From Alaska to Scotland: in Search of History and Honey Bees by Lisa Hay.

Lisa and son on the left.

It’s a wintery week here in the Highlands with more sleat and snow but this week’s guest blog brings back pleasant memories of a mellow autumn day spent with new friends.

The Back Story.

Barbara Sandbach was unwell and unable to host Lisa so she asked if I could. Actually, she might have asked if I knew someone who could but I jumped at the opportunity to meet a beekeeper from Alaska and learn new things. It also felt like pay back time for all the fantastic experiences that I’ve been given abroad: facing small hive beetle in Australia with Jeremy from Parkes; touring the Superbee Honey Factory in Forbes; watching wild tree bees in Parramatta with Iain and Terry; visiting Doug Coreau’s Earth Education lodge and programme in Moruya, and a biodynamic beekeeper near there in NSW.

Like Lisa, I always try to connect with beekeepers whenever I go abroad on holiday. I’ve been really lucky to have had invitations to visit apiaries in Australia, New Zealand, North America, Ireland, England and Jersey where I’ve picked up lots of new information. I have fond memories of meeting Bob Tompkins on Jersey in 2011, and still have the list of the 11 main learning points we covered on my visit.

Common Earwig.

I used to try to shoo them away but Bob taught me to tolerate the common earwig (Forficula auricularia). They are part of the natural environment of a bee hive and may provide a useful scavenging service by clearing debris. Mostly there are seen scurrying around on top of the crown/cover board and do no harm to bees or humans. However, some humans have a horror of them and try to get rid of them, but they needn’t waste energy waging war on earwigs. I heard about a new beekeeper recently being advised to place hive- stand legs in cans of water to stop earwigs gaining entry. Perhaps there was some leg pulling going on there. We have lots of water in Scotland and protecting hives stands from rotting is important to me. Painting and placing them on concrete slabs helps extend their lifespan where the grass is almost soggy.

Introduction.

Lisa has a busy life. She balances caring for her family, apiary, garden and smallholding alongside an important day job. Lisa likes writing and learning and is the Alaska Director of the Western Apiculture Society. I was privileged to meet Lisa and learn new things from her on her visit to Scotland last autumn. Lisa bubbled with enthusiasm and was a joy to have around. Thank you very much Lisa for taking the time to visit, and document your story to share with us.

Lisa’s Story.

Lisa visiting our office.

Searching for Contacts.

Recently I traveled to Scotland with my son in order to spend some quality time with him and to introduce him to some of the history of our family. Being a beekeeper, I asked the Scottish Beekeepers Association if I could meet with some of their beekeepers in the interest of exchanging ideas and learning how they keep their bees during winter because overwintering is one of my particular interests. I was also interested in what the Scottish Beekeepers do about moisture in their hives during the cold season. We live in the Interior of Alaska, which is considered part of the Subarctic and while we have a flourishing beekeeping community in this area of our state, there has been little information or research done on overwintering our bees, so anything we can learn from other areas that might be applicable is worth its weight in honey. Even though I live at latitude 64 and Scotland is around latitude 56, we beekeepers share some common beekeeping issues. One in particular, that is on the list of what kills our bees during the Alaskan winter months is, what to do about the moisture that builds up in a hive when the bees are clustered inside and the temperature outside is too cold for them to fly.

Being an online member of various beekeeping forums, following blogs, Instagram and the Twitter accounts of different beekeepers and associations has enabled me to not only continue my ongoing learning of beekeeping but also to be able to ask specific questions of beekeepers that I would have never come in contact with otherwise. The Scottish Beekeepers Association is one of the Twitter accounts that I follow and it was to them that I reached out to request an apiary visit while we were traveling the country.

Scottish Beekeeper’s Association.

Michelle Berry, the Development Officer and Magazine Editor for the Scottish Beekeepers Association was kind and generous enough with her time to respond to my message and set up some introductions with various members of SBA around the country. I was contacted by a handful who offered to make themselves available to us for an apiary visit and a chat about Scottish beekeeping practices. Because my son and I were traveling around the country, staying a few days here and a few days there, we weren’t able to coordinate schedules with anyone other than Ann Chilcott, Scottish Expert Beemaster, in Piperhill which is between Nairn and Inverness, where we were staying at the time. Ann is also author of the blog called The Beelistener, as well as many articles on beekeeping in various beekeeping publications. She teaches classes on different aspects of beekeeping; she hosts beekeeping researchers from other areas of the world and she speaks internationally on the subject. Ann supports beekeepers at local and national level and chairs Nairn & District Beekeepers’ Association.

