Our apiary is kept on my parent's place and my mom has photographed several bear around their property. She put together the photos with the music. They are beautiful and amazing to look at. Of course they love honey too, who wouldn't?
Showing posts with label honeybees. Show all posts
Showing posts with label honeybees. Show all posts
Friday, July 15, 2011
Bears Like Honey Too!
Two years ago a couple of my hives were destroyed by bear. My dad put up a solar powered electric fence and it has kept the bears out of the honey....so far!
Our apiary is kept on my parent's place and my mom has photographed several bear around their property. She put together the photos with the music. They are beautiful and amazing to look at. Of course they love honey too, who wouldn't?
Our apiary is kept on my parent's place and my mom has photographed several bear around their property. She put together the photos with the music. They are beautiful and amazing to look at. Of course they love honey too, who wouldn't?
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Honey Harvest 2010
My father and I harvested some honey and used our new honey extractor, which is not electric but a hand crank. We didn't harvest from all of the hives because a storm was coming in quickly. The honey extractor did not spin out all the honey and we ended up scraping the comb and honey into the bucket. Later on we let it drip through a cheese cloth using gravity.The honey this year is much lighter than the honey from last year. We harvested around the same time as last year. The honey is absolutely delicious. I hope to enter it into the Honey Exhibit at the Prince William County Fair this year.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Notes on Sugar Syrup
I am rethinking feeding my bees sugar syrup and will do so only if I have no harvested honey on hand to give my bees. I won't use honey from other apiaries because I don't know the condition of their hives and feel confident giving them honey from my hives. Here is an excerpt from an entomologist regarding sugar syrup (I don't use corn syrup but use white granulated sugar when making sugar syrup).
http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=to-bee-or-not-to-bee-09-08-21
One thing that Reed Johnson found that's in his dissertation, when you feed honeybees honey, they upregulate their cytochrome p450 monooxygenases, these enzymes that process among other things plant chemicals, when you give them sugar, it's nothing. So when you feed them on a sugar diet they are not turning on their chemical processing equipment, so this is something that nobody expected. I mean people aren't used to thinking of honeybees as broad generalists because they'll feed on hundreds of different flowers, but in a way they are dietary super specialists because they feed on this narrow range—they feed on pollen, honey and bee bread. And granted the components can come from all different places, but feeding on nectar or honey derived from nectars [is a] very different proposition from feeding on other types of plant tissue because plants load up their vulnerable tissues with chemicals, you know, natural pesticides, so that insects won't eat them, but they want insects to eat nectar; that's the whole point [of nectar].
http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=to-bee-or-not-to-bee-09-08-21
One thing that Reed Johnson found that's in his dissertation, when you feed honeybees honey, they upregulate their cytochrome p450 monooxygenases, these enzymes that process among other things plant chemicals, when you give them sugar, it's nothing. So when you feed them on a sugar diet they are not turning on their chemical processing equipment, so this is something that nobody expected. I mean people aren't used to thinking of honeybees as broad generalists because they'll feed on hundreds of different flowers, but in a way they are dietary super specialists because they feed on this narrow range—they feed on pollen, honey and bee bread. And granted the components can come from all different places, but feeding on nectar or honey derived from nectars [is a] very different proposition from feeding on other types of plant tissue because plants load up their vulnerable tissues with chemicals, you know, natural pesticides, so that insects won't eat them, but they want insects to eat nectar; that's the whole point [of nectar].
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)