Ingredients
□ 2½ cups self-rising cornmeal
□ ½ tsp salt
□ ¼ cup vegetable oil
□ ½ cup creamed corn
□ 1⅓ cup buttermilk
□ ¼ cup honey
□ 1 egg
□ 1 tbsp vegetable oil (for skillet)
□ Honey and Butter for serving

Zankopedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Directions
Step 1
Preheat oven to 450°F.

Step 2
Swirl the 1 tbsp vegetable oil in a cast iron skillet. Place in the over to heat. Watch that it doesn’t start to smoke!

Step 3
Mix the cornmeal and salt in a large bowl.

Step 4
In a second bowl, combine the vegetable oil, creamed corn, buttermilk, honey and egg.

Step 5
Stir the wet ingredients with the dry until just combined. Batter will be lumpy, don’t over mix!

Step 6
Open the oven and drop a tsp of batter into the hot skillet to make sure it is heated enough to sizzle.

Step 7
Once heated enough, carefully pour the batter into the skillet.

Step 8
Bake for 20-25 minutes until set and golden brown.

Step 9
Cut into slices and serve with additional honey and butter.

Tip
Add 4 pieces of chopped bacon to the batter for a special treat!

“Assigning myself to one branch of agriculture—beekeeping, I devoted my whole life, all my thoughts, all my attention to it.” —Petro Ivanovych Prokopovych

Ukraine is a beekeeping nation and so it is apt that the Father of the Hive hails from there. Petro Prokopovych is recognized worldwide as the founder of commercial beekeeping and inventor of the first moveable hive frame (Prokopovych called these frames sleeves). The wide adoption and commercialization of the Langstroth Hive via U.S. Patent Number 9300 on October 5, 1852 drove Prokopovych’s Hive into obscurity, or did it? A brief history sketch is needed to understand how long beekeeping has been practiced here.

Ukraine began as a nation under the name Kyivan Rus whose lands stretched from the Baltic Sea down to the Black Sea. Kyivan Rus was a regional power from the ninth to the 12th century and its influence rose mainly due to its strategic location for trade and defense on the banks of the Dnipro River. Two of Kyivan Rus’s top commodities for trade were honey and beeswax. Kyiv’s entire history is aligned with that of honey and beeswax. In Ukrainian, the word for honey is “Med” and it is assumed that the drink that the Vikings and many others loved so much, mead, is derived from that Old Slavonic word. Yaroslav the Wise (11th century) developed a system of law and codes which became known as Pravda of Yaroslav (Truth of Yaroslav) (The full text of the code in English can be read here: https://web.archive.org/web/20220217103027/, http://web.grinnell.edu/individuals/kaiser/exrp.html). Bees are mentioned in at least seven chapters of this ancient code of law. Many monasteries in Kyivan Rus including the Kyiv Pecehersk Lavra (founded 1051 A.D.) also have their own apiaries. Beekeeping has consistently been practiced on the grounds of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra for nine hundred and seventy-two years. Truly, Ukraine is a nation partially founded on beekeeping.

Petro Prokopovych was born in Mytchenky, a small village in Northern Ukraine (a region that now directly borders Russia) on June 29, 1775 about the time that U.S. colonies were preparing for the Revolutionary War. His father was an Orthodox priest of Cossack origin. One must understand that the Cossacks considered themselves free men and were not part of the serf system under the ruling Russian Empire. Serfs in Russia were much like slaves in the U.S. in that they could be bought, sold and traded. Cossacks were military men for the most part and often served in the armies of Russia due to their unique fighting and organizational abilities. Petro Prokopovych first attended the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy (established 1615 as an Orthodox Christian School of Theology). Students from all over Eastern Europe and Greece attended the academy. Here, Petro learned French, German, Greek, Latin and Russian. Upon graduation, there were not many opportunities for the graduates due to a rampant campaign of Russification under Empress Catherine.

Cossacks almost always turned to military duty when other opportunities did not exist and thus this is what Petro did under the guidance of his parents. Petro entered the Pereyslav Regiment (originally formed by Ukrainian Hetman but now under Russian rule) and graduated within two years from their military school. He participated in the construction of Odesa and its port before his regiment was sent to quell the Warsaw Uprising (1794) under Count (General) Alexander Suvorov. General Suvorov had allowed his troops to plunder and loot Warsaw upon their success. Petro was a peace and nature loving person so this brutality had to have affected him, but he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant. In 1798, Petro resigned from the military and tried to return home. His father was not willing to allow him to stay because he considered it an embarrassment that his son had resigned from such a successful military career. This is the event that led Petro to beekeeping.

Petro went to stay with his younger brother who had a small apiary in 1799, not far from his native home. He spent that year studying the bees and their behavior. The following year, he purchased a small plot of land with 37 beehives. His first year started well but ended in tragedy when his farm burned down destroying some of the beehives. Discouraged but not deterred, he spent the following year digging log dugouts for the bees. Log hives were the most common way of keeping bees in those times and in some places in Ukraine and Belarus, this practice is still adhered to. In another eight years, his apiary totaled 580 beehives. No literature on beekeeping satisfied Petro, especially when it came to queens. His knowledge was already gaining respect as in his ninth year the Moscow Zemledelchesskaya Gazette wrote, “Mr. Prokopovych, we can say, is the only connoisseur of bees in our time, not only in our country, but even in the whole of Europe, whose remarks and sayings about these insects have no equal in terms of completeness, simplicity and truthfulness. Yet, in the West, Prokopovych is barely even referred to despite having written over 70 articles in various European languages.

For seven years, Petro Prokopovych worked on designs for beehives that were more friendly to the bees as he was troubled within his soul with having to destroy the bees for their honey. Finally, in 1814, his design was complete, and thus the Prokopovych Hive was introduced. This was the first moveable frame hive designed and used worldwide. Petro called his frames “sleeves” when he introduced the invention. Simultaneously, Petro also designed the first Queen Excluder which was placed in his new invention. A. I. Root himself praised Prokopvych’s hive stating, “His shop frame has much in common with the modern sectional frame with cutouts for the passage of bees, the walls of his hive are tied in a lock. He used methods that were far ahead of his time. Some beekeepers believed that Jeron invented the movable frame (Germany) in 1845, but, without a doubt, the latter had no right to this glory.”

