Plain Talk: BSI - Bee Scene Investigation (276)

Episode 276 – Plain Talk: BSI - Bee Scene Investigation

Jim Tew

Hello podcast listeners. Let's walk back to the bee yard. Spring is here. Grass is already growing.

Birds are happy. We'll walk back to the barn and I want to do some if the robbers are not too bad I want to see if we can do some forensic work back here and see what happened with these two packages while they died during the winter. I know that one passed on early on because it I had a perpetual clean issue with it. So let's have a look.

Listeners, I'm Jim Tew. I come to you here once a week at Honey Bee Obscura where I just try to talk about something conversationally to do with plain talk beekeeping.

Introduction

Welcome to Honey Bee Obscura, brought to you by Growing Planet Media, the producers of the Beekeeping Today podcast. Join Jim Tew, your guide through the complexities, the beauty, the fun, and the challenges of managing honeybees. Jim hosts fun and interesting guests who take a deep dive into the intricate world of honeybees. Whether you're a seasoned beekeeper or just getting started, get ready for some plain talk that'll delve into all things honey bees.

Jim Tew

Oh man, this is a crazy place back here. That forensic stuff I was telling you we were going to do. We're not gonna do that because the bees are robbing like crazy. And those are two that died.

So all I could do was find out this is gonna be smoker stuff. I want to say again, I cannot believe this many of my bees are alive as long and as cold as it was. So I'm at a loss now. I'm not sure what to do.

I don't want to suit up But I got a suspicion with this kind of robbing going on at these two. Why wouldn't you ask me why wouldn't I stop that robbing? Well I wouldn't mind having it cleaned out and if I can set instead of doing stimulative feeding just let them go over there and clean that equipment out for me and then I'll put packages on it So I feel like it's staying in my yard. I know that I know there could be bees some other places.

But even then I'm helping them some because uh I hope they cast a swarm that I'll pick up You know, you just have a sense about a bee yard, don't you? And my sense is with this kind of rambunctious flight and that one colony being robbed out, that they're probably in a feisty mood Okay. Just so you know I'm not totally crazy. I went stopped everything.

Walked all the way back to the shop Got on some light protective gear just in case because it takes me too long to heal now, so I don't want to cause any Major disconsternation to myself. I'll pull my veil over my head Pick up a hive tool here, fix my glasses, put my hearing aids back on where I knocked them off Open the door. I'm met by bees. I seem to think there's something in here.

Well, I don't know what to say about this. The bees are all up top. What does that mean? I would have thought they would have died in a cluster.

That's actually worthy of a picture. There's just all the bees they're dead and they're dead up on the inner cover. I've never seen anything like this. And they had done a good job of propalizing it down.

They had some dysentery, not much They weren't trapped by the snow because I had an upper entrance for them. So there's a little bit of dysentery. And there is actually no honey here So I see the what little bit of honey they had has been robbed out. But I've never seen anything like this.

I gotta keep the mic going. I'll come back and make a picture and posted on the page on how oddly these bees died. They didn't die in a cluster. They died up on the inner cover.

What were they trying to get away from? This is going to be a question for you guys. Tell me what happened here if you see this picture. I was expecting to see a tight small cluster.

It was a medium-sized cluster And here I am thinking I'm a forensic apriculturist, and I can't tell you what those bees did. I'll put this back just like I found it so I can make a picture of it for you using a handheld mic it bumps around Now this may not work if I open this and they come roaring out a black widow spider Think so. Yeah, these are robbers. There's a lot of hunting in this still.

So I can't tell you why this one died. Oh, there's still a lot of honey up here. Ask me about Varroa. No, I didn't treat for Varroa last season. Everybody knows the reasons why.

So I guess Varroa could be on the list. Or it could just be that a queen died See if I can pull out the tray in the back. Oh, they have really been uncapping honey But there's no indication of a of a Baroa bomb. I mean there's nothing.

The colony, since it's just me here and I can say whatever I want and I'm just talking to you. The queen in this colony died during the winter You know, I had cut trouble with the other queens too. So I'm going to go ahead and say that that's what's happening. While we take a walk here, I'm gonna take a a moment just to hear from our sponsor while I catch my breath.

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Jim Tew

Listen, uh, listeners, I don't want you to be as casual. About robbing as I am. I've told you I'm kind of a proponent of the logical concept for bees cleaning up each other's mess But that it causes a certain franticness in the yard. I mean these bees should be bringing back pollen But I don't know if they're just going over the just a few few yards away to those other one colony that still has something in it.

There is some pollen going in Yep, this this is frenzied flight. Right after Maple, we go into a little bit of a dearth. Right after the first sources So I I'm thinking that's what's happening here now. You know, I had that Last podcast segment where I told you that these colonies had not been open in so long, what should I do?

Leave it alone? One thing about these screen bottom boards is that when they drop pollen, it goes through the screen and the bees can't get to it. I guess they would want to get to it. And then the carpet beetles move in.

