BEEKEEPING NEWS Back to top
The National Diploma in Beekeeping.
The Examinations Board of the National Diploma in Beekeeping would
like to announce that an examination will be held in 2008.
The written papers will be held on Saturday 15th March, the same
date as the BBKA exams, to be taken at a convenient location to be
arranged. The practical assessment will be held on one day of the
weekend of July 19th / 20th, at Easton College, Norwich, Norfolk.
The Fee for the Examination will be £100.
Although the NDB Board has discussed changes in the format of the
examination, these will not take place until 2009, so the format of
the 2008 examination will be exactly as given in the syllabus on the
Board's website, and will exactly follow the format of the past
papers also available there:-
http://www.national-diploma-bees.org.uk/
The 2008 Advanced Beekeeping Course will be held at CSL York from
7th to 11th July. Details will be available shortly from Ken
Basterfield, Course Tutor:
ken@basterfield.com
For further details please contact the NDB Board Secretary: Norman
Carreck, New Hall, Small Dole, Henfield, West Sussex. BN5 9YJ Email:
norman.carreck@btinternet.com
RESEARCH NEWS Back to top
A HIVE BEETLE TRAP USING BEETLE BIOLOGY
The arrival of the Small Hive Beetle is looked on with dread in
those countries that haven’t yet got it, but it is reassuring to
know that when it does arrive there will probably be an array of
methods for dealing with it developed in those countries that have
got it. The trap described below uses beetle biology to be effective
and could provide an answer to the problem – and it is all to do
with yeast!
Peter Teal, leader of the Chemistry Research Unit at the ARS Centre
for Medical, Agricultural and Veterinary Entomology in Gainesville,
and his colleagues have developed an apparatus and attractant to
help beekeepers protect their honey bees.
Small hive beetles release a yeast that's highly alluring to fellow
beetles. When the yeast grows on pollen in the hive, it attracts
more beetles and set off a cascading effect. When the population of
beetles explodes, the disturbed bees leave the hive, according to
Teal. This leaves beekeepers without honey or their bee colonies.
To exploit the small hive beetle's biology, Teal installed traps
baited with the yeast below test hives belonging to cooperating
beekeepers. The traps were separated from hives by sliding doors
drilled with conical holes that allowed the beetles to enter the
traps, but not to exit.
The researchers believe these traps will solve the problem for
small-scale beekeepers, which make up 60 percent of the industry.
These small-scale bee keepers tend their hives daily and can clean
their traps frequently. For large-scale beekeepers who maintain up
to several thousand hives, Teal's team hopes to develop a new trap
requiring less management.
If perfected, this trap could be a boon to the bee industry in
Florida, which is a common overwintering destination for commercial
bee colonies. A patent for the trap was filed in March 2005. Teal
hopes to apply the same principle to reduce populations of Varroa
mites, another significant pest in honey bee hives.
Note:
A paper on this research recently appeared in the Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences and this article was adapted from
materials provided by US Department of Agriculture.
A NEW PRODUCT OF THE HIVE and one you probably hadn’t
thought about!
Are bees the new Silkworms? They produce ‘High Performance
Silk.’
We all know that moths and butterflies, particularly silkworms, are
well known producers of silk. And we all know spiders use it for
their webs. But what about bees? Surely this most advanced of social
insects wouldn’t be found wanting when other insects are aware of
the versatility of silk? Well bees produce it too.
Australian researcher Dr Tara Sutherland and her group from CSIRO
Entomology are looking at silks produced by other insects and the
results of their recent work have been published in Molecular
Biology and Evolution, in the paper Conservation of Essential Design
Features in Coiled Coil Silks.
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| The bottom half of a high
quality silk cocoon spun by a bee larva. |
|
“Most people are unaware that bees and ants produce silk but they do
and its molecular structure is very different to that of the large
protein, sheet structure of moth and spider silk. The cocoon and
nest silks we looked at consist of coiled coils - a protein
structural arrangement where multiple helices wind around each
other. This structure produces a light weight, very tough silk,” she
says.
“We had already identified the honeybee silk genes,” says Dr
Sutherland, “and now we have identified and sequenced the silk genes
of bumblebees, bulldog ants and weaver ants, and compared these to
honeybee silk genes. This let us identify the essential design
elements for the assembly and function of coiled coil silks”.
“To do this, we identified and compared the coiled coil proteins
from cocoon and nest silks from species which span the evolutionary
tree of the social Hymenoptera (bees, ants and wasps),” she
says.Bees and ants produce high-performance silk and, although the
silks in all these species are produced by the larvae and by the
same glands, they use them differently.
