light frost leaves little for the bees

Paul, Dorothy and Mary checking the bees one last time before winter. About a dozen partically filled frames were boxed up and will be saved for next spring to give the bees a start. Ample honey is left in hive for winter.

Fall blooming wild asters attracting the bees, at least three species of asters here out of approximately 120 in US. Some honey removed and will be tested in the lab. Hilary in Seattle.

abundant friendly birds

Humming birds are well fed and friendly.

Today we again found excessive numbers of drones and drone cells as seen in the lower right hand corner of the picture of bur comb. We did remove about 10 quarts of great tasting comb honey. A bee found its way into Mary's hood and suit, notice picture Mary removing hood and running. We used special dried leaves to lightly smoke the bees and that did calm them.

combining hives

The weaker hive was again producing excess drones, suggesting the 2nd introduced queen also did not survive. Newspaper with a few small holes was placed in between the supers of the old and new hive. This should give the added bees time to adjust to the scent of the queen in the new hive. The camera was on the wrong setting so pictures of drones hatching are low quality.

Also, the lab work is not going well, I did not freeze a sample of the original fungi isolated from comb surrouding larvae and subcultures lost some desireable activity.

The sun is out, the bees are friendly and the strong hive is full of honey, Hilary removed about two quarts from the strong hive. The weak hive is looks active and no new drone cells are noted. Hilary will get an epi pen tomorrow. The swelling from the stings of bees in a neighboring hive a few weeks ago warranted keeping one nearby. Tiny frogs/toads are abundant near the hive and pond. The honey is delicious, I broke my rule and ate some from this batch before I tested. Testing will be done this week end if we have time. Lab work is getting backed up.

Rained all day but we needed to check the queen. Her cage was full of bees but we did not see her, although the large bee in the center of this picture may have been a queen. The hard rain made this difficult and the bees were not happy. But, they s look active, healthy and very few bullet cells, so all may be well and this was the queen. We will check again when the sun is out. If this queen does not survive, this hive will have to be combined with the strong hive.

more lab work ...

The queen placed in the weak hive last week was apparently not accepted by the hive and not fed. One of the several reasons for her non acceptance by the hive could be that the queen has depleted her sperm stores but remains in the hive producing haploid larvae that will be drones. This dead queen was replaced with another queen.

Last week Hilary collected four large jars of honey, but noticed one hive was not very active. This week she is spending with Max, her two month old nephew, in the cities. Paul checked the hive and replaced the queen, since no queen could be found and the workers were making excess drones, see picture of bullet shape cells. ( for the queen next door?) The bees were not happy and expressed that by giving a few stings. In a few days we will open the hive to check the new queen.

activity of microbes isolated from burr comb

Hilary says this needs to be made more understandable. So...will give it a try. The pictures are cell line NCI-H82, selected because it forms easily visable aggregates in suspension. The purpose is to use H82 as a rapid screen for microbial products isolated from routine testing and study interactions. These pictures demonstrate the inhibition/kill of a fungal filtrate identified using these same cells as a rapid screen. The plates were over grown to more easily demonstrate growth by pH color change as well as the obvious aggrates. The controls are the wells with no filtrate added, overgrown with cell aggrates and obvious pH color change. The plates with this fungal filtrate added did not have any visable growth, pH color change and no H82's were seen microscopically. The "blue" picture is a photomicrograph of a control.

Two six well plates were used, one plate was all controls, the other plate (see picture) had two controls and four wells with duplicate amounts of filtrate. A variety of bacteria have been checked, my area of interest, and some inhibition noted, but this easy to work with fungal isolate was selected to try to hone the technique. Antibiotics are not used in the media so microbial contamination is a constant threat.

cousins from India

Amit Hui, plasma physicist and his wife, Kumkum Hui , teacher, from India and Ron, philosophy professor and Hilary's father watch Hilary checking the supers added last week. Although it has been cloudy, the bees are good natured, but not enough honey produced to add to our lunch. In India, the Huis like mango blossom honey. Hilary's sister Tiffany, PhD student, and her husband, Susanta Hui, medical physicist, look at the spring fed stream nearby.

