This past winter was a rough one for honey bees. Word is, across the country about a third of the population didn’t make it though. Blithewold’s beekeeper, Brendan Kennedy lost most of his hives including the two at Blithewold. When he opened our hives for their first spring inspection in April, there was still honey in the frames but it looked like the bees were unable to reach it (that can happen especially during cold winters) and evidently died of starvation. It was such a bummer that when we got a call here at the greenhouse a couple of weeks later about a swarm of bees in someone’s yard, I got all kinds of excited. A swarm is such good news especially after a winter like this one! It’s a sign of a colony that is healthy enough to split into a second colony. While beekeepers generally try to prevent their own hives from swarming (if given plenty of room to grow, an un-split colony will produce more honey than they can use) they also really appreciate a swarm. They’re free bees! So Brendan took advantage of the good news, picked up that swarm, and brought it back to Blithewold.

If swarms of bees make you as nervous as they once made me, let me reassure you that they’re not as scary as they look. Despite a chaotic-looking swirl of thousands of stinging insects and a massive clot of squirmy bees hanging on a branch end, they are at their most docile during a swarm. That’s because they gorge on honey before leaving the hive. They’re simply too full to put up a fight. (Same is true when beekeepers smoke a hive before inspection. Thinking their house is on fire, bees tank up in case they need to evacuate.) When a colony is preparing to swarm, they build swarm cells with potential new queens inside. When those cells are capped, a large part of the population takes off with the old queen. After she finds a place to land (often in a tree) her workers cluster around her and send out scouts to look for a new home. It could take anywhere from hours to days for them to find one. Brendan brought a hive body with him to the swarm site and dropped them in. (Sometimes, if presented with a hive body full of comb, they’ll walk themselves right in.)

A couple of weeks ago, when Brendan inspected his/Blithewold’s hive, he let me — and you — have peek too. He found an active colony with cells already full of honey and pollen and at least one frame in which the queen had laid brood in a regular and healthy looking pattern. Huzzah! We also noticed that some of the foragers had bright red pollen in the pollen packs on their legs. Any guesses what flower that might be from? (Honey bees – and maybe native bees too? – are specific foragers, visiting the same type of flower on each trip out of the hive.) I’m putting my wager on horse chestnut… (Hover over pictures for the captions and/or click on for a larger look.)

Have you ever seen – or hived – a swarm of honey bees?

Gail and I have talked about using biological controls (getting “good bugs” to eat the “bad bugs” that eat the plants) in the greenhouse but aside from trying to not crash through spider webs on our watering and grooming rounds, and occasionally overwintering praying mantis egg cases in hopes of an early spring hatch, we’ve never tried it. Until now. Our good friend Crystal Brinson dropped off 3 bags of lady bugs this week and already the greenhouse seems tidier. And livelier. According to the package, our ladybugs (Hypodamia convergens) can each eat up to 5000 aphids and then lay eggs that hatch into alligator look-alike larvae that will eat their way to adulthood. Already our releaselings are looking … busy … and should be laying eggs near aphid infestations though I haven’t spotted any just yet.

The same day the ladybugs were released Gail noticed evidence of nature’s own IPM: brand new clusters of baby common or European garden spiders (Araneus diadematus).  They look much too tiny to tackle any full grown flying aphids but they’re already busy stringing webs and no doubt a flash mob (the barest vibration scatters them into action) could make quick work of any prey bigger than they are. I’m thrilled to have two such excellent reasons to hold off spraying insecticidal soap on our aphid and whitefly infested plants.

Have you ever released ladybugs in the garden? Do you have any overwintering in your house? (Crystal says, no worries if you do. They’ll find their way out again the same way they came in.) Any chance they keep your houseplants aphid free?

The first thing I learned in bee school is that more people are interested in keeping bees than I would have thought. In the 2 classes held at RIC there are over 100 people enrolled. The second thing I learned was that beekeepers are as generous and enthusiastic as gardeners. They want anyone and everyone who is interested in keeping bees to succeed. To that end, the RI Beekeepers Association runs several bee school classes every year, holds monthly meetings, and encourages every newbie (newbee?) to ask lots of questions and shadow a mentor. And it’s a big enough network that we students have been reassured that there would always be a more experienced beekeeper nearby willing to come over to help inspect a hive and answer questions. With such a safety net, it would be very hard to fail.

