CAPPings – April 2020

April 3, 2020

Highly transmissible viruses, massive investments to find cures, concerns about crowding and global impacts with no definite end in sight… you might think I’m talking about COVID-19, but actually I’m referring to beekeeping in the 21^st century.  Thankfully, good management techniques, new treatments, and unflappable perseverance among beekeepers have allowed apiculture to survive despite new challenges. I can only imagine if we as a community approach our current health crisis with the same energy and dedication that beekeepers apply to their trade, we will overcome this virus and rebound from its impacts.

Clemson Extension and the Apiculture and Pollinator Program remain open for business despite our county offices and research centers being closed to the public. Our Agriculture Service Lab is still processing soil samples and other testing services, our agents are still taking calls and offering programs, and our researchers continue to conduct vital research. Our agents and specialists are taking this time to create and update our digital education resources and offer as much programming as possible through online platforms.  We recently launched our Clemson Apiculture and Pollinator Program (CAPP) website and will continue to add content to the website over the next month.  This time of social distancing allows us a chance to review and update the old fact sheets.  We also are looking into providing some digital meetings and trainings for local beekeeper associations.  We encourage SC beekeepers to check the website regularly and like the @ClemsonApiculture facebook page for announcements.

In response to restrictions issued by SC government, the South Carolina Department of Agriculture has provided guidance for the state’s producers, including beekeepers.  Growers (and beekeepers) are determined to be essential and should continue operation while instating social distancing and hygienic behavior recommendations.  For beekeepers with employees, the SCDA has issued a letter of determination and a notice of essential agriculture employee that should be signed and given to employees in case they are questioned by law enforcement.  These resources are available at https://agriculture.sc.gov/coronavirus/.  Also, Clemson has compiled COVID-19 resources for agribusinesses at https://www.clemson.edu/extension/agribusiness/covid19.html.

Let me leave you with these words of encouragement.  You as beekeepers perform an essential service to our communities.  The products your bees produce, the services they provide and the education and outreach your businesses and associations provide to your neighbors make this a most noble trade.  Take this time to tend to your apiaries and enjoy being among your bees.  For us in Extension, we are seeing a surge in interest in home gardening, urban farming and locally-sourced foods now that people are spending time at home and grocery supplies are strained.  We hope that this presents an opportunity for beekeepers and other local producers as our communities pay attention to the value of local growers that provide for their communities.  Perhaps we will become better neighbors and rekindle our connection with the land.

It’s not Christmas time, but it is “the most wonderful time of the year!” Warm air and longer days have triggered a bevy of flowers and a collage of natural color. Nectar and pollen are plentiful, and bees dash in and out of hive entrances, driven to make the most of the bounty that Nature provides.

For most of the state, the concern for starvation has abated.  The higher elevations in the extreme upstate may continue to provide limited nectar sources into mid april, but, for the most part, bees have plenty of food available this month all across South Carolina.

The greatest management concern for beekeepers in April is swarming. I say management concern from the perspective of a beekeeper that intends to harvest honey or sell bees.  Swarming is a natural and beneficial behavior for honey bees, but it does interrupt productivity for the entrepreneurial beekeeper. Healthy colonies will approach or reach peak population this month, which means that most of the colonies that are likely to swarm this month have already begun preparations by the time this newsletter is complete.  Advanced colonies may have already made the natural split.  Methods to control swarming fall into three categories 1) prevention, 2) intervention or 3) recapture.  Preventative strategies are designed to alter the conditions that trigger swarming.  These include providing more comb for brood rearing and honey/pollen storage, reversing/rearranging brood chambers to encourage full use of the entire comb, replacing filled brood comb with open comb (and using the brood to bolster weaker colonies), and replacing older queens with new queens to improve pheromone distribution among the colony.  Once preparations to swarm have begun, then intervention strategies can be used.  These include making splits (which mimics the swarm event), removing queen cells, clipping the queen’s wings, and separating the queen from developing brood (Demareeing).  Last, despite a beekeeper’s best efforts, some colonies insist upon swarming. Beekeepers should always carry swarm capturing equipment with them this month to capture swarms when they are found. For more details on these methods, review the Swarm Control Fact sheet developed by the Mid-Atlantic Apiculture Research & Extension Consortium (http://agdev.anr.udel.edu/maarec/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Swarm_Prev_Control_PM.pdf). For a very detailed guide to managing brood arrangement and other swarm management techniques, read the guide authored by Wally Shaw and published by the Welsh Beekeepers Association (http://www.wbka.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Swarm-Control-Wally-Shaw.pdf). Also, Meghan Milbrath provides a great review on swarm management in April edition of the American Bee Journal.

