Honey bees aren’t an endangered species; they’re causing chaos

Yes, everyone loves them and keeping them has become a green hobby, but they’d feel differently if a swarm besieged their home

By Antonia Hoyle

Antonia Hoyle: ‘I frantically vacuumed them up and deposited them outside as fast as they arrived’ CREDIT: Geoff Pugh for The Telegraph

For days, there were only a few, upstairs – blown in through a window, I assumed, by the late spring breeze. But then more came downstairs, gaining ominously in number until one morning three weeks ago, I walked into the living room to find hundreds of the creatures crawling, seemingly lethargic, over the carpet.

“Wasps!” I wailed to my analyst husband, Chris, who like me is 44. I frantically vacuumed them up and deposited them outside as fast as they arrived, until the pest controller arrived at our location home. Pointing at a cloud of black dots dancing around our third-floor chimney, he corrected me: “You’ve got honey bees.”

Being gatecrashed by sugar plum fairies would have been simpler, and less controversial, to navigate. While not illegal, pesticides permitted to treat honey bees in a domestic setting are strictly limited, ethically questionable, and some pest controllers refuse to deploy them.

Short of advising us to stuff the fireplaces they’d been flying in through, and spend hundreds hiring a cherry picker to send someone up to the roof to physically extract them (with no guarantee of success) there was little he could do, the pest control man apologised, letting us know, for what it was worth, that we are far from alone.

This month beekeepers reported an increase in honeybee swarms – which happen when the old queen departs the hive with half the bees to set up a new home – caused by the sudden change in weather after a long, cold spring.

Usually, this split happens in a “staggered manner,” explains Matthew Richardson, president of the Scottish Beekeepers’ Association, but because of the delay in decent weather “the bees have been queuing up waiting to swarm and they’re all going at once.”

For many, the image might gladden the heart. Chris’s eyes certainly softened when I disclosed the identity of our uninvited guests and our 12-year-old daughter Rosie was delighted: “They’re an endangered species!”

But are they? In recent years, wildlife campaigners have made huge efforts to raise awareness of the importance of bees, of which there are around 270 species in the UK, including 24 species of bumble bees and hundreds of wild solitary bees that nest alone in cavities or underground.

Many are in decline – we have already lost around 13 species, including the short-haired bumblebee, last recorded in 1956, and the great yellow bumblebee in 1974. Another 35 species are currently at risk, with the use of pesticides in farming and destruction of pollen and nectar to feed off largely to blame – the UK has lost 97 per cent of its wildflower meadows since the 1930s.

Concern around honey bees, however, seems to stem from 2007, when an unexplained condition called colony collapse disorder (CCD), in which worker bees in a honey bee colony disappear, was officially recognised. Colony losses were reported in America and Europe and the potential impact on agriculture – according to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the global value of global crops pollinated by honey bees in 2005 was estimated at over £150bn – was huge.

Within a decade, the threat of CCD seemingly passed, but our passion for honey bees continued, often in cities where beekeeping has become a fashionable “green” hobby. In 2021 UK Google searches for “urban beekeeping” jumped 21 per cent in a year. Celebrities who keep bees, meanwhile, include David Beckham and Jeremy Clarkson and last month a picture of the Princess of Wales wearing a beekeeper’s suit while tending to a hive in her Norfolk estate was released to mark World Bee Day.

Yet honey bees, the only species that makes honey, are not at risk – and, experts warn, our obsession with breeding them could be detrimental to bee species that are.

“There’s definitely a popular misconception around bees,” says Andrew Whitehouse of insect conservation charity Buglife, who says honey bees are “not endangered, they’re essentially livestock” and believes misunderstandings began when charities such as his own started to raise awareness of the importance of all pollinating insects around 20 years ago: “Perhaps the conservation organisations didn’t explain things properly and well-meaning people reached for the solution which was to increase the number of honey bees.”

At the same time as charities were starting to promote the importance of “wild pollinators,” he adds, CCD was becoming widely known: “I think the two issues were conflated a bit.”

Because honey bees are good at collecting pollen and returning it straight to their hives, they are less efficient at pollinating some plants than wild bees, with whom they compete for pollen.  And honey bee hives are bigger than most……

To read the complete article go to;

Honey bees aren’t an endangered species; they’re causing chaos (telegraph.co.uk)

We are here to share current happenings in the bee industry. Bee Culture gathers and shares articles published by outside sources. For more information about this specific article, please visit the original publish source: Honey bees aren’t an endangered species; they’re causing chaos (telegraph.co.uk)

By Roger Guevara | rguevara@siadvance.com

Bees swarm statue on Oak Avenue, giving it a beehive hairdo. (Courtesy of Chester Crowl Jr.)

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — That’s some beehive hairdo!

Beekeeper Chester (Chet) Crowl Jr. was called to an Oakwood home on Saturday to remove a swarm of bees that had taken up residence on a statue of a little girl pumping water in the home’s backyard.

The exact spot? The statue’s head.

“The bees formed on the back of her head like a hairdo; it was unreal, I couldn’t believe it,” said Crowl of Chet Magical Bee Removal Service. “It was hysterical. I never in my life had anything like that, where they swarmed like that on a statue.”

While bee swarming season typically occurs in warmer months like May and June, this year’s season started in early-to-mid-April, Crowl said.

After spending two hours there, Crowl was able to remove the bees from the statue on Oak Avenue using a vacuum and box, which he made to keep the swarm together.

“I never in my life had anything like that, where they swarmed like that on a statue,” said Crowl.

ABOUT CHESTER CROWL JR.

A self-taught beekeeper, Crowl’s interest in the insects dates back to 1995 when he started working with bees. Today, he has a farm upstate where he has multiple beehives.

Over the years, Crowl has hosted talks about bees, helped the Staten Island Zoo, curated a bee exhibit at the Staten Island Children’s Museum, removed bees from the Conference House and Alice Austen House, and assisted the city Fire Department, borough president’s office and countless Staten Islanders with their bee infestations.

