Just this afternoon as I was observing the entrance I saw something unusual, I saw a white worm crawling at the entrance of the hive due to my curiousness I opened up the hive and saw numbers of them but they were still few in numbers, I have had watch some hives that are infested in youtube and have already suspected that these are wax worms for I have seen some moths flying around the area and have eliminated some. Beekeppers always want to have their combs free of these wax moth larvae because it is a very destructive insect pest in the beehive. As a beekeeper in the Philippines we have small information about how to treat this but thanks to the help of technology beekeepers nowadays can share thoughts and ideas on the internet. The adult moth is a heavy bodied small moth about ½” to ¾” long, wings vary in color from grayish to brown and the underside is light gray. The mated females will fly into a colony 1 to 3 hours after dark and lay their eggs and then leave before daylight. The eggs are laid in masses and are light in color. Immediate action needs to be taken if a web has already been spun, larvae is described to be fat, pointed at both ends with a brown head and can get up to 1" in length, stay in the larvae state from 18 days to 3 months, prefer darker comb and will chew out oval depressions throughout your hive, destroy the comb and wooden ware, begin spinning a cocoon that can cover your frames. While these wax moth larvae are in the hive there are no chemicals approved to kill them, but if the combs are in storage they use "moth crystals" to kill the larvae but I still would want a safe control rather than chemical control, the only sure way to keep this from becoming a problem in the hive is to keep the bees strong and healthy so they can manage them successfully on their own. Depending on the extent of the problem there are several options: remove the infected super and add it to a very strong colony that will clean it up, place the comb inside a plastic bag and place in a freezer for 2 days. In my case it is still a minor infestation so what I did was I pulled out any larvae I can see and clean out all webs as of what I said earlier that there are only a few numbers of larvae, I was just too lucky to have detected it early.
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A honey bee queen is a chosen one, they are chosen by the worker honey bees when the colony is in need of a new queen, the making of a queen is triggered usually by a combination of conditions such as congestion in the hive and lack of egg laying space. When the first virgin queen leaves her cell two things can now occur, either the first virgin queen leads a smaller swarm from the hive (called a cast) or she locates the other queen cells and kills the other virgin queen bee inside the queen cells by stinging through the wax wall of their cells. Just today I saw a queen cell opened up by some workers and the virgin queen's head emerge, I was happy to saw that scenery but I still had those fear of loosing the virgin queen bee, for the first 5 days of the virgin queen was critical, I lost some queen bee that emerge during the rainy days maybe because when they had their first flight the weather might not be good. A virgin queen as I describe it has a short abdomen and not engorged with sperm glands from male bees. Virgin queens appear to have little queen pheromone and often do not appear to be recognized as queens by the workers. A virgin queen in her first few hours after emergence can be placed into the entrance of any queenless hive or nuc and acceptance is usually very good. I am producing queens using the split type method, it is not easy to split a hive and there is no guarantee, for a new queen might not emerge, might not mate and of course the first mating flight was so critical. I am always hopeful that the first flight of the virgin queen bee will be successful because it is never guaranteed there is always that fear in me that she might not make it on her first flight or she might be killed. As of the splits that I have made in 4 Nuc boxes I already have 1 mated queen, 2 virgin queens and 1 queenless . October is fast approaching and I'm getting ready for their build-up period, dearth period was not an easy stage for the beekeeper and the bees but we are almost at the end of it for this year. Life is full of surprises just like what Forrest Gump always say "Life is like a box of chocolate you'll never know what you'll gonna get" and this colony of "Apis Cerana" a local honeybee surprise me today inside our well in our vacant lot, it was already an established colony of bees. Apis Cerana is smaller than the one I am keeping which is the "Apis Mellifera" or the European honeybee, Apis Cerana is the important pollinating agents for coconut palms. These are less aggressive than any wild bees and also less swarming behavior and can be easily used for beekeeping, so I decided to transfer them to a nucbox as we saw the colony, I smoke them gently with a smoker and put