This blog documents the story of the Bee Limerick Group and their quest to introduce honey bees back into the city centre of Limerick. Bee Limerick along with its partners are also involved in planting native Irish flowers, shrubs and trees to create a resilient urban ecology.

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Thriving Bee Hive

Varroa strips were added to the hive on the 19th of September. The following image shows the amount of varroa that had dropped out of the hive by September 29th.


The highest concentration of varroa in the drop tray were in the area directly below the brood. Even though the strips were placed in the four corners of the hive away from the brood. This indicates the highest concentration of varroa in the hive is in the brood. Otherwise varroa were fairly evenly distributed on the drop tray.

                         Close up of the varroa on the drop tray highlighted by black circles

Images taken at the Limerick City bee hive on Sunday 19th of September. The hive is thriving and the warm weather has brought on lots of activity.

The bees are being treated for the varroa mite. Generally I would prefer to use more ecologically sensitive treatments but that will require a long term integrated solution ...and a lot more research. For now,  - rather reluctantly - we are treating the bees with bayvarol strips as we don't want to take any chances of losing the hive to varroa over the winter months.


Bee, bee in flight and bee shadow. The white powder coating on the stationary bee is pollan from the invasive Himalayan Balsam. Bees love this plant for its nectar!.

 A wasp trying to enter a small and crowded hive entrance. The bees had no problem flying in and out but the wasps were put off by the crowded entrance.

The small and well protected hive entrance. On advice from a local bee keeper we delibertatley kept the hive entrance small to make it easier for the bees to guard against wasps - especially as the hive is new and still quite vulnerable.


                               A bee (about to land) covered in in white Himalayan Balsam pollan

Applying smoke to calm bees before lifting off glass section. The glass was completely sealed tight
with propolis and when I eventually wedged the glass open I was hit by a waft of warm air. Propolis may have many functions and I would prefer to design a hive that requires no hive destruction when checking bees. One clear choice for the future is the top bar hive. I have heard both poaitive and negative reviews of this type of hive for Irish weather but Bee Limerick will test one ourselves.

Applying a small bit more smoke - although I feel I could have worked away without the smoke altogether as the bees were totually calm.

Inserting the bayvarol strips. A strip is placed in each corner and away from the main brood which is concentrated in the centre of the hive

                               Carefully re-attaching the grass viewing cover  - without hurting any bees : )

                                                          And finally re-attaching the roof

                           Job done! The bees were actually very calm throughout the whole process.

                                                         Varroa showing in the hive

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Non Violent Bee Keeping

Most people are aware that honey bees are disappearing at an alarming rate, in what has come to be known as Colony Collapse Disorder. Besides Verroa Destructer that attacks Apis Cerana and Apis Mellifera, most literature focuses the blame on external factors outside the hive like increased pesticide use, changing farm practices and loss of biodiversity.

Bee hive ecology has developed over millions of years and a natural bee hive hanging from a tree looks nothing like the national bee hives developed by modern bee keepers. Natural bee hives evolution is clearly designed for increased hive resilience and survival of the hive. In contrast, the evolution of the modern bee hive is exclusively focussed on maximising honey production with little or no regard for bee well-being. It is clear that controlling bees for maximum honey production instead of giving them the room and freedom to create hive resilience is part of the CCD problem.  This logic was never questioned until bees started to collapse, pollination reduced and honey production began to dry up.

Natural bee hives are sophisticated fine tuned micro eco-systems where every creature plays his/her role....on the opposite spectrum modern bee keeping is little more than a bee factory where the bees are periodically dosed with chemicals, pulled apart for inspection, moved around and even have their drone stocks 'culled'  - all with the aim of maximising honey production. In a natural setting we need bees for honey and pollination and they don't actually need us for anything. So isn't it time we started developing modern bee keeping methods to consider more resilient hives and happier bees. Maybe if we start to give them what they need to thrive they will supply us with the 'goods and services' of pollination which we need for our own survival...and a little honey and wax too : ))

It is disempowering when I read about all those huge external pressures on honey bee populations - because in the short term I can do very little about that. Although we are beginning to address this with the bee friendly biodiversity network. - but if I start by asking the question - 'how can I reduce the internal stresses at the bee hive level to create more resilient hives and happier bees?' At least happy bees in a strong hive have a greater chance of dealing with mounting external pressures..... and give us a little more wiggle room to start addressing those broader issues.

Rather than researching this topic too much more I stumbled upon a great article by Philip Chandlier called Non Violent Bee Keeping for the Natural Bee Keeper. And it is really worth a read : )