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BEELINESJournal of the Ulster County Beekeepers Association

Volume 5 Issue 5 May 2012

The Ulster County Beekeepers Association welcomes and encourages all having an interest in honeybees.We meet on most second Mondays of each month from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Rosendale Community Center,1055 Route 32, Rosendale, N.Y. Non-members are encouraged to make a donation to the Speakers Fund.


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BEELINESMAY 2012Journal of the Ulster County

Beekeepers Association

BEELINESUlster County Beekeepers Association133 Plains Road, New Paltz, NY 12561

UCBA Meets Second Mondays 7-9 p.m. at the Rosendale Commmunity Center, 1055 Route 32, Rosendale, NY

AT THE MAY MEETING....................................... 3Rose-Lynn Fisher Bees Under a Microscope

Plant Sale to Benet UCBA

Mentoring Program

Bring Your Own Mug!

Hive Staples for Sale

At Every UCBA Meeting

SPEAKER PROFILE:

ROSE-LYNN FISHER .............................................4

Looking for the Art in The Form:The Honeybee Under a Microscope

BAIT HIVES................................................................ 6Home Sweet Home

TREND ALERT! ........................................................ 7Bee merchandise spotted

SWARM SEASON IS UPON US ....................... 8Swarm Management: A Modied Demaree Method

Ah, The Joys of Swarm Season

BEEKEEPERS CALENDAR,GROWTH AND LEARNING &UPCOMING MEETINGS .................................. 12

Opportunities to increase your knowledge

APRIL MEETING EPILOGUE .......................... 13

Some small hive beetle management lessonsfrom the April meeting

On the cover:Rose-Lynn Fishers scanning electron microscope image ofa honeybees wing hooks (the hamuli that clasp togethereach pair of wings for ight) magnied 700 times, from herbookBEE, published by Princeton Architectural Press, 2010.

Bee swarm

Photo byChris Harp

BEELINESNEEDS YOUR HELP!

Do you have a beekeeping story to tell or

inormation or pictures you would like to

share with ellow beekeepers? Please send

text and pictures to the editor oBeelines

at this email address:

[email protected]
http://-/?-http://-/?-


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OUR SPEAKER PRESENTATION

ROSE-LYNN FISHER:

BEES UNDER A MICROSCOPE

Monday, May 7th (the rst Monday), Rose-Lynn Fisheris our speaker. Ms. Fishers exceptional images ofhoneybees seen through ascanning electron microscopeare the subject of her photo-graphic book entitled BEE,published by PrincetonArchitectural Press in 2010.Come be mesmerized and

informed by the intriguinglandscape of a honeybeesbody as Ms. Fisher leads us on her creative journey.We will have copies ofBEEavailable to purchase, withthe prots to benet the UCBA Library Fund, andMs. Fisher will sign copies after the meeting.

PLANT SALE TO BENEFIT UCBA

We will have a plant sale before the meeting if

anyone wishes to bring in plants to sale. Honeybeeplants preferable, however we wont turn any goodplant away. Consider dividing perennials or sharingyour extra seedlings. Proceeds benet the UCBASpeaker Fund.

MENTORING PROGRAM

We will discuss setting up a mentoring program, be ithands-on in the apiary or as a segment before theguest speakers. Please think about volunteering to

help new beekeepers or, if you are a newbee, whatkind of assistance would be helpful someone tocall or someone to visit?

PLEASE BRING YOUR

OWN TRAVEL MUG . . .

. . . for coee and tea at meetings. We dont want touse paper cups. There are always washable mugsavailable if you forget.

HIVE STAPLES FOR SALE

We still have hive staples for sale. They come inpackets of 8 for $1. If you need them, nd Grai.

AT EVERY UCBA MEETING . . .

Please renew your UCBA membership, return andborrow library material, and join our growingcommunity of beekeepers.
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Art and science

always makeinteresting com-

panions. Each disciplinecan oer insights to theother, and together theycan change the way therest of us see our world.

Honeybees are fasci-nating and complexcreatures. Learningabout their intricateanatomy can informour skills as beekeepers,however there is alsothe joy of sheer astonish-ment at their physio-logical and biologicalmakeup.

Rose-Lynn Fishersphotographic imagesof honeybee anatomyexplored through ascanning electronmicroscope (SEM) takeus on a journey beyondour day-to-day knowl-edge and our imagi-nations into other-worldly landscapes observed withan artists eye. The magnication of key anatomicalelements: antenna, eye, wing, proboscis, instunningly ne black-and-white detail are scienceand art.

