The Way To Bee with Frederick Dunn - Backyard Beekeeping Q & A #287 are honey bees an invasive species?

Episode Date: December 21, 2024

This is the audio track from today's YouTube Video:  https://youtu.be/bpKfPC0dggY

So hello and welcome, happy Friday. Today is Friday, December the 20th, and this is Backyard Beekeeping Questions and Answers episode number 287. I'm Frederick Dunn and this is the way to be. So I'm really glad that you're here with me today. If you noticed outside, it is snowing. If you want to know what we're going to talk about today, please look down in the video description below and I'll list all the topics in order just for you. And there'll be some links that will help you get some further information based on the things that we cover today. If you want to know how to submit your own question or subject for consideration in the future, please go to the website, the wayto be.org, and click on the page marked the way to be, fill out the form, and you're in, maybe. So maybe you've got a question on your mind and it just won't wait for the next episode. So you want to talk to somebody right now.

If you're not against Facebook, I understand a lot of people are. But if you're not, join the fellowship. The Way to Be Fellowship on Facebook. No advertising. No politics. Nothing but bees. And any question on any level, any topic is welcome. So I'm glad that you're here. The topic is going to hit today. We're submitted over the past week and I'm doing it early today because I have to be somewhere. Why do I have to be somewhere? Because it's my sister-in-law's birthday. Doris turns 70. So we're all going out. So I have my orders. I have to wrap things up. So happy birthday to Doris. Doris is deaf. So this means I love you. And that's it. We'll move on. What's going on outside? 29.5 degrees Fahrenheit, which is minus 2 Celsius. Zero mile per hour wind. What's that in kilometers? Also, zero kilometers per hour.

99% relative humidity. Squirrels are fighting over nuts right now. I know that's interesting to you. We have three, species of squirrels outside in my backyard right now. We have the big fox squirrels, nice giant ones, and we've got the gray squirrels, and the little tiny super fast moving high attitude issues with the red squirrels. Those are the little ones. And you would think the big squirrels could hold the ground, but apparently not.

And not only that, what's the number one reason squirrels lose their nuts? Thiefed by other squirrels. And the little red squirrels will flat out charge the big squirrels right through the snow. It's hilarious. Tried to get video of it, but I failed, so instead you got the opening sequences that you got. So holly berries. I was also trying to get pictures of the holly berries because the bluebirds are here. They shouldn't be. They should have gone somewhere warm, but they're out eating holly berries to survive the winter.

So there's interesting things going on. What else can we talk about? I think that's just about it. not a lot going on in the B-yard cell. This time of year, a B-yard activity in the northeastern United States where I live, state of Pennsylvania, northwestern part of the state, the snow belt, Erie County. We are still in the running for the Snow Globe Award, which means the most snowfall in a city of about 100,000 people, I guess. Not my town, my town is much smaller than that. Anyway, the very first question today comes from Jackie Pee. from Arizona.

And Jackie wants me to explain whether or not honeybees are an invasive species. So we say they're not invasive. They're non-native. So oftentimes new beekeepers will run into somebody who is an environmentalist or somebody who just wants native species in every way and nothing else. And so you can run into some roadblocks when you're talking to people who are nature lovers. And you might be surprised sometimes that nature lovers push back against you and say, why do you want to keep bees that are invasive if they don't belong here?

Well, here's what I want you to tell those people. Honeybees, while not native to the United States, are not considered an invasive species. This is due in combination to their economic importance and managed status. Their role as pollinators. Firstly, honeybees play a crucial role in the pollination of many of our crops. They contribute significantly to American agriculture. They're responsible for pollinating billions of dollars worth of fruits and vegetables and nuts each and every year.

Without honeybees, the agricultural industry would face significant challenges leading to higher food prices and of course potential shortages. Secondly, honeybees are managed by beekeepers. Unlike invasive species that spread uncontrollably, honeybee populations are carefully monitored and controlled. Beekeepers ensure their hives are healthy and productive, preventing uncontrolled expansion.

