Year: 2021

 

Thanksgiving is just around the corner, and our plate is full!

There are so many good things happening with beekeeping in South Carolina, and we are blessed to be a part of it. Here are a few things we are trying to accomplish over the next few months.

We are pleased to help the SC Master Beekeeper Program revise the certified level training. We are rethinking how this course is taught and the organization of the curriculum. The intent is to place more emphasis on basic honey bee biology so that new beekeepers can learn to read their bees better and infer management. We also want to place more emphasis on varroa mites and managing Parasitic Mite Syndrome.  We want to emphasize the pests and diseases that need immediate attention for beginning beekeepers in their first few years, rather than covering all of the pests, diseases, and maladies that beekeepers may encounter. We will reserve the more comprehensive discussion of pests and diseases to the journeyman course. The new training materials should be available after the new year. Also, the SC MBP is arranging for testing to be available online to make the certification process much easier for local beekeeper associations and SC Beekeepers Association members.

We installed the pollinator habitat test plots at the Pee Dee Research and Education Center in Florence and are monitoring germination. Some timely rain and mild temperatures have helped. We look forward to next spring when we can begin field demonstrations.

We are lining up speakers for the spring meeting of the SCBA. The theme will be “From Flower to Fair” and talks will focus on nutrition as speakers cover topics related to planting forages for bees, understanding honey bee nutrition, and ensuring high quality hive products for the consumer. Our keynote speakers will be Dr. Juliana Rangel from Texas A&M University, who is a respected researcher that investigates honey bee nutrition, and Dr. Wyatt Mangum, who is an author well known for his experience with top bar hives. We are also looking for SC beekeepers to present at the meeting. While our primary focus is on honey bee forages, nutrition, and products, we always welcome speakers to share information about management, pests/diseases, tools and equipment. If you are interested in speaking at the spring meeting, please contact Ben Powell (BPOWEL2@Clemson.edu). Consider this a “call for proposals” for presentations at the spring meeting.

Who is ready for some field days in the spring of 2022? Using the apiaries in Clemson, Florence, and Charleston, we hope to offer informal trainings for aspiring beekeepers. Come shadow experienced beekeepers as they work colonies, and get your hands sticky too! Be on the look-out for the announcement for the field day closest to you.

Have you heard about the Clemson Honey Bee Forage Phenology Project? Well, if not, here is a brief description. One of the most common topics of discussion among beekeepers is “what is blooming” and “what is different this year from in the past.” Understandably, this is a very important topic, because it directly affects bee behavior and health and determines productivity of a beekeeping operation. The challenge is that bloom cycles are affected by so many variables. The weather, local climates, development, changes in land uses, and an array of other factors influence what is blooming and when it blooms. The good news is that modern technology offers beekeepers a way to capture real data about bloom cycles of important honey bee forages. We have developed a project through iNaturalist which will provide a central place for SC Beekeepers to submit pictures of flowering plants. The magic of iNaturalist is that beekeepers do not have to know what plant they are photographing. The application will suggest an identification for each flower captured, and it captures the date and location as well. If enough beekeepers are photographing flowers across the state, then we will be able to track in real time what plants are blooming in each region of the state. Plus, we can compare it to bloom cycles from previous years to determine how climate and land uses might be affecting flower phenology of important honey bee forage plants.  Beekeepers that are interested in submitting photos should contact Ben Powell (BPOWEL2@Clemson.edu). A training for interested participants will occur in December.

We at the Clemson Apiculture and Pollinator Program are excited and eager to assist beekeepers in South Carolina. We hope that these projects will help beekeepers improve and advance beekeeping statewide. Of course, your input is always welcome, so please do not hesitate to contact me with suggestions or questions, especially if there is something that you think needs to be in the newsletter.

Kindest regards,
Ben Powell
Clemson Apiculture and Pollinator Program Coordinator

 

 

 

 

Time keeps on ticking, ticking, ticking…

Does anyone else feel like summer was just too short? Nevertheless, here we are knocking on winter’s door, the time of year when I am most nervous. Are my colonies strong enough to last the coming winter? Have I combined all of the weaker colonies to give them a better chance of overwintering? Have I done what is necessary to control varroa mites and parasitic mite syndrome? Do the colonies have enough food? Have I done everything I can to prevent robbing? Have I replaced the weak or older queens so that they will build quickly in the spring before new queens are available? What about black bears??? Preparing for winter often puts me on edge.

Most colonies across the state have settled into their typical winter pattern. Brood rearing has slowed considerably. The strongest hives in the Clemson demonstration apiaries have reduced the brood area down to just a few frames. The queens continue to lay, but they are mainly backfilling their brood areas and not expanding. Foragers continue to bring pollen into the hives, but there does not appear to be anymore increase in honey stores. Some areas in the upstate have experienced frost already, but we are running behind schedule for our first frost in the coastal plain. It looks as though next week (Nov 14-21) will have night temperatures in the 30’s, so any remaining nectar sources are likely to come to a halt.

This is an important time to check food stores and to consider feeding colonies that are light. Question is “how much honey or syrup does a colony need going into winter.” Well, the answer is not straight-forward. It depends on the size of the colony, the amount of brood production, conditions in the apiary, weather, and availability of winter forages. Some colonies will consume their winter stores faster than others, so there is no standard weight or volume of honey to ensure all colonies are well fed. Rather, the beekeeper should practice the art of “hefting,” which is simply judging the relative weight of a colony by tipping it and feeling how difficult it is to lift. Because hefting is a subjective measurement, it can be wrought with errors, but a skilled beekeeper can judge the relative weights of colonies and determine which are lightest. Using this pre-screening method, the beekeeper knows which colonies to investigate for food stores rather than opening all the hives in the apiary and inviting robbing. There is a way to make hefting more objective and give the beekeeper a method for monitoring colonies through the season. That is to use a scale to measure weight. There are specialty scales that can be placed under Langstroth hives, but these scales are expensive (approx. $200). Another option is to use a handheld luggage or fish scale which usually cost less than $50 and can be simply hooked under one end of the hive to measure the weight when hefting. The major advantage of using a scale is that it quantifies the weight and gives you a number that you can use to compare among hives and to monitor weight change of a single hive through the winter. Through good record keeping, a beekeeper can track food consumption and feeding needs through the winter without opening the colony.

The logical next question is “what should you feed.” Well, in South Carolina, we never freeze deeply enough to preclude the use of syrup. While it is often recommended to increase the syrup concentration to 2:1 (sugar:water), bees will make good use of 1:1 syrup. The major disadvantages of 1:1 syrup are that it takes twice as much volume to feed the same amount of carbohydrates as 2:1 and the increase of moisture in the colonies could lead to increased condensation inside the hive body. One good advantage of feeding syrup is that bees will relocate it into cells above the brood area where it helps moderate temperature fluctuations in the hive. Bees also will consume dry sugar, fondant or candy in the winter months. This provides the most concentrated source of carbohydrates and is very simple to feed to bees. Bees must acquire water to reconstitute dry sugar feeds, and the beekeeper must install a shim or board above the brood area to accommodate the feed. A problem that both syrups and dry sugar feeds have is that they do not provide the full array of nutrients that bees get from natural nectar sources. For this reason, beekeepers might consider adding nutrient supplements to winter feeds. If you want to learn more about the nutrients and supplements, I strongly encourage you to attend the spring meeting of the SC Beekeepers Association. This is one of the primary topics to be discussed.

Last, how should you feed bees in winter? Most importantly, bees should not be fed openly this time of year (or anytime in my humble opinion) because it invites pests, incites robbing, and is only accessible on warmer days. Sugar-based feeds should be applied directly to the hives needing to be fed. Dry feeds are pretty simple. They can be placed on parchment paper above the brood area frames, in candy boards, or on top of inner covers. Syrups require a little more thought. External feeders such as boardman or pail feeders are exposed to the environment outside of the hive and can fluctuate in temperature or even freeze. If the syrup gets very cold, the bees will not consume it. If a beekeeper chooses to use a pail feeder, they can protect it from the elements using an empty hive body. A better feeder is the top feeder which fits like a super on top of the hive. This feeder type is exposed to the heat generated by the bees and can moderate temperature fluctuations in the hive, but bees have to leave the confines of the winter cluster to access the feed. In South Carolina, that is not as big of a challenge as in more northern climates. Last, and arguably the best winter feeder is the division board feeder. This feeder is placed into the brood box in the place of a couple of frames making it protected from the elements where it is easily accessible to the winter cluster and where it receives some heat generated by the bees. The only disadvantage is that the hive must be opened to fill the feeder. Simply minimize disturbance and chilling by sliding the lid or super over enough to access the feeder without completely opening the hive.

Of course, this section would not be complete if I did not discuss pests. I promised to be concise at the beginning of the newsletter, so I will attempt to cover winter pest issues here briefly. First, and most important, you should have been controlling Varroa mites in the lead up to the winter to ensure your winter bees are robust and prepared to face the stresses of winter. However, there is a chance that mite loads remain elevated. If that is the case, then now is the time to do something about it. Mite control now will result in productive colonies in the spring. The good news is that the reduction of brood production and cooler temperatures means that almost all of the Varroa treatment options will work well, most notable is oxalic acid. The “dribble” method of applying oxalic acid works especially well this time of year. Without going into too much detail, I will direct you to a website hosted by BetterBee that discusses how to mix and apply oxalic acid via the dribble method (https://www.betterbee.com/instructions-and-resources/how-to-do-an-oxalic-acid-dribble-treatment.asp). Another aggravating pest is the small hive beetle. Adult SHBs will reside in the winter cluster with the bees only venturing out to feed on bee bread on warmer days. This makes them more difficult to trap in winter months. One thing that you can do is to treat the soil for SHB larvae and pupae, especially under hives that were infested earlier in the year. GuardStar is the only product labelled for controlling hive beetles in the soil under bee hives. Last, this is the time of year when mice are most likely to enter bee colonies. Reducing the entrance to the smallest notch, usually takes care of that problem.

Although I would like to move-on, we really need to discuss off-season tasks this year. If you have not already looked at product costs, you are likely in for some sticker shock. Last year a case of 5 unassembled deep boxes cost me $78.75. That same product this year will cost $124.75. If I am doing my math correctly, that is a 58.4% increase in price from just one year ago.  Thankfully the supplier is running a sale in the lead up to black Friday with the amazing deal (sense my sarcasm?) of $111.03, which is still a 41% increase over last year’s price. While this is disturbing enough, the problem is that there appears to be no end in sight for the increases in costs. Inflation coupled with supply chain problems due to COVID-19 restrictions has created a severe increase in material costs. My point is that you probably should not hold off for prices to decline because they probably never will, or, if they do, it will not be until well after you need it for next year’s season. And…, I will just stop right there before I say something that I likely will regret.

 

Not like any social I’ve ever attended!

It is very easy to get upset with social media. I do it on a daily basis. It seems there are no limits to people’s willingness to show the world how little they know and how hateful they can be. My father once taught me an adage about opinions… something about how everybody’s got one and how most of them stink. It truly seems like courtesy and respect are largely non-existent in people’s interactions online, and that is unfortunate, because social media has tremendous influence over our daily lives.

That being said, there is good in this world, even online, especially among the beekeeping community. There is tremendous potential for learning, sharing, improving, and solving problems using social media platforms. To think, with a click of a button or tap of your screen, you can learn a beekeeping technique from someone half-way around the world or interact directly with a university conducting bee research and extension, something that was only possible through periodic journals or conferences just 20 years ago. The world is at our fingertips in real time, and it is up to us to determine how we use it. Dad also taught me another bit of wisdom when I was younger, and that is “you are what you gaze upon.” You will become that which you seek. The question is, “what do you seek when using social media?”

I am quite impressed with the impact that South Carolina beekeepers are having through their social media platforms. The state and almost every local beekeeper association has a social media account to interact with membership and the public, reaching thousands of current and would-be beekeepers. In fact, Facebook is becoming the primary way the public engages beekeepers for swarm removals, honey bee products, and questions about stinging insects. Hardly a day passes without someone engaging our program through our Facebook page. Some of the social media accounts set-up by SC beekeepers have become very popular. The new Lowcountry Bee Nerds page (https://www.facebook.com/groups/164459154881847) was recently formed and gained membership quickly, engaging beekeepers across the coastal areas of SC. One of our most prominent social media accounts is “Beekeeping Hacks” (https://www.facebook.com/groups/591466204364439). Managed by master beekeeper Larry Coble, it now has more than 40 thousand members posting about innovative and helpful “tricks of the trade.” Even our humble Clemson Apiculture page (https://www.facebook.com/ClemsonApiculture/) is up to 1,350 followers, which includes many beekeepers that do not regularly attend local association meetings.

That is not to say that Facebook is the end-all, be-all of social media platforms, although their rebranding to “META” might suggest they see something over the horizon. Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat are used more extensively by younger folks and offer tremendous potential for sharing the beauty of beekeeping with audiences that are not participating in many of our traditional outreach platforms. Add Twitter, Tumblr, and YouTube to the mix, and the job of maintaining a social media presence becomes excessively complicated, so complicated that many large companies have teams of people working specifically to update and monitor social media accounts. One helpful hint if you use Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter predominantly is to link your accounts and post through Instagram which automatically posts to the Facebook and Twitter pages.

We even have social media that is intended for more scientific endeavors. While iNaturalist is thought of mainly as a smartphone app that helps you identify living things, it really is a social media platform to facilitate interaction among observers of the natural world. Through their system, the innovators of iNaturalist developed a way for people to capture data about Nature and make it available to others and to receive feedback from experienced biologists. While most folks simply use iNaturalist to identify living things, the platform is extremely powerful and can be used for scientific projects, especially regarding ecology and phenology. Phenology is the study of the timing and sequence of natural events, such as when deciduous trees turn colors in the fall or bird migrations. Whether they realize it or not, casual observers using iNaturalist are creating a real-time log of where organisms exist and when they exhibit certain traits or behaviors, which provides a data set that we can use as practitioners of apiculture.

The Clemson Apiculture and Pollinator Program is calling on beekeepers, gardeners, and naturalists statewide to help with a project in 2022. We are calling it the Clemson Honey Bee Forage Phenology Project. Using iNaturalist, participants will capture the bloom periods of the most important honey bee forage plants in South Carolina by simply taking pictures of flowers with their mobile devices or digital cameras. When a photo is taken with a smartphone, the date, time and location of the image are saved. If that image is loaded to this iNaturalist project, we will be able to track exactly when honey bee nectar and pollen plants are blooming and where they are commonly found in the state. If we have enough observers statewide, we will also be able to track differences among the regions (coastal vs. piedmont vs. mountains). Also, you can upload old photos of flowers that you may have stored on your phone which will allow us to compare bloom times to previous years.