Wasp fat body tissue.

Before we left to visit Ann’s apiary, I read her latest blog post which was on her dissection of a wasp that she found in her office. Included in the blogpost was a photo of the eviscerated wasp with its vitellogenin spread out. I was immediately excited because one of the major focuses on Interior Alaska colony management as winter approaches is doing all that we can to encourage the development of winter bees. For us, winter bees are laid by the queen at the end of the season, typically mid -October, as we are preparing to hive them up for our winter which can last into April. Hive up time is when the daytime temperature is a consistent 32 F (0˚C) That’s our cue to seal them up if we’re wintering them outdoors, where our winter temperatures can reach -60 F or get them in the bee barn, where the temperature is maintained between 41-43 F (5-6 ˚C).

As we drove to Ann’s, we continued to be charmed by the Highland landscape. Not as charmed by the very narrow roads that we weren’t used to though. After driving in a circle twice around her street, I was able to figure out from which direction I needed to aim my car in order to park near her home. My son is very shy and insisted he would stay in the car during the visit. I told him that was fine, but that I didn’t know how long we’d be visiting, because anytime beekeepers get to talking, the time flies fast.

I was eager to meet Ann. Our emails to each other after the introduction from Michelle were formal, but I was excited about what I would learn from her and the conversations I was anticipating. I’m always excited to meet other beekeepers. Particularly in places outside of Alaska. We beekeepers have a language of universally known terminology and a passion for everything involved in tending to honey bees. It makes it easy to talk bees, compare notes and experiences and share knowledge regardless of where we live.

Arriving.

When we arrived, Ann and her husband Linton were outside to welcome us. They greeted us by coming out to our car with big smiles and a warmth that made me feel like I was meeting with old friends. My son decided he’d leave the car and take a chance meeting these new people. Throughout our trip he had been saying, “everyone over here is so nice!” This time was no different. This had been my second trip to Scotland and the graciousness of the Scottish people was something I noticed as well. It is heartwarming.

Ann and Linton guided us towards their home while Ann told me of the agenda she had planned; she would show me her apiary and how she prepares her colonies for winter, we would meet with Cynthia May who keeps bees at a local distillery, and then also visit a free-living bee tree. Honey bees are not native to Alaska and we don’t have any bee trees. Seeing a bee tree was something I did not expect. Not only was I was honored that Ann hosted our visit and absolutely thrilled to be able to spend time with her and pick her brain, but being able to see a bee tree made me feel like Charlie when he found the golden ticket that got him into Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory.

Cynthia May demonstrating her double-walled WBC hive.

Ann showed me her hives and we talked about the differences between hers and mine. She showed me a WBC hive (named after the inventor William Broughton Carr) which I had never seen; along with the traditional British standard National hives and polystyrene nuclei she uses. Her bees were still a bit active at the end of October, but we were able to open the tops so she could show me the wool she uses for insulation. In Alaska, we use foam board insulation panels inside our hives and a moisture quilt, wood chips, corkboard or whatever else we’ve found that works to keep heat in and absorb the condensation produced by the evaporation coming off of the bees. After looking at her hives and talking shop, she and Linton took us on a hike to the bee tree. Our path led us through some enormous trees as well as pasture land. Ann and I talked for the length of our walk. Linton and my son walked behind us, engaged in conversations about cars, for which I was grateful.

I have always been interested in how bees survive in the wild. They construct their hives in ways that work for them. We put them in hives that work for us. I have wanted to make my hives closer to what a honey bee would build inside of a tree but haven’t gotten the time yet. I’ve even saved some sections of a 100+ year old tree that needed to be taken down due to an infestation of carpenter ants that had eaten away the inside of the base. These sections will be made into hives similar to what I’ve seen in pictures of Eastern Europe and Russian tree hives. In the far North, most of us use traditional Langstroth hives or polystyrene hives of the same shape. Some have experimented with top bar hives but they are difficult to insulate and awkward to move. We have to house our bees with practicality and winter in mind. By themselves, the wood Langstroth hives have an insulative value somewhere around R1 and if wintered outdoors require a lot of insulation both outside of the hive as well as inside the top of the hive, whereas the polystyrene hives have an R value at least six times that amount and require less added insulation. An actual bee tree gives us an excellent example of how bees construct their home. It is very different than the hives that beekeepers use and I was anxious to see it, photograph it and take notes.

The Bee Tree.

