As Mike Allsopp pointed out, the Capensis problem has had a long history in South Africa. In fact, it was first observed in 1883 by the then Governor of the Cape who was an avid beekeeper, although he was unable to understand it as well as we know it today.
Since then, throughout the 20th Century both observations and research were conducted on the uniqueness of the Cape Bee by various researchers. As far back as 1983 Martin Johannismeier, the Senior Researcher at the ARC, warned the industry, don’t introduce the Cape bee into the Scutellata region. As most of us already know we have two sub-species of honeybee in South Africa – Capensis or the Cape Bee in the southern part of the country and Scutellata or African Bee in the rest of the region.
The Cape Bee, as described by Allsopp is a very special bee and probably considered the most famous bee on the planet. International research on the Cape bee has even proven to have generated monetary value to our country given the number of overseas researchers who have spent time here studying the uniqueness of this sub-specie.
The Cape Bee is unique because (female) worker bees can make clones of themselves through a process known as thelytoky. Thelytoky is a form of parthenogenesis where female organisms produce offspring from unfertilised eggs, resulting exclusively in female offspring. According to Mike Allsopp we don’t know why Capensis can produce thelytokously, but it is only Capensis that does so amongst honeybees. But thelytoky is relatively common in other organisms – in ants, spiders, and aphids.
The ovariole numbers in Capensis is probably unrelated to thelytoky – but because they have more ovarioles than all other honeybee subspecies, they can produce many eggs. This can result in laying Cape bees able to reproduce worker bees over several months resulting in the continual survival of the colony, even without a queen. All eggs produced by Capensis laying workers are diploid eggs, with two sets of chromosomes, and any of these eggs can be reared to become a new queen.
To begin with, most workers are reproductively active – but soon only the most dominant workers produce all the eggs – and will give rise to all future queens. The other phenomenon, as pointed out by Allsopp in the presentation, is the ability of the Cape worker bee to produce pheromones, or chemical signals which are almost the same as that produced by a queen. This means that they will then be treated as pseudo-queens by worker bees of all other races/types. Once they can infiltrate other colonies, they will entice the worker bees in that colony to treat them like the real queen, to feed them, and they will lay Capensis worker eggs, producing Capensis offspring, and simultaneously defuse the pheromone of the current colony’s reigning, and legitimate queen. She will stop laying, her own subjects will dispense with her, and the Capensis colony wipes out the existing (in our case, Scutellata) colony.
As Mike Allsopp calls them, they are a unique social parasite. As the pseudo Capensis queens start producing all the brood, the colony slowly collapses, there are no more Scutellata worker bees to forage to feed the colony and to nurse the brood and all you have left is a small cluster of cloned Capensis bees. The colony dies and the remaining cape bees invade other colonies in the vicinity.
A man-made calamity
In their natural environment the Cape bees were confined to and remained within the Southern and Western Cape regions of South Africa. They thrived in the Mediterranean/winter rainfall regions and did not spread up into the summer rainfall regions. However, in the 1990’s eager beekeepers from the Western Cape brought large numbers of Cape bee colonies up to the aloes in the Transvaal regions and this set off the calamity we have today. The reasoning, I understand was to fatten up their colonies in readiness for the deciduous fruit pollination season in early summer in the Cape.
Without going into the full history of the government measures during the 1990’s, and the Control Measures established in 1997 and 2013 to address the problems, the main thing to come out of this was the establishment of “the line” drawn from the Atlantic side to the Indian Ocean side to demarcate the “boundaries” of Capensis and Scutellata territories. This is the best image of that line I have ever seen, thanks to the ARC Research team. However, as Allsopp pointed out in his presentation, it is time to review this actual line with a more detailed assessment on the ground where the species are naturally found.
The Capensis problem in this country appears to be restricted primarily to the commercial beekeeping sector. It has become a man-made calamity. The bees themselves have not created this problem. According to Allsopp the Capensis infestation has not been found to have spread into the honeybee populations of the country’s nature reserves where bees live in the wild. He says the reason for this is just that they are sufficiently dispersed. The transmission distance of the cape clones is limited – and so, even if they get into a colony and terminate it – in the wild there isn’t another colony close enough for them to invade. So, they are restricted to apiaries.
