The Hackenberg Hoax

In 2006, Dave Hackenberg went to “inspect four hundred of his three thousand beehives”.  The four hundred hives were left “in an old carnival lot in Florida two months earlier”.  As Dave Hackenberg operated the smoker, he realized that very few bees were flying around.  Dave said, “’There are no bees in these entrances! So I started jerking covers off the hives.  And they were empty.  They were just totally empty’”.  In all his years of beekeeping, Dave had never “seen anything like this: twenty million honey bees had simply vanished” (Burns, 2010 p. 11; Rotner & Woodhull, 2010 pp. 1-3).

The Hackenbergs began to investigate by calling up bee experts such as scientists, inspectors, and fellow beekeepers (Burns, 2010 p. 16; Rotner & Woodhull, 2010 pp. 3-4).  No one could figure out why the bees disappeared, some even speculated that the Hackenbergs had “mismanaged their hives” they even named the so called disease the “Hack’s Hoax” (Burns, 2010, p. 16).  But it was not a hoax because soon beekeepers reported declining populations of their own.  Because Dave was so determined to find out what was going on, he began “open discussions with scientists in France, where similar honey bee die-off had … occurred”.  Before long, the United States Congress launched an “official review of the honey bee losses” (p. 17).

Hard Working Honey Bees

Honey bees are essential to our survival because they pollinate huge quantities of our food supply.  Commercial beekeepers are classified as such because of the many thousands of hives that they are responsible for.  One such commercial beekeeper, Dave Hackenberg, owns an apiary company called “Hackenberg Apiaries”, which he runs with his son Davey Hackenberg.  The Hackenbergs have been in business for fifty years and manage around 3,000 hives (Burns, 2010 pp. 11-12; Rotner & Woodhull, 2010 pp. 1-2).

The Hackenbergs rent out their “beehives to fruit and vegetable farmers” (Burns, 2010 pp. 11-12; Rotner & Woodhull, 2010 pp. 1-2).  Honey bees are “efficient pollinators, and moving millions of them into a crop field while the plants are blooming” allows farmers to get “plentiful crops” (Burns, 2010, p, 12).  Dave Hackenberg explains, “’the biggest thing about bees is not honey, it’s that your food supply depends on them” (p. 14).  They move all over the country pollinating many different crops.

Beekeepers Stealing Honey

The beekeeper also collects honey from the bees, this helps take care of them because they will continue to work and produce honey instead of just having their reserves full.  The process of collecting honey involves the use of some specialized tools and is similar to when the hive is inspected by the beekeeper.  First, the beekeeper will smoke the hive and pry off the top.  Next, he/she will clear any bees as they pull out the frames one by one.  The frames are then held “vertically over the uncapping tank” and the beekeeper slices the capping wax off with their knife (Blackiston, 2009a).  The frame is then flipped over and the process repeated.  Once two frames are ready, they are placed vertically in a machine called an “extractor” where they are spun in a centrifuge, which forces the honey out of the cells by centrifugal force (2009a). Centrifugal force is an outward force occurring away from the center of rotation (dictionary.com).  Once the honey is extracted, the frames can be put back and the honey can be filtered, otherwise there are foreign substances, such as bees wax, air bubbles, and other particles (Binnie, 2007).

Protecting the Bees

Another job of the beekeeper is to protect his/her hives from pests such as bears, raccoons, skunks, mice, and vandals.  This is achieved in a number of ways.  The largest threat, that is, in relation to the size of the animal, or pest and not how often the threat occurs are obviously bears.  To combat bears and vandals, beekeepers can put up cheap electric fencing and security cameras.  Why would someone want to steal bees? Well, in a newspaper article featured in the Prairie Advocate, which is dispatched to Carroll County, Illinois and surrounding areas, “thieves took about $5,000 worth of bees and equipment” on March 14^th, 2012.  The beekeepers, Terry and Nancy Ingram had special bees that “must have had some special genetics which enabled them to survive” over “the past three winters and three summers of multiple chemical sprays”.  The Ingrams are convinced that the chemical sprays are a cause of colony collapse disorder (Prairie Advocate).

