News Article: Bees vs. Super computers: Bees win

In my regular Popular Science reading today I read an interesting article regarding bumble bees ability to solve the very difficult math problem: how to find the shortest possible route between cities while only visiting each city once. Scientists call this the classic travelling salesman problem.

The test involved computer controlled artificial flowers. The researchers were trying to determine if the bees would go to the flowers as they were discovered or if they would plan and route the most efficient way. It turns out that the bees went to each flower in the most efficient way possible even as new flowers were added. Super computers take days to solve this problem, but the bees can do it on the fly.

Take a look at the article:

PopSci: Bees beat computers ability to solve complex math problem

The last treatment: Oxalic Acid

It has been a long and tedious fall treatment, but I was able to get a good morning of weather and my mite treatments were finishing on the Friday and the Saturday. Saturday I took my Apivar strips out of two home hives and treated them with 50 cc of sugar syrup + oxalic acid by dripping the oxalic acid directly on the bees.

Oxalic acid and sugar syrup (50cc)

 The bellow picture shows a bee cluster. They are clearly more concentrated in the center of the box. You can also see two Apivar strips. They require 42 days in the brood box to work to their full potential. Apivar is a slow release insecticide to kill mites which are on the bees and in the cells.

Bee cluster: Apivar strips ready to be removed.

 This is actually a poor picture of my hives at my parents farm. The bees were bringing in some pollen. There were also some capped brood in these hives. They also received the acid treatment.

Old style landing board and new style.

The one hive seemed to have a fair bit of k-wing. This is the hive which I caught as a swarm. Their queen is old (age unknown actually). The bees also seem to be fairly aggressive. In the spring time I intend to replace this queen.

Clover Field: The end

It turns out that the clover field was a massive flop. It grew well but it never flowered.

Clover field: After being cut with a bush hog

I should have taken my fathers advice and cut it down when it was 2 ft tall. I was expecting it to flower at any time and it never ended up doing that. The weeds also grew in quite thick. There must have been only a couple of dozen flowers total. It was cut for the winter, we will see what the spring will bring.

Snow! What the heck??

Yes, we have some overnight flurries tonight. Which is quite weird but not uncommon for south western Ontario.

Christmas much?

Hand-packed snow man

I was checking the long term forecast and it was looking pretty bleak. Luckily my treatments all end on Saturday. So I will remove my formic acid pad from my weaker hive and add on a hive top feeder to see if they will take some feed in. My two other hives which I have at my home property have some 42 day old Apivar strips in.

Long term grim forecast

I will be removing my various mite treatments and then I intend to do an Oxalic Acid treatment (Trickle Method). This is recommended by the ministry of agriculture in the fall when there is the least amount of brood rearing; typically after a formic acid treatment. It involves mixing 35g of Oxalic Acid dihydrate crystals per 1L of 50% syrup. Then using a syringe, apply 50mL onto the cluster of bees. In a two box colony, apply 25mL on each box. It is supposed to be done on a cool day where the majority of the bees would be in the box.

First Frost: The beginning of the end

I took this picture Wednesday morning and forgot to put it up on the blog. I believe that it is our first official frost of the year. I call it the beginning of the end because the nectar flow has essentially stopped in all forms. There will still be the odd flower here and there but most of them are done for the season.

First frost: Oct 13

The bees will now be relying on their winter stores to make it through to the spring. I will be checking the weight of the hives and may be adding a bit of syrup to some colonies. I currently have to wait for the mite treatments to finish so that I can place on the hive top feeders.

Internationally acclaimed Honey...

Okay, Okay... I may be exaggerating slightly. But my sister is in France learning the secrets of cheese making and she brought along a couple of pounds of my honey to give as gifts. The family she is living with really enjoyed the honey and eat it on everything! The one boy even claims that the honey soothed his cough.

Filling jars with honey

One of my sisters' bosses claims that trying my honey has pushed him into becoming a hobby beekeeper and having a few hives on his farm. I told my sister to warn him of the addictiveness of beekeeping and of all of the necessary hours needed to be successful.

It seems as though my family and friends who know that I keep bees are inadvertently interested in bees now. Everyone is becoming more aware of the plight of the honey bee. If my one pound of honey has made another beekeeper, then it was a pound well spent!

When a parasite and a virus combine...

Many news agencies from the United States are reporting that scientists are fairly confident that they may have found a major culprit in the colony collapse disorder that has been widespread in the last couple of years. They are claiming that a combination of a rare fungus (parasite) and a virus makes for a quick collapse in the colonies.

They have been screening samples for 30 000 different disease markers and the piles of data all have these combinations of a parasite and a virus. The bees can live with one of them at a time. Apparently the fungus is cause by damp conditions. This even further hits home for the importance of a screened bottom board and good ventilation on the tops of hives throughout winters!

Check out the links to see the article and video:

CBS News: Microscopic Combo Suspected in Killing Bees

CBS News: Microscopic Combo Suspected in Killing Bees VIDEO

Live and Learn...

Everyone makes mistakes. Unfortunately what I thought was a good idea turned out to be quite the opposite. When I was cleaning out the hives last night, I poured some extra syrup and scrapped out the dried sugar into a watering bottom.

I figured it would give them all a chance to clean up the waste. I should have put sticks and some leaves or something that would float and avoid mass drownings. Unfortunately I did not.

It looks like lots of activity at the hives!

In reality there were a lot of dead bees who drowned...

I estimate that there are several hundred dead bees in there. It is obviously pretty upsetting; it is just another lesson in beekeeping. Bees apparently drown very easily. This will not have an effect on the overall numbers of bees in my hive; since there are likely 30 000+ in both of my larger hives and 15 000 in my newer hive.