Which is a good thing because there’s a lot to it. A lot of bees for one thing – 50,000+ workers and drones (depending on the time of year), plus one queen, make up a healthy colony. The queen can lay over 1000 eggs per day that grow into new workers (and drones) to replace old — individuals (besides the queen) only live about 40 days altogether.

The colony’s goal is to reproduce and survive the winter and it’s a fascinating community effort. The workers have specific roles that change over the course of their lifespan, going from nurse bee to house bee to guard. After about 3 weeks in the hive, they go out as the foragers we gardeners know and love. Interestingly, the workers, not the queen, make all the decisions about what the foragers should bring back to the hive (nectar, pollen, water), whether the queen is getting old and needs replacing, and when it’s time for the colony itself to reproduce (swarm). Drones only job is to fly around in great comet-shaped congregations and mate with the queen. They mooch food from the workers and are kicked out of the hive before winter.

And there’s a lot involved in keeping a colony healthy. So much that it has made my head spin and I haven’t even learned yet about all of the problems, diseases, and infestations to which they’re so susceptible…

In last week’s class I learned that there are no ordinances against keeping bees in Rhode Island. But keepers in the urbs and suburbs should be discreet (hide hives in the back yard and paint them to blend in) and be super sensitive to neighbors’ worries. (Giving away honey is said to help assuage fears.)  Apiaries should face south or southeast for winter sun, and be out of the way of heavy human, animal, and car traffic. And we’ve got to get it right. Once the bees are in residence, the hive can only be moved less than 3′. Or more than 3 miles. And bees will need a nearby water source to keep them out of your neighbor’s pool.

Blithewold’s bees are situated beautifully, facing south in full winter sun. It was warm enough today that I thought I might see some activity (in the winter, bees leave the hive on sunny days for “bathroom breaks”) but I pressed my ear up to the hive body and thought I could hear them hum. I can’t wait to learn more and maybe shadow our volunteer beekeeper and have a peak inside…

Last Friday, after a mostly rainy-drizzly week, Gail and I spent part of a fog-burnt morning surfing the interwebs in the Display Garden. I know spiders are busy this time of year because I have peeled their webs off my face and out of my hair, but as the dewy network was illuminated, it was plain to see that no plant, no span, no airwave is left untraveled. Amazing.

(Click on pictures for a better view.)

Can you see – or feel – the spidery activity in your garden?

Whole days go by now between hummingbird sightings and I just stood in the Display Garden with my camera poised for a good 15 minutes waiting to catch a glimpse of a monarch. They’re few and far between now. But just this morning I read a news blurb in the local paper that thousands of monarchs en route to Mexico stopped for a rest on Goosewing beach in Little Compton (click here to see the picture). If only they had taken a slight detour westward to visit us… I’m not sure if the monarchs we’re still seeing have come down from the North or if they have just been (re)born here — there are still plenty of caterpillars on the milkweed and butterfly weed plants. But I do know (because I looked it up like I have to every year) that these butterflies are the 4th generation great-grandchildren of the butterflies that began traveling up from Mexico last spring. Unlike their parents, grandparents and greats who only live 2-6 weeks as butterflies, these guys are made of tougher stuff. They’ll live long enough (up to 8 months) to make the journey back to Mexico, hibernate for the winter and mate in spring to circle the cycle back northward again. Wish them luck.

The hummingbirds we’re still seeing (which I can never seem to get a photo of) are making their way down from the North and stopping just long enough to tank up during their long journey to Central America. From what I understand, these travelers should be females and youth because the (older) males fly on ahead. I know some people took their feeders down during those few days when it seemed like our local birds disappeared for good, but if you leave it up – or leave plenty of late blooming salvias, porterweed (Stachytarpheta spp.), honeysuckle, fuchsias, and nicotiana in the garden, you’ll get on the migrant’s list of favorite roadside diners and those birds will return year after year. (Their average lifespan is estimated to be 3-4 years, which is pretty incredible considering their tiny hearts beat up to 1200 times per minute.)  And then don’t forget to put the feeder back out again in April/May.

Are you still seeing hummingbirds and monarchs in your garden?