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Homestead Updates
Not much to say, which is normal for this time of year
We had more snow starting on Dec 16th and it looks like it’ll be sticking around for a while
The hens are slowly picking up on the egg laying. I got 4 the other day, which is something to crow about these days!
Speaking of crowing, the rooster and I continue our dance of trust/distrust. He still challenges me but with less vigor these days. For a while, I never turned my back on him but stopped worrying about that when he settled down. So of course he charged me the other day when I was walking away but merely chest bumped my welly boot with little enthusiasm. It’s more of a show for his girls, I think.
It’s interesting to me how the hens do really listen to him now. From his alarm call that there’s a hawk flying overhead, to calling them home if they’ve wandered too far. That played in my favour one afternoon when I wanted to close the run up for the day but 3 hens were off adventuring by the beehives. I was considering herding them home when the rooster made an odd growling/rumbling noise, which caused the 3 adventurers to run home. Rather convenient for me!
I am going to switch things up a little starting with this episode. Usually, I talk about my mental health and/or physical issues at the start of the episode but I have decided to move those updates to the very end. Although I do receive positive feedback about my openness when it comes to sharing my struggles (which I truly appreciate), I want to give listeners the option to skip that, if they’re not interested or find it upsetting. It’s pretty tricky to jump ahead in an episode without missing something so this way you can listen to everything and then switch off if you prefer. Hope this makes sense!
Hive Updates
No real news. All were alive on our last mild day. A few dead bees still appearing out the front, which is a good sign as odd as that sounds
I’ve been musing about how comparison is the thief of joy. By this I mean that, looking at other peoples colonies online, I can’t help but feel that mine are not doing as well. It was a rough year for sure, and I have this nagging feeling that I’ve let my bees down somehow. It helps to remind myself that this is only my second year of hands-on beekeeping. I’m sure I’ll still blame myself for every problem that pops up, though.
Gemma’s random corner: the Virginia Opossum!
In random news, an opossum died just past our property (probably hit by a car), and might just be the biggest one I have ever seen in my life! Sadly, this adorable and fascinating marsupial is seen as roadkill quite frequently in my neck of the woods, only outnumbered by raccoons (those are likely being hit by cars in increasing numbers due to the outbreak of distemper, which causes them to act erratically). I really hate to see dead opossums because I’m rather fond of them. Marsupials (distinguished by the fact that they carry their young in an abdominal pouch) are rather fascinating critters, and I find the opossum to be much maligned in the US as a disease-ridden pest. Although they are prone to rummaging through conveniently accessed trash, the Virginia opossum (more commonly known as the North American opossum) is resistant to rabies and helps hinder the spread of Lyme disease and Rocky Mountain spotted fever through their eating of ticks (at a large enough rate that they actively help prevent Lyme spread; that’s pretty damn impressive!).
Finding such a large specimen made me curious about their size range, which in turn led me to learn more about this neat wild and urban animal. Here are some nifty facts about the opossum:
Despite its furless tail that is reminiscent of a rat or mouse, it is not related to rodents. As a marsupial, it is related to other marsupials such as koalas and kangaroos
It is the only marsupial found north of Mexico
The word ‘opossum’ comes from the Algonquian word wapathemwa, which means ‘white animal’, perhaps so named due to the opossum’s white face
Most people simply call this animal ‘possum’, dropping the o, even though the true possums live in Australia
The ancestors of our marsupial friend lived in South America, migrating North around 3 million years ago
Opossums currently range across the US and even into Ontario, Canada
The Virginia opossum is not native to the West Coast of the US; in fact, it was deliberately introduced to that area during the Great Depression (likely as a food source!)
They are semi-arboreal and nocturnal
They vary in size with those in the Northern areas of the US generally being larger than those in the tropics
They measure 13-37in/35-94cm in length from the tip of their nose to the base of their tail, with the tail adding an additional 8.5-19in/21.6-74cm!!
Males (called Jacks) are larger than the females (Jills) with males ranging in weight from 1.7-14lbs/0.8-6.4kg), while the females range from 0.7-8.2lbs/0.3-3.7kg
They have grey-brown fur and white faces
Their long, hairless tails are prehensile, which can be used to aid in climbing or even hold small objects
Opossums have 50 teeth, which is more than any other North American land mammal
Their rear feet have opposable thumbs!