Crowl said he prefers to work at night to remove bees when there are fewer people around. “It’s the safest time for the public,” he said.

ABOUT BEE SWARMS

When bees swarm, they stay in a holding pattern temporarily while scout bees try to find a new home, Crowl said. When they do leave for their new digs, they become aggressive.

Bees typically swarm on a tree or a house; it’s all dependent on where the queen goes.

But it’s when they head toward someone’s residence that they need to be dealt with immediately, Crowl said.

“We need honeybees; they are vital to pollination… but in populated areas is not safe. Ten percent of people are allergic to bee stings,” he said. “We need them in the right areas.”

We are here to share current happenings in the bee industry. Bee Culture gathers and shares articles published by outside sources. For more information about this specific article, please visit the original publish source: https://www.silive.com/homegarden/2022/05/beekeeper-helps-remove-swarm-found-on-statue-in-staten-island-backyard.html

As the weather warms and flowers bloom, beekeepers share that honey bee swarms may be visible.

With that, flowers will be blooming, and a sweet fragrance will be in the air. Missouri honey bees will smell those flowers and be in the air, too. On occasion, you will see a cloud of bees in the air or clumped together on a branch. That is a healthy swarm of honey bees moving on to a new home, said Clayton Lee, Smithville, past president and current membership chair for the Missouri State Beekeepers Association.

Would you like to help those swarming bees find a new home? Lee said the Missouri State Beekeepers Association’s website at mostatebeekeepers.org/bee-swarms can offer two pieces of information: Individuals willing to grab those swarms (located on the swarm catcher map) and if there are no individuals listed for your area, local clubs at mostatebeekeepers.org/local-clubs map. Oftentimes the local beekeeping clubs have their own swarm catcher list, too.

While the swarm may be intimidating, Lee said these bees make honey and if anyone is looking for a source of local Missouri honey, visit the beekeepers website, which includes local clubs. Oftentimes the local beekeeping clubs have their own local honey source list. Also consider stopping by the local farmers market.

Honey bee swarm season beginning soon | Outdoors | mycouriertribune.com

BEACON PHOTO/MARSHA MCLAUGHLIN THAT’S A LOT OF BEES! — A swarm of bees estimated at 2,000 to 3,000 individuals takes a rest on a magnolia tree in Artisan Alley in Downtown DeLand.

Garrett McWilliams was having a slow workday, so he was able to respond right away March 7 when asked if he could help move a swarm of honeybees gathered on a magnolia tree in Artisan Alley in Downtown DeLand.

McWilliams owns and operates Wild Honey Bee Farm in Umatilla, a business he inherited from his grandfather. Wild Honey Bee Farm manages, at any given time, between 250 and 500 colonies of 50,000 or so bees each.

McWilliams is also familiar with Artisan Alley and its garden, as he sells some of the farm’s products — beeswax candles, creamed honey and honey-based lotions — at the Friday night Artisan Alley Farmers Market.

Once on the scene of the bee swarm, McWilliams estimated the small colony on the magnolia tree at 2,000 to 3,000 bees. He said the bees had probably been part of a colony that had grown too large and thus made a new queen and divided.

Where they came from is unknown, McWilliams said, but the overcrowded hive was probably within 500 to 1,000 yards of Artisan Alley, he said.

Bees can fly as far as 5 miles, but likely wouldn’t have come that far.

“The farther they fly, the shorter their life,” McWilliams explained.

Donning his protective gear and climbing a ladder to reach the swarm, McWilliams first dusted the bees with smoke, which calms them, then gently spritzed them with water, to further reduce the chance of their flying away.

Then he used a soft brush to coax the bees into a special transport box designed by a beekeeper in Mims.

McWilliams was fortunate to find the swarm’s queen. Once he placed her in the box on the ground, many more bees flew to the box on their own.

Don’t take unnecessary risks, but a bee swarm is usually full of for-the-moment homeless, honey-laden bees that are fairly lethargic and easy to coax.

“That’s when the bees are at their most docile point,” McWilliams said. “There’s nothing to defend.”

To increase the chance that the fledgling colony will survive, McWilliams placed frames in the box to give the bees a head start on colony-building, without the need to create combs on their own. He also fed them some sugar-water.

Whether the bees of the Artisan Alley swarm will live and go to work for Wild Honey Bee Farm remains to be seen, McWilliams said.

It all depends on whether the queen can lay eggs.

“We still have to wait another week or two weeks, to see if she got mated properly,” McWilliams said.

It’s certain that the queen McWilliams found in the swarm was a virgin, he said, because she flew with her followers to Artisan Alley. Bees mate while flying, but once a queen mates, she cannot fly.

A “proper” mating, he said, requires 11 drones.

We wish them luck.

Bees on the move in Artisan Alley – The West Volusia Beacon (beacononlinenews.com)

Okay, fine, call me nutbag-crazy. But I’m here to tell you that tanging does, indeed work. It’s not just for breakfast (or laughing at) any more.

My apiary was devastated last year, by “operator error” and just plain bad luck. The cold and wet weather set off a small hive beetle explosion in my back yard apiary here in Charlotte, NC. I went from 8 queen-right colonies and 5 starts down to 1.

On an autumn Sunday watching football and enjoying an all-day pajama day where my one big effort would be spent making a cozy fire in the fireplace, our dog Honey whined to be let outside. I opened the front door. A little girl was crying across the street, having just fallen off her bike (she was fine, and was being attended to by a gaggle of friends). I decided to skip that scene. After all I wanted to get in and out before the team timeout was over and the Denver Broncos got back to beating the snuff out of Washington.

I took our dogs quickly to the back yard and let them out. Just two steps out into the yard, I heard the unmistakable sound of a swarm. I looked up and saw the telltale circular flying pattern. The entire back yard was filled with honey bees, their wings humming in unison with a purpose. Where are they trying to land? They didn’t seem to have a spot picked out as far as I could tell, though some were starting to investigate a nearby bush.

