Norfolk Master Gardeners
830 Southampton Ave., Ste 2069
Norfolk, Virginia 23510-1045
Ten things I learned from the Beekeeper’s Introductory Course
Hello Master Gardener friends!
I was not planning to be a beekeeper when I decided to take the Introduction to Beekeeping Class presented by the Southeast Virginia Beekeeping Guild. My idea was to get an understanding of what it takes to keep bees alive and happy in their environment and get bee information in general. My questions have been answered and I discovered that there’s a thriving beekeeping community in the Southeast Virginia area. Your neighbor might have a beehive in his backyard without your even knowing it! Here are some of the highlights of what I learned from the course:
1. Honeybees are very closely related to wasps. Wasps are generally regarded as carnivorous in the insect community. However, at some point during the evolutionary path, Honeybees began to diverge. Honeybees renounced their carnivorous ways to seek a kinder, gentler source of protein in the way of pollen. In the wasp family, you can tell a carnivore by the absence of hairs on its body. If it has hairs, that means it’s a pollen seeker.
2. Bears love honey, but the main thing they’re after from the hives is actually the bee larvae, which is a favorite high protein source. Bees can’t penetrate the bear's fur but they can sting its nose and ears. After a bear is finished with his meal he’ll just run away and shake the bees off his face thinking it was totally worth it. Bears are a worry for beekeepers in several areas of Southeast Virginia, including Virginia Beach and Chesapeake, and hive protection includes electric fences.
3. Africanized bees are a concern in North America because they are extremely aggressive. They have not evolved to survive harsh winters so they can’t migrate north past a certain point, but they are found in many parts of the south. Africanized bees have also mingled with the more docile European Honeybee population to create hybrids. If a beekeeper has concerns about his hive, he can send a bee sample in for genetic testing. It’s also possible for a domestic or wild hive with no genetic link to Africanized bees to be extremely aggressive. The remedy in either case is extermination of the entire hive to stop it from passing genetics on to other hives in the area.
4. Bees have a keen sense of smell. They can smell pollen, nectar and pheromones from miles away! They can smell their kin, other hives, foes and beeswax. And yes, they really can smell your fear!
5. A smoker is a tool used by beekeepers to create and fan smoke all over the immediate area of the beehive. This smoking method is used to keep bees docile while a beekeeper is working with a hive. It works by blocking the bee’s ability to smell pheromones being emitted by the other bees signaling to the hive of danger.
6. It can’t be overstated how important pheromones are to a bee’s ability to communicate with other hive members and carry out most tasks vital to the survival of the hive. This knowledge has helped beekeepers figure out how to manipulate bee behavior. Keepers can even use pheromone spray to coax a swarm into a hive bucket.
7. There are several diseases, parasites and predators that attack bees and their hives. Hive beetles and mites are probably the most common but some less common include a fungus called Ascosphaera Apis, which attacks the bee larvae in the hive. In the past beekeepers used chemicals and pesticides to resolve problems but these toxic chemicals can end up in the honey and beeswax if mismanaged. In recent years experts are working on integrated pest management techniques to cut down on use of pesticides which should sound familiar to Master Gardeners. Some examples of IPM include freezing some honeycomb frames to kill mites.
8. Southeast Virginia Beekeepers Guild has had a strong influence in local policy in the area. A few years ago, Chesapeake council members planned to make beekeeping illegal in the county. The guild stepped in and explained to the council the reasons this action would both be harmful and unnecessary. The council took the guild’s advice. Phew!
9. The guild has a mentor program where a new beekeeper is paired with another more experienced beekeeper. The mentor gives you support and guidance on how to manage your hive which is really important because it’s easy to kill off your bees, especially early in the process of cultivating a hive.
10. The Southeast Virginia Beekeepers Guild is a great resource for all your bee questions or problems. Their website https://www.beekeepersguild.org/ has a contact page to call or email several members of the guild. They can answer your questions and send you to the right person for any help. If you have a bee swarm in your yard they might take the swarm off your hands for free. If you need local raw honey, they have a contact list for that as well.
It was only an introductory course, but I learned a lot more than I was expecting. And I’ve even moved the question as to whether I might keep bees to the “maybe” category when it used to be “probably not.” If you see this course offered again, sign up! You’ll be glad you did.
Photos credits: Penn State University
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