Petro Prokopovych, generous soul that he was, opened the first beekeeping school in Ukraine (then under the Russian Empire) in 1827 in his native village of Mytchenko. School lasted for two years with practical knowledge in the first year to include tools, carpentry, reading, writing and the honey bee life cycle. In the second year, students practiced hands-on beekeeping. Most of the pupils were serfs from Ukraine, Belarus, Bashkiria and Georgia as well as foreign students from Germany, Poland, Italy and Czechoslavkia. Students studied in groups in their own native language. Prokopovych insisted on spiritual education and students were held to a Christian moral code by taking an oath. He sought to make good people out of his students to include respect for nature, man and God. Petro used the Joseph Lancaster Method of Education (Monitorial System) with its motto being, “He who teaches, learns.” Top students were responsible for teaching their fellow students. The school operated successfully for 53 years and graduated over 700 students.

Petro’s students clearly disseminated the information they learned from him as they returned to their home countries. John S. Harbison’s innovative “California Hive” built in 1857-1858 basically resembles Prokopovych’s Hive with the exception of the top frames built for honeycomb. Lorenzo Langstroth surely must have been familiar with the Prokopovych Hive even though he is credited with “bee space”, maybe he is just credited with the naming of it. Prokopovych surely understood bee space based on the spacing of the sleeves (frames) in his hive. A thorough examination of Prokopovych’s writings that still exist would have to be explored. Both Harbison and Langstroth were from Philadelphia which had a large German speaking population. Thus, it is possible that Prokopovych’s students or knowledge traveled the Atlantic and his expertise found its way to them.

Translation
a – Board with slats
b – frames on board with slats
B – Prokopovych frames

Prokopovych died at 75 years of age in 1850, just as American beekeeping was becoming more industrialized. In Ukraine, they call Prokopvych the father of “rational beekeeping”. He is well revered with several museums, institutes and memorials dedicated to his legacy. Petro’s son named Stepan Velykdan increased Prokopovych’s apiary to be the largest in Europe with allegedly over 12,000 beehives. Petro had married a peasant woman (Borovyk) and was not allowed to pass his surname to Stepan because of Russian Imperial laws. Stepan was proud of the Ukrainian heritage his father had passed to him including keeping and maintaining the Ukrainian language. The great poet of Ukraine, Taras Shevchenko, is said to have visited Petro and may even have based characters in his story “The Twins” on that meeting. Here in Ukraine, his legacy lives on as does the beekeeping industry that keeps this nation’s rural and urban economy rolling while at war. In Slovenia, the beehives in the bee houses look like a modified Prokopovych Hive. So, now when you think of Ukraine, don’t think so much about war but what this nation’s people and its impact on the hobby and business of beekeeping. Please remember this humble and kind man, Petro Prokopovych, and his contribution to an ancient form of husbandry that so many of us know and love.

“…So that the most intelligent people by nature, who differ from others in kindness, intelligence, diligence, perseverance and natural inclination to bees, were chosen for the supervisor of bee farms. The choice of such human qualities is very difficult, but it depends on God all further success.” —Petro Prokopovych

References:
В.Г КОРЧЕМНИЙ: До 220 – річчя з дня народження П.І. прокоповича ПРОКОПОВИЧ ПЕТРО ІВАНОВИЧ Тернопіль, “Поліграфіст”, 1995 (V. G. KORCHEMNY To the 220th anniversary of the birth of P.I. Prokopovich PETRO IVANOVYCH PROKOPOVYCH Ternopil, “Polygraphist”, 1995)
https://nashi.engineeringweek.org.ua/english/story/prokopovich.php
https://we.org.ua/kultura/narodni-remesla/istoriya-vynajdennya-vulyka-ukrayintsem-petrom-prokopovychem/#imageclose-4498 (In Ukrainian)
https://beeprofessor.com/petro-prokopovych/

Queen banking is the storage of queens individually in cages and placed in a colony to be cared for by worker bees. Northern California queen producers bank excess queens as seasonal demand subsides in the Summer to provide an on-demand supply to beekeepers. This study investigated the potential to bank honey bee queens indoors as an effective system during the Summer. This research compared current Summer outdoor queen banking practices in northern California with banking in indoor temperature-controlled storage facilities. Treatments were separated into three groups: indoor queen banks, outdoor queen banks and a set of unbanked control queens. Three different stocking rates were tested (50, 100 and 198 queens per bank). Queen quality parameters and survival data were assessed using laboratory and field assessment methods. There was no significant difference in queen quality parameters apart from the weight of indoor queens banked at the rate of 100, which were significantly lower than the other banking rates. There was a significant difference in the survival of different stocking rates. Queens banked indoors at a rate of 100 were more likely to survive than other stocking rates, both indoor and outdoor. Queens banked outdoors at the rate of 198 were more likely to survive than other outdoor banking rates. Queens stored indoors had a significantly higher survival of 78 ± 1% than queens stored outdoors with a survival of 62 ± 3%. Indoor banking performed better in quality and survival as compared to outdoor queen banking. Therefore, indoor queen banking has the potential to mitigate increased risk to the valuable Fall queen supply caused by rising, hot, Summer temperatures (Onayemi, 2021; Webb et al., 2023).

The mass storage of mated honey bee queens in reservoir colonies over the Winter was investigated under continental climatic conditions. The mated queens were stored in (a) queenright reservoir (QRR) colonies on a frame with partitioned honeycomb, (b) QRR colonies on frame holding wire screen cages, (c) queenless reservoir (QLR) colonies on frame with partitioned honeycomb and (d) QLR colonies on frame holding wire screen cages. In addition to mass storage, the queens were individually wintered in colonies held in Kirchainer mating hives and in five frame nucleus hives with standard combs as the control group. The queen survival in reservoir colonies was observed from October 2000 to March 2001. No queen survived the Winter in QRR colonies, whereas 16.7% of the queens stored in screen cages and 40.5% of the queens on honeycomb in QLR colonies survived for five months. The queen survival in mating hives and in five frame nucleus hives was 80.0% and 83.3%, respectively. Reproductive performances of surviving queens overwintered in reservoir colonies, mating hives and five frame nucleus hives were evaluated by comparing brood areas and adult bee populations produced in test colonies. There were no differences in numbers of frames of bees and in brood production of queens in test colonies. Thus, mass storage of queens over the Winter did not impair their reproductive performance (Gencer, 2003).

