NEWSLETTER #19 (English) from Urs & Izzy: Is it already spring?
- Izzy the busy bee....
- Feb 25, 2023
- 4 min read
January & February 2023 (Issue #19)
Is it already spring? Our bees think so. They have already woken from the winter sleepy state. The have started flying, and gather the first pollen of the year -- the hazelnut trees have already blossomed. As you know, the bees need the protein of the pollen to feed the newborn bees...keep on reading for more fun facts about bees and honey!
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News from the Beehives
A short update this time, as winter is sleep time for everybody. Our beecottage has now been upgraded with a beautiful and natural cork-floor, in the interior. So much more beautiful, easy to clean, bee- and environmentally friendly, and with even better insulation characteristics. We are sure the bees will appreciate it! (and we also).
The exterior is...as you see, still the same.
Where is my Honey...?
You know it, we don't have more honey until the new season! Remember that in our last issue, we said that the bees are eating your (and our) honey this year. We also calculated how much honey a bee ate in winter, and that it represented about eating 6,2 times her own weight every month - compared with us, humans, who eat 0,5 times our own weight of food.
Why does this happen? It is because bees have a much higher metabolic rate than us human. The smaller the animal is, the higher its metabolic rate (and also the higher the metabolic rate, the shorter the lifespan). Winter bees have lower metabolic rate than summer bees -- because they don't need to fly - they stay on the beehive. That's why they survive almost six months - compared to six weeks the spring bees. On the graph you can see some metabolic rates for animals. The bees (and in general, the insects) are at the top of the curve. So, as our grandmothers used to say... it is better to do things slowly
Facts & Figures
If you’ve ever been brave enough to get up close to a bee, you may have noticed three black dots on the top of its head. These are eyes! Who knew? Yes, bees have 5 eyes on their head. Surprised?
As well as two large eyes either side of its head, a bee has three simple eyes on the top of its head. These detect light (but not shapes), meaning that a bee can sense if it is being approached from above by a predator.
The two large eyes either side of its head are made up of lots tiny lenses that each piece together a wider image of what the bee can see - this is known as a compound eye. These eyes can see not just the three dimensional patterns, but also ultraviolet and electromagnetic waves associated to light, which are invisible to us humans.
Also, whereas a field of flowers might seem still to us humans, but bees are likely to be able to see them swaying in the smallest breeze. That’s because bees are very sensitive to movement, even if that movement occurs in 1/300th of a second. Humans can only detect movement happening for longer than 1/50th of a second.
Did you know that...?
An immune preparation for bees (=a vaccine) has been approved for the first time in the USA. It is designed to protect honey bees against the global bacterial disease American foulbrood (AFB), which can infect and kill bee brood, According to the company, this is the world's first approved vaccine for bees. It is administered with the feed juice for the animals.
AFB is a bacterial disease, widespread all over the world. Last year, the FLI registered 72 outbreaks of American Foulbrood (AFB) in Germany.
For the beekeepers affected, an infestation is often a small catastrophe: a ban circle of around two kilometers or more is usually drawn around infested hives
For the beekeepers affected, an infestation is often a small catastrophe: a ban circle of around two kilometers or more is usually drawn around infested hives, explains Kirsten Traynor from the State Institute for Apiculture at the University of Hohenheim. "If a beehive is infested, the beekeeper has to take action and report it to the relevant veterinary office. Often, an infested colony has to be killed and the contents then burned.
We share the innate immune system with insects; but the insects lack the adaptive immune system that we humans also have and that is the basis of vaccinations. "I would therefore not speak of a vaccination," says Genersch. "Because invertebrates do not have an immune system with a memory function like we do. I would therefore speak of 'transgenerational immune priming' or cross-generational immune preparation."
The preparation has only received conditional approval in the USA, not general approval. It will only be issued to certain beekeepers and will not be available for sale over the counter. Now it remains to be seen how the drug works in the wild. "The Phase II study in the field is still missing, and that is the real test,"
For European beekeepers, the approval from the USA does not mean much, since the preparation does not completely prevent chains of infection, the danger remains. In addition, it is not foreseeable whether and when the drug will be approved in Europe.
Swiss Bees
Agroscope (The Swiss Institute of Bee Health, housed at the University of Bern) is finalizing a 5 years pan-European project, called PoshBee (posh means Piekfein in English). There are 5 universities, and 4 research groups involved. The goal of the project was to define and quantify the factors that generate stress in bees, and impact their health. Yes, you guessed it well, the 'usual suspects' - agrochemicals- are one of the major factors.
But also, monocultives seem to be an important factor that generates serious levels of stress in the bee colonies. Imagine that the only thing that you would find on the supermarket would be potatoes... you would also stress, no? .
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