When WIll This Winter Come?

Last year we had three winters for the price of one in northern England.  After cold weather in January and through into the middle of February we thought we were out of the woods with very fine weather in the second half of the month.  One of my hives did as well (the strongest one) and started brood rearing with wild abandon.  Then in the last week of February we were visited by a wet cold blast (dubbed by the media as The Beast from the East) which saw unusually low temperatures, high winds and snow.  Again this was followed by a very fine period and it was felt spring had sprung for a second time, before another arctic blast at the end of March with more snow and low temperatures, although this only lasted a few days this time.

-9C (16F)

These false starts really hammered one of my hives.  The previous year they’d been the busiest, well behaved colony and I was looking forward to getting into them.  On first inspection it was obvious something wasn’t right.  They’d survived, but it had been a difficult winter for them.  The bottom board was full of dead bees and larvae.  I think that they’d been caught out during ‘The Beast’ believing spring was here only to be knocked back and not being able to keep on top of housekeeping.  The later arctic blast would normally have been a walk in the park, but because of their poor state it added further to their woes.  First inspection in April and I had a hive full of dead bees – what were alive covered a couple of frames.  They didn’t really recover until the end of the season when I could re-queen them, so although it was one of the best summers (weather-wise) in a long time, Hive 1 were playing catch-up throughout.

I’m writing this in mid-January and we’re still waiting for winter here. Daffodils are starting to break cover and my Rhododendrons are starting to show signs of buds - and the bees are flying (see the video). It would be foolish to think it won’t come, but sometimes we just don’t get those cold/wet/windy winters we're supposed to. It's rare, but it does happen. This year I can't remember two mornings in a row when temperatures were below freezing - 0C (32F). The effect that would have on my bees would be potentially catastrophic - they'll use up all their stores before nature kicks in to provide and I could start losing hives. Or, like last year, the bees start to think spring is on its way and start brood rearing, only for an arctic blast to come long late doors and kick them in the butt.

As an experiment, I’ve decided to feed Hive 1 with Candipolline Gold – a mixture of candy and pollen.  At the beginning of March they’ll be brood rearing in any case, but this should see them able to get through any late blasts, or keep them topped up with food if they’re low due to mild weather.  Hive 2 is now my strongest colony, so I’ll see what effect no Candipolline has on them.  They’ve proved far hardier a colony, but at the expense of being quite bad tempered at times, but prolific honey producers.  So we’ll see.  I’ll let you know how it goes.

Harry isn’t bothered by arctic blasts.  It snows, then he plays in it for a couple of hours, and then that’s enough for him until next year.  Just as all beekeeping is local, I think the same can be said for autism to a lesser degree.  Harry likes being indoors where it’s warm – but I know plenty of kids with autism who will happily spend the day outside in the cold.

This time I’m struggling to see what beekeeping can teach me about autism.  Harry’s not a twin (as much as I’d like him to have a sibling) so I can’t experiment with different levels of nourishment – but then I wouldn’t anyway – he’s my son and this isn’t some terrible eugenics research from the 1940s.  I guess it shows that I’m open to trying new things and seeing how they go and taking the occasional risk.  Harry’s always at the front of my priorities and the number one thing that I care about in the world, but it’s a good idea to shake it up a little bit every now and then and throw the occasional dice.  I just need to find his Candipolline.

Hairy Bees (Not Hairy Knees)

I don’t have much in the way of hair. In my 20s and even into my 30s, I’d spend a stupid amount of time fashioning my hair – and money. But it became evident that it was retreating and then one day at the barbershop it got a bit shorter than I would normally have it and it didn’t look too bad. And then the next time I went the full hog and shaved. For a long time I paid someone to shave my head – which is a bit silly because there’s no skill involved and you can save money by doing it yourself. Now I sometimes treat myself to a haircut (a lovely Romanian lady called Claudia) but usually I do it myself. But I say I have no hair – that’s not quite true. I have little hair on the top of my head, but the less it grows up there, the more seems to sprout in other parts of my body. Especially those places where hair has never grown before. I don’t understand the logic of hair in ears, but I’m very good at growing it. My back is another place?? And in the past year I’ve successfully grown a beard – something I failed to do any time before my 40s.

