1. Chester Co Bee School 2016 HONEY BEE BASICS
Why honey bees?
Some history
Basic Bee Hive Activities
Applying Bee Biology
Power Point to accompany 2013 edition of HONEY BEE BIOLOGY & BEEKEEPING. The introduction is designed to answer question ”Why a course on the Honey Bee?” Humans have a unique relationship with this insect ally - “friend”. Our interactions and culture of honey bees and use of honey and bee products is ancient. The introductory chapter is designed to introduce some different perspectives on “WHY”.
Dewey M. Caron
Emeritus Prof U Del
Affiliate Faculty OSU
In front of not behind!!

2. Honey Bee Basics WHY? Why do we keep Honey Bees?
Many people know something about bees
Which comes to mind first?
► Bees sting!
► Bees give us honey!
► Bees pollinate flowers!
► Bee culture is rewarding!
Many people know something about honey bees &/or their products and people from may diverse backgrounds keep colonies of honey bees. This textbook, by covering bee biology in detail, will help the student in the application of basic beekeeping to keeping bee colonies. Bee short courses and very practical-oriented introductory bee courses are not all the same – no ‘one size fits all’ when it comes to keeping bees nor to bee courses. Colonies of bees do not need human care. Some individual beekeepers elect to be intensive in their colony care, while others (often the commercial beekeepers) keep large numbers of colonies as a means of realizing returns for their efforts. The basis of beekeeping in small and large-scale beekeeping, especially individuals practicing intensive management of colonies, is Bee Biology. The Biology will be emphasized more intensively in the first 10 chapters and the beekeeping in the last 10 chapters.
Why do we keep Honey Bees?

3. WHY NOT?
Pollinate plants
Produce some honey – or other bee products
Reconnect with a bit of nature
Keep a popular animal (pet?)
Have fun – challenge – interesting activity
do something very different
Save the bees!
MOST Importantly – why are you here??
If you have bees/want to keep bees what do you hope to achieve?

4. Why Some Beekeep Important Products + Fun Challenge pollen beeswax
Honey +
pollen
beeswax
propolis
venom
brood
bees & equipment
+ apitherapy +
Fun
Challenge
Although beekeepers keep bees for a host of different reasons and in a host of different ways, many beekeepers seek to harvest products from their managed hives. Honey remains the principle product but for the majority of worldwide beekeepers, a host of bee products may be annually harvested, whether in destruct harvest or via use of a movable frame Langstroth hive. Photo right is from National Honey Board (contact them at for a wealth of additional resources). Alaskan Honey jar Figure 1-10 by L. Connor
Courtesy National Honey Board

5. Bees & Beekeeping BUT perhaps MOST Critically Important Pollination of
Flowers
The introduction is a good place to be sure to mention the MOST IMPORTANT (actually critical to us) use of honey bees .... Pollination of flowers ... Pollination is covered in Chapter 18. Photo is of bee on daisy.

6. Honey Bee Basics WHAT IS BEEKEEPING? Beekeeping is both Science & Art
Beekeeping is Applied Bee Biology
Beekeeping is Anticipation not merely Reaction
Beekeeping is Colony Population Management
A basic of beekeeping is providing a home – a domicile - a HIVE - for the bees. Minimal management seeks to keep them within the provided hive, keep them together (so they don’t swarm) and then provide room for them to gather their food resources and store surplus for their beekeeper. We can refine this a bit further and describe beekeeping as 1. Applied Bee Biology, 2. Care in anticipation of, rather than reaction to, their normal seasonal biology and 3. managing the colony population to their, and our, advantage. Figure 1-1 Honey bee foraging on Datura flower. L. Connor Photo. .
L. Connor Photo
Beekeeping is both Science & Art

7. Human Association with Bees & Beekeeping
Human bee interactions go back to dawn of history
Humans initially hunted wild bee nests
Bee/human interactions date from antiquity. Humans became adept at finding bee nests and stealing honey, as illustrated in rock painting from Spain (right Figure 1-3) dated to about 10,000 years ago. In Asia, the Asian species of honey bee (see chapter 2) were similarly much valued and also hunted in the wild for their honey and wax, not solely by humans but by other animals as well (chimpanzees and bears for example). Figure Books by Eva Crane (1983 and 1990) are good resources for history and current status of beekeeping. Figure 1-3 Spanish rock painting ~7000 BC. (From Spider Cave, Bicorp, Spain). Illustration from Francisco Hernandez Pacheco, 1924.
Asia Spain