Honeybee larvae produce silk to reinforce the wax cells in which
they pupate, bulldog ant larvae spin solitary cocoons for protection
during pupation, bumblebee larvae spin cocoons within wax hives (the
cocoons are reused to store pollen and honey), and weaver ants use
their larvae as ‘tools’ to fasten fresh plant leaves together to
form large communal nests.. These groups of insects have evolved
silks that are very tough and stable in comparison to the classical
sheet silks and it is probable that the evolution of this remarkable
material has underpinned the success of the social Hymenoptera.
Coiled coil silks are common in aculeate social insects i.e. those
that have stings but not in aculeate parasitic wasps. These social
insects are higher up the evolutionary tree and the coiled coil
silks appear to have evolved about 155 million years ago.
Note: The silk research is part of the joint CSIRO and Grains
Research & Development Corporation (GRDC) Crop Biofactories
Initiative (CBI) and this article has been adapted from materials
provided by CSIRO Australia.
On the subject of silk! Tarantula feet
Incidentally, did you know that Tarantulas can produce silk from
their feet? In 2006 researchers found for the first time that
tarantulas can produce silk from their feet as well as their
spinnerets, a discovery with profound implications for why spiders
began to spin silk in the first place.
THE AMAZING HONEY TREE
A Banyan tree near Nandagudi in Hokote Taluk in the Bangalore Rural
District is believed to have the ‘world’s largest number of
beehives,’ and the authorities are hoping to get official
recognition for the tree as an International Heritage Site. It
certainly would be something different in the list of such sites.
The tree ‘houses’ as many as 600 colonies and The Institute for
Natural Resources Conservation, Education, Research and Training
(INCERT) is making efforts to get this matchless tree get recognised
as an International Heritage Site so as to create awareness about
the importance of this bee colony.
Speaking to The Hindu, (An Indian Journal) Dr. M.S. Reddy, Reader,
Department of Zoology, Bangalore University, said that the banyan
tree has been monitored by apiculturists for more than a decade, and
their records show that there were approximately 625 bee colonies
around November 2005. A survey conducted in October 2007 revealed
the number of hives in the tree to be around 575. Dr. Reddy said:
“The effort to recognise this tree as an International Heritage Site
will not only help horticulture prosperity, but also play a vital
role in protection of the environment and maintaining the ecological
balance as bees, through pollination, help increase the
biodiversity.”
The banyan tree is largely surrounded by eucalyptus trees whose
flowers are a major source of nectar to the bees. During the
monsoon, the size of the colony reduces as the rock bees migrate due
to lack of flowering in the eucalyptus trees. Dr Reddy said: “To
prevent this migration, the villagers in the vicinity are being
encouraged into agricultural activities like coconut plantations and
floriculture which may help create sustenance to the bee colony.
This is so that the bees may thrive on them round the year and do
not have to migrate in the monsoon season.” Even the villagers have
stopped extracting honey for the past three years after they were
informed that their unskilled methods of extraction led to the
decline in the number of beehives, he added.
CAN BEES PROTECT ELEPHANTS?
Elephants’ fear of angry bees could help to protect them at a time
when encroaching human development in former wildlife areas has
compressed African elephants into ever smaller home ranges and
increased levels of human-elephant conflict, a study in Current
Biology, suggests that strategically placed beehives might offer a
low-tech elephant deterrent and conservation measure.
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| The tiny Bee may be able to
protect the mighty elephant. |
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The researchers found that a significant majority of African
elephants fled immediately after hearing the sound of bees,
providing “strong support” for the idea that bees, and perhaps even
their buzz alone, might keep elephants at bay. By contrast, the
elephants ignored a control recording of natural white-noise, the
authors reported.
“We weren’t surprised that they responded to the threatening sound
of disturbed bees, as elephants are intelligent animals that are
intimately aware of their surroundings, but we were surprised at how
quickly they responded to the sounds by running away,” said Lucy
King of the University of Oxford. “Almost half of our study herds
started to move away within 10 seconds of the bee playback.” King is
also affiliated with Save the Elephants, a Kenya-based organization
that aims to secure a future for elephants.
Earlier studies had suggested that elephants prefer to steer clear
of bees. For instance, one report showed that elephant damage to
acacia trees hosting occupied or empty beehives was significantly
less than in trees without hives, the researchers said. In Zimbabwe,
scientists have also seen elephants forging new trails in an effort
to avoid beehives.
