Beekeeping in Richmond, Virginia

A Swarm Here, A Swarm There, A Swarm Everywhere!

A Mid-sized Swarm of Bees on a Branch in my Backyard

Things have definitely kicked into 3rd gear in Richmond, Virginia. I had offered to show Greg, a fellow that lives to the south of me across the James River, some of my hives to demonstrate to him that beekeeping was not as dangerous as some might think. On my way to meet Greg, I get a call from a nice lady in the West End – ‘There are a nest of honey bees in a bush in my front yard. Can you do something about them?’ Of course I could! This was great news (although you can’t be sure on swarm calls if you really have honey bees, her husband seemed to be sure that they were honey bees, so I was excited.) I took her name and address and advised I would touch base in about an hour. Removing swarms of honey bees in Richmond, Virginia gives me more pleasure then just about anything!

I hooked up with Greg and began to give him a tour of my home apiary (or Nuc yard.) As we moved into the yard (which is all Nuc’s with one larger hive (Larry) that I stole a queen from a few weeks ago), I answered some of his questions about bees and beekeeping. In the process, ‘swarms‘ came up and I explained why they happened and mentioned, off hand, that I had never seen one in my backyard. Greg then said, ‘do you mean something like that?’ as he pointed to a huge pile of bees in a nearby cryptomeria! ‘Yes! Exactly like that’, I exclaimed as I ran to get a box and hived the first swarm of the day and season (for me). I think this swarm had to come from Larry, which is a lesson for me. I took the old queen from Larry two weeks ago, along with a couple of other frames with queen cells on them. I even shook some nurse bees out of that daggone hive. Since then, a queen (or more then one) should have emerged, gotten her legs under her and even made a mating flight or three. I honestly cannot figure out they could have swarmed today. If they had swarmed a week ago, I would have figured that they swarmed with a virgin. But today? Weird. Unfortunately, I did not have time to check them, so I may never really know.

The Nuc’s were all doing well, although I did discover that Nuc D was trying to swarm. It was really a learning lesson for me, as I shook too many nurse bees in with that queen (from the Westover hive). I had actually taken a frame of brood and bees from them to bolster Nuc E a week ago, but it apparently didn’t make a difference. I took the old queen and dropped her in a new Nuc and left Nuc D to make another new queen on their own (this really made them mad, by the way…) This time, I made sure to put a bit less brood and nurse bees with her, to reduce the crowding.

Open Hive with Newly Caught Swarm — West End Bees Find a New Home

Finally, I packed up my gear and headed out to get the West End swarm. This was definitely going to be new genetics for my yards and I was excited about getting (yet another) swarm. My experiences with swarms last year have taught me that no bee builds up like a bee from a swarm. When we arrived, I immediately noticed the bees in an azalea bush. A tremendous-sized swarm, to be sure. It had to be the size of a couple of footballs! The location was a bit tricky, but Linda and Gary (the nice folks who called about the swarm) said that I could cut the branches if I wanted. Fortunately, I was able to shake the swarm into the hive and pull it out safely. I did end up cutting one branch, only because the bees kept trying to congregate on the branch (even though I could see the bees fanning at my box and steadily entering the hive – which meant to me that the queen was onboard!)

Normally, I would have left the box there and come back after dark to get all of the bees (when all of the bees, including the scouts, should have returned to my new box with the queen). But, this was a 40 minute drive from my house, so we were talking about a lot of driving. In the end, I let them collect bees for another 20 minutes or so and then taped them up, returning them to my yard. I immediately put feed on them (and my other swarm), as my swarms of 2010 all greedily took up sugar water while they built out 2 deeps of frames. This is one of the few times that I really think it is important to feed your bees. Swarms are wax building machines. Feed those machines to keep them running and they will draw out comb like no one’s business.

Although this was a banner day for swarms (and two new Nucs), I must say that there are a couple of hives in Charles City that I have to wonder about. Have they swarmed? Who knows. I will know more this weekend.

Time and Weather Wait for No Man

Ideally, your typical beekeeper tries to manage his hives at or above 50 degrees F. Once you drop below 50, the bees are forming into a cluster (once she hits the mid-30’s, the full cluster is tightly formed). Opening a hive at that point can disrupt the cluster and expose your brood to low temperatures (killing it.) This is all well and good for the fellow who can look into his hives on any day that is suitable, but I am not in that boat.

Today, we do not expect the weather to get above 38 to the east of Richmond, Virginia. I work during the week and will be heading to Florida on a small vacation next weekend. Basically, Saturday (yesterday) was my last chance to look into the hives for at least 10 days or so. But, the temperatures were not expected to go above 49 degrees…

Well, temperatures be damned. I had things to do (as in hives that might be going into swarm mode!) and we’ll see if it has any long lasting negative consequences. For the most part, I tried to make my inspections quick, but some took longer then hoped. My primary goal for yesterday was to inspect the new Mosely Hive (Mandy, the lady whose property it is on, indicated that they were looking very active – as if they might be prepping to swarm), the Geronimo Hive and the Curly Hive for possible swarm activity. Finally, I wanted to look in on the weak/failing queen hive (I had decided that I would collect brood/eggs from one of my strong inspections to put in with the weak hive that had the siamese twins queen cells).

