Can
you identify what's in this photo?
Each Wednesday morning
on Camp Lutherlyn's Facebook page
the Lutherlyn Environmental
Education Program posts a photo.
Readers
have all morning and afternoon
to
make their best guess about what the photo is.
Around
6 pm LEEP provides the answer and a brief explanation.
Each
week's What is it Wednesday post
will
also be posted on the Nature of Lutherlyn blog,
after it is posted on Facebook,
sometimes
with additional bonus information.
In
addition to bringing you current editions of What is it Wednesday
on the
Nature of Lutherlyn blog,
we
will be reposting old editions,
creating
a What is it Wednesday archive.
This photo was posted as a What is it Wednesday on
November 10, 2021.
And
the answer is....
instead of inside a cavity.
Earlier this summer, when we were establishing beehives at
Lutherlyn, the bees disappeared from one of our four hives. This happens
occasionally – for some reason the bees “swarm” – they move as a group from the
hive box to a different location and establish a new hive there. (Usually this
happens when they need more room, or there’s something about their location
that is not providing what they need. We’re not sure why one hive swarmed and
the other three hives were fine.)
This open hive is about 100 yards away from our established
hives, so it seems likely that this is where that swarm established their new
home. Usually honeybees establish a hive inside some kind of cavity, like a hole
in a tree. It is pretty uncommon for bees to establish a hive in the open like
this. The theory is that when there is a dense cluster of leaves on the tree,
bees sometimes see an opening into that cluster of leaves and perceive it as a
cavity, and end up building their nest inside that cluster of leaves. Of course,
once the leaves fall, that space is not protected at all, and the nest is out in
the open. Unfortunately, this hive will not survive the winter out in the open,
and it is too late in the season for them to create enough honeycomb and honey
in a new home in a hive box –they would not survive there either. Perhaps after the bees have died we can
retrieve this honeycomb to learn more about what they produced there.
Honeybees are not native to North America, so any wild
honeybee hive we come across in nature is in some way the result of a swarm
from a beekeeper. This one just happened to come from very nearby, very
recently! We’re looking forward to seeing how our beehives do over the winter
and into their second summer at Lutherlyn. Thanks to Pastor Nathaneil Christman
for establishing Lutherlyn's hives and keeping them healthy, and also for pointing
out this open hive to us!
Like and follow Camp Lutherlyn on Facebook, to see What is it Wednesday posts when they come out and have the opportunity to share your guesses in the comments!