They have 13 nipples! Arranged in a circle with one in the middle (how strange is that?)
They have surprisingly small brains for their overall size (called encephalization quotient in fancy science circles), which is just one fifth the size of a raccoon’s. That’s pretty darn small!
They are known for ‘playing dead’ when afraid. This is an involuntary response to extreme fear. The opossum will fall on its side with its mouth open, tongue flopping out, clench its feet, and even emit a foul odour through its anus. Their heart rate drops by 50% and their breathing is so slow and shallow that it’s almost indectable. This is the origin of the phrase ‘playing possum’, which means to pretend to be injured or even dead in a purposeful act of deception.
Opossums are omnivores that will eat basically anything; fruit, vegetables, insects, small mammals, amphibians, reptiles, grains, fish, human garbage, and even carrion.
They will eat 95% of all ticks they encounter, with an estimated consumption of over 5000 ticks in a season!
In captivity, they have been known to engage in cannibalism! So never house a weak or injured opossum with others.
They are most active in Spring and Summer, and will rest (but not hibernate) over winter.
Their breeding season spans from December to October with most young being born between February and June.
The female opossum will have 1-3 litters per year with an average litter size of 8-9 infants, though as many as 20 have been recorded! Sadly, only 1 in 10 offspring survive to reproductive adulthood.
Gestation lasts just 11-13 days
Newborn opossums are the size of a honeybee!! They climb from the central birth canal into the pouch where they will suckle from one of the 13 nipples. They remain latched for 2 full months, and emerge from the pouch at 2.5 months, where they cling to their mother’s back.
Offspring leave their mothers after around 4-5 months; during this time they learn survival skills.
Like all marsupials, the opossum’s reproductive system is bifid; with two vaginas, uteri, and ovaries. Similarly, the male’s penis is bifid, with two heads. The sperm actually pair up in the testes and only separate when they encounter an ova/egg.
Sadly, the opossum has a surprisingly short lifespan, living a mere 2 years in the wild, and up to 4 years in captivity.
One of the earliest mentions of the opossum comes from the explorer John Smith in his book published in 1608.
Opossums were once a popular food source in the US, although is now considered more of a Southern tradition. Perhaps because of this, it is now associated with ‘hillbillies’ and poverty, and is often depicted as such in cartoons and other media.
As homesteaders, you might be wondering: will possums kill my chickens? Sadly, yes, they can, although it is not as common as raccoon predation. A possum is more likely to be attracted to the chicken feed, grain, and eggs, and many a chicken keeper has found a fat possum sleeping off their meal in the coop. That said, they are capable of killing your laying hens so it’s best to keep your coop and run as predator-proofed as possible. Hardware cloth/metal netting should cover any areas where a predator might be able to crawl through or reach into, and laying it out as a skirt around the run can help prevent them digging under and in.
I hope you found this as fascinating as I did! I think the Virginia opossum might just be my new favourite critter.
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Honeybee Democracy by Thomas Seeley
Originally published in 2010
Available as a hardback (my copy), kindle, Audiobook via Audible, and audio CD; no paperback available
Described by many as a ‘coffee table’ book
Coffee table book: “a large, expensive, lavishly illustrated book, especially one intended only for casual reading”, Oxford Language Dictionary
Perhaps because of this style, Seeley’s voice in this book is much more conversational than his ‘Lives of Bees’. As an author, he has a clear voice with some beautiful turns of phrase. I think if you have just read his scholarly work, you might think Seeley is a moderately talented writer, whereas this book demonstrates that he is a vastly talented author with real warmth to his recollections. I’m thoroughly enjoying it so far and can understand why it is so popular!
Prologue
Opens with the beekeeper’s lament on swarming; the tendency for a honeybee colony to leave the hive with the queen and majority of the worker bees to find a new home
Seeley describes the process of swarming and points out how bees do something truly extraordinary: “they will hold a democratic debate to choose their new home”. Pg.1.
‘Honeybee Democracy’ focuses on this process of debate and relocation
Seeley states 2 motives for writing the book:
To present other biologists and scientists a summary of the disparate research on swarming from the last 60 years; condensing this wealth of knowledge into one place.
“To share with beekeepers and general readers the pleasures I have experienced in investigating swarms of honeybees.”
