Observations From Greg

The last two weeks have certainly been busy around here. We have been sending out and catching some early swarms. We are checking and adding supers as needed. We are getting ready to get package bees and even make some splits (if queens are available). The KSBA Spring Meeting at Camp Crescendo was well attended, but not at capacity, and the speaker presentations were excellent. I will not promise, or say, that I will use every idea I get from this type of meeting, but I get a lot of ideas I do use, and the others may come in handy someday foir me oir somebody else. The pre-registration is open now for the KSBA Summer meeting at the Walter T. Kelley Company campus in Clarkson on June 5, 2010. You can get the form and more info at the KSBA website. These meetings and bee school are definitely worth attending.

In the last few days, the locust bloom seems to have started. Of course, it comes with cool, rainy, windy weather! Sometimes I think locust trees are stimulated to bloom by a cool, damp weather system. On the other hand, we were getting a little short on rain and given the choice of cool, damp, wet locust bloom, or a no kidding drought situation, I will give up the locust honey. This year we should get a significant clover honey crop. I say should, but I really mean could. We have had very little clover the last 2 to 3 years due to several situations occuring at the same time. The first is drought stress on the plants. Another is graziers have been forced by dry weather to feed hay earlier in the fall and later in spring than usual. This high demand for hay coupled with slow growth due to drought meant that a lot of acres that normally could produce a significant clover bloom simply never got to the blooming stage. I have spoken to quite a few other beekeepers who did not get as much from goldenrod or ironweed blooms in the fall as they usually get. Hopefully, this year we will get the moisture, the flying weather, and the bloom we need to make a good crop of clover and summer/fall honey. Personally, I think that darker honey tastes better anyway.

Honey Hills findings

Worked bees all day last Friday and most of saturday. not in bad condition, but way behind normal. They have used at least twice what I have had to feed in past years. Decent brood patterns all things considered, but very little drone brood at this point. Mites were active in only one hive, so I feel good about that discounting fact of very little drone brood. Found 2 more starved in last 5 weeks with honey 2 frames away. Sudden March and February shifts created the perfect storm for border line hives.

Observations from the Mabrey Apiary

April 8, 2010 Earlier I said that the plants seemed to be about two weeks or so behind in their blooming schedule.
That's no longer apparently true.

In most years, trees and other plants usually seem to bloom in an orderly sequence. This year, they appeared to be starting on this sequence about two weeks later than in previous years. Now the situation has changed again. The plants, and most trees in particular, are blooming right now, all at pretty much the same time. For my bees, this has caused a pretty good nectar flow already.

Most of my colonies have at least one super on, and some are getting close to needing another. Now is not the time to crowd the bees, unless you want to watch swarms leaving. Remember the queen needs plenty of room for the brood nest (Her laying activity is going wide open throttle right now.), and the bees still need cells for nectar processing and honey/pollen storage.

Most colonies should be ready to draw comb on new foundation now. It never hurts to have extra frames of drawn comb around. A frame or two of capped honey in the freezer is also nice to have if you need it later.

If you are planning to make or sell nucs or splits, be sure you will have queens available for them. A lot of the package bee/queen producers in the south are sold out for this spring
already. If you have not ordered your queens or packages yet, you'd better do it today. If there are bees available, finding them is likely to be tough. Expect to do a lot of dialing and holding. Local Kentucky queens will not usually be available until the middle part of May. You might have some luck by watching the website posts on KSBA web page (Look in the "Links" section on the left side of the page.).

I hope you are all doing well and having fun with your beeyards.

What a difference a change in weather can make. Maples, Elms, Junipers, Dandelions and Henbit are all starting to bloom and provide nectar and pollen. It was good to see my bees coming in with full loads of pollen. It was also good to get into the hives while the weather was warm.

