This past year, I have seen so many fascinating articles about honeybee artwork, that is art made with the effort of bees, not just art featuring bees in the design. I’d like to compile these articles here, and if there are any I’ve left out please share them!

Aganetha Dyck – Sculptures with Beeswax

Aganetha Dyck has been giving bees sculptures to build their honeycomb on for years, but until recently, I didn’t have the pleasure of seeing her artwork. Some of this honeybee artwork is eerie, some of it old fashioned looking. It is so interesting to see where the bees build their comb up and other areas that are untouched.

Hilary Berseth – Sculptures made of Honeycomb

Hilary Berseth sets up the framework for her sculptures, and then lets the honeybees do their work. Honeybees are very precise workers, but even so, you cannot expect a certain outcome given the framework provided. It is also really neat to see the depth of color in the honeycomb. As honeycomb gets older, it turns from paper white to dark brown. I really love this example of honeybee artwork.

Penelope Stewart – Beeswax Installations

Penelope Stewart’s honeybee artwork invites you into a room completely made from beeswax. She sculpts the walls and decorates them with many intricate carvings. The carvings range from leaves and roses to less organic designs such as teacups and spoons.

Ren Ri – Honeycomb Installations

Ren Ri came out with art installations in China this year. He creates the framework, similar to Hilary Berseth, but focuses more on geometric honeycomb designs. The honeycomb can be manipulated by the bees into so many different shapes and sizes, with very little support from dowel rods. Each honeybee artwork design is encased in a plastic shape.

Lea Ann Rochon – Painting with Beeswax

Lea Ann Rochon has been experimenting with colored beeswax as paint. Beeswax has been a type of paint for thousands of years and can stand the test of time. There are Egyptian paintings still today that used colored beeswax. I love the idea of artists using beeswax as a part of their honeybee artwork.

Various Artists – Y/Bees?

Santa Maria Public Library’s Shepard Hall hosted a found art exhibition all featuring honeybees. The goal was to spread awareness of the plight of honeybees and what people can do to help. There are many different honeybee artwork on display, and you can explore them all by visiting the website.

AnneMarie van Splunter – Park Bench for People & Bees

AnneMarie van Splunter designed a park bench for people to sit on and for bees to rest in. The goal is to make people and honeybees more comfortable around each other. We share many common spaces together, such as parks, and need to understand that we both have a place there. This honeybee artwork is both functional and beautiful. Can you hear the bees buzzing around this open field as you soak up the sun?

There you have it! Honeybee artwork inspired and made by bees. These art displays are all across the globe, not just in the United States. It’s important for people worldwide to understand that honeybees impact us all as the most important pollinator (currently) for our food supply. Thank you so much to the artists who are helping to spread this message!

Most people know that honeybees are responsible for pollinating flowers. A lot of people know that honeybees pollinate 1 in 3 bites of food we eat. Quite a few people love to eat honey and use it regularly. But aside from these important benefits of honeybees, there are many rather unusual benefits you may not have heard of. Some of them may sound like science fiction, but I can assure you that these are real. If we don’t wipe out honeybees, it will be great to learn what other benefits of honeybees given these excellent examples

5 of the Most Unusual Benefits of Honeybees

Diagnose Diabetes

In August 2014, NPR in Boston reported that scientists were training bees to diagnose diabetes. Diabetics apparently have a higher amount of acetone in their breath than do people without the illness. Bees are 10,000 times more sensitive to smell than we are, and it is thought that trained bees would be able to detect this small amount of acetone. Bees in the study were able to correctly identify patients with diabetes 70% of the time. However, the patients in this study had well regulated diabetes, and for those who are undiagnosed, the acetone would be more pronounced and easily detectable. This is an important discovery, as the test would be low cost and easily accessible for people around the world. This is one great benefit of honeybees!

Detect Cancer

Similar to diabetes detection, scientists are also training bees to detect cancer from breath. Patients breathe into a tube, and bees rush to smell the air and alert the tester. Bees reportedly can be trained within 10 minutes to detect cancer, diabetes and tuberculous, among other illnesses. When bees detect the scent researchers are targeting, they are rewarded with a sugar substance. Bees might be able to be trained to detect cancer early on when it is very treatable, making this benefit of honeybees a potential life saver.

Find Land Mines

Bees have been used for years to collect environmental information, and this experiment expands on this knowledge. As bees interact within an environment, they inadvertently collect information on what types of substances they encountered along the way. The US Department of Defense has been working on this project by attaching RFID tags to bees. The bees fly out of the hive and interact with the environment. When they return to the hive, a chemical analysis is done to detect materials used in land mines. The RFID tracks the bees every movement, allowing researchers to pinpoint where the bees picked up the chemical trace and thus locating the land mine. This is another life saving benefit of honeybees that could be used in countries dealing with active land mines.

