Wow! Thanks Jeff, this was really cool 
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Youāre welcome Peter & @BeePeeker, Peter (the farmer) was able to hang around unprotected, with his wife not all that far away as well.
In summary, I donāt think we need to be overly cautious if we use a banana to treat chalk brood. Iām always cautious at the best of times.
Love your anti bee footwear when you work on the hives ā THONGS (slaps to those in the States, steady Dawn, and the rest of the girls.)
Back to full Supers for me and at least another split on a hive I did a split on about 4 weeks back going on at the moment. Busy days and nights.
Cheers mate
Banana usage has become of interest to me when I saw a post by an African beekeeper stating that they always feed bananas to rear them up in spring. Various master beekeepers and I started to scratch out heads. So I pulled research material to see if there is indeed some evidence to this. In short there was. A few studies supported it. That was last year early in spring. I had a colony that was technically dead. I had written it off, like we so often have to do after a long winter with those colonies that are to weak to make it. I had nothing to loose and started to treat it with a quarter of an entire banana with peel each week. It was placed over the top frames and squished down with the lid. They came back to life and are still in existence with the same queen. So I started to look into research relating to bananas. We do know that banana peel itself clears up chalkbrood. It was thought that it is due to causing the bees to clean. We now know that the dopamine the peel contains puts the bees into overdrive. The gasses the decaying peel releases kills spores, which has been tested on rotting orange peel. Looking into the nutrients of the banana pulp we can see that it contains simple sugars, minerals, and amino acids bees need. Potassium is something that stands out. It inhibits virus replication in the bees body, which is interesting since varroa transmits them and they do more damage in the long living winter bees. In spring I treated all my colonies with banana (pulp and peel) so see how it goes. They reared up faster, which I was able to confirm with my notes from the previous year. They will take the banana as long there is nothing out there producing pollen or nectar. They stop eating the banana once resources outside of the hive become available. Weaker colonies may continue utilizing the banana until they no longer see need for it. I have been told for decades not to eat banana around your bees or they will sting. Guess what I have been eating bananas prior and nothing every happened. Now putting it into a hive is a different story. It gets their attention, because bananas contain one component that has been found in the alarm pheromone. Yet, the banana misses other pheromones that entice stinging. So yes, they wake up and get into overdrive, but no they do not attack. My suggestion is to put on gear, because of their erratic behavior. It is easy to make a mistake by squishing one and then they may become agitated and may sting. Right now it is fall here in the US and I have been back to feeding overripe bananas to my bees. We get nectar dearth in later summer and this year it has been very bad. They are actively taking it. BTW they will not store it in super or brood frames. They are eating it, and that includes the peel. I will continue to do so until they either stop taking it or the weather is to cold to open up the hive. Next spring I will start a research project on package built-up with bees being feed banana and a control group that is not. I will run it through the University of Montana and hopefully will published a peer reviewed research document on the outcome. I hope that clears any questions that may have come from looking at my presentation. https://drive.google.com/open?id=1nc4t7_CqXhmhVptWPoEaAjhz-uknFSGP I donāt preach beekeeping methods without any background research. There is way to much of that on the internet. My presentations always contain references at the end linking to known research material.
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Do you have any photos of the squished banana on the frames? Iām a pedantic type and donāt quite understand where to put it, and how it will look.
E.g. if on the top frames with an inner cover, the banana then gets squished into the frames below, but the bees eat the squished banana off the frames?
Same as with the brood box?
Have you heard of this blending method Peter mentions above? Blending with water and feeding this way?
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I cut the overripe banana in half and slice that piece lengthwise. I put it onto the top box brood frames, squish it and put the inner cover on top. Colonies are usually fine with the amount, but anything more will just grow mold. I use overripe yellow cavendish bananas. Liquefying them and feeding as a liquid feed is something else. I believe you will loose some of the material and perhaps benefits when you water it down. I can see it as a feed supplement, but have not tested it diluted.
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Gāday Peter, I only wear thongs on the odd occasion at home. Thatās because the colonies are only nuc size. Mostly I wear gum boots.
I always wear the boots when I visit my bee sites.
A couple of colonies turned nasty recently, Iāll have to deal with them in the coming days, I think. Iāll make sure they werenāt just cranky because storms were around first. cheers Pete.
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I put the cut banana on top of the inner cover and the bees ate it all up, just a bit of shriveled skin left. And that during a good pollen and nectar flow!
Thatās it! The bees go into overdrive, rather than becoming aggressive. Thatās what it looks like exactly.
Interesting that you say the bees donāt deposit any banana into their honey stores, i was wondering about that. Is there any evidence?
Thanks for an excellent article. It changed the life of 2 of my colonies.
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Just came back from my hives Jeff. Yesterday was a fine day and the bees very calm, today am hearing thunder and the same hives are angsti. So much so I called it a day. Iām having good rain this past week and lots of new tip growth showing on the shrubs.
Cheers Jeff
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Itās raining here right now. We had a huge downpour earlier. Iām all caught up with my bees, I think for the time being. No pressureā¦thatās always good.
Just one colony in particular might need re-queening.
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After reading Katherina presentation I started feeding bananas to my bees. They consume it quickly. As soon as I put it in they cover it. Some hives quicker then others. No change in temperament. I also tried other fruits. They like grapes and satsuma. There is pollen coming in but they appear to be using it fast as collected . Anyone else having success/fun, feeding bananas and other fruit. To early to know how much it will help. If they live a little longer that would be great.
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We had the banana feeding discussion and nutritional benefit to honey bees last year. You guys asked me about my write up on this subject. Back then it was more of a general writeup in the form of a powerpoint, but now I have expanded it while at the University of Montana where I did my final project on this matter. My professors like it and gave me a 97% grade out of 100. They first did not think there was much to it, because everyone states it makes the bees mad etc. Still no words on the chalkbrood matter, but plausible. I wish someone would do a study on it to get it settled. So I went down to the nutritional level and components found withing the banana including the peel. I did cover Cavendish bananas, which are the type found in grocery stores in the USA. They are just the standard yellow type. The findings are interesting and I did do a behavioral study last year. This year we will do a rear up study, if it stops raining and we are getting our packages in. Looks like end of this month or beginning May in my area. Anyway, here is the link to the project I did on it over the past year expanding on the original powerpoint slides I shared here before. https://drive.google.com/open?id=1j3TdyD1Nb7FTBECcuBoRwSzh6Y_CfAnT
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