Candling Mason Bee Cocoons

   In addition to selling equipment and supplies relating to honeybees, we also sell equipment pertaining to mason bees. For the benefit of those unfamiliar with mason bees, they are a type of solitary bee which emerges in the spring, just in time to pollinate our spring tree fruit.  While not everybody is cut out to keep honeybees, just about anybody can do mason bees. They are easier, simpler and much less expensive. The big down side to mason bees is that they don't produce honey. They just help us have a good fruit crop.  As much as I love honeybees, the mason bees are much more efficient pollinators and will work in cooler and wetter conditions than the honeybees. In spite of having twelve beehives in the back yard, I didn't get cherries every year until I started keeping mason bees.

    We sell several different styles and sizes of mason bee housing, all purchased from BeeDiverse, a Canadian company located in Coquitlam, BC.  The key component of their mason bee housing is a stackable nesting tray.  I sell the BeeDivers nests because I use them at home and I really like them. I consider them a serious improvement over the homemade nests I previously used.  The main advantages to the use of the BeeDiverse stackable trays are their durability and the ease of harvesting the cocoons in the fall and preparing the nests for reuse the following spring.

    Every fall, sometime after September first and prior to Christmas,  I take apart the stackable nesting trays, remove the cocoons, wash them, candle them, and then store them in a cool place for the winter. I washed the cocoons several weeks ago.  The cocoons have to be washed first to remove parasitic pollen mites and in order for the candling to be effective. Today I candled the clean cocoons to make sure they were viable and that they weren't infested with parasites. That was kind of a long introduction to get to the topic of today's post.

Flashlight lens covered with cocoons

    I use the large six volt flashlight shown in the above photo to candle the cocoons. The flashlight lens has to be completely covered for it to work well.  Since our bathroom at work has no window that is a great place to candle the cocoons. I turn on the flashlight, shut the door and then I can easily see which cocoons I need to cull. Most of the cocoons that have too much light passing through are bad. Sometimes you can see the silhouette of an adult bee that stretches from one end of the cocoon to the other. This is actually easier to see in real life than it is in the photos.

    In the above photo you can see that two particular larvae failed to pupate.  They spun their cocoon, then died. The dead larvae are silhouetted as they lie curled up in one end of the cocoon. 

Cocoon parasitized by wasps

     In this photo lots of little cigar shaped objects are visible in one of the cocoons. That particular cocoon has been parasitized by a chalchid wasp. Most parasitic wasps are considered to be beneficial insects, but this particular wasp has chosen to attack another beneficial insect instead of a pest.

   I harvested 349 mason bee cocoons from four of my nesting blocks. I only had to cull 20 of those cocoons. I cut open about half of the culled cocoons in order to get some photos of the contents.  Most of my culled cocoons had larvae which failed to pupate. Culling out those cocoons would only be important if I were selling the cocoons. I don't leave my mason bee blocks out all summer. I usually take them down as soon as it appears that the bees are done with them. I put them on a shelve in the garage or take them down to the shop. Generally bad things are more likely to happen if the blocks are left outside. They might be discovered by a woodpecker or a flicker and predation by the parasitic wasps is very likely.  The reason I only found one of the cocoons with wasp larvae is mainly due to the fact that I took the blocks inside once the bees were done with them.

Wasp larvae from the culled cocoon

      At the top of the above photo you can see curled up mason bee larvae that failed to pupate. In the center of the photo there are about a dozen wasp larvae in an opened cocoon.  The adult chalchid wasp is about the same size as the larvae in the photo. The entire cocoon isn't as long as the nail on my little finger. Yet this little wasp has an ovipositor that can penetrate through a half inch of wood. They truly are amazing little creatures.

    

Observation Hive, October 21, 2014

     I've noticed a few changes in the observation hive this past week.  First of all there has been a noticeable decrease in their honey stores. That is probably due to the fact that I failed to make up sugar syrup last week and the feeder ran dry for three days. I put a new jar of syrup in their feeder last Saturday.  The bees then took until Tuesday afternoon to consume one quart of sugar syrup.  A month ago I was having to change out the feeder bottle every other day so their appetite has diminished a little.  Obviously there isn't much in the way of nectar available here for the bees in mid October so maybe they need a little time to get back into nectar foraging mode.

