BumbleBees

The cute and fuzzy teddy bear of the skies, the bumblebee, is probably the most recognized bee species in Canada. Around 45 species are native to Canada so all varieties of size and colour can be seen. I will cover the basics of what most people would recognize.



Name: Bumblebee - Genus Bombus, with too many species to list
Size: 1.3 - 2.5cm
Colour: Yellow, Black, White, Orange, Red
Nesting Sites: Old mammal burrows, tree hollows, man made hollows.
Nesting Material: Wax
Colony Size: 100-300
Food: Nectar, pollen
Stinger: Smooth, can sting multiple times.

A bumblebee queen will hibernate through winter in a protective spot that she previously found in fall. Come spring she will go about finding a suitable location to start her hive. The queen lays about six eggs at a time. When the eggs hatch, she seals the larvae in cells with bits of food from a ball of combined pollen and wax that she creates. When the larvae eventually pupate, the queen spins a cocoon for the pupa. After a few days the pupa emerge as fully grown worker bees, ready to work to support the colony and their queen. The queen continues to lay eggs, delegating the work of collecting nectar to the worker bees. Near the end of spring and into summer, the queen spends much more time in the hive than she does collecting nectar. By summer, the queen and worker bees have built the hive to a desired capacity. The queen then lays eggs that are intended to become next year’s queens and drone bees. Once hatched, the drones leave the nest and live solitary lives with their only purpose being to mate with the young queens. Unlike honey bees, the young bumble bee queens continue to live and work in the colony for the rest of the summer and fall. Once the first frosts begin, the newly mated bumble bee queen locates a safe location for hibernation. The cycle then repeats itself, like Wasps individual hives only last one season.

Bumblebees are pure pollinators and feed strictly off of nectar and pollen provided by blooming flowers. Usually the workers will not travel further than 5km during foraging, but distances up to 20km have been recorded. They can visit 10 to 18 flowers in a minute but are not big honey producers. They create and store just enough honey to allow the colony to survive through times of food shortage. Bumblebees are actually more efficient pollinators than honey bees and are also commercially used by green houses. While Honey bees pollinate indirectly in the process of obtaining nectar from the flower, they will land close by and then walk into obtain the nectar, bumblebees "belly flop" directly onto the surface of the flower allowing for more pollen to be transferred.

Much like honey bees, bumble bees are non-aggressive when out foraging away from their hive. They will sting if trapped and this is why most stings occur. Bumblebees will defend their hive and young, as would any good mother, and their smooth stinger allows them to sting multiple times.


My friend contacted me a few days ago telling me about how his wife was stung by a bee. The discussion went back and forth as I tried to clarify what type of bee it was, but decided it was best to go out and have a look. Turns out they had a bumblebee nest that had formed in a bird house near their back door. I would have loved to have transferred it to my own backyard but unfortunately he didn't know I was into bees until after he had killed the hive. In the picture above you can see the egg shaped nest structure along with a few dead workers and a queen.

Wasps

If you have been stung in the past few years the odds are you were stung by a wasp. Largely considered "pests", there are many different species of wasps but the most commonly known is the yellow jacket. This post will cover identification and life cycle information.



Name: Common Wasp - Vesupla vulgaris
Size: 1.2 - 1.7cm
Colour: Yellow and Black
Nesting Sites: Old mammal burrows, tree hollows, man made hollows.
Nesting Material: Chewed wood fibers, often grey in colour
Colony Size: 5,000-10,000
Food: Insects, nectar, fruit
Stinger: Smooth, 15 stings per minute

Much like Bumblebees, the yellow jacket queen will hibernate through winter in a protective spot that she previously found in fall. Come spring she will go about starting a small nest, laying eggs, and feeding her first brood. She does this alone and it is not uncommon for early nests to fail, however once the first workers hatch, in 28-34 days, she then focuses her efforts on laying eggs and the colony soon becomes strong. In fall new queens and male drones will start hatching. The queens will stay in the nest to build up fat stores for winter and the males will stay as long as they are allowed to. The males will at some point be forced out of the nest and will then forage for themselves until they find a queen to mate with. Before winter the new queens will leave the nest and find a spot to hibernate, the colony will die off when the weather becomes cold. Normally a nest will only last 1 season, but in warmer climates they have been known to survive and grow into large nests with multiple queens laying. Old nests are not reused by new queens.

Yellow jackets are primarily seen as pests because of their feeding habits. Most BBQs and picnics offer an excellent source of food as they will gladly help themselves to meat and sweet syrups. This is where a majority of stinging incidents happen. Wasps do not usually stray further than 1000 meters from their nesting sites.

