Springtime in the Apiary

I have always found it difficult to explain to someone what I do for my job.  When I worked in computers, I always tried; but it was just difficult to explain the details.  So, usually I gave up and just said I was a computer geek.  Most could get that.

Now, I'm realizing that it is just as hard to explain beekeeping.  Most assume bees live by themselves in the wild, therefore you just put them in a box and that is the end of it.  However, when I put bees in a box, I take them out of nature and have an obligation to provide the best possible care for them.  Much like livestock or pets, I need to ensure they have food, water, medical care, and shelter.

In the spring, bees replicate themselves by swarming.  With the warming weather and abundance of nectar in flowering plants, swarming activity is eminent.  Nectar and pollen are stored in the honeycomb cells and will become a future food source for the bees.  This also stimulates the queen to lay eggs in honeycomb cells.  Soon, with all this food and baby production, all of the honeycomb cells will become full.  With a crowded home, the bees decide to replicate themselves as a colony.  So, they choose to make a new queen and half of the bees leave the hive to start a new home with the old queen.  Thus a swarm.

As a beekeeper, it is in my best interest to have as many bees as possible.  Each hive of bees that swarms is a loss of $125 worth of bees plus $200+ of honey.  So, swarm prevention is on my spring management list.  Very similar to calving or lambing on a farm, it is a time consuming task to check frequently to see when the time is right and assist  through the process.  The management style I choose depends on my desired outcome but can often mean creating 'artificial swarms' by splitting the hive or putting on additional honey super boxes so there is enough room for them to grow.

On the farm in the spring, farmers change from feeding hay(stored food) to putting livestock out on lush green pasture.   A similar transition takes place in the world of bees. They also have a stored food source for the winter- which is honey.  Additionally, as a keeper of the bees, I provide them an emergency food source to ensure there is enough food to get through an Indiana winter.  After all, the winter time provides no plants for them to visit.  In the spring, enough food needs to remain  available until flowers can provide the bees with a resemblance of a 'lush green pasture'.  Beekeepers call this a 'nectar flow'.  It might mean feeding them a sugar syrup supplement until the time is right, eventually removing any extra emergency stores, and adding honey super boxes to the hive.

Next, the bees have been cooped up in a box all winter long.  So, another spring task is to ensure the hive is clean is to clean up the bottom board.  Just like you would clean out the floor of a barn stall, you need to do the same thing for the bees. The bottom of the hive will contain a lot of debris.  Bees are really hygienic and may eventually clean this up.  But, I'm going to help them.  This requires a lot of heaving and lifting.  One of those boxes can weigh 60+ pounds and there are usually 2 of them.  These heavy boxes need to be lifted off the bottom board in order to get to the floor.  I also study the debris to see if I can learn anything - was there too much moisture and therefore mold?  Are there small hive beetles or larva?  How many varroa mites do I see?  Where is most of the trash?  Does it cover the entire bottom or just a portion?

What about the health of the hive?  Do I see deformed wings?  What about the bee poop?  Is it inside the hive?  Are there too many parasites?  Again, all something that farmers are used to doing except they look at the condition of the skin/coat/fur and examine feces for parasites.  If there are problems,  I have a responsibility to care for these bees and ensure their health.  The goal is to remedy any health issues prior to the bees storing honey for human consumption.

If I don't take care for my bees and they become sick or parasite infested, they could die or decide to leave the hive in search of a new home.  Either way, it's like I've sent my kids to school with a nasty flu virus.  The hive full of sick bees will eventually decline and not be able to protect their home.  Other bees in the area will realize there is food available in this virus ridden hive and rob it.  At this point, the virus not only impacted this one hive but many.  Not a very good stewardship plan for those with hives around me.

And, this just skims the surface of early spring management.  We haven't even talked about raising bees for others to buy, moving bees for pollination and to new locations, answering new beekeeper questions, honey flows and extraction, raising queens, equipment repairs, or creating 'the plan' for the rest of the summer.  So, if you are not a beekeeper, hopefully you understand a little more and see the value in that jar of honey you purchase.  If you are a beekeeper, hopefully you see that you need to provide the utmost animal husbandry skills to keep your bees well.  And, if you don't have that knowledge or time, you need to find a way to obtain it.  You owe it to the bees.  That is the difference between being a 'beekeeper' and a 'beehaver'.

As for me, I have around 70 hives spread out in Southern Indiana and the greater Louisville area.  Between that and the 50+ acres of grass that needs to be mowed at the airport, it's unusual to see me much during the spring.   If you do, it will be atop a tractor or in my veil.

Moisture boards are a great help

For those of you who purchased ‘Easy Bee’ starter hives form me in the spring,  you may have noticed that your hive differs from some ‘traditional’ set up as you have a screened inner cover instead of the traditional wooden inner cover with a hole in the middle.  

Screened inner cover

Traditional wooden inner cover

I have found that the screened inner cover really helps with ventilation during the summer but you might be wondering, what do I do with this over the winter?   I recommend using a moisture board which fits nicely inside of the top of the screened inner cover.  

So what could cause the demise of your bees during the winter?  It is either starvation or moisture.  And, I have added a third item to this list – diseases from mite infestation.

      Mites are a whole topic by themselves.   Mites are basically virus machines.  They are out-producing the bees in numbers during August.  So, this was the ‘critical’ time to address them and curtail the spread of viruses to your young bees that will be expected to live all winter long.  These tiny menaces do not have a foolproof method for eradication so develop your plan and stick to it.