This managed status distinguishes our honeybees from truly invasive species that pose a threat to native ecosystems. While the honeybees are not native, their introduction has not led to the same ecological problems associated with invasive species, they do not outcompete native pollinators to the extent that they cause significant declines in native bee populations. Additionally, they do not disrupt native ecosystems or cause widespread damage to the environment the way a truly invasive species would. So it's important to note that honeybees do face threats, including habitat loss, pesticide use and disease.

However, these threats are primarily due to human activities and not the inherent nature of honeybees themselves. In conclusion, honeybees are not considered an invasive species in the United States due to their economic value and managed status. In their role as pollinators, while they are not native, their presence is beneficial to agriculture and does not pose a significant threat to the native ecosystem. 3, 2, 1. So question number 2. Comes from Alvin from Yonkers, New York. Says, hi, Fred. During one of my warmer days this week,

I noticed my bees tossing out some nearly formed white larvae, about three of them or so. Just wanted to ask if this was suggestive of a healthy hive. Performing hygienic behavior or removing drone brood concerning for a hive unable to sustain brood due to poor resources, or so on. They had about 10 deep frames of honey and a candyboard about two months ago. So, yeah, that's normal. In fact, if I see larvae being dragged out and left on landing boards,

this is why I often say go out and look at your beehives at sunrise before they get a chance to clean things up, but with the cold weather right now, things stay on the landing board for a long time. Now, in my neck of the woods at night, the mice are eating anything that's pushed out of the hive by the bees and so we just don't see them in the morning I see them because I have video of the mice eating the dead bees on the landing board in fact while I'm thinking of that I think I'll add that to the very end of today's video because they don't have a lot of material to cover because there's not that much going on but think of it this way if a colony is healthy they continue to invest in

their infrastructure they invest in keeping it clean and they're going to remove suspect developing pupa sometimes if there were varro destructor mites for example and you have hygienic bees in there they might sense that the varroa mites are underneath those cappings they uncapping they pull out the pupa and they put them on the landing board so for me that's a good sign and i think based based on this description also if you're not finding piles of dead bees at your entrance that's much worse and i mean piles i don't mean a few bees that are dead at the entrance. I mean if you go to dig out the entrance of your hive and I hope that you're doing that this winter and you just keep pulling out piles and piles and

piles of dead bees that colony might be in trouble. So the hive that's being described here that sounds normal. Sometimes also let's say there's nothing wrong with the larvae and the larvae that they're pushing out you look at them you're not likely to find varroa mites on them if they were in the cells with them for example, because once they're pulled out and the varroa mite realizes if it's mature enough to live, that's the other thing. Maybe the mites are mature and uncapping them and pulling out the pupa has killed the mite. So that's good news too. The foundress mite, the adult mite that went in there to produce those new mites might still be in there and would scoot around and maybe get out

and get on to another bee, that kind of thing. So it's very rare to find them after they're pushed out on the landing board with mites on their bodies. So if that's crossing your mind and you look at it and you think, oh, no mites. Look, it's out there. The mites probably moved on to the body of a nurse bee by now and they're no longer seeking a host. So I think it's a good sign though. I think they're cleaning up. So we're going to move on to question number three. This comes from Patricia M from spruce pine, North Carolina. What can I do if I have a lot of azaleas in my yard? I also have 20 plus new apple trees that will be near the hive. Well, apple trees are fine.

Azaleas, the reason that this comes up over and over again is because azaleas are known to produce mad honey, some people say. Toxic honey. Remember always dilution is a solution to pollution. And that's because are azaleas all that you have? So if they're not, if you've got lots of other forage around for your bees, the chances that the concentrations would end up high enough just from the azalea bushes, the azalea flowers, the nectaries from those azalea flowers. If those are the only thing that your bees are foraging on, then yeah, I would have some concerned about that. On the flip side of that, let's say you want to fail safe. You don't want to take a chance because there is such a thing as getting toxicity from azalea.