We will offer a virtual training on December 7^th for anyone interested in participating in the project. At the training we will make sure that each participant has an active account with iNaturalist. We will get users loaded into the project and show participants how to upload images. While we will be targeting certain known honey bee plants, we welcome participants to submit images of unknown flowers too, especially if honey bees are observed foraging on the flowers. Participants will not even need to know the identification of the flowers they are photographing. We can sort through the data for particular plant species and by locations, which will be used to update our bloom charts and make them more regionally specific. There also are long term possibilities for the project. It has been suggested that land use change and climate will change honey bee foods in our beautiful state, and this project could help determine if that is indeed happening and how.

 

An Acer Up Your Sleeve

As I write this, drifts of leaves are beginning to pile-up around the yard, and the sky is ever more visible through the woods out back. Fall is giving way to winter, and it will be months before the next nectar flow begins. From now through January, deciduous forests across the state will fade to gray, and they will lay in that state until springtime.

One tree in the eastern US insists upon “getting out of bed early,” and, like a defiant toddler, it doesn’t do it

quietly. As if clanging after a bowl of cereal, the Red Maple (Acer rubrum L.) announces its presence loudly with splashes of brilliant pinks and reds that rip through the grayness of leafless forests. Starting in late winter, typically January in South Carolina’s lowcountry, the red maple is the first and most notable large tree to begin blooming each growing season.

I used to think that red maples were flowering when you see them turn red, but I learned later that red maples actually finish flowering by the time you notice them from the road. When the trees turn red, you are actually seeing the wings of the developing seeds, known as samaras, which do not form until after the flower is pollinated. The flowers of red maples are usually less conspicuous, and they come and go by the time most folks notice them. That maple you usually notice in February likely started flowering at least two weeks earlier.

Red maples are common statewide both as wild trees and cultivated landscape trees. They are well adapted to most soils and climates in South Carolina, but they are most common in low areas where soils remain very moist. The red maple is a dominant tree in the forested wetlands of the coastal plain, and it is common in valleys and slopes across the piedmont and Blue Ridge Mountains. Red maples are both monecious (having male and female flowers on the same tree) and diecious (each tree has either male or female flowers), which explains why some trees appear to produce more seeds than others. Red maples produce both nectar and pollen and serve as the first major food source of the new year for honey bees. It is thought that the red maple provides critical nutrition to honey bees as they begin to build and increase brood production in the lead up to the spring nectar flow.

Red maple is not the only species of maple in South Carolina. All species of maples are valuable food sources for honey bees, although some are thought to be wind pollinated. Of the six species of maples in the Carolinas, only the boxelder maple (Acer negundo L.) rivals the red maple in distribution. Though they are mostly lacking from the Pee Dee region of the state, boxelders are common in the piedmont and present in forested wetlands of the SC lowcountry. Striped maples (Acer pensylvanicum L.) and mountain maples (A. spicatum Lam.) are only found at higher elevations above the Blue Ridge escarpment, so they are more common in the mountains of North Carolina than in South Carolina. Two other maples naturally occur in SC, the silver maple (A. saccharinum L.) and the sugar maple (A. saccharum Marshall), but they are much less common than the red maple or boxelder. Silver maples are valued as excellent shade trees and have been planted in locations outside of their normal range. They can be found randomly around the state, often in urban landscapes, but they naturally occur in bottoms where soils are very well drained but moist, such as in the sand hills and flood plains of the piedmont. While most maple species bloom after red maples, the silver maple actually blooms at the same time or even slightly before red maples. Sugar maples also have been planted outside of their normal range because of their value as both shade trees and as a source of sweet syrup. In an attempt to increase maple syrup production in the south, several heat-tolerant varieties of sugar maple have been bred, and some of these can be found across the piedmont and down the Savannah River floodplain.

While red maples are typically considered low maintenance trees, one problem has developed for them recently. In 2019, South Carolina discovered an established population of Asian longhorned beetles (Anoplophora glabripennis(Motschulsky)) near the Charleston area. This invasive beetle bores into living trees killing them slowly as the beetle larvae eat the nutrient rich cambium under the bark. While this beetle can infest several different species of trees, they most commonly attack maples. In response, the SC Department of Plant Industry established a quarantine in the area near Hollywood to prevent the spread of this invasive beetle. Also, tree removal programs are underway to eliminate infected trees and destroy developing larvae, but the fact that red maples largely reside in wetlands makes the work challenging. So far, the quarantine and removal programs have halted the spread of this beetle. Also on our radar is the new spotted lanternfly (Licorma deliculata (White)), which is a piercing-sucking insect introduced into the region around

Philadelphia, PA. Unlike the Asian longhorned beetle which reproduces and spreads slowly, the spotted lanternfly spreads rapidly and has become a severe nuisance in the northeast. While maples are not their primary host, they are among the trees that lanternflies will attack. Thankfully, lanternflies have not been found in SC yet, but they are just one car-ride from being brought here.

As for now, beekeepers across the state benefit from maples, and can rely on them as an early jolt of nutrition for honey bee colonies building for spring. Of course, if you ever notice something odd with trees in your area, such as diseases or pests, your county Extension office and agents are at your disposal to determine the problem and advise on solutions. Hopefully, maples, especially red maples, will remain common and productive all across SC and continue to announce that winter will soon give way to spring each year.

 

 

One of the greatest challenges of a honey bee research project is not necessarily the research or funding. It often is making it relevant to practical beekeeping and relatable to beekeepers. In an attempt to improve communication between researchers in COLOSS (the researcher association for the Prevention of Honey Bee COlony LOSSes) and practicing beekeepers, the Association established B-RAP, the “Bridging Research and Practice core project with independent leadership. This essentially equates to the formation of a formal Extension-style initiative for the COLOSS research group.

Lotta Fabricius Kristiansen, Preben Kristiansen, Flemming Vejsnæs & Linde Morawetz (2021) Is COLOSS an Ivory Tower of Beekeeping Science? Efforts to Bridge Research and Practice (B-RAP), Bee World, DOI: 10.1080/0005772X.2021.1993612

 

The Journal of Apicultural Research publishes its 60^th volume, and authors provide an excellent review of apiculture research since the onset of Colony Collapse Disorder and into the future.

Maria Bouga, Melanie Parejo, Adriana M. Alippi, Otilia Bobis, Robert Brodschneider, Panuwan Chantawannakul, Vanessa Corby-Harris, Bjørn Dahle, Maria Dimou, Anna Gajda, Dora Henriques, Irfan Kandemir, Robert Pickard, Juliana Rangel, Victoria Soroker & Jevrosima Stevanovic (2021) The 60^th volume of the Journal of Apicultural Research – a look into the past and future, Journal of Apicultural Research, 60:5, 639-643, DOI: 10.1080/00218839.2021.1973187

 

Honey bees tend to consume bee bread quickly, yet we have all seen colonies pack-in excessive pollen stores. What is going on there?

Ivo Roessink & Jozef J. M. van der Steen (2021) Beebread consumption by honey bees is fast: results of a six-week field study, Journal of Apicultural Research, 60:5, 659-664, DOI: 10.1080/00218839.2021.1915612

 

A new use for propolis? Should you consider feeding extracted propolis back to your bees as a form of antimicrobial medication, possibly in place of medicated feeds such as Fumagilin-B? This study suggests positive benefits of refeeding propolis to bees.

Sanchai Naree, James D. Ellis, Mark E. Benbow & Guntima Suwannapong (2021) The use of propolis for preventing and treating Nosema ceranae infection in western honey bee (Apis mellifera Linnaeus, 1787) workers, Journal of Apicultural Research, 60:5, 686-696, DOI: 10.1080/00218839.2021.1905374

 

As a compliment to the previous article, here is a review on methods for extracting propolis.

Vassya Bankova, Boryana Trusheva & Milena Popova (2021) Propolis extraction methods: a review,Journal of Apicultural Research, 60:5, 734-743, DOI: 10.1080/00218839.2021.1901426

 

 

 

 

Check the SC Master Beekeeper Program website for a certified course near you. Many courses occur during the winter season.

https://scstatebeekeepers.com/master-beekeeper-program/

 

7 Dec. @ 6 PM          Clemson Honey Bee Forage Phenology Project Training – participants that are interested in contributing to this bloom timing project should register for this training at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/clemson-honey-bee-forage-phenology-project-tickets-211871261647

 

 

Feb 25^–26, 2022          Spring meeting of the SC Beekeepers Association. This year’s spring meeting will be expanded to two days and will include hands-on demonstrations regarding honey bee feeds and feeders, lotions & Potions, and planting for honey bees.

 

April, 2022                  Spring Field Days at the Clemson Apiaries. Join us for a fun and informative day in the bee yard with Clemson’s Apiculturist and SC Master Beekeepers.

 

 

 

 

Clemson University Cooperative Extension Service offers its programs to people of all ages, regardless of race, color, gender, religion, national origin, disability, political beliefs, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital or family status and is an equal opportunity employer.

 

 

Well, perhaps I spoke too soon. In the last edition I remarked how it felt like things were returning to some sense of normalcy. Chock it up to wishful thinking or sheer naivety, but that feeling has since exited, stage door left. Knowing what I know of airborne respiratory viruses, I quietly expected virus numbers to rise after a summer of “normalcy,” but what is surprising is how rapidly COVID positive cases have risen even with more than half of the population vaccinated. This suggests that the vaccinations may reduce hospitalizations but are doing little to slow the spread of the virus.

Thus is the challenge of the world in which we live. We know so little but have to make decisions that affect the wellbeing of our colleagues and neighbors. Most folks error on the side of caution, but for a program such as the Clemson Apiculture and Pollinator program which is a public education program, planning trainings and outreach in the current environment is challenging to say the least.

Clemson has modified its operations to ensure the safety of our clients and staff. Thankfully county offices remain open, and we are still offering in-person trainings and programs. We have postponed some of our larger events such as the fall field days that occur at the research stations across the state. That is unfortunate because I was looking forward to giving a field presentation on what to consider when setting up an apiary, especially in an agricultural setting and discussing the pollinator test plots. We were planning to use the demonstration apiary at Pee Dee REC to show hundreds of farmers and landowners what beekeepers must consider when setting up apiaries and migrating to new locations and what to consider when planning conservation pollinator plots.

All Clemson employees are now required to get tested for COVID every 14 days regardless of vaccination status. Perhaps this is a better and more tolerable approach than mandating vaccinations. Hopefully, this will keep us open and able to continue with in-person trainings.

We are moving forward with programming this fall. We are working with the SC Master Beekeeper Program to offer a journeyman level course in Conway towards the end of October. Check the “Events” section for more details. We also are working with the Master Beekeeping Program committee to update the certified level teaching materials. Stay tuned for the new presentations and content that should be available for your trainings next year.

I also am excited to be breaking ground on the pollinator habitat test plots at Pee Dee REC. The plots are marked, and the farm crews will begin site preparations in the next couple of weeks. I look forward to documenting the process with photos and videos. Keep an eye on the Clemson Apiculture Facebook page for updates.

Of course we will continue working on the website and publications, but there is another project that I hope to roll-out next year that will require your assistance. We would like to begin documenting honey bee forage bloom periods across South Carolina. Using a digital platform called iNaturalist, we will ask beekeepers, gardeners, and conservationists to use their mobile devices to capture pictures of plants in bloom to track the bloom periods of critical honey bee forages and other important pollinator plants across the various ecoregions of South Carolina.  This will be a simple citizen science project where you, SC beekeepers, can help us collect critical data to ascertain when honey bee forages become available.  This also will help us track the effects of land use changes across the state. We are planning trainings and presentations for anyone interested in participating in the project, so stay tuned.

Last, much thanks to the SC Beekeepers Association for including the Clemson Apiculture and Pollinator Program in the summer meeting. Attendance was good, all things considered, and we were so pleased to be able to offer bee yard activities as part of the conference program. Brad Cavin, Apiary Inspection Program, and I look forward to supporting the Association with bee yards and other trainings in the future.

Kindest regards,
Ben Powell
Clemson Apiculture and Pollinator Program Coordinator

 

 

 

 

 

The Dearth Days of Summer

After a very productive spring, our demonstration apiaries located in the Pee Dee region experienced a very severe dearth that started in June and persisted through July. Weights of most hives declined through that time as did the number of drones. Honey stores were depleted, and the amount of incoming pollen was just enough to supply brood production. To ensure that the colonies would survive the trip to the bee yard at the SC Beekeepers Association summer meeting at the end of July, I chose to feed them. Thankfully, they quickly found pollen sources in the urban environment around Trident Tech, and the bees returned home with surplus bee bread as a result of the trip, although honey stores remained critically low. Both the southern magnolias and crape myrtles planted around campus were the likely sources of pollen, but these plants also produce little nectar.

I share this information because it illustrates two important principles of beekeeping in South Carolina. First, most of the southern states experience a summer dearth which can be very intense depending on rainfall and local plant communities. Beekeepers must consider how to overcome the gap between the spring nectar flow and the onset of blooming crops and fall forages. Second, beekeepers should not be afraid either to feed bees or move them to better food sources to overcome the lean months of summer, especially if honey was harvested. The good news is that there are forages available to bees almost all year long in South Carolina if the beekeeper is willing to move colonies.

During this critical time, upstate beekeepers may enjoy a continued nectar flow containing sourwood, devils walking stick, and sumac which usually bloom in the June through July timeframe. In the low country Chinese tallow begins blooming in June, and around the ACE Basin saw palmettos and cabbage palms will bloom through the middle of the summer. In the middle section of the state, perennial white clovers will continue to bloom into the summer, but it is usually closer to the end of July before nectar comes in from crops such as cotton or soybeans. Many of South Carolina’s experienced beekeepers have learned to move bees to these regions to take advantage of these various nectar sources.

Many beekeepers find the prospect of migrating hives to better food to be unreasonable. Who can blame them? Travelling further distances to check on outyards takes away from the pleasure of beekeeping, and finding landowners willing to allow access is yet another challenge. For these and other reasons, many beekeepers are reluctant to migrate bee colonies to better food. Many are also unwilling to feed bees, and there are arguments that can be made both for feeding and not feeding. The reality of beekeeping in the south is that there are periods during the growing season when food is limited, exacerbated by drought or excessive rain, which requires the beekeeper to intervene either by providing alternative food sources or by moving bees towhere the food is.

