Swarm Data - April 2015

My local bee club, Portland Urban Beekeepers, recently partnered up with Honey Bee Allies to provide a swarm hotline and easier-to-use swarm list for Portland, Oregon. We've had the hotline in place for a month now and having great success with it. One of the great things about it is being able to collect swarm call data.

Time to get geeky with numbers. Below is a little something I threw together to show swarm activity vs weather.

Data:

SwarmDate	# swarms	pressure (inHg)	pressure (amp)	rain (mm)	max temp (C)
4/1/2015	2	30.29	10.3	4.8	12.8
4/2/2015	1	30.39	11.1	2.8	14.4
4/3/2015	0	30.29	10.3	0.0	14.4
4/4/2015	2	30.15	9.2	4.8	13.3
4/5/2015	2	29.84	6.7	0.0	15.6
4/6/2015	2	29.79	6.3	3.0	15.6
4/7/2015	2	29.78	6.2	0.5	15.0
4/8/2015	4	29.99	7.9	0.5	15.0
4/9/2015	7	30.12	9	0.0	18.3
4/10/2015	2	29.96	7.7	0.0	18.9
4/11/2015	0	29.96	7.7	6.9	16.1
4/12/2015	0	30.22	9.8	1.0	14.4
4/13/2015	2	30	8	0.0	15.0
4/14/2015	2	30.22	9.8	8.4	13.3
4/15/2015	0	30.49	11.9	8.6	15.0
4/16/2015	10	30.36	10.9	0.0	22.2
4/17/2015	16	30.18	9.4	0.0	22.8
4/18/2015	12	30.25	10	0.0	24.4
4/19/2015	8	30.13	9	0.0	25.0
4/20/2015	10	29.91	7.3	0.0	27.2
4/21/2015	9	29.9	7.2	0.0	27.2
4/22/2015	1	30.18	9.4	0.0	16.7
4/23/2015	0	30.03	8.2	0.0	16.1
4/24/2015	0	29.87	7	1.8	13.3
4/25/2015	0	29.94	7.5	4.6	16.7
4/26/2015	0	30.14	9.1	1.0	16.7
4/27/2015	9	30.2	9.6	0.3	27.2
4/28/2015	3	29.92	7.4	0.0	27.2

I wasn't sure which variable would correlate best to swarming behavior, so I included barometric pressure, precipitation, and maximum temperature in the data set. To get the pressure to show up on the chart as anything other than a nearly straight line I applied an amplifier to it (inHG-29)*8. This makes the changes in pressure show up much better as a nice wiggle on the chart below.

It looks like there's a strong correlation between warm, dry weather and swarming. (Is that a big surprise to anyone?) Not much of a correlation with barometric pressure. Swarming is happening whether the pressure is rising or falling.

But there is something interesting happening with the rain.

A huge spike in swarms at the beginning of a long dry spell. Are the bees sensitive enough to weather patterns to know when there will be a long period of time to set out and find a new home? Or is this explained simply by the much higher temperatures?

Of course, experienced beekeepers around here are well aware of this pattern. It's just interesting to see it in chart form.

Honey Bee Dissection - Bee Vlog - Apr 4, 2015

As part of the Journey program offered by the Oregon State University Master Beekeeping course, I got to spend some time with their instructors dissecting bees under a microscope. This was an excellent opportunity to see, first hand, some of the organs and anatomy of the honey bee.


Video Link

Honey Bee	Head	Front Leg
Back Leg	Wings	Mouth Parts
Hypopharyngeal Gland	Drone Penis	Stinger
Spermatheca

Swarm #1 for 2015 - Apr 9, 2015

Got my first swarm of the season. We're having a very early spring and swarm season is well underway. Lots of swarming. This is my 3rd call this week, but the first one I could actually take. These were some good looking bees. Very eager to work. And in the 4 hours they were in the box they already started to put wax on the underside of the lid.

It felt like about 4 pounds of bees

That bush they were on was very thorny and it took a bite out of my hand. The neighbor that called the swarm hotline told me someone else was planning to light a fire and douse the bees with a hose. Ugh! Fortunately smarter heads prevailed and they called in a beekeeper.

Labeled appropriately of course

Unfortunately, these bees were collected near a very agricultural area. Which means they probably came from a farmer's hive. I could also tell that they weren't a "wild" swarm since I found no drones among them. Why would this be a bad thing? Because there's a good chance they may be dependent on chemical treatments for survival. And I don't do that. So it should be interesting to see if they can survive the winter. I'll take mite counts on them this summer and see how they look.