The working life of Museum of London

It is now almost a year since the colony of bees first arrived at Museum of London, and definitely time for an update on how they are doing.

The good news is that they have survived this winter’s cold weather. Brian (the bee man) asked me to check that the hive entrance was clear and to listen for signs of life.

I went out to look at the hive on 16 January, when the weather was especially mild. I cleared some dead bees from the hive entrance and listened for buzzing. I didn’t hear a thing!

However, the mild weather prompted some of the bees to leave the hive, so I knew they were not all dead. This was confirmed when Brian visited the museum on Friday 21 January. Brian listened to the hive and detected life (I could still hear nothing). It was too cold to open the hive, but we were able to peak in through one of the feeding holes.

Bingo, live bees!

I have been instructed to wait for the next spell of warm weather before opening the hive and checking the food stores. 

It is crucial that there is enough to feed the larvae once they begin to lay eggs, and this may happen as early as March. If they appear low, Brian has left a bag of winter bee food, it looks rather like icing sugar. In summer the bees feed on liquid and turn it into honey. In winter they cannot cope with this, so we need to give them solid food to keep them going. 
 

Brian advised me to think about recruiting deputies soon because March and April are indeed very busy months and failure to keep on top could cause the bees to swarm.

The health and safety implications are terrifying! Brian will also be getting back to me with details of an evening study session for all of The City trainee bee keepers.

I will be back to you very soon…

Museum of London bees being busy.

September 23rd

Apologies for the long delay between blogs, but it has been a busy time both inside and outside the beehive. Brian dropped off an Apiguard  varroa treatment for me (a strange thing to find in my pigeon hole). To explain, the varroa mite is a parasite that attacks the larvae of honey bees, so it is important to make sure that there are none before the winter. We can check for mites by placing a piece of white card under the hive, and looking carefully for them among the blobs of pollen and wax. They are very hard to spot. Brian only found a few. The treatment is a chemical with a strong menthol aroma. When it is placed in the hive, the bees clean it up and carry it down to the brood chambers, where it kills the mites. I have continued to feed the bees with sugar solution. This has led to some strange radio messages from my colleagues. “Lynne, come to the garden quickly, the bees are acting funny”.  To begin with, I was unsure that it was the food that was causing the strange behaviour, I thought it could be the windy weather. This prompted my colleague Joanna to enquire “what are you feeding those bees that they are suffering from wind?”. Brian has now explained why this happens (strange behaviour, not wind). When a worker finds food, she returns to the hive and uses the waggle dance to communicate to her sisters where the food is. If the food is close by ( i.e in the feeder above the hive), the bees fly upwards in confusion thinking “food, yippee, where?”. This is what has caused the strange flying formations witnessed in the garden. Another of my colleagues, Kirsty, was concerned that sugar solution left for too long in the feeder, might ferment, resulting in drunken bees. This would cause some even stranger flying formations!

When Brian visits next, it will be to advise me on how to close down the hive for the winter. I will get back to you then.

Me watching the bees being busy!

Wednesday August 4th
Today was very exciting, we had to check what use the bees had made of the 4 litres of sugar solution that we gave them last week. To my amazement the feeder was dry, the bees had taken the lot! Brian was not in the least surprised, this was exactly what he had expected. Now that the summer is drawing to a close, we will need to give them sugar every week, to help them to make enough honey to see them through the winter. There won’t be any Museum of London honey for the humans this year. Brian suggested using a different kind of feeder, one which can be topped up. The weather today was wet and windy. Bees don’t like this sort of weather, so we decided to disturb them as little as possible. My homework this week is to make more bee food for next Wednesday.

Wednesday August 11th
Today was bright and sunny, unlike last week’s overcast skies and heavy rain. A good day for visiting the bees. There was a lot of activity at the front of the hive, more than previous weeks, very promising! The bees had been busy, some previously empty frames now contain honey. Six frames now contain brood, pupae, larvae and eggs. So the queen is still laying, although it is late in the season. We set up the refillable feeder. This is a box with a compartment that bees can climb into from the hive. The sugar solution in this compartment is refilled from a reservoir, which can easily be topped up. The gap between the two is too small to allow bees (lured by the sugar) to slip through and drown. Brian also placed some twigs in the feeder compartment for the bees to stand on. Although this compartment contains  only a small volume, the plastic sides do not allow a bee’s feet to grip easily and sometimes they fall in and drown. A little bit of advice, if you want to avoid being stung near a beehive, don’t wear velvet. Velvet tangles their little feet and they hate it. It makes them very angry! The new feeder only holds about two and a half litres of sugar solution. I will be checking on the bees on Friday, to see if they need a top up. Homework for this week is to make more bee food.

I plan to keep you up to date with what is going on in the beehive for the remainder of the summer and into the winter when things quieten down. To make this easier I have been added as an author for the museum’s blog pages. Look up for updates from me personally from next week.

Here you will find the first thoughts from our Visitor Host, Lynne Connell, who has begun training to look after the beehive installed in the Museum of London’s Garden Terrace initially as part of the City of London Festival.

Lynne intends to post diary entries on a regular basis so check back here (and on Facebook and twitter) for more updates soon.

Wednesday 14 July
Today I met with Brian and saw inside the hive for the first time. The first thing I noticed when the lid was removed, was the distinctive smell, a combination of resin and honey (very pleasant). Brian removed some of the frames. The two on the outside had some of their cells filled with honey, which had been capped with yellow wax. These are for feeding the bees. The five inner frames  had a mixture of cells containing honey, cells containing pollen and cells containing the brood. The outside frames contained mainly eggs (which looked like grains of rice) and larvae (which looked like prawns). The most mature were in the centre and least mature were in the periphery. The most central frames contained the most mature brood, capped with brown wax and including pupae. I was able to see the queen (she is larger than the workers with a long slim abdomen and long yellow legs) who is labelled with a blue spot. There were also a few drones, these are longer and chunkier than workers, with large eyes, like a pair of large tinted goggles. Brian was pleased with the way the brood had progressed since he last visited 2 weeks ago. The colony is not a strong one because the original queen had to be replaced. The new queen is doing well, and the workers were busy collecting pollen (protein for the brood) but the late start will mean that it is unlikely that there will be honey to harvest this summer.
Wednesday 21 July
Bee activity at the front of the hive was a little quieter than last week. Inside the hive there was some progress. However, the frames that Brian had turned around (in the hope that they would be filled with honey) remain untouched. Nevertheless, there was evidence of brood production. The queen was moving over one frame, with her abdomen poised as if to lay. She was being attended by a group of workers who were licking her! Brian is concerned that our urban bees may never find enough food in the city. He has suggested that we feed them to give them a bit of a boost. My homework is to make some bee food. Basically, I need to dissolve 4kg of cane sugar in a roughly equal volume of water. Sounds like fun!
Wednesday 28 July
Last night I made bee food in my kitchen. The work surfaces are now a little sticky!  This morning I sat on the 8.05 to Cannon street armed with 4 mineral water bottles full of sugar solution. Next job of the morning was to produce some signage for the garden terrace (which is now open). “The garden terrace is temporarily closed because of increased honey bee activity”. Brian and I looked inside the hive. Again, there had been some progress, but not as much as hoped for. We transferred the bee food into a feeding box. This is a 4 litre plastic container with a grid in the lid. The box is inverted over  a hole in the lid that covers the occupied frames. The bees are then able to food through the grid. Torla came down to take some photographs (see me in action below)  from the safety ( we thought) of the garden. Unfortunately, she was not far enough away to escape being stung. Not once, but twice! My next task was to ask security to lock the doors to the garden terrace to prevent the public from wandering out !