In the new study, the researchers tested the response of several
well-known elephant families in Kenya to the digitally recorded buzz
of disturbed African bees. Sixteen of the 17 families tested left
their resting places under trees within 80 s of hearing the bee
sound, the researchers reported, and half responded within just 10
seconds. Among elephants hearing the control sound, none had moved
after 10 s, and only four families had moved after 80 s. By the end
of the 4 min sound playback of bee buzz, only one elephant family
had failed to move, whereas eight families hearing the control sound
had not moved. This behavioral discovery suggests that bees might
very well be a valuable addition to the toolbox of elephant
deterrents used by farmers and conservation managers across Kenya,
King said. She added that such innovative approaches are sorely
needed “to avoid extreme solutions such as shooting problem
animals.” She cautioned that the use of beehives to shoo elephants
away might prove to have limited application and that more research
is needed if we are to understand its effectiveness. “But if we
could use bees to reduce elephant crop raiding and tree destruction
while at the same time enhancing local income through the sale of
honey, this could be a significant and valuable step towards
sustainable human-elephant coexistence.”
Note: The researchers include Lucy E. King of the
Department of Zoology, University of Oxford in Oxford and Save the
Elephants in Nairobi; Iain Douglas-Hamilton of Save the Elephants in
Nairobi; and Fritz Vollrath of the Department of Zoology, University
of Oxford in Oxford and Save the Elephants in Nairobi. This work was
supported by ESRC/NERC, The Wingate Foundation and Save the
Elephants.
Reference: King et al.: “African elephants run from the
sound of disturbed bees.” Publishing in Current Biology 17,
R832-R833, October 9, 2007. Adapted from materials provided by Cell
Press.
Colony Collapse Disorder
This ‘disorder’ has confounded scientists for several years now.
Below are a few opinions of various research groups on the causes of
this mysterious business.
Scientists from Penn State University in the USA say they have found
a connection between Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus (IAPV) and colony
collapse disorder.
Researchers argued that the virus, in conjunction with other stress
factors, is likely the cause of the disorder, which has resulted in
a loss of 50-90 percent of North American bee colonies. It was
originally discovered in Israel in 2004, the same year that
Australian bees were imported in to the United States.
Colony collapse disorder has been observed in Poland, Greece, Italy,
Portugal and Spain, and unverified reports have surfaced in
Switzerland and Germany. Cases have also been reported in India and
Brazil.
David Hackenburg, a beekeeper near Tampa Bay, Florida, lost nearly
2,000 of his 3,000 hives in a matter of weeks and has since been
raising the issue with university researchers, bureaucrats at state
agencies and elected politicians. He has told a number of media
outlets that new synthetic nicotine-based pesticides known as
neonicotinoids, or neonics, are the major contributing factor.
Researchers told IPS that further studies will include these
pesticides as possible contributing factors. Some large
environmental groups, like the Sierra Club, also believe that
genetically modified food production could be a contributing factor.
A comprehensive British study found that genetically modified crops
in conjunction with powerful chemicals were harmful to bees,
butterflies and birds.
But other scientists argue that there is scant evidence that the
Bacillus thuringiensis toxin produced by genetically modified crops
is a factor in the mass deaths of bees.
According to Science Daily, a team of scientists from Edgewood
Chemical Biological Centre and the University of California at San
Francisco have identified a virus and a parasite that are likely
culprits in the recent deaths.
Penn State University’s Colony Collapse Working Group had drawn no
clear conclusions as to what the causative factors may be until this
week.
Dr. Mariano Higes, a scientist based in Guadalajara, Spain, has
concluded that European honey bees suffering from colony collapse
disorder fell victim to Nosema ceranae, a micro-sporidian fungus.
The research team led by Higes has been investigating the issue
since 2000 and ruled out any other causes. U.S. scientists have
stated that although it may be a factor, it is not the only cause of
the disorder.
Eric Mussen, a University of California Davis apiculture expert,
believes that small variations in weather caused by climate change
could affect the water, nectar and pollen the bees rely on. Mussen
also argues that bees have many viruses, but it is their weakened
immune systems that are making them susceptible to death. The first
cases came to public view in late 2006. Since then, speculation has
ranged about the causes from a diverse set of theories which range
from new pesticides, genetically modified crops, agricultural
products, climate change, viruses cell phones.
In the 1940s, there were an estimated 5 million managed bee colonies
in North America. Now there are just over 2 million. Adverse weather
conditions and hurricanes have also contributed to the heavy losses
of bee colonies in recent years.
Dr. Leonard Foster, a University of British Columbia Assistant
Professor of Biochemistry told IPS, “There is certainly something
happening in the United States and it is difficult to say if it is
due to a bacteria or fungus—it is difficult to detect with the
current methods.”
“It could be various factors combined, but it is difficult to verify
at this time—climate change, antibiotics or the use of pesticides
where bees may visit. We have various historical records that show
that there are fluctuations with beehives every seven or eight years
that are affected by weather conditions and crop yields. It is too
early to draw conclusions yet.”
ORCHID BEES AND THEIR PERFUME
(Or how flowers that produce no edible pollen or nectar get
pollinated!)