While not always aggressive, if trapped or pinched a yellow jacket will sting usually because they have landed on a human food source unnoticed. Wasps will also defend their nests vigorously and with their ability to sting multiple times can cause serious injury. Wasps will secrete a defense pheromone as well as beat their wings in a different frequency to alert the nest causing a massed defense.


Also common in Canada is the bald-faced hornet, Dolichovespula maculata. While not technically a hornet, hornets are usually defined by their hanging nests, they are wasps and can be easily identified by their white and black colouring. They build their paper nests hanging in trees or on sheltered structures and have a life cycle like that of the yellow jacket.

Inspection #3

Ten days have seemingly flown by. I can't believe it will have been a month since I picked up my bees in a few days. Just goes to show that there's not really a whole lot of work when it comes to keeping bees, definitely a whole lot of opinions though.

This morning I headed out to the hive site and met up with Alexis, she was also another classmate from Patty's course. She wanted to see the hive and help out. The weather wasn't the greatest to do an inspection, it was sunny out and there was quite the wind. However, the next few days are suppose to be really rainy so I need to get it out of the way. I had a few things on my agenda to do. First was to see how the bees were doing with the second super, second was to scrap off the burr comb on the white Mann Lake foundation that the bees had formed into sort of a flattened mushroom shape, and lastly I was going to do it all gloveless.

Upon opening the hive I see that the bees hadn't really done much with all the foundationless frames I added up top. I had arranged the frames up top as such. 111232111. 1's being foundationless, 2's being black Mann Lake, and 3 being a fully drawn brood comb I moved up when I added the second super. The frame I had pulled up looked really good with nice brood and pollen/honey stores, we even got to see the queen and I pointed her out to Alexis. One of the Mann Lake frames looked really good, the bees had drawn it out properly and there was only a small patch of chalkbrood but not bad enough to be concerned about. I am starting wondering if I might have added the second super too soon. The other Mann Lake frame was a disaster, the bees had drawn it out much like the other frame I needed to scrape but the cells were much larger and there were already brood in it. I felt really bad about scrapping off this comb because it had brood so I rearranged it in a manner that hopefully the brood can hatch out and be replaced with honey and pollen, at which point I can scrape it off.

The lower box was really looking good and the single foundationless frame I had put in place of the brood frame I swapped was drawn to perfection. Very beautifully done and snowy white new wax. I'm really wishing that I could have started with all foundationless frames because the bees really know what they are doing and draw nice comb. Noticing that the bees weren't doing much in the upper box, I decided to flip the supers, moving the lower box and putting it as the top box. This would allow the bees to build down on the untouched foundationless frames below.

Overall I wasn't really impressed with how I performed the inspection today. I took too long with decisions and the bees really let me know. There was a noticeable change in hum tone about half way through the inspection so I'm sure the bees weren't very pleased. Either that or, heaven forbid, I managed to squish the queen. I don't think I'll be getting any honey this year at the rate the bees are building up. Mario says his hives are also on the slow side, so maybe it's just something with the way crops are blooming. Unfortunately my photographer wife didn't come out today, so there aren't any pictures. Furthermore, even without gloves, I didn't get stung today despite my debauchery.

My next series of "in between inspection" posts will be about the differences in wasps, bumblebees, and honey bees. I got the chance to go check out a bumblebee hive at a friend's house and found it most intriguing. There was some confusing on their part as to what type of bees they were dealing with and so that was my inspiration to clarify things in a series of educational posts. Check back soon for the first installment: Yellow Jackets.

Bee-utiful Paradise

Things have finally calmed down around here. All the media have gotten their piece of the pie and I'm yesterday's news. While there are some things that were put into news articles that I wish I could have rephrased, generally all the news stories were great. They, if just for a brief moment, have shined the spotlight on a growing trend that is quickly gaining popularity. I haven't been able to find the CTV bit on their website, it was a short 30 second blurb but the quote they included was excellent. The CBC story was longer and more detailed, it can be found HERE. (story starts at the 5 minute mark)

I've received a few calls since this all started. A farmer south of Stony Plain phoned to inquire if I still needed land for my bees. He seemed like a nice enough fellow and the only issue was distance, but I will keep his info handy in case some new beekeepers need space. I also received a call from Rose Rosenberger after my interview on Wild Rose. She is an ex-city counsellor and was phoning to offer encouraging words. She has a large garden in the city and plants for specifically for bees. She said that if she was still in office she would be behind me 100%. The most exciting call was yesterday when a nice lady named Jane called. She actually has land within the city limits that is properly zoned and would absolutely love to have some hives on her property. My wife and I went out to meet her and have a look at the property.