Natural Antibiotics

In September 2014, The Times of India released a report saying that bacteria found in a honeybee’s gut may be the next generation of antibiotics. For centuries, people have known that honey had anti-microbial and anti-bacterial properties. In fact, honey can last for thousands of years without spoiling. For this experiment, the patients were actually horses with flesh wounds that had previously been treated unsuccessfully by other methods. A topical cream, made from bacteria found in honeybees and honey, was applied to wounds on several different horses in the experiment. All the horses healed well due to the topical solution.

Bee Propolis Medicines

Bee propolis has been used for years in medicine. It is made by honeybees from tree resins and used to seal up the honeybee hive. It works so well, in fact, that hives have been found to be cleaner than operation rooms in hospitals. Propolis can be used for a number of reasons: similar to an antibiotic cream applied on top of wounds, treating canker sores and can even be used as a way to boost fertility. Beekeepers have taken note of this and started to sell propolis pills and creams along side honey and pollen jars.

Did you know North Dakota is the #1 producer of honey in the United States? In 2012 they sold $64 million worth of honey. Did you know 16 states boast the honeybee as their state insect? What about this, did you know that every state has a local beekeeping association? If you are interested in becoming a beekeeper or you already are a beekeeper, joining a local association can be very helpful. Not only will you be in touch with other beekeepers, you often can get discounts on beekeeping-related items. In Indiana, our association runs a beekeeping school offered a few weekends throughout the year and also members host beekeepers to help around the apiary and learn about beekeeping.

Here’s a list below of all 50 states and their state bee associations/clubs:

Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota,Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota,Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming

National honeybee day was started in 2009 by a group of beekeepers who wanted to promote beekeeping. The US Secretary of Agricultural made it a holiday and it has been celebrated around the country ever since. This year’s theme is sustainable gardening begins with honeybees, in an effort to get more gardeners interested in keeping honeybees. Gardening and beekeeping really go hand in hand and I have 5 tips (plus a bonus!) on why you should considering getting into beekeeping.

Top 5 Reasons Gardeners Should Become Beekeepers for National Honeybee Day

1. Beekeeping is a very fun hobby

If you enjoy digging in the garden and watching plants take root and grow into a plentiful harvest, beekeeping will similarly give you a lot of pleasure. It is so neat to bring home a 3 pound box of honeybees and have it grow to a hive with tens of thousands of bees. I love to watch the progress inside the honeybee hive too. During hive inspections, I get to see more frames filled with wax comb, then with brood, then with capped-over brood and finally with honey. We have so much fun making frames, boxes and inspecting hives that our friends, family and neighbors often get involved. We love seeing neighbors on their porches relaxing as they watch us manage our honeybee hives. It is really enjoyable for everyone around to watch.

2. Your garden will produce more thanks to nearby pollinators

We’ve had berry bushes in our yard for years, but until we had honeybees, we never had such large and prolific yields. This is a picture from 2012, the first year we kept bees, and we’d never had handfuls of these large berries before.

Our garden in 2012 did so well, this is a photo from July, and we had just planted everything in mid-May.

Did you know even cabbage is pollinated by honeybees? This cabbage was also harvested in July 2012, just 60 days after starting from seed.

3. You get the bonus of honey

Bees typically need about 60 pounds of honey, depending on your climate, to survive winter. Anything above this, you can harvest for yourself. We love having fresh honey to sell for extra cash. It is also great to have around for different recipes. Nothing is better than fresh berries with a little honey drizzled on top of yogurt! Many people don’t eat processed sugar or artificial sugar and many of our loyal customers use honey as their only sweetener.

4. You can also harvest beeswax

Beeswax is strained out of the honey and can be used for lip balm, candles, leather polish, book bindings and a whole lot more. Another product that bees make is called propolis, and this is a first rate medical product for cuts and scrapes. During the winter, it is fun to make different crafts out of beeswax and give them away as gifts throughout the year.

5. It’s relaxing to watch honeybees and manage hives

After being at work all day, don’t you just love coming home to your beautiful garden, your little slice of heaven? We love sitting in our backyard as the honeybees buzz around. Sometimes it feels like they have their own highways and byways they use to get from the hive to flowers and back again. It is also relaxing to watch bees and not have any technology or other distractions around at all.

BONUS REASON: 6. You are helping an endangered species

Did you know honeybees are endangered? Colony Collapse Disorder has many causes and is taking out bee hives on a major scale. These creatures have remained the same for millions of years and the main reason they are disappearing is because of humans. That’s why it is our responsibility to help bring them back, one backyard hive at a time.