sourced nectar that your bees produce honey from. If you had lots of them, but let's say that you're showing some symptoms, check in with your physician, find out any chance that that's coming from your azaleas. Now let's go to my plan, which is normally to fail safe. If I had azaleas on my property, I wouldn't keep them. I would replace them. So what would be some of the replacements for your azaleas hydringes, chameleas, viberums. And talk with your local, you know, your local garden store, find out what the options are. And I don't know what it means by I have a lot of azaleas in my yard. So how big is the yard? Are we talking 100 azalea plants? Are we talking 200? Three or four? Because given that your bees can't

get all that they need from just one azalea bush or two or three, they're going to be bringing in resources from a lot of others. You might consider making sure that the honey that you produce from that colony gets blended with honey from other times of year when your azaleas are not in bloom. So you could further dilute it down. The other thing is how much honey are you going to eat? So let's say a little bit of it is in your honey and a little bit of it could be toxic or eating other things too. Are you just eating honey? Are you trying to be one of those people that tries to

prove that you're going to live on honey alone and nothing else? Because I get people that write me and say things like that. You can live on honey exclusively, they say. And I say you cannot. Based on science, just based on science alone. So the question is how much of the honey are you going to eat? Are there symptoms already? The only thing that you should keep, yeah, that's just, that's it. I'm not that worried about it unless it's a monoculture or unless it's predominantly azalea honey. But I would also consider replacing them with some other options. So question number four comes from Crystal Burgess from Bombola, New South Wales, Australia. This is not a question but an observation. It says you talk about giving bees algae and water or syrup in autumn. And I have a

pond that is full green that the bees were using early spring and they tapered off. as spring rolled into summer, and I'll keep an eye out to see if they come back in the autumn. Currently, they're using the clean water in my bathtub pond. I don't know what a bathtub pond is, but I guess the bees know what they like. So the thing is, when I talk about adding algae, it's blue-green algae, and it's spirulina specifically. And that was based on a lot of studies that have been done around the world, not just here in the United States, it showed that spirulina, when added to sugar-serone, and I suppose if you can get them to take it in water, that would be great too, that it has health benefits.

And it even is demonstrating that it can help with viruses that cause a formed wing virus, for example. So there are a lot of benefits to it to the point where it's very suspicious, almost how good it is. So I did some checking on that, and I found out that there's a lot more research going on even this year. And guess what they're about to do? Big surprise. they're going to modify the blue-green algae strains. Why would they do that? Because if you remember, if you just get something from the environment

that actually benefits your bees health-wise, it's very inexpensive, it's accessible, there's a lot of it out there. If you buy organic spirulina that's designed for people, it's intended for human consumption, it's on Amazon, it's the place where I buy mine, has a consistency of talcum powder, it's very inexpensive. So then when you're mixing with sugar syrup, if it's going to benefit your bees a lot,

then where's the incentive? If you're a chemical company or if you're trying to come up with some kind of microbe booster for the bees, unless you can patent and own it, there's really no point in getting into the investment part of it and doing all the expensive research and development to modify it and get some absolute benefits, right? So this patent pending, the patent was filed in 2024, so that's this year. And they're going to target specific bee viruses and other pathogens that your bees are exposed to. So they're going to further modify it. Now, once they modify something and it's a plant, we know from the history with Monsanto and others,

that then they establish a genome for the plant that has their modifications in it, which means then they can patent a living thing, a plant, which I personally don't like. but the laws were passed and they can do it so they're going to be engineering algae diets for bees to benefit them and that will be coming up probably later but I'm making sure that you know my bees have access to it I don't put it on in sugar syrup form of course we're not feeding sugar syrup anyway if it's on a time of year when you have honey soupers on so it's at a time when you're trying to boost your bees so early spring would be an example when you're

you mix spirulina with sugar syrup and then of course after your fall harvest once you've taken off your honey if you have one then you're probably adding spirulina too because it's inexpensive it's there why not put it in and when I was down at the Texas State Conference the strong microbials reps were down there and they had oh they're right here they had B-bytes so because I was talking to them about spirulina And wouldn't you know it, of course. We remember that a couple years ago there were spirulina patties that came out for like winter patties for bees. And the bee bites are by strong microbials, but so they have been using the spirulina.