I called the dogs in, who ran quickly through the cloud of bees that stretched from ground level to about 25 feet in the air. We all scurried inside. I threw on my white shirt and jeans, told Yvonne I was going to try to convince my bees to stay (or at least watch the last of my hives leave just like all the others), and said a prayer.

I believe that the legendary use of tanging, which is to make a loud clanging or ringing noise (done in the olden times with a pot or pan) works. Now, I’ve been called crazy before and have no problem with that. I also believe in UFO’s, Bigfoot and ghosts. I think there are things seen just as well as unseen. And, I’d read just the other day about having faith the size of a mustard seed in Luke.

I ran into our yoga room and grabbed my wife Yvonne’s Tibetan singing bowl, a small hand-hammered bronze bowl that “sings” with the slightest circular motions on the rim with a small wooden mallet. I just knew tanging would work. I could feel it. Regardless I was going to tang those bees. It was the only thing I could do at that point, other than stare in awe.
I’ve seen a video of someone using a hive tool on the metal portion of a telescoping top. They rapped repeatedly and loudly, and the swarm landed just a few feet from where the person was standing. I’d researched the myth, and discovered some who say it only works while a swarm is active and hasn’t settled. Others say it was originally a way settlers could claim a swarm was theirs, running across neighbors’ property lines and had no actual influence on the behavior of the bees. But, maybe, just maybe, both were true. For whatever reason, I’d been called by circumstance, or Providence, to my back yard in the middle of a swarm. I was happy to experience it, sad to see my last bees leaving.

As soon as I stepped into the back yard, the sound was even louder than before and the yard was filled with a cloud of bees flying in a great big circle. As it turns out the swarm wasn’t that large, but in the middle of ‘em it it sure seemed big to this third-year beekeeper. I believed that I could tang them into a desirable place and told myself, “I know this will work.” I commenced tanging the small metal broze bowl with the wooden mallet. “Tang, tang, tang, tang,” our backyard sounded like an old-fashioned fire alarm going off.
I held the bowl up high and tanged even louder. I started going near the bush, and then realized, “Heck, I’m tanging them to the hive stand instead of this bush. Why not?!” Were these my bees? Most likely. But then again swarms are often attracted to bee yards. The hive boxes were 50 feet away.

Holding the bowl as high as I could, I took slow steps toward the hives and methodically struck the bowl each second with the wooden mallet. The sound of the bees got louder and louder. About 7 feet in, I realized the swarm was circling around me. It was working! I smiled and reveled in the moment. The view underneath the swarm, a small circular cloud of bees above, was beautiful.

I continued my slow pace, tanging the bowl and approaching the hive. I knelt close to the hive entrance, and kept on. This time I changed where I was striking the bowl and successfully got a smoother, slightly lower and softer tone than before. I don’t know if that made a difference but I sure felt like the Pied Piper. The bees quickly covered the Boardman feeder and hive entrance. I was amazed at how fast it happened. I let the bowl stop on its own and just took it all in.

With a quick, excited phone call to my friend and our club president George, I told him the news. “Tanging works!” Bees were indeed going into the hive, one by one, as a few bees were Nasinov fanning at the entrance. A few foragers with a tiny amount of pollen landed and looked utterly confused. Before I realized it, about halftime plus the 3rd quarter of the Denver-Washington game, it was all over (just as fast as those poor Redskins were).

When do I inspect the bees? George encouraged me to waste no time. “What damage would you do?” If they were my bees and were convinced to swarm regardless of this false start there wouldn’t be any harm in inspecting. If it was a different swarm of bees that just got settled in, a quick inspection wouldn’t convince them to leave, either.

I lit my smoker, just in case it was needed (it wasn’t). I opened the top nuc box with 5 frames of food stores and a few bees, and placed it to the side. No queen cells were present in the brood chamber. Tight brood pattern, nice food stores, single eggs present, no foul odors, and no small hive beetles seen. Time now to inspect the top box.

I removed a frame that I thought my baggie feeder had dripped syrup onto. Then I realized I was looking at small hive beetle larvae, tiny ones, feasting on this food frame. They had slimed just one side. Another frame with only a piece of comb had been slimed also. The other frames were untouched. Only 2 small hive beetles were found, and I dealt them swift justice. The remaining three honey frames were untouched. I took this box and frames off the hive. To be safe, on the slimed frame I performed the rope test with a nearby twig to check for American Foulbrood. A little bit of capped brood was on this otherwise food frame, which was odd. The cells caps weren’t sunken, but still I wanted to be sure. Each time I stirred up the larva with the twig it came out clean, white and not at all “ropey.” I let out a sigh of relief.

I went inside with my head hung low, humbled with the knowledge that so very little damage was required to make my bees abscond. “If only, if only … ,” I mentally began to beat myself up. “What’s that sour look on your face for?” Yvonne asked. “Well, my last bit of bees almost left, because yet again I’d made the same stupid mistake I’ve been making all year long with these beetles.” Then I realized her question was right on time. It was a different time, a time for thanks and optimism. I had faith that tanging would work, and it did! It was possible to use sound vibrations to direct a swarm.

Some may call it a coincidence and that’s fine. Me? I call it a mustard seed. “… If you had faith as big as a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Pull yourself up by the roots and plant yourself in the sea!’ and it would obey you.” (Luke 17:6).
The legendary practice of tanging swarms, something reserved for by and large as a crazy legend that does nothing more than making you look like a fool, fits neatly in with all my other “crazy” ideas and beliefs. But I tell you, it’s not so crazy. Science will teach you there are always exceptions to every rule. And sacred texts will tell you there’s more to life than things you can put your finger on. “For we fix our attention, not on things that are seen, but on things that are unseen.” (2 Corinthians 4:18)

Did I get rid of that sour look on my face and start smiling? You bet, because I realize that tanging, and maybe other crazy ideas will work, as long as you give that mustard seed of faith some fertile ground to grow in. I’ll be keeping that Tibetan singing bowl in my truck, now, with the rest of my swarm equipment, a happy reminder of those mysterious things like faith that ring true.