I like nding the abstract in the object. I look forthe art in the form, Fisher explains her process ofcomposing these works. In this bizarre frontier, our

sense of scale is confused, and connections betweenthe micro and macro world become clearer andmore tangible. In the myriad forms that constituteone little bee at higher and higher magnications,there is a hint of the unending complexity of nature.

Fishers exploration of the honeybee with the SEMoccurred over 17 years with the help of a friend in thescientic eld. As a professional multi-media artist

ROSE-LYNN FISHER

Looking or the Art in The Form:The Honeybee Under a MicroscopeBy Grai St. Clair Rice

Rose-Lynn Fisher speaking at the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens Bee Centennial Day in 2010.

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living in LA, her interest kept pulling her back tohoneybees under the microscope. The rst timeI looked at a bees eye magnied I was amazed tosee a eld of hexagons, just like honeycomb, sheexplains. there are reoccurring patterns everywherein nature.

It was years before I ever made an exhibition printof these images. Fisher laughs, and when I did itwas at the right time. Since 2004, the elegant 12 x15 prints of these honeybee images have beenexhibited in museums and galleries, and her timingcoincided with a surge in interest in our favoritepollinator.

A collection of Fishers honeybee landscapeshave been published in her book entitled BEE, byPrinceton Architectural Press (2010), and arebeautifully organized in anatomical sections andarranged from lesser magnication to greatermagnication.

Fishers speaking engagements oer yet anotherview of her work as she talks about her artistic

journey and projects her SEM images on a wall in

grand scale. Fisher laughs, I love the contrast ofthese magnied images projected big on the wall . . .its almost grotesque.

For those of us who have an opportunity toexperience this fantastic body of work, it will changethe way we think about honeybees.

continued

Eye 190x.

Rose-Lynn Fishers website: www.rose-lynnsher.com

UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS

BEEyondEverhart Museum, Scranton, PennsylvaniaMay 4 - September 3, 2012http://everhart-museum.org/exhibitions/upcoming-exhibitions

BEEPiermont Straus (Gallery and Bookstore), Piermont, New York

May 5 - July 4, 2012Opening event with book signingMay 5th, 4-7 pmwww.facebook.com/events/343468599046326/

Here is a link to an NPR Daily Picture Show piece from September 2010http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2010/09/03/129631866/it-s-the-bee-s-knees-no-really

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Most of the literature Ive read on bait hivesand all of what Ive heard goes completelyagainst what happened in my apiary on April

17, 2012. The idea of bait hives has fascinated mesince I started researching the topic three years ago.What could be better than just hanging a box in atree and then collecting your free bees! As theaccepted practice goes, you generally cannot set upa bait hive just a few feet from an established hiveand bait a swarm from that hive. Many seasonedbeekeepers instruct that you set bait hives hundredsof feet or yards away from your apiary location tostand a chance of luring them in. The bees would notchoose to set up a new home so close to the old.

I eventually narrowed my research to renownedbee researchers Thomas Seeley, Roger A. Morse andRichard Nowogrodzki (Cornell Cooperative ExtensionPublication, Information Bulletin No. 187). Also, Mr.Seeley has a recent article in Bee Culture Magazine(April 2012, Using Bait Hives). He states in his 12rules for bait hives that location isnt so important aslong as there is swarm activity present. I constructedmy bait hives to Mr. Seeleys specications, with a fewof my own design modications thrown in for goodmeasure. The rst bait hive was set up on April 2nd20 feet from my hives, one of which was preparing

swarm cells. The next day I noticed scout beesdarting in and out of the box. First one, then two,then a dozen or more scouts. This went on for twoweeks. The scouts would also investigate my otherfour bait hives, two of which were placed 150 feetaway.

The big day came! As I was getting out of my car, Iheard the distinctive roar of a swarm. I watched as itdescended onto the bait hive only 20 feet from theswarming colony. It was a primary swarm with manybees and seemed to take on the look of a singleying beast that actually cast a shadow on theground. After landing on the box, the swarm brokeagain and formed a thick cloud of buzzing thunder.

Then onto the box again, forming a tight, largecluster. There they stayed for two days. Then in anorderly, single le, they marchedinto the bait hive.

This procession took three hours.After a week, despite a cold snap, foragers were

bringing in lots of pollen.So it seems with good design and careful

execution, the bees can take care of colony splits ontheir own and you dont have to lose your bees ifyoure not around for the swarm. For my newcolony, its Home Sweet Home.