The raccoons and skunks can be taken care of simply by placing several bricks on top of the beehives and also elevating the hive (Blackiston, 2009b).  As for the mice, a tool called an entrance reducer can be installed.  “An entrance reducer is a thin piece of wood cut to the width and length of the entrance, with a notch in the middle to allow the bees to come and go” says Buchmann (2010, p. 38).  However, Blackiston doesn’t totally agree; he says, “Using a wooden entrance reducer as a mouse guard doesn’t work. The mouse nibbles away at the wood and makes the opening just big enough to slip through” (2009b).

Feeding the Bees

When there isn’t a lot of food available, a beekeeper will provide food for the hive.  In order to provide food, a beekeeper gives the hive imitation nectar, which is sugar water; the beekeeper mimics pollen by giving the bees protein paddies.  Protein paddies, also referred to as “pollen substitutes” are supplied by four major companies in the United States, “Bee-Pol®, Bee-Pro®, Feed-Bee®, and MegaBee®. It appears that Bee-Pro® is soy-based, and Feed-Bee® and MegaBee[®] are non-soy-based”.  The author doesn’t have information on “Bee-Pol®” (Huang, 2010).  With the beekeeper providing food, it ensures that the bees will not starve during lean times.

 

Healing the Bees

Beekeepers administer many medicines to heal bees when they are sick.  There are many things that make bees sick such as bacteria, viruses, parasites, and poor nutrition (Evans, 2010, p. 154).  In order to treat bees for Varroa mites, beekeepers will use coumaphos, fluvalinate, formic acid, and oxalic acid.  Some of the environment-friendly home remedy medicines include: mineral oil (food grade), vegetable oil, and vegetable shortening.  Another disease, Nosema is treated by using the chemical, fumagillin.  Another common parasite is tracheal mites, which are treated using menthol, formic acid, vegetable oil, and vegetable shortening (agf.gov.bc.ca).  When treating bees, beekeepers will use the least amount of chemicals as possible.  For example, if a hive is plagued with Varroa mites and tracheal mites, a beekeeper may use vegetable oil or vegetable shortening, as these are both used to treat the pests and vegetable oil and shortening are eco-friendly.

Bee Checkups

In order to get into the “supers,” a “small metal crowbar” is used to pry the honey supers apart, “beekeepers call [the crowbar] a hive tool” (Burns, 2010, p. 4).  It is necessary to use the “hive tool” because the bees “seal every crack and crevice in the hive with propolis” which is a substance that they collect from the sap of trees and other plants.  The propolis is air, and water tight; it also keeps the pests out.  The honey bees make a wax and use it “to cover, or cap, honey-filled comb cells” (p. 5).  The majority of the hive can be found in the brood nest, “where developing bees are cared for” (p. 7).  In order to determine that a colony’s queen is healthy, beekeepers look for “eggs, larvae, and capped brood”.  It is important for “beekeepers [to] keep careful records of their hive activities in order to better manage their bee colonies throughout the year” (p. 8).  The entrance to the hive is located “at the bottom of the brood nest” there is a platform “outside the opening” called, “the landing board” (p. 9).

Beekeepers administer many medicines to heal bees when they are sick.  There are many things that make bees sick such as bacteria, viruses, parasites, and poor nutrition (Evans, 2010, p. 154).  In order to treat bees for Varroa mites, beekeepers will use coumaphos, fluvalinate, formic acid, and oxalic acid.  Some of the environment-friendly home remedy medicines include: mineral oil (food grade), vegetable oil, and vegetable shortening.  Another disease, Nosema is treated by using the chemical, fumagillin.  Another common parasite is tracheal mites, which are treated using menthol, formic acid, vegetable oil, and vegetable shortening (agf.gov.bc.ca).  When treating bees, beekeepers will use the least amount of chemicals as possible.  For example, if a hive is plagued with Varroa mites and tracheal mites, a beekeeper may use vegetable oil or vegetable shortening, as these are both used to treat the pests and vegetable oil and shortening are eco-friendly.