might be mites

Paul and Hilary mite-checked a hive several miles from here that survived the winter. Powdered sugar method was used. Only about 40 bees were checked since Hilary had her first sting today, 3 on one hand; she thinks honey on her hand attracted bees and then they got stuck and the hives were not as user-friendly as ours. These mites can jump at least 6 cm. The Blue Heron was in the pond close to the bees at about 7 AM probably looking for frogs, undisturbed by us or the bees.

bees busy but where

Very few bees were seen on the abundant rose and blackberry blooms. So many other bees were attracted to the roses and blackberries that their buzz could be heard from several feet away. Hilary found a ragged little bird at a busy gas station, after spending time in a warm incubator here and fed baby food, he/she is thriving. Jack looks like a stunted sparrow.

hot hive

The bees acted like they were interested in swarming, forming large clumps on the outside of the hive and fanning. This behavior was probably due to the hot weather and so the entrance reducer and inner cover were removed to increase air flow. The clumping behavior is reduced.

culture results

The microbial load in the burr comb made larvae removal difficult without contamination, suspect larvae counts from comb contact. The Aspergillus and the Penicillium were tested with a Paenibacillus standard, some inhibition seen, suggesting both paenibacilli antifungal activity and fungal antimicrobial activity. This would have to be repeated with different dilutions, but worth future perusing.

"Clostridium botulinum can cause sickness in very young children, and infants under the age of 1 years old are most at risk. Honey may contain Clostridium botulinum spores which can grow in the digestive tract of children less than one-year-old because their digestive system is less acidic. The bacteria produces toxin in the body and can cause severe illness. Even pasteurized honey can contain botulism spores and should be not be given to children under the age of 12 months.
http://barfblog.foodsafety.ksu.edu/blog/138970/09/11/04/honey-dummy-could-have-killed-tot
http://barfblog.foodsafety.ksu.edu/blog/139794/08/08/31/botulism-babies-and-bad-advice
http://www.thesun.co.uk/scotsol"

Great article on bee keeping, good history!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/27/AR2010042704010.html?referrer=emailarticle

checking bees and taking samples

A lot of burr comb was removed. A small portion of it contained larvae. With our best sterile technique, we removed some for laboratory testing. The bees look active and healthy. Pictures of Dorothy, Paul and Hilary.

Hilary may be a "bee whisperer" one flew up the leg of her baggy pants and she reached inside and gently removed it, no string or dead bee. The microbial tests will be finished in a few days.

new bees hatching

Hilary and Paul reversing supers, bees like to build up. Only five dead bees seen in front of hives. Many brood cells empty after hatching, arrow points to one just breaking out of cell. Rain expected for tomorrow, so bees fed again.

hilary and jc

Bees fed more 50% sugar solution, cold and rain for previous two days.

something to do when rain and cold

These prelim tests suggest wood chips present sanitation issues that outweigh aesthetics, bees may carry microbes into hive from chips.

. Microscopics compare cba colonies that look like Paenibacilli with Paenibacilli standard.

burr comb

Twenty dead bees were found in front of one hive, 10 were picked up with sterile gloves and will be tested for a few types of bacteria and fungi, but this is probably just normal attrition. The hives are active, the bees and larvae look healthy. Paul and Dorothy are wonderful teachers.

sunny saturday

The bees are good natured, added sugar water to the hive since few flowers out. The forming comb does not have a sweet honey smell yet.

another bee day

70' F, sun, no wind and bees handled without problem. Their legs heavy with pollen perhaps from willows, but no bees seen on the willow trees.

bees

Bees arrived 4/5/10 in good condition, day of arrival, I checked one representative bee from each hive for listeria, salmonella, E coli, staphlococci, streptococci, fungi, paenibicillus and generic SPC bacteria. The bees were clean, too clean, so realized they were probably fed antibiotics to withstand the trip from California and reduce the chance disease introduction to a new area.

background

This equipment swabbed and checked for fungi and a variety of bacteria. Microbial isolates subjected to UV for 5 minutes for 100% kill. The equipment then cleaned by scraping, vacuuming, soap/water and peroxide. When dry all surfaces UVed for 5 minutes. Subsequent microbial counts now down to less than 100 per surface frame tested.

* testing methods BAM, AOAC, APHA