What is it Wednesday: November 10, 2021

 

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....

 

 This is a wild honeybee hive that is out in the open on a tree branch,
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!