the box ready to catch them and as the hive fall into the box they became aggressive so I quickly put the top cover of the box and set it aside at the top of the well so they could enter at the entrance of the box I was sure that the queen was inside and when the queen was inside they could easily scent the pheromone of their queen I set it aside until 5pm and when most of the bees were in the box I already transfer the box to a new location where it would stay and will reorient themselves as they forage in the morning. I got stung 3 times but was still happy and excited as well to keep a local honeybee and I discovered new thing The sting of Apis Mellifera was much painful compare to the Apis Cerana. I haven't decided yet what type of box hive would I use for the Apis Cerana what I had in mind since Apis Cerana was smaller I'll make a box smaller than the box I'm using in keeping the Apis Mellifera, hope I could decide soon. I saw a documentary where a beekeeper said that bees choose their keeper and I guess with what happened today I'm starting to believe it. "Local raw honey is the best honey" was a quote that I've always heard in beekeeping industry. Buying local honey supports the beekeeping industry, an integral part of agriculture currently facing lots of challenges. It’s best to buy locally grown, organic, raw honey because the honey was produced by the bees in or near the environment you live, consuming foods from the area you live is beneficial as they contain the immune stimulating properties needed for your body to adapt to its environment. Fresh, raw honey will also be tastier, and more potent. When you buy from local beekepers you help your local economy. Imagine the bee pollinating the flowers of the plants and trees in your environment, we might take for granted those little bees but they are beneficial for the flowers to pollinate and we depend on them in order for us to eat those vegetables and fruits, 90% of the world food comes from 100 crop species 71 are pollinated by bees. Bees in the yard of a local beekeeper visit flowers within an 8 kilometer radius around where the hive is, they are intricately connected to the environment and benefit your local ecosystem. I always recommend those who are inquiring honey to find the nearest beekeeper in their area, for those beekeepers are the one who are taking care of the bees who are pollinating the flowers of the plants and trees in his/her area. Supporting the local independent beekeepers and helping them to stay in business is good for them and for the economy. here's a map of my apiary in Lapu-Lapu City: During a visit in my apiary I saw some bees on the ground with deformed wings, it was during my weekly inspection that I saw a young Varroa Mite on a brood and an adult Varroa Mite on a bee this confirmed that a colony was infested by Varroa Mites. Varroa mites are external honeybee parasites that attack both the adults and the brood, with a distinct preference for drone brood. They suck the blood from both the adults and the developing brood, weakening and shortening the life span of the ones on which they feed. Emerging brood may be deformed with missing legs or wings. Untreated infestations of varroa mites that are allowed to increase will kill honeybee colonies. Losses due to these parasitic mites are often confused with causes such as rainyday mortality and queenlessness if the colonies are not examined for mites. Varroa Mites start to attack during the dearth period where there is a scarcity of of food for the bees, Varroa can easily overwhelm a colony, there are two types of Varroa Mites: The Varroa Jacobsoni and the Varroa Destructor which are both serious pest of honey bee colonies worldwide. Treatments that is widely used to control Varroa Mites was the "Apistan" which fight mites through contact, the ratio is 1:5 which is 1 strip of apistan is to 5 Frames in the colony and will be hanged on colony for 6-8weeks. Apistan strips contain the miticide fluvalinate and are not to be used during honey flow, or when there is surplus honey present in the colony that may be removed for human consumption at a later date. Therefore, during the start of dearth period, after removal of surplus honey or prior to honey flow, are the best times to treat for varroa mites. I already had those Apistan strips with me and are ready to treat the colony that is affected by the mites. Bee bearding is a phenomenon wherein older bees cluster outside of the front hive during hot weather, when they do that it looks like the hive has a beard, it is usually mistaken by others as a sign of swarming but it has something to do with the ventilation of the hive when the weather was hot. This behavior coincides with the onset of the hot humid days and nights, the relative humidity is high in the Philippines, a high amount of moisture or vapor in the air makes hot temperatures feel hotter. Bearding begins when the summer temperatures reach 38°C (100°F) or more. Bearding has something to do with the temperature inside the