Beehive Reminders | Beekeeping in Richmond, Virginia

A Gallon of Syrup in 2 Days!

I am honestly not sure what to make of this, but I checked the Westover Hive top feeder (just to see if they were eating from it) and it was empty! A bunch were all in it, licking up the scraps, but the syrup was bone dry. There were a couple of ants, but not a ton (so, they could not be the source of this hunger.) The last couple of days have been sunny off-and-on with cloudy weather and the occasional spurt of rain (I picked up one-tenth of an inch yesterday). Maybe this weather had them holed up. Whatever the reason, I went with it and put a gallon-and-a-half in there for them to work on. Hopefully, they are using this stuff to fill out that top deep. I look forward to the next inspection (probably mid-week.) I’ll have to break them down completely, just to see what is going on (my queen should be two or more years old, so I am half-way expecting them to try a supercedure at some time.)

At this rate, I might be doing a split on this hive in June!

Splits and Other Tidbits

The East Richmond Beekeeper’s Association had their May meeting this evening and the focus was splitting beehives, creating Nuc’s and tidbits about swarming and other beehavior. Kenny was the focus, which is always good as he has a ton of experience. It would have been good to have Tom here, too, as he is probably doing tons of splits and Nuc’s at this exact moment (which is probably why he couldn’t make it!)

Kenny defines ‘splits’ literally, which makes sense although I had never looked at it this way. For him, a split is taking two deeps and creating a hive from each one. Interestingly enough (or maybe it is sadly enough), I have only just recently had a queen start laying in the top Deep. Clearly, this is normal behavior for a strong hive. Regardless, when you have brood and nurse bees in both boxes, it creates an ideal scenario for a ‘split’. Kenny’s method is to find the queen in the upper Deep and move her back to the lower Deep. Then, take the upper deep and make a new hive out of it. The whole concept of ‘finding the queen’ is not something that I do casually. In fact, I would have to say that I do it ‘by accident’ currently. I have been advised that this will change as I become more experienced.

But, with this low likelihood of finding a queen, I am more likely to spin Kenny’s strategy a bit by simply locating frames of eggs and making sure that both Deeps have at least one frame of eggs. This way, whichever box is missing the queen will have the proper tools to build their own queen. The key here is to check back in five to seven days for a queen cell (or two.) Bee math says that the egg will turn into a larvae on Day 3/4, be capped on Day 7/8 and hatch out as a queen on day 16/17. Then, the young gal apparently meanders around the hive getting her legs under her (and probably looking to kill any other queens that have not emerged from their cells) for about 5 days before she goes out on the town to find a lover. 26 days after the split, I should be seeing eggs. But, Kenny mentioned that he has seen it happen on Day 35, so it is best not to give up hope immediately (I’m guessing that I would freak out by Day 29 anyway!) I think you can probably test the theory by dropping another frame of eggs (from another hive) into the new split and see if they try to raise another queen (in which case I might want to follow up with a frame of capped brood if I can spare it, just to keep the population of nurse bees strong.)

Kenny also mentioned the idea of moving the hives a long distance. But, as Michael Bush (online) and Doug Ladd (occasional blog reader) have advised, you can move them a short distance and still have high rates of success. I can move them a long distance to my family farm in Charles City or two one of my friend’s farms, but I kind of doubt that I will on the first tries (this year or next.) I am fairly certain that I will try Doug’s method my first time.

Kenny also demonstrated a home made Cloakboard, another method of doing a split and/or raising queens which involves keeping the hives together. I am still in the research mode for raising queens and have no opinion on this method at the moment.

One of the most educational bits (for me) tonight was the advice on how to check for swarm cells (I am keeping an eye on the Geronimo hive for a possible swarm – it is unlikely, as I believe the queen is young, but I have learned my lesson on banking on my expectations!) To begin with, he advised that most swarm cells are made in the upper Deep. This was brand new information to me. To check for them, you do not have to invade the hive with a full inspection. You simply have to lift the top Deep and place it on its side where you can look for the cells with a good vantage point (they should be on the bottom on the upper deep.) I am probably going to do this on the coming weekend, just to see how it goes. I like this idea as I really have no need to break the frames of this strong hive up anymore.