I found one queen cell in Geronimo – in the supercedure position. One queen cell in the middle of a frame does not a swarm cell make, especially at this time of the year. Although I never laid eyes on the queen, I did find eggs (standing straight up, which means (to me) that she was in action in the last 18 hours). Being greedy, I stole the frame with the swarm cell on it. Here was the only problem of the day – I could not find the queen in this box. She did not appear to be on the frame that I took, but I cannot guarantee it. The problem was the temperatures and the wind. Geronimo pretty much sits on a hill that overlooks Downtown Richmond and countryside to its southeast of the city, literally. It was really gusty and I knew that I was putting a lot of brood at risk messing around looking for the queen. I found several frames of eggs and decided that was enough. If I accidentally took the queen, the old weak hive would benefit from it and Geronimo would do just fine building a new queen.

Looking at the rest of the hives, I found no further evidence of swarm behavior (except a lot of Queen Cups in Curly). Finding the queens in both of these hives, I took a frame of brood, eggs and nurse bees with confidence (from both.) So, off to my weak hive to fortify it. Per the previous post, this (as yet unnamed) hive had a baseball-sized brood nest in early March, which only dwindled as the weeks went on. This is apparently the sign of a failing queen. Fortunately, I found two queen cells last weekend. Regardless, to be safe, I was bringing them 3 frames of brood, two with eggs and one with a queen cell on it.

I opened up the weak hive to find enough bees to cover 4 frames in the top and bottom supers – but only a handful of brood cells. I did pull the frame (carefully) with the Siamese queen cells and noted that both had been opened. 3 seconds later, on the same frame, I spotted the young princess! She was definitely not as big as most of my mature queens (but, it is highly unlikely that she had mated yet, which will make her abdomen bigger), but there she was – hopping about the frame, raising and lowering her abdomen (I think this was mainly to warm herself up.) This was encouraging, to be sure. I decided to give them one frame of brood with nurse bees (not the frame that might have the Geronimo queen) and take the remainder back to my house to start a ‘walk-away’ Nuc.

It will be interesting to see how this Nuc fares. Under ordinary circumstances (is there such a thing in Beekeeping?!), I would not try to start a Nuc on a day that is cool to begin with (probably at 45 degrees F when I finally put it together in my Nuc yard) which is going to be followed up by a day that will not get above 35 or so with rain/sleet to boot! It seems to me that the bees (from 3 different hives) are not going to get much time to organize themselves. The good thing is that we only have 36 hours of this mess, so hopefully there will be minimal casualties before they are able to take inventory and move on as a single hive.

As to the queen cell in the Nuc, I am ambivalent about it for the most part. In truth, I would sort of like them to be queenless for about 8 days, when I can drop a frame of eggs from a really good hive into them and let them start some queen cells for me. But, we’ll see how it goes.

Let ‘Em Do Their Thing

I once read where Michael Bush, a big time beekeeper up North, said that he never replaced the queen from a swarm. He didn’t want bees that couldn’t figure out when it was time to supersede their queen and needed him to help them along. I have a ton of respect for Michael Bush and agree with him for sure, but I am not 100% sure that I will never requeen (the Albo hive comes to mind.)

Two queen cells — Am I Going to Get A Siamese Twin?

At any rate, I went into my only hive that came through the Winter with an issue yesterday (the one with a baseball sized brood nest, apparently a failing queen) to see what they were up to. There were definitely very few bees and only a handful of capped brood (I did not see eggs or larvae or queen). Amazingly enough, they had a pair of queen cells, side-by-side! It seemed like the old gal must have had enough left in her to push out two decent eggs and move along.

My paranoid nature has me wondering if these eggs were any good or not. I absolutely believe that the bees will choose a better egg then I would and they will make the most of any situation, but I have to wonder if the failing queen’s best is really any good or not. The hive was in ok shape, with several frames of honey and a fair amount of pollen (they really haven’t had much brood to feed). There may have been 40 capped worker cells, spread all over the place, and an equal number of drone cells. The bottom line is that this hive’s last hope rests in these queen cells. I was hyper vigilant to put them back in the hive carefully so as not to damage them.

