By: Becky Masterman and Bridget Mendel
This article originally appeared in the Autumn 2020 issue of BEEKeeping Your First Three Years
The University of Minnesota Bee Squad has their finger on the pulse of the general pollinator zeitgeist. How? We read emails. Everyone sends us emails. Beekeepers, bee advocates, bee haters: we read and respond to all of them. Communicating science-based pollinator information is our job, and we take it seriously. Bee Squadders are paid to stay up-to-date on research and to study wild pollinators so we can address a breadth of bee-related concerns. (We draw the line at answering non-pollinator related concerns, like whether you can safely eat worm infested mushrooms.)
As a beekeeper, you automatically become an ambassador for pollinators, and friends look to you to answer their stinging-insect questions. We thought we’d share a few common questions, to help you talk to your neighbors, communities, and other beekeepers.
Varroa can be hard to count when Summer bee populations are high and there is a lot of sealed brood in the colony. Photo credit: Judy Griesedieck
Question: Where did my bees go?
One of the most common emails we get goes something like this: “My bees disappeared in the Fall (or Winter) and I can’t figure out why. They had plenty of honey and the colony was my best Summer performer.” The answer is most often that they died of mite-vectored viruses. The myth persists amongst backyard beekeepers that you can visually see if your colony is overrun with mites. In reality, seeing one mite on a bee–or seeing any signs of deformed wing virus or parasitic mite syndrome–means your colony is already above a treatment threshold and severely damaged, if not dead (Lee, 2018).
Check out this site for an abundance of education regarding death by Varroa: https://pollinators. msu.edu/keep-bees-alive/. Use the Honey Bee Health Coalition’s Varroa Management Decision Tool for help with management: https://honeybeehealthcoalition.org/varroatool/ and please report your data to www.mitecheck.com.
Question: My honey is funny.
Some people get concerned when honey changes texture, and worry it has gone bad. Here in Minnesota, honeys crystallize pretty fast (some of us prefer crystallized honey anyway). We share the National Honey Board’s website (www.honey.com) for honey questions as well as recipes and educational materials for kids.
Question: More honey for me?
On the other hand, many beekeepers ask whether you can eat honey from a dead-out. This is an emphatic NO. While technically honey can last forever and can be eaten straight from an ancient Egyptian tomb, eating honey from a dead-out is not a good idea. Brood nest honey is stored in wax cells that have previously been brood cells. Sometimes there is bee poop on those frames, or mold, or pesticides from mite treatments and contaminated pollen (Mullin et al., 2010). Mice and other vermin often visit dead-outs and could contaminate the honey. We do feed dead-out honey to bees, as long the frames are free of brood and spores from American Foulbrood. Dead-out honey should be stored where it can freeze, or at least stay sealed from mice. Honey for human consumption should be extracted from frames where no brood has been reared.
We receive many emails regarding unwanted honey bees. Photographic evidence rarely points to honey bees
(usually they are wasps or bumble bees}, but sometimes we are surprised. Photo credit: Farmer Keith Johnson
Frantic Question: Oh No! I’ve got bees!
Our most popular question is about bee removal. People email us when they find bees or wasps on their properties, asking us to relocate them. Usually, people have found bumble bee or wasp nests. This is our chance to talk about the benefits of wasps (pest control) and the importance of native bees. After we share information about the species’ life cycle, and the relatively low threat of whatever pollinator they have in their yard, many people are willing to leave the nest alone until they naturally die off in the Fall. Occasionally, people do find honey bees that have taken up residence in an unusual place. A local beekeeper can often be convinced to remove them.
Question: How can I help bees?
Some people want to help bees by becoming beekeepers, and others want to know what to plant for bees. We underline that planting flowers is the best way to help bees, and that becoming a beekeeper is a lot of work! For those who want to make the leap, we direct them to beekeeping clubs and mentorship that will give them a proper start. New beekeepers (and their bees) benefit immensely from following an experienced, successful beekeeper.
As far as flowers go, we focus on planting for diverse bees, not just honey bees. In particular, we point people to plants that provide wild bee habitat as well as early and late season food for all bees. We share this habitat assessment guide, which the lab developed in collaboration with Xerces. https://xerces.org/publications/habitatassessment-guides/habitat-assessment-guide-forpollinators-in-yards-gardens. This is a great tool for optimizing pollinator friendliness in different landscapes.
Planting guides and bee management support will differ depending on your geographic region. Please reach out to your regional beekeeping clubs, universities and horticultural experts for pollinator resources!
References
Lee, Kathleen. (2018) Improving the health and survivorship of commercial honey bee colonies. Retrieved from the University of Minnesota Digital Conservancy, http://hdl.handle.net/ 11299/202175.
C.A. Mullin, M. Frazier, J.L. Frazier, S. Ashcraft, R. Simonds, D. vanEngelsdorp, J.S. Pettis. (2010) High levels of miticides and agrochemicals in North American apiaries: Implications for honey bee health PLoS One, 5 p. e9754 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal. pone.0009754
Acknowledgement
The authors would like to thank Dr. Marla Spivak for helpful edits and suggestions.