Apis UK has touched previously on the subject of orchid bees and
their need for perfume to attract females but now researchers in the
UK have found that this isn’t a general perfume but very much an
individual one and the bee doesn’t produce a pheromone or excretion
to do this; he has to make it all himself
The research was carried out by Professor Scott Armbruster, of the
University of Portsmouth, who has been studying the relationship
between euglossine bees and flowers in South America and found that
each bee has to blend its own perfume in order to find a mate.
Orchid bees
The professor\ explained that the female euglossine bee, also known
as the orchid bee, has the job of home-building by collecting resin
from dalechampia flowers to help create nests for their
offspring.But because the flowers visited by these bees do not
produce edible pollen or nectar, Prof Armbruster wanted to find out
how they become pollinated.
He discovered that the male bee has to visit a variety of flowers,
decaying wood and sap in order to make its "personal" perfume and at
the same time pollinate the flowers.
Prof Armbruster said: "The males collect scents from flowers, sap
and decaying wood with their front legs and store them in their hind
legs until they have accumulated a complex blend.
"It is thought this creation of a perfume helps the male attract a
female and helps the female choose which male to accept. The scent
acts a little like sex pheromones.
"If he wants to pass his genes on to the next generation he must
buzz from flower, to sap, to decaying wood to create an individual
scent to attract a mate. He has to be, if you like, the bee's knees
at perfume-making."
Euglossine bees are tropical relatives of honeybees and bumblebees.
They have brightly-coloured, often metallic, colourings, extremely
long tongues and can fly far and fast, almost certainly because the
species of plants they depend upon are spread over a wide area.
Note: Orchid bees comprise the tribe Euglossini in the family Apidae,
which includes honey bees and bumble bees. The largest orchid bee
genus is Euglossa. Bumble bee-like species belong to the genus
Eulaema. Parasitic orchid bees are in the genus Exaraete.
HOW TO RUN COMPUTER SERVERS MORE EFFICIENTLY
Use Honeybee strategies!
Honey bees manage to efficiently collect a lot of nectar with
limited resources and no central command — after all, the queen bee
is too busy laying eggs to oversee something as mundane as where the
best nectar can be found on any given morning. According to new
research from the Georgia Institute of Technology, the swarm
intelligence of these amazingly organized bees can also be used to
improve the efficiency of Internet servers faced with similar
challenges.
A bee dance-inspired communications system developed by Georgia Tech
helps Internet servers that would normally be devoted solely to one
task move between tasks as needed, reducing the chances that a Web
site could be overwhelmed with requests and lock out potential users
and customers. Compared with the way server banks are commonly run,
the honeybee method typically improves service by 4 percent to 25
percent in tests based on real Internet traffic. The research was
published in the journal Bioinspiration and Biomimetics.
After studying the efficiency of honeybees, Craig Tovey, a professor
in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems
Engineering at Georgia Tech, realized through conversations with
Sunil Nakrani, a computer science colleague visiting from the
University of Oxford in the UK, that bees and servers had strikingly
similar barriers to efficiency.
“I studied bees for years, waiting for the right application,” Tovey
said. “When you work with biomimetics (the study of how biological
principles can be applied to design and engineering), you have to
look for a close analogy between two systems — never a superficial
one. And this definitely fit the bill.”
The more Tovey and Nakrani discussed bees and servers, the surer
they became that somehow the bees’ strategies for allocating limited
resources in an unpredictable and constantly changing environment
could be applied to Internet servers.
Honeybees have a limited number of workers at any given time to fly
out to flowers, collect nectar, return to the hive and repeat until
the nectar source is depleted. Sometimes, there’s an abundance of
nectar to be collected; at other times nectar is scarce. The bees’
environment is constantly changing — some flower patches
occasionally yield much better nectar than others, the seasons shift
and rainy days make nectar collection difficult. So how do the bees
manage to keep a steady flow of nectar coming into the hive?
Internet servers, which provide the computing power necessary to run
Web sites, typically have a set number of servers devoted to a
certain Web site or client. When users access a Web site, the
servers provide computing power until all the requests to access and
use the site have been fulfilled. Sometimes there are a lot of
requests to access a site (for instance, a clothing company’s retail
site after a particularly effective television ad during a popular
sporting event) and sometimes there are very few. Predicting demand
for Web sites, including whether a user will access a video clip or
initiate a purchase, is extremely difficult in a fickle Internet
landscape, and servers are frequently overloaded and later become
completely inactive at random.
