Ghosts! Hive Check: Week 12

This week I took the hive check slow and easy so a film crew could capture the action. Which means my second solo hive check was caught on film. It wasn’t always a pretty picture but we got it done!

The day got off to a slow start. A miscommunication about equipment left me with 20 minutes to find a stand-in smoker and all of my bee people were out of town or not picking up the phone. So I did what anyone would have done—I went up to Eagle Street Farm, transplanted purple basil seedlings while waiting for Annie to get back to open farm day on the roof, and got Meg’s OK to borrow their spare. Added bonus, Annie uses dried herbs for fuel so I bought a packet of tarragon and sage from the farmstand and fired up the smoke gun with Brooklyn’s finest herbs de provence. Lucky bees.

Made it to the roof but with no jacket and no hive tool (Word to the wise: sharing equipment is awesome until it’s not. If you’re jointly managing hives, git your own gear) but since the bees were pleasant and hadn’t left any propolis to speak of, I had no problem pulling the frames out bare-fingered.

Hive #1 held no surprises. The recent super is being drawn out nicely, almost to the external frames. The brood pattern is incredibly tight although I didn’t see as many babies in the center frames as one might want. This hive (Tim’s hive) continues to create wonky, bumpy, psychedelic wax-- unlike the precise, pristine, craftsmanly comb that hive #2 (my hive) draws out. If dog owners and their pets grow to take on each other’s traits, the same seemingly holds true for beekeepers.

There wasn’t much need to go into the bottom super, and the hive had already been open a long time to give the filmmakers a chance to shoot closeups, so I left it alone. But ladies, really. Stop building brace comb in the feeder. There’s a nectar and pollen dearth. Don’t cut yourself off from your food!

Didn't manage to get a good pic of the tight brood pattern but here's one of the penultimate external frame, which is mostly nectar/sugar water.

Before we move to hive #2 I have an announcement. I have settled on a name for the hive and the queen.

Literal, glam-rock loving woman that I am, this hive shall be known as Queen.

God save Freddie Mercury

Since their first album was eponymous and the second was Queen 2, I’ll either keep numbering them ad infinitum or name the third “Sheer Heart Attack.” The queens themselves will take the names of songs, because with long names they’ll sound like racehorses. This queen is now known as Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon. For one, we do a lot of Sunday inspections. Two, were this queen human she’d be a quaintrelle; interested in a life of leisure and cultivation of an aristocratic lifestyle although being solidly middle-class. Perfect embodiment of the song! And I like to imagine her bicycling, waltzing to the zoo, painting in the Louvre, and doing all the other things the dandy does in the song.

So how is Queen Lazing doing? Well, predictably. These ladies haven’t made many inroads to building up into the top super, or building out in the bottom super. I did see her, and many of her little eggs, but the eggs were in a spotty, devil-may-care pattern. The brood pattern was weak too, in the top and bottom supers both. Oh Queen. Where’s the energy? Where’s the passion?

Nothing to see here

But beyond that I got a nasty surprise looking at frame 7 of the top super. Ghost bees! A small cluster of fully developed bee babies were stuck in their cells, nearly-completely uncapped, white as sheets. It wasn’t a dusting of white—they were white to the bone. Er, exoskeleton.

I ain't afraid o no ghosts.

See 'em?

What would cause this? The phenomenon is known as “bald brood” which is a blanket term for a lot of things that could go wrong. Here’s my email to TimO after doing some looking into it.

ooookay! I looked through a lot of sources and given what I observed I do believe it's early stages of wax moth infestation. that's based on:


-- localized occurrence that we hadn't seen before till now. if it's behavioral or genetic why would it be in only one area, and take so long to appear?
-- wax moths usually come in from the top (so good prevention is a top screen) and occur when the bees have too many supers to adequately monitor. that's not unreasonable given the slow comb drawing of hive 2.