Bee good.

Tom Davidson is a third-year beekeeper in Charlotte, NC, where he served as club v.p. for the Mecklenburg County Beekeepers Association. You can reach Tom by email, tom@tsbeeshoney.com.

Anyone who observes a swarm of bees launch into flight and move off to its new home is presented with a mind-boggling puzzle: how does this school-bus sized cloud of some 10,000 insects manage to fly straight to its new dwelling place? Its flight path may extend for several miles and traverse fields and forest, hilltops and valleys, and even swamps and lakes. What is most amazing is the precision of the flight guidance, for the swarm is able to steer itself to one special point in the landscape, e.g. a specific knothole in one particular tree in a certain corner of a forest. And as the swarm closes in on its destination, it gradually reduces its flight speed so that it stops precisely at the “front door” of its new home. The mystery of how the thousands of bees in a swarm accomplish this magnificent feat of precisely oriented group flight has been carefully probed in recent years using sophisticated radar tracking, video recording, and image processing technologies. In this article, we will review the main findings of these investigations.
First, let’s define the problem a bit more precisely. Several studies (Seeley et al. 1979, Seeley and Buhrman 1999) have revealed that only three to four percent of the bees in a swarm have visited the new home site in advance of the swarm’s move to it. This small minority of well-informed bees consists of all the scout bees that visited the chosen site during the swarm’s process of choosing its dwelling place (reviewed by Visscher 2007, Seeley 2010). Therefore, when a swarm flies to its new home, it relies on a relatively small number of informed individuals – some 300 to 400 individuals in an average-size swarm of 10,000 bees – who must lead all the rest to their destination. How does this system of leaders and followers work?

Figure 1. Sections through the abdomen of a worker bee showing, left, the scent organ close in the rest position and right, the scent organ exposed by raising the abdomen and tipping the last abdominal segment downward.

One possibility is that the leaders provide flight guidance by means of the attraction pheromones produced in the Nasonov gland that is part of the scent organ at the tip of a worker bee’s abdomen (Fig. 1). The leaders might discharge these pheromones along the front of the swarm cloud to attract, and thereby guide, the other bees to move in this direction. This hypothesis was tested in a study (Beekman et al. 2006) with three swarms – each consisting of a queen and 4000 workers – in which every worker bee had her scent organ sealed shut with paint. Each swarm was tested for its ability to perform a well-oriented, full-speed flight to a bait hive in the center of an open field. As a control, three other swarms of the same size were prepared in which every worker bee had a dot of paint applied to her abdomen but without sealing off her scent organ. Their flight abilities were likewise tested. Both treatment and control swarms flew directly and quickly to the bait hive, but the treatment swarms took much longer than the control swarms (20 min vs. 9 min, on average) to move into the hive once they reached its location. This experiment showed that the leaders in a swarm do not provide flight guidance using the Nasonov gland pheromones, but that they do use these pheromones to help the followers find the entrance of their new home.

Figure 2. Schematic view of the flight patterns of bees in a swarm flying to the right. Lindauer reported observing streaker bees mainly in the top of the swarm cloud.

A second way that the leaders could provide flight guidance is by means of visual signals. One way they might do so is by repeatedly making high-speed flights through the swarm cloud. They could do this by shooting forward in the top of the swarm cloud until they reach its front and then by flying slowly to the rear of the swarm along its bottom or sides (Fig. 2). Martin Lindauer, the German researcher who pioneered the study of house-hunting by swarms, reported seeing several hundred “streaker bees” shooting through the tops of flying swarms, and he speculated that they were signaling the flight direction (Lindauer 1955).

Lindauer’s observations have recently been confirmed in a study that used harmonic radar tracking of the flight paths of individual leaders (scouts) during the takeoff and first few minutes of flight of two swarms (Greggers et al. 2013). Only one of two swarms observed in this study flew all the way to its destination, and in this swarm just two leaders had their flight maneuvers tracked, but both bees displayed the streaker-bee behavior. High-speed flights were made in the direction of the swarm’s destination and these were separated by slower rearward flights and stationary loops. The slow-speed maneuvers of the leaders moved them to the rear of the swarm cloud, hence to the right place to start another high-speed flight forward through the swarm. The results of this study support the streaker-bee hypothesis for swarm flight guidance.

Further support for the streaker-bee hypothesis comes from a study in which the movements of thousands of individual bees in a swarm were tracked simultaneously, and measurements were made of each bee’s position, flight direction, and flight speed (Schultz et al. 2008). The goal was to get information on the movements on all the bees in a flying swarm to see if, as predicted by the streaker-bee hypothesis, the high-speed fliers in a swarm are indeed shooting toward the swarm’s new home. This study also aimed to check Lindauer’s report that streaker bees are seen mainly in the top of a flying swarm. This makes sense since this location would render these bees conspicuous – as dark objects against the bright sky – to all the rest of the bees in the swarm, but it still required to be checked.

Figure 3. Kirk Visscher, left and Tom Seeley in 2006, watching a test swarm move into a bait hive on appledore Island, in the State of Maine. (photo by Peter Essick

The study began by having a swarm fly over a high-definition video camera. The camera was equipped with a wide-angle lens so that it could “see” the full width of the airborne swarm. The camera also had an extremely high shutter speed – one ten thousandth of a second – so that within each frame of the video recording each bee appeared as a short, ellipsoidal blob rather than a long streak. To have the swarm fly directly over the camera, the recording was made on a treeless island six miles out in the Atlantic Ocean where the only desirable home site was a bait hive positioned 820 feet from the swarm (Fig. 3). The camera was positioned 50 feet from the swarm’s bivouac site along the swarm’s flight path to the bait hive. The same swarm was forced to make two complete flights to the bait hive, and each time (thankfully!) it flew squarely over the video camera.