2    Sixty pounds of reserve honey stores is the minimum recommendation for our area.  A deep frame full of capped stores can weigh anywhere from 6 to 10 pounds.  So, that’d be 6 to 10 frames of deep foundation full of capped stores and some say you should plan on having as much as 12 –18 deep frames.   If you don’t have this by now, start feeding ASAP as time is running out.  Now, we switch to 2:1 syrup – that’s 2 parts sugar to 1 part water.  The days are shorter and cooler so the bees do not need the extra moisture to help cool the hive. (See the post about feeding.)

3    As for the moisture, the huddling cluster of overwintering bees produces a water vapor similar to the exhaled breath of air that we produce.  The cooler outside air can cause the moisture particles to condense and fall back down on the bees as water drops.  This in turn causes them to freeze.  So be cognizant of excess water in the hive and provide ventilation all winter.  By using a moisture board, it will absorb the moisture instead of allowing it to condense.  The screened inner cover therefore becomes a multipurpose tool to be used not only in the summer but also serves a purpose in your winter care.

The boards are fairly heavy and therefore if you are only purchasing 1 or 2 boards, it will cost over twice as much to have them shipped.  Therefore as a courtesy and to help keep costs down for our local club members, I have purchased a few more moisture boards than I need this year.   I will be bringing the extras to the October SIBA- Hanover/Madison meeting (Oct 9, 2014, 6:30PM at Hanover College).  They will be available at my cost which $5.50 per board at the meeting only. 

Is it time to feed?

Over the past 2 weeks, I've received a ton of emails and phone calls about feeding.

So, I'll start by admitting it.  I'm a believer in supplementing bees with sugar water and pollen supplements.   I get up every morning and take a handful of vitamins and other supplements myself.  It helps my body maintain a level of the necessary nutrients that I can't consume via meals.  I also provide my dogs, cat, and livestock with supplements.  I view feeding the bees the same way.

So, if you aren't a believer in feeding your bees, just disregard this post and go onto helping people establish their hives with your methods.  Please realize that we all are learning about bees and trying to save them.   If we had all the answers, we wouldn't have so many questions.  It isn't a time for 'hate' mail.  So, back to feeding . . .

It is important to note that I employ different feeding methods for STARTING A HIVE versus MAINTAINING AN ESTABLISHED HIVE.  I think overall we do a poor job of helping new beekeepers because we usually tell them the methods used once a hive is established and forget that it takes a different management style to establish the hive in the first place.  Most of the notes below are for those who have started a hive this past spring - whether it was a nuc or a package of bees.  But, there are some rules of thumb for the experienced beekeeper to use as well.

The bees can't make an entire diet off of just the food we feed them but it can really help them get established - especially when there is new foundation to be drawn out.  So, in the spring and yes in the summer, if it is needed, I encourage feeding 1:1 sugar water (that's 1 part water to 1 part sugar)  until 2 brood boxes have drawn foundation in all 20 deep frames.  This thinner syrup more closely mimics the nectar flow and also stimulates brood production.

In some cases, while the bees are in the mood to draw out wax, I encourage some beekeepers to keep feeding when they put a honey super on - only if the foundation is not drawn out. Having drawn wax is like a pot of gold when the honey flow starts the following season.  If the bees happen to cap off a little of the sugar water in the honey super, you can scratch off the cappings, put it back onto the hive and feed it back to them in the fall.  If there is room, they will move the food supply down to the lower boxes.

What kind of feeder?  Some sort of TOP FEEDER.  I highly encourage the use of the polystyrene (styrofoam) top feeders.  These feeders hold 3 gallons of syrup so when the bees are going through a quart a day, you are not running out to feed the bees every day.  You also do not disturb the bees when feeding them so this means you can feed at night, when it's raining, or just about any timeframe.  For me, it is a convenience factor.  DO NOT USE a feeder that sits on the front of your hive as this encourages robbing.

If you do not have a styrofoam top feeder, all is not lost but you do need to have some spare  equipment.  There are many options but one economical option frequently used employs canning jars with small holes drilled into the lids.  The canning jars are placed upside down on pencils or other sticks about 3/8" thick around the wooden inner cover hole.  The jars need to be surrounded by a hive body and cover in order to allow all the feeding to occur inside the enclosed hive.

When do I stop feeding?  The rule of thumb is that the bees need a minimum of 60 pounds of stored, capped, honey for the winter.  I usually try to ensure that the bees have this by Thanksgiving.

How do I know if I have 60 pounds?  Usually, you can tip the hive slightly forward from the back and tell.  However, a rule of thumb, is that there is approximately 6 to 10 pounds of honey in a deep sized frame.  So, 6 to 10 deep frames of capped honey would be the equivalent of 60 pounds.

What do I do if I don't have 60 pounds of capped honey?  Around the end of September or first of October when the weather starts to cool in the evening but yet you have warmer days, start supplementing with 2:1 sugar water.

Why 2:1 sugar water in the fall?  The consistency of the sugar water should be a thicker syrup in the fall.  The bees will not have to evaporate off as much water and can quickly cap it off.  The days are getting shorter and cooler so they won't need the water evaporation to help cool the hive.

How much do I feed them?  A rule of thumb is that 1 gallon of 2:1 sugar water will equate to approximately 1 pound of capped honey stores (assuming the foundation is already drawn out with wax).  So be prepared to feed as much as is needed to get to 60 pounds.

Do I mix the sugar water based on volume or weight?  There is such a slight difference that I don't think the bees care.  I usually use weight as a very quick measurement guide.  1 pound of water weight 8 pounds.  Sugar comes in 4 pound bags these days.  So a 1:1 mixture is 1 gallon of water with 2 bags of sugar (4 pounds each) and 2:1 is 1 gallon of water with 4 bags of sugar (4 pounds each).