Extreme weather and hives, I got stung, Happy 2006

[mick]

Well I was caught oout by the 43c degreee or about 105f temps we had here yesterday and the day before. Now its 18 and pouring. Total fireban yesterday. We have some major bushfores in Victoria and New South Wales atm.

Sydney is coppinig temperatures of 48 degrees celsius!!! A record for sure.

I am guessing our huives must need more ventilation in summer than those in Europe and the US. I can remember seeing a lot of hives kept in full sun up the bush when I was a kid. They were painted white of course and I wonder if stacking them 4 or 5 high like they dod was to act as a chimney and draw the hot air up the stack?? maybe better like that than 5 or 6 on the ground?

When I was rescuing my poor darlings from the wax moth I got stung on the forehead. I wasnt wearing anyting coz they are a very tame bunch of bees. Been moved a few times and I only had em a few months after all. Anyway I was fiddling around and banging when one just headed str8 for me and stung my forehead almost between the eyes.

Well I dont usuallly mind stings but this one was the foirst for a while, I usually get em on the grass. My forehead swelled up like a free dose of BOTOX for a couple of days. I left the sting a fair while and iced it for a bit, so I reckin it musta got the old hystamine system thingy in my body going and should cover me for a while. (please wear the right gear at all times).

How hot has it ever got for your bees, those poor people in Sydney, Surell everyting would melt at 45 degrees+

happy 2006 good health to you.

[Finsky]

Well I was caught oout by the 43c degreee or about 105f temps we had here yesterday .

What about plants? Are  bees able gather pollen or honey?  When they fly their body warm upp deadly :P  - what is killing fever?

[mick]

Hi Finsky,

I observed them carrying the usual full sacs of pollen back to the hive, some red, white and yellow. This is a beautiful place for a bee. Next to the wetlands they have about 30 square kilometres of bushland and lakes plus all of the house gardens. The plants have evolved with our extreme weather conditions. There are always some native trees and flowers and shrubs in flower all year round.

what is killing fever?

 sorry I dont understand this part :)

[Jack Parr]

I think Finsky means that when bees get severly overheated they get a fever and die????

[Finsky]

I think Finsky means that when bees get severly overheated they get a fever and die????

Protein start to denaturate about 43 C or more. When bees fly their muscles generate more heat.  I do not know what kind of upper temperature bees body stands. I have not seen that figure.

http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/content/abstract/35/4/930

Here is interesting research about swarm bee temperature. Temperature of good heated muscles are almost 41C.
http://www.nbb.cornell.edu/neurobio/department/Faculty/seeley/PDFs/Warming_of_swarms_(96).pdf
For rapid flight bee needs 35-40 C temperature in muscles, at least 33-35C.

Last spring I followed my bees in what temperature they were able to gather pollen? When sun was shining and weather was 16C, they only gathered piece of pollen. In temperature 18C they made full size pollen balls.

At late winter when temperature is +5C, sun is shining sharply and bee stand on snow, it is able to rise on wings and return to hive.

I have read that water pools are essential for Australian feral bees. Without water they cannot regulate their hive temperature.

We have cool weather but if bees have strong honey flow hive will be heatened and big group stop working. It is difficult to get them work again.

From my water pool I could see when bees need water and when not. If honey flow is heavy they do not take water from pool.

We have warm weather when it is over 20C.  It is quite seldom over 25C.

[Finsky]

Here is a nice story about bumblebee http://www.bumblebee.org/bodyTempReg.htm

[downunder]

I manage a university apiary in western sydney. The temperature reached 47.6 celcius today (115 or so). I still have a dozen hives in full sun (stupid I know). They were not doing much flying (except to a permenant water-pool set up nearby for the specific purpose of cooling bees.

I will look in the hives tommorrow to see how they went (expected to be 20 degrees celcius cooler tommorrow.

Our boxed stinglees native bees actually meltdown at this temp, so they are placed in control temperature rooms.

We also have one research site totally surrounded by bushfires as I type (within 1km), 50 hives or so.  A cool change and wind direction change is expected in 20 min's or so (hopefully blowing the fire away from the bees. I'll cross my fingers and hope!

