Westover and Sons, Apiaries

Here is an update on the Honey Super Cell experiment. It failed. Apparently the queen couldn’t survive after her flight outside the hive. Regardless of why, she died and the colony also died out. The other colony is still fine.

Next news is that I ordered a 4.9 mm small cell size foundation roller mill to make home-made wax foundation from an Amish machinist in Arkansas. It should be finished in about a month or so.

Finally, I also just ordered a pallet (130 boxes) of deep hive bodies from Shastina Millwork in Oregon to be delivered to my youngest son, Gerrit, in College Station the first week in January, 2014. He’s going to start beekeeping this coming year and I am going to coach him from Japan. He’s going to have to make the tops and bottoms himself. Haven’t decided yet about whether to buy the frames or make them. Bought a beekeeper jacket/hat/veil combination from Dadant a few weeks ago. Starting to get the ducks lined up, so-to-speak. We may need to change the name of this blog to Westover and Sons, Apiaries in the future.

Today’s experience/experiment was very interesting.

I have a western honey bee hive I am managing at my friend’s house, and I am trying to get it regressed down to a small cell size hive. I had previously put in 4.9 mm foundation, but these bees reworked the foundation to a larger cell size.

Not so long ago, I added a super of foundation to it and moved some frames around to give the queen more space to lay in and the bees more space to store honey and pollen. The only result I could see is that all of a sudden it appeared that the bees had stopped working and I could no longer see any entrance activity.

A few days ago I went through the hive again to see what is going on and could only find bees on/covering about 3 frames in the middle super although I had 3 supers on the hive. I checked the frames that used to have brood and there was some “dead brood” that had little “shot holes” in the tops of some of the unemerged cells and some cells with dead bees that looked like they died in the cells after trying to come out. It bothered me and I wondered if this might not be a sign of some kind of brood disease.

After thinking about what I could or should do about it, I decided to move the colony onto honey super cell fully drawn out plastic 4.9 mm comb (mine is black colored to make it easier to see when the queen has started laying eggs in it).

To prepare the Honey Super Cell (HSC) combs, I followed the advice I had heard and read about preparing them by putting honey into the cells before putting them into the hive. I did that to 3 frames, and put them into a 3 frame nucleus hive. I then took the original hive off the hive stand and placed the nucleus hive in its location. Next I started taking out combs and brushing bees off into the nucleus hive.

I gently brushed the queen off into the nucleus hive too, but she did not appear to like it and did not go inside. She crawled onto the outside of the hive and I tried to use the bee brush to coax her back in, when to my dismay, she started to fly into the air and fly around in a circular fashion back and forth. I watched her and tried to get her to come back (mental telepathy?) but she would have none of it and finally I lost track of her as she flew away. The only thing I could do at that point was to finish brushing the rest of the bees into the hive and hope the queen would come back and rejoin them on her own.

I finally got all the frames of honey and stores and what little brood there was hauled into the woodworking area where the rest of my beekeeping equipment is being stored. I plan to extract honey from those frames later. I went back a couple of times while doing this to check and see how it looked at the nucleus hive. At first the bees clustered on the face of the hive above and below the entrance, but after some time I could see that it looked like they had moved inside, so I assumed that the queen had probably returned.

When I finally got everything cleaned up and put away and ready to leave and had put the things I was going to take back home with me into the basket on the back of my bicycle, I decided to take one final look at the hive, and it is a good thing I did. What I found was a pile of bees on the ground behind the hive with more bees joining it as I watched. Bees were leaving the hive and joining the pile on the ground (a circular pile) and the bees on the ground were fanning with their Nasanov glands extruded, so I assumed that the queen had returned and was in that pile on the ground.

I went back and got my bee suit and gloves on and also found a piece of screen with the right sized mesh to use as a “queen includer” over the entrance so the queen could not leave. I then took the lid off the hive, scooped up a large handful of bees (including the queen which I could see in the middle of the pile) into my gloved hands, and put them into the hive. I then put the top back on the hive and thumbtacked the screen over the hive entrance. I feel much better now that maybe my experiment will possibly be a success.
The brood comb I could see the queen on earlier had just a few eggs laid in it and a small amount of open brood, but not much sealed brood, so that is not too much to lose, and she should be able to lay more very soon (as soon as the workers clean the honey out of some of the HSC cells and prepare them for her to lay in).

There is still lots of fall flower bloom available and it is only mid October, so there should be enough time for them to raise some new bees to overwinter. I can feed them if I have to in order to help get them through the winter, but I felt that if I cannot get them downsized to the 4.9 mm cell size before winter that they might not make it through the winter anyway.

