It is cold this week with maximum temperatures expected to be 8-12 degrees C today. Gigantic hail stones tore through roses in Nairn yesterday ripping petals to shreds. I’m crossing fingers for successful queen mating as swarm-control divided colonies requeen round about now!
Last week was fun collecting a prime swarm with virgin queen that erupted from the hive as I was watching. I was by myself and too busy to take photos. On checking the parent colony, I noticed a couple of tiny queen cells made from larvae that were far too old to make good queens, so I removed them and concentrated on collecting the swarm which conveniently settled in the blackthorn bush fairly low down. Low enough for me to safely stand on the kitchen ladder without risking a fall too far. I saw the virgin queen on the swarm but was not able to safely secure her by the wings without risking damage to her abdomen so I had to watch as she slipped into a dark corner behind a branch. It was hot and the sun at poor angle for getting a good view of the swarm surface. However, I noticed scout bees dancing so I lightly sprayed the swarm with water to cool them down and stop those flight muscles reaching 35 deg C and take-off temperature.
I shook the swarm into my plastic swarm catching bucket that I inherited from my sister when she gave up beekeeping 20 years ago. It has a wooden cross just below the rim for bees to cluster on but they had no time for that on this occasion as I returned them to the hive they came from. I didn’t want any more units of bees round the garden, and, as Ted Hooper said, if you have a situation with queen cells all opened and queens emerged, they will not swarm again but fight it out to the winner. A medium sized ball was collecting back in the bush but the branch was too thick to shake so I got the skep and balanced it on top and gave them a few wee puffs of smoke. Up they went and I shook that lot in with the others using an empty super as a funnel to stop them falling off the sides of the brood box. My strategy worked and they have been busy for a week. You can see them above using their Nasonov glands to waft the pheromones to signal to the stragglers that this is where to come.
I wouldn’t have put the swarm back to the parent colony if it contained an old queen though as it would not have relieved the congestion. This colony had already been divided using the nucleus method of swarm control and was fairly depleted after this swarm left. The old queen is a nuc box.
Queen Cage
I always carry a queen cage in my pocket during swarm season because I’ve found and caught queens on the swarm on numerous occasions and it saves a lot of time and effort collecting the swarm. Once I found 3 virgin queens on a large prime swarm and was able to remove them and secure the swarm.
Reading
It is never too early to buy up books to read when the busy season is over and I’m going to share a couple of reviews with you today. The Ant Collective is the perfect book for the young people in your life as an interesting present. I’ll be lending my copy to James along the road who is about to enter year 6 at Primary school and is curious about insects and wildlife. James still fits into the bee suit I gave him a couple of years ago and is itching to get close up to the bees again. He and his sisters, Kayleigh and Kaira, come over in the summer to help with the bees. They arrived on Sunday as we were having a late lunch so I invited them in for their favourite snack of oatcakes and honey. Kaira hand painted two small stones to look like bumble bees and left them on my doorstep the previous day. I have a small colony now as the local children love painting stones.
Title: The Ant Collective: Inside The World Of An Ant Colony.
Author: Armin Schieb
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Year published: May 7 2024
Hardback Size, 8 x 11 inches
ISBN:9780691255934
Pages: 128
Cost: £20
The Ant Collective: Inside The World Of An Ant Colony is an intriguing journey inside a red wood ant colony that charts every detail of the anatomy, life cycle biology, reproduction, and functioning of these fascinating insects. Armin Schieb is a freelance illustrator based in Hamburg, Germany. He specialises in technical and scientific topics. This book came about as part of Schieb’s project for his Master’s Degree Study which focussed on collective intelligence. Choosing red ants allowed him easy access to study in detail these insect colonies living in nearby woodlands.
Using his own photographs, sketches, and sourced scientific drawings, Schieb created computer generated 3-D models of ants to create this quite remarkable book that is certain to achieve its goal to enthral the reader, and promote an awareness of these animals. Ants are as deserving of preservation as are the more popular insects such as bees to which they are related. Both ants and bees belong to the order of hymenoptera and, as social insects, they share many similar biological features such as nest making and operating as a superorganism. Ant communication is fascinating, and, like honey bees, ants tell their nestmates where to find the latest food source. However, unlike honey bees they do not dance to give distance and direction, rather ants defecate on the way home from the food source and lay the perfect excrement scent trail for nest mates to follow.
We learn about ant enemies and how red ants are the main food source for green woodpeckers. Red ants have a poison reservoir which makes them inedible to these birds. However, woodpeckers have a clever strategy of rubbing the red ants on their plumage which causes the ant to fire off formic acid into the bird’s feathers. This renders the ant harmless to eat and the formic acid kills parasites that would otherwise harm the woodpecker.
I have never seen a book quite like this before, and I am bowled over by the detail, and the most amazing way that the information is presented pictorially and schematically like a mind map. All the information is offered in bite-sized chunks beside a diagram, or picture, that tells the story magnificently. Every page is beautifully illustrated, and the unique way that this information is presented will appeal to all age groups, but it will be especially useful to people who learn best from studying illustrations rather than pages of text. Every school library should hold this book.
Title: Global Hive
Author: Horst Kornberger
Published: 2012, this edition 2019.
ISBN: 978172505693
Paperback: £14.99
Pages: 144
Chapters: 24
Publisher: Floris Books
Global Hive encompasses the philosophy of the natural world and focusses on the damage to our environment. This damage is, of course, wide-ranging with multi-factorial causes, but the author, Horst Kornberger, homes in on honey bees as his exemplar species to illustrate this catastrophe.
Kornberger, who is an artist and author, is neither scientist nor beekeeper and this book is not about beekeeping. It is not a “how to” manual but it is thought provoking and invites the reader to challenge some modern beekeeping methods such as the artificial insemination of queen honey bees and attempts at genetic controlling.
A few scientifically incorrect descriptions such as bees “hatching” from cells can be overlooked. However, it is a pity in this updated version of “Global Hive” that the latest varroa research is not mentioned. We now know that varroa are more harmful than previously thought since they actually feed on the bee equivalent of our livers compromising honey bees even further, rather than just spreading viruses via the haemolymph on which they feed during their reproductive stage.
Each of the 24 chapters is short and a stand-alone essay in themselves making for easy reading. I like Kornberger’s history of beekeeping and how development, in terms of moveable frames and hives, and honey processing equipment, progressed beekeeping from small cottage industries to commercial bee farming on larger scales. He uses history to bring us up to date with the current precarious state of pollinators worldwide.
Colony collapse disorder of honey bees is discussed, but the underlying meaning is that our current world is the global hive and the honey bee the metaphor for our own selves in this precarious world where something has to change soon.
This book will appeal to anyone interested in learning more about the environment and how to understand and help heal some of the ills. This book may resonate well with biodynamic gardeners and beekeepers.