As of right now, I only know that I had a pair of capped cells on March 20. If I assume the worst case scenario, those queens might not emerge until March 29. I will probably have to wait until April 1 to check and see. The key is that I absolutely must be ready with either a frame of eggs (from one of my Nucs with proven queens) or another swarm cell or two. Otherwise, this hive could be in real trouble. I may go down this weekend to check on them and simply give them a frame of eggs anyway, just in case. I hate to risk jostling those queen cells, but it’s probably the best course of action. That way, if those queen cells are no good, these bees can go to work on March 26 (with the new eggs) and possibly have a mated queen by the middle of April.

Only time will tell…

Almost Too Late…

My four (maybe 5) day Honey Bee weekend continues to be the adventure that my first day of beekeeping was. My goal today had simply been to put up 4 swarm traps and check my hives at Goose Pond Lane. One of those hives was acting very weird (baseball-sized brood nest on 4 frames) a few weeks back. I fellow beekeeper, to the west of Richmond, Virginia, mentioned it might be a failing queen. I wanted to see if that ole gal was still putting out a few eggs or not (if not, I was going to give them a frame from the Amped Up Westover hive, across the road. Well, as they say, the best laid plans of mice and men…

Yesterday evening, I posted some more bee experiences and then checked on a couple of Richmond-area beekeeping blogs that I monitor. The fellow in Buckingham was making splits! I have been talking about making Nucs for weeks now – reading his post (matched with my experiences with the Westover Hive yesterday) had me thinking – I need to get on the ball! So, my first task today was to create at least one Nuc off of Larry.

As a reminder, Larry has a Deep, then a Medium and then a Shallow. I assumed that nothing but honey was in the Shallow and only a bit of brood was in the Medium. So, I went directly to the Deep. I had two Nuc boxes handy, but was only going to do one Nuc, unless I found a bunch of frames of eggs. Ha!

I started on the Deep and pulled one frame of pollen to match one of my frames of honey that I had pulled from a hive earlier this year. Three spaces left to find the queen and put her, with some brood and hopefully a bit of open comb (for laying) in. Made it through the whole Deep with a quick check and no Queen – is she in that Medium? There was nothing but honey in that Medium a ONE week ago, and capped to boot. But, maybe she was in there.

She wasn’t in there, but something of note was in there. The first frame that I pulled had the regular drone brood on the bottom of the frames. Most had been pulled apart when I separated the two supers. But, one looked odd. Looking back on it, I laugh at myself now. ‘Wow, I have never seen such a big drone – and hanging straight off the comb‘ was my first thought when I saw the exposed pupae. Then I looked closer. Daggone it! That’s a daggone capped queen cell! Sheesh. I had just read (maybe in Increase Essentials) the last night or two where, once in swarm mode, the old queen hits the road when the swarm cells are capped! So, now my mind is racing. Am I too late? Have they already swarmed? I found it hard to believe they had swarmed. Bees were 2 and 3 levels deep on some of those frames. Keep your eye on the ball, Jones.

Two more frames and now I am looking at 2 capped swarm cells and one they they are still feeding. Despair is setting in. Not sure what I am going to find, I go with the positive outlook and scan those frames real hard for the queen again. No queen. I place that frame in my spare Nuc (this one is now going to be a Nuc with swarm cells.) I keep at it.

Before I finish the Medium, I find two more frames with 2 or more swarm cells. I leave them in the primary box and keep looking for that damnable queen. Has she flown the coop? No queen, but she really went to town laying. They either ate that honey or moved it within the last week, as there was tons of capped brood.

Hitting the shallow, I am now committed to going through all of the boxes again. That queen can’t be gone! The shallow surprises me as it, too, is full of brood, although at a later stage then the Medium. Not a swarm cell on these (that I saw, anyway). Back to the Deep.

The bees in the Deep are pissed now. I am not smoking them, but a few come off and sting my glove. I am thinking this is because they have been without their queen (who must be in that worthless Medium). But, after going through 7 frames, I find her! Bonzai! Whoohoo! I put the grand ole lady into the original Nuc and then, feeling like the King of Bees, shook several frames of brood in both boxes. I double checked the honey/pollen stores in both Nucs and then fortified the original hive with several frames of foundation (they have some time to draw out the wax, waiting for their new queen(s) to come out.)

All in all, not what I planned for today, but I am feeling good about it. No matter what happens (unless I lose all three), it will be a learning experience. I might even go into Larry to steal one of the swarm cells (there are several capped and uncapped still in that box.) But, that’s a task for tomorrow.

Always Start with Two

The weather around Richmond, Virginia continues to be outstanding. It actually hit 84 degrees today, breaking the previous record from back in the 1920’s. Dandilions are in full bloom, as are pears, peaches, plums and apricots. A friend down near Shirley Plantation indicated that her bees were covering the flowering quince in her neighbor’s yard. Basically, there’s a lot of forage out there (even though the official start to my flow, the tulip poplar bloom, has not happened yet.) My findings in the hive inspections for today only confirmed this – as well as reminding me that it’s a daggone good thing that I started my beekeeping with two hives in the Spring of 2009, and not one.