So you have beetles down below. Just looking quickly, I don't see any might fall. Now I'm not doing a close check, close look But I've decided to kind of breathe in a bag about this whole thing. If I set up a second yard Then I'm not gonna be able to get to it.

And all I'm gonna do is complain to you about not going to the other yard all the time So I've decided to do what I did last year. Just buy two packages, which means I've got to cancel some packages, which hope somebody reminds me to do that. buy two packages and replace those that died out. And the other thing is my neighbors are putting in a nice big garden.

And you know my luck, I've always had hypersensitive neighbors. I mean they seem to be the real deal. They carry epi-pens. They're putting in a large garden and one, two, three, four Five, six, six colonies here.

That would be eight, and that's a gracious plenty. Their garden is probably 120, maybe a hundred yards from me. But you know if a swarm goes, you know where it's gonna land. It'll go right to their property.

So I've decided to cut my enthusiasm And just get two packages to play with. So I can complain about Queens and whatever like I did last season. And then I gotta do something with these bees. If whereas I thought they would be hammered dead in the winter, these bees are gonna be swarming their butts off here in just a short time.

So one reason I didn't mind that honey being robbed out is I'd like to break those things apart and set up a couple of swarm traps just to see if anything will come in But I'll probably never do it. It's just me making plans. It's a beautiful day. I realized that I've had these nice quiet talks with you back here during the winter.

If just me and the occasional bird. Well all that's going to change. The motors are already starting. Lawns are being rolled.

This guy with my neighbor's out putting in his garden So we're going to be entering the the season of the moor here very soon. I'll never be able to have a quiet day again. Gotta deal with that. Everything looks all right out here, listeners.

I mean it's other than the bees being the least bit testy, I did go put a veil on. They would obviously want a bite of me In fact they're kind of getting worked up a little bit, but I do have a veil on now. But it just I you know I guess that would be a a reason to try to restrain Robin because it seems to agitate the yard Why would that be? Since I've talked about and thought about robbing for untold numbers of hours.

When one colony is being robbed out, are bees each checking each other's access. You know what I'm trying to ask? If one if one colony is being robbed Are all other colonies being checked to see which one is the right one? Otherwise, how would bees know to leave this colony right here, two feet from me?

And then go 15 still 25 feet down the way there to where that empty colony is. I'm guessing it would be trial and error, but I can't confirm that for sure. Listen, I told you in the previous episode that I'm I'm right now I'm slip shod beekeeping, so don't do what I do. I'm I'm I'm not a young beekeeper anymore and I'm just enjoying life and I'm not doing things the way I know I should do.

So just because you're listening to me, please keep in mind where I am in life. And I hope you're not there. I hope you still want to cooking colonies up and scrape frames and keep things in order. Because right now I've got a a lot more bees than I thought I would have and I need to to be do something with them.

It's like is it like raising rabbits? I've never raised rabbits in my life, but it seems like You go from feast to famine. I thought I would have maybe one colony alive. And now if each of these things swarms once or twice, I want to have more bees than I know what to do with.

So while I'm thinking I can control this. Beekeepers, do I dare say it? Am I so far gone, so long in the tooth? that the swarms can just go.

Before Varroa some years there would be so many swarms that you couldn't find somebody to get them. Everybody had all they wanted. Those days are have long since been gone. So back in the early, late mid-70s, early eighties, sometimes it was It was actually tricky to find somebody who'd drop everything and go pick up a swarm and a heavy swarm year.

Is that where I am? So when these colonies swarm, just wish them well. I could never do that though. If I would be the guy who'd be putting 'em in cardboard boxes or whatever I'm rattling on and on.

It is so nice to be outside and to be with the bees and it not be freezing cold. And of course, tomorrow's gonna be back in the 30s, but today is beautiful and the bees are making the most of it I think I'm gonna stop at this point. What I think I've figured out so far is that the one colony had an odd death a small amount of dysentery, and all the bees dyed up on the inner cover. I don't know what that means.

The other colony, I see no signs of of any kind of varroa bomb. There's you know if they had died of varroa, there'd be bees everywhere, with varroa on the on the you know the this insert that I had under the screen. I'm guessing that they had a defective queen too. And they lost the queen in the middle of the year and then waned or something.

I don't know. I'm guessing. Because it doesn't look like it was Varroa, there's not signs of that. The other colonists, when I open the bottom pens I don't see a lot of Aurora drops there.

That doesn't mean anything. I'm wonder how people ride me telling me how slip shod this is, but all I'm doing is just doing a quick check, a quick look on a nice day I hope you have a nice afternoon and I hope your bees are thriving and looking good too. I know parts of the country are really really hot right now and I just submitted an article to the Journal just the basics of providing water. That's an exciting routine.

So those of you in having hot weather I hope your bees are surviving okay good too. I'm just putting a post-up picture in think you have an idea what happened. I hope I'll do my best to find very bad Until you buy until this time next week.