Home Sweet HomeBy Tom Hutt

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It seems that beekeeping is really gettingfashionable these days and showing up in all sortsof places.I found myself on the edge of beeing horried

when I went onto the Williams-Sonoma website tolust after a new roasting pan and realized that theyhave an entire new component to their brandingcalled Agrarian. They are marketing to the upscale,fashionably green-conscious society that can aordcopper trowels.

I dont mean to sound condescending, because Iwant to embrace any positive shift towards everyonetaking better care of our earth. So I clicked onto thatsection of their site, and there right above ChickenCoops is Beekeeping!

Im still going to select my desired beekeepingequipment from Brushy Mountain Bee Farm, or lookup the Mennonite lad who was oering his wares tothe Catskill Mountain Bee Club last year. I only hopethat whoever is inspired by the Williams-Sonomawebsite to start tending bees doesnt just consider ita fashion accessory.

On another side, I do have a soft spot forfunctional objects with bees on them, and sincespringtime often generates merchandize withbunnies and butteries, I did a search on the internetfor bees, and ended up on the Sur la Table website.

Im not really a napkin ring kind of gal, but we doneed a small milk pitcher, and the plates look fun. Ima sucker for a honeybee.

Bee Merchandise SpottedBy Grai St. Clair Rice

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I they arent making honey,they are making queens.

One of the greatest challenges in beekeeping,especially with an overwintered hive, is

keeping your bees (i.e., preventing your beesfrom swarming). Swarming is a biological imperative,and almost all colonies will attempt to swarm.Swarming, though, is a bane to the beekeeper, canbe a nuisance to your neighbors, and if your goal ishoney production, the potential for a substantialcrop disappears with the swarm.

A second challenge is preventing your colonyfrom swarming without expanding your number ofcolonies. There are a number of swarm preventiontechniques, but most result in an increase in colonynumbers after the manipulation. This requiresbuying an additional bottom board, inner cover, andouter cover or additional deep hive bodies andframes and foundation. If you are not careful, you canhave exponential colony growth and quickly becomea commercial beekeeper. Finally, avoiding swarmingby increasing your colonies doesnt maximize honeyproduction if anything, after splitting your colonyinto two units, your surplus honey production willlikely be minimal.

Since dealing with swarming is a problemeveryone faces with an overwintered hive, I thoughtId share a technique that has worked for me over the

years. Im not the inventor of it by any means Richard Taylor described it years ago in a Bee Culturearticle, and the elegance and simplicity of it bespeaksa deep knowledge of honeybee biology (which heprobably learned about from somebody else). By theway, this is the only swarm prevention technique thatis curiously not discussed in his excellent treatise onproducing comb honey, The Comb Honey Book.

This technique has the following advantages:

It is a guaranteed to keep your bees if you nd

uncapped queen cells in your hive, which is a suresign that the hive will be swarming shortly.

You do not need to buy an additional bottomboard, inner cover or outer cover.

After the manipulation is complete, you have thesame number of colonies as when you started.

Youve kept the full strength of your hive for thenectar ow.

It allows you to retain the genetics of the existingqueen if you want to raise daughter queens from herPerhaps her ospring show some mite resistance orare exceptional honey producers.

I generally try to super my colonies by about therst week in May and begin checking strong hivesaround the same time for signs of the swarmingimpulse (developing queen cells, explodingpopulations and crowded conditions). By May 15th,the colonies are often bringing in surplus honey. Myrule of thumb at this time is that if a colony isnt

It seems every season is dierent, and as beekeepers we are certainly tapped in to the vicissitudes o weather and thebees responses. So this year, we have had early warmth and a abulous early ow that spurred the bees to a vibrant start,and then the past ew weeks o up and down temps has also brought cool, windy conditions, not conducive to oragingor swarming. Until last weekend, when swarm were bursting orth everywhere!

We oer two articles in this issue that are very dierent approaches to the seasonal management concerns aboutswarming, and perhaps losing our beloved queens. Swarming is a beautiul, lie-afrming orce or the bees, as well as orthose o us who experience them. However, a couple o hives can quickly multiply. Have your equipment ready i you wishto try to collect your swarms.

Swarm Management: A Modifed Demaree MethodBy David Blocher

David Blocher is the Ex Ofcio - Recent President o the Backyard Beekeepers Association in Connecticut.We are reprinting this article rom their newsletter with permission.