While honey bees have naturalized in South Carolina and feral colonies do persist, the practice of beekeeping is as much a livestock practice as it is cultivating a wild animal. We as beekeepers choose where the bee colonies reside, not the bees. We select the traits and genetics to use and augment, not the bees, and we set the management goals for each colony, not the bees. This is why I usually recommend to approach beekeeping with a similar mindset as a cattleman tending to his herd. To maintain a productive operation, buy and cultivate the best genetics you can for your goals. Provide adequate shelter. Move the herd to the most productive pastures for the season. Plant better forages and supplementally feed when necessary. Last, protect your investment by controlling diseases and parasites.

Which leads me to my next point of discussion, pest management and preparing for winter. We are about to enter a critical time of the year for beekeeping in South Carolina. Depending on where you live, the fall nectar flow is either underway or soon to get started. Goldenrods and asters have begun blooming, and their brilliant yellow flowers will intensify over the next month. This final flush of food is critical for supplying the nutrition that colonies will need to sustain the winter. Sure, bees will be busy packing away nectar and bee bread, but the nutrition they gain now also is important for raising “the right kind of bees” to last through the winter.

Winter bees are different from summer bees. Living for only 30-40 days on average, spring and summer workers are short lived compared to their winter sisters, which may live for up to six months. We refer to these long-lived winter bees as “diutinus” bees, and they have several critical characteristics that make them different from their summer sisters. First, diutinus bees live longer. Second, winter bees can withstand stress factors and toxins better than summer bees, and they express better cellular immunity to pathogens, presumably a primary reason they are able to live longer than summer bees. Anatomically speaking, diutinus bees tend to have larger fat bodies and weigh slightly more than summer bees. They also behave differently, expressing a lower tendency to forage and greater tendency to perform house bee activities (cleaning cells, building comb, tending to brood, etc.).

So, how is it that workers produced in the fall of the year can be so remarkably different from their sisters produced in the spring and summer. After all, workers contain essentially the same genetics regardless of season. The difference comes from how their genes are expressed, especially as it relates to the production of a critical protein called vitellogenin.

I’m not going to go into a tremendous amount of detail about vitellogenin except to say that it is present at much higher levels in winter bees than in summer foraging bees and has been proven to be critical to increasing the length of life of winter bees and ensuring their survival.

“But Ben, I thought you were segueing into discussing pest management and preparing for winter. What does vitellogenin have to do with honey bee pests?” To answer this question, I’d like to first ask the readers a question. What tissues in the honey bee body produce vitellogenin? Answer: the fat bodies. Let me also ask this, “What part of the honey bee body do varroa mites target?” Answer: the fat bodies.

Hopefully you can now infer why pest management is a critical component of preparing for winter. The generations of workers that will be produced later this fall will be the winter bees that need well developed fat bodies to produce the vitellogenin necessary to sustain them through the winter. If your varroa mite numbers are high during this critical period of worker development then it is likely that your winter bees will have damaged or depleted fat bodies insufficient to last them through the winter. Also, the pollen that bees bring in over the next month will supply the critical amino acids needed to develop vitellogenin and well developed fat bodies.

In short, preparing your bees for winter starts now by lowering mite counts to below 2% before your colonies begin raising winter bees. Also, check your colonies for brood production and incoming pollen. We want to see strong brood production last into October with ample pollen stores. If brood production is weak, then consider replacing the queen as soon as possible or combining colonies and eliminating the weaker queen. Enhancing brood production will stimulate the bees to forage more intensely for pollen, which should support well developed winter bees in the coming months.

 

 

Do you know where your honey originates?

Conserving honey bees has as much to do with beekeeping as it does with learning to manage their natural foods. I have yet to meet a good cattleman that does not understand how to grow a pasture. In fact managing cows is as much about managing the plants they eat as it is about managing the animals themselves. While we cannot confine honey bees into fenced feed lots or pastures, I would argue that a good beekeeper not only knows what plants the bees are using for food but also studies and intentionally manages plant communities to feed honey bees.

Principle investigator and master beekeeper, David MacFawn has proposed a project to help beekeepers learn more about the plants that honey bees in South Carolina are using for nectar. His honey pollen analysis endeavors to identify the nectar sources by identifying the pollen contained in the honey samples. To make the project relevant statewide, David is seeking assistance from beekeepers across South Carolina. Beekeepers will submit honey samples weekly to palynology (study of pollen) labs for pollen identification, a well-established method for identifying nectar sources. Samples will be taken through the entire 2022 growing season starting in January when the red maples begin blooming.  The project design includes 20 sampling sites distributed across the state which will be very informative not only for local beekeepers but also across the state’s four distinct ecoregions. We expect this information also will be useful for beekeepers in our neighboring states which share the same ecoregions and plant communities as South Carolina. Be sure to attend your local association meetings this fall to learn more about the project, especially if you are interested in participating and learning more about the nectar sources your honey bees are using.

To complement this investigation, the Clemson Apiculture and Pollinator program would like to enlist beekeepers and citizen scientists in collecting data about plants that are in bloom through the year. We will use a platform called iNaturalist to develop a project for participants to submit images of plants in bloom. This project will automatically collect date and location information which will help us develop a data set of when and where critical nectar plants are blooming, and we will be able to compare this data with the information David is collecting in the Honey Pollen Analysis. Participants will not need to be able to identify plants or be technologically savvy. The application largely does that for the user. Participants simply need to be able to open the app and take a picture. I will be visiting with local beekeeper associations this fall to introduce the project and recruit participants. We also will host a training later this fall for anyone interested in being a part of this citizen science project.

 

 

The Clemson Apiculture and Pollinator Program also will be breaking ground on pollinator habitat test plots at the Pee Dee Research Station this month. Programs supported by the USDA and the South Carolina Solar Habitat Project as well as various conservation projects such as utility and highway pollinator habitat projects are seeking to increase the amount of habitat available to pollinators and other flower visiting insects. There remain lingering questions about how to make these habitats successful and productive; after all, they are not a well investigated agricultural practice. What equipment and methods are best for planting? How should they be maintained to maximize diversity and productivity? How do we conduct weed control in a plant community that includes species that are traditionally thought of as weeds in other land uses? What is the real impact to the pollinator community after habitat is installed, and who is actually visiting the plots? How do honey bees and native pollinators interact in these habitats? These are just a few of the questions we plan to investigate by the establishment of these plots.

Speaking of USDA, the Natural Resources Conservation Service just put out a quick guide to the programs they offer to help beekeepers and pollinator habitat. If you are a beekeeper, especially a honey producer, or a farm or forest landowner interested in pollinator conservation, you should visit https://www.farmers.gov/sites/default/files/documents/usda-honeybeebrochure-august2021.pdf?fbclid=IwAR3VEQaJvk3K5ETjx9Yt8y7iUPkTC60ZdJJp7q5eadAzC9OzFqaQImjR7dY

 

 

Asterology… sorry Pisces. This section isn’t about you.

In just a few short weeks every ditch line, powerline right-of-way, field edge and pond bank in South Carolina will burst forth in a flash of color largely due to one family of plants, the Asteraceae. In ancient Greek “aster” means star, and it is easy to see how this family of plants earned their name. All Asteraceae flowers are composite flowers containing a group of small disc flowers outlined by a row of ray flowers with petals that extend out like the rays of the sun. Probably the most recognizable Asteraceae are the sunflowers, (Helianthus spp.).

The composite flowers of the Asteraceae are perfect for bees. If you take the time to look closely at a sunflower as it matures, you will find that it is not actually a single flower, hence why they are sometimes called “composites.” It is a cluster of small flowers that continuously mature over time. When an asteraceae first opens, the outer ray flowers are the first to be exposed, and over the next few days or weeks the inner disc flowers open gradually. This means that a single flower head continues to produce pollen and nectar over a long period of time and can be revisited by numerous pollinators. Also, by clustering flowers into a large inflorescence (flower head), Asteraceae flowers are visually striking and difficult to miss because of their sheer size, making them very efficient at attracting pollinators, and the broad flowerhead provides a very stable landing platform for pollinators.

The flower design and other adaptations of the Asteraceae have been very successful. With over 2,500 species, the Asteraceae is the largest family of plants in North America and tends to be the most speciose group of plants in temperate parts of the globe. In South Carolina, there are both obscure and easily recognizable species. While there are many Asteraceae that bloom in spring and early summer, like dandelions (Taraxacum spp.) and wild lettuce (Lactuca spp.), it is the fall when most of the most recognizable species flower. In the coastal plain, the swamp sunflower (Helianthus angustifolia) will erupt from just about every ditch and wetland edge this month. Likewise, various tickseeds (Bidensspp.) and goldenrods (Solidago spp.) will riddle forest edges, roadsides and utility rights-of-way. In gardens, the white and purple flowers of bonesets (Eupatorium spp.), ironweeds (Vernonia spp.), asters (Symphiotrichum spp.), mist flowers (Conoclinum spp.) will add a bit of diversity to the fall color palette. And for those of us near the coast, the dazzling display of the groundsel tree (Baccharis halimifolia), one of the only Asteraceae that is a tree, will be impossible to ignore because of the droning hum of insects visiting it while it is in bloom.

The Asteraceae is an important family of plants for beekeepers to learn, but it also can be daunting considering the number of species in the family. There are a number of very important nectar and pollen plants in the group, and the diversity of the family is important for pollinator conservation in general. I suggest looking through a copy of “Garden Plants for Honey Bees” by Peter Lindtner or “American Honey Plants” by Frank Pellen as a starting point for learning about this amazing group of productive pollinator plants.

 

 

Have you ever noticed bees foraging on something unexpected, like corn grain dust? Investigators determined that corn dust supplies adequate nutrition to sustain bees under dearth conditions.

Kathryn Thompson & Bryan T. Drew (2021) Supplemental feeds and foraged corn grain dust: a comparison of the number of days survived in vitro by young adult honey bees (Apis mellifera), Journal of Apicultural Research, DOI: 10.1080/00218839.2021.1962113

 

Has a once calm colony become more defensive over time? Perhaps increasing mite loads are to blame.

Alvaro De la Mora, Nuria Morfin, Laura G. Espinosa-Montaño, Carlos Aurelio Medina-Flores & Ernesto Guzman-Novoa (2021) The mite Varroa destructor lowers the stinging response threshold of honey bees (Apis mellifera), Journal of Apicultural Research, DOI: 10.1080/00218839.2021.1959754

 

It is generally thought that nightshade plants such as tomatoes are pollenated best by bees that perform “buzz” pollination and that honey bees provide little pollination service to this crop. An investigation in open field tests showed that western honey bees increase seed production in tomatoes by 20% over flowers where pollinators were excluded. The investigators explain this by the observation of a “licking” behavior displayed by honey bees when visiting tomato flowers.

Bruno Ferreira Bartelli, Bárbara Matos da Cunha Guimarães, Nicole Cristina Machado Borges & Fernanda Helena Nogueira-Ferreira (2021) Not all about the buzz: licking, a new foraging behavior of bees in tomato flowers, Journal of Apicultural Research, DOI: 10.1080/00218839.2021.1954810

 

 

Oct. 22,23                    SC Master Beekeeper Program – fall Journeyman Course Conway, SC

Information and registration at https://scstatebeekeepers.com/fall-2021-journeyman-course-registration-now-open/

 

Check the SC Master Beekeeper Program website for a certified course near you 

https://scstatebeekeepers.com/master-beekeeper-program/

 

6 Nov.                           Annual Field Day at the USDA Honey Bee Lab in Baton Rouge, LA

https://americanbeejournal.com/events/25th-annual-field-day-at-the-usda-honey-bee-lab-in-baton-rouge/

 

November (tba)          iNaturalist training webinar for honey plant phenology project

 

 

 

 

 

 

Clemson University Cooperative Extension Service offers its programs to people of all ages, regardless of race, color, gender, religion, national origin, disability, political beliefs, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital or family status and is an equal opportunity employer.

 

 

Back to business

It feels like things are starting to return to some sense of normalcy. My family treated me to a fine Fathers Day dinner this weekend, and, for the first time in forever, not a single person in the restaurant was wearing a mask. Maybe that should be concerning, or maybe it shouldn’t. At least it indicates that the general public is moving past the fear and angst that gripped us this time last year.

As for the Apiculture and Pollinator Program, we are moving on, and nothing says it like running two programs simultaneously. Both programs will include in-person field days for the first time in more than a year (HOORAY!). We are just wrapping-up our lectures for the first in-service beekeeping training for Extension personnel. We have scheduled field days in July to help the agents practice what they have learned thus far. I am super excited about that, because it will be the first time I have seen many of my coworkers and friends face-to-face in more than a year. Hopefully, this training will be the first step in developing agents that more willing to engage their local beekeepers and local associations.

We also are laying the foundation for engaging community volunteers in invertebrate conservation, especially with regard to pollinator protection. With the assistance of Entomology faculty on campus, we are piloting a Basics of Entomology course to introduce Master Gardeners and Master Naturalists to the amazing diversity of arthropods and the techniques for collecting, photographing, and identifying these critical little creatures. The course continues through July and we are scheduling field days for the students. This training will be developed into an online training that will be repeated every year and hopefully help us build a volunteer network to assist with our pollinator conservation projects.

We also are excitedly preparing for the SC Beekeepers Association Summer Conference. In addition to giving a few lectures, the Clemson Apiculture and Pollinator Program has been tasked with coordinating bee yard activities as part of the summer meeting agenda. We hope that you are planning to attend and will join us in the bee yard. Check the conference website for more details. https://scstatebeekeepers.com/scba-summer-conference-2021

I would love to get back to speaking for local beekeeper associations. I already have a few scheduled for this fall, but there is room for more. We no longer have restrictions on attending meetings, so feel free to reach-out to me. Another important task for this this fall is to begin developing a fact sheet series covering honey bee management topics. These will include 1-2 page quick guides on various apiculture topics such as introducing queens, installing packages, making splits, feeds and feeders, honey house regulations, controlling robbing and much more. There is a lot of material to cover, so we will add to the series as we develop new fact sheets. Also, this fall we will begin preparations for installing the pollinator habitat plots.

If you didn’t hear, IT’S POLLINATOR WEEK! While the uncertainty of COVID restrictions prevented us from coordinating any in-person events this year, we still want you to take part in pollinator conservation. There is great information and fun activities listed on the Pollinator Partnership’s website. You should especially check out the toolkit https://www.pollinator.org/pollinator-week/toolkit. Maybe your business or bee club could host an event this week or at least post some information to your social media pages about the importance of pollinators.