If you have not added honey supers, you are behind schedule. If you use queen excluders, they should be applied when adding supers. If you have screened bottom boards, they should be open.  If you have entrance reducers, they should be removed from strong hives.  If you plan to make splits, now is a good time.  Taking into account that most varroa mite treatments are much more effective when the colony has little or no capped brood, then it makes sense to treat newly installed packages after they have begun to draw new comb but before they develop capped brood which typically occurs in the third week after the package is installed.  Because these new packages will not be producing harvestable honey this season, then your treatment options are wide open. If you are considering treating established honey producing hives for varroa, then your options are extremely limited to formic acid (MiteAway quick strips, FormicPro) or hops beta acid (Hopguard II). These are the only treatments that can be applied when honey supers are present. Use the Honey Bee Health Coalition’s Varroa Decision tool to determine the treatment options for your particular situations (https://honeybeehealthcoalition.org/varroatool/). Most honey producers will wait to treat for varroa mites after they have removed honey supers. Other than that, this month is about providing your colonies with enough room to store the nectar they will be collecting.

TENDING HIVES IS SAVING LIVES

Wes Bromer, retired submarine chief for the US Navy and former president of the SC Beekeepers Association, was not quite sure what he had volunteered to do when he answered a request to visit the Allendale Prison. Now, eight years later, he can’t stop talking about it, and he returns weekly to help mentor their inmate beekeeping program.

Wes will tell you that the program does not require much from him.  The inmates are motivated and thirsty to learn.  They do the work.  They self-police, meaning that they regulate each other’s behavior because of how much they value the activity and do not want it taken away.  Now that the program has been running for several years, the inmates are even teaching and mentoring newcomers.  As an added incentive, the inmates get to sell their hive products to the prison staff, and the revenue they generate goes back into the beekeeping program which helps them with business skills.  Wes mainly serves as the initial “force multiplier,” a term most military folks will know.  He teaches a few eager inmates, and they run the program.

For the warden, beekeeping and the other Better Living Incentive Community programs are dramatically improving the work environment for his staff and living conditions for the inmates.  His officer vacancy rate is the lowest in the state, and the prisoner recidivism rate (re-incarceration rate) is far below the national average. These vocational programs rehabilitate inmates with purpose and help them express themselves in constructive ways.  In the eight-year history of the beekeeping program, only one inmate has been removed for misbehavior, and only one inmate released from prison has been re-incarcerated.

The beekeeping program at Allendale has trained over 120 beekeepers, most of which are certified through the SC Beekeepers Association. Four of the inmates have become journeymen beekeepers.  This is a tremendous feat considering that the average participant in the program reads below a fifth-grade level.  Many had to learn to read before they could even take the test.

Prison beekeeping programs are growing all across the nation and are now active in Texas, Illinois, Nebraska, Washington, Maryland, Minnesota, Ohio, Georgia and South Carolina. Allendale is one of several prisons in South Carolina to develop an inmate beekeeping program. Similar programs were instituted at Perry, Lee, Broad River, Ridgeland, and Trenton Correctional Institutions, but most of these programs have been discontinued for various reasons.  The success at Allendale can be attributed to the diversity of programs offered, the mindset of the program participants, and the dedication of volunteers such as Wes Bromer.

The SC Department of Corrections is interested in building upon the success of the inmate beekeeping program.  Mrs. Mary Pauzauskie-Blackburn, the horticulture branch chief at the SCDOC, attended the 2020 SCBA spring meeting to inquire about developing similar programs at other installations.  If you or your beekeeping association would be interested in sponsoring a similar program, contact us at the Clemson Apiculture and Pollinator Program to learn more.

To truly witness the positive impacts that character building programs such as beekeeping are having on Allendale inmates, watch the SCETV special, “Character in Custody.” The principal inmate interviewed in the video, Geoffrey Payne, participated in the beekeeping program and keeps hives of his own after his release. https://video.scetv.org/video/character-in-custody-bty9sk/

They are huge.  They hang out around your home, and they like to get all up in your face.  Carpenter bees absolutely demand your attention this time of year.

