Measuring With Body Parts

Here I am pulling two Top Bars apart and causing a little chaos. As always, click for a much larger picture of bees holding on to each other in a chain.

Festooning is what it is called when bees hang together in a chain. These bees might be "measuring" out the top bar or could be doing something else, the jury is still out about why they do it, but I think it's pretty cool. They do this before they begin to build their comb. It's hard to describe if you've never seen this, but the bees hold on to each other in little chains and don't let go

even if you stretch them a ways out. They don't want to lose their place I guess. I don't know if bees in Langstroth hives do this.

Another thing that I have observed that my bees do in Top Bar Hives is that they build a huge variety of cell sizes.

Not being a scientist I can only guess what this is about, but I bet the bees know exactly what it is about and I have decided to just trust them when it comes to cell size.

 

They don't have that kind of freedom when they are working in a hive with prestamped foundation. They must create the cell sizes that are stamped into the plastic or wax. I wonder what that is like for them?
I found this page on Bush Farm's web site helpful for his experience with natural frameless comb.

      

Proof!

I  felt brave the other day and decided to ascertain for certain if my Hive #2 is building their comb straight on my experimental top bars.
I probably should have planned a little better and put my camera onto a tripod but, well, here is the video of a random bar I pulled from the middle of the hive.



I was so excited and relieved. It looks like I'm on the right track for hive design. I have not had to correct the comb on a single bar so far. The comb is being built down the center of the bars and is not being attached to the walls of the hive body at all.

Hive #2 is thriving with nearly 15 full combs built since I hived them May 11, as apposed to hive #1 which is struggling and has no new comb.  I'm sure it is because Hive #1 swarmed twice and then had a bout of mites. All this really unfriendly weather is not helping either.

Click to make larger

While I was checking Hive #2 there was a tiny wild bee pollinating the grass plume next to the hive. It was only about 1/3 of an inch long.

Hive #1 seems to be on the mend though. I checked last week for brood and found plenty.

They must have solved the Queen problem themselves. I think they will make a good recovery, especially if the weather improves (which it has not yet).

We are supposed to be in the primary nectar flow of the Himalayan Blackberry in the Willamette Valley. But the rain and cool weather has postponed the blooms by almost a month.
I have been keeping the hives supplied with jars of syrup and pollen patties to get them through these drizzly days.

BH2O=bee water

I have been puzzling over what my honey bees want when it comes to water. It turns out I am not alone.
I was just reading a post by one of my fellow bee keepers about her water/bee dilemma concerning her neighbors bird bath and her son's wading pool.

Everyone seems to be wondering exactly what it is that makes the bees swarm to the neighbors hot tub or bird bath and ignore the sources of water set out for them.

The bees have their own idea about what they need, but it seems to change on a regular basis. What my bees love one week is completely bee free the next.

I had been thinking all morning about the fact that nary a bee has been sighted at the water barrel pond in my garden this year. Last year I had to add vegetation to keep them from drowning in it. So many bees were landing on the edge that they kept knocking each other into it.

This afternoon I sat in the sun near an old outbuilding and enjoyed my coffee. I noticed, after a couple of minutes in silent revelry (finally some sun), that there was a high hum going on above my head.

Up in the clogged and useless gutters were droves of bees drinking the composted water trapped in the gutter by globs of fir needles.

So that's where they are drinking.

What I know from my urban beekeeper friends is that their bees love hot tubs and swimming pools. Bird baths and neighbors ponds come in at a close second.

Here at the homestead they have more choices. I often see them gathering dew off the long grass in the late mornings. As the season gets dryer I find them at the drip emitters in my garden. The system will have turned off but each dripper still has a reservoir of water left in it. If my hands are wet in the garden they will often land on me to sip the water from the creases of my palms.
Last fall, while I was doing some masonry work on a chimney, the bees came one after another to drink the water dripping off of my mortar.

Thinking I could track down some authoritative source on what bees want for water, I combed my books and the web.

No one agrees. People have seen many bees on their livestock salt licks after a rain. Or in their garbage can lids. Hot tubs again. Koi ponds. Saltwater pools. Regular pools. Their kids wading pools.

And now I know they like gutter water. This one throws my most recent theory into question. I had been thinking about what all these hot tubs and swimming pools have in common. I was thinking "PH of course" since that is the one thing you must always keep on top of when it comes to pool maintenance. Or maybe not. What is the PH of a gutter full of fir needles, garbage lids of maple leaves, a plastic wading pool or a cement birdbath? I don't think they are the same but I don't know for sure.

Another element these all have in common with each other is temperature. All are either heated by the sun or electricity.

They also have a certain salt content. Either added to soften the water, by sweaty people or the vessel/debris the water sits in.

If I were to take a wild guess at this moment I would say that what we perceive as bees "drinking water" many times is just bees gathering liquid minerals and salt.  When they are truly drinking water what makes them choose one source over another? At this point in the search for the best bee water my hypothesis is that it is the perfect combination of location, temperature and PH.

But I realize that the  real question for many urban bee keepers is not actually about creating the perfect bee saloon it is "How do I provide a water source that the bees will choose instead of my neighbors pool?"

I don't have an answer to that, yet. One thing I have noticed is that open water that is too close to the hive gets rejected. Bees are very hygienic and I believe they will not drink open water that is in their cleansing flight path. So that helps with the "location" part.

The scientist in me is coming out. I'm setting out a dish of salt water and then off to the store I go for a PH kit. I am going to get to the bottom of this for my own sake. The bees I am sure, could care less.

I'll let you know if I find out anything and let me know if you have any ideas or experiences that will help in the search.