Thanks for tuning-in. I hope to see you at the summer meeting and at your local club meetings this fall.

Kindest regards,
Ben Powell
Clemson Apiculture and Pollinator Program Coordinator

 

 

 

 

 

Mmm, the sweet smell of honey.

Anecdotally speaking, the 2021 spring nectar flow was productive statewide, making for a much better honey crop than last year at this time. Soil moisture was high early in the spring but storms were few and far between which meant plenty of days to forage. Most of the beekeepers that I have asked have reported a much better year compared to last, but they also shared the sentiment that the prolonged dry period that lasted through May made the spring nectar flow taper-off quickly. Personally, my water bills due to irrigation were higher in the last two months than they have been since I moved into this house five years ago. While sunny days are great for foraging behavior, drought reduces the amount of nectar plants can produce over time.

We have now entered into the summer dearth where nectar is in limited supply. This has made finding food difficult, especially for colonies started this spring which have used most of the early nectar to produce wax comb and feed the colony. All of the early season splits and newly installed packages at the Clemson apiaries were running very low on stored nectar/honey, so I have spent much of the last week setting and refilling feeders. The newly installed packages have been consuming close to one gallon of 1:1 sugar syrup each day. One word to the wise, just because the bees are taking the syrup does not mean that you should be continuously feeding them for long periods. Be careful not to have them back-fill the drawn comb with syrup to the extent that there is limited space for egg laying and brood production. Excessive feeding could prompt swarming behavior. This can be a balancing act where the beekeeper wants to stimulate comb production but needs to allow for space for brood production too.

I said it last edition, but I will reiterate it here. This is a critical period for interrupting Varroa mite population growth and the spread of viruses through the colony. I strongly urge every South Carolina beekeeper to conduct mite checks this time of year. There are several methods for doing this. The quickest and most precise method is the ether or alcohol roll. Alternatively, some beekeepers choose to use the powdered sugar roll with the assumption that the bees will not killed in the process. While admirable, the powdered sugar roll often results in mortality of the bees due to suffocation. Either way the rolls or washes can produce relatively quick assessment while in the bee yard. To perform the roll or wash the beekeeper collects approximately 300 bees (100 mL or just shy of ½ cup) and rinses them in the solvent or sugar for at least one minute, dislodging the mites and providing a small sample of the mite population. From these samples we can estimate the mite population in the colony and determine if we need to intervene.

Another method for assessing mite counts is the mite drop method. As mites are dislodged occasionally by bees, a small percentage fall to the hive floor. By collecting these fallen mites on a sticky surface, we can monitor mite loads without opening hives, sacrificing workers or running the risk of damaging the queen. This requires a removable sticky board and a screened bottom board. The major disadvantage of this method is that it does not account for the size of the colony or other conditions that might affect the mite drop rates. There can be high variability among hives due to multiple dynamic factors such as colony size, bee behavior, internal hive environment, etc., so you cannot compare mite drop rates among hives as you can with the wash methods. This is why there is not an established treatment threshold for the mite drop method as has been determined for the wash methods. However, might drop sampling can be used to track each hive’s unique trends, and significant increases in mite drop counts without a significant increase in colony population size can indicate an increasing mite population. The other disadvantage of the mite drop method is that it requires a three-day sampling period, so the results are not instantaneous as with the wash methods.

A method I like to use to monitor mites is examining capped drone brood. Drone brood takes longer to develop (24 days) than other castes in the colony. For this reason, Varroa tend to infest drone larvae at a higher rate. By removing capped drone brood, I can assess the number of developing mites (adults and nymphs) per 10 drone cells. If the number of infested drone cells increases or the number of mites per cell increases, then I know I have an increasing mite population. I have yet to determine a treatment threshold for this method, but I am working on correlating it to the wash methods. The advantage of this method is that I get a very accurate count of all life stages of the mites regardless of the colony size. I also do not run the risk of accidentally running my queen through an alcohol wash. The disadvantage is that I have to open the colony and carefully inspect individual cells for mites which can be a little difficult in the bee yard. I often do this while I am grafting queens and have magnification to help. I often will scrape burr comb containing capped drones to collect my samples and can process them later when I return to the office where I have better light and magnification.

Anyway, the point is this. No matter the size of your operation one hive or one thousand, it behooves you to check your mite loads in at least some portion of the hives in each apiary, preferably every hive if possible. Monitoring mites may seem tedious if you are already planning to treat them, but there is a chance you could avoid having to treat and can save a little money. More importantly, you can truly determine if your investments in time and money controlling mites is having a positive or negative impact on the colony. Treating without monitoring is like hunting without sights. How will you know if you hit your target?

 

 

The summer conference put on by the South Carolina Beekeepers Association is an important part of conserving honey bees and the trade of beekeeping in our beautiful state. There are several critical programs that the state beekeepers association provides to beekeepers of the state, but arguably the most important is the summer conference. Drawing speakers from all across the nation and beyond, the summer conference provides a local event where SC beekeepers can learn from and interact with apiculture specialists and talented beekeepers from far and wide. It provides an important way for beekeepers to learn from vendors and innovators of beekeeping equipment. Personally, I benefit most from the fellowship with fellow fans of the honey bee, something that has been incredibly difficult through the past year of COVID restrictions. The summer meeting is a crockpot of innovative beekeeping ideas, and I am thankful that we can again gather, enjoy each other’s company, and share tricks of the trade.

This year’s meeting will be in Charleston at Trident Technical College which provides excellent meeting facilities. The meeting will return to a more familiar and much needed in-person program with a series of lectures from apiculture specialists, a vendors area, a honey competition, and testing for the Master Beekeeper Program. A new addition for this year, the conference will have a bee yard with a series of field demonstrations and lectures hosted by Brad Cavin, the state apiary inspector, and yours truly, along with several knowledgeable beekeepers from the region. There will be a lot of talent at this year’s meeting, and every beekeeper that attends will benefit in ways they might not expect. A small piece of knowledge gained can lead to a revolution in a beekeeper’s operation, and those seemingly inconsequential moments can make the difference between success and failure. I suggest immersing yourselves in the beekeeping knowledge that will be present at this year’s summer meeting.

We are social organisms, and we have much in common with honey bees. We are stronger when we work together, and our productivity is greatly increased when we combine for a common purpose. The summer conference is the venue where we make and renew the relationships that advance our individual operations but also the trade of beekeeping in South Carolina for practitioners at every scale. If you plan to attend, then “Excellent!” I look forward to seeing you there. If you haven’t been in many years or possibly never, then this summer’s meeting will be a good one to attend

Learn more and register at https://scstatebeekeepers.com.

 

 

 

The wood might be sour, but the nectar is OH SO SWEET!

Actually, I have no idea if the wood of the sourwood tree is actually sour. I’ve never chewed it, but I definitely have tasted sourwood honey. In my opinion, it is one of the best honeys in the world.

From what I have read, the “sour” in sourwood actually comes from bitterness in the leaves. A truly North American species, the sourwood tree, Oxydendrum arboretum, is native to Appalachia through the southeast and into deep south. It is a member of the Ericaceae family of plants which are known to be well adapted to acidic, low-fertility soils. Other plants in this family include the familiar blueberries, cranberries, huckleberries, Rhododendrons, and Azaleas as well as many heaths and heathers. The sourwood is the only species in its genus, and the genus is home to North America where it exists on well-drained sloping soils from Pennsylvania to Louisiana. In South Carolina, the sourwood is common on the southern slopes of the piedmont hills and Appalachian Mountains. It does well in droughty, acidic soils that are difficult for other trees to tolerate, and sourwoods can be quite common in the right conditions. It often is found in association with oak/hickory forests, where it exists as a mid-story tree growing to about 30 feet tall.

The sourwood is a fairly inconspicuous tree most of the year. It has a rather generically shaped elliptical leaf, and the fruits are small blue-black berries that mature late in the season just before the first frosts. It’s bark and its fall leaf color are the key features I look for when searching for sourwood. As sourwoods age they develop a distinctly dark bark that is thick and cork-like with very deep ridges running up and down the trunk. Also, sourwood is one of the first trees to change color in the fall, and it is usually a vibrant red that stands out against most other trees in the forest. The flowers are unique too. They look like strands of pale white bells extending out from branch tips. Once you get the search image for sourwood, you will find that it is pretty easy to recognize.

 

For southern beekeepers, the sourwood has earned a reputation as one of the most important honey plants. It produces a light, fragrant honey that is well recognized by consumers. It can be collected as essentially a monocultural honey, because it blooms after most spring nectar sources have finished (June-July), and many migratory beekeepers move to the piedmont and foothills this time of year to capture the flow.

 

Thankfully, sourwood is still fairly common in the Carolina’s, but rapid development in the upstate especially along the I-85 corridor may eventually impact the sourwood crop, at least locally. Because sourwood is not considered a highly desirable landscape or shade tree, it is not usually available at most garden centers, which makes preserving wild stands of sourwood even more important. Sourwood trees are available at some of the larger nurseries in the southeast, so you may be able to order them online or get your garden center to order them. Perhaps your county horticulture extension agent could point you to garden centers that carry this unique and special tree.

 

 

Microbe wars, the battle between “good” and “evil” being waged inside the gut of a honey bee. Nope, I’m not talking about this summer’s blockbuster Marvel Comics movie. Researchers have determined a unique lineage of enterococcus bacteria that appears to have probiotic properties and inhibits Paenibacillus larvae, the causative agent of American Foul Brood.

Gyurova, A.,  A. Vladimirova, S. Peykov, M. Dimitrov, T. Strateva & S. G. Dimov (2021) Characterization of Enterococcus duransEDD2, a strain from beehives with inhibitory activity against Paenibacillus larvae,Journal of Apicultural Research, DOI: 10.1080/00218839.2021.1936915

 

One of the most thorough literature reviews I have read yet on Melissococcus plutonius, the causative agent of European Foul Brood.

Ponce de León-Door, A., Pérez-Ordóñez, G., Romo-Chacón, A., Rios-Velasco, C., Órnelas-Paz, J.,D.J., Zamudio-Flores, P., & Acosta-Muñiz, C.,H. (2020). Pathogenesis, epidemiology and variants of 0RW1S34RfeSDcfkexd09rT2melissococcus plutonius1RW1S34RfeSDcfkexd09rT2 (0RW1S34RfeSDcfkexd09rT2ex1RW1S34RfeSDcfkexd09rT2 white), the causal agent of european foulbrood. Journal of Apicultural Science, 64(2), 173-188. doi:http://dx.doi.org.libproxy.clemson.edu/10.2478/jas-2020-0030

 

Tooting, quacking, piping… what is she trying to say? Here is a good review of studies that investigated queen piping and the differences that occur between Apis mellifera and A. ceranae.

Yamamoto, T., Sugahara, M., Okada, R. et al. Differences between queen piping temporal structures of two honeybee species, Apis cerana and Apis mellifera. Apidologie 52, 524–534 (2021). https://doi-org.libproxy.clemson.edu/10.1007/s13592-021-00840-2

 

 

 

 

POLLINATOR WEEK!!! – June 21-27, 2021

https://www.pollinator.org

 

South Carolina Beekeepers Association Summer Meeting – 22-24 July. 2021 – REGISTER NOW!

SCBA Summer Conference 2021

Eastern Apiculture Society Annual Conference 11-13 Aug. 2021

https://www.easternapiculture.org

 

 

 

 

 

Clemson University Cooperative Extension Service offers its programs to people of all ages, regardless of race, color, gender, religion, national origin, disability, political beliefs, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital or family status and is an equal opportunity employer.

 

 

I need to keep this message short and sweet, well, because the nectar flow is underway as is programming for the Clemson Apiculture and Pollinator Program.

First of all, I need to announce that I have moved my base of operations. My office is now located at the Pee Dee Research and Education Center in Florence, SC. This is a good move for many reasons. Baruch (in Georgetown), where I was located, will be hiring new researchers and is feeling growing pains, so I volunteered to move to provide space for the incoming hires. Pee Dee REC is a more agriculturally focused research station which will provide CAPP with more opportunities to collaborate with peers working with cropping systems that rely on insect pollinators and with other entomologists. Juang Chong (JC), the extension horticultural entomologist, Francis Reay-Jones, our Integrated Pest Management Program coordinator, and Matt Smith, the coordinator of the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program are all located there, and this move will facilitate more synergy among our programs. Also, there are plans to hire a vegetable entomologist and house that person at Pee Dee. I have already established a demonstration apiary there and have plans to install pollinator habitat research and demonstration plots at the facility. I also think that most of you (the beekeepers and pollinator conservationists) will find Florence to be a bit more accessible than Georgetown.

As for program updates, we have a number of things cooking at the moment. First, I will be conducting an in-service beekeeping training for Extension agents starting this month. This is a program that is long overdue and essential to the development of better beekeeping education programs statewide. Extension agents are phenomenal educators that work with a vast array of clients from homeowners to massive farming and forestry operations, from youth to retirees, and people working in almost every occupation and discipline. Improving the beekeeping knowledge of our agents builds capacity for our programs to reach beekeepers and the general public statewide to hopefully facilitate growing the beekeeping industry in SC and improve the general public’s awareness about the importance of beekeepers, honey bees, and pollinators in general. When I polled my colleagues about their interest in receiving apiculture training I was pleasantly surprised to receive a large response. This training involves 45 agents from across the state working in 4H, horticulture, agriculture, forestry/natural resources, and some administrative staff. This excites me as to the possibilities of growing and improving how we assist beekeepers statewide. For my military friends out there, I look at this program as being the first force multiplier in improving the effectiveness of the Clemson Apiculture and Pollinator Program.

We also just announced the first ever offering of a Basics of Entomology training for Master Gardeners and Master Naturalists. This seven-session training, which begins in June, will teach entomology fundamentals to the two groups of Extension volunteers that have the greatest impacts statewide. Master Gardeners and Master Naturalists serve as surrogates for Extension and log thousands of service hours every year as they conduct plant clinics at farmers markets, talks to garden clubs and civic groups, outdoor educational events, booths at fairs and festivals, and even some citizen science projects. By improving their understanding of insects and how to study and identify them, we hope to improve their ability to engage their communities in efforts such as pollinator conservation, proper pest control through integrated pest management, and appreciation for biodiversity and the ecosystem services insects provide. I knew that the training would be popular. Afterall, nothing is cooler than insects, but we were enthused when the training was filled in just hours after registration opened. Thankfully, we are already making plans to develop an ongoing entomology training program for both our Master Naturalists and Master Gardeners. Stay tuned if you are interested. We hope to expand the training beyond just the Master Gardener and Master Naturalist programs.