Carpenter bees look like bumble bees, but that is where the similarities end.  Actually, carpenter bees (Xylocopa spp. and Cerotina spp.) include several species of solitary wood boring bees, but only the familiar eastern carpenter bee, Xylocopa virginica, has the yellow and black coloration like bumble bees.  This carpenter bee chews galleries ½ inch in diameter into exposed wood.  They bore into the wood across the grain for an inch or two then they turn 90 degrees and bore many inches with the grain. In early spring, males emerge from the galleries and other hibernacula (winter hiding places) to find last season’s galleries.  The males guard these areas vigorously to prevent other males from claiming them. This is the “aggressive” behavior that residents complain about each spring.  Actually, it’s all for show, because the males are harmless and cannot sting. Eventually the females become active, search for mates with protected galleries and begin reproduction.  After mating, the female largely does all of the work.  She will collect a ball of bee bread, lay an egg, and build a saw-dust partition to form a reproductive cell. She will continue this process until the gallery is filled with cells. The larvae will grow and pupate in the cell.  In late summer the developed adults in each gallery will emerge simultaneously.  These adults will overwinter individually to repeat the process the following year.

Carpenter bees are good pollinators.  Like other bees they seek pollen to feed their young, and they demonstrate moderate flower fidelity, which makes them efficient pollinators.  They also can buzz pollinate, so they pollinate closed flowers like blueberries, tomatoes and eggplants.  Carpenter bees are known to nectar rob, which means they will cut flowers from outside of the corolla to access the nectar without contacting the reproductive parts of flowers.  They typically only do this to deep tubular flowers when other flowers are limited.

Carpenter bees are notorious for the damage they cause to wood structures.  The majority of calls Extension receives is about how to eliminate these critters rather than protect them.  Our approach is to inform residents that destroying the bees is much less effective than protecting the wood.  Carpenter bees are fairly plentiful, especially near forested areas, so traps and insect sprays often provide little or no relief.  Instead, residents should paint or seal wooden structures to prevent boring and to prevent water damage and other wood destroying organisms.  If a structure is heavily infested, insecticides applied directly to holes can eliminate the individuals, but new bees will colonize the holes if they are not plugged.  Also, plugging the holes alone is not effective, because the bees will bore through the plugs.  Broadcast insecticides sprays are not very effective because they are quickly absorbed into the wood grain, rendering them inactive.

A possible remedy would be to trap and relocate the bees.  Modifying the mason jar traps with screened traps might allow the homeowner to capture the bees and keep them alive longer.  We suggest relocating the bees to forested areas at least 3 miles from the capture location.  This method may not ensure survival, but it should remove the bees from the offending area.

For more information about carpenter bees, review the article that Dr. Eric Benson and I authored for Clemson’s Home and Garden Information Center. https://hgic.clemson.edu/carpenter-bees-are-active-again/

 

 

Gut microbes that naturally occur in honey bee digestive tracts were modified to produce molecules that are part of the immune defensive response to viruses.  The modified bacteria effectively killed varroa mites that fed on the treated bees, and the virus load on the bees was greatly reduced.
Leonard, S.P., Powell, J.E., Perutka, J., Geng, P., Heckmann, L.C., Horack, R.D., Davies, B.W., Ellington, A.D., Barrick, J.E. & Moran, N.A. 2020. Engineered symbionts activate honey bee immunity and limit pathogens. Science. 367(6477), 573-576. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aax9093

All arthropods have naturally occurring pathogenic fungi that attack them.  Italian researchers explored the effects of applying Matarhizium anisopliae, a Varroa specific fungus, to infested honey bee colonies with promising results.  The fungal spores (conidia) resulted in reductions of mite loads with little effect to the honey bees.
Maria Celeste Fernandez Ferrari, Riccardo Favaro, Sieglinde Mair, Livia Zanotelli, Valeria Malagnini, Paolo Fontana & Sergio Angeli (2020) Application of Metarhizium anisopliae as a potential biological control of Varroa destructor in Italy, Journal of Apicultural Research, DOI: 10.1080/00218839.2020.1736814

Study finds that species richness of native bees is reduced around agronomic fields using neonicotinoid seed treatments but not in the way you might expect.  Wildflowers contained little or no pesticide residue, which results in little threat to bees foraging in the margins of treated fields.  On the other hand, pesticide residues in soil were elevated which affected native solitary bees that nest in the ground.
Main, A.R., E.B. Webb, K.W. Goyne & D. Mengel. 2020. Reduced species richness of native bees in field margins associated with neonicotinoid concentrations in non-target soils.  Agriculture, Ecosystems, and Environment 287:106693 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agee.2019.106693

 

 

Most of the events scheduled for April and May have been cancelled or postponed due to COVID-19.

April 5^th Charleston Honey & Bee Expo – cancelled

April 24/25 SCBA Journeyman Course in Conway, SC  – postponed TBD

May 13-16 UGA Bee School at Young Harris  – cancelled (program will resume in 2021)

July 23/24 SCBA Summer Meeting – still “a go” for now

AUG 3-7 EAS Annual meeting in Orono, Maine – executive committee will provide a verdict about cancelling in early April.  Check EAS website for updates.

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