Please join us and help celebrate National Honeybee Day on August 16th! If you are interested in becoming a beekeeper, search online for a local beekeeping club to help you get started. Many clubs and associations offer classes to get you certified and ready to manage hives in one weekend. These events start in late fall through winter, during the beekeeping off-season, which also coordinates with gardening off-season. Check out our full list of state beekeeping associations for details.

This was a busy weekend for us! We inspected the hives and found 5 out of 7 hives needed a new deep box to give the honeybees more space. We were happy to have a 3 day weekend to build the additional boxes and frames. At one point, I ended up going to Sally Beauty Supply Store to buy 2 pounds of bobby pins, which we use to secure the wax foundations in the frames. I definitely got a strange look from the sales clerk when I said I needed about 1600 bobby pins.

In one of our hives, beekeeper Tim found the honeybees had built an extra frame on the side of a frame, but it was all drone comb. The reason it was probably all drone comb was that the honeycomb itself wasn’t built off of a wax foundation. The foundation is stamped with hexagons the perfect size for worker cells, and when left to their own devices to plan honeycomb, it is often uneven and so the honeybee queen lays drone eggs there.

Tim decided to give all the comb to the silkie chickens, and they really enjoyed pecking at all the larvae after they got over their initial skepticism.

We ended up building 8 boxes and 40 frames, with 30 more frames needed to give each honeybee hive a new box. We are still feeding the honeybees sugar water but they have slowed down to 3 quarts or so a week.

I also had some time to take photographs for our ongoing honeybee photo of the day project. Please check us out on your favorite social media website so you can get our daily honeybee photos.

Like many other Mid-westerners, I made my way to our local county fair last night for some good food and a look at the 4H projects. My mom accompanied me and as we wandered around, we saw a lot of things you’d expect to see at the fair: animals, quilts, funnel cakes…and then we stumbled upon something not so expected: a pollinator garden! In between two conservation buildings, where there once was just grass and dirt, our community planted perennial flowers known to draw in pollinators. What’s more is they labeled all of the plants and added in bee sculptures and signs to help inform people on the importance of pollinators.

I love that the county took a part of the fairgrounds that was overlooked and made it into something special. I recognized a lot of the flowers they had planted, such as beebalm, coneflowers, black eyed susans and joe pye weed. There were a lot there that I didn’t recognize but thanks to the labeling I was able to see what it was: Himalayan Indigo, Appalachian Indigo-bush, Apricot Sprite Hyssop and more. I even found a bumble bee on some of the Himalayan Indigo! If you would like to learn what plants attract pollinators that would do well in your region, check out this free plant resource on Pollinators.org.

As we walked around we found some really cool signs to help educate people on what pollinators do, what pollinators are native to Indiana what goes into a pollinator habitat. One sign was from the conservationists, one was from NOAA and the other was from the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation.

We also overheard a mother walking with her 4 daughters in tow, saying how pollinators were important. The youngest one affirmed, “they provide the food we eat!” I was so happy to hear that they knew why pollinators are important. This public space helped start a conversation about pollinators and instead of children running away in fear of bees, they were exploring the garden hoping to find some.

Towards the back of the garden, there were benches to sit on, a water garden and compost bins. I haven’t been to our local county fair in years, so I am not sure how new the pollinator garden is. I am just happy to have it in our community for people to enjoy and hopefully learn a couple of tips to attract pollinators to their own yard. Find a pollinator garden near you by checking out this map from Pollinators.org.

I came across an article with research showing most adults have a difficult time distinguishing honeybees from other insects with stingers. I often speak with people who think they have a honeybee swarm for me to come and take, but they are actually dealing with yellow jackets and wasps. I also hear from a lot of people who are afraid of honeybees based off of past experiences with stinging insects. I’d like to talk about the most common insects with stingers and dispel some of the myths about the humble honeybee.

Suspect #1 – The Yellow Jacket

I remember seeing these around more than any other type of bee when I was growing up. One time I even got stung by one and it hurt a lot. Some people also call these wasps, which is technically correct, as they are a type of wasp. The yellow jacket gets its name from its yellow and black bands that cover its body. Two things really separate them from honeybees in my opinion: yellow jackets’ legs are usually all yellow and they do not have any hairs on their bodies. Another difference is the hive the yellow jacket builds. Their nest is round and made of a papery-looking substance. Yellow jackets are also known to build a nest under ground. If you disturb a nest, my advice is to get away from it as soon as possible and come back later to burn the hive.

