Thelytoky aka Thrilling Bee Behavior

Just returned from my wild and wonderful Jamaica adventure where I was teaching top bar beekeeping. Until I get my thoughts straight on that one, let me report back on what happened in the apiary while I was gone.

This last winter, I lost 16 out of 17 beehives. That was a staggering amount and I blame good old fashioned winter loss.

Background
Desperate and about to leave town for 2 weeks, I ended up being able to buy 4 packages of bees and install them within 24 hours of leaving town. I wasn't able to wait to make sure that the queens were released from their queen cages successfully in the suggested 2-3 days, so I direct released the queens when I installed the packages into their hives. I placed the caged queens in with the packages into the top bar hives. Waited for about 30 minutes to make sure no bees were trying to attack through the cages and just let the queens troop right into the hives to start laying.

I checked the hives 2 days ago and found some thrilling bee behavior.

Thelytoky
This hive had lost their queen somewhere in the mix and had laying workers. Every single cell was full of eggs. I first heard about thelytoky last summer from Michael Bush. This is where in rare circumstances, haploid worker bees can lay diploid worker bees or even a queen bee. If you know anything about basic bee biology, this is like a bee miracle. The

It appeared as if my hive that I hadn't checked on in 2 weeks was exhibiting signs of thelytoky. The bees had formed queen cell cups that were full of eggs by laying workers. The bees were attempting to rear a queen using haploid, laying worker eggs.

Laying Workers

Laid queen cells

Queen cells full of laid worker eggs

In hindsight, I should have let the bees do their thing and find out what kind of queen they were able to produce. Instead, I had a virgin queen on hand that I introduced to the hive to try and make this hive queenright.

Want to learn more about the biology of thelytoky?
http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/thelytoky.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thelytoky

Candlemaking in Jamaica

What do you do when you don't have an oven to heat beeswax to make candles for a candle making demonstration in Jamaica? You light a fire using coconut husk and charcoal (adorable and charismatic kid optional)

Here is the fantastic group of beekeepers I taught a candle making class to the St. Thomas Bee Farmers Association now that they will be swimming in beeswax using top bar hives.

Jamaica Beek

So, I have been in Strawberry Fields, Jamaica at the Yerba Buena Farm for 4 full days and have a whirlwind teaching experience across the country through the Farmer to Farmer Program.

I'm here teaching top bar beekeeping techniques in a country desperate for a change in hive style since beeswax has been banned for importation. No cheap beeswax means the already expensive langstroth hive is even more expensive to maintain. They are looking to top bar to increase their beeswax production. In fact, if you have a beeyard, it is recommended that you have 10% top bar hives to help make the foundation.

I can't begin to tell you how exciting it is to begin an "Intro to Top Bar/ Treatment Free" class with an audience of dubious beekeepers, and leave with those same beekeepers pulling out measuring tapes to start making top bar hives when they get home.

Here are a few pics of transferring a langstroth hive into a top bar body.

Kwao cutting a langstroth frame and adding it to a "comb saver" to transfer a Lang hive to Top Bar

The New Lang in the St. Barton Bee Association Bee yard in Jamaica

Beekeeping in paradise

Crafting a Top Bar Observation Hive

I stayed up until midnight a couple of nights ago crafting a Top Bar Observation hive. Tricky, because there are 2 types of top bar hives here in NM and I wanted the hive to have the ability to fit a single Les Crowder style top bar or a TJ Carr style top bar. The width of the bars are similar, but the length varies by 1/2". Also, TJ hive's beeswax comb hangs 2 inches lower than Les's so I made the hive deeper than necessary.

The hive worked perfectly for the Heritage Farm Festival at the Albuquerque Botanical Gardens. There is no easier way to draw a crowd and start answering questions about bees without something for people to see, smell and hear. 

Some techniques I decided to implement were: 

1. Using plexiglass instead of glass. Anything made out of glass that goes out into the field with me gets shattered almost instantly. 

2. Use lots of air holes to prevent the glass from steaming up with with the moisture and heat produced by a gaggle of bees. 

3. Make a demonstration hive that holds a single frame. The longest I tend to keep bees in the hive is a day and keeping the hive to a frame cuts down on the weight for transporting. Good thing because I had to haul this hive at least an 1/8 of a mile to my stand at the Botanical Gardens. 

4. Reminder- it's only a prototype. You can't create perfection the first time! Every thing crafted needs to be lived with. 

Feeding Top Bar Beehives Honey

About a month ago I fed one of my weak Top Bar bee hives by unceremoniously dumping fresh honeycomb in the back of the beehive that I pulled out of one of my strong beehives. The bees don't just leave the honey in the back of the hive, they move it into honeycomb within the colony, close to the brood. Their stores are placed in a specific pattern to get through the winter.

In cleaning out the honey from the feeding, this is what they created. Some might call it cross combing. My friend Nina calls it free form building. I call it, "still surprised by bees everyday."

Photos by Nina Dubois

State Fair Honey Entries- Blue Ribbon Win!

It took 3 years of entries and I finally ribboned at the NM State Fair for honey. Yahoo! I even ribboned in a few other areas as well.

It wasn't just dumb luck on this one. I put some thought and attention to detail in my entries this year. That's a first for me. I'm more of a "big picture" kind of gal.


Here is where you can find the entry specifics for the 2012 NM State Fair

Photography- My trick to photography is that every time I get anywhere near a beehive, I take like 100,000 photos with my sticky from honey, point and shoot camera. Out of the Gillions of images I take a year, I get a handful of really good ones. For example:

Awesome Photo!!!

What the Rest of the Photos Look Like

Candle Entry- You can not go wrong with silicone molds! They are intricately detailed, hardly need any release agent, and keep the wax a consistent temperature when cooling, which prevents cracking. I get most of mine from Penguin Love. Odd name, since they don't actually sell any penguin molds that I can find.

Honey Entry- This is the 3rd year I have entered honey and the first time I have ever placed. The secret to this honey was it's amazing taste. I harvested this honey in town, close to the Rio Grande river and it was unlike anything I have ever tasted. It crystalized in less than a month and tastes like a spicy kick in the pants! Crystallization is due to the molecular composition of the honey. The more glucose found in a particular honey, the faster it crystallizes. For an in depth chemical based read on honey, "Honey," by Jonathon White. 

Chunk Comb Honey- I followed this youtube tutorial by the Lazy Beekeeper: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDM5EhRbTQI. I heated a pot of water and used a heated sharp knife to make clean cuts in brand new comb that had never stored brood (babies). Each time a bee climbs out of it's cocoon, the cocoon is left behind and can be compared to jagged paper, which and tears when cut. 

Bees + Sound Art= Incredible

3 nights ago I moved 2 of my beehives from the lovely South Valley into the heart of Downtown Albuquerque to the Alvarado Farm. They will be part of an amazing sound/art installation by Nina Dubois.

Alvarado Farm. My hives are in and enclosure in the right top corner

Nina has been interviewing local beekeepers as they work in the beehives and recording the sounds of buzzing and the beekeepers philosophies. Her recordings will be pumped into a hexagonal dome made out of recycled pallets as part of the ISEA 2012 Machine Wilderness Conference. I'm really excited to be part of her endeavor.

Nighttime Beehive Move

2 days ago, she installed 2 different microphones into the brood chamber of one of the hives. One of the microphones records vibration and it sounds like a trancelike hum. The other microphone records sound and it is like a bee concert! The installation is part of the ISEA Conference here in Albuquerque and should be up for 3 months. Hope you come down to look at the hives and listen to their sounds.

The mics

The Beehive Shack