"Fruits and vegetables are always there when you go to grocery store, but in coming years their availability could get stung.

The bees that pollinate your food are dying at an increasing rate causing a nationwide bee shortage. Without those bees prices will rise.

A National Agriculture Statistics Service report says honey producing hives in the United States shrunk from 4.5 million in 1980 to 2.4 million in 2008. That number is even lower four years later.

So one local beekeeper is trying a newer method, hoping he can stay in the business.

Dan Bauer's bees are no longer sitting out in the cold. He says, 'I don't know anybody else that does it in this area. A lot of it's being done in Idaho and Canada.'

What Bauer is referring to is wintering his bees inside. Once the weather gets cold, they are put into storage where they can hibernate.

'I think this is gonna be the way that a lot of beekeepers might have to go,' says Bauer adding, 'We've already had people interested in what we are doing here.'

This is all because Bauer, like other beekeepers nationwide, fears the bee death rate is only going to get worse.

Entomologists like Janet Knodel with the NDSU Extension Service are puzzled. Knodel says, 'What they're seeing now is the bees are just disappearing, and the worker bees don't come back to the hive.'

They have narrowed down some potential factors to the die out rate. They include parasites that attack the bees, increased stress from transporting them long distances and pesticide use.

Still, there is much research to be done."


Beekeepers Getting Stung by Increasing Bee Deaths
from: www.valleynewslive.com

The honey bee said to me, before she stung me,
"Nothing's free.  Buzz, buzz, buzz, I work because,
we have to eat, when life's not sweet."
She kissed my ear, she brushed my face,
I shed a tear, when we embraced.
A lesson taught, a lesson learned,
a life forgot, a truth discerned.
The sun recedes, the winter days,
the cold impedes, and slows our ways.

She drifted then, into the sun.
She knew no sin, her life was done.
The price we pay, our lives we work,
yet still one day, we'll see Death lurk.
Shadows and dust, In God We Trust,
because we must, Love got lust.
No tears were shed, when blood was bled.
The living said, "We envy the dead."



- Billy Craig

"So what can we do to help our bees make it through winter? There is no plan that ensure 100% survival. Bees are livestock. Things can just go bad. But a few things can help.

Typically, most consider winter preparations consists of the following:
1) Put on a mouse guard at the entrance.
2) Lift the hive and see if it has enough stored honey by how heavy it is.
3) Wrap the hive with some sort of insulation or roofing paper.
4) We build a wind break.
5) We treat for mites and nosema.

These might be good measures to take. However, they are not fail proof. In fact, here are three concerns that probably cause our hives to die during the winter that many overlook:

1) Queenlessness. Your hive is most certain to die if your queen is weak or gone going into winter.
2) Winter Condensation. If you seal up your hive too tight, you might increase the overall condensation within the hive and cause this cold water to constantly drip onto the cluster and eventually kill your hive.
3) Keeping stored honey next to the winter cluster. How many times do we hear that a hive died even though there was plenty of honey.

So, here’s my checklist for what you should be doing to your hives now to prepare for a great hive in the spring:

1) Remove queen excluders.
2) Remove honey supers.
3) Examine the amount of stored honey and be sure your bees have plenty. Most beekeepers in the north lift the back of the hive and hope it feels like there is 70 pounds of stored honey. 70 pounds is the approximate equivalent of 1 medium super full of honey.
4) If your hive is short on stored honey, FEED! Feed 2:1 sugar water. Use an internal or top feeder if robbing is a problem. Robbing is more of a problem during the fall dearth.
5) Make sure that your hive has some sort of upper ventilation. It does not have to be much but something. We now make our inner covers with ventilation slots. And we leave our screen bottom boards open all winter.
6) Use good mouse guards, either metal or wooden entrance cleats to keep mice out.
7) Treat the hives 3 weeks in a row with powdered sugar for mite control. This is best started in August.
8) If wrapping hives, be sure to allow upper ventilation.
9) Combine weak hives with strong ones. Most of the small swarms you caught are not going to winter well unless you caught them in May. Do not feel like a failure if you’ve worked hard to build up your numbers, but now you have to slice your hive count in half by combining hives. Combining ten hives into 5 which survive the winter is better than having 8 out of 10 die out.

Much can be said about preparing a hive for winter, but the hive that has the best chance of surviving the winter will be the hive that was very strong all year and has a young queen. Remember, a strong hive is more apt to be pest and disease free, thus overwintering much better because it does not have viruses caused by mites."