I have not lost any colonies, but I discovered three that are apparently queenless. Since they all were fairly strong (5 or more frames of bees) and had stores, I decided to give them two or three frames of open brood with eggs and nurse bees to let them raise their own queens by emergency supercedure. Of course, the queens they raise will be open mated to whatever drones are available if the weather permits, so this is not a "sure thing." It may keep them going until I can get replacement queens at the end of April or so. If they did not have any stores available, or if they were too weak or depopulated to have a reasonable chance with help, I would have used the newspaper method to merge them with a stronger colony, which could then be split out when queens are available. If they do not raise queens, I may wind up combining them anyway.

The whole key to the emergency supercedure method at this time of year is having one or more strong (big brood nest and lots of bees, like 10+ frames of bees) colonies to source open brood from. It really does not do much good to turn a building, but not yet strong, colony into a weak colony to save another weak colony.

Also, beware laying workers who will leave eggs that hatch, if they hatch, only into drones, and they can produce enough queen pheromones to make the other worker bees feel queen right when they are not. That could cause a new queen to be killed by balling.

Hopefully, no one needs to be reminded of these methods, but they're here if you need them.

Beekeeping is well underway and I was very happyto see mine in the air the other day. Their target on this day was he Contorted Filbert sporting fully extended catkins. They were packing pollen at a feverish pace. The following is an excerpt from the Kentucky Beekeeper's Calendar and is an excellent synopsis of what you shoul be observing.


What’s Happening Inside The Hive?

March is a critical time for the bees. The bees will thrive or suffer depending on weather and your management. Tracheal mites, starvation, and nosema disease are the main enemies at this time. The bees are starting to rear more brood, but it’s an erratic process. Dandelions and henbit appear as significant pollen and nectar sources. For a few warm days the bees bring in the pollen and feed larvae. The queen increases her egg laying. Then a cold spell hits, and the cluster contracts. Often some of the brood is left outside of the cluster and starves. The bees destroy this dead brood. Brood in the center of the cluster matures, and young worker bees emerge to join the colony. Then the weather warms up again, the queen resumes her egg laying, and this cycle continues. Gradually, young worker bees replace all of the old “winter” bees that were reared last year.

The bees have consumed a lot of honey through the winter but have not had a chance to make new honey, so stores are low. Brood rearing requires the bees to consume honey rapidly for two reasons : First, the hungry larvae demand a lot of food. Second, the brood cluster temperature must be raised to above 90o. To reach that higher temperature, the worker bees eat honey and generate more heat by “shivering” with their flight muscles. This is why starvation in March is a real danger. If you find a ball of dead bees in the comb, each with its head in a cell, that’s a sure sign of starvation. The long period of confinement can take its toll in the buildup of tracheal mites and nosema disease. Both tend to increase through the winter because the bees are confined and unable to fly frequently.

Spring Observations

Greg Mabrey weighs in with some timely observations:

What a difference a week makes! The red maple bloom has begun (just barely) on southern exposures, daffodils are starting to bloom, and I have even seen a redbud with a few open blooms on it. There is likely to be some pollen available when the bees can fly now.

The incoming fresh pollen will provide the protein needed for serious brood rearing. As we are supposed to get several days of warm (55+ degrees) partly sunny weather this week, now is the time to rotate brood boxes as needed, remove mouse guards and initiate swarm control measures. Continue feeding as needed until nectar starts coming in. My thought is that if the bees take 1:1 syrup, they need it. if you have not fed Fumagilin-B for Nosema yet, now is the time to do that. You may also wish to consider doing a mite count and starting mite controls like drone frames or sugar dusting, if needed.

Enjoy your bees!

Bee News

Good Stuff from Randy:

1. Good to see Susan and Mary Ellen at bee school. Greg Mabrey and his family were also taking classes. This is good to see. Attendance was around 400 people. The only way to learn is to go to these things. Cheap and easy to do.
2. Pay attention to KSBA web site for info about meeting in April @ Lebanon Junction. Limited to about 300.
3. Also check out info for June meeting at W. T. Kelley Company. Again only about 500 can be admitted. You need to register early.
4. I talked to Rick Sutton extensively about state of bees in Florida and Kentucky. Rick winters several thousand hives in Florida and ships to California to pollinate almonds in February. A lot of big operations had devastating losses in the thousands due to a bad outbreak of CCD. One of the worst loss seasons on record.
5. Most Ky. operators I talked to have no real good feel just yet for their losses to this point. Rick told me they were about 400,000 hives short for almond pollination statewide due to poor bee conditions.
6. Bee friends around Lawrenceburg and Lexington still don't have a good feel for local bee conditions or ability to do spring splits just yet. Maples and dandelions getting ready to bust out. Best thing that can happen to the bees right now. Brood levels will sky rocket with some decent weather.
7. Get brood boxes and frames ready now. State wide we are about 2 weeks behind in plant development talking to bee guys around state. With good weather mother nature will constrict this down to days fast.