With these two recordings of swarm flyovers “in the can,” the next step was to use point-tracking algorithms invented by engineers working on computer vision to make three-dimensional reconstructions of the individual bee’s flight movements within the flying swarm. The procedure involved examining each ellipsoidal blob (bee image) in a given video frame and then pairing it up with the blob on the next video frame that represented the same bee. This process was repeated with the blobs of the second frame being paired with blobs of the third frame, and so on, to build up, frame by frame, detailed trajectories of individual swarm bees as they flew across the video camera’s field of view. The size of each blob indicated the height of the bee above the camera, so the bees in the top and bottom portions of the swarm cloud were distinguished.

Figure 4. Flight speed vs. flight angle for the bees in a flying swarm when it had flown 50 feet from its bivouac site. Bees with a flight angle of 0° were flying straight toward the new home; all the rest were flying at some angle to the left or right of the direction to the home site. The measurements of the flying bees are shown separately for the top and bottom layers of the swarm cloud. The units of flight speed are bee lengths per video frame.

The most important finding revealed by this painstaking analysis of the video recordings is that the fast-flying bees were indeed streaking in the direction of the swarm’s flight, i.e., toward the nest box. And, as is seen in Fig. 4, which shows the individual bee’s flight speeds in relation to flight direction, the speediest bees were flying directly toward the new home while the slowest ones were heading in the opposite direction. By comparing the plots for the top and bottom portions of the swarm cloud, we can also see that the speedsters were mainly found in the top portion of the swarm. It was further revealed that not only did bees that flew in the direction of the new home tend to fly with the highest velocities, but that they also tended to accelerate (increase their velocities) as they moved from the rear of the swarm cloud to its front. It seems likely that some of this rise in flight speed came about as some follower bees “latched on” to the leader bees, boosting their speed by chasing after the leader bees. If so, then the information about flight direction probably spreads from the informed bees (leaders) to the nearby ignorant bees (followers) who, through their own faster flights, will start to influence other ignorant bees. This chain reaction of informed bees begetting more informed bees could lead to a widespread induction of bees to fly toward the swarm’s destination and to fly faster. This can explain the increase in swarm flight speed over time that is shown in Fig. 5, and that is so impressive to any beekeeper who has tried to follow a fugitive swarm to its new home by running along beneath it.

Figure 5. Flight speeds of three swarms as they flew 270m (880 feet) to a bait hive. Their top speeds were 5-7 km/h (3.0-4.2 miles per hour). When swarms perform longer flights, they can reach speeds of nearly 12 km/h (7.2 miles/hour).

Many questions remain unanswered about the remarkable flights of honey bee swarms. How does the moving group “apply the brakes” when it is within 90 m, or about 300 feet, (see Fig. 5) of its new residence? Also, how exactly do the informed bees make their repeated streaker flights through the swarm cloud? Do they tend to stop when they reach the front and let other bees fly past, or do they usually fly rearward underneath the swarm, where they may be nearly invisible against the dark vegetation below? And how is it that virtually all the scout bees who have visited the chosen home site, and so can steer the airborne swarm to it, leave the future dwelling place and assemble back on the swarm shortly before it launches into flight? It certainly makes sense for all these scout bees to return to the swarm before it takes off, for we have seen how only three to four percent of a swarm’s membership know its flight plan. And with such a small minority of navigators, it must be important to have as many as possible on board. Do scouts lingering at the home site fly back to the swarm in response to feeling, seeing, or smelling some “Time to leave!” signal produced by scouts that have sensed that the swarm’s liftoff is imminent and then have made a special trip to the home site to recall everyone? We wouldn’t be surprised if the bees possess some secret gadgetry for ensuring that a swarm about to take flight is well stocked with the informed bees who can pilot it safely to its new home.

Tom Seeley is a Professor of Biology in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA. He is also a passionate hobby beekeeper.

Ann Chilcott is an author and beekeeper who currently serves as a Trustee and the North Area Representative for the Scottish Beekeepers Association. She holds the SBA Advanced Beemasters Certificate and mentors new beekeepers in rural Nairnshire, Scotland, where she lives.

References
Beekman, M., R.L. Fathke, and T.D. Seeley. 2006. How does an informed minority of scouts guide a honey bee swarm as it flies to its new home? Animal Behaviour 71:161-171.
Greggers, U., C. Schöning, J. Degen, and R. Menzel. 2013. Scouts behave as streakers in honeybee swarms. Naturwissenschaften 100:805-809.
Lindauer, M. 1955. Schwarmbienen auf Wohnungssuche. Zeitschrift für vergleichende Physiologie 37:263-324.
Seeley, T.D. 2010. Honeybee Democracy. Princeton Univ. Press.
Schultz, K., K.M. Passino, and T.D. Seeley. 2008. The mechanism of flight guidance in honeybee swarms: subtle guides or streaker bees? Journal of Experimental Biology. 211:3287-3295.
Seeley, T.D. and S.C. Buhrman. 1999. Group decision making in swarms of honey bees. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 45:19-31.
Seeley, T.D., R.A. Morse, and P.K. Visscher. 1979. The natural history of the flight of honey bee swarms. Psyche 86:103-113.
Visscher, P.K. 2007. Group decision making in nest-site selection among social insects. Annual Review of Entomology 52:255-275.

by Andrea Quigley

Italian beekeepers are in despair with the discovery that small hive beetle (‘SHB’, Aethina tumida) has arrived on their shores. On 5 September 20141,2, Prof Vincent Palmeri3 found adult small hive beetles in a bait hive at the Department of Agriculture, the Università Mediterranea, Calabria, near the port of Gioia Tauro in Southern Italy. On 11 September4, 5, the outbreak was officially confirmed by the team lead by Dr Franco Mutinelli of the National Reference Centre for beekeeping of the Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale delle Venezie (IZSVe). On 7 November5, 6, beetles were found in Sicily. These outbreaks are not the first assault made on Europe by SHB which previously was found in Portugal in 2004. That time it was successfully and speedily eradicated. This time the situation is not so hopeful.

