Nosema ceranae The Inside Story - eXtension

See the attached story about Nosema. I am seeing what is likely a form of Nosema occuring in my hives right now. The last couple of weeks have been ripe for this to take hold in your hives. The bees have not been able to take the poroper cleansing flights and the fungi spores have hit critical mass inside the hive. Nosema ceranae The Inside Story - eXtension

I am looking to do a couple of classes this spring. Likely they will be at the end of March and include Tammy Horn and Phil Craft. The details are not worked out yet but i am considering a Friday afternoon from 1 to 5 pm and topics such as becoming a better bee keeper and choosing species of bees to better fit your needs.

I would really like your input on this let me in the comments what you think or simply call me. thanks and happy bee-ing

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.