Last, we (Brad Cavin and I) are pleased to be able to assist the SC State Beekeepers Association with its return to in-person training at the summer conference in Charleston this July!!! We have been asked to set-up a bee yard at the conference to provide some hands-on field trainings as part of the conference agenda. We are working-out the details right now, but we look forward to providing opportunities for beekeepers at all experience levels to learn while in the bee yard. Some of the stations will feature Varroa mite biology and control, conducting inspections and reading frames, controlling small hive beetles, alternative hive systems, taking disease samples, queen rearing techniques, and more. The bee yard schedule will be posted with the conference agenda, so we hope everyone will come join us in the bee yard this July!

Kindest regards,
Ben Powell
Clemson Apiculture and Pollinator Program Coordinator

 

 

 

 

 

Well, as my generation might say, “It’s on like Donkey Kong!”

I can’t speak for everyone, but just about every beekeeper that I have talked to that has been at it for more than a few years has said the same thing. This year’s nectar flow has been one of the best we can remember. A mild, wet winter followed by a cool, dry spring with few interruptions by storms have created ideal conditions for nectar production and for honey bee foraging behavior.  Of course, many factors affect honey hoarding, so not every bee colony will experience the same amount of honey production. Forage availability, strength of colonies, weather, apiary conditions, pest and disease pressure, and other factors will affect the ability of a colony to store surplus honey, but statewide conditions have been favorable for a productive honey crop this spring. Let’s hope it continues.

Although most of us are busy checking for swarm cells and adding supers, now is the time to start thinking very seriously about pest control. I was grafting queens last week. While I had the brood frames on the stand I decided to check the capped drone cells that were in the lower corners of the frame. I like to do this to get a feel for the Varroa mite reproduction rates in my colonies. Drone brood tends to facilitate mite reproduction better than worker brood because the drone takes longer to develop, which allows for more time for the mites to reproduce while protected under the cell capping. Of the 20 drone cells I checked, 8 had active mites reproducing in them with an average of 4 nymphs and two adults per drone cell. I then counted the remainder of the capped drone cells on the frame which was 53. So, from the 73 drone cells on the frame, there were possibly 175 mites about to emerge when the drones chewed out of their cells in the next few days.

That was just from the drone cells. These frames were more than 90% in active brood (capped or uncapped), which means that every 21-30 days, these frames will be producing up to 6,500 new bees. Now the worker brood will not produce as many mites as drone brood, but even if it is 50% of what the drone is producing, that means that there is a potential for this frame to produce more than 3,000 mites in the next month based upon the 40% infestation rate I saw in the drones. The funny thing (or actually not so funny at all) is that these are considered hygienic bees. I tell you this because, now is the time to be thinking seriously about how to interrupt mite production in your colonies, which will peak over the next two months.

There are treatments that can be done to control mites during the nectar flow, but they all can cause adverse effects.  Formic acid is a viable option as long as the ambient air temperature remains below 84º F, but those days will be few and far between very soon. Oxalic acid has been released for use during the nectar flow, but it does not penetrate cappings and is likely to have little effect on mites unless treatments are applied in series over several weeks. The third option is Hopguard II which contains acids derived from hops. It, like oxalic acid, is most effective when there is little capped brood, but one advantage of Hopguard II is that it remains active for about a week after the strips are applied, which allows for more residual control. There is no temperature limit as with formic, and it is considered an organic treatment because it is derived from a plant. Of course, chemical treatments, either natural or synthetic, are only partially effective, so it is critical for beekeepers to consider other non-treatment control methods. In other words, I’m talking about cultural control methods that involve how we as beekeepers manage colonies. These non-treatment control methods include:

1. discarding or freezing drone brood, something that is aided by installing a frame of drone-sized foundation,
2. installing screened bottom boards, and
3. creating a brood break either by removing the queen for a week or making splits.

Now is also the time to be on the look-out for small hive beetles (SHB). While SHB are secondary invaders of declining bee colonies, severe pressure from infestations can actually cause an otherwise strong colony to decline and abscond. Soil temperatures are rising this month, spurring the emergence of SHB that pupated in the soil over the winter. These beetles will be attracted to strong colonies, especially ones with strong pollen stores and brood production, although there sometimes seems to be no rhyme or reason why one colony attracts large numbers of beetles while other colonies in the same apiary appear to have very few. The congregation of beetles is a factor of the volatile aromas given-off of the hive as well as aggregation pheromones produced by the beetles (Stuhl and Teal, pre-print 2020). Considering that pheromones may play a role in aggregating beetles, then the more beetles a hive has, the more likely it is to attract more. While strong colonies usually corral beetles and remove their larvae, there is a chance that a peripheral frame that is not well guarded could harbor developing larvae. The larvae exude a slime as they move and feed. If they are allowed to slime the comb, then the bees will avoid it, which then allows the beetles to further expand their ranks and spread. The trick to beetle control is to prevent larvae from fouling the comb. This can be done by tcontrolling adults with traps or catch pads, but more importantly preventing beetle larvae from sliming comb is about minimizing un-patrolled comb and about placing the hive in a dry sunny location that is less hospitable to the beetles. All too often I see bee hives placed in the shade on the assumption that cooler conditions will help the bees. Quite the contrary, placing hives in shady locations may be the single greatest contributing factor to exacerbating SHB infestations.

Last, I have received a number of calls this month from non-beekeepers or neighbors of beekeepers. I have had my ear chewed several times because honey bees are making it difficult for residents with livestock watering systems, swimming pools, bird baths, and even planters on porches because honey bees are visiting these water sources to collect water. To be good neighbors, we as beekeepers must acknowledge that we are keeping livestock and that those managed animals require water just like any other managed animal. This has been a very dry spring, and bees are searching for water. Many of the ditches and tree holes where they normally collect water have gone dry, so they may be concentrated on other available water sources. They typically will use the closest source available which will be in your neighbor’s yard if you do not provide a source in yours. Understand that most counties and cities have nuisance ordinances that allow the municipality to provide enforcement when the activities of one resident affect the quality of life of neighbors. Do due diligence and provide water for your bees on-site. A plant saucer or small plastic swimming pool with rocks or bricks in it is a great way to water your bees. If you have an air conditioning unit, consider putting the dish or pool under the condensation drip line to keep it supplied with water. There also are automatic water dispensers that you can hook to a hose which are triggered by a float. These should be available at most feed and livestock suppliers. Supplying water should not be difficult, but it is important for reducing conflicts with your neighbors.

 

 

 

The Honey Bee Health Coalition https://honeybeehealthcoalition.org

In the past I have referenced the Honey Bee Health Coalition for information about Varroa mite management and treatments, and it remains one of the best repositories for information about integrated management of Varroa. Did you know that the Coalition has so much more to offer than just Varroa control information?

Formed in 2014 in response to unprecedented honey bee colony losses, the Coalition is “a cross-sector effort to promote collaborative solutions to honey bee health challenges. The diverse Coalition brings together beekeepers, growers, researchers, government agencies, agribusinesses, conservation groups, manufacturers and brands, and other key partners dedicated to improve the health of honey bees and other pollinators. The Coalition’s mission is to collaboratively implement solutions that will help to achieve a healthy population of honey bees while also supporting healthy populations of native and managed pollinators in the context of productive agricultural systems and thriving ecosystems.”

While Varroa deservingly receives preeminent attention, the Coalition acknowledges that the health of honey bees and other pollinators is affected by many factors. The Coalition focusses its educational strategy on four fronts: 1) honey bee pests and diseases, 2) forages and nutrition, 3) pesticide exposure, and 4) hive management. Of course, the Coalition serves beekeepers by providing educational resources for factors beekeepers can influence such as Varroa control, colony management, and nutrition, but Coalition members also understand that growers and land managers are stakeholders in protecting pollinator health as well. The strategies used in several crop systems such as corn, soybeans, and canola affect pollinator health, especially the pest management activities in these crop systems, so the Coalition has developed best management practices to help beekeepers and growers collaborate. Because honey bees and other critical pollinators traverse the landscapes that are managed by people of varying interests and backgrounds, any effort to protect their health must engage audiences of every kind.

I hope you will visit the Honey Bee Health Coalition website, especially as you begin preparations for monitoring and controlling Varroa mites this summer. While you are there, take some time to peruse the other resources they provide. There are guides, articles and videos that are very useful for any beekeeper. For the bee clubs that are looking to provide training to members, the Coalition provides a presentation and pre-recorded video on Varroa biology and control. Perhaps this training will help your club begin an open and honest discussion about Varroa mite management.

 

 

 

Long live long leaf

I’m not sure how many of you have ever visited the Francis Marion National Forest, but, for those that have, you probably will recognize the longleaf pine savannahs that are the property’s claim to fame. Managed intensively with prescribed fire, these open forest systems are known to harbor some of the most diverse plant communities you can find anywhere in the world. More than 900 plant species are associated with this ecosystem, and some studies have found as many as 20 plant species in a single square meter of forest floor.

The longleaf pine system also harbors many of the most threatened and endangered species in South Carolina. Gopher tortoises, red-cockaded woodpeckers, and indigo snakes are a few of the critical animals that call the system home, and about 30 endangered plants are unique to the longleaf pine savannahs.

Why is this system so diverse? Well, it has to do with the frequency of disturbance. While there is some debate about the true origins of the longleaf ecosystem, whether it was an entirely natural system or it was heavily altered by thousands of years of human influence, it is well known that fire and large grazing animals are important factors in controlling the density of trees and allowing the understory to diversify. Naturally, lightning derived fire would burn unimpeded over tens of thousands of acres, and Native Americans would intentionally set fires for purposes of hunting and managing bison herds. These herds would devour and trample vegetation which further disturbed the soil, and, later, wild grazing of cattle by European settlers replaced the effects the bison once had.

Prior to European settlement, longleaf pine forests covered more than 90 million acres across the southeast, and there were longleaf pine trees large enough to rival the great redwoods out west. Excessive harvesting has since removed the longleaf giants, and the longleaf forest system was reduced to fewer than 2 million acres. Thanks to conservation efforts both in the public sector and among private landowners, this ecosystem is expanding and now covers about 3.5 million acres.

 

For beekeepers, this is an important system as well. Of course, the tremendous diversity of plants found in longleaf pine savannahs supports a diverse insect pollinator community, and many of the plant species that support native pollinators also support honey bees. An array of composites (sunflower family) such as Coreopsis and Solidago, legumes such as partridge pea, wild indigo and lespedeza, and numerous showy flowering plants like Liatris, orchids, and Eupatoriums can be found blooming throughout the year in these meadowland habitats. One plant in this system, which is rather inconspicuous but is of major importance to beekeepers is the gallberry or inkberry holly, Ilex glabra. This spindly little holly,

which is known mostly for its black berries, exists in vast fields where fire is common and soils are moist and sandy. Known as a prolific nectar producer, the gallberry produces large volumes of highly valuable honey towards the end of the spring nectar flow. If you venture to the longleaf pine stands of the coastal plain, you will find gallberries blooming this month.

While most of the managed longleaf savannahs occur on state or national land where access by beekeepers is limited, there are a number of private landowners that have invested heavily in re-establishing this ecosystem. Aided by the Longleaf Alliance, the Nature Conservancy and USDA cost-share programs, forest landowners are replacing loblolly pine forests with longleaf and are returning the disturbances that support plant diversity.This reversion is a benefit to honey bees and to pollinators and insect biodiversity in general.

 

 

 

Terminating old comb after 3 to 4 years has been recommended for a variety of reasons, especially for managing pests and diseases. As it turns out, keeping bees on old comb too long may also reduce the colony’s intrinsic ability to grow and survive. This study introduced bees to various ages of comb and tracked factors such as brood production, worker weight, worker survival, and performance and found that younger comb (less than 3 years old) supported more productive hives.

Mohammad Abd Al-Wahab Abd Al-Fattah, Yasser Yehia Ibrahim & Marwa Ibrahim Haggag (2021) Some biological aspects of honey bee colonies in relation to the age of beeswax combs, Journal of Apicultural Research, 60:3, 405-413, DOI: 10.1080/00218839.2021.1899657

 

Is the current maximum application rate (1g/brood chamber) for vaporizing hives with oxalic acid sufficient to achieve desired control? This study suggests it may not be statistically different from negative controls. Of course, 1g/brood chamber is the maximum label rate, so it is not advised for beekeepers to treat hives at rates above the legally allowed rate. Perhaps this study will get the EPA to review the label.

Cameron J. Jack, Edzard van Santen & James D. Ellis (2021) Determining the dose of oxalic acid applied via vaporization needed for the control of the honey bee (Apis mellifera) pest Varroa destructor, Journal of Apicultural Research, 60:3, 414-420, DOI: 10.1080/00218839.2021.1877447

 

A study of Amitraz (Apivar) and its metabolites in honey and beeswax suggest that it does not remain detectible beyond 42 days, which is quite different from other acaricides such as coumaphos and tau-fluvalinate whose residues may remain detectible for months or even years after treatment. Also, even dosing that is 5 or 10 times the current maximum allowable rate did not produce residues that exceed the established maximum residue limits. Again, it is not recommended for beekeepers to exceed the maximum label application rates.

Veeranan Chaimanee, Josephine Johnson & Jeffery S. Pettis (2021) Determination of amitraz and its metabolites residue in honey and beeswax after Apivar^® treatment in honey bee (Apis mellifera) colonies, Journal of Apicultural Research, DOI: 10.1080/00218839.2021.1918943

 

 

 

Basics of Entomology – Master Gardener/Master Naturalist training – course is full. Were are developing an online course that should be available later this summer.

 

South Carolina Beekeepers Association Summer Meeting  – 22-24 July. 2021
https://scstatebeekeepers.com

 

Eastern Apiculture Society Annual Conference 11-13 Aug. 2021 https://www.easternapiculture.org

 

 

 

 

Clemson University Cooperative Extension Service offers its programs to people of all ages, regardless of race, color, gender, religion, national origin, disability, political beliefs, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital or family status and is an equal opportunity employer.

I feel like I am in the scene where Dorothy first opens the door to see the land of Oz in all its technicolor splendor. A golden ball is coursing the sky, the fields and forests are dappled with vivid colors, and little things are awake and zooming about me. AH, SPRING!