    On the other hand, the bees have been bringing in lots of pollen.  I watched returning foragers this afternoon and a fairly high percentage of them were carrying pollen. The observation hive consists of  four deep frames stacked vertically.  the lower three frames were mainly devoted to brood in mid September. Now the middle two frames have only half the brood they did a month ago while the lower frame has no brood at all.  On the other hand the amount of pollen stored in that lower frame has steadily increased over the past two weeks. When I looked at it this morning it seemed that about half of the frame is currently devoted to pollen storage.

Two returning foragers loaded with pollen

       I will give you a little run down on how our observation hive is configured.  As I mentioned above, the observation hive itself consists of four vertical deep frames.  This is mounted onto a rotating base, which is in turn mounted on a deep hive body with ten frames.  The deep hive body serves as an overflow area as well as a route to the clear plastic tunnel leading to the feeder and the outside. I don't know how much the bees are using this lower area. Neither of the two earlier colonies which resided in the observation hive ever expanded into the deep hive body.  They never drew out the comb or stored anything it it. They merely transited through it in order to get to the outside. This hive body is mounted on a second deep hive body which is only used to house a clean out tray with a screen bottom and a wooden slide out tray. The clean out tray allows me to remove the dead bees from the hive so that the bees don't have to carry them up the clear plastic tube in order to give them a proper honeybee  funeral ceremony.  The wooden slide out device at the very bottom allows me to monitor the health of the colony by watching what debris falls onto it.  Beneath all of this is a metal framed dolly (the equivalent of a piano dolly on steroids).   A plastic tube exits the hive body and quickly reaches a T where one way leads to the outside while the other way leads to a feeding station. We replaced the upper part of the window with a piece of plywood painted black. There is a two inch diameter hole in the plywood and we have attached a front mount pollen trap which serves the bees as kind of a landing pad.

The Beez Neez Observation Hive

    We added a strip of hardware cloth which runs through the vertical section of the exit tube. That is a very important feature as without it, when ever a bee lost her footing she would cause a snowballing chain reaction of bees tumbling down the tube. The reason for the screened bottom clean out drawer is that the bees find it next to impossible to drag out the dead up the long vertical exit tube. The short video clip below shows the pollen trap we installed for a landing pad.

Our pollen trap landing pad.

   I usually have sheets of styrofoam insulation covering the glass panels of the observation hive to help the bees maintain that 22 degree temperature differential between the 70 degree ambient temperature of the inside of the store to the 92 degree temperature at which they incubate brood. I think one of the biggest problems maintaining bees in this particular observation hive is that there is so much exposed glass.

More Fun with Propolis

   I thought I would do yet another post on the subject of propolis and its many uses.  The word propolis comes from two Greek words, "pro", meaning before or in front of, and "polis", meaning city. This name came about due to the bees use of propolis to reduce or restrict the entrance of their colony during the winter. The normal location of a feral colony in most parts of the world is in a hollow tree. If the opening is too large for that particular climate, the bees simply add propolis to the opening until the size of the hole suits them. Some races of honeybees use propolis more enthusiastically than others. Caucasions are famous for their extensive gathering of propolis.  I read once in one of the bee journals that Italian honeybees gather only 35% of the amount of propolis that Caucasion honeybees collect. Most beekeepers would prefer their bees gathered less propolis as the bees use it to glue everything together such that hive exams are more difficult. I have Italian honeybees and I thought they gathered a great deal of propolis. I can't imagine dealing with a three fold increase of propolis in my hives.

    This past week I attended a wonderful presentation by Sue Cobey at our bee club meeting.  She is the world renown expert in the artificial insemination of honeybees. She is currently involved in WSU's efforts to collect semen from drone honeybees in various parts of the world to try to improve the genetic diversity of honeybees in the United States.  It is much easier to get a permit to import semen than it is to import live bees and cryogenically frozen semen doesn't pose the same level of risk of importing new parasites and diseases.  Some of the places the WSU team has visited thus far include Slovenia, Germany, Northern Italy, Turkey, and Georgia (not the Georgia where the Atlanta Braves reside).  She showed some photos and videos of Caucasion honeybees using propolis to reduce the size of the hive entrance. It was absolutely amazing how much propolis these bees gathered.