8. Beekeeping beginnings
Early Egyptians learned the rudiments of bee culture and even are credited with moving colonies along the Nile River on barges to take advantage of seasonal flowering differences. As among most cultures – early and today – honey and bee products are the local pharmacy and extremely valuable for human and animals when there is no corner drugstore for aches and pains (and more serious injuries/illnesses). Eqyptian hives were clay cylinders or ceramic pots and as on right were arranged as pipes in a storage structure. They used smoke to facilitate harvest (in illustration the standing figure toward the right has this device). Such hives and colony care survives to the current time in rural areas of northern Africa. Figure 1-7. Drawing from Rekhmire’s tomb #100, Luxor, Egypt circa 1450.
Preserving honey preparing liquid honey working bee hives
Egyptians were the first to take Beekeeping to a higher level
Kept bees and knew plenty about honey, beeswax, propolis

9. Beekeeping beginnings
Straw
skep
Clay Pot
Log Gum
Earliest
Bee Hives
Clomed skep
Bee tree
Early bee hives were made of readily available materials. The Egyptians used pottery or pipe hives of clay. Further north beekeepers were initially hunters of hives in forest trees and adapted to keep bees in tree hollows, eventually isolating the bee nests in appropriate hollows - termed gums - or to move the colonies into simple wooden boxes (box hives). Where trees were less common, reeds or straw was fashioned into a bee domicile – termed a skep. Chapter 6 has more details on bee hives. Figures of early hives & a SKEP – an icon of bee hive (and still used in parts of the world today). See Crane (1999) and Kritsky (2010) for more information on beekeeping history and the hives humans have used to keep them in.
Egyptian clay pipe hive

10. Beekeeping with skeps Middle ages beekeeper w/ skeps with skeps
Humans learned how to better keep colonies at different times in different cultures, including use of tools like sheltered walls to house skeps or protecting their wicker skeps with mud and dung (as in a clomed skep). The wicker skep is the icon on beekeeping and still in use today. Figure 1-9 Clomed skep
Parallel beeswax combs
in wicker skep
OSU Apiary 2016

11. Beekeeping with movable frame hive – harvest w/out destruction
Rev L.L. Langstroth
Father of Modern
Beekeeping
L.L. Langstroth (Figure 1-14), father of modern beekeeping, was one of first to understand bee space and patent a practical hive and write a book (the present text ‘Hive and the Honey Bee’ is successor) on how to use his modern hive – termed a movable frame hive. The Langstroth movable frame hive (original shown on right Figure 1-13) was quickly adopted and now is used world-wide, often alongside non-movable comb hives such as skeps, gums and ‘rustic hives’. The adoption of the Langstroth moveable frame hive led to new management and development of new equipment and much improved harvests. The successor to Langstroth’s Original book is the current 43rd edition (1994) of eh Hive and the Honey Bee by Dadant and a soon to be released updated version with multiple authors. Copies of early editions are available from book sellers (some are expensive) but Dover paperbacks has an updated version of the original Langstroth’s Hive and the Honey Bee The Classic Beekeeper’s Manual. (available from Wicwas Press)/\. Another interesting treatment of the original Langstroth book is (2007) paperback by Roger Hoopingarner The Hive and the Honey Bee Revisited An annotated update of L. L. Langstroth’s Beekeeping Classic. It is a reproduction of the Rev. L. L. Langstroth's original classic beekeeping text (Roger used 3rd edition) with added updates and annotations to help understand some of what (and the why) Langstroth wrote in his classic.
1st Langstroth
(movable frame) hive
Early extractor – advance
from destruct harvest

12. ARE YOU READY? Bees & Beekeeping What don’t you know yet? Bee Culture
Many individuals who maintain colonies of honey bees are more interested in learning details of their biology as they culture (stewardship) colonies with product harvest incidental. So we study beekeeping because it can be a serious scholarly pursuit, is great for youngsters (of all ages), potentially profitable, ....but.... it should be fun too, while meeting the objectives of being educational and rewarding. ARE YOU READY?
What don’t you know yet?