And I don't know if it actually says spilene on here, but it says viable microorganisms. And it does contain spirulina and chloralea. So strong microbials has a history of creating supplements for all livestock, not just bees. And so I'm not sure if they may even have a part in some of this patenting process. But it's just widely known that algae is going to help your bees, specifically those two algae. So they may be modifying it to further benefit the bees. I don't know. I'm going to try to keep you posted.

But I will continue to use spirulium. If I'm going to open feed anything or if I'm going to try to boost a colony, it's going to be in the sugar syrup. It's one of the few things that I've added to sugar syrup that the bees have demonstrated a preference for. So that's interesting too. So moving on to question number five. So question number five comes from Nigel Moore. And Nigel says, I notice in one of your videos, you have an insect hotel. Can you give me construction details and how to locate an area?

orient it. So yes, we can. I've put these up through the years here on my property. And I like to have other insects here besides the honeybees, of course. So you may have even noticed this past year, we did a wasp study. So we paid attention to yellow jacket wasps, just to see how they would reconstruct a nest so it was blown down in a storm and things like that. So we like to learn about other species and specifically native species like mason bees. Right. And so this particular box, which is in the thumbnail for today, comes from flow hive. So they actually sell native bee hive boxes. But what happens to the proceeds that they earn from these goes straight to habitat, rehabilitation, reconstruction, and conservation. So just the details of this box. And you don't have to get a flow hive box. This is one of the easiest things ever. And this past year, 2004, through the summer, I have had. more individual bees and wastes, so orchard bees, mason bees, bobs, which are blue orchard bees, they've moved into these and so the bulk of my tubes

inside my pollinator houses like these are full right now. So we're going to have a great year in 2025. It's forecast, but you don't have to get a box just like this. This is reclaimed equipment that was left over from flow high, that maybe they had to cut it down or they had leftover. And so they rather than just scrap it, they went ahead and turned it into pollinator houses and then again, as I mentioned,

they give the proceeds away for pollinator habitat expansion. But you can even get things like these are bamboo. And they're cut off and there are a lot of different diameters. You can just strap them together. You can zip tie them and hang them in a protected spot. So part of this question was, where do you locate them? So mine are always under overhangs, and so they don't get direct summer sun

straight down on top of them. And mine face east to southeast. Those tended to be the areas that the bees would work the soonest. So solitary bees, they're worth learning about and looking into because they don't actually travel very far. The other thing is, their foraging season can be very short, depending on the species. So it gives you an opportunity to,

to see them up close and if you're teaching children as I often do about native species of bees they can walk up to a pollinator house and it's amazing how shy they are and how quickly they move. So if you notice there's different diameters in this one. So we've got blocks of wood. One of the things that's key to know is that you want these tubes to be at least six inches long. Sometimes I'll see these and they're very shallow, two or three inches. Now, They may occupy those, but they will most likely occupy the ones that are much deeper because that's protection for the females that are laying eggs and setting up next year's cycle of bees. So I'm going to also recommend a book that doesn't show you how to do this.

This is very simple. So this is just a bundle. These are all six inches long and you bundle them together and you can hang them up with a zip tie or something like that, that easy. You can also find 4 inch diameter or old plastic drain pipe and you can stuff a bunch of them in there. You can also take cutoffs from the ends of logs which I've also done that and at least six inches thick. So they're called cookies I think. Anyway when you've got that then you drill the holes in it.

Various diameters, half inch, three eighths and so on. But it helps if you know what your target species is. So there are field guides like this one. That's called Common Native Bees of the Eastern United States, but I'm sure there are for other parts of the country as well. And they identify the different solitary bee species that you're going to see. So this particular one is by Heather Holm. And you can just Google it yourself, I think.

It's under $10. But these are great teaching tools for kids. And when you set those up, it also lets you know, what other species are sharing the land, sharing the environment with your honeybees. And it also is just very helpful to let people know that you care about other things besides honeybees and that you're going to support them with your landscaping too. So pollener houses are fantastic. Now we're into the fluff section already today. So first of all, I just want to wish everyone to Merry Christmas. Happy holidays. That's coming up really fast.