Productivity of honey bee queens in Canada, as measured by area of sealed worker brood and net weight of colonies, was generally higher with queens overwintered in two frame nuclei, than with queens overwintered in a group. Poor acceptance and supersedure of group overwintered queens suggest that this method of storage is not yet acceptable for commercial use. Survival of the nucleus queens was low in outdoor two frame units during the Winter but improved with an indoor system. Overwintering queens indoors in two frame nuclei and outdoors in three to five frame nuclei with supplemental feeding of carbohydrate in late Winter should provide a source of queens which could partially fulfill market demands in the Spring (Mitchell et al., 1985).

Queen cages arranged in a holding frame side to side with wire netting opening for nurse bees to feed queens. Photo from http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00218839.2023.2165747, used with permission.

Spring imports of queen honey bees are essential to replace Winter colony losses in Canada, but contribute to the spread of treatment-resistant strains of pathogens and undesirable genetic traits. A possible alternative to these imports is the mass storage of queens during Winter. By overwintering a strong colony (queen bank) containing large numbers of mated queens isolated in cages, beekeepers could acquire local queens early in the Spring. In this study, the efficacy of overwintering queen banks at two different queen densities (40 and 80) was tested. In the 40-queen banks (40 QB), 74.2% of queens survived the six month overwintering period, while 42.1% of queens survived in the 80-queen banks (80 QB). When compared to queens overwintered free in their colony, queens from bank colonies were smaller and lighter in early Spring but had similar sperm viability and sperm count. Overwintering queens in banks did not have an impact on their acceptance in a nucleus colony but reduced their oviposition in the initial weeks following their introduction. After several days in nucleus colonies, queens from banks had regained a size and weight similar to that of queens overwintered normally, suggesting that they could perform well over a complete beekeeping season (Levesque et al., 2023).

The production of young, mated queens is essential to replace dead queens or to start new colonies after wintering. Mass storage of mated queens during Winter and their use the following Spring is an interesting strategy that could help fulfill this need. In this study, the survival, fertility and fecundity of young, mated queens stored massively in queenless colonies from September to April (eight months) was investigated. The queens were kept in environmentally controlled rooms at temperatures above and below cluster formation. The results show that indoor mass storage of mated queens can be achieved with success when queen banks are stored above cluster temperature. A significantly higher survival of queens was measured when wintering queen banks at 16°C (60.8°F). Surviving queens wintered at different temperatures above or below cluster formation had similar fertility (sperm viability) and fecundity (egg laying and viable worker population). This study shows the potential of indoor overwintering of honey bee queen banks. This technique could be applied on a commercial scale by beekeepers and queen breeders (Rousseau and Giovenazzo, 2021).

The effect of storage cage level (upper or lower) and its position (peripheral or middle positions) on weight, survival rate and egg laying capacity of queens stored in queenright colonies for various storage periods was studied. Storing mated queens in this way had a significant effect on their weight after 75 days of storage. The means of queen weight were 174.9 and 167.4mg for the upper and lower strips, respectively showing the superiority of the upper one. A significant increase in the mean weight of queens stored in the middle position (172.5mg) was noticed comparing to peripheral ones (169.8mg). All the stored queens had significantly greater weight than their original weight before storage during the different periods of experiment. There were significant differences in the survival rate of mated queens stored in different levels, as the mean survival rate of queens stored in the upper strip (69.3%) was higher than the survival rate of mated queens stored in the lower one (60.1%). The queens stored in middle position attained a significantly higher survival rate (70.7%), than those stored in peripheral ones (58.7%). The overall survival rate was negatively influenced with the increase of storage period. In respect of egg laying capacity measured as sealed worker brood area, queens stored for 45 days produced a significantly larger sealed brood area (875.5cm2) than that produced by queens stored for 75 days (843.2cm2) (Al-Fattah et al., 2016).

Mass storage of queens over the Winter was investigated in colony banks, with each queen held in her own cage within a colony. The major treatments included: (I) a single queen wintered in a small nucleus colony (control); and colony banks with 24 or 48 queens, each held individually in (II) screen cages that prevented workers from entering the cage, but allowed access for queen tending, (III) queen-excluder cages (queen-excluder material has openings of about 55mm that prevent the larger queen but not the smaller workers from passing through the material), or (IV) screen cages until January and subsequent transfer to mini-nuclei until late March. Queens held in excluder cages showed poor survival in all three years of testing, and this system was not viable for commercial use; survival for any one year, or any excluder treatment, was never greater than 25%. In contrast, a two year average of 60% queen survival was found for queens that were stored in individual screened wooden cages within queenless colony banks. No differences in survival of banked queens that were moved between colonies monthly and those that remained in the same colony for six months was found. The success of these systems required the (a) preparation of colony banks that contained large numbers of adult workers produced by maintaining colonies with two queens during the previous Summer, (b) removal of laying queen(s) during the storage period, (c) feeding of colonies well and (d) insulation of colonies in groups of four, to preserve heat and reduce worker clustering in the Winter. Surviving queens from Winter storage systems were virtually identical in quality and colony performance to control queens the subsequent season (Wyborn et al., 1993).