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making honey, theyre making queen cells andpreparing to swarm. That is, if the colony has enoughbees to be in the supers, and good ight weatherprevails yet they are not gathering honey youcan be sure they are preparing to swarm. You shouldbegin looking for queen cells in earnest.

The technique is based on the following threesimple principles of bee biology:

Bees cannot swarm without a queen. Bees cannot raise a queen if they do not have the

necessary eggs or larvae.

A queen right hive will not swarm if there is nopopulation pressure.

Make sure you understand these principles.Re-read these, if necessary. Ill wait.

Also, this manipulation assumes that your colonyis in two deep hive bodies, but it could work just aswell with three medium supers, if that is yourconguration. It does require three important things:

You must purchase or make a double screenboard (see picture), also called a Snelgrove boardafter its inventor. An inner cover with duct tape overthe oval on both sides will work in a pinch, but only ifthe inner cover has a ventilation notch cut in it.

You must locate the queen.

As with all swarm prevention techniques, youmust remove developing queen cells, unless youintend to raise a queen to replace the existing queen.In that case, leave one or two queen cells in thequeenless portion of the hive, but remove the rest.

Double screen board with entrance gate open(this entrance will be at the back of the hive).

Lets say you crack open your hive and nd swarm(aka queen) cells hanging from the bottom of theframes in the top deep. Its time to go to work. Wewant to perform the following three steps uponseeing the rst queen cells with eggs or larvae inthem.

Put all the CAPPED BROOD in one hive body,making sure the queen IS NOT on these frames. Tryto avoid putting frames with eggs or open brood inthis deep hive body, but if you have some openbrood which often cannot be avoided thatsOK. This hive body with capped brood will remain on

the bottom board. This portion of the colony is nowqueenless.

Put the honey supers back on top of this hive

body, and place the double screen board on top ofthem with the entrance at the back.

Put all of the OPEN BROOD and the QUEEN intothe other hive body, along with some frames ofpollen and honey. Place this on the double screenboard, and put the inner and outer covers on thishive.

We will leave the hive in this conguration for10-14 days, and then reunite at the end of this period

Why does this technique work?Review the rst two biological principles above. By

placing all of the capped brood in the bottom hivebody and making this half of the hive queenless, youhave prevented the bees from raising an emergencyqueen. These bees will not leave the capped brood,and they cannot leave the hive in a swarm since theydo not have a queen.

Review the third principle of bee biology. In thequeen right portion of the hive you have reduced the

continued

This is an example o a Snelgrove Board used in thisswarm management method. This has a double screenin the center, and pairs o entrances to controlmovement and direction o bees. Its use seems moreprevalent in the UK than in the US.

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continued

population pressure, by placing its entrance at theback of the hive. All of the foragers will return to themain entrance at the front of the hive. The top halfof the hive, the queen right portion, has beeneectively depopulated, and only the nurse beesremain with their queen to tend to the developingbrood.

You have simulated a swarm while at the sametime managing it. After 10-14 days the swarm urgehas passed. You dont want to leave them separatedfor any longer than about 14 days, because at thatpoint, all of the capped brood down below hasemerged, and they would otherwise begin to llthese empty cells with nectar. Instead, at this point,you want the queen to start using these empty cellsto lay more eggs in. In the meantime, they have beenlling your honey supers with lots of nectar!

Two big caveats: Because they are queenless, theywill be desperate to have a queen. If you have had toput ANY frames of eggs or larvae in the bottom hivebody with the capped brood you must go back oneweek later and destroy the developing queen cellsthat they have begun to raise. Otherwise, you willsoon have a queen in that deep hive body! Second,

as with any swarm-prevention technique, you mustremove all of the queen cells, unless you leave one ortwo in the queenless portion in order to requeenthat part of the hive.

Reuniting the two portions of the hive: After 14days (two weekends for the backyard beekeeper),you will want to recombine the two hive bodies. Thereason for this timing is that the capped brood in thenest in the bottom deep will all have emerged bynow, and the colony will be lling these cells up withnectar. Of course, they will also have been lling upyour honey supers with nectar since all of the cells inthe deep hive body were lled with brood, so dontbe surprised if the honey supers are quite heavyalready they have had no brood to feed, so theirattention has been devoted to nectar collection.Also, at this point, the urge to swarm has past.