hive, space available, and the population (crowding) of the hive. A hive with plenty of ventilation will probably have less bees gathering on the front of it. The average temperature in the beehive is between 32-35°C (90-95°F). Honeybees have the ability to regulate the temperature of their nest throughout the year.If it is cold, bees raise the temperature within the hive by huddling together to keep warm and vibrating their wing muscles to generate heat. If it is hot, they lower it by fanning their wings to circulate air through the hive. If it is really hot, they collect water for evaporation cooling.Droplets of water are placed inside the hive, then the bees stand in a line facing the hive entrance fanning their wings creating air currents that evaporate the water, thus cooling the hive. Whenever the bees does the fanning at the entrance, there are many inside the hive doing similar fanning to control the hive temperature. I am a woodworker as well as a beekeeper, as a woodworker we used a gadget to know and control the moisture of the wood, bees also control the moisture inside the hive an example of which was the honey, when the moisture of the honey was high it is still uncapped but when it reach the right moisture content the bees seal the honeycomb, sealed comb is a sign that the honey on a honeycomb is ready for harvest and won't easily ferment. It's summer and flowers are blooming one thing in the mind of a beekeeper it is honey flow season. It was April 15, 2014, Tuesday, the day we set to harvest at least 16 frames in the hive full of honey it was morning when we get the frames from the hive, I was accompanied by my dad and my high school buddy who was a partner of mine in beekeeping to get the frames, I was stung 6 times during that day but all the pain I felt due to the sting were relieved, thanking God for the bees, and the bees who gave us honey. Allan Defensor which we owe alot for sharing his knowledge about beekeeping helped us in unsealing the capped honeycomb, Paul who was a chef at Tinderbox were also there to witness how to extract honey as well as a friend of my mother along with his daughter, who was the first to buy a liter of honey. After we extracted the honey we put all the honey to a container and transferred it to the bottles and sealed it, my sister Nina helped me in filling the bottles and sealing it and I put a label on the bottle and there goes my product, after all the work was done comes our dinner we spent the night eating an imported Norwegian pink salmon brought by Paul and cooked a local dish called "LARANG". A big thanks to Vergara family for letting us borrow the Honey Extractor. "Beekeeping is LOVE". I've been to Ayala Activity Center, Cebu yesterday to attend a free seminar about modular aquaponics and beekeeping, I've met some personalities who is into organic agriculture and who were bee keepers too, Rico Omoyon was the speaker about bee keeping, he is into organic cosmetics and some products that involve the product of bee keeping, he is a businessman and a beekeper most of the bees he keep were the local bees, particularly apis cerana and the stingless bees (Trigona Spp.). There were products that were displayed during the seminar, Culinary Herb Plants in which I've bought some herbs particularly mint and rosemary, there were honey and honey wines of Mr. Eddie Bohol, products from Milea mostly cosmetics, soaps and organic beauty products, bee propolis, bee pollen, and some organic juices. It was a fine day to spend with my dad and my sister as we attended the seminar, and also a learning experience and the people we have met were amazing. SOAP is an advocacy group that promotes organic agriculture. The free seminar was a collaboration of SOAP with ATI, BAR, AMAS & BAFPS, in which it tackles the topic in Modular Aquaponics and Beekeeping in learning to grow your own food in an urban setting, with limited time and space and understanding the importance of our natural pollinators, the Bees the speakers during the seminar were Martin de Leon who discussed about the Aquaponics and Rico Pietro Omoyon who discussed about the beekeeping. Honey flow season is here and I'm getting ready for the honey bottles and containers and of course the label. So here's the design of the label of the honey bottle I'm planning to put in the bottle.
Beekeepers use several different methods to raise queens, here's an awesome video that talks about queen rearing, and enlightened me in someway. The guy is Mike Palmer who explained some informative details to the listener about queen rearing, one of the quotes that he mentioned was "There are plenty of people in your area raising queens and the best queens are gonna come from your own area grown under the same condition that you're keeping the bees." the quote is all about supporting your local queen producers.
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Dilan's Apiary
Address: Kagudoy Road, Basak, Lapu-Lapu City Archives
June 2022
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