I would check on the next warm day which would be over the weekend.  The forecast was calling for temperatures in the low 50s, so I knew I would get the chance to look inside.

On Sunday, the temperature rose to 54 degrees, so I went out to look further.  My suspicions were correct, the colony was dead..I only found one lone bee crawling around between the frames.  While I didn't dismantle the hive because I want to do a more intense examination later, I could see that they apparently starved to death.  The honey was gone from the middle frames while there was honey left in the frames to the sides.  And while there was a candy pattie directly above them, they didn't move one inch from the cluster, so they apparently starved.  It was the saddest sight I've seen in my beekeeping experience.  

This was my first colony of bees.  This is the colony I cut my teeth on to be what I hope is a better beekeeper.  This was the only colony I harvested honey from.  The queen was a champion because she was an excellent layer and the workers kept a great hive.  They were extremely gentle and it was true delight to work this colony.  Plus it was just a month ago that they were alive and thriving. 

And then all of a sudden, poof, they're all dead.  

This experience has taught me a valuable lesson.  No matter how confident you feel about your bees, never take it for granted that they'll be around in a week or a month from now.  While you may see a lot of life outside the hive, you need to know what's going on inside the hive too.  Outward appearances can be deceiving.

Unfortunately its too late for my bees in the yellow hive.  As soon as its practical, I'll move their honey to the other hives to keep them going for what's left of this winter.  And I'll introduce a new colony to the yard this spring.  Life will once again come to the now silent and desolate hive.

Goodbye, girls.  I'll miss you.  Pleasant flights!

*Note: The bottom picture is from the fall of 2009 when the yellow hive (it was still white then) was making food stores for the winter.  As you can see, the workers did a terrific job of making honey, and the queen laid an excellent pattern.

Telling the bees: My brother, a former beekeeper, died...

We buried my brother, Wayne, on Monday. He was 64 and my oldest brother. After a lifetime of being plagued with health problems; from a car weck that left him pieced together with metal and screws, and multiple back surgeries that left him practically crippled...he had a devastating stroke months ago. That was the beginning of the end for Wayne. From one setback after another, my family and I knew that he wouldn't rebound when they placed him in Hospice care two weeks ago. That's when the watch began. After two long weeks of struggling to live, in the most pitiful sight my eyes have ever beheld, he drew his last breath at 4 o'clock on Friday morning, August 6th, and left this life forever. His long and difficult journey is now over.

A myriad of emotions have flooded me in the last few weeks...but especially since he died days ago. Needless to say, I miss him. I know I'll never hear him call my name or make me laugh by some silliness we've cooked up together. Even though he was almost 17 years older than me and grown when I came along, he influenced me in so many ways while I was growing up. Because of him I became a CB radio operator many, many years ago. And I would be glued to his every word when he would talk about beekeeping. At one point, Wayne and his father-in-law, Horace, kept over 20 hives of bees...and I loved to hear him talk about catching swarms and queen bees and robbing bees and getting stung. I think he's responsible for my fascination with bees and why I'm a beekeeper now.

Maybe it was just fate or maybe it was some divine guidance that caused me to harvest my first honey just weeks before Wayne fell ill. While he lay dying in the Hospice unit, I took a jar of my honey so he could see it and because I knew he would be proud of me. Even though he was weak and sick, he bragged that it was beautiful honey and that I did a good job. And while I was there, in addition to the many other things we talked about, he told me over and over to take care of my bees...and I promised him I would.

But maybe what touched me most of all is that he asked his brother-in-law, Robbie, to feed him some of my honey. He couldn't eat anything else by that point, he had trouble swallowing, but he wanted to taste that honey which I brought to him. And he really liked too. It was also the last bit of food he ate before he slipped into unconsciousness. And that jar of honey stayed by his bedside until he died. When he died on Friday morning, I took the honey with me when I left the hospital. After all, it was his honey and I wanted him to have it forever.

On Sunday night, when my family arrived at the funeral home, I took that jar of honey and placed it in the casket with Wayne. The funeral director told me that the ancient Egyptians put honey in their tombs, so I guess in some way, I was carrying on some unintentional tradition. All I really knew was that I wanted my brother to have that special honey forever...and he will. My family, especially my sister-in-law, Carol, thought it was a fitting tribute by me to include the honey in his casket. It will be there long past my own departure from this earth.

Did I go tell my bees that my brother, a former beekeeper and my inspiration, had died? No. When I got home from the hospital on the morning of his death, I visited my hives while waiting to go make arrangements at the funeral home. I didn't tell the bees as they say because I was so flooded with emotions and worn out that I couldn't think clearly. But the next time I work my hives, I plan to lean down and whisper "good job" to the girls in the yellow hive which made the honey. I feel they deserve it and my brother would like that too. I'll tell them for Wayne. 

Farewell, my brother. I love you.