This Egyptian study aimed to investigate some factors affecting stored mated queens’ weight and survival rate as well as post storage performance of these queens after 75 days of storage within queenright colonies. Storing queens in numbers of 20, 30 and 40 had no significant effect on their weight. Mean weight of queen stored in excluder cages (EC) was significantly higher than those stored in screen mesh ones (SC). The mean weight of stored queens in the upper strip was higher than the mean of the lower one. Queens stored in peripheral and middle of a holding frame did not differ significantly from each other. Concerning the queens’ survival rate, the mean survival rate of 20 stored mated queens was the superior rank, while the survival rate of 30 and 40 stored mated queens came next with no significant differences between them. Queens stored in SC had more significant survival rate than those stored in EC. The upper strip had a higher survival rate than the lower one. Queens stored in the middle of a holding frame showed significantly higher survival rate than those in the peripheral. Regarding post storage performance, no significant differences were detected between the brood areas produced by queens stored for 45 or 75 days in the three densities. Queens stored for 45 days and those in the upper level had a significantly higher brood production than those stored for 75 days and those stored in the lower level. Queens stored for 45 and 75 days had no significant differences in supersedure percentages either stored in the three densities, in two levels or in the two positions. The second part of the study involved the storing of virgin queens. This work was aimed to investigate the effect of colony and storage cage type on queens’ survival rate, orphan period on attracted workers as well as storage period and colony strength on queens attractiveness and acceptance. Queens stored in Benton cages (BC) had a higher insignificant survival rate than those stored in emerging ones (EMC). Storing queens in queenless colonies resulted in a more significant survival rate than those stored in queenright ones. Increasing the colonies orphan period attracted more significant workers to old queens. This attractiveness increased significantly with the increase of queen age from three to 30 days old. The younger and older virgin queens were significantly more accepted than the intermediate ones. The average number of attracted workers in nuclei was significantly greater than those recorded in strong colonies and so as the acceptance percentages (El-Din, 2016).

The survival of caged newly-emerged virgin queens every day for seven days in an experiment that simultaneously investigated three factors: queen cage type (wooden three-hole or plastic), attendant workers (present or absent) and food type (sugar candy, honey or both) was studied. Ten queens were tested in each of the 12 combinations. Queens were reared using standard beekeeping methods (Doolittle/grafting) and emerged from their cells into vials held in an incubator at 34°C (93.2°F). All 12 combinations gave high survival (90 or 100%) for three days but only one method (wooden cage, with attendants, honey) gave 100% survival to day seven. Factors affecting queen survival were analyzed. Across all combinations, attendant bees significantly increased survival (18% vs. 53%, p<0.001). In addition, there was an interaction between food type and cage type (p<0.001) with the honey and plastic cage combination giving reduced survival. An additional group of queens was reared and held for seven days using the best method, and then directly introduced using smoke into queenless nucleus colonies that had been dequeened five days previously. Acceptance was high (80%, 8/10) showing that this combination is also suitable for preparing queens for introduction into colonies. Having a simple method for keeping newly-emerged virgin queens alive in cages for one week and acceptable for introduction into queenless colonies will be useful in honey bee breeding. In particular, it facilitates the screening of many queens for genetic or phenotypic characteristics when only a small proportion meets the desired criteria. These can then be introduced into queenless hives for natural mating or insemination, both of which take place when queens are one week old (Bigio et al., 2012).

Even though there are some beneficial aspects of banking queens, there can also be some negative effects on the stored queens. Most of the queen banking techniques involve caging queens in various types of cages. Zajdel et al. (2020) reported that queens stored in “queen banks” suffer primarily from leg injuries after they reviewed numerous studies. Queen injuries associated with caging include: 1) changes in the color of the arolia (pad-like lobes projecting between the tarsal claws), 2) missing leg segments or missing whole legs, 3) arolium deformation and partial or complete loss of arolia and claws and 4) frayed wings and loss of antennae or antennal segments. Leg paralysis, probably resulting from stings, has also been reported. These injuries influence the queen’s motor and sensory abilities and disqualify them as high-quality queens. Even a small number of queens stored in one colony are exposed to injuries from worker bees. Injuries to queens were observed regardless of the age of the workers attending to them and the presence of brood in the bee colony.

References
Al-Fattah, M.A.A.W. Abd, H. A. Sharaf El-Din and Y. Y. Ibrahim 2016. Factors affecting the quality of mated honey bee queens stored for different periods in queen-right bank colonies. Effect of cage level and position on holding frame. J. Apic. Res. 55: 284-291.
Bigio, G., C. Grüter and F.L.W. Ratnieks 2012. Comparing alternative methods for holding virgin honey bee queens for one week in mailing cages before mating. PLoS ONE 7(11) e50150. https//doi.org/10.1371/journal pone 0050160
El-Din, H.A.S. 2016. Honey bee Queens Performance In Relation To Their Long Period Storage In Queenright Colonies. PhD Dissertation, Cairo University, 158 pp.
Gencer, H.V. 2003. Overwintering of honey bee queens en mass in reservoir colonies in a temperate climate and its effect on queen performance. J. Apic. Res. 42: 61-64.
Levesque, M., A. Rousseau and P. Giovenazzo 2023. Impacts of indoor mass storage of two densities of honey bee queens (Apis mellifera) during Winter on queen survival, reproductive quality and colony performance. J. Apic. Res. 62: 274-286.
Mitchell, S.R., D. Bates, M.L. Winston and D.M. McCutcheon 1985. Comparison of honey bee queens overwintered individually and in groups. J. Entomol. Soc. Of British Columbia. 82: 35-39.
Onayemi, S.O. 2021. Indoor Queen Banking As An Alternative To Outdoor Banking, M.S. Thesis, Washington State University, 35 pp.
Rousseau, A. and P. Giovenazzo 2021. Successful indoor mass storage of honey bee queens (Apis mellifera) during Winter. Agriculture 11: 402.
Webb, A., S.O. Onayemi, R.L. Olsson, K. Kulhanek, and B.K. Hopkins 2023. Summer indoor queen banking as an alternative to outdoor queen banking practices. J. Apic. Res. 62: 471-477.
Wyborn, M.H., M.L. Winston and P.H. Laflamme 1993. Mass storage of honey bee (Hymenoptera: Apidae) queens during the Winter. Can. Entomol. 125: 113-128.
Zajdel, B., Z. Jasinski, and K. Kucharska 2020. Are drones injured during storage in own and stranger queenright colonies (Apis mellifera carnica)? J. Agr. Sci. Tech. 22: 453-463.

Clarence Collison is an Emeritus Professor of Entomology and Department Head Emeritus of Entomology and Plant Pathology at Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, MS.