    Until the past year, my use of propolis mainly consisted of using it as a substitute for modeling clay to make small sculptures. I have a little menagerie of propolis animals at the bee store which include an alligator, a penguin, a snail, and a pig.  At about seventy degrees propolis is fairly hard. At colder temperatures it becomes quite brittle.  At warmer temperatures propolis becomes soft and more malleable until at some point it turns into a little tar baby and sticks to everything. I sculpted the little pig in the photo below while I was working at the Open Honey and Beeswax display at the Evergreen State Fair.  I was inspired by the fact that the pig barn was a relatively short distance away. I can tell that this photo was taken shortly after I made the pig. When kneaded for a few minutes, our local propolis starts out yellow. Exposure to the air turns the propolis to a dark reddish color within a couple of weeks.

Propolis pig, newly formed in August, 2013

The same pig, over one year later

      Propolis is used in cosmetics, hand cream, lip balsam, and for medicinal purposes. I have Russian and Ukrainian customers who are avid proponents of the medical uses of propolis. One Russian customer told me that his sixteen year old son had a serious problem with warts on his face and head, a terrible affliction for a teenager. He took his son to a dermatologist who used medication, freezing, and burning in successive efforts to get rid of the warts. After each treatment, the warts returned. Finally he resorted to East European folk medicine and began to give his son a daily dose of propolis dissolved in rum.  Within two weeks all of the warts were gone and they never came back. the Russians and Ukrainians use propolis tinctures both internally and topically. Propolis is soluble in alcohol, but is not soluble in water. Vodka is the usual East European choice for making a tincture. I can only assume that rum was used as the "kiddie version".

    I recently made some propolis tincture at the request of my daughter-in-law.  I found some useful instructions on the internet.  It was in a blog post by someone associated with the honeybee program at the University of Minnesota.  There were instructions for making either 10, 20, or 30% propolis solutions, with the weight of propolis given in both ounces and grams and the liquid given by both weight and volume.  I used 150 proof vodka as the solvent and it took about a week to get most of the propolis to dissolve. I filtered the tincture through a paper towel to remove any wax and debris.

    I had a customer request to purchase some propolis this past week. She wanted it to make a medicinal tincture.  I was not very anxious to part with any of my limited supply, especially since I have begun using it to make propolis varnish.  I told her I could sell her one ounce for ten dollars. Sadly, she was willing to pay that much.  

     

Propolis Varnish

    I've always had a fascination with propolis, sometimes referred to as bee glue. It is a sticky resinous substance the bees collect from new growth buds of a variety of different plants. In spite of the fact that it is collected from diverse sources, the properties of propolis are fairly constant. The color can vary somewhat depending on when and where it was collected, but it remains a sticky anti-microbial secondary building material for the bees.

     I had read in Beekeeping for Dummies about a propolis varnish used by an individual who does repairs to museum quality violins.  It mentioned the ingredients and proportions, but failed to give sufficiently detailed instructions on how to make the stuff.  I poked around on the internet and stumbled onto a Canoe forum where someone had posted the instructions I was seeking.  The varnish had the same ingredients in the same proportions as the recipe in Beekeeping for Dummies. The person who had posted the recipe raved about the durability and water proof nature of this varnish, both important characteristics for varnishing wooden canoes and paddles.

    The directions are fairly simple. Combine 4 ounces blond shellac, 1 ounce manila copal, and one ounce of propolis with one pint of denatured alcohol into a jar with a lid.  Shake the jar frequently over the course of a week or more until all of the ingredients are dissolved. The shellac dissolved quickly, while the manila copal and propolis took longer.  Once everything is dissolved that is going to dissolve, strain the varnish through a nylon stocking to remove any remaining debris.  I decided to dewax the propolis prior to using it. Propolis contains about 35% beeswax and I was unsure if that would cause problems  with the varnish.  I did this using a number ten can and a small canning kettle to make a double boiler. I put about 8 ounces of propolis in the can, filled it with water, and cooked that in the double boiler for about four hours.  After the can and water cooled, I was left with a layer of beeswax on the surface and the propolis on the bottom. Propolis is heavier than water while beeswax is lighter than water.  I don't know if that step was really necessary as I don't believe beeswax will dissolve in alcohol. However, it did result in less debris to strain out at the end. In order to expedite the dissolving of the propolis, I put the dewaxed propolis into the freezer for several hours. Once it was very cold, I put the propolis into a bag and beat on it with a mallet to shatter it into tiny fragments.