There was also a lot of talk about swarms. Wade had found nine swarm cells in one of his two hives. Kenny had apparently been catching swarms all week. Anne had even just picked up a swarm a week or so ago and put it in a top bar hive (where it had already drawn out 12 frames!!!!) I actually finished my first swarm trap (a 6 frame, custom made Nuc that I could hang at 8′) this very evening. I am going to put it in Charles City this weekend (or maybe put it over at 1699 on Thursday if I can get another one built tomorrow night.) I hope to post back more on this experiment in the future.

Finally, I met two folks that have visited my blog at the meeting tonight. One, David, lives up the road and is looking to get into bees. He has apparently spoken to Tom (I’m thinking Tom’s list must be a hundred long!) In addition, I met Doug Ladd and his folks. I think his folks come to the meeting regularly, but Doug belongs to another club down to the west of Richmond. The beekeeping community is getting larger and it’s a blast chewing the fat about bees.

For the purposes of recording observations, we are going through a bit of a cool spell now, with at least a few more days in the low-70’s. The main note here is that they are calling for storms in a couple of days. We are definitely getting dry now and I do not believe that the nectar of anything but trees and well established shrubs will last to any great degree if we do not get rain in the next week (of course, I am mainly concerned about my garden and plants, but I want the bees to have a full plate too!)

Winterizing Steps

What follows are some notes from Keith Tignor, Virginia’s Bee King, at the East Richmond Beekeeper’s association meeting this past week. In addition, I have added a few notes from the Oct 2009 American Bee Journal. These things will presumably give my bees a leg up on the coming Winter.

Each hive needs 60 lbs of honey for a good Winter. I think I have heard this dozens of times. It really makes me chuckle. What the heck is 60# of honey!? I am willing to bet that anyone who knows what this is, already knows how much the bees need for the Winter! I am sure my neighbors will get a chuckle when I take the bathroom scale out to the bee yard.

Combine the weak hives. Although I only have one weak hive and one strong, Keith recommended combining your weak hives, only to divide them again in the Spring. It is tough for a weak hive to make it through the Winter, but much easier for a really strong (combined hive.) So, pinch the queen (the hive is weak because of the queen, typically) and drop those bees in with some others. The odds of me getting that one right are low at this point, so I am simply going to try to get the weak one through the Winter. In future years, I will convert to this practice.

Winter guests. Mice love to stay in the hive for the winter, enjoying some warmth and a tasty honey meal at their whim. Need to get the entrance reducers in place to prevent this.

Ventilation. During the Winter, the warmth of the bees will cause moisture to form about the cluster. This moisture is apparently a real problem for the bees, as the condensation will coalesce into water that drips down right onto the cluster. That is pretty much a death sentence for the bees.

So, you battle this with a little ventilation. None of this was particularly knew to me, except for Keith’s suggesting to use something that is only a quarter of an inch wide. Since I use a Top feeder on my weaker hive, the suggestion to put a spacer under the telescoping cover will not work for me. But, Keith immediately recommended simply putting a quarter-inch spacer between the feeder and the top brood chamber.

He also was pretty adamant about covering up the screened bottom board. I need to remember that the exact opposite recommendation was given by one of the beekeeper’s in the ERBA (he suggested keeping the bottoms open). Testing something like this would be too difficult for me at this point, but I am thinking that I am going to follow Keith’s suggestion. It’s really a question of comfort (my own!) I have a real problem thinking about that open bottom board. It reminds me of a winter camping trip that I took into the mountains. Having a shelter with a huge open in the bottom would have frozen my bottom off! Closing that up will give me a peace of mind.