Map of the Small hive beetle outbreak on 18 November. Confirmed cases are indicated by red crosses, “clean” apiaries by green spots. The 10 km control zone is shown. Source – National Reference Centre for beekeeping of the Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale delle Venezie (ISZVe)

No one is absolutely certain, but it is thought that the beetle arrived on rotting fruit imported into the port of Gioia Tauro2. On confirmation of the infestation, the Ministry of Health in Rome2,4 immediately issued control orders to restrict all movements of hives within a 20km (12.4 miles) radius immediately surrounding the university. A monitoring and surveillance zone with a radius of 100km (62.1 miles) was also set up.

Beekeepers and local veterinarians are now required to monitor all apiaries closely and to contact Bee-net, the national Italian bee monitoring system should they suspect the beetle is present. The first bait hive was fumigated and frozen2. At all the subsequent discoveries of SHB, the soil surrounding the affected apiary is fumigated and the colonies burned with a view to eradicating this pest.

Beekeepers whose apiaries have been destroyed have not yet been offered any compensation but a ministerial order is at last in the hands of the Italian Court of Auditors for approval7. It is probable that an announcement will be made after this article is written.

Map of the Small hive beetle outbreak on 18 November including Sicily. Confirmed cases are indicated by red crosses, “clean” apiaries by green spots. The 20 and 100km control zones are shown. Source – National Reference Centre for beekeeping of the Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale delle Venezie (ISZVe)

The maps provided by the IZSVe national reference laboratory for Beekeeping in Italy show the site of the initial outbreak in September. Two months in, the map includes Sicily. The red marks were sites where affected apiaries were found and destroyed. After two months 56 infested apiaries had been confirmed. In some cases, a second case has been reported at what was considered to be a treated site. This suggests the eradication is not always as effective as hoped5,7. It is a huge undertaking. By 28 October, over 12,000 hives had been inspected in some 463 apiaries8 and the number of apiaries inspected continues to rise. Many apiaries have been confirmed as clear of the pest (shown on the maps as green dots). The control areas are also shown on each map, the inner ring being the protection and control zone, and the outer being the surveillance zone where increased monitoring is taking place.

Franco Mutinelli9,10 has reported directly to the European Commission on the cases found. His team has been working with the European Reference Laboratory for bee health at ANSES (Agence Nationale de Sécurité Sanitaire de l’Alimentation, de l’Environnement et du Travail or French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety) Sophia-Antipolis, France, to develop health measures provided under EU law. To satisfy EU safeguards and the law, the Italians have also measured the extent of the outbreak, tracing all hive movements and sales of bees. The EU is drafting a ban on movements of bees and hive products from Calabria for a minimum of eight months 9.

Italian beekeepers have benefited from U.S. expertise with wide circulation of a training video from prof. Jamie Ellis, University of Florida11, together with in-depth interviews with prof. William Hood, Clemson University12, and Jeff Pettis, ARS- USDA13. Jeff Pettis has also worked closely with the Italian authorities and given guidance on use of diagnostic aids 14.

The Italian ligustica strain of Apis mellifera is thought to have originated in Italy and northern Sicily. Famous for its productivity and gentle nature, and benefitting from the warm Mediterranean climate, the Italian bee industry was valued by the Federazione Apicoltori Italiani in 200815 as exceeding €1 billion (about US$1.24 billion using today’s rates). Italian beekeepers supply queens and package bees throughout Europe as well as honey and hive products. Calabria is a region with numerous beekeepers who migrate their colonies to fulfil pollination contracts as well as having (until now) bee breeders who supplied queens and package bees.

Luciano Scandian16 is an Italian beekeeper and member of the honey bee research team in the Laboratory of Apiculture and Social Insects at the University of Sussex, UK. He returned from a vacation with his beekeeping family in Veneto, North East, Italy, shortly after the outbreak was announced. While there, he attended a number of beekeeping meetings and gave lectures on Varroa control at two of them. He told me the beekeepers he met ranged from being “scared stiff” to “extremely worried” and the general consensus was “it is only a matter of time” before the beetle makes its way across Italy. There was widespread concern that a block on all hive movements throughout Italy might become necessary.

In nearly all cases only adult beetles have been found. Using the latest available data17, only four colonies held larvae and only one contained pupae out the 58 known cases. Prior to the discovery of the beetle in Sicily, Franco Mutinelli said, “Our inspections have shown us that the beetle is found in strong bee colonies as well as weak ones, in freshly made combs as well as old ones, and in nucleus colonies as well as full colonies. However, until now the infestation appears limited to this area of Calabria region18”.

Yet many Italian beekeepers are fearful that (1) the beetle was present before September and (2) not all Calabrian beekeepers honoured the standstill order when it first came into force.

Notwithstanding the fears and rumours, Varroa is a major problem for Italian beekeepers without any definitive controls available. Many Italian beekeepers are unhappy that as well as coping with Varroa, they now need to rely on traps to find the beetle but have no real idea what to do should they find it, other than to call the authorities who will destroy their apiaries. Many beekeeping groups have covered SHB in their recent meetings and newsletters. As Luciano Scandian said, “A lot of it is fear of the unknown. Small Hive Beetle is yet another problem for beekeepers with no real treatments available. In truth, we simply don’t know what is going to happen16.”

In the quest to eliminate the beetle, every single colony in an infested apiary is burned, even if it only one colony has SHB. 2,123 colonies and three wild swarms had been destroyed by 28 October9. Since then, that number has risen as more cases are found. Not surprisingly, many Calabrian beekeepers are concerned that their industry is being destroyed systematically.

Beekeeping groups19,20,21,22,23 and the Calabrian Ministry for Agriculture and Forestry24, together with other interested parties like the Slow Food movement25, have written to the government in Rome calling for formal acceptance that establishment of the pest in their region is now inevitable. They demand the control measures should shift from eradication to those enabling beekeepers to retain their colonies as they need to learn to live alongside small hive beetle. An independent group called “Salviamo le api” (“Save the bees”) claim more than 3,000 hives have been burned and, like the other groups, they want the burnings to stop26. In addition to the bee keepers, the Slow Food movement25 and other environmental organisations have voiced their fears that the loss of bees will create a pollination crisis in southern Italy.

