may-jun-2019

IN YOUR ORCHARD THE BEE BOX Post Almond Pollination; The Beekeepers’ Enduring Race Begins If you are an almond grower, a beekeeper or simply live in Northern California, you know where to find most of America’s honey bee colonies in late January through February. Close to two million honey bee colonies come from all over the United States to pollinate the almond blooms each year. But then what ? If getting bees to California is like a sprint for beekeepers, what happens after is more like a marathon. When the last almond petals fall, the beekeepers’ most intensive work period begins. Lightning Speed Honey Bee Biology and their Life Cycle In nature, honey bees reproduce on two levels. At the individual level, honey bee queens lay eggs that will be raised to adulthood to grow the colony population as a whole. And at the colony level, when the population outgrows their home, the colony divides and swarms, leaving the nest behind with resources for the remaining workers to make themselves a new queen. This swarming process results in two colonies or more. The ultimate goal for honey bees, as for all living organisms, is to reproduce. On an annual timeline, it means that honey bees will grow fast in the spring, enough to swarm in time for the resulting two colonies to now grow more foragers, to gather the resources necessary to survive the winter, and do it all over again the following year. Most beekeepers will manipulate the colonies at this time so that they can take advantage of these biological and environmental urges to reproduce. The Beekeepers’ Spring Workload When colonies leave the almond orchard at the end of February, they are destined to 1) be split or broken down into multiple smaller colonies, effectively preventing swarming and increasing colony numbers, and 2) transfer bulk bees into packages to be sold across the country and make cell builders to raise queen cells and queens. Splitting Colonies Most beekeepers benefit from the early spring boost in colony buildup to split their colonies. They use these smaller units, or “splits” to increase their colony numbers, to either make up for last year’s loss and/or put more units into producing honey or participate in subsequent pollination events. The process of splitting consists of going through each colony thoroughly and assessing each component for a fair division of resources. Beekeepers use different techniques and methods to split their colonies but the basic concepts are similar for everyone. This splitting period presents a good opportunity to treat actively for pest and diseases, notably for Varroa, in hopes of sending all colonies into strong and healthy honey producing or pollination units. This is an important time for the Bee Informed Partnership (BIP) to perform colony assessment and sampling for beekeepers, reporting back on the status of the operation, the trends from other colonies in the area, the efficacy of early treatments and suggest actions to increase the strength of colonies going into production. Making Packaged Bees and Cell Builders The boost in population during almond bloom also offers the opportunity to use the excess numbers of bees to make packages to be sold across the US to all types of beekeepers. The timing of such spring buildup of bees after almonds and the subsequent package production comes at a perfect time when the Figure 1: Varroa load for spring 2018, APHIS vs Tech Transfer Team data combined. 3 8 A L M O N D F A C T S