After what seems like ages of gloom and despair, trapped in a place I would normally call home, I see a glimmer of hope. COVID virus cases are declining in most SC counties, and nearly half have entered the “green” phase which has allowed Extension offices to begin reopening. Professors and agents alike are returning to their offices and trying to resume standard services, cautiously. Our return-to-work plan still requires modifications to our operations and limits public access, but at least we are moving in a positive direction. In January, administration instated a 90-day modified work directive which restricts in-person programming, and we remain in that operational mode. We are nearing the end of the period, at which time administration will re-evaluate our procedures. While the world around us appears to be emerging from the gloom, our operational plan remains cautious for the protection of our staff and clients. Hopefully, the trends will continue, and we will be able to resume traditional programming this summer. **Fingers crossed**

I am planning toward that end. I have submitted a request to conduct an in-service training to build beekeeping knowledge within the extension service. This training will commence in May, and I am hopeful we will be able to hold field days in June. Also in the works is a basic entomology training for Master Gardeners and Master Naturalists in May. It will still be virtual, but it will be the first step in building volunteers that can assist with the annual bee census and floral phenology systems that we hope to begin next year.

I am also excited to hear that the SC Beekeepers Association is working diligently to return to an in-person summer meeting in July. Let’s hope that planning for the meeting runs smoothly, and that the meeting will be a triumphant return to some sense of normalcy.

As with most of you, I have been busy in the bee yard. I have established a demonstration apiary at the Pee Dee Rec in Florence and checked on the apiary in Clemson which Dr. Hood is still tending. Both will be expanded this spring. I just completed queen mating nucs and am about ready to begin making increases. I’ll share the plans later in this edition.

I also have permission to establish pollinator habitats in several locations. These will be used for teaching and testing to help inform the installation and maintenance practices that are most successful for producing productive pollinator habitat. Installation of pollinator habitat takes time, and I hope to begin later this summer in preparation for the fall.

We also are developing a basic entomology course for Master Gardeners and Master Naturalists to help them learn about the amazing diversity of arthropods we have in South Carolina.

I am excited for what this spring and summer will bring.

Kindest regards,
Ben Powell
Clemson Apiculture and Pollinator Program Coordinator

 

 

 

 

 

“Finally!”

This winter was as wet and gloomy as any I can remember. Rivers across the state remained in flood stage through January and February, and the skies stayed overcast for most of the season. Add to it that most of us were largely bound to our homes as COVID cases spiked following the new year, and it was difficult to remain optimistic. I suspect that each of you was just like me when I heard that Punxsutawney Phil predicted six more weeks of winter… “Nooooo!”

Finally, spring is here, and there is no shortage of work to do in the bee yard. Of course, now is “go time” for honey bees, and hopefully the preparations you made last fall and through the winter have your colonies healthy and building. The most important pollen sources have begun blooming (such as willows, wild plum, dewberry/blackberry, etc.),

and I can report that coastal bees are packing pollen in as fast as they can, which means that brood production is at its peak. Most of the Clemson colonies are adding weight now too as nectar sources become more available this month. The spring nectar flow is now under way.

The rapid influx of food is the final trigger that leads to honey bee swarming behavior, and, according to reports by beekeepers all across the state, swarm season has begun. All of the Clemson hives have been filled rapidly with pollen in the last two weeks and new queen cups have been built, indicating the first preparations for swarming. If your intention is to delay or prevent swarming you should provide additional boxes/frames to allow for more space as the boxes are filled with brood

and food. Queens are filling cells with eggs rapidly, and large volumes of food are coming into the hives, two conditions that encourage queens to lay eggs in the queen cups. It is critical to monitor hives weekly for swarm cells. The honey producers in the audience may choose to destroy queen cells during weekly inspections to prevent the initiation of swarming while maintaining a large workforce that encourages nectar hoarding and greater honey production. If you opt to use queen excluders to prevent brood production in your honey supers, now is the time to install them.

For the beekeepers looking to grow their apiaries, conditions are now perfect for making increases. Remember, there are important reasons why bee colonies swarm and divide this time of year and why spring swarms are more successful than summer or fall swarms. As with most other organisms, bee colonies time reproduction for when food is readily available and easy to gather, so biologically speaking, bees are “in the mood” to increase their colony numbers. As you perform your inspections, you may consider removing frames with developing swarm cells or cutting out swarm cells to transfer them to finishing nucs, which not only controls swarming in the parent colony but also provides a method for developing new colonies similar to walk-away splits. Because swarm cells are formed under ideal conditions, queens born of swarm cells tend to be better fed and more vigorous than queens born of emergency or supercedure cells. Be careful with swarm cells if you intend to use them to raise new queens. Shaking, jarring, or simply laying them on their sides can roll or dislodge the developing queen larva, effectively killing it by drowning it in royal jelly. Swarm cells or the frames they are on should be handled carefully and upright to prevent damage to the developing queen larvae. They also need to remain warm. If your intent is to make increases this year, then there are a number of publications that I have found to be helpful. “Increase Essentials, 2^nd Edition (Connor 2006)” provides a thorough and stepwise approach to explaining how to increase the number of colonies. Although it is geared more specifically to raising queen honey bees, “Rearing Queen Honey Bees, 2^nd Edition (Morse 1994)” gives a comprehensive discussion of the bees’ natural methods for colony reproduction and techniques beekeepers can use to enhance queen production. Both books are very informative for beekeepers seeking to grow their apiaries, which, in my opinion, should be every beekeeper because if you are not growing, then you likely are not overcoming losses due to pests and diseases. Mated queens will become more available this month and next, so if you are planning to split with purchased queens, now is the time to place your orders.

For the larger scale beekeepers in the crowd, now is an excellent time to begin grafting queens or initiating whichever alternate queen rearing method you prefer (Miller, Alley, Nicot, etc.). There are large volumes of capped brood and freshly emerged nurse bees for creating your starter colony(ies), and 1^st day larvae should be abundant. You also can assess the success of the overwintered colonies at this time and select from productive lineages. I often refer back to Dr. Morse’s “Rearing Queen Honey Bees, 2^nd Edition” as an excellent publication for learning grafting and other queen rearing techniques. For anyone looking to learn grafting, Penn State provides a nice fact sheet (https://extension.psu.edu/queen-cell-production-grafting-and-graft-free-methods) which provides a quick overview of the subject and links to other resources, one of which is an article for Bee Culture that Dr. Grozinger (PSU) wrote about a method for making grafting faster and easier for beginning grafters. This method requires plastic foundation, and basically involves cutting away the walls of the comb cells to expose the 1^st day larvae laying in the depression of the plastic foundation. You can read more about this method here (https://www.beeculture.com/grafting/). Please don’t think that I am saying this is the best method, but perhaps this method will help folks learn to graft by making the larvae easier to see and access. One thing I learned about this method – it is much easier to apply to freshly drawn comb than to older brood comb. Once bees have constructed a cocoon in the cell, it is much more difficult to cut the cell walls away without rolling or damaging the larvae.

One critical component of raising queens is to have enough nucs to use for mating the freshly emerged queens. I endeavored to design mating nucs for this year, but quickly got sticker shock when I went to purchase wood. If you haven’t been to the hardware store recently, you need to know that wood has skyrocketed in price. Plywood is sporting a price tag that is nearly three times what it was this time last year. This got me rethinking my design, so I am beginning an experiment. I developed a design using 3/8” plywood, which allows me to construct 6 three-frame mating nucs from a single 4’ x 8’ sheet. In case you are interested, here are the specifications.

Each nuc is constructed with…

• 2 ends (5 ½” x 9 ¾”)
• 2 top/bottom (20” x 5 ½”)
• 2 sides (19 ¼” x 9 ¾”)
• 2 rails (1 ¾” x 4 ¾”)
• Top end caps (2 ½” x 5 ½”)
• Scrap for raised top feeder (5 ½” x 5 ½

The ends, bottom and sides are glued (wood glue) and stapled (1/4” x 1 ¼” crown staples) flush to the edges. The rails are glued and stapled inside the ends at 5/8” from the top of the end. The lid is made by gluing and stapling the end caps to the ends of the top, allowing for 3/8” overhang above the top. If you have scraps, it helps to glue the scrap pieces to the center of the top to raise the feeder so that it fits snuggly into the top. Drill a 1” hole for an entrance in one end and a 2 ¾” hole in the top for the feeder. Paint the entire outside of the nuc and top. Do not paint underside of top or inside of nuc. Also, do not use pressure treated wood. If this design works, I will produce a more formal publication later. I am concerned that the thin plywood will warp in the humidity and not seal well, but that remains to be determined. One advantage to this design is that two pieces of plywood can be cut at the same time, allowing for quick preparation for 12 mating nucs.

 

Otherwise, now is a time of plenty, and I hope that you can enjoy being outside with your bees.

 

Chinese Tallow: Boon or Bane?

There has been much buzz about the Chinese tallow tree (Triadica sebifera) in the beekeeping community recently because of a USDA program that is investigating insects that may be released to control it. It has become such a stir that the American Honey Producers Association has developed a petition for beekeepers to sign in an attempt to halt the USDA’s program.

An exotic tree from southeast Asia, the Chinese tallow has naturalized and spread across the southeastern states and is especially common in the gulf states (TX, LA, MS, AL, FL). Also known as the Popcorn tree because it produces a fleshy white coating over its developing seeds, this tree was introduced to the colonial south in an attempt to develop a seed oil industry. The fatty seed coating was used by Asian cultures to produce soaps and candles, but the industry never took-off in the US, although the plant most definitely made itself at home.

 

Beekeepers have long valued the tallow as an important nectar plant that flowers in late spring when the nectar flow is winding down. A prolific nectar producer, the Chinese tallow attracts many species of native pollinators and honey bees. Its nectar produces a highly valued monocultural honey, and it provides a much-needed source of nutrition at a time when many commercial beekeepers are splitting colonies, raising queens, and recovering from migrating to pollination contracts. It has been rumored that beekeepers played a significant role in establishing Chinese tallow in Texas and beyond.

 

 

 

Tallow has a dark side, though. It is rated as a tier one invasive plant, with the likes of kudzu, hydrilla, and Chinese privet. As with all top tier invasive plants it is capable of reproducing itself at alarming rates and displacing native species. Chinese tallow is a type-r adapted plant which is characterized as having a fast growth rate, compact size, and high fecundity (reproductive success), which are all adaptations for thriving in unstable or frequently disturbed ecosystems. Each mature tree (approx. 20 years old) produces up to 100,000 seeds annually, and the seeds remain viable for up to seven years. Tallow thrives where forests are disturbed and uses its adaptations to out-compete native trees and understory plants. In forestry operations, germinating tallow greatly impedes reforestation after thinnings and harvests. It also dominates areas where forests have been destroyed by wildfire and wind storms. For example, while tallow is common across much of Louisiana, it was often a background tree in established forests. It occurred as an understory tree along with hornbeam and American holly. When Hurricane Katrina decimated forests in eastern LA, it released the seed bank that tallow had built over many years. Once released the tallow became the dominant tree over thousands of acres of forest land, and its density (stems per acre) is so great that the diversity of native plants was decreased dramatically and recruitment of native trees back into the disturbed area was stopped or delayed (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305824534_Delayed_tree_mortality_and_Chinese_tallow_Triadica_sebifera_population_explosion_in_a_Louisiana_bottomland_hardwood_forest_following_Hurricane_Katrina). This characteristic can make its invasiveness deceiving. It can occur for long periods in mixed forests with seemingly benign affects, but disturbance of the established overstory allows this tree to demonstrate its sinister traits.

Due to its invasiveness, most states where it exists have control programs, South Carolina included. Florida has one of the most comprehensive management plans (https://www.fleppc.org/Manage_Plans/Tallow_Plan.pdf). These management plans usually address control of this plant in the horticulture industry, forestry operations, and on public lands such as state and federal lands, all in an attempt to limit its expansion. Many plans identify herbicides and mechanical control measures, but these methods are expensive, difficult to implement at large scales, and temporary at best. In an attempt to achieve widespread suppression and reduce control costs, various researchers and the USDA have explored developing biological control programs to slow the expansion of Chinese tallow.

Two insects, a flea beetle (Bikasha collaris) and a moth (Gadirtha fusca), have passed testing in quarantine to determine that they control tallow and that they feed specifically on tallow and not on native plants. The flea beetle attacks both the roots and leaves of Chinese tallow, and the moth attacks leaves. In laboratory settings, these insects reduce growth of tallow. Now the USDA is considering releasing these insects to aid in suppressing Chinese tallow across the entire range in the US.

I have been called by several beekeepers in SC asking my thoughts on this program and the control of Chinese tallow, especially the proposal to release these two biological control insects, so I thought I should share my response with the whole beekeeping community. While Chinese tallow is not as prolific in SC as in the other southern states, it has definitely demonstrated its invasiveness in isolated areas (https://www.srs.fs.fed.us/pubs/ja/2017/ja_2017_walker_001.pdf)

In SC it is limited to the coastal plain, and it has really only a dominant tree in isolated parts of the lowcountry (lower third of the state around the ACE Basin). In that part of the state, it is used by migratory and resident beekeepers as an important nectar source and honey producing plant. Although I don’t have exact numbers, it is safe to say that hundreds, possibly a few thousand hives are moved into the lowcountry each May-June to capture the tallow flow. While tallow is not as prolific in SC as our neighbors to the west, I fear that we are one major hurricane away from seeing a rapid and widespread expansion of this invasive tree.

Will the release of biological control insects decimate the populations of tallow in SC? Well, that remains to be determined, but I suggest we look at other biological control programs for insight. Biological control programs almost never eliminate the target species. If you think about it, that makes sense, because if these insects completely remove their only host plant, then they will not survive. In most cases, biological control agents only slow the expansion of the target species and do very little to eliminate targets that are already established. A good example to illustrate this would be the waterhyacinth weevils I investigated for my master’s degree research. These weevils, like the tallow flea beetle feed both on the leaves as adults and on the roots and stems as larvae. They were released long ago and are present in almost every single raft of waterhyacinth plants present in SC, yet they provide minimal control, and the state still has to spray herbicides to prevent waterhyacinth from clogging rivers and lakes. One other piece of evidence is that the tallow leaf roller (Caloptilia triadicae), a caterpillar that feeds specifically on the leaves of chinese tallow, was unknowingly introduced from Asia in 2013. It has spread but does not appear to have any significant impact on tallow expansion.