Pollen: On Jan 1, it is important that the bees have 5 frames of pollen. Either I do not know what pollen is or my very strong hive did not pack enough pollen. Five whole frames of pollen!? I have it all allong the edges of several frames, but I definitely do not have 5 frames of it. This tip is probably an error.

Regardless, the key point to remember here is that the bees need protein starting in January for the brood build up. This is a very good time to place some pollen substitute on top of the brood.

Don’t break the cluster. When you are examining the hive during one of the warmer days of Winter, do NOT break the cluster. This was a really good bit of information, as I can guarantee that I would have done exactly that. Basically, the point of the inspection is to make sure there is some honey next to the cluster (move it if there is not) and that they have a little pollen. Leave the center frames alone (assuming this is where the cluster is.)

Other comments included…

Nectar flow: This really had nothing to do with Keith’s subject, but it was a bit of knowledge that I definitely did not have. According to Keith, we are lucky if we can get One good nectar flow a year. In my reading, there was a

American Foulbrood : This has nothing to do with winterizing, but Keith Tignor spoke about some of the many bee pests (his Doom and Gloom talk) and one touched on this problem. The main thing that I want to note about this regards his recommendation on frame replacement. Basically, A Foulbrood spore build up over time in the wax. A strong hive is resistant, but why expose them to this spore (at a greater and greater intensity as time goes on)?

The key is to replace your frames every 3 years. Just take the old ones and burn them. I need to start dating my frames…

Varoa Mites : Keith made a fairly interesting point about Mite location. At any given time, only about 30% of them are out on the bees. The rest are in the brood cells, multiplying like rabbits. That’s why it is somewhat pointless to treat only once or twice. You really should try to hit them with powdered sugar 4 or more times, at about 1 every week.

Keith also suggested using a pound of sugar each time you treat them.

Early Winter (or so they say!)

Folks are really hollaring about the cool weather these days (my wife being one of them). It will be interesting to see how this plays out over the Winter – will this be a real cold one? Something like the late 90’s with Ice Storms and all that mess? I remember skating on the pond below my folks’ house when I was a child. I honestly do not believe that it has gotten cold enough (for long enough) to freeze that pond in close to 20 years. It’s time for some cold.

The bees, on the other hand, are not a big fan of the cold. Yesterday, I bore whitness to this first hand. I do not believe that I have ever looked at the bee hives and not seen a single bee wandering around somewhere. But, neither have I had my bees during the cold. There was no sign of them (I actually momentarily wondered if one of the hives had absconded! =). Presumably, they are all up in a cluster, keeping her majesty warm.

Getting cool (high-30’s and low-40’s) a bit earlier then usual, I have not done some of the important tasks that need to be done. We had the ERBA meeting this past Tuesday, where Kenny gave a talk about some items to do in the Fall. What follows are some of my notes on his talk (although the ERBA setup a website, it escapes them that this kind of knowledge should be posted on their site – one day I will expound on the irony of that site and how they had it setup!)

Requeening By Kenny

The one caveat to this is that Kenny advised that he has never seen this written about nor heard of anyone else doing it. But, he does it with success and reportedly has over 3 decades of experience with bees.

To begin with, why was Kenny talking about this? In the Fall, you may start to see a failing colony or one that is trying to replace their own queen (deja vu for Jonesie boy). Per my comments a month and a half ago, it’s not a good idea to let them raise a queen so late, with all of the risks. In addition, it is a little late in the year to find a queen to purchase. So, here is how Kenny requeen’s when he needs to.

You need a 9-frame Shallow Nuc (I need to follow up on this, as I assumed that he meant a honey super, but while I am writing this journal entry, I am wondering if he meant that or not) with a new queen in it. On the hive that you are requeening, open her up and lay a single sheet of news paper on top. Subsequently, place your queen excluder and then place the ‘nuc’ (or honey super with a queen).