Meantime the members of international honey bee protection network COLOSS have set up a special task force on SHB27. President of COLOSS, Prof. Peter Neumann said, “The COLOSS association is greatly concerned about this discovery, which probably represents the permanent arrival of this pest into Europe. There is therefore a risk that it will spread to other European countries, but we cannot yet predict what its effects on the beekeeping industry and other bees might be. COLOSS members will work together to bring scientific results into practice for the benefit of beekeepers to help them fight this serious pest18.” I understand COLOSS is planning with the International Bee Research Association to hold a workshop in Italy early in 201527.

The spread of this pest was hoped to be contained in Calabria but on 7 November it was confirmed that beetles had been found in nearby Syracuse district4, 6. Syracuse is on the island of Sicily, less than 75 miles (119 km) from Calabria. The authorities hope that the increased monitoring will mean this is the only case ever to be found on the island. No other cases have been found to date in Sicily other than those on another part of that infested apiary7. Notably, the beekeeper with the infested Sicilian apiary is based in Calabria where he keeps other bees.

At present, the rate of new cases seems to be tailing off. It is hard to tell whether this reflects the effectiveness of the “scorched earth” policy being followed or is merely a reflection of the time of year. Of some concern is the spread of the hive beetle to wild honey bee colonies and to bumble bees9. So far, only three infested feral honey bee colonies have been found and destroyed. Yet as in the U.S., Europe is passing into winter so this is not a time of year when swarms are abundant and swelling the number of wild colonies. In Calabria, the beekeeping season starts in January as the orange trees bloom. Should the Italians fail to have the small hive beetle eradicated before the New Year then the incidences of beetle will likely start to increase.

References
1. Palmeri, V; Scrito, G; Malacrino, A; Laudani, F; Campolo, O (2014) A new pest for European honey bees: first report of Aethina tumida Murray (Coleoptera Nitidulidae) in Europe. Apidologie (in press).
2. A.tumida: Il piccolo coleottero dell’alveare è in Italia http://www.federapi.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1257&Itemid=0
3. A. tumida: Rogo totale, si bruciano gli ultimi alveari http://www.federapi.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1290&Itemid=0
4. A. tumida: Epidemiological situation http://www.izsvenezie.it/index.php?view=article&catid=119%3A-beekeeping&id=1731%3Aaethina-tumida-epidemiological-situation&format=pdf&option=com_content&Itemid=629
5. Mutinelli, F; Montarsi, F; Federico, G; Granato, A; Ponti, A M; Grandinetti, G; Ferrè, N; Franco, S; Duquesne, V; Rivière, M-P; Thiéry, R; Hendrix, P; Ribière-    Chabert, M; Chauzat, M-P (2014) First report on the detection of Aethina tumida Murray (Coleoptera: Nitidulidae.) in Italy. Journal of Apicultural Research 53(5): (in press). http://dx.doi.org/10.3896/IBRA.1.53.5.08
6. A. tumida: Dalla Calabria alla Sicilia, parassita nomade aethina tumida 2014 http://www.federapi.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1299&Itemid=0
7. A. tumida: Focolaio Siciliano “Chiuso”, Calabria negativa 2014 http://www.federapi.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1301&Itemid=0
8. A tumida: Report di F. Panella su incontro a Catanzaro http://www.mieliditalia.it/index.php/sanita-degli-alveari/81666-atumida-report-di-fpanella-su-incontro-a-catanzaro
9. Presentation: A. tumida (Small Hive Beetle) notified in Calabria region, southern Italy
Franco Mutinelli, Brussels, 19 September 2014 http://ec.europa.eu/food/committees/regulatory/scfcah/animal_health/docs/20140919_aethina_italy.pdf
10. Presentation: A. tumida (Small Hive Beetle) outbreaks in Calabria region, southern Italy
Franco Mutinelli, Brussels, 6 October 2014, http://ec.europa.eu/food/committees/regulatory/scfcah/animal_health/docs/2014100607_aethina-tumida_italy.pdf
11. A. tumida: un video per spiegare cosa è e come si controlla 2014 http://www.mieliditalia.it/index.php/sanita-degli-alveari/81651-2014-10-06-18-55-04
12. A. tumida: intervista al prof. Hood 2014 http://www.mieliditalia.it/index.php/sanita-degli-alveari/81655-aethina-intervista-al-prof-hood
13. A. tumida: il CRT Patologie Apistiche intervista Jeff Pettis 2014 http://www.mieliditalia.it/index.php/mieli-e-prodotti-delle-api/notizie-prodotti-delle-api/81641-aethina-il-crt-intervista-jeffery-s-pettis
14. Bande diagnostiche per monitorare A. tumida 2014 http://www.mieliditalia.it/index.php/sanita-degli-alveari/81640-bande-diagnostiche-aethina-tumida
15. Appicoltura poco seria? La FAI scrive al ministry Tremonti e Zaia 2008 http://www.federapi.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=524&Itemid=164
16. Luciano Scandian, personal communication
17. Centro di Referenza Nazionale per L’Apicoltura. Casi confermati di A. tumida Situazione aggiornata al 25/11/2014 http://www.izsvenezie.it/images/stories/Pdf/apicoltura/aethina-tumida/2014-11-25/2014-11-25-casi-confermati-it.pdf
18. Press release: The small hive beetle is in Europe to stay COLOSS 2014 http://coloss.org/announcements/the-small-hive-beetle-is-in-europe-to-stay
19. A. tumida: ConApi /Unnapi lettera alle autorità 25/10/14 http://www.mieliditalia.it/images/Aetina/Lettera_Unaapi-Conapi_Aethina_Tumida.pdf
20. Lettera di FAI-Calabria http://www.federapi.biz/images/Aethina%20tumida/scarafaggi%20e%20FAi%20Calabria.pdf
21. A. tumida: Un chiarimento sulla Lettera di FAI-Calabria http://www.federapi.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1302&Itemid=0
22. Lettera di FAI 13/11/14 http://www.federapi.biz/images/Aethina%20tumida/FAI_Posizione_Ufficiale_Aethina.pdf
23. A. tumida: il documento con la Posizione ufficiale FAI 27/11/14 http://www.federapi.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1303&Itemid=0
24. Dipartimento Agricultura e Forests Regione Calabria – Aethina tumida: lettera alle autorità 23/10/14 http://www.mieliditalia.it/images/Aetina/Nota_direttoriale_18842_DGSAF_Aethina_tumida.pdf
25. Slow Food: che ne sarà dell’impollinazione se si sterminano le api per Aethina? 2014 http://www.mieliditalia.it/index.php/sanita-degli-alveari/81675-2014-11-11-10-02-20
26. Dagli apicoltori di Calabria (CHIARO E FORTE): FERMATE I ROGHI D’API! 2014 http://www.mieliditalia.it/index.php/sanita-degli-alveari/81693-dagli-apicoltori-di-calabria-chiaro-e-forte-fermate-i-roghi-dapi
27. Norman Carreck, personal communication