Two weeks after the manipulation, reunite thecolony using a newspaper between the two hivebodies. This is probably not strictly necessary, but Ialways do it. The bottom deep is lled with youngbees that have emerged, and they are desperate fora queen. I always place the queen right portion asthe second deep hive body, and then put the honeysupers above it (using a queen excluder). Any nectarthat they have put in the bottom deep hive body willsoon be moved into the honey supers, since beesdont store honey below the nest as a general rule,only above it.

This is a great technique especially if the hive isin the middle of swarm preparations because youkeep the full strength of your colony for the mainnectar ow, you get to preserve the hives genetics,and it does not result in an increase in the number ofcolonies. However, as with any time-sensitive hive

manipulation, you must check for emergency queencells a week after splitting the colony, and thenreunite them after two weeks. It is also quite exible.It also lends itself to requeening the hive quite easily,either by allowing a queen cell to emerge in thequeenless portion, or by adding a purchased queen.In either case, leave the mother queen in the colonyabove until you combine the two, and then dispatchher. Let your imagination run wild and good luck!

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continued

Ah, The Joys o Swarm SeasonBy Chris Harp and Grai Rice

A collection this years swarms. They pick the darnedest places to land! Please note: The guy in the tree is a proessionaltreeman. Do not try this at home!

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MAY

Make spilts for increasing colonies and asa management practice for varroa mites.

Swarm season is underway. Position bait hives,with old comb, at a good distance from your hivesand as high as possible.

With nights still dropping into the 30s and 40s, anyhive that swarms now will be in danger of havingthe new queen expire in her queen cell due to thecold, or not be properly mated.

HoneybeeLives Inspect a Hive classes at theHoneybeeLives Apiary in New Paltz are scheduledon dierent dates in May and June. Checkwww.HoneybeeLives.org for description and dates.

MONDAY, JUNE 11The Ancient Traditions of the Sacred Bee Keepers,Evidence from the Ancient Mediterranean World.Slide lecture and drumming by Layne Redmond.

MONDAY, JULY 9UCBAs 5th Annual Summer Picnic

Details TBA

No Regular Meeting in August

Watch or details aboutUCBAs Annual Apiary Tour

Bee careful catching swarms, not because of beingstung, but because you dont want to break a leg.Bee wise, and bless the ones that get away.

If you have a swarm, do not go into the hive for 10days to allow the new queen to get settled andstart laying.

Put supers on ahead of the ow. If fresh combneeds to be built, workers need time and food toconstruct comb.

Watch for notices about Anarchy Apiaries BootCamp dates, taking place sometime in May or Junein Germantown. Sam Comfort is just landing back inthe area and will be oering his unique learningexperience once his spring bees have been handedout.

Frame-drummingbee priestess
http://www.honeybeelives.org/http://www.honeybeelives.org/


13/13

1313Journal of the Ulster County

Mike Embrey was our main speaker in Apriland lled us in on the life-cycle and manage-ment issues of the expanding realm of the

small hive beetle (SHB), which can infest hives andstored supers, feasting o and damaging honey andpollen. Tom Hutt brought in his modied bottomboard and his SHB lure /traps that are fascinatingdesigns.

We also learned that, except forkeeping accessible entrances to hivesto a minimum and squashing themwith our ngers when openinghives as they scurry from theirbee prisons, there are notmany things that seem tohelp yet.

There are a few things thatseem to work at moderatingtheir reproduction:

SHB larvae exit thehives to pupate in theground. Placing a tray ofdiatomaceous earth (DE) between thevarroa screen and the bottom board willcut up and kill the larva trying to exit the hivethat way. Extreme caution needs to be takenas you handle the DE, both contact andinhalation, and you must keep the DEcontained where it cannot come into contactwith bees or other insects that it could harm.Chris Harp found that a 17 x 11 cookie sheetts perfectly under an eight-frame hive. A shimcan be adapted if greater distance from screenis desired.

A lure/trap that Tom Hutt made makes goodsense and seems to work. He places a small tin witha mixture of apple cider vinegar, pollen, borax andcantaloupe juice in the middle of a larger tin with oil.

This is positioned upwind from hives in a darkened,screened box (screen big enough so SHB can get inbut not enough for bees). The adult SHB lay theireggs in the small tin and when the larvae crawl outto pupate, they end up in the oil and die.

Mike Embrey has noted that in-hive traps areless likely to work in the warmer months ofMay-August since the SHB dont need the hivefor warmth.

Note: Correction from AprilBeelines Small hive beetles do yduring the day, not at night.

Some Small Hive Beetle Management Lessons

rom the April MeetingBy Grai St. Clair Rice

may beelines

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