NSAIDs increase reactions to bee stings

Honey Bee on Garlic Chives

Yesterday, four nurses were a little freaked out by the redness and swelling (larger than their palm) I showed after getting my allergy shots. "Hmmm… let me ask another nurse what she thinks," said one, then another, and the next. Then came a barrage of questions. Are you feeling okay? You're not having any other symptoms, are you? Did you ice? This amount of redness is normal for you? Are they itchy, did you scratch? Did you take an antihistamine? What kind?

After looking at the computer and seeing I get venom shots, the freak out calmed down a bit. Venom shot reactions can often be more intense than pollen shot reactions. But all the hullabaloo got me thinking. And then I remembered. I'd taken an NSAID for a headache the evening before.

One time, I took a migraine-strength NSAID the day before getting allergy shots, and ended up having what looked like a severe systemic reaction that sent me "back for treatment." Being sent to the back for anaphylaxis treatment set me back months in my therapy, so it was a very costly turn of events. There is some research that shows NSAIDs may provoke systemic allergic reactions to bee stings, and apparently it's true for VIT "stings" as well. Remember, a maintenance dose of venom is the equivalent of two stings.

They Had Me at Honey

Drinks at Acorn

The REHYDRATOR ingredient list is cherry, aloe, cranberry, lime, and honey. 'nuff said. We ordered two.

A pretty drink which, strangely, I did not Instagram, I think it's the red one in the photo (from their Facebook page). We were served drinks that looked like the yellow one, I think. It's all kind of of a blur. Whatever it looked like, I took a sip… and then another. There was something in it that I could not identify. "What does aloe taste like?" I asked. I took a third sip. And then I knew. The thing that I could not identify was alcohol, lots of proofy alcohol. It wasn't the taste of alcohol that I identified, though. It was my heart that I felt starting to pound, pound, pound. What ensued was a bad case of Asian Flush. So bad that I contemplated using my EpiPen.

VIT Report

Display of honeybee products at Nick's Garden Center

Have had a set back with my venom immunotherapy. My first maintenance doses triggered a systemic reaction. Large localized swelling and the tiniest, tiniest hint of wheezing, with coughing and a drippy nose. The nurse says I'm not allowed any more venom shots until the doctor has reviewed my incident report.

I was supposed to have turned around and gone back to the office with the first cough "for treatment," whatever that means. But the tickle in my throat was so slight. Besides, I was on a mission to get some special food for my kitty from the vet, so continued on my merry way. Even on the next day, while unhappy that my tricep felt like a water balloon, I just took some Benadryl and Advil. It wasn't until that night, when my elbow started to puff, that I became concerned. If a reaction moves past a joint, that's bad. [I guess I should say really bad, because all the other stuff, as slight as it was, was bad. I learned there's Protracted, Late-Phase and Biphasic Anaphylaxis. Whether elongated, delayed or in two phases, I just have to assume that I'm never quite in the clear.] Of course by the time my elbow started to hurt it was Sunday night, so I just took more Benadryl and Advil. The nurse says I should've gone to Urgent Care.

I wonder what's it's like to have healthcare like they do in Europe. To not have to think, "What's it going to cost me this time?" or "Can I afford another $350 bill?"

Anaphylaxis Due to Bee Sting

I had to ask, "Is that my official diagnosis?" because, no, my throat did not close up. Not being able to breathe is the severe end of an anaphylactic reaction, so that's the one people know about. Rather than respiratory trouble, I had cardiac trouble and a host of other symptoms.

It's important to know that any reaction away from the sting site is indicative of a systemic reaction, and should be considered life-threatening. My sting was on my right bicep. I'd scraped the stinger out, applied an ice pack, and was completely fine for a full 30 minutes. When I saw whelts forming on my left forearm, I went and got the EpiPens. Then I got stupid. I waited. Alone.

I had a massive sneezing fit like I'd stuck my face in a bouquet of goldenrod which made my heart race, or so I thought. It was more likely low blood pressure which, when it drops low enough, can lead to passing out. Luckily I didn't. I grabbed a face towel to make a cold compress and, while scarfing down antihistamines, glanced in the mirror. I was red from head-to-toe, my eyelids were puffed up, my eyes were completely bloodshot and glassy. My scalp became insanely itchy, starting at the spot of an old sting, and my ears felt super stuffy. The sound of my tinnitus even changed from a car horn to small aircraft. The whelts became full-blown hives. I used the EpiPen. I didn't feel a thing but the blood soaking my jeans told me the autoinjector had, well, autoinjected.