LESSON 40: The Beekeeping Year Starts In The Fall
David & Sheri Burns
Long Lane Honey Bee Farms
217-427-2678
www.honeybeesonline.com

"Bees or something flying in and out of small holes in the mortar in the fireplace. Neighbors just want me to blast them with Raid Wasp Killer, but I would prefer a different approach.

I would love for this to somehow be a win/win situation for us and the bees. Can you help?"  - Mr. M


Hello Mr. M,

Bees behind brick or concrete can be very difficult and expensive to remove.  However, you are in luck.  Michigan winters are very hard on all species of bees.  Whether you have honey bees or some other kind of insect, it's very likely to die off over the winter.  Honey bees have a 50/50 chance of making it.  All the other flying/stinging insects will die soon after the cold weather arrives to stay.  The most reasonable thing to do, in my opinion, is to just wait for nature to run its course.  I think your problem will solve itself.

I hope that's an answer you like hearing, and good luck!

Billy Craig

"Have a large bee hive in a tree in my front lawn which needs removal. Just discovered it. The weight is causing it to fall closer to vehicles in driveway. Need help with removal."  - Mr. C


Hello Mr. C,
I'm responding about the beehive in the tree.  I was wondering where you live and how high off of the ground is the hive?  Also, is the hive made out of paper or are there bees crawling all over the outside of it?  My suspicion is that the nest is a hornet's nest, in which case, they'll all be dead very soon (perhaps this weekend, if it gets as cold as predicted). Then your problem is solved.  Once it drops below freezing for a few days, you can be sure that the hornets are dead, and then you can knock the nest off the limb without any worries.  If they're honey bees, which seems unlikely, then you may have to wait longer for them to die.  In that case, depending on your location, I may be able to come out and get them.

Hope that helps,
Billy Craig

"I am interested in having a swarm of bees removed from a tree trunk in my yard. The bees are housed in a hole in my tree (about 1 foot diameter) that is only about 4 foot up from the ground. Is this something you would be able to assist with, and if so, how much do you charge?  Thank you."  - Dan


Thank you, sir , for contacting me.  You're a little ways out of my territory, as far as driving distance goes.  The best I can do is give some advice. 

I don't know how bothersome these bees are to you.  There's a high probability that they will die over the winter, which isn't too far away now.  The easiest thing to do is nothing.

However, if you really want them gone now, you may be able to find a willing beekeeper in your area at beesource.com.  If you search under "Swarm Removal", they have a list of beekeepers in Michigan that remove bees and where they are located.

Finally, if the insects are not honey bees, but rather  some other sort of stinging, flying insect (wasp, hornet, yellowjacket), I would recommend killing them yourself.  This involves taking a can of Raid Wasp/Hornet Killer (or its equivalent), going out to the tree shortly after dusk on a cool evening, and spraying the can in the tree very liberally.  Leave quickly, and you may avoid getting stung.

I hope this helps in some way.

Billy Craig

"Honey bees are flourishing in Texas after a long drought has eased in parts of the state, reviving beekeepers' fortunes—and inflicting pain on unlucky Texans who have stumbled on hives in unwanted places.

The resurgence means Texas could dispatch more and better bees across the nation to help pollinate crops such as almonds next year. Some 80% of Texas beekeepers load their charges onto trucks and ship them to California and other states.

Bee specialists say that if Texas bees remain strong, they might help offset colony losses in some other states currently undergoing dry spells, such as Montana and the Dakotas, which contribute to the national pollination circuit.

The Texas bee revival also comes as the nation's honey bees have been sharply declining in recent years from colony-collapse disorder, a phenomenon scientists are still trying to understand. Bee health improved somewhat this winter nationwide, researchers say, perhaps because of the unusually warm temperatures in many areas.

The downside of Texas's turnaround is that honeycombs are showing up almost everywhere—in roof eaves and walls, within water meters and boats, and in one case on the eighth-floor pool deck of a hotel in downtown Austin."

Not All Texans Enjoy a Bee Revival
By ANA CAMPOY

A South Carolina news team blames mild winter for increase in bees and bee attacks.

http://news.yahoo.com/video/weather-15749664/weather-could-be-to-blame-for-spike-in-bees-29876697.html


If bees are a problem in your garden, yard, or house, look here for help.

Lots of pics here of a Michigan State professor feeding bees with sugar boards.  There are detailed instructions for sugar-board feeding, plus lots of pics of beehives in the bitter cold Michigan winter.