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Benefits of Observing Honey Bees at Home
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Yogi Berra once said, āYou can observe a lot just by watching.ā Yogi has it right. You can learn a lot just by watching. The trouble is, observing honey beesāfascinating social insects that they are, and as necessary as observing them is to understanding themāis impossible without inspecting the hive and disturbing the bees. Even if you open the hive carefully and the bees initially continue to go about their business, they soon realize that things are not right and react accordingly. What are your options for observing bee behavior then? One option, the subject of this book, is to use an observation hive. With this tool, it is possible to see what bees look like when they are walking, resting, fanning, feeding, grooming, or engaging in other behaviors.
An observation hive is simply a beehive with glass windows. The size and shape of these windows, the size and shape of the hive, and the layout of its interior are all arranged to provide an optimal view of the bees. It can be an invaluable tool, allowing you to gain insight into the mysteries of bee behavior twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, throughout the entire year.
Karl von Frisch (1973), who was awarded the Nobel Prize for decoding the dance language of the honey bee, carried out his research using an observation hive. Today, bee research laboratories commonly use observation hives in their research; however, you do not have to be a scientist to benefit from observing bees. Many beekeepers have their own observation hives.
This book is intended for backyard and urban beekeepers. It presumes the reader has a basic knowledge of beekeeping with a Langstroth or a topbar hive, yet wants to learn more about honey bee behavior and is considering setting up an observation hive. Backyard beekeepers typically have only a few hives and limited experienceālimited in both the number of colonies they have the opportunity to inspect and in their years of beekeeping experience. For these beekeepers, what the bees are doing is a mystery that only an observation hive can expose. The ability to interpret what you are seeing in terms of colony activity, status, and health is crucial to keeping the colony alive and thriving. The better you are at spotting problems, the sooner you will be able to address them.
Figure 1.1. The author (left) relaxing during a break at the Eastern Apiculture Societyās 2010 conference, with Dave Hackenberg (middle), who was among the first to draw attention to Colony Collapse Disorder, and Charlie Brandts (right), the White House beekeeper.
This book may also be helpful to institutions, including museums, schools, or parks, that are interested in operating observation hives for educational purposes. Even professional beekeepers (figure 1.1) may find that keeping an observation hive is useful for training staff and for attracting and educating visitors.
Using an observation hive, you can discover where and how the queen lays, observe the brood as it develops from egg to larva to pupa, and watch teneral bees chew away the caps of their cells and struggle out. All of the activities that bees engage in become visible: workers tending the brood and the queen, foraging, dancing, cleaning, fanning, and building comb. This type of hive also allows one to see how the colony utilizes its space: the percentage they allot to honey, pollen, and brood, as well as where they place these items. Observation hives provide insight into how bees deal with various parasites, pests, and predators and give you the opportunity to watch the colony swarm, abscond perhaps, and to see queen-rearing under various circumstances. Also, you can examine the effects of your interventions, feeding, withholding or forgetting to feed, treating mites or not, dealing with wax moths, small hive beetles, and so on.
Observation hives present bee-keepers with a sense of the larger pictureāan overview of the colonyās seasonal cycles; what the bees do in spring, summer, fall, and winter; the variation over the course of a year of brood volume, of stores consumption and replenishment, of population size, of foraging activity, and more. As the observation hive is kept going over the years, the year-to-year variation in these events becomes apparent.
Finally, observation hives encourage the sharing of insights. Fellow beekeepers, curious about what they have been missing, will enjoy watching your bees. Neighbors will be inquisitive and may even bring visitors over to see the bees. Visiting relatives, guests, letter carriers, and the maintenance people who come to the house will all want to take a look, and many will want to snap a few pictures.
A word of caution: Almost everyone finds honey bees fascinating, yet an observation hive will provide you with more knowledge about bees than most people, possibly excepting your fellow beekeepers, will want to hear. So, keep it short!
| 2 | | Preparing for and Selecting an Observation Hive |
Before obtaining and setting up an observation hive, take time to plan and make initial preparations. For example, you need to
ā¢ understand the nature of the activity and prepare to practice beekeeping with an observation hive;
ā¢ prepare the people who may be affected by the hive and the bees; and
ā¢ make preliminary selections of the models of observation hive that are best suited to your situation.
For each of these preliminary hive selections:
ā¢ think through what you will need to do in terms of modifying both the hive and the location where it will be installed; and
ā¢ think through where and how you will inspect and maintain the hive.
First, look in classic beekeeping reference books and see what advice they have to offer; both The Hive and the Honey Bee, edited by Joe Graham, and The ABC & XYZ of Bee Culture, edited by Hachiro Shimanuki et al., have sections on observation hives.
Top-bar hive beekeepers will find Wyatt Mangumās book Top-Bar Hive Beekeeping, with its extensive section on observation hives, to be a useful resource. As a honey bee researcher, Mangum has a shed full of top-bar observation hives and a wealth of information to share as well.
Information on observation hives is available on the Internet. Although its quality and value vary widely, it is a good source of observation hive vendors. One starting point is http://thebeepeeker.com, where I have compiled the URLs of a number of authoritative sources.
Initial Preparations
Before looking at the various types of observation hives and considering where to locate your hive, take a moment to assess your own capabilities as a keeper of honey bees and to think about the possible reactions of the people whose daily lives your bees may affect.
Preparing Yourself
How are your beekeeping skills? If you have been keeping bees in standard hives for a few years, keeping bees in an observation hive will present few obstacles for you. You will have to do some things differently; for example, you do not have to open a glass hive to inspect it, but you will have to give it more-frequent attention than is needed for a traditional hive. And if you can make a colony inspection plan and rehearse it mentally, then you are all set. If you need more beekeeping experience, you can obtain some with your observation hive. Both you and your bees, however, will be better off if you also take a beekeeping class, find a mentor, join your local beekeeping association, and attend beekeeping meetings where local beekeeping best practices are discussed.
Preparing Your Family and Neighbors
Prepare the people whose lives the hive and the bees may affect. Typically, these will be the people who share the space where your hive will be located and its immediate environment, that is, your family and neighbors. You must take their safety and convenience into account. Imagine a worst-case scenario: thousands of upset bees in your house, or a swarm in your neighborās yard. How will you handle these situations? What do these folks need to know before these things happen? How will you communicate about it to them? Also, consider the best-case scenario. With your increased insight into colony behavior, your colonies in standard hives are more likely to produce a surplus of honey, which you can harvest and share with your family and neighbors.
Choosing an Observation Hive
The first step in selecting an observation hive is to educate yourself by compiling a list of current resources and models to choose from. Many places can provide information about observation hives and available hive models. The Internet has become the first choice of many people for conducting research and is a great place to start. Searching the Internet using the term āobservation hiveā will yield a lot of hits, many of them useful. Use the terms yielded by your search results to further refine your research.
Next, examine beekeeping supply catalogs, some of which you may have on hand, as well as the beekeeping catalogs online that may have been overlooked by the search engine. Then, go through your collection of beekeeping magazines; observation ...