The little gals will eat through the paper, at which point battle will be engaged. When you come back a few weeks later, there will be a fair number of dead bees outside of the hive, but the group should have eventually merged, accepted the new queen and done away with the old monarch. Per Kenny, this is the result 90% of the time. I am not sure what happens the other 10%, but I think the implication is that it is not something that I would be happy about…

Should a Hive Be Level?

Kenny mentioned a ‘trick’ of slightly leaning the hive forward a bit as part of a larger method to deal with pests. This has me wondering yet again about ‘how level should a hive be?’ I have one hive that slopes forward just a tad and another hive that slopes forward a lot. My main goal is to keep water from pooling up on the bottom board, inside the hive (of course, now that I have screened bottom boards on both hives, there is no real need for it.)

But, is this wise? I have read that bees orient the cells in just the right manner so that uncapped/unfinished honey/nectar will not drip out. I wonder if I am causing a problem for the bees (or, I should say, just making it harder for them to properly use my foundation.)

More then likely, this is the Beekeeping Nube coming out in me again and the bees are doing just fine.

Peppermint Candy

Someone in the audience (I do not know him, but he appears to have played with bees for many years) mentioned that they have fed their bees Candy Canes (that’s right – peppermint candy canes of Xmas!) Many folks seemed to agree that a bee would eat this. This tidbit of knowledge will be filed away for later.

Nectar Dearth

Although I may have noted this before, I wanted to jot it down again for future reference. The Nectar Dearth in our area starts around mid-June.

Supers and Space

Kenny was very adamant about not supering a colony that could not make honey. I am pretty sure that I was guilty of that on my strong hive. In fact, I still have that super on them and hope to get it off today if the weather will peak about 60 degrees (which seems unlikely at the moment.)

Varroa Mites in Central Virginia

My beekeeping education in Varina, Virginia continues. I have definitely come to understand that I am at the base of Mount Everest and, despite my efforts to get to the top quickly, am still stumbling around at the base!

Tom Fifer spoke at the East Richmond Beekeeper’s meeting last Tuesday and gave his typical, no-non-sense advice. Most of it did not apply to me, as I am not using chemicals (yet, anyway) and have no current plans to do so. He reviewed all of the treatments that some folks use to treat both mites and the foul brood diseases. But, the underlying tone was that a good nectar flow fixes everything but maybe the Varoa Mite. On this subject, I did pick up some very valuable advice.

As I knew, all hives have varoa mites to some extent (like my damnable wax moth!) The hives keep them in check, but there is a little trick to apply throughout the Summer and Fall that will help them out. Use Powdered Sugar (1 cup per deep, 1/2 cup per super) on them once or twice each month.

I knew about this treatment, but thought it was only to be used when you had a really high mite count. Tom advised otherwise. Sprinkle some on them occasionally, just to help them out. I’m not sure that any scientific studies have been done to prove this, but I plan to put some on my hives in just a few hours. It should be another adventure!

Reminder for Week 4

Thanks to a very troubling issue with my hounds, I had to spend a lot of time inside on this otherwise beautiful day. In my continuing effort to look for the positive, the one bonus of this day was that I had a lot of time to review various bee literature online and read some of the forum posts. This was extremely informative and I wanted to make this post to remind me of my goals for next week (yes, I have already decided that waiting two weeks is too long!)

1. Open each hive from the opposite side that I have been working them
2. Take a good look at the capped brood pattern of the queen
3. Be sure to look for any queen cells. It is highly unlikely that the bees are looking to make a new queen, but I keep forgetting to look!
4. Make a note of exactly which frames have brood (see if I can see Drone brood on the outside), which have capped honey and which have pollen.

Finally, if I have not done so already, give both hives a third off a piece of pollen and put the rest in the fridge. I also need to consider putting my feeders on top of them, as it appears that this is the best way to get some fast growth in the young, small hives (of which I have two.)