Looking at BB's phone still in his office, I pondered calling 911. I wasn't getting better but I wasn't getting worse. If I called 911 an ambulance would come, and I didn't want the neighbors (if they didn't know already) to find out we had bees by me being carted away in anaphylactic shock. So I sat on the couch and waited some more. Twenty-five minutes after I'd given myself the Epi, BB came home and we headed to the ER. It's about a mile north of home.

NO EMERGENCY SERVICES! We had to drive south 3 miles but we didn't make it that far. Before the ER there's an Urgent Care center, so that's where we ended up. Apparently lots of confused people go there. There's a sign on the door that says the ER is further down the road, but I didn't stop to read it. I doubt anybody does.

From the time of the sting to the time we walked in, over an hour had passed. The massive dose of chewable Benadryl (diphenhydramine HCl) and the EpiPen may have saved my life, but my heart was still racing and pounding so we needed to get the allergic reaction under control. Apparently, in addition to a hyperalert brain, I have an overactive immune system and it was pumping out histamine like crazy. The EMTs gave me more epinephrine, more anti­histamine, and a steroid shot. Then more epinephrine, but I kept rebounding. Finally an EMT decided that the drugs just weren't going through my body correctly because my arteries were so constricted, so I got an IV bag. It pushed everything through and that was that. They sent us home with a new EpiPen 'scrip and stern advice to just dial 911. Next time could be worse. Or not, but why risk it? Now that there are no beehives in The Backyard, there's nothing for neighbors to get pissed about, so I won't be stupid if it happens again.

BTW, there's a reason EpiPens come in 2-packs. I thought it was a matter of the system taking my money, but it turns out that if you're not better in 10-15 minutes, you're supposed to stab yourself again.

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LESSON LEARNED: Don't wear a black short-sleeved shirt anywhere near a beehive.

Styrofoam Solar Wax Melter

Our wax melter is based on Paul Magnuson's design (above).

I generally process beeswax in two stages. The first, in the solar wax melter, is a wet phase, and the second and any subsequent meltings are done dry, without water. Sometimes I find the wax is tacky, and I have trouble getting it out of my molds. This tends to happen with older comb, or wax rendered from brood combs. Either the propolis and other impurities are the problem, or the wax may be partially saponified.

According to Dave Cushman, to avoid saponification of the beeswax in the wet phase, the water should be acidified with lemon juice, lime juice or vinegar (one or two teaspoons per pint of water). When I have enough wax accumulated, I'll melt some with and without acidifying the water and will post on the differences.

A Trick-or-Treater Threw a Butterfinger at my House

I can't tell if the bees are eating their Halloween candy

or throwing it on the floor.

I don't think they are being ungrateful like the kids. I think it's just too soon to put candy on. If we're not getting a blizzard, October is the absolute BEST month in Colorado. Clear blue skies, temps in the 70s, the grass turns green again... it's gorgeous. The bees are still bringing in catmint and lavender nectar, along with aster pollen, so maybe they see the candy as junk. Lesson learned: Don't put candy on until it gets too cold to fly. 

Mason Bee Harvest

Filling in the Blanks — a Post for September in October

September 21, 2012

On the Summer solstice, the mason bee chalet was brought in for pre-Wintering. Inside the house, the developing bees were protected from the intense Colorado sun and heat, and allowed to metamorph comfortably and undisturbed. I didn't know they were already under attack until I pulled the trays out of the chalet today. The electrical tape banding the trays together had failed, and tiny chalcid wasps had made their way in. The yellow tray was the only one that had stayed shut.

Tell tale holes where the wasps entered each cocoon.

Chalcid wasps that matured inside a cocoon.

Parasitic wasps were unable to gain access here.

The cocoons seemed smaller this year, making it difficult to clearly differentiate the males from the females. Some of them I had to assume were female, simply from their position toward the back of their tube. Ideally 6 out of 10 cocoons would be male, but my guess is that we have disproportionately more males than females.

 111 cocoons debrided and ready for hibernation

51 cocoons were lost to the wasps. There are some mason-bee-ers out there recommending candling, but I think at this point there's no point. It appears that the wasps fully matured inside our cocoons and then died. LESSON LEARNED: window screen is not fine enough. Next year, as soon as BOB activity stops, I'm putting a nylon stocking around the whole house.

I'll be monitoring the observation tubes, and will let you know if something's awry.

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UPDATE: May 2013 - there were about a dozen duds. The bees never emerged from their cocoons. What they all had in common was uneaten pollen. It seems that if the larva does not eat all of its provisions, it will not have enough fat stores to make it through to Spring or enough energy to chew its way out. If you click on the image of the yellow tray, you can clearly see one mason that didn't eat all its pollen. When you find a cocoon like that, anticipate a dud. If you place your cocoons out in stages in the Spring, these are the first that should be pulled out of hibernation. 

