Encouraging Activity During a Warm Spell

Bees Eating Syrup in Winter

After speaking with David Stover and making a forum post at Beesource.com, my feelings about the activities in front of my hives have swung the full gamut. There is no fighting at all and both of them are actually bringing in pollen at this point. I even noticed one gal doing a crazy dance on the landing board before zipping off to the South and East. This is clearly just part of the normal progression of things and is a great sign. The hives are alive and seemingly doing well!

Yesterday, I only watched them from the outside and noticed tons of activity again. Of note, the weak hive was eating up the syrup like mad. I am glad that they were at it, as several are floating in the reservoir where they eat and I would like them to eat up this syrup so that I can clean out that mess (although most times they clean them out – but it seems to happen less frequently in the winter.)

Weak Becomes Strong…or robbing?

I ended up deciding not to open the hives today, even though it reached the mid-50’s and both hives had bees outside of them. The weak hive, which has a top feeder on it, was again the most active. They had bees all over the place, some of them actually coming and going! This was not purely an orientation flight.

Upon closer inspection, I found that several of the bees were actually bringing in a gray pollen of some type. I suppose this could be from one of my camellia’s, but I doubt it. This looks like grass pollen or something. I remember seeing this same kind of thing happening in December and wondering where these gals had found their little gold mine of pollen. But, the main thing was the activity. These things were going to town.

After looking at them for awhile, I became concerned (as always, my mind goes to the worst case) with this activity. Was this robbing? Do bees actually rob in the Winter? There was no fighting, but maybe these rogues had already killed the fighters? More then likely, all of this activity is just evidence that Hive 2 is thriving. But, I plan to put up my robber screen tomorrow, during a rain (when they will not be active.)

The stronger hive (or the one that was stronger back in November) showed very little activity. But, this time there was some flying about, which I suppose was orientation flights. These gals only received (straight sugar) supplemental feeding as of yesterday. Maybe this keeps them a bit more docile in the Winter.

Well, I have living bees, which is a positive no matter what. Hopefully, all is well.

First January Hive Check

It’s been a tough few weeks with miserable temperatures and a couple of spots of snow. It’s really been an unusual Winter…at least when compared to the last few years. Regardless, I was able to check my hives today and all is good, despite my constant hand wringing.

To begin with, we had a couple of bee meetings this week. The first was ERBA’s monthly meeting, which really did not  have much on bees that hit home for me. But, the Richmond Beekeeper’s Association had a discussion from 1st year beekeepers and their adventures. The main thing that I picked up from the folks that spoke here was that a purchased package of bees must usually outperform a nuke of bees in the first year. I think Tom Fifer mentioned something about this back in the Fall of 2008, but I do not think I really understood the difference until I saw what these other fellow’s hives did.

Honey bees get out during a warm spell in January

To begin with, they picked up their bees in late March, whereas I picked my nuk’s up in the middle of May. I really think this must have been the biggest difference, as one fellow was actually making splits with his bees in August! But, one of the fellows lost his whole hive! He went out to check them recently and found them in a tight cluster, all dead. Kenny (who is also a member of the Richmond Beekeeping Association) said that they starved to death. He also said the problem was the Queen. This circles back around to my initial strategy of getting local bees. Hopefully, they will prove hardier (over the long haul) then these other bees. I forgot to ask the newbs if they treated their bees, as I do not treat mine with anything except for powdered sugar and a heavy dose of my own ineptness. One of these days, I will purchase a package or two just to experience that kind of thing.

But, on to the good news. When I went out to check the hives, I initially glanced at the strong Hive (they face East and I come from the West, whereas the weaker hive faces South, so it is harder to see the landing board until I am up on it.) Not much was going on here, but when I got to the weak hive, I found all sorts of bees flying about and several on the landing board. I am assuming that these are some orientation flights, but regardless of the reason, it was great to see them moving about!

When I took the top off of Hive 2, I found them busily sipping up the syrup that was still in the feeder. Several were floating in the liquid. At some point, I need to figure out how to get them out of the syrup. I carefully removed the feeder to get a look inside. I was happy to see that the cluster had not already moved up into the top deep. I had been worried that their lack of stores would mean that they would be nearly out and already eating at the last of their stores. Instead, they had yet to touch any of their capped honey in the top deep (which is only about 5 frames worth, but is better then nothing!)

I placed several pieces of pollen substitute on the top of the upper deep and left it at that. All in all, I am very impressed with Hive 2.

Honey Bee sunbathing in January

Hive 1, what appeared to be the stronger hive last Fall, had much less activity. A few bees were hanging around on the south side of the hive, but only one or two flying about. This may be due to the orientation of the hive. It faces East, whereas Hive 2 faces South. At any rate, I opened these gals up and found a few hanging on top of the upper Deep. From what I could tell, these bees were also primarily in the lower Deep. But, I really needed a flashlight to look down in there and be sure. I hope to check on both hives with a flashlight tomorrow.

This hive has received no food since Fall, so I decided to put a single layer of paper down over a portion of the top and dump some sugar on it. I gave it a misting with the water bottle and immediately received a couple of dive bombers attacking me at every spot. Now that I have this food on (I also gave them some pollen substitute), I am much more comfortable about everything.

All in all, this was a resounding success. I look forward to a brief look tomorrow (with my flashlight!) and will report back then.

Feeding Sugar to my Honey Bees

Winter is a time for Education

As the cold spell continues (and my hope of the weaker hive surviving dwindles), I continue to immerse myself in educational material. A couple of local items have appeared on the circuit that I might take advantage of.

Lewis Ginter is offering their annual Beekeeping for Beginners course. I really should have taken this last year (I believe that my gardening obsession got in the way), but might attend some (if not all) this year, just to see what they have to say. If I join Lewis Ginter, I stand to save a lot of money for multiple courses. Click here for more on the Richmond Beekeeping Course.

Although I am very active in the East Richmond Beekeeper’s Association, I have never attended the Richmond Beekeeper’s Association meetings. They have a program for Thursday, January 14 (7 to 9 pm at Lewis Ginter) on the travails of the first year beekeepers. I definitely want to try this out, as I am sure that I have much more to experience in this regard. Here is a snippet of the topic from that group : The topic this month is The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly: My First Year of Beekeeping. People entering their second year of beekeeping will discuss the highs and lows they experienced for those of us starting to keep bees for the first time.

The topic this month is

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly: My First Year of Beekeeping. People entering their second
year of beekeeping will discuss the highs and lows they experienced for those of us starting to
keep bees for the first time.

New Year Comes in a Chill

Not much to report today, except to note that the gals are having to endure an incredible stretch of cold. Today and for the next week  or so, we’ll see lows in the low 20’s and highs in the low to mid-30’s in Richmond, Virginia! Beekeeping is a stressful hobby for the novice these days, as I have no idea what to expect going into my first Winter. Each beehive remains quiet (or at least nobody is coming out of the cluster to fly around), which is to be expected, but gives the clueless beekeeper a bit of worry.

Hopefully, we’ll get a batch of weather in the 50’s next week and I can put some granular sugar out for them to enjoy.