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Chemical-Free Yellow Jacket Removal

A Valuable Service Beekeepers Are Uniquely Suited to Perform
By: Ross Conrad

Beekeepers have a tendency to be honey bee centric. Have a swarm hanging from a tree in your yard? We’ll be right over. But call a beekeeper to remove a yellow jacket nest and we’re typically not interested. This leaves the person calling for help in a conundrum: do they call a professional exterminator or save money and pick up a can of toxic pesticide bug spray at the hardware store and attempt to do the job themselves? I would suggest that when we pass up the opportunity to help a member of our community with a yellow jacket problem, we fail to show that we beekeepers are more than a one-trick pony and demonstrate the varied benefits beekeepers can bring to the community. We also forfeit the chance to help prevent the introduction of additional toxic pesticides into the environment, and we give up on a potentially profitable service that can help diversify our income.

As beekeepers, we are already conditioned and equipped to deal with stinging insects. While different in many ways, yellow jackets are surprisingly similar to honey bees. While yellow jackets are carnivorous and will eat insects both dead and alive, they also feed on fruit, nectar and honeydew. Their stingers are barbed like a honey bee’s, but the barbs are so small that they can typically sting repeatedly, and only occasionally does a stinger become lodged and pull free of the wasp’s body. Yellow jacket venom, like most bee and wasp venoms, is primarily dangerous only to those who are hyper-allergic. Thankfully, the protective clothing that protects you from bee stings will also protect you from yellow jackets.

Face of a southern yellow jacket queen (Vespula squamosa)

Yellow jackets are social wasps and participate in cooperative brood care. The yellow jacket queen is larger than the workers and is tasked with doing all the work to build and provision a nest on their own in Spring. Once the first litter of worker wasps reach maturity, they take over the nest building and food gathering duties. Like honey bees, male yellow jackets are haploid and females are diploid allowing female worker yellow jackets to lay eggs that develop into males.

While yellow jackets build nests of hexagon shaped combs similar to honey bees, they construct their nests by chewing naturally occurring wood fibers that when mixed with their saliva becomes a pulpy substance they are able to form into comb. A grey paper envelope surrounds the combs that make up their brood nest. Like honey bees, yellow jackets produce warning pheromones which suggest that smoke can aid in dealing with them.

There are several types of yellow jackets and they are all black with either white or yellow markings. The most common have yellow markings on their face, thorax and abdomens and they make their nests either in the ground or up in trees, under the eaves of roofs, or other above ground structures they deem suitable. The yellow jackets with white markings on their face, thorax and abdomens are often called bald-faced hornets. This is a misnomer since all yellow jackets (whether they have yellow or white markings) are technically wasps identified by the fact that they have narrow waists connecting their thorax to their abdomen.

Of all the stinging insects normally found in North America, the bald-faced hornet’s sting seems to hurt the most. This is perhaps because the bald-faced hornet is larger and therefore has a larger stinger and venom sack. The bald-faced hornet also has a unique defense in that it can squirt or spray venom from the stinger into the eyes of nest intruders causing immediate watering of the eyes and temporary blindness.

Yellow jackets tend to be more defensive than honey bees especially in late Summer/early Autumn when their food sources are becoming scarce and their nest size is at its maximum. Beekeepers often will see yellow jackets attempting to access honey bee hives at this time of year. While strong colonies are able to resist the advances of yellow jackets effectively, the size of the entrance of a hive can be reduced to help weaker colonies defend themselves. Since late Summer and early Autumn is the time of year when yellow jackets become more noticeable, it is when they are more likely to cause problems for people and elicit complaints from the public who then may look for a local beekeeper to deal with them.

When removing a yellow jacket nest, it is best to do the job at night. Most of the time, just like honey bees, yellow jackets will all have returned to their nest for the evening since they are unable to navigate safe flight activity without the aid of light. As a result, a yellow jacket nest that is disturbed at night will trigger the guard wasps to crawl out of the nest to defend the colony. Like ants, bees and yellow jackets will crawl all over the place, but they will not fly unless there is visible light to guide them. Also like honey bees, yellow jackets are unable to see the color red, so a red light will provide the wasp remover with a critical advantage permitting them enough light to see and work without allowing the yellow jackets enough light to take to the air.

Two-year yellow jacket nest, with a one-gallon (3.8 liter) container for size reference. Collected by Alabama, USA, 2007. Dimensions are approximately 18 inches by 24 inches by 12 inches (46 cm by 61 cm by 30 cm). Source: Wikipedia

For those with patience, a commercially available yellow jacket trap can be deployed. For those who prefer a faster method, an easy way to remove small, above ground nests is to place a bag around the nest and pull the nest away from its anchoring point on whatever structure it is attached to. For larger nests, a hive tool or for really big nests, a spatula can be used to sever the connection between the nest and the structure while holding the bag directly under it so the nest will fall to the bottom of the bag. Since the yellow jackets are restricted to crawling, you will have three to four seconds to quickly close the bag and seal the opening by tying it off if it is plastic, or folding it down if made of paper in order to seal the wasps inside. The bag containing the wasps should then be placed inside another container, such as a garbage can with a lid, since they can potentially chew through the bag during the night.

For ground nesting wasps, the easiest approach is to smother the colony. A large sheet of plywood can be placed on the ground over the entrance area at night when all the wasps are in the nest. For uneven ground, a sheet or blanket with the edges rolled up or folded a bit, can be placed down first to act like a gasket and seal gaps along the ground preventing any wasps from finding a way out from under the plywood. It is a good idea to weigh down the plywood with a rock or cement block to help ensure a good seal with the ground surrounding the colony’s entrance and to prevent a strong breeze from moving the plywood. The plywood should be left in place for at least a couple weeks to ensure all the wasps are dead before removal.

For the entrepreneurially inclined, there are pharmaceutical companies that will pay for wasps gathered in a manner that preserves the integrity of the wasp venom, so they can be used to manufacture allergy medications. One company, Jubilant HollisterStier, will pay $800-$1,000 per pound for yellow jackets, and up to $1,400 per pound for rarer wasps and hornets (and you thought that a three pound package of honey bees for between $125-$200 was expensive!). Rather than remove the yellow jackets at night, this work should take place during the day so that primarily female worker wasps are collected since the males do not have stingers. A bee vacuum that collects the wasps uninjured is the perfect tool for the job, since the wasps must be flash frozen alive in order to preserve the integrity of the venom for pharmaceutical use. Since the frozen insects can be stored for up to 24 months, collections obtained from numerous nests can provide a potentially lucrative sideline. Be sure to contact the company you choose to work with ahead of time since they have specific protocols and instructions for wasp collection, storage, documentation and shipping.

