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.

Next Class

Our next meeting will be held on May 21st at 6:00 pm at my house. You will receive a letter with more details shortly so be looking for that in the mail.

Pay attention to the laying pattern of your queen this weekend so that you can compare what is going on in your hives with what is going on in my hives. I have several stages of development so we will see a broad range of activity.

It is important to maintain the feed program as we continue through this period of extended rainy period. The locust always seem to bloom during a rainy period; go figure. Whatever method you settle on for a feeding approach should be kept up. Those of you who have installed bees should be seeing frames being built out with wax and you should begin to see eggs layed in the bottom of some of those cells. When looking for eggs notice the pattern of the egg laying. You want to see very few cell skips in the egg laying pattern. If you are seeing random laying ( an egg here and an egg there) attention should be paid to the queen and the laying pattern over the next few weeks.

I am waiting to hear from a speaker before scheduling our next meeting however, it will likely be the week of May 18th at this point. I will keep you posted.