Absconding vs. Colony Collapse Disorder

I find myself thinking about Alexander and the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day. Alexander is having such a bad time of it that he thinks throughout the book that he would like to move to Australia.

Although I imagine that Australian beekeepers have it pretty good - at least down there it's winter and if you are a beekeeper you are hoping your bees make it through the winter. Me, I'm struggling with my bees not making it through the summer.

So I came back from helping my brother in Natchez to find that Mellona was completely empty. The bees had absconded.

Beekeeping is an interesting challenge for me on so many levels. I have struggled all my life as an oldest child in my family, because I always feel like I have to get it right, make an A, follow the rules. Boy, beekeeping is really throwing a wrench into the works. I am forced as a beekeeper to face this "follow the rules and get it right" issue all the time.

So I switched hive positions, moving Mellona which was housed in three boxes - two 10 frame and one 8 frame - into the position of the Easter hive which had five ten frame boxes stacked. Mellona was then bursting out with bees at every possible opening, as the bees from the Easter hive returned to their old hive position.

But they hadn't used the frames in the top box so I didn't add a box. After all, the rule is to add a box when the box below is built out 80 %.

Also, I realized that they weren't solid with honey but didn't feed them because I thought they could manage with what is blooming now (although we are in a dearth). And I didn't want to feed sugar water before fall, if then, because it isn't natural.  And the rule is to feed the bees going into the fall, if you are going to feed them.  Not in the middle of the summer.

Well, pride goeth before a fall and all of that. Mellona absconded, leaving NOTHING behind. No bees, no brood, no honey, absolutely nothing.  A great lot of good it did for me to follow the rules so rigidly.

I sat down on my deck, smoker beside me, and cried. Why didn't I give them a box so they could spread out more? Why didn't I recognize that they needed food? Of course they've been gone for days and I have no clue where they went. There's no nectar anywhere in my neighborhood right now.

The pictures below show what they left - NOTHING.


Swarming:  A method of hive reproduction in which the queen and half of the bees in the hive leave to start a new hive, leaving behind the other half of the bees, queen cells, brood, honey, pollen

Absconding:  A desperate hive leaves with all the bees, the queen and everything else except the honeycomb. This happens when circumstances are not survivable in the hive as it is constituted.  The hive has no stores and no room.

Colony Collapse Disorder:  Adult bees are gone, but honey, pollen and some brood remain behind. The difference in absconding and CCD is that the honey, pollen and brood are left behind  Sometimes the queen and a handful of bees are left in the hive.  Opportunists (SHB and wax moths) seem slower to take over when CCD is the cause of the dead hive.
Robbing:  You can see dead bees and parts of bees on the tops of the frames and strewn all over the screened bottom board.  The edges of what had been capped honey are ripped, ragged and torn.  The hive may survive but the bees are disheartened and have no stores.

I remember last fall hearing a new beekeeper saying that she lost her first hive to colony collapse disorder. She didn't, I'm sure. I imagine she managed her hives as badly as I did this one and they absconded.

When bees leave at this time of year, that's what is going on. They have no stores and no hope because there's a dearth.  These bees were also bearding off of the hive in every single space - they didn't have enough room.  Then the bees leave because they have no hope of surviving in the hive as it is. They will probably die wherever they went, but they don't know anything else to do.

I am absolutely distressed.

See - completely empty comb. It hasn't been robbed out. You can tell because the edges of the comb are smooth - no torn and ripped wax. There just were no stores for these bees.  And not enough room.  Because the beekeeper was too rigid about following the rules.



The screened bottom board wasn't strewn with dead bodies (as it would be if the hive had been robbed out)  - just a little detrius from the hive.



I put the frames out on the deck to kill any wax moths who might feel inclined to take up residence.

 My dog Hannah is looking through the deck railing for the absconded hive.

And I am despondent.....it's a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

Delaplane Speaks on CCD

Last night Dr. Keith Delaplane spoke to the Metropolitan Atlanta Beekeepers Association on Colony Collapse Disorder. Lucky me, I got to go out to dinner with him before the meeting and we had a lot of fun, talking about bees and life in general.



Delaplane is heading up a consortium grant involving 17 colleges and universities. The grant is a four year, 4.1 million dollar grant to study CCD. The studies are focused on determining the cause of CCD.

Delaplane said that there are three major pathogens being studied: viruses, nosema, and pesticide residue. Other factors being considered are an increase in bee pollinated crops and at the same time a decrease in beekeeper managed hives. In other words, as there are less beekeepers in the country, the almond pollination needs are rising.