It is unfortunate that yellow jackets are widely considered a nuisance. Without them, we would be overrun with harmful insect pests since to feed their young, the wasps kill large numbers of caterpillars and other insects that harm cultivated and ornamental plants. By including wasp and hornet removal services to their skills, beekeepers can add to the industry’s social value and provide a valuable community service, while developing the potential for additional income streams all at the same time.

Ross Conrad is author of Natural Beekeeping and The Land of Milk and Honey: A history of beekeeping in Vermont. He will be speaking for the Western New York Honey Producers, Inc. in an event open to the public on November 18. Check out the calendar for details: https://www.beeculture.com/calendar-of-events/

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The Honey Bee’s Winter Nest

Necessary for Surviving the Big Dearth
By: James E. Tew

But first, these thoughts
Over time, beekeepers change their ways, but bees always stay the same. During the past few years some novel issues, that are new to beekeepers, have been suggested and discussed in the media. Whether or not bees sleep has been addressed and then re-addressed. Apparently, they do. If bees feel pain or have other sentient qualities have been topics of other discussions. These unclear bee qualities are still being explored. Even honey is in the bright light of the popular media. Some postulate that bees are not the only animal able to make a honey-like product. Somewhat like lab-grown protein, a sweet product, having chemistry akin to that of honey, has been blended with nary a bee in sight. Is it honey or not? Topics like this help keep beekeeping interesting and keep bee knowledge evolving.

These are not the bees’ problems
All these current discussion topics are beekeeper related. While we humans gnash and pontificate, the bees plod along in their own world doing their own thing. Their biology is consistently their business and honey bees seemingly worry not one whit about their human counterparts. It appears that the beekeeper/bee relationship is totally one-sided one.

Figure 1. The moment of interaction between two distinct species – humans and bees.

Bees’ complex and mysterious biology
Though topics abound, it seems to me that our most recent significant advances in understanding our bees has been in the areas of bee biology and related pathogenic subjects. While we know much more about our bees today, we still are far from understanding everything.

Preparing for foodless times
In a real way, much of what bees do in the Springtime is in preparation for the next Winter season. To survive Winter’s coldness, bees must find a suitable nest site and construct combs, which are their only nest furnishings. They must gather food and store it. They must maintain a queen presence, maintain worker populations and swarm to procreate their species. They must defend their nest from interlopers and even defend against their own marauding bee neighbors. Without a protected nest site and suitable stocks of food, a honey bee nest will surely die in the Winter season. Bees clearly understand this harsh fact. Their base of operations – the nest – is critical to withstanding the Winter season.

Figure 2. What a honey bee nest looks like without beekeeper involvement. Note the propolis band around the combs.

The natural nest – an absolute necessity
When searching for a home, bee scouts usually look for a surprisingly small cavity – maybe as small as one cubic foot (.023 cubic meter). Finer features of a future home are that it should: be dark, have a defendable entrance, be dry and not have anything else living there such as birds, squirrels or ants. Ideally, it should not be on or at ground level.

When tearing into trees, early beekeepers were confronted with a morass of bees, comb, brood and dripping honey. How could any rational organization be seen in such chaos? As we now partially understand, the bee nest is a highly structured living environment. Understanding that fundamental structure – so much as is currently possible – can help make all of us better beekeepers.

The size of the nest
Feral nest sizes seem to vary significantly. How quickly, if ever, a colony can fill a cavity varies greatly; therefore, some nests are large while others stay relatively small. Reasons for size variations could be genetics, diseases, pests and water. The availability of nectar and pollen resources is critical. Simple, blind luck is also a helpful characteristic to a feral colony.

In fact, as humans have altered the general environment, suitable nesting sites have become much dearer to scouting bees forcing them to accept sites not perfect for their needs. Occasionally, a swarm is forced to build in the open, a fatal decision for most nests within the temperate parts of the U.S.

The nest fixtures
The natural bee nest is plainly furnished with wax combs only. Though bees can diligently modify the nest cavity to a degree, for the most part they must accept the space as it is. Along the top and sides of the nest, surveyor bees will lay out the beginning midrib of combs and other bees will begin to construct comb along those lines. We don’t know how these bees measure the spacing needed when establishing dimensions for future comb. Keenly observant beekeepers long ago discovered that bees require a specific living and working space – or the famous bee space concept. That understanding allowed the subsequent development of artificial domiciles that we have used for more than one-hundred years.

When bees first occupy a new nest cavity, the first matter of business is to construct worker combs. Besides being an area to nurse developing worker bees, worker-sized comb can also be used to store nectar, pollen and occasionally water.

Comb construction
To us, new combs seem to be produced almost mystically. The bees will mass together into a group that we have called a cluster. The cluster is not a rigid structure but is fragile and temporary. As bees hang together in such a cluster, gravitational forces will cause it to hang perpendicular with that influence. In essence, combs are built at right angles with gravity’s pull. Later, within the dark hive, this gravitational orientation becomes important in the dance language communication procedure.

Four pairs of wax glands on the ventral surface of the bees’ abdomen produce snow white wax flakes. Comb constructing bees pass a newly produced wax flake forward to their mouths where the wax is chewed and pulverized. After a short time, the wax particle is molded, using the bees’ trowel-shaped mandibles, into a cylindrical developing cell. It’s a communal effort. Other bees may reshape previous efforts before adding their own contribution of wax to the new cell, but finally a new cell is produced. No single bee actually constructs a single cell.

Experienced beekeepers have seen the completed cells in use near the top of a new frame while lower on the comb, shallower cells will still be under construction. Bees build comb as needed. New wax melts down to canary yellow and is valuable for candles and other wax-produced products. It’s a beautiful product.

The importance of a nectar flow
Inexperienced beekeepers are frequently disappointed that all brood chamber space and super space is not used by the bees during a particular season. Indeed, beekeeper-supplied foundation may even be chewed and mangled by bees, and not building comb on it (though it will probably be successfully used during subsequent seasons).

