Honey Bee Swarm Seasonality

Using David Marshall's (MABA’s swarm commander) 2022-2023 Atlanta swarm records I created a histogram graph with eight bins. The raw data has many of days with no swarms and combining two years in a simple graph does not completely patch days with no swarms days or sufficiently smooth the data. The histogram peaks on March 28 ± 10.5 days, and then there is a long tail into the summer months. 

I discovered a paper, Seasonal Cycle of Swarming in Honeybees, that combined six years of Ithaca, NY swarm emergence dates - I digitized the paper’s Figure 1A.  I created a histogram plot with nine bins. Figure 1A and the resulting histogram graph show a bimodal seasonal pattern – peaking on June 9 ± 7.5 days with a smaller peak in the summer months. 

 

 

I exchanged emails with one of the authors, Thomas Seeley, and shared how spring frost and fall frost climate data might reconcile these Atlanta and Ithaca swarm peaks. 

• The Ithaca x-axis contains fewer days than the Atlanta y-axis and is consistent with Ithaca's shorter growing season.
• In Atlanta and Ithaca, the peak swarm (orange circle) appeared before the local last spring frost.

I’ll leave it to the readers why honey bees in Atlanta don’t have a smaller summer peak like Ithaca – I don’t know. Having a pattern bias has sometimes served me well in making quick decisions, detecting missing data, or spotting corrupted data - what the typical swarm season pattern should look like is still up for grabs!

 

scout bees at swarm trap 2023

From mid-February to early March, Atlanta's maximum temperatures were warmer than expected. On February 21st, the high temperature was 21°F above maximum normals (1991-2020).   

On March 7th, pollen counts soared to 3937 - outdoor surfaces were covered with yellow pollen (pine, oak, sweet gum, hackberry, and birch).    Walking the dog, I discovered bees (mining, carpenter, and European honey) visiting crabapple tree flowers on my street - thanks to Trees Atlanta.

I set 4 hanging swarm traps on 3 properties in my neighborhood, each with: 

• UV-reactive blue swarm trap entrance
• synthetically produced Nasonov pheromone

2 of these traps are on my property and conveniently located where I can watch the swarm trap entrance and the behavior of scout bees from a window. See the video and read page 62 of Honeybee Democracy describing scout bees.

So far, the traps did not attract a swarm - my swarm trap hopes rest with a return to more normal temperatures after this week of frigid spring weather.

swarm traps (bait hives) with UV-reactive blue entrance

 

Impact of UV-Induced Blue Florescence Entrances concludes:

• UV-reactive blue swarm trap entrances nearly doubled the number of scout bees observed over the control
• Swarms selected the trap with the UV-blue entrance over the control 100% of the time

 method and materials:

• conducted from May to August in 2020 and 2021 in western New York
• 1.25 inch (3.2 cm) circular entrance hole
  
• 1.59 cubic ft (45 liter) cavity volume
• 4 frames without comb + 1 frame with some comb
  
• attached to a tree at a height of 8-10 feet
• 3 locations facing an open field with bee forage
• 2 traps per location 200 feet apart with a 3D printed trap entrance using 1) UV-reactive blue filament or 2) white filament (control)
  
• swarm lure spray applied weekly
• weather permitting, 1 location included scout bee counting between 11:30am-4:00pm
  

 

	Scout Bee Activity Logged	Trap Selected
Year 1 - 2020
Location 1	Yes	UV-reactive blue
Location 2		UV-reactive blue
Location 3		UV-reactive blue
Year 2 - 2021 (traps swapped)
Location 1	Yes	UV-reactive blue
Location 2		none
Location 3		UV-reactive blue

bee freeloading

I enjoyed a break outdoors sitting in warm late fall sunshine.  When I returned indoors to continue my work-from-home I heard the familiar buzz, but I was not able to find the bee on my clothing.  The next day she was captured in a clear solo cup which are kept handy as a remedy for bee freeloading.  The bee was not moving in a coordinated way, so I added a few drops of honey in the clear cup, but she was not interested in feeding.  

Taken from my beelining playbook, I placed the clear cup in a darken area to encourage feeding. Yeah, I'm obsessed with beelining and see the world of insects through a beelining lens. For this freeloading bee, light seeking behavior was stronger than foraging behavior.

autumn blooming chrysanthemum

 

I read Seeley's Following the Wild Bees and became keenly interested in beelining.  I ordered a beelining box from BetterBee and have since sealed the wood with water-based polyurethane. Without success I have been searching for honey bees on wild goldenrod flowers for beelining. Instead I found honey bees on Ryan Gainey Chrysanthemums.   You might say my beelining problem is solved, but I don't want to crush the neighbor's flower heads with the beelining box.  So, I'll wait and wait some more for honey bees to discover wild goldenrod flowers.

my book picks

In Waterstones (UK bookseller), I discovered a phenomenal nature writer, Dave Goulson.   I read two of his books and recommend to beekeepers Goulson's 2014 book, A Buzz in the Meadow.  Then move onto Goulson's 2013 book, A Sting in the Tale.  In chapters 13 and 14 of A Buzz in the Meadow, Goulson discuses these interesting topics:

• sub-lethal effects of Imidacloprid (neonicotinoid)
• inbreeding leading to diploid males and triploid females

I'm reading The Lives of Bees by Thomas D Seeley.  If you are interested in honey bees living and evolving in the wild, then I recommend this 2019 book for you. Here's the first quote in the first chapter.

