Bee Week! - Bee Friendly Gardens & Plants

Look after the Bees and they will look after you, by pollinating your flowers fruit trees and veggies. Bees need water, different varieties of pollen for their proteins year round, and nectar for their energy as well to turn into honey for themselves and us.

Water.
A strong hive can use up to a litre of water a day in the Summer! The Bees take it back home to evaporate to cool the hive. as well as drinking it.

One of our girls taking a drink

Hives right by the pond

Most urban beekeepers will make make sure that their hives have a supply of water nearby to prevent the Bees from hitting up the neighbours swimming pool in summer. This can be a slowly dripping tap into a post with stones in, to give them something to stand on and not drown, a poultry drinker, dog bowl or siting the hives near a pond or stream.
Our Bees love to hang out at the edge of the waterfall in our pond which is near the hives.

Pollen.
Bees need pollen all year round to feed their babies, it is their source of protein, amino acids, vitamins and minerals. Therefore a variety of plants, some of which flower in winter and autumn as well as the summer and spring flowering varieties is a good idea. Some research into CCD (Colony Collapse Disorder) suggests that urban Bees do better than their rural counterparts as they have a wider variety of pollen and nectars to feed from. The monoculture environments where Bees are shipped from orchard to orchard for their pollination services (in the USA for example in the almond or stone fruit industry) will only provide pollen from one type of tree/plant. It would be like you or I only eating one type of protein rich food all the time, we would eventually lack some of the vital minerals, vitamins and amino acids our bodies need to be strong and fight infection. It has been suggested that that Bees who feed only one kind of pollen all summer are more likely to contract disease as well as succumbing to the deadly Varroa Destructor mite.

Bee with full pollen baskets on her legs 

Bees store Pollen as 'bee bread' in the frames next to the honey see the different yellow/orangey coloured cells? 

Nectar.
The primary energy source for Bees. Nectar contains sucrose, fructose and glucose. Again, different species of plants produce different types, flavours etc of nectar, this can give the honey some of its characteristics.

Each worker Bee in her lifetime only produces one teaspoon of honey - think about that the next time you get to the bottom of the honey jar and there is a teaspoon left.

Bees take the nectar back to the hive by storing in a separate 'honey stomach', when they get home they transfer it to a house Bee by mouth to mouth, the recipient house Bee mixes the nectar with enzymes from their stomach, this breaks down the sugars, starting to turn the nectar into honey. This nectar is stored in the cells of the honey comb and once most of the water has been evaporated from it, it is capped over with wax for storage.

Bees transferring nectar, mouth to mouth

Our early season light floral honey

We have found that if we take honey off the hives early in the summer it tends to be light and floral in taste, if we take the honey off towards the end of the summer it tends to be darker and richer.
This produces honey which are advertised as 'Clover',  'Pohutakawa' or Manuka' where the hives have been placed in locations where there is an abundance od one plant flowering at a time.
Bees tend to visit one species at a time, so If you do plant flowers for them its a good idea if you can, to have a lot of the same species so the pollen and nectar produced are utilised by the Bees.

Further Reading.
http://good.net.nz/blog/janet-luke/creating-a-bee-friendly-garden
http://www.waikatobeekeepers.org.nz/bee-friendly.aspx
http://nba.org.nz/beneficial-plants-for-bees
http://nba.org.nz/pdf/Nectar_Pollen_Sources_NZ.pdf
http://www.greenurbanliving.co.nz/index.php?CID=100037

Bee Week! - Why Bees are dying off and how we can help.

There has been a lot of press over the past few years about Bees dying off, many theories have been put forward over this time and they seem to be distilling down into a few things working with each other that weaken colonies enough to prevent them surviving.
CCD (Colony Collapse Disorder) is where they just disappear, one day the hives are busy with tens of thousands of Bees going about their business, the next day there are only a few baby Bees emerging, dying or dead brood (from getting chilled as no Bees to keep the hive warm inside).

The latest theory about this is that Bees become disorientated when out foraging, can't find their way home they die in the field at night, cold, alone and frightened. This can happen as a result of them absorbing pesticides that contain neonicotinoids which are found on pollen, nectar and the leaves, flowers and stems of plants that have been treated with it.
Studies have shown that Bees exposed to the Neonicotinoids have trouble navigating and aslo learning (including learning the routes from the pollen and nectar sources back home)
some countries have taken the step of banning this chemical and subsequently seen increases in Bee population, specifically France.
A study in which Bees exposed to neonicotinoids found that they were especially vulnerable to the Varroa Destructor, a common Bee parasite. Another study found that neonicotinoids dramatically increase the toxicity of fungicides to the affected Bee population.

The real scary shit is that once this stuff is in the soil it will affect the water quality in the aquifer and will never actually disappear from the bio cycle of the earth and water-table.

What we can do about this.
On a scale of 'really easy' to 'really passionate' here are some things you can do to help.

1. On a small scale these pesticides are also available scarily enough in your local garden centre. So firstly don't buy them, choose something else, read the labels and see whats in it before you hit the checkout. the thing you don't want in there is Imidacloprid

2. If you do see them in the Garden Centre, DIY store, mention it to the person on the floor or ask to see the manager and suggest to them that they stop stocking such a nasty chemical ( there are plenty of other pesticides out there that are Bee friendly and work just fine.
3. Let all your friends and social network know about his step, make others aware that they are contributing to the problem by buying this. 
4. Write to the company responsible here in NZ ask they to reconsider selling this or making it more apparent that this chemical is responsible for declining Bee numbers.
Yates New Zealand,
PO Box 1109,
Auckland 1000.
6. Write to David Carter (Government minister for Primary industry in NZ)or your local MP , Bayer Industries and/or the USDA, urging them to reconsider the viability of this poisonous chemical.
5. Make your garden a bee friendly place - more on this tomorrow.

Further reading.
http://www.xerces.org/neonicotinoids-and-bees/
http://kiwimana.co.nz//neonicotinoids-available-now-at-your-garden-centre/
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/03/neonicotinoids-bee-collapse/
http://www.mendeley.com/research/mechanism-differential-toxicity-neonicotinoid-insecticides-honey-bee-apis-mellifera/
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/01/pesticides-honeybees-update/
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0030023
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/12/epa-clothianidin-controversy/