It appears to have always been a commercial beekeeping dilemma. Pollination movement is the most susceptable to infestation. Likewise weakened colonies from overuse in pollination contracts are very prone to contamination. There have been no signs of Capensis bee invasions across our international borders, even though contaminated colonies from commercial operations on the borders have been found. There is however the frightening prospect of neighbouring country argricultural operations securing contracts from South African beekeepers to bring their pollination units cross border to pollinate crops in neighbouring countries like Namibia, Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique. This would be disastrous for these countries if they allowed potentially contaminated colonies into their regions.
The Capensis problem is a man made issue. If it were a natural evolutionary characteristic of the Capensis specie they woud have propogated their species from “Cape to Cairo”, as explained by Mike Allsopp. This has not happened.
Mike went into a number of other aspects of the Capensis problem in this country as well as measures which should have been introduced and enforced in the past. He is an encylopedia of knowledge on the subject and with his impending (and irrational retirement) coming up in the next year or so, I suggested to him that he should write a book on the subject. We cannot afford to lose such knowledge for the future of beekeeping in this country. But what is more important is that there needs to be a commitment and an effort on the part of the beekeeping industry in this country to address and control the problem.
I recall, when wrapping up my tenure as SABIO Chairman in 2019 I endeavoured to push for a renewed effort to address the problem. It fizzled out because there was no commitment from government or the commercial sector to seriously address the problem.Let’s hope with this revived initiative to highlight some of the pressing issues in our industry that serious work can be implemented to resolve our “Capensis”problem in this country. Let the Cape bees thrive happily in the Western and Southern Cape with their cold and wet winters, and the Scutellata’s live in the warm savannah region, and we all live happily ever after!
(My thanks to Mike Allsopp for proofing and contributing to this article)
1. Health of the Colony: Ensure at the end of the summer season that your colony is healthy. The brood box is full, the bees are still active, there is brood in some of the frames, and there are still some honey stocks in the end frames.
2. Pest Control: Make sure there are no signs of pests in the colony. Definitely, no indication of Wax Moth, and signs of Small Hive Beetle is minimal. You may find a few SHB in the brood chamber and within the super, but not an infestation.
3. Space Management: You want to reduce the space within the full hive for the bees to manage temperature control. If the colony is small, then reduce it down to the brood box. If the brood box is full, and there is honey and nectar resources in the super, then leave the super on. On rare occasions, where I have a particularly healthy colony, and they have left partially capped honey stocks in two supers at the end of the season, I have left both the supers on, and this has not affected the bees. Some beekeepers do not use queen excluders, and some who do, remove the queen excluder during winter to reduce the cold metal. It’s a personal choice. I do not. I leave my queen excluders on my hives during winter, and again, I have not seen any disadvantages in doing so.
4. Environmental Safety: Remember during the winter period, on the Highveld, the grass and bushveld becomes very dry. It is imperative that you clear around your beehives against bushveld fires. It is also a good time to tidy around your beehives, clean the area and make the hives accessible for when spring arrives.
5. The Issue of Feeding: This is a vastly debated subject because I know of several beekeepers who don’t see the need to feed their colonies during the colder periods. It is also a practical issue, because if you have several hives in apiaries spread over vast areas it may be impractical to keep driving out to them and feeding them on a weekly basis and checking on the colonies. For commercial beekeepers, who manage their winter colonies in large apiaries, it is feasible to regularly feed the bees. What to feed, and how to feed is a separate article.