The closing paragraph:
“The work described here rests on a solid foundation of knowledge that the late Professor Martin Landauer (1918-2008) created with his studies of the house-hunting bees in the 1950s. I wish to dedicate this book to Martin Lindauer, my friend and teacher, whose pioneering investigations inspired my own explorations of the wonderland of the bees’ society.”
Chapter 1: Introduction
Go to the bee,
Then poet:
Consider her ways
And be wise.
-George Bernard Shaw, ‘Man and Superman’, 1903
This chapter opens with a brief comment on the long history of human interaction with honeybees
Honeybees as pollinators: in North America, managed honeybees are the primary pollinators for over 50 fruit and vegetable crops
Honeybees also produce food for the brain with their unique social structure that has led to decades of curious minds studying this surprisingly complex insect
“We will see that these little six-legged beauties have something to teach us about building smoothly functioning groups, especially ones capable of exploiting fully the power of democratic decision making.” Pg.3
Although there are many species of honeybees in the world, the focus of this book is Apis mellifera, which was originally native to western Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe, but has now spread throughout the world thanks to human transmission
Collective Intelligence
The importance of choosing the right nest site cannot be overstated: too small and the bees cannot store enough honey to survive the cold months of winter; too drafty or poorly insulated and the bees will be unable to maintain appropriate brood nest temperatures, etc
This important decision is not made by a single bee or even a small group of bees but several thousand
This book seeks to uncover and explain the way in which bees search for nest sites, report their findings, and reach an agreement about where to live
“In short, we will examine the ingenious workings of honeybee democracy.” Pg.4
Seeley points out the common misconception that a colony is ruled or governed by the queen bee, with the workers obeying her commands like serfs or slaves
Although it is true that the colony as a whole is based around the queen’s health and survival, she is not a ruler; instead, she is the reproductive heart of the colony, and the worker bees are her thousands upon thousands of daughters
A worker bee steadily adapts herself and her work to the needs of the colony; as a whole, the workers function together to assess and meet the various changing needs of the colony, from comb building to food storage to brood rearing
In contrast, the queen bee is entirely oblivious to all these needs; her days consist solely of egg laying, as many as 1500 a day at peak production
The queen also secretes a pheromone called ‘queen substance’ that is transmitted around the hive from bee to bee; it communicates the queen’s presence and health
If this substance dissipates or disappears entirely, the workers will raise a new queen
In late spring and early summer, when colonies become crowded with bees and resources, they will ‘cast a swarm’
Approximately a third of the workers stay with the original nest and will rear a new queen
Two-thirds of the workers will leave with the queen; this swarm usually travels just 30 meters/100 feet or so before resting as a cluster (with the queen at the center) for a few hours to a few days
Once in this clustered position, several hundred house-finding bees will explore approximately 70 square-kilometers/30 square-miles around them for a suitable nesting location
Once the decision on a location has been made, the swarm flies together, directly to the new nest site
How can these tiny brained insects make this decision and do it so well? The answer to this will be covered in chapters 3 and 4.
How do so many bees move together en masse to their new home with such accuracy and cohesion? This will be answered in chapters 7 and 8.
There are roughly 1.5kg/3lbs of bees in a honeybee swarm, and there also happens to be 1.5kg/3lbs of neurons in the human brain
The swarm organizes itself such that each individual bee has limited information and intelligence, while the group as a whole makes complicated and accurate decisions; much like neurons in our brains
Although it might seem absurd to compare neurons/the human brain to honeybees, intriguing similarities between the two have been discovered when comparing honeybee research to those on neurobiology of the human brain
One key example: studies of individual neuron activity associated with eye-movement decision in monkey brains have found that the decision is basically a competition between alternatives until the one with most support (in this case, neuron firings) ‘win’
This same mechanism is found in the collective decision making of swarming honeybees
What does this mean? Potentially, that there exist general principles of organization for creating groups that are smarter collectively than even the smartest individual among them
In chapter 9, these principles of decision making mechanisms will be explored
In chapter 10, Seeley reviews what has been learned from how bees structure a group for collective intelligence, and how this might be applied to our own social structure and decision making processes.