Dick’s widow, Alice, called me on the first of September about a bee swarm. She probably thought of me because I had attended Dick’s calling hours in the Spring. They must call it “calling hours” because you stand in a line for hours. The line extended out of the church and into the parking area. I didn’t recognize anyone. There was a slideshow that played through several times as the line crept forward at the pace of a garden slug. There’s little Dick sitting in his wagon, young Dick in a Navy uniform, a mature Dick with wife and children, Dick in his veil beside a colony of bees, an elderly Dick surrounded by grandchildren, and finally, there is a professional slide of Dick with Alice. A lifetime compressed into 10 minutes. I introduced myself to the family and made a quick escape.

Alice took me out to the barn to show me the swarm. It was on the wall at ground level. The air was cool and windy, and the bees were a bit sparky. After a couple stings I put on my veil and gloves. Dick had kept some empty hives behind the barn. I took one and tried to persuade them to enter by brushing them down against the hive entrance. They refused. Dick hadn’t actually had bees for several years. He had told me he hoped some wild swarms would occupy the vacant hives, but year after year they remained empty. I don’t understand it. If I have ten empty hives in April, I’ll have eight new swarms by mid July, and I live only seven miles away. At any rate these bees wanted nothing to do with this hive.

What do you do with a Fall swarm? They won’t survive the Winter without feeding, but the same bees in the Spring are worth over hundred dollars plus the cost of picking them up half way across the state. I told Alice I would return late in the afternoon with my bee vac. To myself I thought, “They already know where they are going and will be gone before I return and I’ll save myself the time installing them in a box and feeding them through the Fall only to have a dead hive in Spring.”

They were up under the eaves when I returned, about 10 feet up. Alice said there was a ladder in the barn and she gave me a key. I unlocked the door, found the electric box and turned on the power. All the lights turned on at once. The last time I was here was over a year ago when I bought Dick’s ancient extractor. Everything was as I remembered it – the work bench made from boards laid across hive supers. The honey room door was open and the new stainless steel extracting equipment gleamed under the electric lights. The tractor was still spread out in pieces on the main floor. There was the new riding mower. The old one blew up last year. I remembered the spot in the yard under the apple trees. It looked like a miniature nuclear explosion and Dick had described how he ran for the fire extinguisher (he was on his third pacemaker by this time). “Never buy a mower with the gas tank between your legs,” he told me. The new mower’s tank was under the seat. Either way, I thought, you are blown to Kingdom Come. I almost expected Dick to walk in the door. He left right in the middle, almost as if he went in to dinner and would be back out to put the tractor together this evening.

I found the ladder, propped it up under the swarm and vacuumed the bees, then put away the ladder, shut off the power and locked the door. On the way home I remembered the last time I had talked to Dick. We had sat together at the last Steuben County Honeybee Association banquet. He had unbuttoned his shirt and showed me where his pacemaker protruded from under his skin. His first pacemaker, he told me, was a “seven year”, the second was a “five year” and this one was a “two year.” I had joked that if it quit he could lean against an electric fence. They provide an intermittent jolt, about one per second, and could keep you alive until the paramedics arrived. It doesn’t seem as funny now.

In spite of the unfinished business, Dick seemed to have finished well. Maybe leaving jobs incomplete is part of finishing well. Instead of “whoever dies with the most toys wins,” maybe it should be “whoever dies with the most unfinished business wins.” I’ve attended five beekeeper funerals, and helped widows and families clean up after three of them. Someday it will be my turn.
There’s little Peter sitting in his wagon, young Peter driving a forklift, a mature Peter with wife and children, Peter in his veil beside a colony of bees, an elderly Peter surrounded by grandchildren, and finally, there is a professional slide of Peter with Nancy. That’s my life compressed into 10 minutes.

At home there are still two lively hives in the driveway, one occupied bait hive on the porch roof, a dead battery on the bee fence, a dumpster load of dilapidated beehives, and a young beekeeper sorting through my unfinished business.

Tim Norray here from a little town of Berne, New York (Albany County). My father Jack has kept bees for over 60 years and we try to maintain around 30-40 hives. Like most beekeepers, we often get calls for cutouts in houses, sheds or old barns, but this Fall we had two swarms which were found on the branches of trees.

Not so unusual I guess, but this one clung to a birds nest in a sumac tree. I know, its the end of October and awful late in the season to be catching swarms, but the homeowners never knew it was there or so close to the house until the leaves fell off and there it was. October 28th we cleared out the grape vines and much to our surprise, the birds nest still had eggs in it.  So which came first?

The whole thing fits in an empty double deep, and we had an extra box full of honey we put with them to give them a chance to make it through Winter. I think we are going to try to keep this together and find a special place for it next year.

It’s not a big story but my kids thought it was sure cool and said I had to send it in to you.