Cheers

[Jack Parr]

I recently saw  a TV documentry on the Japenese hornet and honey bees.

Seems like the honey bees ball around the hornet and raise their body temps to above 117 degree F thus killing the hornet. The hornet is heat limited to 117 F but the bees can endure, at least for awhile, that much temp.

The sites that Finsky offered eventually led to some German scientist experiments and as usual they are very thorough and difficult to interpet for laymen :?:

Finsky it is 1430 at you place right now.  Are you not having a New Year party???

[Finsky]

Sorry. Here is swarm temperature reseach http://www.nbb.cornell.edu/neurobio/department/Faculty/seeley/PDFs/Warming_of_swarms_(96).pdf

[mick]

Thanks for all of that info Finsky, will do a bit of reading.

Downunder Im keen to hear how your hives went yesterday. and Jack thats mother nature at her evil best. Cooking Hornets to death, thats pretty clever!

[downunder]

I went through the 30 hives on site in western sydney this morning.

5 strong doubles suffered severe overheating. They were throwing out damaged pupa. SHB's were laying eggs all over the affected brood frames. Beetles were flocking to these colonies (over a thousand per colony). To alleviate this we a trialling a new technique. This involves removing every second comb and placing it in a new box above. (5 frames in 10 frame boxes, then ventilating from the lid, middle and base. Nearly all honey was removed as this absorbs heat. The hope is that the numerous bees will police fewer combs by removing SHB eggs and being aggressive to adults (kicking them out). The greater the airflow the less the humidity (high humidity triggers beetle reproduction).  

Luckily temperatures today are 20 degrees lower today.  Tommorrow these colonies will be inspected. If it works they will be put back together with sufficent stores.
   

5 four frame nucleus colonies were completely dead.

We lost 15 stingless bee trigona colonies. I suspected they might be gone. This has happened before when temp's have exceeded 40 degrees. Their colony resin melts at much lower temperatures. They need the insulation of a tree trunk (as in nature) to cope. If I hadn't been away I'd of put them in the control temperature rooms.  

It was a messy day

[bassman1977]

I was curious about the mentioned trigona colonies, and found this article.

http://www.beekeeping.com/articles/us/small_beekeeping/bee_basics.htm

Some GP stuff in there also, but interesting none-the-less.

[Finsky]

Beetles were flocking to these colonies (over a thousand per colony).

What are these beetles? Ordinary or that famous  hive beetles?

Have you measured how much temperature is in front of hives at entrance level? And what is temperature inside hive?

Official tempereture is in shadow  and 2 metres high?

You have huge sauna there. Sauna is Finnish word.

[downunder]

Yes Finsky,

The famous hive beetle from Africa. I am in the worst hit area in Australia. It a seriously damaging pest for us.

In the sun we registered 50.5 degrees celcius, a definite sauna as the finnish would say. It honestly feels like an oven walking in it.

More information about Australia's native bees,
www.zeta.org.au/~anbrc/

[mick]

Well thats interesting news although bad Downunder.

When I was working in Natural Resources we had some cool plants that were pollinated by native bees. Sadly most come and go and its hard to understand if it is not enough bees for the plants or not enough plants for the bees.

[beebloke]

Hi,
The Aussie guys are not joking about the heat.It was extreme.
My sites are located along a river from its source down to the sea.I had mixed results.
The ones i thought would suffer most ,did not
The ones I thought would be 50/50,powered through ,
The ones on the coast i thought would do better did not,they are a near disaster
I also can not tip football or horse races,sadly a financial fact.
We should all know by now,you can not predict in beekeeping.

Thank you
Beebloke

[downunder]

The technique I used for saving the colonies from being overwhelmed by beetles after the stress worked a treat.

I left them like that for 3- 5 days. They removed nearly all brood but with the milder temperatures the queen has laid them all up again. However there is still a ridiculous amount of the critters running around waiting to pounce.

At least I had a success!

[TwT]

Downunder, what treatments are yall useing for the SHB's?

[downunder]

The treatment is the method I described in one of the posts above (long winded). We are experimenting with it and having great success.

The key to small hive beetle reproduction is humidity (beat that and you have one half the battle.

This technique is essential for us when colony disturbance in high humidity is required.