the good news:
-- i didn't see more than this patch. no evidence of destroyed comb or spiderwebby moth larvae. it's probably either in its early stage or the bees will take care of it soon. but i'd rather err on the side of early intervention rather than waiting to see


available treatments:
-- deweb, remove ghost brood, freeze for 2 weeks. Recommendation: pain in the ass, my freezer is tiny, i don't buy it.
-- certan (aka b401). it's basically what organic farmers use as an alternative to chemical insecticide. it's just concentrated bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) which is as you no doubt are aware is one of the more common things to put into a GMO (so the plant produces its own insecticide) but in natural form it's quite harmless. Will not hurt the bees, the applicator (i.e. us) or the environment. Recommendation: Ask Kirk Anderson if it's really as benign as people say it is, and get it on there asap. Mabye one of our friends in brooklyn has some they'll give us if we replace it so we can get it on there asap instead of waiting for a delivery from BeeWorks in Canada. I'll gladly foot the $23 canadian dollars
-- ParcidiChlorBenzene. AAAAGH! RUN AWAY!
-- additional precaution: make a moth bait. exactly like a fruit fly bait. put it over in one of the corners of the roof a little away from the hives. water, vinegar, sugar, banana in a 2-liter soda bottle with a hole up near the neck. to help make sure the infestation doesn't spread. and if we catch moths we'll have a positive ID that there are moths in the vicinity. Will also lessen moth population to avoid spreading into other hive.
-- consider sanitizing equipment when moving between hive 1 and 2 (or just always do hive 1 first). consider sanitizing equipment before going to Added Value.

Tim texts back:
Probably not a problem. I’m not sure I buy the wax moth theory of bald brood. They eat cocoons, not wax, and usually travel in the midrib.

And then he texted me a picture of his family’s lake in Canada where he was spending the weekend, and the conversation dropped. So stay tuned for the next episode of the Case of the Ghostly Bees, in which the mask comes off and our villain, present from the start, says he would have gotten away with it if it weren't for you darn kids.

Surprise! You're a beekeeper

Tim clocks in at over a dozen years experience as a beekeeper, so he asked me to be the one to write about what’s surprising and strange to a first-timer to help out anyone who’s in my shoes or considering getting started.

The first thing that surprised me was how easy this is. For highly evolved eusocial organisms composed of tens of thousands of venomous individuals, it’s not too difficult to figure out what a bee colony wants and needs. Sure, I have Tim around to do a lot of the heavy lifting (literally, in the case of getting packing pallets up to the roof to keep the hives off the hot rooftop surface). But it turns out getting started is only as complicated as you want it to be.

That wasn't so hard.

Worried about time and money? Pshaw. You can get yourself set up for about $300 in the first year and not much at all in years after if things go well. And check this: these pets feed themselves. You’ll only need to spend 20 minutes every two weeks inspecting your hives once they get going.

Equipment catalogs like Brushy Mountain and BetterBee make it simple to order as much or as little gear as suits you. Think you’ll need Velcro bands to keep your pant legs tight around the ankles? They’ll hook you up for just $3.95! Or if you prefer the minimalist or DIY approach, check out the so-called Backwards Beekeepers of LA or Anarchy Apiaries in the Northeast.

Local beekeeping associations (find yours here) offer classes and lectures, and pair up newbies with mentors. Visit their websites and you might even find a message board with people sympathetic to the cause offering up their backyards or rooftops—no small wonder, if your primary hurdle to getting started is space. As for me, I’m forever indebted to Jim and Liane of the NYC Beekeeping Group for the courses they’ve provided to me and literally thousands of my fellow Gothamists, free of charge.

Don’t forget to check out the lit. Tim’s got a great list of print and online resources to get you up to speed, although if you only get one thing, make it The Beekeeper’s Handbook. That is, until next year when the book by our friend Meg Paska (aka the Brooklyn Homesteader)—the book first ever to specifically address urban beekeeping—will make its debut.

From The Beekeeper's Handbook. Developmental stage charts, and diagnostic dissection diagrams? Yeah, you want it.

Most of all remember that beekeepers, like the little bugs they care for, are social beings. If you haven’t connected to people in your area who can help you out, you’re not trying.

Next in the series will be things that surprised me about hive inspections themselves. In the meantime, what concerns do you have about getting started? Or if you too are new to the game, what have you experienced that you weren’t expecting?

P.S. Here's a preview of the other rooftop project we've got cooking. They're not gonna be on my windowsill much longer...

Shazam

While I'm on the subject of updates, I may as well give you a hint of what I've been up to.

Check it.

Real estate.  It's what all the cool kids are doin'.

Cardboard boxes.  Even cooler.