Hanging out with Bees

1 . Bee Hive Inspection May 4th @ 12:30pm-2pmBee Hive Check May 12th @ 1:30pm-2:30pmTotal Hours: 2.5 hoursMary Whitfield mary.whitfield@email.edcc.edu
2. We looked at the Edmonds Community College Beehives to see the amount of progress the bees made over a week. Mary was trying to educate us about how to help take care of the bees and was very knowledgeable on the subject.
3. I held some frames for us to look at the bees, but didn’t get a photo of it because my hands were full at the time. I also helped Horea start the smoker which Mary actually ended up not needing by the time we were done. 

 

Figure 1: Inspected for the first time on May 4th. Included in this picture is Mary (left), Grace (center) and Horea (right).

Figures 2 and 3: Some beeswax that was harvested off the edge of a frame.

Figure 4: Uncovering the frames.

Figure 5: Pulling out drowned bees from their food supply.

Figures 6: Handling the bee filled frames.

Figure 7: Brought out a lot more suits for the second day.

Figures 8 and 9: Horea trying to get the smoker going.

4. This experience made me see how hard it is to raise a working bee hive. After listening to Mary’s talk about troubleshooting problems in the previous year, it made me think about how projects like these will keep getting better and better as the years go by and mistakes happen. Learning from those mistakes is driving next year’s work forward. For example, Mary talked about how mites invade and kill entire beehives. Last year there was a mite infestation and Mary waited for it to resolve itself but after a while she caved in and bought the mite pesticide. However, she said it was a little too late and the mites had done their damage. To counter that this year, she paid close attention to the mite count in the hives and worked to rid the hive of them while they were still a minor problem instead of waiting until they were a big deal again. I thought that was a really good example of learning from your mistakes and improving over time. It makes me wonder what Mary is going to do to improve the beehive next year. It looked like the new beehive had lots of room to grow because it had so much space for extra frames.Since we’re in plant biology, I guess the connection I make between bees and plants is how the bees pollinate the plants. Gwen said that many bees don’t purposefully pollinate flowers. They have sacs on their legs that catch pollen as they land and then they spread it by continuing to land in other flowers. This interaction between bees and flowers is what makes ecology interdisciplinary. It shows how the bees and their environment is connected. Bee work is important because pollination is vital to many of the foods we eat and flowers we like looking at.

5. a) What will Mary do to improve the hives next year?

b) How much honey did the hives this year produce?

c) How many bees died in the maintenance of the hives this year? (crushed by the upper hive floors when reassembling, accidentally drowning in sugar water, death by stinging Horea?)

d) How long will this generation of bees last before a whole new set replaces them?