Importance of small nests

A 2016 paper examines one element of Darwinian Beekeeping, nest size, compared to typical beekeeping management.  Twelve small volume (1 x 10 frame) hives without swarm control are compared to an equal number of large volume (up to 4 x 10 frame) hives with swarm control. How Honey Bee Colonies Survive in the Wild measures how small volume hives influence:

• swarming
• survival
• adult bee count
• cells of brood
• varroa mites per 100 bees

What interests me most is the high survival of the small volume hives.

varroa mites rapidly change wild bees

Wild honey bees quickly responded to a new 1990s parasite, Varroa Mites.  The rapid response was not extinction, but a evolved resistance to Varroa.  After exposure to Varroa Mites, wild bees in Tompkins County, New York changed physically and genetically.

From the Cornell University Insect Collection, 32 wild worker bees collected in 1977 are compared with and equal number of wild worker bees collected in 2010 from the same county.  Only one worker bee is used per wild colony.  This analysis is made possible by Thomas Seeley who collected and deposited these samples in the Cornell University Insect Collection.

Follow this link to the article in Nature Communications, Museum samples reveal rapid evolution by wild honey bees exposed to a novel parasite.

Follow this link to the article review in Entomology Today, New York Honey Bees Evolved Resistance to Disease After Exposure to Varroa Mites.

See figure 5, from the supplementary information section of the article.  32 blue graph points are the wild worker bees collected in 1977 and 32 red graph points are wild worker bees collected in 2010.  As you can see, body size and shape metrics are smaller for wild bees exposed to Varroa.

   

Darwinian Beekeeping

I'll keep this short to describe how I came upon the title of this post. It begins with seeing the film, Leave No Trace - it's about a veteran father and young daughter living on public park land.  The film contains two beekeeping scenes and the credits list an organization called the Preservation Beekeeping Council.  This led me to their pamphlet - 10 practices for better beekeeping inspired by Thomas D. Seeley. Follow the link for more details and I'll reference number 4 in the list (..build from rough lumber) later in this post.

1. Work with bees adapted to your locale
2. Space your hives as widely as possible
3. House your bees in small hives
4. Roughen the inner walls of your hives or build from rough lumber
5. Use hives whose walls provide good insulation
6. Position hives high off the ground
7. Let 10-20% of your comb be drone comb
8. Minimize disturbance of nest structure
9. Minimize relocations of hives
10. Refrain from treating colonies for Varroa mites

How many authors have published books about honey bees living in the wild? - practically none.  Seeley the author of Honeybee Ecology, Honeybee Democracy and Following the Wild Bees speaks about a new idea, Darwinian Beekeeping -  letting bees live as they have evolved to live in trees without interference.   Darwinian Beekeeping turns on the idea that natural selection operates on the bees to maintain their resistance to disease. Regarding number 4 in the list (..build from rough lumber), Seeley describes on page 18 of Honeybee Ecology, bees moving forward and backward as "planing."  In the wild, bees scrub the rough wood landing area of a tree trunk hive. The same bee behavior on an already smooth man-made hive makes no sense.   See my seesaw cartoon - on the left, the predominant beekeeping practice is to manipulate large hives made of thin and smooth milled wood.  On the right, Darwinian beekeeping letting bees be bees.

mahonia Feb '18

For weeks now, bees forage on mahonia and maple, but as the expression goes, not in my backyard.  This iPhone photo marks a small backyard pride milestone where I can follow the entire beeline between plant and hive.   Click on the image and surprise yourself at the photo detail. 

maladaptive behavior - washboarding

I'm re-reading the public library copy of Honeybee Ecology.  This time around, I discovered an explanation of washboarding.  On page 18,  the author describes bees moving forward and backward as "planing."  In the wild, bees scrub the rough wood landing area of a tree trunk hive. The same bee behavior on an already smooth man-made hive makes no sense.

Compared to honeybees in nature, the author lists other maladaptive behaviors such as the over production of honey and a reduced tendency to swarm .  These insights hurt my feelings.  I'll get over it, but are my motives bee fitness or honey production?  On reflection, why wouldn't my existential pain include beekeeping?

I'm looking forward to finding other gems missed in earlier readings of Honeybee Ecology.

Swarm Trap

How does the Brushy Mountain swarm trap dimensions and swarm lure compare with the nest-site preferences in Honeybee Ecology? The book suggests:

• a volume between 15 and 80 liters
• entrance faces south
• entrance area less than 75 square cm
• entrance positioned near the floor
• located several meters above ground
• located between 100 and 400 meters from the parent nest
• comes equipped with beeswax combs

The Brushy Mountain swarm trap has a volume of 19 liters and a circular entrance area of 13 square cm. Depending on how one attaches the swarm trap to a tree (or whatever), the entrance is either located near the floor or between floor and ceiling. Does entrance at the bottom of the trap hedge my bets as to what direction the entrance faces? The back deck of the house is 5 foot tall, so in combination with a short 4 foot (manageable) ladder that puts the the trap a few meters above the ground. However, my small property makes it difficult to site the trap 100 to 400 meters from my hives--maybe I will attract swarms from other hives. The trap does not contain beeswax comb, but that's where the the smelly lure and other favorable conditions like smooth and dry interior may help--there are no guarantees to this scheme.