Inside a Bee Apartment Complex

Beehives have many boxes stacked on top of one another in a “tower-like structure”; these boxes are called “supers”.  Inside the “supers” are “ten rectangular frames [that] hang side by side”.  The frames provide “a foundation on which the bees can build their wax honeycomb”.  The bees create hexagon shaped “cells” that will be used to “store food and raise [their] young”.  The “supers” and frames mimic, structure-wise, what a hive would be like in the wild (Burns, 2010, p. 2).  “Each hive consists of an outer cover, an inner cover, two honey supers, a queen excluder, and a brood nest”.  A typical hive has two large supers, or four medium supers for the brood nest, and one large, or two medium supers for the rest of the hive (p. 3).  It is customary to start inspection “at the top of the hive and … [work downward]”.  The “queen excluder” is a metal screen that prevents the queen from leaving and swarming.  She cannot fit through the metal screen because her body is too large for the opening.  The workers on the other hand fit through the screen with ease.  The brood nest is where the “colony’s young and developing bees” are; they are referred to as brood.

The Keeper of the Bees

It is important for more people to start taking care of bees and become beekeepers.  If someone really wants to help they can become a commercial beekeeper, and at the very least a hobbyist beekeeper.  Becoming a beekeeper is an important step in saving the honey bees because beekeepers learn how to take care of them and will stand a better chance at recognizing problems in their bee routines.  A hobbyist beekeeper, which is a beekeeper who has “one or more hives of bees, usually for the purpose of collecting honey” (Burns, 2010, p.61).  Mary Duane, a hobbyist beekeeper of ten years, explains, “’When you work with bees you have to pay close attention to what you are doing’” (p. 1).  In other words, you have to respect the bees.  It is a good practice, to inspect the hive “Every week or two, from early spring until fall” (p. 1).  When inspecting the hive, a beekeeper uses a tool called a smoker.  In order to “prepare the smoker, … it [is filled] with dry pine needles,” and then lit, “the flames [are then fanned] with air from an attached bellows”.  Once the smoker is lit, a “thin line of smoke” is released from the spout (p. 2).  The purpose of a smoker is to mask “the smell [of the] alarm pheromone” that bees release when things are afoot.  The other bees won’t be able to detect the pheromone and will carry on what they are doing.  This means that even though the bees raise the alarm, none of them will be able to detect that anything is afoot and the beekeeper as well as the bees can carry on with what they are doing.

Undead Honey Bees

Breaking news! Honey bees turn into zombies! Honey bees are disappearing because of colony collapse disorder. Honey bees are the most important insect to the survival of the human race because honey bees pollinate about one third of the fruits and vegetables used as food (Genersch, 2010, p. 87). In order to save the honey bees from extinction, it is important to first understand what honey bees do. It is also important to know how beekeepers take care of bees so that more beekeepers may be trained for future bees to thrive and for others to be knowledgeable of the bees. Commercial beekeepers transport their bees all around the United States to pollinate the US food supply. Research of colony collapse disorder or CCD, which is the reason for the bees disappearing, is important so bee keepers and scientists can prevent further cases of CCD.

Even though honey bees only pollinate about 35% of the crops in the United States (Genersch, 2010, p. 87), it is important for humans to be knowledgeable about how bees contribute to the ecosystem.  People should also be aware of beekeepers and support them in order to encourage future beekeepers.  Our food source largely depends on commercial beekeepers for pollination.  The bees are disappearing because of colony collapse disorder, finding a cure for it is crucial for the survival of the human race.  Even though scientists don’t seem to agree on what combinations of ailments that bees face cause CCD, they will soon find out.  If honey bees are being affected by CCD, then what other insects or animals face similar problems that could be invaluable to the balance of the ecosystem, or our own existence?