I hope it's not catching you off guard. And upcoming this, following week I'm going to finally bring together all of my Irish moss growing video. What's it got to do with beekeeping? Well, I think it would be really cool if we could have some kind of ground cover that's good around moisture and everything else that doesn't require us to mow or trim it. So I'm looking for mow-free lawn low-growing ground cover and things like that. I've always liked Irish moss, so I bought seeds online and I spent months putting it. together the video that I'm finally going to launch this coming week. Lots of surprising things that I learned there so I hope you'll come back to watch that. If you're not a subscriber

already please do subscribe and you'll be sure not to miss other videos like that. The other thing is cleaning out your entrances. I know we talk about these a lot, these hive scrapers, entrance scrapers, but we had a really cold day and I didn't have a lot of of time and I just grabbed my shark vac. It's a battery powered cordless vac that I used to take bees out of the way sometimes because I can collect bees in this we found through the years and then just open this up and let them back out. So you don't kill bees when you suck them up with this vac, but I went around and found out that I could suck the entrances clear on all the beehives as I ran around and do it in a fraction of the time. Now it doesn't let you

reach all the way to the back the way this does and scrape them back, but it lets you clear bees from the entrance right at the entrance, which is enough to get your bees flying. So if you forgot last minute, you need to run out and clean the bees out, think about a vacuum also, because I was also thinking about maybe blowing them in and out of the way, but then that just blows all the dead bees in. We'd like to get them out. Because you'll notice, Sue, that when these warm-ups happen after a really cold day like today, that they're also damp at the entrance because that's where the dew point is obtained and condensation forms right there. So we like to get those out. And the cordless vac worked really well, so I thought I would share that. It's on Amazon.

It's just called a ultra-cyclone shark vac. And it works really well. Kind of sucks as a vacuum cleaner. But the other thing was the ivory beehive, the entrance on that was perfectly sized for the narrow tube on the shark bag. So I could stick that right in there. And there were a bunch of dead bees in my ivory beehive. So check your emergency feed always. Just if you get a warm up, you can look if it's sugar, replenish the sugar. If it's heavy fondant or something like that, replace the fondant. Hive alive fondant is what myself and.

many others are recommending. It just works really well. In the downtime, when you got nothing to do but sit around and worry about your bees, maybe consider joining a fellowship of beekeepers. Join a beekeeping organization. And you might think because you're new, you might not have something to contribute, but every beekeeping organization depends heavily on its volunteers. And you could volunteer, get to know some people, make some friends, and learn in your off time.

So then what else? Join the club. If you're in my neckler woods, the Northwest Pennsylvania Beekeepers Association would be the one to join, and that would be people that are in eastern Ohio, southwestern New York, you're all welcome. Put out the solitary bee house that I just described, don't wait till spring. Go ahead and put it out there and mount it on the wall. I've had them through the years, and then as they get older, I give them away. instead of just letting them get really old. And I replace them with new ones like that one.

So because by the time they start emerging, their offspring come out. Now, sure, they go back to whatever spot they originally came from most often, but you are providing more habitat for those native bee species and wasps and others that I mentioned. And if you have that out already,

it's getting weathered, it's actually going to smell natural to them and probably would get occupied pretty darn quick. And then you'll see a response. In other words, as the seasons pass, you'll see more and more orchard bees, mason bees, and things like that showing up. So what else?

Great time to move hives to good locations. If you're now, they're all in a state of conservation, they're all in torpor. And so now you could close off the entrances and relocate those, strap them up. And it's just a great time because when spring arrives, the new bees that are coming out,

we'll be doing orientation flights and stuff when the warm weather comes. So it's a good time to check things and move them where you want them. So that's pretty much it for today. I'm sorry that it's short. I will try to close out with a couple of videos that show the mason bees in my mason bee hive, this little box here, and also we'll show some of the mice eating bees on the landing board. So I want to thank you for being with me here today. sorry for the short session and I hope that your Christmas is absolutely fantastic. Thanks for being here.