Bees tackle their resource allocation problem (i.e. a limited number
of bees and unpredictable demand on their time and desired location)
with a seamless system driven by “dances.” Here’s how it works: The
scout bees leave the hive in search of nectar. Once they’ve found a
promising spot, they return to the hive “dance floor” and perform a
dance. The direction of the dance tells the waiting forager bees
which direction to fly, the number of waggle turns conveys the
distance to the flower patch; and the length conveys the sweetness
of the nectar.
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| Can Bee Strategy be used for more efficient
servers? |
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Following the dance, the foragers fly out to collect the nectar
detailed in the dance. As long as there’s still nectar to be found,
the bees that return continue the dance. Other forager bees continue
to fly toward the source until the dancing slowly tapers off or a
new bee returns with a more appealing dance routine.
While this may not sound like a model of efficiency, it’s actually
optimal for the unpredictable nectar world the bees inhabit, Tovey
said. The system allows the bees to seamlessly shift from one nectar
source to a more promising nectar source based on up-to-the-minute
conditions. All this without a clear leader or central command to
slow the decision making process. “But the bees aren’t performing a
computation or strategy, they ARE the computation,” Tovey added.
Internet servers, on the other hand, are theoretically optimized for
“normal” conditions, which are frequently challenged by fickle human
nature. By assigning certain servers to a certain Web site, Internet
hosts are establishing a system that works well under normal
conditions and poorly under conditions that strain demand. When
demand for one site swells, many servers sit idly by as the assigned
servers reach capacity and begin shifting potential users to a
lengthening queue that tries their patience and turns away potential
customers.
Tovey and Nakrani set to work translating the bee strategy for these
idle Internet servers. They developed a virtual “dance floor” for a
network of servers. When one server receives a user request for a
certain Web site, an internal advertisement (standing in a little
less colorfully for the dance) is placed on the dance floor to
attract any available servers. The ad’s duration depends on the
demand on the site and how much revenue its users may generate. The
longer an ad remains on the dance floor, the more power available
servers
devote to serving the Web site requests advertised.
OPTIMISING QUEEN BEE ACCEPTANCE AND LONGEVITY
Adapted from materials provided by Georgia Institute of Technology
USA
This excellent piece of research could alter the way commercial
beekeepers buy their queens and also the way that breeders and queen
rearers select for breeding.
The research
Research by scientists in the Department of Entomology and W.M. Keck
Centre for Behavioural Biology at North Carolina State University
has found that the number of times a honey bee queen mates is a key
factor in determining how attractive the queen is to the worker bees
of a hive.
As most beekeepers will know, a honey bee queen mates early in her
life, usually with multiple partners, the drones of another bee
colony. The scientists found that the number of partners appears to
be a key factor in making the queen attractive to the worker bees of
a colony -- the more partners, the more attractive the queen is and
the longer her reign is likely to be.
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| Can we better ensure her
acceptance? |
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Pheromones altered by the number of matings
The scientists also conducted experiments that suggest that the
number of times a queen mates is a factor in altering the
composition of a pheromone, or chemical signal, the queen produces.
It is the composition of this pheromone that appears to attract the
worker bees of a hive.
A honey bee colony consists of a single queen and several thousand
sterile worker bees. Throughout most of her life, the queen's job is
to lay eggs. However, early in a queen's life, she makes several
mating flights. On these flights, she mates -- in midair -- with
anywhere from one to more than 40 drones. The average number of
drones with which a queen mates is 12. The queen stores the semen
from her mating flights for the remainder of her life, two to three
years for a long-lived queen.
However, some queens are not so long-lived. They are rejected by the
workers of the hive. The research sheds light on this rejection
mechanism. Because queens mate early in their lives and store semen,
it stands to reason that queens that have mated multiple times and
accumulate more semen might be more valuable to a colony. But the
researchers have not studied the impact of the number of times a
queen mates on her physiology until now.
To determine the effect mating has on honey bee queens, the
scientists artificially inseminated queens. It's difficult to
determine the number of times a queen mates under natural
conditions. Some queens were inseminated with the semen from one
drone, others with the semen from 10 drones. The scientists then put
the queens in hives and observed them.
More attention paid to multiple mated queens
They found that worker bees paid more attention to the multiply
inseminated queens. Worker bees demonstrate what is known as a
"retinue response" to their queen; they lick her and rub their
antennae on her. The retinue response to the multiply inseminated
queens was more pronounced.This indicated that the workers can tell
how many drones the queen has mated with.
Like many animals, honey bees use pheromones to communicate. When
they
analyzed pheromone produced in the mandibular gland of honey bee
queens, they found that pheromone composition changes dramatically
after queens mate and that the number of times the queen mates
appears to be a key factor in determining the extent of pheromone
alteration.
The research team added that when worker bees were exposed to
pheromone from queens inseminated with semen from one drone and
queens inseminated with semen from multiple drones, the workers
showed a preference for the pheromone from the multiply inseminated
queens.