Dancing Bees
The scientific journey that led to this book started in Germany, in the summer of 1944
Distinguished professor of zoology at the University of Munich, Karl von Frisch, made a revolutionary discovery, for which he was eventually awarded a Nobel Prize
Professor von Frisch realized that the worker honeybee used dance to communicate direction and distance of a food source from the hive
For about 30 years before this, it was known that a returning worker who had found a good food source would perform a ‘waggle dance’
In this dance, the bee walks straight on the vertical surface of the comb as she waggles; then she stops, turns to the left or right to make a semicircular run back to the start, where she repeats her waggle dance followed by another return, and so on.
von Frisch also knew that this process could take a few seconds to a few minutes
He knew that fellow worker bees who had followed this dance would eventually fly from the hive in search of the food
Before 1944, von Frisch believed that the dance-followers were learning the fragrance of the food source, and that they would then search from the hive in ever-expanding circles until they found the scent match
In 1944, von Frisch realized that dance-followers were not searching blindly; they searched only in the vicinity of where the dancer foraged, even if that spot was very far away
This means that the worker bees were acquiring forager location as well as the food source scent.
This made him wonder, could the waggle dance be this form of directional communication? The answer to that proved to be yes!
In the summer of 1945, close examination of returning foragers led von Frisch to realize that the waggle run produces a miniature reenactment of the bee’s recent flight outside the hive; thus accurately conveying the location of the food source.
The duration of the waggle run equals the length of the outbound journey with one second of waggle indicating approximately 1000 meters (or 6/10s of a mile) of flight
The angle of the waggle run (relative to straight up the vertical comb) equals the angle of the outward flight from the hive relative to the direction of the sun.
Thus, if a bee waggle runs directly up the comb then the food source is in the same direction as the sun.
This is astonishing both in the bee’s ability to transmit this information and in her sisters’ ability to decade it so accurately!
While working on this groundbreaking research, von Frisch was also supervising a young graduate student named Martin Lindauer
Lindauer is an especially important figure in this story as he pioneered the study of honeybee democracy in swarms
Lindauer was born in the foothills of the Bavarian Alps, the second youngest of a whopping 15 children
His family were poor farmers but Lindauer was an astounding student and thus able to win a scholarship to a distinguished boarding school in Landshut, Germany
In April 1939, just 8 days after his high school graduation, he was drafted into Hitler’s Work Force to dig trenches
6 months later, he was transferred into the army
July 1942, while fighting on the Russian front, he was wounded by an exploding grenade that caused deep shrapnel wounds
He was thus removed from the front lines, which likely saved his life; of the 156 men he left behind in his unit, only 3 survived the war.
While recovering in Munich, Lindauer’s doctor suggested he visit the University to hear a lecture by the now famous Professor von Frisch
Hearing von Frisch talk about cell division made Lindauer feel he had returned to “a new world of humanity”, and he resolved to study biology
After being discharged from the army in the summer of 1943, he started his studies at the University of Munich
Lindauer started his PhD research on honeybees in the Spring of 1945 with Professor von Frisch acting as his adviser
Dirty Dancers
Lindauer had an eye for small details that would ultimately prove to be significant
This is what led to his studies in house-hunting honeybees; in fact, he called this “the most beautiful experience of all his scientific work”. Pg.13
In the spring of 1949, he chanced upon a swarm hanging on a bush on the grounds of the University of Munich
Staying to watch the bees, he noticed bees performing the waggle dance on the surface of the swarm, walking along the backs of their sisters
Initially, he assumed that the dancers were reporting on food sources nearby but closer observation led to him noticing that these dancers were returning with no pollen or nectar
He also noticed that these dancers were rather dirty and dusty, and ended up catching some of them and using a clean paintbrush to dust off the particles clinging to them
Studying the dust under a microscope, he found particles of soot, brick dust, soil, and even flour
He realised that these dancers were not foraging for food but instead were house-hunting bees, scouting out possible nest sites in the rubble of bombed Munich
Although eager to test this hypothesis, in 1949 the economy was tanking and the university was short on bee colonies to study, leading to a rule that all swarms from the university hives must be captured and hived on university grounds
Two years later, in 1951, things had improved enough that Professor von Frisch granted permission for Lindauer to test his theory
In chapters 3 to 6, the story of this test and ultimate discovery will be covered in detail
For now, we consider how Lindauer tested his hypothesis that these dancers are scout bees
In the summer of 1951, he studied the dancers of 9 swarms
Each dancer was carefully labeled with a dot of paint, and her direction and distance of flight were noted
Lindauer observed that the first dancers to appear announced 12 or more locations but, after some time (ranging from a few hours to a few days), the dancers would announce one location in increasing numbers
In the hour before the swarm would depart, all dancers indicated just one direction and distance
Lindauer reasoned that this location would be the new nest site
To test this, he tried to follow the swarms home by running after them through the streets of Munich, and managed to succeed in this 3 times!