How to use a Hive Top Feeder: Part II

Filling in the Blanks — a Post for September in October

The Backyard is already set up for Winter, but I figured I'd post this "tutorial" even though it was meant for last month. September was a very busy month for me and BB, but better late than never, right? The weather's still warm enough to feed syrup, so here goes.

The cinnamon is NOT keeping the ants out of the syrup.

The slot in the feeder should be parallel to the combs below. This is an Ashforth-type feeder (has a beespace beneath) so it's not super critical, but the parallel orientation gives the bees the easiest access and enables them to take the syrup quickly. To ensure the bees will be able to drain it completely, pour only enough syrup to make a shallow pool in the feeder. Rotate the feeder or tilt the hive to make sure the pool is on the bee side. For your first feeding, only give them a small amount of syrup, in case there's trouble. If you need to clean out ants, you don't want to have to try to siphon off a gallon of syrup. A kitchen towel can easily absorb a cup or two, so start small and see how it goes. Speaking of trouble, a cache of syrup can set off robbing so I only fill the feeder in the evening, when everyone is at home in their own hive. I'm feeding because this colony is small, and it would lose in a fight over syrup.

Weatherstripping DOES keep the ants out.

This syrup is a little thin – you can tell by all those ripples – and in very warm weather will ferment. If you smell a sour aroma near the hive, it's likely white fuzzy mold is growing in the syrup. So again, don't put in more than you want to have to clean out. My syrup recipe is honey + water, about 3:1. If you're feeding sugar syrup rather than diluted honey, you're supposed to use a ratio of 2:1. Once you get a feel for the right mix, fill the feeder slowly to give the bees in the slot a chance to back up. Otherwise someone will get covered in syrup and drown. This type of feeder typically holds about a gallon.

The screen is a convenient place to put a mini pollen pattie.

It's always good to have some pollen around to supplement their feed. Pollen is what gives you "fat" bees capable of both surviving Winter and raising your Spring bees. My pollen pattie recipe is pollen + powdered sugar + a small amount of honey, kneaded together. The bees seem to like it. Either that or they're taking pieces of it to throw away. I'm inclined to think they like it because, after a few weeks of feeding them like this (with the roof on, of course), we observed lots of new bees orienting about the hive. Keep feeding continuously until they stop taking it, or until the bees begin to cluster for the Winter, whichever comes first. (Keep feeding continuously until they stop taking it applies in the Spring as well. If they need it they'll eat it, if they don't they won't.)

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LESSON LEARNED: We ended up removing the piece of weatherstripping at the top edge of the above picture, as it was encouraging mold in the roof. The ants can't get past the bees from that side. The roof was scraped as mold-free as possible, wiped with white vinegar and replaced. No further mold has appeared.

A Queen Cage

Probably the most popular way for beekeepers to stock their hives is with package bees. You go from 0 to 11,000 in about 30 seconds. But the 11,000 bees really are of little importance. It's the precious Queen Cage hidden within that matters.

This is the queen cage that was in our package. It looks nothing like the ones you see on the Internet or in beekeeping books. Fat lot of good all that reading did us when we pulled this out of our package.

This is a simple Queen Cage, with no candy and just one cork.

With no attendants in her way, our Queen flew out in the blink of an eye. One second she was there. And then she wasn't. Luckily she flew into the hive and the bees were OK with that. At first. But that's ancient history. A kajillion lessons ago. I wish someone would have told us:

How to Prepare for the Unexpected

• There is no candy hidden behind the cork.
• The cork will be jammed in and nearly impossible to get at.
• You'll catch the cork just-so when you least expect it and it'll fly out.
• Cover the hole with your finger at that exact moment or the Queen will fly out, too.

I hope this helps start of a great beekeeping year for you. We're still hoping for a swarm. The Denver Swarm Map shows that the local bees are doing well, so we just may be in luck. Stay tuned...

From Booming to Deadout

The hive in early September, full of bees.

The hive in early October. A reduction in population is normal,
but we're worried about their low numbers.

The hive in late October. Population has really declined
and they've positioned themselves far from food.

The hive in mid-November. There are not enough bees to make it through Winter.

Early December: the floor below the cluster.