And in fact we may be further behind than two weeks versus last year. I can recall cleaning up the week after the ice storm last february and noticing maple blooms. This is good stuff from Randy and he is correct the more you see the more you learn.

I have enlisted some of our Beekeeping friends to help makle this blog more useful and timely so far you have heard from Randy Dixon and shortly (the next paragraph) your going to hear from Greg Mabrey. I have asked them to write down their observations and little tips they use in keeping bees.

So far this year (3-6-2010), the plants seem to be about two weeks behind schedule. My bees have made some cleansing flights and possibly some scouting for pollen or nectar on the few warm (50-55), dry days. The only plants I have seen blooming are the witch hazels, but the red maples could bloom anyday. For identifying Witch Hazels and Red Maples visit the highlighted links.

Now is a great time to 'tip' or 'tilt' colonies to check stores by weight. Any that are light need feeding soon to prevent late winter starvation. A candy board, fondant, even plain table sugar on top of the inner cover or top frame bars might save an otherwise lost colony without losing too much cluster heat.

Spring Action ahead?

The following are some comments and direction brought to you from the Bee Yard of Randy Dixon. We would very much like to add another couple of authors to this blog. If you are interested in just posting your observations or adding insight into the season please email me or add to the comments section of this posting and I will respond to you. This will be an excellent weekend to possibly open boxes.

1. Start feeding and pollen supplements this weekend if you haven't already, 2-1 sugar water is best for this time of year. 2 parts water 1 part sugar. Do not stop feeding until bees can support themselves with bloom. They will starve to death in next few weeks faster than any other time of year. Feeding will begin to prime the pump for spring. The problem occurs when you build up to much and we end up with a late spring or lengthy cool spell.


2. Watch laying pattern and flip bottom box to top when 6-7 of the deep super frames are full of brood and pollen. Put empty frames in middle so bees will finish filling them out.


3. Now is good time to replace any ragged or dark frames with new foundation. Be sure and wait until several days of flight weather so you won't bust clusters up inside hive.


4. As brood production goes up, start watching for mite levels to increase. They will be easy to find in drone brood cells on larvae. Safest treatment this close to flow is powdered sugarn use 1/2 cup sprinkled on top bars per box. Brush down into hive so it wont get on larvae as it acts like a dessicant on them. Really too close to flow to use hard chemicals unless you insist.


5. Watch laying patterns and rotate frames as needed to give queen laying room. A poor pattern will indicate time to replace queen, but they are hard to get this early in season. Suppliers won't sell them until after package shipping season. Check and reserve one early. Local queens won't start being available till up in May at earliest.


6. Go to bee school at KSU March 13. Phil Kraft has info loaded on his web site. www.ky.agr.com/bees.

Troy Simpson and I have both noticed a higher than usual food consumption rate due to this weather in January and February. I had several starve with honey only inches from them because they coudn't move to it. Start checking as soon as you can to get on top of situation. I expect fast and furious if this weather pattern doesn't get more normalized soon.

I will begin again to put updates here as we begin to work our way through another season of keeping bees. Below you will find a recipe passed along to me from Randy for small batch fondant. Fondant is candy like food source to help get the bees going early.

Small Batch Fondant
2 Cups Sugar
11/2 Cups Water
2 TBS. White corn syrup
1/8 tsp. Cream of Tartar
Boil to around 240F.
Cool to 180F.
Whip to introduce air,it gets milky looking.
Pour in shallow pan to harden.
Can be stored long time in freezer.