How they are different from honeybees: Yellow jackets are bright yellow, carnivores, they can sting and their venom is painful.

 Suspect #2 – The Wasp

Wasps have bodies similar to  hornets but have red and brown colors. I haven’t seen these too much in Northern Indiana, but I must say, just looking for pictures online of them made me a little scared. A wasp is technically anything that isn’t a bee or an ant, which leaves a lot of room for ambiguity. They can make hives similar to yellow jackets, but I have seen nests without a cover, as in the picture I have here.

How they are different from honeybees: Wasps are much darker and skinnier. They inject a paralyzing venom into victims and then eat them. Only adults consume nectar. They can live solitary or in a community.

Suspect #3 – The Hornet

Hornets look like an evil cross between a yellow jacket and a wasp to me, with double the meanness. They can be larger than yellow jackets and wasps, and can be yellow striped and white striped. Their nests look just like yellow jackets’ nests. If you stumble upon a hornet nest, be very aware and get away fast. They have an attack hormone they can use to signal the entire hive against you. Hence why you don’t want to kick a hornet’s nest!

How they are different from honeybees: Hornets are larger and can sting you multiple times. Their venom contains a compound that makes the sting hurt very bad.

Suspect #4 – Carpenter Bees

Let’s move on to some nicer bees after all these scary ones. Carpenter bees are large and fuzzy, and they don’t usually have stingers. However, they can do damage to wood. Carpenter bees build their homes in wood and raise their young in perfect circles they chew out of the wood.

How they are different from honeybees: Carpenter bees are larger, all black or violet and will build their nests in wood.

Suspect #5 – Bumble Bees

Bumble bees are often called the teddy bears of the bee family. They are gentle giants that like to forage for nectar and pollen in gardens. They are large, very fuzzy and very loud as they buzz by. Bumble bees can produce honey, but often just enough for the queen to make it through the winter. In early spring, you might even be able to find the bumble bee queens buzzing around your yard, they are much larger than workers.

How they are different from honeybees: Bumble bees are much larger and instead of having yellow or orange on their abdomens, they primarily have the color on their thorax (the part just below their head) and black everywhere else.

This is a honeybee:

Honeybees are small and often have striped orange abdomens. They build their natural hives in trees, and their hive looks nothing like a wasp nest. These insects are hard workers and won’t hurt you unless you threaten them or their hive. If they sting you, they die quickly and can no longer help the hive.

How honeybees differ from all the usual suspects: Honeybees tend to be small and go from flower to flower in your yard. They are herbivores and don’t kill other insects unless they are attacking the hive. They are responsible for pollinating 1/3 of the fruits, vegetables and nuts we consume. They are gentle and produce a vast amount of honey for beekeepers. Honey won’t go bad for hundreds of years, it has multiple uses and healing effects.

If honeybees were like wasps and these other suspects, you definitely wouldn’t see beekeepers doing these kinds of things in these pictures. We aren’t necessarily brave, we don’t risk our lives taking care of honeybees, but we are passionate about saving a species we depend on for our own survival.

This past weekend we inspected all seven of our honeybee hives. We were lucky enough to be joined by beekeeper Martin who is an expert at smoking the honeybees and keeping them calm.  All of the hives were healthy and doing well. Two of them had large honey stores already which made us very happy to see. All of the honeybee queens are laying eggs and helping to build up the hive for the summer.

This frame was covered in bees, can you spot the queen? She acts like a bulldozer, plowing her way through the crowd to get to the cells where she wants to lay her eggs. Good queens are said to lay eggs very close together, this makes the brood not spotty.   Here she is highlighted in the picture below. (click on picture for a larger view-c’mon, it’ll be like Where’s Waldo?!) I also got a picture of the top of our hive. This is an inner cover with an opening on the top of it for honeybees to fly out. Not all beekeepers use this in their honeybee hives. During very hot days, we take the top cover off our hives and leave this inner cover on, to reduce the heat in the hive and allow the honeybees another entrance/exit. Only healthy hives that can defend themselves well should have multiple entrances though. We left a frame out of a couple of the hives that we put new queens into. We left the queens in the queen cages and just stuck the cage in between two frames to hold it into place. The queens were released from the cages this past week and accepted into the hives. When inspecting the honeybee hives this weekend, we saw that the bees had made their own natural comb where there should have been a frame. When beekeeper Tim took the lid off of this hive, he pulled out the honey comb and I was able to snap a picture.  

That sums up this week’s inspection. Stay tuned for our next honeybee hive inspection. I’m also working on getting us set up on all social media websites so you can stay on top of honeybee news, pictures and what’s going on in our backyard.