Bees will only construct comb on the impetus of a nectar flow and a comb space shortage. Simply stated, bees must have construction material (nectar) before they can build. Nectar provides that building material, but an unusual building material it is for it can also be stored as honey rather than restructured into wax. Bees will not use stored honey to construct significant amounts of new comb. The experienced beekeeper will provide previously drawn comb for the bees to store the honey crop rather than requiring bees to rebuild comb each year.

Comb is costly for the bees to build. It has been found that bees must metabolize about seven to eight pounds of honey to produce one pound of wax. But with that one pound of building material, bees can build 35,000 cells in which they can store 22 pounds of honey. Consequently, their approximate net gain after consuming eight pounds of honey is 14 pounds of stored honey plus reusable comb.

It takes about 10,000 bees, over a three-day period to produce one pound of wax. That one pound will be made up of about 500,000 scales. Comb construction for the bee hive is clearly an investment. Inexplicably, cappings and other wax particles are not reused to any degree but are allowed to drop to the bottom board where they either accumulate or are discarded in front of the colony. New wax is soft and pliable and will break easily, but as the comb ages, it becomes reinforced with cocoons and propolis. Whereas new comb is snow white, old comb is nearly jet black.

Figure 3. New and old comb comparison.

Types of comb cells within the beehive
Worker comb is, by far, the most abundant comb size within the colony. As mentioned previously, worker sized comb (about five cells per inch) can be used by bees to house developing worker bees or to store honey and pollen. Larger cells, about four per inch, are used to produce drone larvae or to store honey and pollen.

Distorted cells or cells of intermediate size can occur that are used by bees to splice comb cells together. In other words, worker comb will be filled with patches of drone comb with small amounts of transitional comb wherever needed in order to make a piece of solid comb. Some cells may either be drastically modified or built purposefully for raising queens. As you would expect, this type of comb cell, though distinctive is not very common within the combs. A precursor to queen cells are queen cups which are simply queen cells that are not in use. Worker cells, drone cells, queen cells and transitional make up the types of comb cells within the colony.

Figure 4. Common burr combs on top of frames. This is a common sight for beekeepers. Note bee space separating frames.

Brace comb, burr comb or ladder comb
Bees will frequently build brace comb between frames, above or below frames, or on the bottom board – especially after a colony has been recently moved. Anywhere bee space is violated, additional comb may be built that is a nuisance to beekeepers in commercially manufactured hives. Normally, in managed hives, it is scraped off and melted as high-quality wax. Within wild nests, it remains in place and helps give rigidity to the overall nest.

Bee space
The concept of bee space has been mentioned several times. Within both wild and managed hives, bee spacing must be respected. Bee space is generally considered to be anything between ¼” and ⅜”. Space less than ¼” will be filled with propolis while anything greater than ⅜” will have either comb or brace comb built within the space depending on its size. In our beekeeping literature, the Reverend L.L. Langstroth is generally given credit for conceptualizing the notion of bee space.

Propolis – the colony’s caulking compound
Propolis is little known outside of the inner circles of beekeeping. Produced from resinous materials collected from the buds of trees or from resins from softwoods, propolis is used to caulk the hive tight. Though stringy and sticky when fresh, propolis dries hard and brittle. It is soluble in alcohol and has a pleasant weedy odor.

Since there is no real difference between the two, both wild and managed bees produce propolis. Caucasian bees are renowned for collecting copious amounts of propolis and will occasionally nearly close an entire colony entrance if left to their own schemes.

Propolis is the material that causes the hive to crack sharply when opened. Propolis was the primary demon that relegated so many hive designs to beekeeping’s junk heap. If colonies are not opened for several years, propolis will make the hive very nearly impenetrable. Propolis, along with pollen, darken white wax over a period of just a few years. Additionally, in addition to being used to polish cells, propolis is added to the wax that covers cappings; therefore, giving them a different appearance than honey cappings.

Propolis is bacterially active and will restrict bacterial growth. Probably due to this antimicrobial characteristic, propolis is used to entomb anything the bees can’t move – such as a dead mouse or a small tree twig.

There it is – the dark nest
Inside this dark maze of twisted, bee-spaced combs the bees live in hot, humid darkness during warm months and cold darkness during Winter months. Through the beekeeping years, innovative beekeepers have learned how to take the bees’ penchant for building natural comb and have enticed them to build comb within wooden frames – mainly for our human convenience. It’s too difficult to remove cross-combed frames for honey removal, disease inspection or colony manipulations.

Inside the warm, dark nest
Inside the warm, dark nest, bees probably communicate by pheromone perception (crudely described as a type of odor), touch and other sensory perceptions such as gravitational sensitivity and electro-magnetism.

The nest is incredibly crowded. Bees are literally shoulder to shoulder. Yet, all these characteristics vanish when the beekeeper removes the outer cover from the hive. All becomes visible and the normal way of the colony, with the application of smoke to mask the effective communicative odors, is disrupted.

Within the undisturbed dark hive, everything has a unique odor: workers, the queen, drones, nectar, wax moths, brood, pollen, the hunger of larvae, danger, whether larvae are in the correct cell – everything seems to have an odor cue (or some other kind of indicator) within the dark hive. As beekeepers, we crudely use smoke to mask this elegant chemical communication.

Temperature must be regulated to about 95°F in the brood nest, nectar must be enzymatically reduced and excess water removed to form honey, brood must be fed freshly collected pollen and this hive-city must be defended from intruders and pests.

This society must be kept in balance. In a full-strength colony, there are about 60,000 reproductively sterile workers, one fertile queen and about 400-600 drones. Developing brood must be produced in anticipation of upcoming nectar flows or Winter seasons. All these individuals come together to form the super-organism – the bee nest. Even under ideal conditions, individual bees are incapable of supporting themselves for more than a few weeks. The total bee nest is the animal – not the individual bee. Such is life in the bee’s nest – so much as we can understand.