Well, it is an experiment after all, so I’ll just have to see how it will turn out. I felt a lot better when I left today than I had felt after watching the queen fly off earlier. The other hive, although smaller, has smaller bees that had drawn out the 4.9 mm foundation correctly and seems to be doing fine. They have a lot of entrance activity and are bringing in a lot of pollen and stores so I think they should do fine.

I spent two weeks from September 1 to September 15, 2013, visiting the largest commercial organic beekeeper in the United States, southwest of Tucson, Arizona, near the Mexico border, and received intensive hands-on training and field experience in all aspects of beekeeping, honey production, and marketing without the use of any chemicals, pesticides, antibiotics or artificial products being used to treat or feed the bees.

Arizona Rangeland Honey is a 100% agricultural entity owned and operated by Delores A. Lusby. I learned how such an operation can be successfully carried out in a self-sustaining fashion even while surrounding or neighboring conventional beekeeping businesses are failing and losing their bees to colony collapse disorder while treating them with chemicals and exposing them to pesticides. Arizona Rangeland Honey bees are surviving and thriving without these treatments, managed in a traditional way on small cell foundation and combs which allows the bees to naturally overcome the pests, parasites, and diseases to which larger conventionally kept bees are susceptible.

I experienced working with the largest beehives and the largest and most productive populations of bees that I have ever seen, giving me the confidence that anyone who follows the methods that this beekeeper uses can also keep bees successfully even under harsh and difficult conditions. I also learned field management techniques related to the climate, weather, and environment that allow the bees to maintain themselves and also produce a surplus crop of honey that can be harvested by the beekeeper in good years, besides much more valuable information. I learned from first-hand experience the level of work and dedication that is required to be successful in this agricultural enterprise as well as its importance to the environment and to provide food for the human population.

It’s time for an update on how my bee sting sensitization “experiment” has gone. First of all, I have to say that my left elbow feels better now. That is an improvement in my opinion. On the other hand, the back of my left hand is now more sensitive and I feel some numbness in it from time to time right along the bone that goes up to the middle finger.

I have had no general or systemic responses to my stings, but locally it has become more painful even though the swelling is not as bad and does not last as long and recovery seems to be quick. I have to say that the pain is no less, and if anything, is now greater when I get a sting in the back of my hand. Overall, I would call this a “long term experiment” so the final verdict is not in yet. I am no longer getting stings every day or more stings per day, but now just getting a sting every once in a while.

As far as my colonies of native Japanese honey bees go, I found out this past week that my last hive of native bees has also absconded because of the heat, even though I had it in a shaded location. I now have no more bees at the university. That is disappointing, but I did all I could with the resources I have available. I will have to think long and hard to see if I can come up with some solution that will work better than what I tried.

The native bees in the yard of my friend, Teruo Shiki, are still there, and are a booming colony full of bees and stores. I believe he will get a good honey crop next month, and his bees appear to be going to stay.

The western honey bees are doing fine, continuing to maintain their colony size and gradually adding stores, although slowly. We did get some good rain this week finally and overall the weather is now slightly cooler. The rain was heavy and deep and was over a span of two or three days, so fall blooming plants like goldenrod and others should have a good bloom later in September and possibly into October. I am optimistic.

I will be leaving Sunday for a two week trip to the U.S. to work with a commercial beekeeper in Arizona. I will report the results of that trip after I return.

Getting stung by a honey bee or intentionally taking a sting from a honey bee seems similar to getting a vaccination shot. Also, regardless of the pain of the experience, we need to just move on and keep on working and everything will most likely be fine.

When I was 19 years old in 1968 before coming to Japan the first time, I was required to get a Cholera vaccination. I had heard from the medical folks that the Cholera vaccination is one of the most painful shots you can get. It is one of the most painful and afterwards is very sore and makes you feel sick for quite some time. They were not exaggerating. But you take it and just go on and do whatever else you need to do anyway as long as you are physically able to do so, despite the pain. Today’s bee stings were something like that. At least very painful at first, but the aftermath is not as bad now. Recovery is quicker and the pain subsides after a time. Another thing that is similar, I think, is that it hurts less to get a shot in a large muscle than it does in some of the more sensitive areas with less muscle. When you get stung, though, you don’t always have the choice of where you get stung. The bees make that decision and you live with it. I took 4 stings today, one in the back of each hand, and one in the upper forearm of each arm (my choices). The one in my left hand hurt the most.

Something else I have heard and read is that regardless of how many times you get stung by a bee, it still hurts just as much the next time you get stung (and sometimes it hurts even more). Under normal circumstances, though, the more often you get stung, the shorter the period of intense pain is, and the faster the recovery is. The long term reaction to the sting diminishes so there is little or at least less swelling and you return back to normal fairly quickly. I don’t know that I will ever “look forward to” or enjoy being stung, but like every other painful experience in life (whether physical or emotional) I can recognize that the pain is only temporary and I can just “let it go” and move on with my work and my life.