Also, an analysis of the mandibular gland pheromone found
differences in the chemical profile of pheromone from
once-inseminated and multiply inseminated queens. The scientists
also found differences in the two types of queens in
brain-expression levels of a behaviourally relevant gene. The
results clearly demonstrate that insemination quantity alters queen
physiology, queen pheromone profiles and queen-worker interactions.
Implications for breeders and buyers
The research could have implications for bee breeding and for
beekeepers. The research suggests that queens that mate with
multiple partners are superior, so breeders may want to select for
this behaviour.
A test for this?
At the same time, beekeepers usually buy mated queens when they
re-queen their hives. The scientists believe that it should be
possible to devise a test to determine if a queen has mated few or
many times. Such a test would help beekeepers determine the quality
of the queens they buy.
Does Predator Pressure Maintain Bees' Social Life?
This interesting research from Flinders University in Australia
illustrates a few differences in sociality amongst social insects.
The complex organisation of some insect societies is thought to have
developed to such a level that these animals can no longer survive
on their own. New research suggests that rather than organisational,
genetic, or biological complexity defining a 'point of no return'
for social living, pressures of predation create advantages to not
living alone.
The ancient systems of sociality in bees, wasps, termites, and ants
seem to have become an obligatory way of life for these organisms as
there are almost no examples of species reverting to solitary
lifestyles. "This has prompted the notion of a 'point of no return'
whereby evolutionary changes in behaviour, genetics, and shape in
adaptation to a social lifestyle prohibit the insects from living
without their society -- a queen bee losing her workers would be
like a human being losing a vital organ," explains Luke Chenoweth of
Flinders University, Australia.
Most social insects have developed a system in which there is a
division of labour between castes of related individuals.
Reproductive queens rely on sterile workers, usually their
daughters, to feed them and nurture their young, but in a few
examples of social bees all females in a colony retain the ability
to breed but some do not, a phenomenon known as totipotency.
Chenoweth and colleagues investigated Halterapis nigrinervis, an
African species thought to provide a rare example of a bee with
totipotent social ancestors that has reverted to a solitary
lifestyle. By investigating this species the researchers hoped to
reveal the factors that allow or prevent reversion to a solitary
lifestyle.
Has bee sociality reached the point of no return?
The researchers collected nests from various habitats. Surprisingly
they found that over half contained multiple females and
thosecontaining multiple females were more likely to have bee larvae
in them. "The results mean that H. nigrinervis is social and that
there are consequently no known losses of sociality in this group of
bees." As these bees lack the social and behavioural
complexity of honeybees and many other social insects, the fact that
they do not seem to live solitarily in any circumstances suggests
that ecological pressures rather than biological factors maintain
sociality.
The researchers hypothesise that sociality in H. nigrinervis is
maintained by predation: multiple females not only offer greater
protection to the brood in the nest but also should an adult fall
foul of predators, nest-mates will raise their young. While many
social insects might retain the potential to raise young alone, the
benefits of protection against predation result in sociality being
maintained.
ARTICLES Back to top
THE TRIALS OF CHAD
Chad returns here with his own teacherly! Way and offers advice
on the advisability of choosing teaching as a profession.
Teaching is a sensible job that pays monthly despite inclement
weather. Beekeeping is not like teaching. I am having serious
doubts about the wisdom of choosing bee-farming as an
occupation. It seems to be absorbing a great deal of money but
not giving me much back. If it would just stop raining for two
weeks I’d be quids-in but I’m being tested at the moment; I’ve
not been broken yet despite the Grand Overseer’s best efforts.
Frustratingly, most of my apiaries are surrounded by masses of
blooming clover and bramble but the bees can’t get out to
forage. Organic dairy farms grow huge acreages of clover and
vetch to get enough nitrogen into their systems. Father-in-law
came up with the names of three organic farmers in the area who
were more than happy to let me put some hives on their land.
Maybe next year they will be more fruitful.
The last four Mondays have seen me travelling to the New Forest
to buy colonies of bees and ferry them back to the farm in my
van and trailer. It’s an interesting two hour journey travelling
with eight leaky hives in an enclosed space. If bee stings are
good for arthritis, I’m never going to get an arthritic joint in
my life. The elderly bee farmer who was selling the hives kept
discovering hives that he had forgotten about and phoning me to
come and collect more.
Each time I went it rained. Taking supers off strong colonies in
the rain is not a job for the faint-hearted. Let me tell you,
these are no Alan Stonell string-vest bees. To add to my
problems the hives were all situated in an over-grown garden
under trees on a terrace up some very steep steps. I imagine
their position had put off all other potentially interested
parties. Still, I like a challenge, actually that’s a lie, my
life choices until now have always followed the path of least
resistance.