(c) neurotypicalbeekeeper

Autistic people have sensory issues which make having a haircut something like torture – like being pricked by a pin millions of times and all the time you have to remain still. But people need haircuts – or at least most do. At first Harry would have to be held down whilst the barber did his/her job. It was traumatic for everyone involved. Some barbers specialise in difficult children, and sure enough they were better, but no one had the patience/skill/commitment to be able to handle Harry. Until we met Susan. Susan is a men’s hairdresser who happens to have a son of her own who is on the spectrum. She has the patience of a saint and knows how to avoid (which is the real skill) pushing the wrong buttons. After three years, we’ve finally reached the stage in which Harry will sit still in the chair and let Susan do her stuff, even moving his head to one side or the other when asked. Susan is incredibly good at her job and I love her for it. She doesn’t understand, I’m sure, but just something like this makes a massive difference for autism parents.

 

Bees are quite hairy as well, and lose their hair as time goes on. The great “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” that is nature means that bees go from flower to flower to flower and pollen gets attached to the bee’s hairs and then is passed to the next flower. How did that happen? Was evolution aiming for that, or is this just a step on the road to something else? And it didn’t happen overnight, so how did evolution encourage bees to grow hairs, before the pollen was being passed by hair? The truth is probably the pollen stuck to their skin and then hairs was just an improvement, but who knows. But just like humans, bees go bald. I don’t know if their hair falls out because of age, or because of the constant rubbing on flowers and within the hive.

 

Anyway, the result is a very bald bee, who stands out because she’ll be quite shiny. It looks odd. But then, maybe so do I with my own shiny bald head. But the one thing I don’t know is, if as the bee goes bald, does their hair start growing more on other parts of their body?

Drugs and More Drugs

Like most people, pharmaceuticals play a regular part of my life.  I only take the odd pain killer, but my bees generally take two treatments for Varroa Destructor every year – one in the summer and another in winter.  Traditionally the winter treatment is between Christmas and New Year although more and more beekeepers are coming to believe that it should be done earlier than this – those treatments that require there to be the smallest amount of sealed brood should possibly be carried earlier in December as there is evidence that the queen starts to increase laying in December and sealed brood levels have already started to increase by the end of the month.

 

(C) National Bee Unit

I treated my bees on Boxing Day, 26 December.  And I used the oxalic acid trickling method – so already I’m not following my own advice as the method requires the least amount of sealed brood to be successful.  But life got in the way.  Anyways, opening a bee hive on Boxing Day is totally unnatural and the bees know it.  The odd bee was flying (it was about 10C – 50F) but the bees are fully aware of what time of the year it is and they know no good news comes from some big hairy beekeeper opening them up then either.  So my good old bees showed me their displeasure – who has ever heard of a person getting stung by a bee on 26 December?  Actually, it wasn’t as bad as last year (the temperament of my bees deserves its own blog) when I had to retreat and give it up as a bad job, but it still wasn’t a fun job.  Job done, I put on some fondant and barring any emergency that should be the last time I need to go in the hive until spring – here in Northern England from the end of March, but more usually, early April.

 

Boxing Day Flying Bees

Harry has his own relationship with the pharmaceutical industry.  It is quite typical for children with autism to have problems with sleeping and when Harry was about five years old it was normal for him to get by on four hours sleep a night.  Which meant that everybody in the house was getting by on four hours sleep a night.  It was upsetting to see him so tired and be trying to sleep, but it just not happening.  So along came Melatonin (after considerable medical consultation – quite rightly, they don’t make it easy) and sure enough he quickly established a routine.  The human body can build up a tolerance to Melatonin so it should be given in the smallest quantity, but what that is is largely left to the parent/carer.  Harry’s amount is miniscule and at the most he only has it five times a week (and during school holidays it may only be two or three times a week).  That is our choice.  Other parents take a more liberal approach – I’ve encountered parents who freely admit to administering ten times the amount we give Harry and every day of the week regardless.  I don’t judge – I just count blessings.

 

Happy New Year.