The Buzz Newsletter

May 2004

 

 

Page 8

A Beekeeping Adventure

During the last part of March, a friend of my family was home on leave after serving a tour of duty in Iraq. The military experience of Jason La Tendresse began at Drake Univ. in the ROTC Program which he completed and has since served two tours of duty in foreign countries and now is stationed at Ft. Drum in New York. His week of leave was largely unplanned and it was going to go fast. He had been asked to speak to different groups in town about his recent tour of duty to Iraq but needed a break from that.

Jason thought a few hours in the bee yard might be interesting as he had never been in a bee yard. We planned ahead what we would do and that he wouldn’t have to wear a bee suit because we were going to remove winter wrap from hives and the temperature was going to be in the 40’s.

Jason, with coffee cup in hand, ready to unwrap another pair of hives. One of these hives had 8 frames of honey left from the winter.

Late in the morning I picked him up with his coffee cup in hand as we headed out to the first yard. After a quick exchange of what we would do, I cut the twines and we started to remove tar paper and fiber glass insulation. There were 2 hives on each pallet and they had been treated for varroa mites and foulbrood. I wrap a belt of insulation around the outside as well as the piece of 1” or 2” piece of Styrofoam under the lid. Several hives had field mice living in the fiber glass outside the hive. We scared them out and wrapped up the belt to put away. Four of the hives just had foam under the lid and a covering of tar paper. One of them was dead. A close examination showed it died of starvation. Lots of dead bees but no honey anywhere. A later inspection showed no damage or loss to field mice inside the hives.

The other yard was not wrapped but had been fed and treated for varroa mites and foulbrood disease. One hive did not survive as it was two weak hives put together and there was honey left in the frames. Other hives were lifted up to see which ones needed more feed. A later visit to the yard showed that these colonies were weaker, containing less bees and contained more dead bees on the bottom board and in the frames.

Jason got to see how bees are fed and asked a lot of questions about them. I was interested in Jason’s training in the military winter survival but I really picked up no new ideas related to bees. He appreciated the time together, but commented that beekeeping would be something he wouldn’t do because he does too much moving around.

Submitted by Tim Laughlin