The Honey Files: A Bee’s Life is an educational video and teacher’s guide set, available now through the National Honey Board.

The focus is, of course, on beekeeping and pollination in the United States, but there’s a great deal here of value to teachers and home-schooling parents in other countries as well.

This 20-minute VHS videotape and 96-page teacher’s guide will have you and your students buzzing! Designed especially for educators of grades 4 - 6, these fun, new educational materials provide information, classroom activities and reproducible worksheets about bees, honey and pollination.

Although the package is designed for grades 4 - 6, much of the material is equally appropriate for more advanced levels as well — and the information contained in the Educator’s Overview sections alone will provide teachers, parents, and older children with a solid understanding of honey bees and their role in nature and agriculture.

Just take a look at the Table of Contents for the Teacher’s Guide:

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So you’ve got the bees all fed and ready to be wrapped for winter — but just suppose, there’s a spell of warmer weather, and you see a chance to feed a bit more. You’ve even got a few pails of sugar syrup leftover on hand… but the Fumagilin B has already been added to the syrup.

The question, then, is:
What is the life expectancy of Fumagilin B in sugar syrup?

Should you mix up another batch, or will the leftover medicated syrup still protect your bees from Nosema through the winter?

According to the people at Medivet, in a recent email exchange with inquiring beekeepers, it’s not possible to give an authoritative answer to this question because so much depends on the storage conditions for the syrup.

In general, however, it is not recommended to make up your medicated syrup very much ahead of time, or to store it for long, because the Fumagilin B is less stable in sugar syrup than it is once it’s been processed by the bees.

In other words, medicated syrup can be stored by bees in the hive — but the beekeeper can’t do it without the Fumagilin B losing much of its power to combat Nosema.

A “best guess” estimate is that syrup may lose about 20% - 30% of its potency in sugar syrup stored for 4 weeks, and another 50% if stored for much longer than that. The bees are likely to get “some benefit” from the old syrup, but it would be best to ensure that the bees have been well fed with freshly-mixed medicated syrup to ensure that the Fumagilin B will be effective.

The Honey Bees and Winter Kill fact sheet, from the province of Alberta, was highlighted in yesterday’s article entitled How to Help Honey Bees to Survive the Winter. By way of follow-up, New Brunswick’s Chief Apiarist, Chris Maund, has provided this comment:

This is a very well-written fact sheet. One key point that I would like to bring to people’s attention is the beginning statement in the section on Pest Management: “Beekeepers should check the annual recommendations provided by their Apiculture Program”. Please be aware that each province may have different recommendation practices.

For example, in New Brunswick, bees from colonies with visible signs of American foulbrood (AFB) MUST NOT be shaken onto new foundation. In New Brunswick, all bees from colonies with visible signs of AFB must be destroyed by burning. Equipment must be also burned (some parts may be scorched). Additional management practices must also be done for colonies with no visible signs of AFB in the same apiary.

Chris Maund
Integrated Pest Management Specialist (Entomologist) and Provincial Apiarist /
Spécialiste de la lutte contre les parasites (Entomologiste) et Apiculteur provincial
New Brunswick Department of Agriculture and Aquaculture /
Ministère de l’Agriculture et l’Aquaculture du Nouveau-Brunswick

As Canadian beekeepers work to rebuild after the unusually high overwintering losses of the winter of 2006-2007, what should be done to promote bee health and reduce future winterkill?

Medhat Nasr has prepared a fact sheet, Honey Bees and Winterkill, for the Alberta Department of Agriculture. It outlines the best management practices developed in Alberta to address the several possible causes that contribute to winterkill, and provides beekeepers with options to minimize the amount of winterfill in future.

In general:

Best Management Practices

• Keep bee colonies strong — avoid over-splitting.
• Send bees into winter with a healthy, mated young queen.
• Make room for the queen to lay eggs to make winter bees.
• Feed the bees as needed.

Following is a summary of highlights from the Alberta beekeeping factsheet.

Beekeepers will find it useful to read the original factsheet on the Alberta Departmant of Agriculture website, however. It has much more detailed information — including the fascinating fact that winter bees are physiologically different from summer bees, and thus better suited to withstand winter weather — to help beekeepers in making sound management choices in caring for our bees.

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NOD Apiary Products Ltd., the company founded by beekeepers that makes Mite-Away varroa treatment pads, also produces the Bee Cozy winter hive wrap.

The easy-to-use Bee Cozy is constructed of fibreglass insulation and UV-protected polytubing, to give extra weather protection to bees overwintered in cold climates. It is easy to put on and take off, and — unlike the traditional tar-paper wrapping — the Bee Cozy can be saved from year to year and used many times over.

This “how to” video on the winter wrap was produced by NOD Apiary Products. In New Brunswick, the Bee Cozy is distributed by Country Fields Beekeeping Supplies in Upper Coverdale, NB. See the NOD website at MiteAway.com for more information, and Bee Cozy distributors in other areas of North America.