Bee Sting under the Microscope

A few weeks ago I found a bee sting in my clothing and decided to pop it in the fridge for later. Having had a few minutes free recently I pulled out the microscope and took a few photos. Been doing a little reading up on microscopes and mine seems to be a Victorian Field Microscope which is probably why I couldn't find a USB port on it. The picture quality isn't great as it's pretty difficult to take a photo down a microscope anyway and the laser focus on my phone probably got thrown by the microscope being nearer than the object but after taking a lot of photos, deleting most and tweaking the best I made a composite showing three views of the sting. In the bottom left image I think you can make out a couple of the barbs, the little saw toothlike shapes on the lower left of the sting towards the end.

The business end of a Honey Bee under a microscope

Hive Entrance Video

This image is best accompanied by Wagner's Flight of the Valkyries

I've recently discovered my phone can record video in slow motion, so one sunny day with not a ot to do in the apiary I decided to film bees coming and going from the hive entrance. It's quite and eye opener, mainly because they don't seem to be particularly good at flying.

Watching the video I was surprised how many returning bees bumped into the Brood Box as they missed the hive entrance. One bee crashes into it four time before finding her way in. There's ample room for them to land on the landing board and walk in but despite the risk of concussion most seem to prefer to fly straight in rather than land and walk.

At the hive entrance, slow motion

Yellow Bees, Smoker Spiders and Others

On a recent hive inspection I was surprised to see a round yellow dot moving about on a frame of bees. Normally a round yellow dot is a Queen Bee marking to show she was born in a year ending in a 2 or a 7. Blowing on the comb to separate the bees a bit it tuned out to be a worker.

Yellow marked worker?

I initially wondered if someone was doing some sort of test to see where bees were coming from and going to but if that was the case I should've seen more marked bees. I reached out and touched the bee and as the bee moved from under my thinly gloved finger the mark rubbed off. It was pollen. I found another one looking the same in another hive too.

And another yellow dot

Wasps have started making an appearance round the hives and I've even spotted a couple fighting with bees. Not seen many yet but depending how their numbers are this Summer I may put out a trap. I filmed one butchering a dead bee . I've filmed this before but this is a clearer video -better camera phone, less obstacles, better lighting, friendlier wasp and so on.

Wasp butchering a dead bee

As well as prodding pollen covered bees and annoying wasps with my phone I've made yet another brood box, finishing off the floorboards I was given last year -made three brood boxes, two nucs and a roof with them which I think is pretty good going.

Another Commercial Brood Box ready for painting.

I've also been observing urban wildlife in the garden and apiary and taking a few photographs. Recently upgraded my phone to an HTC 10, the camera is excellent -getting the bees to stand still is a little tricky though.

Spider on my Smoker. D-8

Buff Tailed Bumble Bee (Bombus terrestris) I think

A male Red-tailed bumblebee (Bombus lapidarius)

Honey Bee collecting Nectar and covered in Pollen

Drone Fly (Eristalis tenax), a sort of over muscled hover fly

Common Frog (Rana temporaria)
One of the cats keeps releasing these into the house.

Another Roof? Super.

Been up to a little more woodwork. I have a roll of roofing felt knocking about and had some spare wood so decided to make a new roof. I have enough roofs for all the colonies I intend to manage but as my collection of Supers and Brood Boxes has grown a spare roof or two to sit on the stack when they're not in use will be handy. The wooden part of the roof is very simple to make, it's just a  box with one side open large enough to loosely fit over a Brood Box or Super with a 22mm baton stuck round the inside to ensure there's an air gap between the crownboard it'll sit on and the roof proper. I used wood glue on the mating edges, two screws on each corner of the vertical sides then 4 nails to hold the top in place before using more screws to secure it. All the screws and wood glue is probably overkill really but as roofs are used upside down to support Brood Boxes and possibly full Supers they need to be pretty robust.

Scoring the underside of the roof felt

My first attempt at using roofing felt was a bit rough and ready but I've since figured out how to do make the corners tidy by scoring the underside of the felt. Run a line along each edge where it'll fold over the edge of the roof and a diagonal short line on each corner from the inside to the outside.

Tucking in the felt

After nailing most of the way along the sides the corners can then be tucked in under a side before nailing  through the corner with a clout nail or two.

I used slightly longer nails to go into the ends of the sides, gotta be careful not to collide with a nail though.

Nearly finished

Looks nearly finished at this point but still needs a couple of vents adding. Actually if it's only ever going to sit on stacked spare kit you can probably skip these.

Lazy way to add a vent

To add those I drilled a holes into two opposing sides angled slightly upwards going through the felt, the wooden side and the baton behind it.

One fairly neat roof vent

A small rectangle of mesh, I used some spare bits of cut up mesh floor, is then slid up behind the felt. It's held in place by friction.

New roof fitting over a Super

The roof sides are meant to be 155mm tall measured on the outside but I just used some spare bits I had. You could make them longer to provide more protection for the hive especially if they're going to be someplace windy.

Yet more Supers

The season should be drawing to an end but I'm out of Supers and the colonies are still expanding over here so as well as the roof I decided to assemble a couple more Supers. I did some shopping around as I didn't ant to spend much on them. The cheapest flat packed Supers I could fine were from Peak Hives and installed 11 frames in each. The frames came from Smart Kraft and ordering fifty they came in at just under a pound each including nails and postage. A couple of parts broke during assembly but at a pound a frame I'd expect that, it's quite a saving over the larger suppliers. The foundation came from Easipet who I've ordered Supers from before, they came in at about 62p a sheet. I'd prefer to use 9 or 10 frames per Super really but if you put 9 undrawn frames in a box it's unlikely the bees will draw them out as the gaps are too big so you start with 11 and when they're drawn out change the spacing.. I used plastic metal ends to space the frames which I'll remove when the frames get moved onto 10 frame castellations next season.