Ann told us that she discovered the tree while out on a walk. She had noticed some bees that were too far from her apiary to be her bees, besides water collecting in winter is too risky to travel far, so she figured that they were living in the forest. She followed the bees, and kept her eyes out for a tree that would accommodate them. It wasn’t long before she discovered the hive. As we walked, I too, kept my eyes open for a tree that bees would be attracted to. When Ann, Linton, my son and I finally reached the bee tree we approached it slowly so as not to disturb the bees. Ann and I sat in front of the hive and just watched them. I was mesmerized. The hive was not too far up the tree. We could see a few bees coming in and out. The opening was a slit in the tree and it had two holes. They were vertically spaced and a few inches apart. There was enough room for bees to enter or exit one at a time. Propolis sealed the rest of the opening.

Ann & Lisa watching the bees.

The bees came and went and were still bringing in a gold pollen that Ann said was from the ivy that grew on the sides of buildings and trees nearby. It was very apparent to me that the things that I do and have learned to do with my hives, particularly in winter, were not being done by these bees. The amount of air circulation going on in the tree hive must’ve been minimal. There was a bottom and top entrance but they were tiny. There was also little place for dead bees to be hauled out by workers. Of course, I did not know how big the hive was inside of the tree and how many bees were inside. The breed looked to be similar to a Carniolian. They were not aggressive with us and even though the temperature was below 57 F (13 0˚C), they were still foraging. They were clearly content in their hive.

Cynthia and Ann respond to hearing about killing bees before winter in Alaska.

As we walked back, we talked more about bees, and specifically about wintering. I mentioned to Ann that up where I lived live, there are some who kill their bees after the honey harvest, because they have been taught and they believe that bees can’t be overwintered in the subarctic. She was shocked. This was also what I had been taught by my first teacher, but I was determined to find a way to do it and knew that just because it might not be being done in Alaska, didn’t mean that it was being done other countries around the world. This led me to gathering any research I could find on overwintering in areas that have winters as severe as Interior Alaska. There wasn’t much information available and information on wintering as far South as Anchorage didn’t apply because their winter temperatures are closer to those of Montana, whereas ours are closer to Russia, Greenland and Finland. Gratefully, I was able to find information on overwintering that applied to us from the Yukon in Canada. Because the Interior of Alaska is very much like a small town, word got out that I was looking for information and I was able to make contact with people in the area who had been successfully overwintering their bees both indoors and outdoors for many years. Indoors meant a root cellar, basement, a garage, a shed, or some other structure they had built to keep their bees alive during the long winter. Not many other people knew about these techniques that had been being used to overwinter honey bees for generations in the Interior of Alaska. I believe the information had not gotten around in part because of the lack of communication and lack of gatherings for beekeepers in our area. Before the Internet information traveled through mail, phone calls, word-of-mouth etc. Now we have online forums. However, many of these old timers don’t use the Internet and certainly are not involved in any online forums and their knowledge is becoming lost. Their methods were originally brought from other countries like Russia, Germany and Finland and then adapted to Alaska by those who had enough curiosity and sense to realize that overwintering is not impossible here. Fortunately, the paradigm seems to be changing. I, and a handful of others have been working to make the information on overwintering colonies available to anyone who wants to learn and we have been spreading the news widely.

Regardless of whether someone does overwinter their bees or not, if someone wants to start an apiary, or replace lost colonies, they must order bees from a bee dealer. Since honeybees are not native to Alaska, the bees that Alaskans are able to get are shipped up from California, typically in four-pound boxes. We are not able to get nucs because of state regulations that are aimed at preventing the transmission of foul brood. According to our Department of Agriculture, more than 3,000 boxes come into Fairbanks alone, each spring. This amount doesn’t include Anchorage, Kenai, Palmer or any other area of the state. The cost of each box runs from $200.00-$250.00. Some of the bee dealers offer classes in beekeeping in Alaska. Only one bee dealer teaches a beekeeping class that discusses overwintering. They rest of the classes don’t include information or resources on how to overwinter bees in our state.  I am not a bee dealer and started teaching a class on overwintering in 2021. Because of our environment and climate, it is likely that we will have to keep importing four-pound boxes of bees until beekeeping becomes sustainable. That may be some years off, but not as long as some think due to climate change.

Alaska has been feeling the impact of climate change in big ways. Our summers are now filled with wild fires. Ice flows are not as available for polar bear or walrus that need them as a place to rest and eat, and so both are being found more inland. The growing season for gardeners in the Interior of Alaska has increased by a month in the past thirty years. So even though honey bees are not native to Alaska, I predict that in the next ten to fifteen years, we will see some free-living bees in the far North. Interestingly, a few years ago honeybees were found to have nested up in a tree near Palmer, Alaska. Palmer is about 400 miles South of where I live. The colony must have been a swarm from someone’s hive. It did not survive, but it had found a place where the bees thought they could survive. This past summer, a swarm from a fellow beekeeper’s hive set up in a nearby tree and drew out comb that was hidden by the tree leaves. It wasn’t discovered until autumn when the leaves fell off the tree. The bees where still amongst the combs but they had died in our frigid temperatures. These might be signs of our changing conditions.