6. Storage of Equipment – Wet Supers: It is mainly the wet supers which must be stored during winter. Again, there are so many options, and each to his own. Some beekeepers put all the wet supers out together in the apiary site for the bees to clean, and then they store them. This, however results in frenzy feeding by bees from all hives, as well as wild colonies. In addition, the birds have a field day destroying all the combs, and if left too long, the ants get in too. Other beekeepers return the wet supers to the hives for a few days to allow the bees to clean up the combs and frames, and then return later to remove them before the winter cold sets in. This is a good method as it ensures there is no frenzy feeding, and it allows the bees to move some of the honey downstairs into the brood chamber. The downside of this is that you then store dry super combs, and if not packed correctly, these become a haven for wax moth during winter. I personally store my supers wet throughout the cold months until spring and summer management. Immediately after extracting the honey, I place my supers in a large chest freezer for a few days. The purpose of this is to kill any wax moth and small hive beetle larvae and eggs which may still be found in the spun combs. I then stack my supers in a cold room, one on top of the other, and sealed at the top. I find there is no damage by wax moth or SHB during the cold months and I use the wet supers again in spring and summer.
7. Maintenance of Equipment and Preparation for Summer: Of course, the winter months should be a busy period, depending how many beehives you run because this is the time you must clean up old broken boxes and supers, re-paint, and fix up frames. Re-wiring is a thankless task, and then you need to start re-waxing your frames for Spring Management. Don’t leave these tasks until the middle of August, and then suddenly wake up and realise Spring has arrived.
8. Keep a Visible (external) Check on your Bees: Whilst we generally do not open our hives during winter, unless there is something seriously wrong, it is important that you keep a constant watch on the hive activity at the entrance. A collapsing colony will show signs of distress. Very few bees flying in and out, even during the warmer midday parts of the day. Condensation causing water to flow out of one of the entrances, and no activity at that entrance will indicate the bees have moved across to the other side of the hive and have drastically reduced in number.
9. Alternative Hive Product “Beneficiation” – Beeswax, Propolis, Mead! Now that you are not so active in the apiary it is a good opportunity to catch up processing your excess beeswax and propolis you have collected during the summer months. If you have put aside any excess honey or have some honey which has fermented in the jars, now is the time to try making some mead. No need to remain idle during winter!
10. Take a Break: Yet, despite all the activities above, you should really try and take a break from your physical beekeeping work. Go up into the mountains, go trout fishing or drive down to the Sardine Run on the East Coast. Whilst we all may enjoy our beekeeping activities, you do need to take time off sometime and find some stress-free activities… before the summer season starts again.
Honeybee nutrition can be a complex subject. Whilst wild colonies rely on the environment to provide all their needs throughout the year, with changing climatic conditions and stretched forage resources, if the colony has insufficient food resources available in its foraging ranges it will abandon the nest and migrate to where food is available.
Honeybees rely on three main sources of dietary requirements: nectar, pollen and water.
Nectar is the carbohydrate and plant nectar is made up primarily of dextrose (glucose), fructose and water. If the bees have no available sources of nectar or stored honey reserves this will detrimentally affect their health and prevent them from foraging for the protein in their diet, pollen. Pollen contains the growth essentials all young bees need for development and contains the necessary minerals, vitamins, and fats (lipids) for a balanced diet of all the bees in the colony.
When nectar and pollen resources are scarce, invariably due to seasonal conditions, the beekeeper needs to consider substituting these products.
BeeQuipment has successfully been producing its BoosterBee™ Nectar and Pollen Substitutes for more than ten years, supplying a truly South African product made for its Scuttellata and Capensis sub-species.
There is a misconception amongst many beekeepers that when it comes to spring maintenance you should replace a couple of the old worn-out brood frames with new frames of full brood sheets. Or you should cut a wavy pattern into the brood sheet for the bees to draw the comb down in pillar formation.
Full brood sheets are unnecessary and should be avoided. When building fresh combs the young worker bees like to cluster underneath the comb and hang on to each other as they masticate the pliable wax flakes into the cell formations. A full brood sheet prevents them from doing this.
It is therefore advisable and wise to only insert half brood sheets (100mm wide) or even a third (60 mm wide) sheets into the brood frame. It is also unnecessary to cut the sheets into a wavy pattern. A straight cut will be just as effective and is easier to prepare using a straight ruler and scalpel. It is even more important when setting up your trap boxes to not use full sheets in your brood frames. A newly arrived swarm does not want to be separated by full sheets and there is a risk the colony will abscond after a few days of insecurity in the trap hive. But then, when preparing your super frames for the summer honey flow you should put full super foundation sheets into the super frames if you intend extracting the capped honey using a centrifuge honey extractor. If you only put in super frames with foundation strips you run the risk of the top part of the honeycomb fracturing when spinning.