Dr. James E. Tew
Emeritus Faculty, Entomology
The Ohio State University
tewbee2@gmail.com

Co-Host, Honey Bee Obscura Podcast
www.honeybeeobscura.com

The Jig is Up: Download the PDF

Frame Jig – Multiple: Download the PDF

Gargoyles are Useful and Free: Download the PDF

Build a Swarm Trap: Download the PDF

Build a Mechanical Speed Controller: Download the PDF

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Found in Translation

Dog v. Machine: Identifying the Foul in Foulbrood
By: Jay Evans, USDA Beltsville Bee Lab

American foulbrood has been a consistent, if fortunately rare, curse of beekeepers for centuries. The bacterial agent behind AFB, Paenibacillus larvae, is widespread in managed colonies and yet only rarely triggers symptoms in the form of decayed and highly contagious infected brood. Catching those symptomatic cases early remains a critical goal of bee health management. Many U.S. states benefit from a cadre of bee inspectors who work with beekeepers to identify and act upon AFB infections (e.g., the Apiary Inspectors of America, https://apiaryinspectors.org/). Our own USDA Bee Disease Diagnostics Service, led by Samuel Abban (https://www.ars.usda.gov/northeast-area/beltsville-md-barc/beltsville-agricultural-research-center/bee-research-laboratory/docs/bee-disease-diagnosis-service/), works collaboratively with these inspectors and individual beekeepers to pounce on suspected AFB cases before their damaging shadow increases. While the visual and culturing tools for confirming AFB infections are robust, and that smell is hard to forget, there remains a huge need to rapidly screen apiaries for early signs of infection. The frontiers for this screening are marked by an unlikely pairing of furred partners and incredibly complex machines, and it is worthwhile to see which of these tools will be the most helpful for inspectors and beekeepers.

Starting with the more charismatic tools, trained dogs are sporadically used to help inspectors pin down cases of AFB. The state of Maryland has two such trained dogs, led by Chief Apiary Inspector Cybil Preston (https://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/articles/entry/detective-dog-sniffs-out-devastating-honeybee-disease/). These companions certainly have the sensitivity to identify signals given off by diseased brood, but how accurate are dogs with the critical early-stage cases of AFB? A study by Neroli Thomson and colleagues in New Zealand aimed to push the limits of training and detection by dog detectives (Thomson, N.; Taylor, M.; Gifford, P.; Sainsbury, J.; Cross, S. (2023) Recognition of an Odour Pattern from Paenibacillus larvae Spore Samples by Trained Detection Dogs. Animals: 13, 154. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani13010154). Two out of three trained dogs did great, consistently and quickly responding to AFB cues placed in one spot within a twirling carousel of dog dishes (Figure). These dogs were trained using purified spores, so would presumably do great even with empty boxes containing post-AFB scale. Their sensitivity in the indoor arena was at the level of spores found in a fraction of a single infected bee. What needs to be tested is the ability of these dogs to ignore the many other smells coming from a beehive, not to mention the environmental distractions (from stinging bees to nervous beekeepers) they would experience when truly on the job.

Since it is hard to interview a dog to find out the cues they use to detect AFB, I decided to explore the most recent work involving chemical sniffers that separate AFB smells from the large and shifting bouquet that is a beehive. Jessica Bikraun from the University of Western Australia devoted her PhD thesis to this question and already has one peer-reviewed paper showing the power of a machine detective approach (Bikaun, J.M.; Bates, T.; Bollen, M.; Flematti, G.R.; Melonek, J.; Praveen, P.; Grassl, J. (2022) Volatile biomarkers for non-invasive detection of American foulbrood, a threat to honey bee pollination services. Science of The Total Environment, 845, 157123, doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.157123). Using readily available Solid phase microextraction (SPME) ‘wands’ as noses, she and colleagues collected air samples wafting from infected larvae in a lab-rearing setup and from larvae embedded in living colonies. Larvae sampled in the lab released 102 identifiable chemicals in the air around them. Of these, 17 were found only in larvae infected with the AFB bacterium, others were common to all bees (they also tested bees with sacbrood and bees that had been killed by freezing, along with healthy controls). How do smells in the pristine lab setting compare to those in actual colonies? The SPME technique, while inexpensive and widely available, is compromised somewhat by the greediness of the SPME noses. If there are overwhelming smells coming from a hive, those molecules might edge out rare diagnostic signals. Field trials identified 116 volatile chemicals from beehives, 17 of which were tied to disease. In the end, only four molecules (2,5-dimethylpyrazine, acetamide, isobutyramide, and methyl 3-methyl-2-oxopentanoate) were indicative of AFB both in lab-cultured bees and in-hive air samples. These four chemicals might form the basis for an accurate and simple test. They are also themselves interesting for possible insights into the disease itself. 2,5-dimethylpyrazine is tagged an agent used by bacteria for inhibiting the growth of other microbes, something P. larvae does exceedingly well. While the research was focused on cues that machines can identify, the team also found candidates for smells that hygienic bees pick up on when scanning for diseased brood. Lactones, for example, are natural compounds found in fruits and elsewhere that are often used as components for food additives. In the airspace of beehives, lactones increased substantially with almost any form of brood stress, from AFB to sacbrood and freeze-killed brood, and the authors suggest these compounds might be another trigger for hygienic responses by nest bees. Sujin Lee and colleagues used a lab-based assay to identify and reconfirm volatile chemicals emitted by larvae suffering from AFB (Lee, S.; Lim, S.; Choi, Y.-S.; Lee, M.-l.; Kwon, H.W. (2022) Volatile disease markers of American foulbrood-infected larvae in Apis mellifera. Journal of Insect Physiology, 122, 104040, doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jinsphys.2020.104040. They then purchased those same chemicals to test for responsiveness by worker bees. Bees reacted to several of the candidates but the authors feel that propionic acid, valeric acid, and 2-nonanone were the cleanest signals of AFB infection. Younger bees reacted more strongly to these smells than did foragers, arguably reflecting the tendency of these younger bees (middle-aged actually) to act as hygienic helpers in the colony.

Both dog noses and artificial noses were shown to be capable of identifying even low levels of AFB in field colonies. The SPME chemical nose seems to have more promise as a consistent service (inspectors could readily collect smells from hives with a SPME wand and then send that wand to an analytical lab) but it would not give the in-the-moment diagnostic provided by dogs and good inspectors. For now, those live inspectors are earning their kibble by advising beekeepers when a problem is likely.