   I purchased the blond shellac and manila copal resin from Woodfinishing Enterprises, 1729 N 68th Street, Wauwatosa, WI 53213, telephone (414) 774-1724. They have a wonderful online catalog featuring an incredible array of exotic substances useful to woodworkers. I thought their prices were quite reasonable.

Blond Shellac

Manila Copal resin

Propolis

Propolis Varnish in progress

    I made some propolis varnish this past summer and used it to varnish some wooden folding chairs a friend had given to me.  The chairs looked pretty ratty before I varnished them. My wife even asked if she could burn them.  After just one coat of the propolis varnish the chairs were magically transformed from junk to something Linda would actually let me bring into the house. I accidentally left one of the chairs outside and it rained. When I discovered the wet chair, there was no opaqueness and the water was beaded up nicely.  I also used the propolis varnish to put a nice finish on my Ulster Observation Hive.   I have a little fiberglass rowboat I'm in the process of refinishing. I intend to use the propolis varnish on the seats and all the wooden trim.

Folding wooden chair with one coat of propolis varnish

Overwintering Bees in the Observation Hive

     I have tried several times over the past few years to let the colony in the observation hive in the store try to overwinter. Both times it ended badly for the bees. I'm not sure why they have such difficulty surviving the winter in the observation hive.

Queen Nora the First, the reigning monarch of the observation hive

     First of all, the observation colony is always a relatively new split with a new queen so mites and other parasites haven't had as much time to build up to seriously harmful levels.  Secondly, I keep that part of the store at 70 degrees, mainly to keep my inventory of honey in a liquid state for a longer period of time.  I also keep pieces of styrofoam insulation covering the sides of the observation hive when I am not actually looking at them. I do that to make it easier for the bees to maintain an appropriate temperature for their brood. They incubate their brood at 92 degrees Fahrenheit, 22 degrees warmer then the ambient temperature of the store.  Thirdly, I give them lots of sugar syrup.  One colony dwindled away in January and another one survived until early February.  It seems really counter-intuitive to me that the bees would have such difficulty overwintering in the observation hive.  One would think overwintering inside the store would be the honeybee equivalent of living on easy street.

     I decided to try it a third time because the current colony occupying my observation hive seems a little different.  They did a much better job accumulating stores for the winter and the queen actually reduced the brood nest at the time of year when that behavior would be expected. They seemed like a worthy colony for another attempt.

The hive has collected a lot of glistening nectar/syrup. 

    I decided  I would try to do the normal fall medications that I do with my other colonies.  I fed them about a gallon of 2:1 sugar syrup medicated with fumagilin over a period of a month as a treatment for nosema.  I would have given twice that amount to a full size colony.  After that I have continued to keep them well supplied with 2:1 sugar syrup.

A few pieces of apilifeVar place in the vent hole

     I had observed only an occasional varroa mite on the bottom clean out board. That fact, along with the relative newness of the colony caused me to think varroa mite levels probably weren't very high.  I decided to treat the hive anyway using ApilifeVar, a mite treatment from Italy. It is basically a thin wafer of florist foam which has been impregnated with thymol, eucalyptus, and menthol. I have found it to be a fairly effective mite treatment and have used it off and on for about eight years.  Since it is a rather small colony, consisting of just 4 frames,  I used half the usual dosage. Since I didn't want to go to the trouble of taking the observation hive outside, I simply placed the medication in one of the upper vent holes on each side and covered it those vent holes with duct tape. This first mite treatment was done on October 8th.

A bit of duct tape to seal in the medication

     I checked the bottom clean out board this morning (October 16) and found about 20 dead mites.  It wasn't a huge amount, but it told me that there were more mites in the hive than I had suspected. Based on those results I thought I worthwhile to continue with a second treatment.   Since there is no drone brood in the colony, I'm going to call it good with the two varroa treatments, rather than the three treatments advised in the label instructions.  Normally I'm treating with ApilifeVar in late August or early September so there is often still drone brood in the hive.  There are some dead varroa mites below but they are a bit harder to spot in the photo. There is one located in almost the very center of the photo, the size of a pin head, shiny reddish-maroon.

The bottom clean out board on October 16