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Man Out To Protect Bees

Suncoast News photo by CHERYL BENTLEY

Beekeeper Charlie Hammond shows the box in which he bought three pounds of bees and holds the cylinder in which the queen bee was delivered.

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By Cheryl  Bentley | The Suncoast News

Published: December 19, 2007

A few modest white boxes in Charlie Hammond's back yard hold hope for humans. They house nine hives containing up to 100,000 honey bees per hive.

At a time when commercial beekeepers are reeling from a little-understood disorder known as colony collapse disorder, in which, for unknown causes, colonies of bees disappear, it is being left to back-yard beekeepers like Hammond to help maintain the integrity of the hive.

Keeping honey bees healthy is important because bees are among nature's best pollinators.
According to the Florida Bureau of Plant Apiary Inspection of the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, more than 100 popular fruits and vegetables need pollination.

Hammond is president of Tampa Bay Beekeepers Association, a group formed to promote good beekeeping in the bay area.

As a registered beekeeper with the Florida Department of Agriculture, Hammond has agreed to have his hives inspected each year for health and for Africanized bees. That ensures his colonies have not become Africanized by hybrids of European honeybees and "killer" bees from Africa.

Replaces queens yearly

He also replaces his queens every year with European queens he buys. That is necessary because sometimes an African queen bee can replace the European queen unbeknownst to the beekeeper.

"The more people keep bees strong and requeen them, the less likely there will be a problem with Africanized bees," he notes.

Increasing Africanization is a real danger for bees, says Hammond, who lives in the area of rural northwestern Pasco County with a Spring Hill postal address.

"We have Africanized bees in Pasco County," he says.

Africanized hybrids, however, are not killer bees like their ancestors from Africa. "But they're grumpier," he notes. In contrast, European bees are gentler and much less prone to stinging.

Still, even with his gentle Europeans, Hammond gets stung several times during each visit to the hive. He usually does not wear protective clothing.

Do the bees know him?
"I think they're aware of me because I'm out there quite a bit."

Bees more comfortable

Upon reflection, he realizes his own bees seem more comfortable with him than his apiary club bees that he works with once a month. His bees sting him far less than those of the bee club, he says.

But as with so much in a bee's life, the extent of the bees' awareness of Hammond remains a mystery.

Hammond, a building inspector with Hernando County, spends several hours a week with his colonies during pollinating seasons in spring, summer and early autumn.

The homes for each colony have two parts: the lower box, or brood box, in which the queen lives and the young insects raised, and the supers, boxes where the bees store excess honey.

Inside both boxes are frames with a wax-coated honeycomb-embossed pattern foundation. The wax and honeycomb shapes stimulate the bees to make their own honeycombs.

Machine extracts honey

Each box contains nine frames, which can be lifted out of the box to collect the honey without disturbing other parts of the hive. The honeycomb is then put in an extractor, a machine that spins the honey out of the combs.

Bees fly out to collect nectar through an opening in the brood box. One worker bee makes one-tenth of a teaspoon of honey during her lifetime, Hammond notes. Worker bees are females that lay unfertilized eggs that only develop into drone bees.

The queen's purpose is to lay eggs. She mates only during one short period with the drones, which die after the mating. She can lay up to 1,500 eggs a day. All her needs are taken care of by worker bees. She can live from two to eight years.

Worker bees do various tasks such as cleaning the hive, feeding the larvae and collecting pollen.
The drone's sole purpose is to mate with a new queen if one is produced. They are driven out of the hive at the end of the season.

Queens never rest

The queen can never rest on her laurels, says Hammond. The bees who so loyally serve her can kill her as well.

"When food is scarce and the queen is not laying eggs, there's no reason to keep it around. They get rid of it," says Hammond.

He began keeping bees two years ago. At that time he bought a box containing three pounds of bees and a queen.

To get the hive started, Hammond took out the middle frames of the brood box.

He sprayed the bees with sugar water to make them less able to fly and then dumped them into the space left by the missing frames. The sugar-water spray does not harm the bees, he says.

The queen was in a container with a cork seal at the bottom. He hung it among the bees. It took the workers about a day to eat away the cork. By that time they had grown accustomed to her aroma and then could accept her as queen.

Uses same principle

When making new hives from his present stock, he uses the same principle. He buys a queen in her container, hangs it in the newly made box and takes bees from frames in his old hives and puts them into the new one.

Most of Hammond's honey goes to friends and family. He recently donated some for a fundraiser.
Although he is aware of colony collapse disorder that besets commercial beekeepers, a condition in which bees leave their hives and never return, Hammond says it has little effect on him.

He theorizes colony collapse might be caused by insecticides and other chemicals used in commercial farming and to the stress of traveling as the bees are moved from one commercial site to another to do their pollinating work.
There have been a number of other theories advanced to explain CCD. They include malnutrition, various disease pathogens, including what is known as the Israeli acute paralysis virus, and genetically modified corn and other crops.

Small part for nature

Hammond is doing a small but important part for nature in keeping his own bees healthy, he says. He points out a large number of vegetables and fruits are pollinated by bees.

"If bees went extinct, we would go extinct," he observes.

For more information on the Tampa Bay Beekeepers, go to the Tampa Bay Beekeepershref=http://www.tampabaybeekeepers.com> Web site or call Hammond at 727-858-6493.

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