Some of the hives I have bought are Smith hives. I mainly run
Nationals with a few Commercials but these new colonies are
strong enough for me to be interested in them, the frames will
transfer to my national hives and I can gradually wean the bees
onto national frames. I bought a Dana Api-melter last week too.
Had I known that the honey crop was going to be so poor I would
have waited until next year. The api-melter is basically a tank
which has heating elements both above and below. You put
cappings and extracted honey into the tank and turn on the
heaters. The honey sinks and is kept at 30-40 degrees whereas
the wax melts and floats being heated from above at 70-80°C. You
can then drain off the two liquids separately.
In the past I have been very fortunate to receive the odd nuc
from John Chamberlain. These arrived in small nuc boxes, five
frames of bees, well established and at the point when they
could be transferred to a larger hive. I was therefore of the
opinion that all nucs when purchased would arrive in this
fashion, how wrong I was. Two people in the locality had asked
me if they could get bees for their gardens, not being happy to
sell them any of mine and having seen an advert in the national
beekeeping press, I bought two nucs from this supposedly
reputable company. I’m not sure whether it is slander or libel
so I ain’t gonna mention the company’s name, but if you buy me
enough drinks I’ll tell you. The nucs arrived, five frames in
each. However they looked like they’d been made up the day
before, they were hardly established, the queen hadn’t even been
introduced into the colony, still trapped inside the queen cage,
presumably having been imported the day before from some far
flung country. Because of this when I inspected the first nuc I
discovered that the bees had released the queen only to sting
her to death. Great use of £100 I thought. The company then sent
a replacement queen which was accepted but did not start laying
for another three weeks. The second nuc had accepted the queen
but despite the advert saying the nucs had laying queens, this
queen was alive but not laying. Great use of another £100. In
future buy all your nucs from John and ignore bold claims in the
national press. I was really pleased to see the complaint from
Chris Slade in the last BeeLines magazine berating the poor
temperament of Buckfast bees. Our forums (fora screams Mrs
Elliot my Latin teacher) shouldn’t be shy of naming and shaming
poor service or products wherever we come across them, unless
like me, you can’t afford a law suit.
As a side-line to my bee-farming I also pose as a private
beekeeper for a few households in the area. People who haven’t
the time to bee-keep themselves but who like the idea of eating
honey from their own gardens, employ me to tend hives for them.
I called around recently to one such garden with the intention
of taking off the spring honey. It was a hot day (imagine that)
and the lady of the house met me and we walked towards the hive
chatting. On nearing the hive we were buzzed and I suggested she
retired inside while I went about my work. Some minutes later,
with super in hand I was walking back through the garden seeing
to my horror that the lady had not gone inside, rather, was
milling around with her husband, secretary and five dogs. It not
being my place to instruct any action of my employers I
suggested again that they all got inside as the bees were a
little hot and cross. Then the first dog got stung. Instead of
going inside and sorting out the dog, there was a tremendous
rushing around and flapping which led to the second dog and the
secretary being stung. At this point I told everyone to get
inside in my most teacherly fashion. Having stowed the super in
my van I joined them all in the conservatory, retrieved the bee
from the secretary’s hair and pulled the sting out of the first
dog. We then stood about drinking elderflower cordial and
sampling the honey. That’s when the lady of the house spotted
the second dog, wide eyed in the corner, rocking on its
haunches, panting heavily. You can spot anaphylaxis in a Jack
Russell a mile off. There was then a nasty hour when I didn’t
know if the dog was going to survive in time to be treated by a
vet. That was in fact a very long hour. The community I live in
is quite tight and killing someone’s dog would have ostracised
me, my heirs and successors for generations. I’m glad to say
that Polly the dog is still with us. These days I phone an hour
before I turn up, so the dogs and secretaries can be shut away
during my visits.
|
Preparing a super in the apiary by gently passing air
between the combs |
And finally, I wrote the following poem whilst collecting hives
from the New Forest. It was pouring down, there were
intermittent thunderclaps, I was sodden and the bees were thick
all over me, the pear-drops smell of the alarm pheromone was
stifling, I was being stung mercilessly, torn at by brambles,
stumbling around half-blind with sweat and rain dripping in my
eyes. Whilst heaving these Smith hives through a jungle of
bushes and down precipitous steps I came up with this rhyme. I
memorised it by chanting it through clenched teeth as I
struggled on.
All’s
not well in the Apiary
You might have
stung me, but I’m still alive,
You’re gonna have problems when you’re back in your
hive.
You shouldn’t have done it, logic prevails,
You’re not gonna last long without your entrails.
When I crunch down the crown-board I feel little
remorse,
I just think of your sisters attacking in force.