The full foundation sheet gives the necessary strength to the full super honeycomb and will not fracture.
On one of my farm sites, I was recently asked by the farmer to remove a colony of bees which had made a home in a closed off borehole pipe.
As usual, someone had simply placed a plank over the hole which had moved slightly creating a gap, and the colony had made its new home there. Again, of course, no one knew it was there until they decided they needed to start using the borehole.
Generally, it can be tricky to carry out the removal for fear of some of the combs, with bees on, falling down the shaft and lost forever. But I must say I am quite proud of the tools I had designed and made, and it took us less than 6 minutes to remove the whole colony up with all the combs intact, and then re-hive them into a six-frame trap box. Luckily, I had two experienced assistants, Elizabeth Lamont and Dave Kemp, with me to help, although they admitted they had never done a borehole removal before.
In a job like this it is always good to have an extra pair of hands because you cannot use the tools and grab the combs at the same time, unless you’re a woman and able to multi-task! The tools I had designed were a long metal bar, one with a hook to secure the separate combs underneath and the other with a long knife to cut the combs away from the pipe where they were attached. You need to work fast, cutting the comb and lifting it up with as many bees on as possible.
Before cutting the combs we used a small length of hosepipe and puffed smoke down below the combs to drive the bees up. I find if you are careful, the queen will remain on one of the combs and you can get her into the box quickly before she hops off and runs down the pipe.
On all my beehives I place a corrugated roof for protection against wet and hot weather.
Researchers have claimed that our African queens can lay up to 2 500 eggs per day during strong nectar flows. One side of a brood frame can hold up to 1 500 cells and with 20 sides to fill there is capacity for 30 000 cells in a brood chamber. Not all will be allocated to brood, but with a healthy and virile queen, the colony can double in size within 21 days. By adding supers to your hive structure obviously more space is made available.
So why do so many bees cluster on the outside of the hive? Some call this bearding. The inside temperature of a brood chamber is generally maintained at between 32° to 37° C. On very hot days the nurse bees must work harder to keep the interior at the right temperature and the more bodies inside generating warmth, the higher the temperature, and the greater the discomfort to the bees working inside. The bees clustering on the outside are younger, nurse bees. The foraging bees are out foraging. So, the bees on the outside are just chilling! It is too hot for them to be inside.
Many beekeepers believe that the best way to alleviate this is to add an extra super. But it is not generally a space problem. When the sun goes down and it gets cooler, and on cool, rainy days most of the bees are inside. It is correct that as the colony grows there will be more bees to accommodate and eventually, it is more likely that the colony will swarm off. But the swarming queen needs to wait until many younger bees have developed into foraging bees to be able to take a large swarm away to start afresh.
So, adding an extra super is not always the solution. Clustering on the outside is another natural phenomenon of honeybee activity and generally nothing to get alarmed about. If you need to work on the beehive these young bees can be gently moved out of the way with a small amount of smoke and will not add any resistance to being handled in a gentle fashion.
This is a subject not often discussed. To use 9-frame spacers or not?
Normally when you purchase a super with frames it comes with the standard 10 frames, which fit perfectly across the width. This follows the principle of the “bee-space” between each frame. If you insert the 9-frame spacer then of course you only have 9 frames in the super and wider gaps between the frames.
Is there an advantage? In my opinion there certainly is. When it comes to making honeycomb, as opposed to brood-comb, the bees are not that pedantic about the 5mm space between the top bars. When it comes to producing honey, and there is a honey flow on, the bees want as much space as possible to store their nectar. By having 9-frame spacers the bees can make nice fat combs. I have weighed a full super with 9-frame spacers against one with 10 full frames of honey. There is clearly a 3 kg advantage with a full 9-frame super.
In addition, when extracting the honey in the honey room, it is far easier to remove each frame when the gap is bigger.
I always use 9-frame spacers and encourage those visiting our shop to do so.