Should beekeepers be in support of tallow control efforts? While tallow is helpful for migratory honey producers and resident beekeepers, expansion of tallow and displacement of other forage plants could create nutritional problems for bees. Many of the plants that tallow displaces are also critical sources of honey bee nutrition, and it is well established that honey bees are generalists and need a variety of food sources to remain healthy and productive. Trees such as red maples, black willows, American hollies, and gallberries are some of the critical forage plants that compete directly with tallow, and these plants provide nutrition over a long period of time starting in January and running through June.Tallow also overshadows understory plants that provide critical summertime nutrition. I am concerned that proliferation of tallow will result in reducing diversity of season-long forages and replace them with a species that provides nutrition for only a few weeks.

If the biological control program for tallow progresses the same way other biological control programs have, then perhaps it will allow for the best scenario: slowing but not eliminating tallow in the landscape while preserving floral biodiversity by reducing tallow’s competitive edge over native plants.

 

Dig-dug, its time for mining bees

I have received several calls this week about honey bees coming out of the ground. Of course, that claim is cause for investigation, because honey bees do not normally nest underground. Thankfully, all of the calls have turned out to be mining bees!

It is easy to see how folks might confuse mining bees with honey bees. Most mining bees we see this time of year are about the same size as honey bees, they both are fuzzy with golden setae, and both seem driven to work as hard as possible, taking very little time to rest long enough to get a good look at them. That, however, is where the similarities stop.

Mining bees are actually not just a single species but are a whole family of native bees. In the southeast there are a couple hundred species representing at least five genera, but the greatest diversity occurs in the arid southwest, which makes sense for an insect that prefers to nest in ground with little vegetative cover. Each species has its own preferred nest site conditions and forage plants. About half of the species (Andreninae) are generalists (oligolectic), feeding on a large number of plant species in multiple families. The other half (Panurginae) are specialists on plants from just a single genus or just a few closely related species. For this reason, mining bees are not distributed evenly across the landscape. The activity of specialist species is closely tied to the bloom period of their host plants. You will not find mining bees everywhere, but when you find them, you often find lots of them working vigorously.

Mining bees are solitary bees, which means that each individual female takes care of all of the daily tasks. She digs the burrow and nuptial chambers, collects the larval food, and lays the egg. She does not tend to the larvae, rather she provisions enough bee bread (pollen and nectar) for the larva to eat through its entire development. Once enough food is provided, she caps the chamber then moves on to create another nuptial chamber. Although all mining bees are solitary, some species display communal behavior. They will aggregate together in the same area for nesting and even use the same burrow entrances as other mining bees. Still, they construct separate nuptial chambers and do not divide tasks like social bees do.

People who encounter active mining bees often are alarmed at the large numbers of bees in the area. They even describe the activity as “swarming,” but close examination will show that the bees stay relatively low to the ground and never come together as a cluster. They also are not defensive, and people describe walking through active mining bees without being stung. Typically, defensive behavior near the nesting site is reserved to social bees and wasps, and solitary bees rarely sting unless they are injured or trapped.

As with many native bees, mining bees suffer severely from land disturbances. Tillage of farm fields, development and impervious surfaces, soil compaction, turf insecticides, flooding and drought, and elimination of their host plants all contribute to restricting where they can survive. The fact that each species has particular requirements for its nest sites makes conservation projects exceedingly difficult. The best I can recommend is that if you find a site where mining bees are active, inform the property owner that they are not a threat and protect the site from disturbance, because there may not be many other suitable nest sites in the area. Also, maintain plant diversity, especially native plants to which the bees have adapted, is critical for conserving pollinator diversity, especially for specialist bees such as the panurgine mining bees.

 

 

 

Have you ever thought of producing “powdered” honey? Perhaps it will provide a unique market, but processing might alter the quality of the final product.

Mauricio Donders, Belen Labra, Jorge Chávez, Jorge Tapia-Merino & Orlando Muñoz (2021) Spray-Dried Honey Powder as a Sweetener: Sensory Characterization, Bee World, DOI: 10.1080/0005772X.2021.1892998

 

An investigation into the influence brood ester pheromone has on colony structure determined that it plays a significant role in acceptance of new queens and the rate of supersedure.

David R. Tarpy, Eric Talley & Bradley N. Metz (2021) Influence of brood pheromone on honey bee colony establishment and queen replacement, Journal of Apicultural Research, 60:2, 220-228, DOI: 10.1080/00218839.2020.1867336

 

It has been determined that multiple factors have contributed to declines of wild honey bee colonies both in their native range and outside of it. Some investigations have observed that feral colonies in the US do not survive more than a few seasons. A study of wild colonies in Ireland has determined that native colonies of Apis mellifera mellifera are widely established in the region and that they are genetically distinct from domesticated stocks of honey bees, which consist mostly of hybridized subspecies. This shows promise that wild bees can overcome challenges and remain distinct from domesticated stocks.

Keith A. Browne, Jack Hassett, Michael Geary, Elizabeth Moore, Dora Henriques, Gabriele Soland-Reckeweg, Roberto Ferrari, Eoin Mac Loughlin, Elizabeth O’Brien, Saoirse O’Driscoll, Philip Young, M. Alice Pinto & Grace P McCormack (2021) Investigation of free-living honey bee colonies in Ireland, Journal of Apicultural Research,60:2, 229-240, DOI: 10.1080/00218839.2020.1837530

 

 

 

Master Beekeeping Program Testing at various locations around the state – April 2021
https://scstatebeekeepers.com/announcing-2021-certified-level-classes/

 

South Carolina Beekeepers Association Summer Meeting  – 22-24 July. 2021
Save the date!!! More details TBA

 

Eastern Apiculture Society Annual Conference 11-13 Aug. 2021 https://www.easternapiculture.org

 

 

 

 

Clemson University Cooperative Extension Service offers its programs to people of all ages, regardless of race, color, gender, religion, national origin, disability, political beliefs, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital or family status and is an equal opportunity employer.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE! WELCOME TO 2021!

A lot has changed, and even more hasn’t.

Who would have thought that we would be entering our twelfth month of modified programming and restrictions on in-person trainings? Yet, here we are, entering February and the dark cloud of COVID-19 still looms. Many of the conversations I have had with beekeepers over the holidays have been about the growing frustration with our current situation. Trust me when I say that I want to return to more traditional trainings and extension style programs. I believe that everyone learns better when they can interact directly with teachers, and teachers teach better when they can sense the needs and intentions of their students. So much can be shared and learned in the interstitial moments between lectures when time spent around the coffee pot leads to open and free discussion, and this is a form of education that virtual programming will never be able to duplicate. I also am a firm believer that hands-on education is critical to gaining confidence and comfort when working in and around bees.

I also urge beekeepers to remain patient and considerate of the impacts this virus is having on people. As I write this, I am putting on a tie to attend the funeral of a friend and fellow church member whose teenage daughters were in the youth group a helped lead. At just over 50 years old and without any underlying medical conditions, he succumbed to COVID-19 over the weekend. He is a well-respected member of our community and has served on the school board for many years. His passing is an immediate reminder that this virus is affecting all of us in different ways, some more dramatically than others. We will return to more traditional extension trainings as soon as we are allowed to do so, and I am making preparations for re-instating those trainings. That being said, Extension Administration has placed a three-month continuance on the current modified operating procedures in response to rising COVID-19 cases statewide and to allow time for the vaccine roll-out.  It will be summertime before we can assess our situation and revisit plans for in-person trainings.  Hopefully, the demonstration apiaries that I will be installing in Florence and Georgetown this spring will be accessible later this summer.

Beekeeper education marches on despite the modified operations. As mentioned, I am installing apiaries at the Pee Dee Research and Education Center which is one of Clemson’s premier agricultural research facilities. I also will be moving many of my personal hives to the Baruch Institute for Coastal Ecology and Forest Science at Hobcaw Barony in Georgetown where I can observe the effects of keeping bees at the immediate coast and compare the impacts of agricultural versus forested land uses on colonies. I also have plans to install pollinator habitat test plots this season at both Pee Dee REC and Baruch.

I have had the pleasure of speaking with several local associations recently and have plans to virtually visit several more over the next few months. An open invitation stands for any clubs or associations looking for a speaker.  I can host a virtual meeting, or I can stream-in live if you have an internet connection and A/V equipment at your meeting place. I continue to work with the SC Master Beekeeping Program to assess needs and plan future trainings. The great news is that we are aware that several clubs have proceeded with beginner courses which are already underway or soon to begin. If you are seeking a beginner course, please check the SC MBP website (https://scstatebeekeepers.com/master-beekeeper-program/) for a list of locations.

The Spring meeting of the South Carolina Beekeepers Association is set for launch, but it will be virtual this year. Mark your calendars for February 27^th, and visit the Association’s website to register. (https://scstatebeekeepers.com) Clemson is proud to help sponsor and facilitate the meeting by providing technical support and hosting the virtual meeting for the Association this year. The agenda features a number of excellent speakers including Dr. David Tarpy of NC State University, Dr. Jeff Harris of Mississippi State University, Dr. Juang Chong of Clemson University, David MacFawn and yours truly. I am excited to be returning to the state association meeting format, and I am sure that anyone willing to try this virtual meeting will be more than pleased with it (even if it doesn’t allow us a lot of time to mull around the coffee pots). Please consider joining the state association and attending this meeting. You will not be disappointed!

Last, let me extend a huge THANK YOU to all of you subscribed to this newsletter and supporting the Clemson Apiculture and Pollinator Program. This first year of the program has proved to be extremely challenging with the advent of the pandemic. Your encouragement through this process has been very helpful. Cheers to 2021! I look forward to seeing you at future trainings.

Kindest regards,
Ben Powell
Clemson Apiculture and Pollinator Program Coordinator

 

 

 

 

Do I have to go out?

Brrr! My 80 lb Labrador (Pepper) was sitting at the back door in her customary fashion to tell me that she needed to “powder her nose,” so I obliged and opened the door for her.  She took one step and stopped, raised her head, and gave me a look that said “I don’t want to go out there; it’s too cold and wet.”  I encouraged her on, so she quickly trotted to the edge of the patio, took one step into the grass, and did her business.  She then ran quickly back into house. I must say that I don’t blame her.  It was about 20 degrees F that night.

We are in the depths of winter now. Honey bees are hemmed-up in their hives, clustered tightly most nights, and they typically only emerge to take cleansing flights. Days with temperatures exceeding 55 degrees F are few and far between and conditions have been mostly overcast or rainy, so very little foraging is occurring. On those rare days that temperatures rise to allow for extended flight, some foraging will occur, but it is typically limited to finding water and pollen. This means that colonies are living almost entirely off of the provisions they have stored in their combs. This makes for a tenuous situation because strong colonies also will be increasing their workforce rapidly this month and next, which means more mouths to feed and more heat to generate.  The amount of stored honey declines as the number of bees increases and the prospect of starvation becomes ever more pressing as we enter February and peaks in March. While there may not be much for a beekeeper to do in the hives this month, it is important to be checking the weight of each colony to determine the consumption of stored honey. Although borrowed from the UK, the following graph posted by Arnia Remote Hive Monitoring gives a general indication of hive weight change entering March here in South Carolina. Notice the decline in weight in the weeks leading up to the spring nectar flow when the colony begins adding weight due to incoming nectar.

Another interesting point to make about this graph is that a brief decline in weight occurs following a rain event on March 24^th even though the nectar flow begins around March 18^th.

Arnia Remote Hive Monitoring https://www.arnia.co.uk/monitoring-early-season-bee-activity-and-the-first-nectar-flow/

Many of you may harken back to the spring of 2020 when South Carolina experienced two tropical storms in May that created a period of two weeks of rainy overcast conditions statewide that interrupted the spring nectar flow. The effect it had on last year’s honey harvest was significant. Such conditions can seal the fate of a colony that is on the brink of starvation. That is why now is an important time to ensure that your bees have adequate honey or sugar feed and pollen to persist until the nectar flow begins, which in the lower half of the state typically commences by the end of March and in the upstate begins in April.

If you choose to feed this time of year, it is best to consider dry sugar feeds or fondant. Even 2:1 sugar syrup requires drying and can increase moisture levels in the hive and increase metabolic demand needed for drying. Another option is to buy or make pollen patties which can supply both the sugar and pollen needed to sustain bees this time of year. Our colleagues over at Carolina Honey Bees have a succinct article that provides insights into making and feeding pollen patties this time of year. Check it out here https://carolinahoneybees.com/pollen-patties-for-bees/. Please remember, no endorsement is intended by the mention of vendors or products named in the article.

A few pollen sources will be available this month, most of which are winter annuals such as henbit (Lamium amplexicaule) which has a distinctly pink pollen and dandelions (Taraxacum spp.) with their vibrant yellow pollen. You also may notice the red maples (Acer rubrum) blooming this month and bees bringing in a pale brown or khaki-colored pollen. Often times we miss the red maple bloom because the flowers are so small and inconspicuous, and we don’t notice them until the bright red seed pods begin to form, turning the trees red while most other trees remain dormant. Once we progress into March, many more forages will begin to bloom.

Now is the time to be making your swarm preparations, whether they be building and placing swarm traps or taking preventative measures to discourage swarming. Strong colonies coming through the winter will be increasing brood production and space will become limited as the brood area grows. Towards the end of February, brood production will accelerate and will likely fill the top box in two box hives. Switching the empty lower box with the filled upper box will provide more space for brood production and storage above the brood area. For single box hives or hives where both boxes are being filled, it will be important to begin adding supers this month. When doing this be careful not to separate the brood area from food stores. Honey and pollen need to be immediately available to the cluster, especially on cold nights when the cluster remains tight around the brood area. Most days in February will be too cold to enter hives, but if daytime temperatures rise into the 60s, then you may want to lift boxes and check for swarm cells along the bottom edge of the frames. For more details on swarms and their prevention, take a look at the University of Florida’s fact sheet.

 

 

Keeping honey bees in developed areas

According to the most recent census, South Carolina is the 6^th fastest growing state in the nation based on population, and most of us can attest to that fact. Areas such as Columbia, Charleston, Greenville, Florence, and Myrtle Beach have experienced a significant increase in development and population growth over the last couple decades. Add COVID-19 and a tenuous political climate in many large cities, and the rate at which people are moving to South Carolina has accelerated dramatically. South Carolina currently is home to more than 5 million residents, up more than 500,000 from the 2010 census, which is an 11.3% population increase, a much faster growth rate than the 8.5% increase originally projected (US Census Bureau).

The massive influx of people is changing the landscape. Areas that were rural farm and forestland are being converted to housing developments, and almost every county in the state is experiencing growth (figure 3). This is creating land use challenges for county and municipal governments as they seek methods to manage this growth. Some land uses are in conflict with each other such as residential and industrial land uses or agricultural and urban land uses. For this reason, most counties and municipalities develop zoning ordinances, which establish a system for the local government to control where certain land uses occur in order to minimize conflicts and organize infrastructure. Only a few counties in South Carolina are without zoning ordinances at this point, and a few of these are in the process of developing them.