I bee-keep for money, I don’t do it for love,
I’m reminded of this; you left your guts on my glove.
What chance did you stand against my veiled garb?
Such wanton aggression, equipped with your barb.
Evolution, adaptation, it’s just one of those things,
Better born a wasp they have multiple stings.
Fly off and die with your bad tempered genes,
I’ll retire to my anti-histamines.
You left only a blemish the size of a comma,
I’ve got no respect for a suicide bomber.
|
Oh yeah, and another thing that really narked me; the idea was
to buy these bees from the New Forest and take them to some
borage fields near Marlborough. The resultant honey crop would
pay for the bees that I’d just bought. It was all arranged with
the farmer who told me he’d ring in three weeks to give me the
green light. After four weeks I phoned him only to be told that
he had ploughed up the borage crop because it hadn’t taken
well...
RECIPE OF THE MONTH Back to top
THE GRILLED HONEY-CAPER SHRIMP
This recipe is both different and delicious. Try and use a good
‘Fino’ sherry such as Tio pepe or a good Manzanilla. (Not the
herbal tea).
Ingredients:
1 pound large shrimps, peeled and de veined (if required).
1/2 cup honey
3 tablespoons capers
2 tablespoons pickling liquid from the jar of capers
2 tablespoons dry sherry
Zest of 1 lemon
Juice of 1/2 lemon
2 teaspoons sea salt
1 1/2 cups extra virgin olive oil
Capers (for garnish)
Lemon wedges (for garnish)
Put the shrimps aside in a glass baking dish or bowl.
In a food processor, puree all remaining ingredients except the
olive oil and garnishes to make marinade. While the motor is
running, add the olive oil in a slow, steady stream. Toss the
shrimps in the marinade and refrigerate for 1 hour.
Grill the shrimps over medium-hot coals on the BBQ or a hot
plate for about 2 minutes per side.
Serve 3-4 hot shrimps per person as a tapa, dressing each plate
with capers and lemon wedges.
Serves 4 as an appetizer
POEM OF THE MONTH Back to top
This month’s poem comes from a truly remarkable man who
distinguished himself in the spheres of diplomacy and languages.
Bees by Sir John Bowring 1792 - 1872
What well appointed Commonwealths! Where each
Adds to the stock of happiness for all;
Wisdom’s own forums! Whose professors teach
Eloquent lessons in their vaulted hall!
Galleries of art! And schools of industry!
Stories of rich fragrance! Orchestra of song!
What marvellous seats of hidden alchymy!
How oft, when wandering far and erring long,
Man might learn truth and virtue from the BEE!
Sir John Bowring was born in Exeter of an old Puritan family. In
early life he came under the influence of Jeremy Bentham, and
later became his friend. He did not, however, share Bentham's
contempt for belles lettres. He was a diligent student of
literature and foreign languages, especially those of Eastern
Europe.
Bowring ranked with Giuseppe Caspar Mezzofanti and Hans Conon
von der Gabelentz among the world's greatest hyperpolyglots —
his talent enabling him at last to say that he knew 200
languages, and could speak 100. The first fruits of his study of
foreign literature appeared in Specimens of the Russian Poets
(1821–1823). These were followed by Batavian Anthology (1824),
Ancient Poetry and Romances of Spain (1824), Specimens of the
Polish Poets, and Serbian Popular Poetry, both in 1827.
HISTORICAL NOTE Back to top
Honey as a Preservative.
Honey is of course a well known preservative and the ancients
knew this as well and was used by the Babylonians, Greeks and
Spartans for preserving the bodies of their great soldiers who
died in battle far from home. The famous and wicked King Herod
kept the body of Mariamne his wife in honey for seven years
after her death because he loved her so much – even in death.
The fact that it was him that executed her in the first place
says a lot about Herod!
The Egyptians provided their dead with jars of honey to eat in
the after life and some of them survived until found by
Egyptologists exploring the great tombs in the 1800s – 1900s.
The honey was fine.
 |
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The Egyptologist E. A. Wallis Budge at his desk
in the British Museum
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One incident however shows us the true power of honey to
preserve and is taken from a story told by E A Wallis Budge an
Egyptologist (1857 – 1934) who became curator of the British
Museum. A local man had told Budge that:
‘Once when he and several others were exploring the graves and
seeking for treasure near the pyramids, they came across a
sealed jar, and having opened it and found that it contained
honey, they began to eat it. Someone in the party noticed that a
hair in the honey turned round one of the fingers of the man who
was dipping bread into the honey and as they drew it out, the
body of a small child appeard with all its limbs complete and in
a good state of preservation. It was said to be well dressed and
had upon it numerous ornaments’.
Editor: David Cramp
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