I've always wondered why almonds were the benchmark crop. Delaplane explained that it is a valuable nut that is currently fetching a premium price. Pollinating an almond is a simple event in that a single pollen grain on a single stigma equals one nut.

As most of you know, beekeepers rent out their hives to the almond growers. There is a bias in beekeeping toward migratory beekeeping because there is so much money in it.

The migration begins when hives are rented to the almond growers. Then migratory beekeepers might load up those hives and go to the Dakotas to get a honey crop from clover; go to Michigan to pollinate the blueberries; and then migrate to Florida to pollinate the orange crops.

Honey yields go through the roof with migratory beekeeping, so there's an ongoing reward for beekeeping in this way. This migratory circuit is typical of American beekeepers but not found in other parts of the world.

In general the bees gather nectar and produce honey during a short period of the year. In Georgia we have a 6 - 8 week honey flow. Then the rest of the season is spent conserving the supplies to make it through the winter. The migratory bees don't get a break but go from honey flow to honey flow.

Currently there is an ongoing study project comparing 30 bee colonies which stay in the same place with a group of 30 USDA colonies which are migratory. Hopefully some understanding of the impact on bees of migration will be the result. I tried to find a reference on the web for this and couldn't.

Delaplane referenced a wonderful study on PLOS ONE which he encouraged us all to read. That this open source study is available to us non-scientists is a real gift. This study looks at the interaction of stress and pathogens on bees and CCD.

He also encouraged us to search regularly on the website: eXtension.org, using bees/honeybee/bee as a search terms. This is a site maintained by the land grant universities and gives all of us commoners access to the latest research being done by land grant colleges and universities on bees.

For example, if you go to this article, you'll see on the right a number of other articles that may have a similar focus and may be of interest to you. Or try this concentration area on Bee Health.

I'm a little scared of this site because I think I might get lost in all the interesting reading and not come up for air!

As always, Dr. Delaplane was full of helpful information and useful pointers. I can't wait until he returns to our bee club next year.

Do bees pollinate lemons?

I was making gazpacho for lunch and suddenly noticed that the lemon I just cut in half has a honeybee on its label. As we do in today's computer driven world, I immediately searched google for "bees pollinating lemons" and found several references.






















One University of Florida paper says:
"Lemons: Russian literature is cited which indicates lemons benefited from pollination. This is in opposition to most U.S. studies indicating the value to be minimal. However, there is evidence that seedlessness can result from self pollination, and that seedlessness may contribute to a reduction in fruit set."

An article on CCD says:
"A number of agricultural crops are almost totally dependent on honey bee pollination (90-100%), including almonds, apples, avocados, blueberries, cranberries, cherries, kiwifruit, macadamia nuts, asparagus, broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, celery, cucumbers, onions, legume seeds, pumpkins, squash, and sunflowers. Other specialty crops also rely on honey bee pollination, but to a lesser degree. These crops include apricot, citrus (oranges, lemons, limes, grapefruit, tangerines, etc), peaches, pears, nectarines, plums, grapes, brambleberries, strawberries, olives, melon (cantaloupe, watermelon, and honeydew), peanuts, cotton, soybeans, and sugarbeets.

A fun Smithsonian article on teaching students the importance of bees in our food suggests making a bee-free barbecue and mentions bee-dependent foods that the students couldn't use, including lemons.....hmmm I guess for the iced tea or as an ingredient in the BBQ sauce.

I'm interested that the lemon grower saw fit to put a honeybee on the label - nice for us beekeepers, but the bee doesn't seem to be essential to the lemon crop as the bee is to some other crops.

Colony Collapse Disorder

As most of you have probably read, bees are disappearing from hives in this country and so far there is not an explanation for why this is happening. The New York Times has a good article on the thoughts about this problem. My computer stays signed in to the NYT, but you may have to sign in to read the article.

Also, Bill Maher has an Earth Day article addressing CCD (Colony Collapse Disorder).

Beekeepers seem to have quite a creative sense of humor. On the Beemaster Forum, people have been playing with outrageous reasons why the bees are disappearing. My three favorites so far are:

"...they joined the army reserve trying to bee all that they can bee."

and

"The Honey Bee internal GPS system gets its directions from Map Quest now..."

and

"The worker bees created a union and decided to go on strike..."

On May 9, the Metro Atlanta Beekeepers Association meeting will have as the guest speaker, Dr. Keith Delaplane from the University of Georgia honeybee research program. Dr. Delaplane will talk about Colony Collapse Disorder.

It's everywhere! It's everywhere!