Each location indicated by the dancers’ last dance did, indeed, match their new nest site
Conclusion: these ‘dirty dancers’ were the house-hunting scout bees!
Catching the Buzz
Now we return to our author; in June of 1952, Thomas Seeley was born in Pennsylvania, some 4000 miles or 6,500 kilometers from Munich where Lindauer was in the second year of his swarm watching
A few years later, Seeley’s family moved to Ithaca, NY
Seeley recounts is youngers years of exploring the natural world sound him, including his discovery of 2 hives managed by a local beekeeper
It was in high school when he “became utterly spellbound by the bees”. Pg.16
In the summer of 1969, he found a swarm hanging from a tree limb and housed it in a quickly put together hive, which is brought home
“Now I had these little sparks of wonderment living in a box that I could gently open to watch them closely, and I did so for several hours every day after work, mesmerized by the intricate behaviours of the individual bees and by the peace of their great community.” Pg. 17
Seeley started his freshman year at Dartmouth College in the Fall of 1970 with the aim of becoming a doctor who kept bees in his spare time
Through his time at Dartmouth, however, he wrote about bees whenever the merest reason to do so appeared, and he even chose chemistry as a major area of study with the goal to one day decode the chemical language of the bees
Each summer, he worked at the Dyce Laboratory for Honey Bee Studies at Cornell
Roger A.Morse, the director of the lab, noticed Seeley’s passion for bees and encouraged him to consider graduate school with bees as a focus
During his final 2 years at Dartmouth, Seeley realised that his interest in entomology far outweighed his interest in medicine, though he did still apply for medical school
He was accepted by 3 different medical schools (no small feat!) but chose to go to Harvard, where he had been accepted for graduate school, working with Edward O.Wilson, a noted insect sociologist (and gifted writer)
When Seeley started at Harvard in the Fall of 1974, he worked under the advisement of Bert Hölldobler, who studied ant behaviour
Hölldobler had recently arrived from Frankfurt, Germany, and had been hired specifically to share and teach von Frisch’s approach to animal behaviour study; close observation of animals in nature and experimental investigations in the mechanisms of their behaviour
Hölldobler had studied under Lindauer while in Germany and so was familiar with honeybees as well as his beloved ants
He encouraged Seeley’s love of bees, and the two quickly became friends
Seeley knew that he wanted his PhD thesis research to dig even deeper into Lindauer’s study of how honeybee colonies work as a unit or superorganism, and was especially keen to learn more about the decision-making process of swarms
Seeley was so fascinated by Lindauer’s work on the subject that, during his undergraduate years, he tracked down the full 62 page paper, which was entirely in German; Seeley took an ‘Intro to German’ language course and bought a German-to-English Dictionary in order to painstakingly translate each word
Seeley realised that Lindauer’s study, like all good scientific studies, ultimately raised more questions than it answered, and he wanted to be the one to answer those questions
This book is Seeley’s attempt to show what was learned by Lindauer in the 1950s, and by Seeley and others since the 1970s; all focused on the decision-making process of the honeybee swarm
This work illuminates how evolution, via natural selection over millions of years, has shaped the behaviour of the honeybee into a single collective intelligence
“This book tries to be a window into the private world of a honeybee colony. If it bolsters, in any way, an appreciation of these little creatures for the beauty of their social behaviour, along with their service in keeping the world flowering and fruitful, then it will have achieved its purpose.” Pg. 19
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And that’s it for this week! I’m really enjoying this book, and I hope you are too. I’m sure many have already read this but I hope you find this to be a refresher of the information. Going from ‘The Lives of Bees’ to this book is interesting as the former is quite dry, whereas this book is a much easier read with some really enchanting turns of phrase. Seeley is a gifted writer!
Next episode, I will continue with this book review and hope you will join me. Thank you so much for listening/reading and following along with me. I wish you all a very safe and merry holiday season!