Upon our return to Ann’s house after visiting the bee tree, Ann introduced us to Cynthia who is her bee buddy and they often work together sharing lifting etc. She keeps her colonies at a local distillery. Cynthia was also kind and generous enough to take us to her apiary and show me her colonies in their different double- walled hives and talk about wintering bees. After that, we returned back to Ann’s home for Scottish hospitality that included tea and some honey tasting.

It had been an amazing day. I am grateful for the opportunity to visit Ann and Cynthia’s apiaries and the visit to the bee tree. I am also grateful for the sharing of camaraderie, warmth and communication that happens between beekeepers from completely different areas. We are all enchanted by this magical creature. I would encourage any beekeeper who is fortunate to travel to different areas to look up beekeepers and request a visit. So many of our bees are vanishing for so many different reasons. Beekeepers sharing knowledge and supporting each other’s efforts can only help towards the survival of all of us.

6 thoughts on “From Alaska to Scotland: in Search of History and Honey Bees by Lisa Hay.”

  1. What a fascinating article. It is wonderful to see that bees can be kept at any time of the year in Alaska, let alone through winter. And culling healthy bees is a frightful thought! When you referred early in the article to ‘hiving up’ and sealing the hives – what do you do for ventilation? Do the bees have to survive within the hive for the full winter without cleansing flights?

    1. Hi Sue. Thanks for your question. Yes, they do survive in their hives without a cleansing flight. I am wintering my bees inside of a bee barn that I built so my bees are in their hives, in the barn, where the temp is maintained at about 41°F-43°F which keeps their metabolism low. We also don’t leave them with their honey as stores for winter because the honey has too much moisture and would cause them to have to defecate. Upon removing their honey we immediately start feeding them sugar syrup at a ratio of 2:1 as well as pollen supplement – both dry and patties. We have a very short season and by the time our honey harvest is over there are no sources of nectar or pollen available for them and it’s still to warm to have them up. The 2:1 syrup allows them to use that to put up a stores/not real honey, for the winter. The pollen sub helps them put away some bee bread to feed the winter bees that are born in the late season and early bees born after Winter Solstice. The reduced amount of moisture reduces their need to defecate. It also contributes to the development of vitollegenin which is the fatty layer that also helps them survive. The bees get hived up when our daily temp is a consistent 32°F/0°C until it’s warm/safe enough for them to be outside. This time period typically runs from Late Oct until April. Last year I took mine out in March and mitigated for the outside temps so they could get a cleansing flight. If they’re wintered outdoors they come out when they choose but often don’t make it back to the hive because it’s too cold for them or because they die after flying out and landing in snow. We have a good amount of beekeepers who winter both inside and outside who have been successful for many years. I attached a photo of two of my hives that are currently wintering indoors. There is a red light because bees done see red and a regular light would stimulate them. Cheers. Lisa

    2. Hi Tristian.
      We do have very different climates but we have some things in common. Mitigation of moisture inside of the hive is something we Northern Alaskans struggle with. Learning that Ann uses wool for top insulation was fascinating and makes absolute sense. Wool is an excellent material for inner hive insulation. Wool has high heat capacity which means that it is able to store heat and release it slowly over time. It also has good R value which means it prevents the heat from leaving what’s being heated, and it naturally absorbs moisture from the environment and then through some amazing chemical process releases that moisture bad heat as well. This takes care of keeping the warmth that the bees generate from leaving the hive, absorbing the condensation that is naturally produced by the bees so that they don’t get wet from it dripping from the tops of the hive onto them and by possibly adding in additional heat into the cluster area which means the bees don’t have to work as hard to keep the queen warm.
      Also, the WBC hive that is used in Scotland has a quality I never encountered before: the empty space between the hive itself and the outer decorative (?) cover. Cynthia told me that this space is warm air. For us, since our temps are so cold that space would contribute to the death of our colony. However, I’ve done some research and found that the empty space around the WB hive can actually keep condensation from inside of the hive, completely away from the bees. We often do have a bit of air space inside of our hives and I’m trying to figure out how we can best use it to do the same with our hives in winter without compromising warmth of the colony. Kind regards, Lisa

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