13. These are all BEES Plasterer Bumble bee bee Green bee Leaf- cutter bee
L. Connor Photo
Clockwise from top left – Bombus bumble bee (Family Apidae) Figure 2-4 – Plasterer bee (Family Colletes) - Green Bee Agapostemon (Family Halictidae) Figure 2-5 – leafcutter/leafcutting (mason) bee (Family Megachilidae). Figure 2-7. Many more photos on BUGLIFE.
Green
bee
Leaf-
cutter
bee
R. Weber Photo
L. Connor Photo

14. Bees & Beekeeping IS this a Honey Bee …..
Ask the question “A bee is....” and then record results. Most students will respond from the perspective of their perception of a honey bee (This is a course on honey bees after all!). Then add the illustration and ask “Is this a [honey] bee?” It will be evident that word “bee” means different things to different people. Figure 2-1 is indeed a honey bee with pollen on hind leg. --
How do we KNOW this is a honey bee?
Color, size, flower visitor, 4 wings, 3 body parts, 1 pair antennae
Hairy body, pollen on hind leg, lives in social nest, veggie diet

15. Beekeeping – the real KEY!
It will take a bit of exposure/experience to really
understand this very simple relationship the
honey bee has with its environment
In graphic form – the ‘Real Key’ to successful bee stewardship is understanding the seasonal changes and how management may influence numbers. Population – numbers of bees – will vary from a mid-winter low, perhaps fewer than 10,000 bees/hive, to nectar flow peak population of as many as 60,000 bee/hive. The season – indeed individual seasons – will vary but this basic seasonal cycle occurs in most areas where bees are kept by humans. Figure 1-2 – covered in more detail in Chap 6 and Management Chapters Note: In Chapter 6 the seasonal cycle shows a small spring peak and then a larger late spring-early summer peak – in some regions the peak occurs in summer and the sharp spring increase after winter low point is more gradual as is the fall decline.
Winter spring summer fall

16. Beekeeping – the real KEY!
Super colonies
Reduce
swarming
Assist colony
buildup
In graphic form – the ‘Real Key’ to successful bee stewardship is understanding the seasonal changes and how management may influence numbers. Population – numbers of bees – will vary from a mid-winter low, perhaps fewer than 10,000 bees/hive, to nectar flow peak population of as many as 60,000 bee/hive. The season – indeed individual seasons – will vary but this basic seasonal cycle occurs in most areas where bees are kept by humans. Figure 1-2 – covered in more detail in Chap 6 and Management Chapters Note: In Chapter 6 the seasonal cycle shows a small spring peak and then a larger late spring-early summer peak – in some regions the peak occurs in summer and the sharp spring increase after winter low point is more gradual as is the fall decline.
Help bees
survive
Consolidate
Winter spring summer fall

17. So what do the bees know about bee biology?
Do We
Need
Know?
Favorite words
Queen
Worker
Brood
Comb
Hive
Honey

18. What is a Honey Bee? Female Caste = 1 Queen + 1000’s of Workers
Recap – one (of three) Eusocial characteristics is reproductive division of labor. In female honey bees, there are two castes – the reproductive female queen (normally only one per colony) and the sexually undeveloped female workers. The queen lacks the banding abdominal color pattern typical of workers and she has a longer abdomen, especially when actively laying eggs. Workers care for her – although in middle photo (Figure 4-1) the workers do not seem to be paying any attention to their queen. Drawings from USDA.
Queen worker
L. Connor Photo

19. What is a Honey Bee? + DRONE Male sex – not caste
Mate with new queen (= virgins)
Perhaps contribute to “normalcy”?
Some references list drones as a third caste member of hive – but that is incorrect - a drone is merely the male individual. The name translates into lazy because within colony itself they contribute no labor but they are vital for mating with newly emerged [=virgin] queens and perhaps important in colony “morale” or “normalcy” [whatever that may be]. Figure 4-2 Drone bee by L. Connor.
L. Connor Photo

20. The Queen – female reproductive
2 functions
1. Lay eggs
2. Produce chemicals
Now a bit more depth for the 3 adults found in honey bee colony [we are modifying word honey bee by adding adult stage name such as queen honey bee, worker honey bee and drone honey bee – recall 2 words is proper way to designate honey bee]. The Queen – there usually is only one – the female caste member who lays the eggs (so the colony may grow and reproduce) and also produces chemicals (pheromones) that serve to help the workers recognize her and unify the colony. Cartoon illustration of queen and her court from Beekeeping Education Service – NOTE: Figure 4-1 does not show the “normal” queen retinue.
Normally ONLY 1
Bk Educ Service Photo