Microscopes and Melissopalynology... what does a pollen grain look like?

Before ‘hayfever season’ begins, and while there is still frost on the ground, let’s talk about pollen. Pollen is a key component of bees’ lives, so we find it an interesting topic to research. It’s often seen
on the legs of our foraging bees, and our cats who come in from the garden in the spring and
summer with a fine dusting of it on their fur. Plus, of course, anyone sensitive to it will begin to
sneeze and/or get itchy eyes.

Pollen is vital to our world; every year thousands of different species of plants produce millions of
pollen grains. These are designed to be specifically distributed to reach their female counterparts
and so help proliferate the species. Thanks to Robert Hooke who invented the compound
microscope at the end of the 17 th century, the true nature of pollen was seen for the first time, and
instead of it simply being a fine dust, the grains could be individually identified. 

All We Can Do

Here we are, then; the clocks have gone forward and I am reminded of an old rhyme from my school days: “Spring is sprung, the grass is riz, I wonder where the lawnmower iz?!” However, this month, as beekeepers, we have more important things to do than cut the grass. Hopefully the temperatures are now consistently high enough for us to open the hives and carry out the first inspections of the year. We did everything we could do to help prepare our colonies for the winter, and so now we are looking forward to finding that it was all worth the effort and our bees are fighting fit, ready to face the challenges ahead.

Off We Go Again!

Winter is almost behind us, the Spring equinox approaches, and the extra hours of daylight quicken our pulses as we look forward to warmer days. March is a nervous month for beekeepers as we are close to being able to carry out gentle hive inspections and discovering quite how our bees have fared since we last saw them in autumn. If we are lucky we’ll have some balmy weather with ambient temperatures in the early teens, just enough to allow the bees to take cleansing flights and begin foraging for early pollen and nectar.

Observations and Optimism

So, 2024, what a year, eh?! How to describe it? I don’t think I’m alone in thinking of it as ‘wet’, and figures released by the UK Met Office, and Météo France, would agree. September was the wettest calendar month in Bedfordshire and Oxfordshire since 1836 (1), and in Paris it was the wettest year since 1886 (2). Beekeepers were presented with a set of problems – and blessings – caused by the excessive amount of rain in the first half of the year, and will take this experience into consideration for the future.

The intemperate weather caused issues with colony increase: swarming behaviour was curtailed, queen matings were compromised, and foraging was limited due to a dearth of nectar. All of these facts have meant that in some areas across the country there has been a poor honey harvest and colonies have not achieved the optimum sizes required for successful over-wintering. However, what has been tough on the bees has had a similar effect on their nemesis, the Asian hornet, and so (with a sigh of relief) beekeepers have not had to deal with the usual heavy predation from these invaders. Trapping mated Asian hornet queens in the autumn before they hibernated was therefore of utmost importance, and we now need to be ready to trap any survivors emerging from hibernation as soon as Spring arrives.

Changing Seasons

We are all aware that our climate is changing, and you only have to think about weather patterns over

the past few years to understand the uncertainty this causes. Whatever you do, whether it’s working with crops or livestock, renovating a house, or planting your garden/veggie patch, you need to know what to expect from the weather. Current scientific thinking states that more ‘extreme weather events’ are likely to occur in the near future, along with dramatic rises in air and sea temperatures. All of this will have, and is already having, an effect on life on earth, and as everything is interconnected, the challenges are complex.

Pests and Posies

 

2020 continues to be a challenging year for everyone, but back in the spring we tried to mitigate things a little for our bees. We decided to turn over a section of our land to provide forage for pollinating insects; we're very lucky here to have the space to do that! In April the field was ploughed and we spent a few back-breaking days clearing it of roots and stones, then after the earth was tilled, we had fun sowing around 5kg of mixed wildflower seed. Stunning purple phacelia was the first to appear at the end of May, then over the next few months cornflowers, calendula, cosmos, zinnia, crimson clover, poppies and anemones showed up in force. Our delight was shared with that of bumble bees, honey bees, butterflies and many more, and we are overjoyed to see that the flowers are still blooming even in mid November. Even better, new young phacelia plants are growing again, so hopefully we'll have some early flowers next year too. With everything else going on in the world, the spirits are certainly lifted when a cloud of purple and pink blossoms greet you on a gloomy day.

 

Unfortunately the Asian hornets are also thriving this year, and our bees have been under sustained attack for a couple of months now. We have done our best to protect them by fitting muzzles on the hives and restricting the entrances so that the hornets can't get in. We've also put out several traps which are specifically designed to trap Asian hornets, minimising the amount of other insects that are caught. As yet we haven't been able to find the nest which is a real shame, but we're hoping that the coming winter will mean the workers will die off and we'll have trapped young queens before they go into hibernation. We'll be ready for them when they emerge in a couple of months, and will do our utmost to trap them before they start making new nests.

Here's to better days...