We opened up the hive and inspected every comb to try to determine what happened. There were not a lot of bees in the hive, and none were alive. They'd eaten all their overhead stores, so were out of food in the brood nest. If you follow my tweets, you'll recall that honeybees can last only 3 days if not in direct contact with food. If they can't break cluster to get to food, then a 4-day cold snap can mean starvation. We didn't have any extended cold periods in November and we saw that they were breaking cluster, so something else did them in.

Advice Anyone?

Apologies: my camera couldn't find the Queen

By chance, we ran into Marty at the Delaney Farm apiary this weekend. He was checking on a nuc that he's going to overwinter. It was "light" and he brought combs of honey for the little colony. He thinks the colony, being small and unable to defend itself, got robbed. That, or they ate all their stores because the Fall was so dry, he said. I imagine the Delaney bees forage where our girls forage: at the City's Xeriscape Garden which was rife with rabbitbrush through September, and the open fields by Kaiser-Permanente which had alfalfa up until very recently. Yes, it's been incredibly dry with no appreciable rain since the 4th of July, but I'm leaning towards the robbing. Marty put an entrance reducer on and called it a day at the apiary.

Marty's been keeping bees in top bar hives since the mid-70s, so before he took off, I asked for his advice on something that's been bothering me. What to do about the combs in our hive, between the honey stores and the brood nest. Combs 14 through 10 should've been backfilled with honey as the brood nest shrunk but, for whatever reasons, the bees neither filled them nor moved the cluster onto them.

Now, Marty doesn't know our hive is in a greenhouse, allowing the bees to break cluster occasionally, but he said we should take the empty combs out and move the food stores forward, up against the cluster. Problem is, I don't want to pull the empty combs out because 1) there are older ones in the hive that should come out first. Unfortunately, the bees are actively on those combs. 2) We'd have to do a major manipulation, breaking the propolis seal and cutting all the honey combs loose from the hive walls to move them forward. We're asking for advice on the biobees forum. What's your advice?

UPDATE: LESSON LEARNED
Everybody else was right. The bees would not abandon a small patch of brood. Actually it was two small patches. The divided cluster died from isolation starvation. Always remove empty combs and move the honey stores right next to the brood nest. And never be afraid to break the propolis seal or do any manipulation. The seal is a much smaller concern than the bees needing help. If they need it, give it without delay.

Beekeeping is Not Easy

This little guy has Deformed Wing Virus. He doesn't have any mites on him, but the virus is vectored (spread) by varroa.

Mother and Daughter. We have a Queenless colony.

The girls threw their mother out the door yesterday morning. BB found her on the ground and put her on the landing board. The girls escorted her back in, but she was out the door again in the evening, this time for good. The colony knew something was wrong and booting her is their solution. While the persistent wet cool weather is not her fault, the continuous undertaking probably triggered a desire to supercede her. On top of the Chilled Brood, quite a few drones with Deformed Wing Virus have been dragged out.

BB said there was a great disturbance in the Force, and the colony spoke up. By the time I got home from downtown, the hive was still a bit frenzied but nothing compared to the morning when she was first kicked out. This morning, just 24 hours later, the bees seemed settled down and almost normal.

We are queenless, but we have queen cells on at least 3 combs. We'll monitor their progress over the next few days, keeping our fingers crossed. If all goes well, we'll have a new Queen in 12-13 days.

ADDENDUM: we have learned that package bees often supercede the queen they were shipped with. She is not their mother, so the colony allows her to lay a couple of brood cycles to build up the population. When they feel they have enough young (i.e.: nurse) bees, they select a fresh egg and start a new queen of their choosing.

Day 13: Comb Repaired and Then Some!

Larvae and Capped Brood

This is the comb the queen cage was supposed to hang from. The right side of it was cut off during the honey harvest, which made it the perfect bar for attaching the cage. We accidentally direct-released the queen, so the girls were able to get right to work in reparation. The new comb is white and the old is yellow but they match up seamlessly!

Another upside to our mistake is that direct-releasing the Queen enabled her to begin laying immediately. These brood cells were probably capped 3-4 days ago, so new bees may emerge as soon as the first of May!

The brood on the comb shown below is much younger, none capped. The girls that are growing here are less than 8 days old and probably won't emerge until May 5 or 6.

Second comb, brand new this year, has a nice tight laying pattern on both sides.

Close-up of Larvae

Lesson Learned: 80° is too warm to inspect comb that is only a few days old.

The plan had been to inspect each and every comb, and to photograph both sides. But when we pulled out the first comb — and it was completely wobbly and fragile — the plan went out the door. We skipped past bars 8, 7 and 6. We knew these were primarily honey that we'd given them (but forgot that we wanted to see how much they'd eaten) and instead moved on to the 5th bar. I can't remember what we found on the 4th bar, but I know we didn't pull it out either (or there'd be photographs). The 3rd bar was the Queen Includer and, a little panicked by the heat, we moved it without photographing it or first checking for brood. Whoops. Turns out there is capped brood there!