Zoning ordinances are interesting things. Essentially, they provide a method for the local government to organize what goes where in their jurisdiction. Without them, development proceeds without organization, and the result could be that a paper plant gets constructed upwind of a historically residential neighborhood or a confined animal feed lot opens-up next to outdoor restaurants. To provide organization, zoning ordinances establish categories for the various types of privately-owned parcels. These categories usually include designations for forest and agricultural land, variously sized residential properties, commercial lots, industrial spaces and municipal facilities often with various subcategories for each parcel type. The ordinance goes further to describe what land uses are permitted or prohibited in each category. For example, forest and agriculture lots are the least restricted and allow the property to be used for a wide range of uses. Residential zones have more restrictions to limit nuisance conditions that affect property values and quality of life, such as activities that are noisy, smelly, potential health threats, contribute to traffic or require special infrastructure. Commercial and industrial zones have the most restrictions because of the impacts on traffic, living conditions, and infrastructure needs.

Zoning ordinances are not static, and the planning process is on-going. They allow for constant amendment and updating to adapt to changing needs of the community. In most cases, the zoning ordinance establishes a planning department which is a municipal division that manages permitting and enforcement. The ordinance also establishes a planning commission which is a panel of community members and elected officials which review rezoning requests and provide recommendations to the city or county council for amendments to the ordinance which may either tighten or loosen restrictions in a particular category. In some cases, the planning commission is a cooperative among two or more municipalities such as a county, a township and/or a city with overlapping interests. Anyone that is interested in understanding the zoning process and how planning and zoning ordinances are developed in South Carolina should review the Guide to Land Use Planning for South Carolina developed by the SC Association of Counties. It is the document local governments use when developing and implementing zoning ordinances.

While the instatement of a zoning ordinance may seem to be a method for a local government to increase restrictions on residents, a case can also be made that a well-developed and implemented zoning ordinance can preserve the character of a community and the activities it traditionally values by codifying certain activities. Hilton Head is a good example because they used their ordinances to keep trees and set commercial business back to maintain the “natural forested” character of the island. Likewise, Charleston has instated strict ordinances in downtown to maintain the historic nature of the city. Still other communities value their agricultural heritage and have ordinances to preserve those activities in or near town.

Urban agriculture is receiving renewed interest in cities worldwide. Over recent decades there has developed growing interest in bringing agriculture back into urban settings, especially in large cities where the average citizen has very little direct contact with the practice of agriculture or the producers of their food and fiber. Years of restrictive zoning ordinances have slowly pushed agriculture out of residential and urban communities. As a result, many urban communities have lost their character and identity, and city residents are unaware of how their food is grown or processed. Constituents are seeking ways to reconnect people with the land and the growers who work it, so cities and counties across the nation are rewriting current zoning ordinances to allow for some agricultural practices in residential and urban zones, including apiculture, which is a largely agreeable practice with limited off-site impacts.

So where does beekeeping fall in the zoning ordinance discussion? Well, apiculture is definitely an agricultural land use, and it most closely resembles livestock uses because honey bees are animals kept in a managed enclosure for the production of food. As with any livestock operation there are potential off-site impacts. With livestock operations there are smells, noises, pest insects, and run-off issues that can affect neighboring properties, so typically livestock uses are prohibited in residential and commercial zones. While beekeeping is a livestock activity, the offsite impacts of beekeeping are not nearly as severe. Of course, there is the potential for a neighbor to be stung, but this potential also exists from a variety of wild insects such as wasps, yellowjackets, and ants that frequent residential yards. The big concern with honey bees is the potential for the colony to be disturbed which elicits a defense response that results in multiple stings to a neighbor or their pet. For this reason, beekeeping is often prohibited in residential zones with some allowances for larger lots that allow sufficient distance from the neighbor to buffer from a defensive colony.

Because the offsite impacts of honey bees are not as severe as other livestock and the pollination they provide is beneficial to residential gardens and ornamental landscapes, many communities choose to allow beekeeping in residential zones with specific parameters to minimize the potential for conflicts between neighbors. The municipalities that have developed honey bee ordinances usually 1) restrict the number colonies that can be kept on small residential lots, 2) define setbacks or placement to allow for enough distance between neighbors, 3) require fencing or some form of barrier that separates the colony from neighbors and forces bees to fly above human pathways, and 4) require water to be provided on-site to discourage bees from visiting the neighbors’ pools or bird baths. Each community approaches this differently, ranging from complete prohibition of honey bees in residential zones to almost complete allowance of the practice, but most communities fall somewhere in between the two, usually placing restrictions on beekeeping activities especially on smaller lot sizes.

The question then is, “How can beekeepers work with planning officials to preserve beekeeping in as many areas as feasible?” Having worked with officials and municipal staff on a variety of projects, I can tell you the first and most important thing is to begin your conversation with mutual respect and understanding. Planning officials are bombarded with requests from their entire constituency, each person having their own personal interests in mind. Planning staff and commission have the daunting task of balancing conflicting interests for the mutual benefit of the entire community, often with limited knowledge of the activities in question. Next, it is best to inform planning staff and elected officials of how beekeeping is “of mutual benefit to the entire community” and that any perceived problems are 1) minimal and 2) manageable. It is good to provide model ordinances adopted by other communities to allow beekeeping in more heavily developed areas. Several state beekeeping associations have developed model ordinances, of which Ohio and Pennsylvania come to mind, and several cities have adopted apiculture language into their ordinances including New York City and Boston. It is also important to know that zoning ordinances always contain language to allow for exceptions. There are typically special use permits or exemptions that can be issued to a property regardless of its zone. These special use permits allow for land uses not explicitly allowed in the zoning ordinance, which provides officials some flexibility on a case-by-case scenario. This is often how they “grandfather-in” existing activities that otherwise would be prohibited when zoning changes, and this is how some urban agricultural operations have moved back into developed areas. Last, it is important for local and state beekeepers associations to show municipalities that beekeepers take care of their own. Adopting urban beekeeping “best practices,” providing beekeeper trainings and certification, developing mentoring/apprenticeship programs and following state laws pertaining to honey bees are all critical for showing the municipality in good faith that professional development and self-policing are part of the local beekeeper culture. Poor beekeeping practices by a single beekeeper can harm other bee colonies in the area, and local associations are in place to help improve communication among and training for beekeepers in the area. This is a system of cooperation and professional development that few other agricultural practices have developed.

Last and something we as beekeepers often don’t want to admit, sometimes it is not best for the bees to keep them in our own backyards. Have you thought about what forages are available to bees in dense residential and urban settings? How much “dumpster diving” will your bees be doing? What toxins, pathogens, pesticides are distributed across urban landscapes? How many other bee colonies are nearby creating competition or pest pressure on your bees? What about the potential for theft or vandalism? Sure, backyard beekeeping is convenient and saves time and gas money, but is it best for the bees? As your community develops and increases in density, perhaps the best thing for the bees is to move them to a more suitable location for their needs. Finding rural landowners willing to allow you to keep bees on their properties can be difficult, but they do exist. Many counties have farmer or landowner associations with members that may be open to allowing you to keep bees on their land. Perhaps joining the landowner association will help you develop contacts. Also, most counties have foresters or forestry firms that are managing large tracts of forest and farmland. You also can consult with your county’s USDA and Clemson Extension offices to link-up with growers or landowners, and you might find a grower in need of pollination services. There are also the civic clubs like Kiwanis and Rotary which have members that own rural land. Giving a presentation on beekeeping may help you develop a mutually beneficial relationship with a rural landowner. Also, engaging schools and youth groups like Future Farmers of America, 4H, and Boy/Girl Scouts will help you develop landowner relationships. Another idea is to do something like the Charleston Community Bee Gardens, a place like a community garden where city dwellers can collectively keep bees.

The good news about development in SC is that the expanding urban-rural interface provides an opportunity to introduce people to the importance of agriculture especially the practice of keeping bees and pollinator conservation. Of course, development strains natural resources, and unmanaged growth can cause long term problems both for the developing community and the natural resources that define it. While zoning and planning seams to be an imposing force, try to imagine what your community will look like in 20 years without it. In the planning process, silence is perceived as approval, and this is why beekeepers and other agricultural producers should remain engaged and not simply retreat as cities expand.

 

 

Monarchs, an American Icon

Its name means “the lone ruler,” and it is as recognizable to most Americans as just about any other insect species. The Monarch butterfly, Danaus plexippus, has large brightly colored wings that make it easy to spot, and it is a keystone for biological sciences. Most people that grow up in the U.S. are introduced to it in school as an example of insect metamorphosis, mimicry, ecology and evolution. It is widespread, calling southern Canada and the contiguous 48 states its home, and it migrates each year over vast distances south to the Sierra Madre Mountains in Mexico and to Southern California. This migratory nature makes it unique among insects and highly visible throughout the nation. While the U.S. has not designated a national insect, I would argue that no insect is more deserving of such a distinction as the Monarch butterfly.

The future of Monarchs is in question. As with other native pollinators, the abundance and distribution of monarchs has declined over several decades. MonarchWatch.org reports significant declines in the number of butterflies overwintering in Mexico, and the Xerces Society reports an even more dramatic decline of western Monarchs overwintering in California. The most startling report came this past winter when the Xerces Annual Thanksgiving Monarch Count reported fewer than 2,000 monarchs overwintering in their normal wintering grounds in southern California, a dramatic 99.9% decline from the original population counts back in the 1980s. It is suspected that the western monarch population is on the brink of collapse.

   

The alarming decline of Monarchs has served as a catalyst for a number of conservation efforts. Local programs in California, state and federal agency programs, and several conservation organizations are working to restore habitat for these iconic insects. A simple internet search turns up a wealth of information for anyone interested in preserving this species. People can get involved with monitoring programs, milkweed restoration projects, and other community initiatives to create and preserve the habitat this species needs to thrive. Both the Xerces Society and the Pollinator Partnership have developed guides and programs for citizens to use in their monarch conservation efforts. Also, the US Fish and Wildlife Service and non-governmental groups such as the Monarch Joint Venture offer a wealth of information and ways to get involved at every level from in your own backyard to your community or national projects such as the MonarchWatch tagging program. I would love to discuss what citizens can do to help Monarchs, but I have limited space here, and most of that is covered in better detail by the various conservation programs I’ve listed. I strongly urge everyone reading this letter to visit these sites and learn about the plight of the Monarch. Of course, anyone that is looking for information about what we can do in South Carolina to help Monarchs is encouraged to contact me or any of our capable extension horticulture agents across the state.

Last year, the USFWS was asked to review Monarchs for listing as an endangered species. In December 2020 they denied that request stating that the eastern populations, while declining, are not yet close to collapse, but USFWS stated it will continue to monitor the population trends and may reconsider in the future. While this may seem disconcerting to the various conservation programs that have been advocating for more protections, it shows that the agency acknowledges the situation and is paying attention. Personally, I think the federal government should consider adopting the Monarch as the national insect just as it did with the Bald Eagle. This would instate protections regardless of its population trends and hopefully would preserve this iconic species for generations to come.

There is some possible good news for Monarchs. Although the general population trend is in decline, the lowest overwintering numbers for the eastern monarchs occurred in 2014-2015. Since then there have been slight increases in the population counts, but it is too early to say with statistical confidence that the population is rebounding. At least anecdotally, the attention Monarchs have received and the conservation efforts underway may have changed the downward trajectory. Only time will tell.

 

 

 

There has been a lot of concern internationally about the adulteration of honey with inferior sugars and the effects it has on honey quality and markets, but are you aware that adulteration of beeswax also occurs? Any beekeeper that has rendered and processed beeswax understands the value of beeswax in its raw form and the amount of effort required to make it marketable, so adulteration of beeswax has the potential to undermine the value of true pure beeswax. Researchers in Prague, Czech Republic, developed a method using gas chromatography and mass spectrometry to identify beeswax that has been adulterated with paraffin with very high confidence. They also looked at chemical changes that occur in beeswax during the repeated heating and cooling cycles typical for rendering and purifying beeswax and determined that the process does not reduce quality of beeswax.

Alexandra Špaldoňová, Martina Havelcová, Ladislav Lapčák, Vladimír Machovič & Dalibor Titěra (2021) Analysis of beeswax adulteration with paraffin using GC/MS, FTIR-ATR and Raman spectroscopy, Journal of Apicultural Research, 60:1, 73-83, DOI: 10.1080/00218839.2020.1774152

 

There are limited options for controlling American Foulbrood and European Foulbrood. Korean researchers investigated several naturally derived compounds derived from common plants in east Asia to determine their antimicrobial activity on Paenibacillus larvae (AFB) and Melissococcus plutonius (EFB) and discovered four compounds that produced promising results. These compounds have not been tested around honey bees, but they might serve as novel, naturally-derived treatments for foulbroods.

Sangchul Park, JaeGoo Kim, Yu-Kyong Shin & Ki-Young Kim (2021) Antimicrobial activity of 4-hydroxyderricin, sophoraflavanone G, acetylshikonin, and kurarinone against the bee pathogenic bacteria Paenibacillus larvaeand Melissococcus plutonius, Journal of Apicultural Research, 60:1, 118-122, DOI: 10.1080/00218839.2020.1746018

 

It is generally accepted that providing protein feeds helps with worker development in honey bees, but is more protein better? Brazilian investigators tested feeds with varying protein contents and measured the development of mandibular glands in worker honey bees. Through regression, they determined that feeds with higher protein content did not result in maximum development of mandibular glands, rather that 22.5% crude protein is ideal for maximum mandibular gland development.

Marcelo P Camilli, Daniel C B de Barros, Luis A Justulin, Marcos L P Tse & Ricardo de Oliveira Orsi (2021) Protein feed stimulates the development of mandibular glands of honey bees (Apis mellifera), Journal of Apicultural Research, 60:1, 165-171, DOI: 10.1080/00218839.2020.1778922

 

 

 

South Carolina Beekeepers Association Spring Meeting (Virtual) – 27 Feb. 2021 – REGISTER NOW!
https://scstatebeekeepers.com/2021-scba-virtual-spring-conference/

 

Eastern Apiculture Society Annual Conference 11-13 Aug. 2021 https://www.easternapiculture.org

 

The Wild World of Bees – lecture series on native bees hosted by Oregon State Extension https://extension.oregonstate.edu/bee-atlas/wild-world-bees

 

 

 

 

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