Her piece of land is about 3 acres, but because her neighbours don't actually live at their acreages it really turns into about 8-9 acres of open space. She is an avid gardener/horticulturist, plants for pollinators, and believes in organic practices without pesticides. The property, in short, is a bee paradise. The matured wind break consist of large willows that surround her entire property. Caragana, cotoneaster, lilac, and mountain ash are just some of the trees she has incorporated into this area that used to be an operational tree plantation. Her garden consists of borage, thyme, raspberries, and more. Just to the north of her property is the Anthony Henday corridor where the undeveloped median grows wild and largely consists of alfalfa and clover. Every Alberta honey flow source is somehow represented within 2 kilometers of her property.

I am very excited to put some hives on her property next spring and I'm sure the bees will thrive in the surroundings. The only thing that has held Jane back from installing her own hives in the past has been knowledge and so she is excited at the chance to learn about beekeeping and I am more than willing to teach what I know.

Wild Rose Interview

So I thought it would be a great idea to record my live interview on the CBC Wild Rose program this afternoon. At first this seemed like an easy proposition having grown up in a time where recording things of the radio was child's play. It's easy-you just put a cassette tape into the stereo, turn the radio on, and hit record. Yah, apparently times have changed and any stereos that we owned were so old that they didn't really work so well. We solved said technically issues by putting the radio next to my laptop and then recording it with windows sound recorder and the laptop's built in mic. So the quality isn't so good, but I did my best to clean it up with Audacity. Enjoy.

For those who are unable to see the streaming audio player, you can download the MP3 from HERE

Extra Extra!

Today was the day that the article regarding urban beekeeping was printed. A friend texted me during my morning work to say that she read my article on the Journal's web page, so I picked up a copy on the way home. Funny thing was that I didn't actually look at the newspaper when I picked it up, I just threw it into the grocery bag. After I got home and was changing out of my work clothes my wife screamed out, "You're on the front page!" And that's when the phone started ringing. I received multiple calls from all sorts of news agencies, I even got to do a live interview on Wild Rose with CBC radio.

In all honesty I wasn't expecting this much attention. I was thinking the article would be run on page 5 of the city section and go by relatively unnoticed. However it didn't and now I'm the quasi face of urban beekeeping. I even received a call from an ex-city counsellor who phoned to tell me not to give this issue up as it's very important. I hope this brief media attention on me doesn't take away from all those beekeepers who are out in the city flying under the radar or the long time beekeepers who have been trying to get beekeeping legalized. I feel it's a good thing in the long run and bringing it to the public's attention is cause for discussion. I have to stop myself from reading all the comments posted on the Journal's web page because I know it's the Internet and I know there are people trolling, but some of the comments are just plain uneducated.

Here is the link for the journal article. I will also be on the CBC, CBC National, and CTV within the next few days. Stay glued to those TV sets and you just might see me preaching about the bees.

http://www.edmontonjournal.com/technology/Backyard+beekeeper+stung/3235282/story.html

Doing well

My wife and I stopped out at the acreage today to see how the bees were doing after the move. We hauled out a bunch of extra frames and a 2nd super in case they were doing well. The weather has been both good and bad lately. We've been having nice hot sunny days, but then around 7pm we get some storms that roll in to cool things down. Hopefully the bees have been weathering the storms.

First glance was promising as we walked up to the hive carrying our gear. The entrance reducer was showing lots of activity, and many foragers were coming and going. I geared up and lit up the smoker, I first removed the entrance reducer with little issues, the bees seemed very calm. Then I pried of the lid with less problems then my first inspection. Lots of bees and lots of drawn comb was the initial picture. The very outer frames hadn't been touched yet, but both 2 & 8 were getting drawn out. However, the bees had expanding on that weird formation that I had noticed on my first inspection. I really should have scrapped it off, but I think I'll do that next trip out. A quick look at the brood frames showed no issues with the queen as all stages of larva were seen.

The increased strength meant it was time to put my second super on. I decided to primarily use the new foundationless frames I made up. I placed a frame of brood into the new box and surrounded it by 2 of the black man lake frames. After those I put in 6 foundationless. I then put 1 foundationless down into the original box to replace the brood frame that came out. I also changed out some of the white mann lake foundation in the original box to with black to see if the bees would draw on that better. We'll see how they do in a few weeks. Here are some pictures of the inspection.

Things look good at first glance.

Moving frames around into the new super.

Double Decker hive!