Weed Control for Beekeepers

 

Indea in my field of dandelions

Beekeeping is full of conundrums, and trying to maintain an all-natural yard without having your neighbors completely hate you is definitely one of them. I have been fortunate that no one has complained (yet) about my beautiful crop of dandelions!

I too, can appreciate a nice yard and control over the non-flowering, non-nectar producing weeds. At the moment, my yard has an over-abundance of these less desirable plants. My first plan of attack was to pull out, by the roots, these non-contributing intruders. But after the first couple hours, having hardly made a dent, I decided to search for other options.

Roundup weed killer

You don’t have to look much farther than your local hardware store or garden center to find a quick and easy solution. I’m sure nobody has missed the negative hype that surrounds this popular product. Not only is it extremely harmful to honey bees and other pollinators, it’s been proven to not be too healthy for us either … but that’s for another blog.

So, what to do? I had read about a recipe that is ‘guaranteed to kill weeds’. It sounded simple enough. I thought I’d give it a try and aim for an only-the-weeds-I-want type yard.

A fabulous invention!

I bought a pressurized sprayer as my yard is too overrun for a handheld spray bottle to do the trick. This is an absolute must and I can’t believe I have never owned one before!

The recipe calls for four liters of plain white vinegar. If vinegar is such an effective weed killer … should I really be putting it in my beets to make pickles?? Something for future pondering …

Two cups of Epsom Salt was the next ingredient. Epsom Salt is good for just about everything; why not weed killing as well!

And finally, a half cup of ‘blue’ Dawn dish soap. Not sure what’s in this, but it shows up a lot in ‘deep cleaning’ recipes.

With my weed killer mixed, the pressure sprayer filled and pressurized, I headed out to do battle with the weeds invading my wooden walkways and flowerbeds.

This was the result only four hours later! The weeds are looking dry and turning brown. I’m very happy with the results and can’t wait to mix another batch and continue on.

With this effective recipe, I don’t have to live with unwanted, invasive weeds, nor do I have to spray with harsh chemicals that hurt/kill pollinators, can make my dog sick, and are harmful to the environment and me. I can rest assured I’m not harming the pollinators that visit my yard and the honey bees that live here are not being poisoned by the very food they eat. (Something we all need to think about.)

Butterfly sipping nectar on a dandelion

This is the hive in my yard. I checked it yesterday to find a very productive queen bee at work. The population is still low, but considering the trauma they endured, they’re doing quite well. You can still see the muddy bear paw print on the bottom box.

Honey bee hive that survived the bear attack

Dancing Bees

It isn’t a salsa, samba, tango or waltz, but is just as intricate. This dance is performed repeated throughout the day in honey bees hives around the world.

The above video shows a worker who has recently returned from a foraging trip. By the color of the pollen on her back legs, she’s pretty excited about the patch of dandelions she found. Her job now, as a dancer, is to give explicit directions to this choice site. As you can see in the video, she has a few interested foragers.

The basic waggle dance pattern follows a figure-eight circuit.

Left half of waggle dance

Our dancing bee starts by ‘waggling’ her abdomen back and forth and back and forth as she runs forward. At the end of her ‘run’ she will walk around to the left and begin the dance all over again.

Right half of waggle dance

She will ‘run’ again in the same direction waggling her abdomen for the same amount of time. At the end of this ‘run’ she will turn to the right and complete the figure-eight pattern.

To keep her followers interested, she may stop briefly to share some of the nectar she has collected. This way her sisters know what type of flower they are looking for.

Duration to distance of waggle dances

Believe it or not, extensive studies have been done on deciphering the waggle dance. Basically, the duration of the dance indicates the distance from the hive to the luscious source of nectar/pollen. Roughly one second of waggling equals 1000 meters.

The direction and length of the waggling (which will always be the same for the duration of the dance) gives the exact location of the flowers in relationship to the sun. Sounds complicated? It is.

Fortunately, honey bees are much better at geometry than I am!

Forty degree waggle dance

The angle that she waggles, as opposed to going straight up, is directly related to the angle of the sun in relation to the nectar/pollen source. The worker in the video is on about a 135 degree angle.

Honey bee navigation

The other foraging bees learn the dance and know exactly where they’re headed when they leave the hive. The final key to finding that amazing patch of flowers is scent.  This they would have picked up from sampling nectar from the bee doing the initial dance. Recruited foragers make a bee-line from the hive to the nectar/pollen source.

So much for thinking how brilliant we are with our GPS. Honey bees have been pin-pointing locations for thousands of years!

Foraging honey bee in alfalfa

First Hive Check

 

Bee Whyld bee yard

The Bee Whyld team ventured out on Monday afternoon to do the first hive check. The new hives have had a few days to settle in, and foraging bees are already busy bringing rich, Yukon pollen in. 

Brood box brimming with honey bees

We were happy to find all the hives brimming with bees. These hives are early splits from the Vancouver area. It is apparent these colonies are quite a few weeks ahead of our Yukon ones.

Jess smoking bees before removing the top box

With Liz’s New Zealand beekeeping tips and tricks, everyone became pretty adept at opening and inspecting the hives. The smoker came in handy to keep the bees calm.

Joel holding a full honey frame

Those industrious worker bees have been busy collecting nectar and have already created full frames of honey. These frames will remain in the larger brood boxes. This honey will be left for the bees to eat.

Courtney searching for the queen on a very busy brood frame

Frames that are situated in the middle of the box tend to be brood frames. Brood patterns were examined while keeping a watchful eye out for the all-important queen bee.

One of our beautiful queen bees in the centre of the picture

It’s always exciting to find the queen bee. These are beautiful hybrid queens. They do not have a solid black, or orange, abdomen. A hybrid queen can produce orange or black drones. There were plenty examples of both.

Younger larva in top left, older larva bottom right, capped pupa in centre

Frames are gently removed with hopes of spotting the queen. If the queen remains elusive, then signs that she is hard at work is enough. This is evident when eggs and larva in various stages of development are present in numerous cells.

Feeding the bees

Finally, before closing up the hive a sugar/water mixture is poured into the in-hive feeder. This is to sustain the bees until the Yukon flowers are in full bloom.

There is simply something magical about spending an afternoon surrounded by thousands of buzzing honey bees.