Staying at Two Hives & Interesting Notes on Fanning

Baskets full of bright orange
pollen at the Dmitry hive.

A queen will not substantially increase brood production until nectar is flowing but the cooler temps have kept many spring plants from blooming in their normal time frame so queens have not been laying in abundance. And this has the bee suppliers running very behind in their orders this season. Packages of bees that would have normally been available in early- to mid-April are still not yet available mid- to late-May.

Typically a late installation of bees will put a new hive at a disadvantage. It can take 6-8 weeks for the bees to draw out enough comb needed to store the nectar and pollen as well as to make space for the queen to lay her eggs. By that time our area's spring nectar flow will be winding down, leaving the bees struggling for space and the hive weak in population.

My plan was to add a third hive this season to replace the loss of the Sasha hive, deciding to purchase a package of bees with a Russian queen instead of using my own bees as I wanted them available to add to and further strengthen the weaker Dmitry hive. And even though I have two boxes of drawn comb available that would help the hive begin with a heavy advantage, there is no estimate on when the package would arrive so I've decided to leave the apiary at the current two hives for this season.

Here is a short video of the OV hive as bees from both hives zoom in and out on their way to bring back pollen and nectar. I really enjoy standing there while they fly all around me, watching their flight paths to see in which direction they are foraging. Also visible are the large quantity of bees fanning at the entrance. Fanning draws out the warm air out of the hive and is mostly performed when abundant amounts of nectar are being brought in. Workers of all ages do this task but mainly young bees, less than 18 days old do the fanning, especially on hot days.

Fanning helps to circulate the air through the hive and to:

• regulate the hive's humidity at a constant 50 percent
• reduce the level of carbon dioxide (CO2)
• regulate brood temperature
• evaporate water carried into the hive to reduce internal temperatures
• evaporate excess moisture from unripened honey, which will cool or humidify the hive as it evaporates
• keep wax from melting as temperatures climb inside the hive.

Another type of fanning helps to spread the worker bee's pheromones. In this fanning the bee's abdomen is raised as the pheromone is secreted from a gland located near the tip of the abdomen. This pheromone has a sweet-smelling, lemony odor and is used to guide other bees toward the fanners. This is commonly seen:

• when bees are disoriented
• when a hive is opened that is queenless or has a virgin or newly mated queen, or 
• when a swarm begins cluster formation. 

The OV hive had this type of fanners today which has me wondering if the hive is preparing to swarm. Bees naturally perpetuate the species by splitting and swarming but a swarm weakens a hive and brings about a whole set of considerations that I'll address at another time...

We've had much rain lately, and today was certainly humid so the fanning could have been more for that reason than for a pending swarm. Nevertheless, I'll plan to cull the population of the OV hive in the next few days by supplementing the Dmitry hive just to be on the safe side.

2012-2013 Winter Loss Survey Preliminary Results

The Bee Informed Partnership (http://beeinformed.org), in collaboration with the Apiary Inspectors of America (AIA) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), is releasing preliminary results for the seventh annual national survey of honey bee colony losses. 

For the 2012/2013 winter season, a total of 6,287 U.S. beekeepers provided validated responses. Collectively, responding beekeepers managed 599,610 colonies in October 2012, representing about 22.9%1 of the country’s estimated 2.62 million colonies.

Preliminary survey results indicate that 31.1% of managed honey bee colonies in the United States were lost during the 2012/2013 winter. This represents an increase in loss of 9.2 points or 42% over the previous 2011/2012 winter’s total losses that were estimated at 21.9% (Figure 1). This level of loss is on par with the 6 year average total loss of 30.5%2.

On average, U.S. beekeepers lost 45.1% of the colonies in their operation during the winter of 2012/2013. This is a 19.8 point or 78.2% increase in the average operational loss compared to the previous winter (2011/2012), which was estimated at 25.3%. The difference between average loss and total loss is explained by the respondent pool: while a majority of the respondents (95%) were backyard beekeepers, they managed a small fraction of the colonies represented in the survey (6%). For this reason total loss (which is more heavily influenced by commercial beekeeper losses) is more representative of national losses.

Survey participants indicated that they considered a loss rate of 15% as “acceptable,” but 70% of them suffered losses greater than this.

1. Based on NASS 2012 figures
2. Previous survey results found a total colony loss in the winters of 21.9% in the winter of 2011/2012, 30% in 2010/2011, 34% in 2009/2010, 29% in 2008/2009, 36% in 2007/2008, and 32% in 2006/2007 (see figure attached)

The Bee Informed Partnership is funded by the National Institute of Food and
Agriculture, USDA.