My 1st Beekeeping Club Meeting and a little bit about Chalkbrood.

Yesterday, I attended my 1st club meeting with the Richmond Beekeeper's Association. It started at 1pm but I only got there at 1.40pm. I got a little lost in UBC Campus. I asked the bus driver of the C20 bus if his route goes to UBC farm, he said yes but he dropped me in front of the Totem Pole park. I got directions from the friendly staff at the Botanical Gardens and relied on my Blackberry Google maps to walk to UBC farm. It was a 20min walk on a beautiful sunny day. On route to UBC Farms, I noticed that UBC seeds their lawn with white clover and its everywhere. I was walking downwind and the sweet scent of the clover filled the air. And I was thinking, the bees Allen Garr keeps in UBC has excellent forage in clover.

Meeting other beekeepers is always a comforting feeling. I don't feel I'm alone and I can share what is going on in my hive and I get to hear what is going on in the hive of others. It is always nice to learn from others. Especially, when I had problems identifying problems such American/European Foulbrood, Chalkbrood or Apis Ceranae. I was never sure if I had any of these problems. Yesterday, Allen showed me what chalkbrood looked like. I always thought those dried up larvae was just one of those larvae among the thousand other larvae that was forgotten to be fed by the nurse bees and dried up. Chalkbrood is actually a fungi that is present in the brood frames. This is what I found out about chalkbrood.

The spores of Ascosphaera apis are ingested with the brood food as the larva feeds itself. The germination of the spores and proliferation of the fungus, breaks out of the larva and covers it with a white mycelium.
Spores of Ascosphaera apis remain viable for years. Consequently, the infection source could
be present in the cells used to rear brood. Chalkbrood appears to be most prevalent in the
spring when the brood area is expanding, and the weather is cool and unsettled. Generally,
the disease is found in those areas of the brood nest where sufficient nurse bees are
unavailable to maintain the brood nest temperature.
Chalkbrood normally does not destroy a colony. However, it can prevent normal population
build-up when the disease is serious. No treatment is presently available for the control of
chalkbrood. In severe cases, re-queening is helpful, as well as the addition of sealed brood to
the weakened colony. The disease usually disappears or is reduced as the air temperature
increases in the summer, and pollen and nectar flows begin. (Vermont Agency of Agriculture, n.d.)

The white looking chalk is a larvae that has been affected by a fungus that dries it up.Click the picture for a closer look.

I will write more about how I manage health in the hive in the next few postings.


We had someone speak about Beekeeping Safety. Never knew that roll on deodarant actually helps in taking away the pain in bee stings. Interesting. Will try rolling on some deodorant on the sting spot the next time I get stung. Spot heating also helps. She said that heat actually deteoriates and breaks down the bee venom in the sting.  Here are some pictures at the bee club meeting and completing the frame making "competition". I had good fun yesterday.

References

Vermont Agency of Agriculture: Plant Industry Division (n.d). Chalkbrood Disease. Retrieved from : http://www.vermontagriculture.com/ARMES/plantindustry/apiary/documents/Chalkbrood07rev.pdf

Field Day at UBC Farm

At the Trout Lake Farmer's Market two weeks ago, Richmond Beekeeping Club had a booth. I signed up to join the club. Its $20 for the year and I get to be part of the email list. Really looking forward to the 1st meeting at UBC Farm on Saturday for their field day and to mingle with other beekeepers. I love operating and figuring things out on my own. But sometimes, like now, when I am feeling lost and hopeful about Matilda, being in a group of more experienced beekeepers will ground me and help me accept some failures. Don't get me wrong, I don't feel bad about failing. I'm glad I fail at times coz those are times when my rough edges gets sharpened and I learn the most. Making mistakes and being able to manage better is what prevents comments such as what my friend would say to his young brother,"You are only a green horn, what do you know?"..haha...Beekeeping is challenging, it keeps my mind fully occupied and that is what I don't get in the office. Thank you, my lovely bees for challenging me, you teach me how to understand my own world and you hold my interests tight on the misunderstandings of nature and you know how to reward me.

Matilda- The Unfertilized Queen

On 6th June, I did a full inspection on Matilda and Bombay. The weather was cloudy and was threatening to rain when I started. The clouds were hanging low and from the high point at the beeyard, I could see the rain moving towards the east from Metrotown area. I guessed I had at least 45mins before it rained in my area. This is the worst type of day to check the hive. I started the fire and my fuel today was dried grass from the lawn mowings. Dried grass by far is the best fuel i've used so far. I've always used dried leaves and I never stuff my smoker full of fuel. After completing one hive, there will be no more smoke and I have to relight the smoker again for the next hive. Nowadays I don't need to relight my smoker as long I refresh the smoker with a few hard squeeze on the bellows every 10mins. Today,the foragers (high on adrenalin) are all panicky and short tempered on such a weather. It is just like confining race horses in their starting stalls for days. When a forager cannot fly because of the bad weather, its duty is to secure the hive from any sort of disturbance. So the moment I opened up the hive, the angry bees were flying into my face. I could hear the thuds on my face screen when they try to head butt into me.

Matilda- I spotted the 'useless' queen on frame 5 in the brood chamber. She is still laying drone brood. I am keeping her around till the new queen I ordered from Honeyland Canada is ready. Also her queen pheromone will keep the other ladies in line and to prevent a worker from laying. As all female bees have ovaries, a chosen worker bee will take on the role to lay unfertilized eggs. Once a worker starts laying, it is going to be really difficult to locate which is the laying worker and the new queen introduced would most likely be killed. The last resort if something like that occurs is to combine Matilda and Bombay. The honey storage were mostly in the super on frame 3-7. All the foundations are filled with wax except for frame 1&10 in the super. The green drone has only 1/4 filled with wax. I sugar dusted but did not count for mites.

Bombay- The queen was spotted on frame 4 in the brood chamber. With the Bombay queen, she allows me to sleep well at night. Again, she has not failed in showing me an excellent egg laying pattern. Even after transferring 2 frames of capped brood to Matilda about 2 weeks ago, there were 6 frames of brood today. I transferred another 2 frames of capped brood to Matilda. Hopefully this is the last transfer of capped broods. Last week on May 30th, I gave Bombay a pollen patty and it was gone on the 3rd or 4th day. The fastest I've ever seen them devour a pollen patty. Most likely coz of the high volume of brood rearing. What shocked me was there was hardly any honey left in the super. Last week, I had 8 frames of honey and 6 were already capped. But due to the long rainy period we had in Vancouver since April, the foraging time has been so short and the bees have consumed all of the honey. The rain has also caused alot of flowers to rot as they bloomed to early during the short sunny periods. The rain is also probably why Matilda's queen could not have a succesful mating flight. I will be making sugar syrup for them when I next visit. The weatherman has been so inaccurate in Vancouver. The next day's forecast can be sunny and then changed to rain forecast on the day itself and I think its one of the only jobs where you can make so many mistakes and blame nature. Lastly, before I closed up Bombay, they got sugar dusted. Did not count for mite levels as it started raining.

Flowers in Bloom around the gardens: Himalayan Blackberries, Chives, Sage, Salvia, Dandelions, Kale, Foxglove, Red Poppy, Lupin, Dogwood, Beauty Bush, Mock Orange (Philadelphus), late Rhododendrons, Sweet/Snow Peas, Spiraea, Tree Peony (Rose like), Delphinium