We shall see what ramifications splitting the brood nest has on the colony. For all we know, there's brood on all those combs we skipped past, and the nest isn't really split. The girls have been maintaining the hive at about 90°F, so the larvae should be fine. But we'll pull that comb for sure, during our second inspection (in another 10 days or so), just to confirm. With any luck, we'll see new bees emerging.

Red Wine Honey

Turns out there was too much cork in the jar and the girls couldn't get to the syrup. After removing most of the cork, we put the jar back in the hive. A couple of hours later, we peeked in the window and saw a dozen or so bees enjoying their newfound nectar, but they were stuck on the cork rafts, unable to climb up the glass shoulders. Maybe they were drunk on the red wine infusion. The syrup at the top of the jar is stained with red wine given up by the cork. At any rate, in their struggles they'd gotten drenched in syrup and couldn't fly out of the jar, so we inserted 4 chopsticks for them to climb up. They figured it out almost immediately, but a couple did give up the ghost.

It's important to treat them for the Varroa now, before tucking them into bed for the Winter, so we're going to rethink the feeder design. We need them fattened up by Halloween, when the beekeeping season comes to an end. Time is running out on us!

BTW, the only organic honey I could find was imported from Canada, so I was faced with a dilemma. Organic and better for the bees but with a huge carbon footprint, or something produced locally but potentially containing fertlizer and who knows what? I opted for Clark's raw & unfiltered clover honey from Fort Lupton, CO, which is about 35 miles north of home.

Honey Bound

In retrospect, we should have had faith that the bees knew what they were doing when they started building from the back of the hive on Bar 16. We should have left them where they were, instead of taking the advice to push the combs forward. [LESSON LEARNED: trust the bees and trust yourself.] We created a potential honey bound situation.

A colony can become honey bound if there is no more room for the queen to lay eggs because a) the honey stores are full and the brood nest can't expand into it or b) the bees think the honey area is full and the bees won't expand into it. Even if there is empty comb beyond the honey stores (which there is), the bees will not let the queen create a second brood nest. They can't keep two separate nests warm. So they pack the honey combs full, and sometimes even start backfilling into the brood nest. With a full nursery, this perception of confinement might make them decide that this house simply won't do and they could swarm or abscond. Bye bye bees!

The odd thing about bees is, as smart as they are, they have an uncontrollable desire to store honey. Controlling their population is easy, such as when they kick the drones out in the Fall. They'll even pull brood out of the nest if food is scarce. But for the bees, storing honey is like money in the bank. You can never have too much, right? Unfortunately there's only so much they can stuff under the mattress. And here's where hive management comes into play.

Since the bees don't want to put honey into the vast space, it's our job as their keepers to move the honey out of the queen's way, to make room for her growing family, as necessary. Some might take the honey for themselves, calling it a harvest; some beekeepers would call it "robbing." With a colony that's just getting established, we're simply moving it away but within the hive, into the back. (In a Lang, you could consider checkerboarding. Use the Bookmark to the right "A Dictionary for Beekeepers" to learn what checkerboarding is.)

Because our colony has not filled the hive with combs yet, we have room to work with. By simply rearranging the order of bars – moving the honey comb abutting the brood nest toward the back and replacing it with a blank – we can give the bees room to stretch the nest.

This manipulation should relieve the pressure, even if it is only perceived, and the bees' instinct to swarm should be quelled. Next year, when our colony is 40,000 (or more?!?) strong and has filled the hive with comb, honey and bees, and the only blank bars are the extras we have stored in the garage, we may harvest a comb – maybe two if we're lucky. We're really in this for the bees, but a little honey for ourselves would of course be nice. If we do have to pull 2 combs, we'll save one in the freezer in case they need feeding. I wish we had one now to give them. The heat wave has kept them mostly house bound. It's just too hot to do anything other than get water.

A Whole Lot of Nothing Going On

Waiting for the Weather to Break has been Agonizing
The 23-day heat wave has also prevented us from doing an inspection, so we don't know whether or not anything needs to be done. Perhaps they've been surviving on stored honey and now there's an empty comb, usable by the queen. I hope so, because then we need do nothing. If they are indeed honey bound, we're in a bit of a bind. Comb manipulation would be too risky right now. The warm, fragile wax combs can break too easily, and we'd either have a sticky mess on our hands or, worse, a destroyed nursery.