Pain and some swelling and itching around the site of the sting are natural reactions and are not an “allergic response.” They are a “normal response” to a bee sting.

It’s been a couple of days since I had a sting. The last time was Saturday and today is Monday (in Japan–we’re a day ahead of the U.S.). Today I again took two stings, one on the back of each hand. Maybe where you get stung matters a lot about how much it will hurt. I think maybe I hit a nerve today in my left hand because the sting still “stings” a few hours later. Today’s stings were a couple of the most painful and the pain lasted a long time. There is some swelling, but it’s not terrible, and there is a lot of soreness in both hands in the vicinity of the stings. Today I was thinking, “Now I know why they are called ‘stings.’ It is because it really STINGS when you get stung. Today was not fun and I have nothing to brag about.

I did not take any stings yesterday, but today I took two stings, one in the back of each hand. The sting in my left hand was initially painful, but after a few minutes stopped hurting and there has been no swelling to speak of. That in my right hand was just as painful if not more so, and continued and continues to be painful today, with much more swelling than the last time. One difference between the stings last time and this time was that I used guard bees taken from the hive entrance this time. These are bees that are in their prime, guarding the hive. So the pain in my right had is fairly strong and deep, and I cannot close my hand into a tight fist. The skin on the back of my hand is tight and swollen and somewhat reddened. This all suggests to me that a place that has been stung more frequently will have less of a reaction. That’s a vote for the “localized immunity” side of the experiment.

Here is the next update of my bee sting desensitization experiment.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that there are probably too many variables for me to really draw many general conclusions from my experience trying to desensitize myself to honey bee stings, and my sample size is of course too small. For example, do different aged bees have different amounts of or more or less toxic venom depending on their age or level of health? I don’t know the answer to that question. The bees I chose to get stings from this morning were crawling on the ground in front of the hives, so I assumed they are “on their last legs” and would probably die soon, so if I used them to get my stings, I would not be sacrificing the lives of more productive bees. I don’t know how that choice may have affected the result of my experiment. Is their venom just as potent as more active and healthy bees? I don’t know. Guard bees venom might be more potent than nurse bees venom, but I don’t know that either.

Another issue is that just because you try one thing and something does or does not occur does not mean there is necessarily any correlation between the two. Let me give you an example: “I got a bee sting and did not catch a cold, so bee stings protect me from catching colds” does not necessarily follow. There may be no relationship between the two. The same thing goes for if I had caught a cold after getting a bee sting. The cold may be in no way related to the bee sting. On the other hand, they could possibly be related, but there is not enough information here to tell whether they are or not.

All I can say is what I did and what happened, and I can give my opinion as to what I think it means, but it may or may not be a worthwhile or accurate opinion. Having said that, I took a single sting on the back of my left hand and another single sting on the back of my right hand. So far, besides itchiness and some initial pain, there is very little swelling and the reaction in both hands is not so different. If that changes, I will write more about it later. I sure did not get a huge reaction in my right hand like I did last week in my left hand that swelled up so much. That suggests that maybe antigens have built up in my blood and given me some immunity to stings in my right hand even though this was the first time my right hand has been stung this year.

Yesterday evening my left shoulder felt very sore, as if someone had hit me in the shoulder very hard with their fist, but today there is no pain or soreness at all in my left shoulder as if nothing ever happened yesterday. So today I took two stings, and the response to them has been very minimal.

I talked to my friend who has trouble with gout and asked him what had happened to his hand where he was stung on the knuckle yesterday. He told me that his hand did not swell up and the pain from the gout is less today than it was yesterday. He said that the pain in his feet was better too. I don’t want to read too much into this result, but at least he did not have a bad experience. I told him to let me know if he wants to get another sting.

Today was my “biggest day” so far. Last week I took a sting on Wednesday and a sting on Saturday, and this week I took a sting on Monday (two days ago) and today I took 3 stings. Today’s stings were in the back of my left hand, in my upper forearm above the elbow region, and in my left shoulder. I also gave a “free apitherapy treatment” to a friend of mine who is suffering from gout. He got his sting in the main knuckle of his hand at the base of the index finger. Apparently gout is more painful than a bee sting. I asked him to let me know how he feels and what the result is later.

So far, the stings I took for myself that were in locations where I had already been stung have not had much of a reaction compared to the results of the initial stings. My arm and hand are “sore” where I was stung today but not particularly swollen, and there is not really any real pain (except for a little in the shoulder). This somewhat confirms my hypothesis that the areas of the body which build up an immunity to stings are the local areas where the stings are administered, and a more severe reaction will take place in an area which has not yet been stung. Next I plan to take stings in my right arm and hand and see if this hypothesis still holds true.