The general tone of today’s inspections included more hives with just a few capped drone cells (but nothing walking about) and more hives with dozens (if not scores) of capped drone brood and many walking about on the comb. The bottom line is that the hives are building up at different rates. I am a big fan of this early build up. I had one hive today (the Westover Hive) with 6 frames (back and front) of brood in the top medium AND 7 frames (not all were back and front) of brood in the bottom deep. It was nothing short of amazing, compared to my other hives (including my other strong ones.) The amount of bees about to come out of this hive is going to be like a volcano. I found the queen and cannot be sure if this is the same queen from last year’s swarm catch, but it doesn’t really matter. These bees are what I want.

They come from stock that made it through at least 1 Winter before I caught them
They have made it through one year with me, without a lick of medication or even a powdered sugar dusting.
They seemed lethargic during brief forays into the 50’s during the Winter (I hope this means they are frugal)
They build up fast in the Spring

There are other traits that I would like to have, but these are the primary traits that I am looking for at this time of year. I will take at least one Nuc off of them (I’ll probably swipe the old queen (Nuc 1) and a frame of eggs (Nuc 2)). I’ll need to get this done by next weekend – the congestion in that hive is about to go through the roof. I should put up a swarm trap down there this weekend.

The hive beside it (the one that showed more activity in January) is good ole Albo. When I walked up to it, I honestly thought it was my first hive casualty for the year. But, as I unceremoniously removed the inner cover with a loud snap, the tell tale hum of bees could be heard. They are small – maybe at 2 frames of brood with no drones at all – but they are alive. No doubt they will build up and once again fail to provide honey or enough bees for an increase. Albo was one of the first two hives that I started with in 2009. It’s sister hive, Geronimo, has continued to do exceptionally well, whereas Albo just barely survives a Winter (I actually fed them through last Winter, before I adopted my ‘James Bond’ strategy.)

Thank the lord for Geronimo. If I had started with only Albo, who knows what I would be up to today. One thing is for certain, I will be removing that queen this year. As of right now, this is the only hive that I will be requeening this year. They have enough genetic fortitude to make it through the Winter (which is enough for me to let them raise drones for the time being, if they want), but that’s it. I will be using the brood in this hive to fortify my Nuc’s and Queen-breeding boxes, as well as bait for my swarms and/or trap-outs. But, this bloodline will not be with me this Fall.

The final note about my inspections today centers around both the Westover and Berkeley Hives. Both have basically filled up the combs above them and were building honey comb between my inner cover and the top frames (I had not inverted the inner cover yet this year.) Westover had a bunch of comb because I had put a spacer in them to feed them pollen (something I am unlikely to do in the future, but that is a different topic for another day.) So, I have put supers on several hives today, all with some bare foundation to increase my wax stores. The way things are looking today, I would say we could have a real killer of a honey build this Spring (and I still have not purchased an extractor!)

There is an article one of the bee magazines this month about a French beekeeper that stopped medicating a few years ago. He suffered big losses the first few years, but his losses have dwindled substantially now that he has weeded out the chaff (letting those poor hives die off, along with their genetics.) He is actually looking to buy varroa mites, do he can subject his hives to them (and thus weed out more of the weak ones!) I’m not in the market for any varroa, but his experiences over the past couple of years simply cement my resolve to keep up the current plan.

It is clear to me at this point that I have 3 hives that are readying to swarm – and it could happen anytime in the next couple of weeks. I am seriously considering taking two Nucs off of each of those hives (one being the old Queen and one being a frame of eggs.) With my winter Nucs, I honestly have no idea what I would do with 6 more Nucs (plus, my goal was to only start 4). I might just do a simple split with one of these strong hives. We shall see. But, it’s time to go finish work on the last of my swarm traps. These things need to all be up by the end of the weekend for sure.

Whoa, doggie!

In my last post, I asserted that this past weekend would be the beginning of a Nuc or two in my yard. This was all based on my discovery of drones walking on the brood nest in the Larry Hive on Friday. If I had walking drones, then 14 or 15 days later (when my virgins would emerge from the walkaway splits) drones would definitely be flying about and ready to mate. Fortunately, I went out to do a full Spring breakdown inspection on both of the hives at Westover (Curly and Apache.) I found no drones in either hive and Curly is a sister hive (similar genetics) to Larry. Being conservative, I decided to wait one more week.

When I arrived at Westover Plantation, the first thing I checked was the old knot hole where my Westover Hive (and subsequently the William Byrd Hive) originated in a swarm last April. I had yet to see any real activity until Saturday. It was alive with bees, going to and fro, bringing in some of the bright yellow pollen that my two hives were bringing in, no doubt. It was good to see that they were still alive and doing well. I hope to get up two swarm traps within the next week or two to take advantage of any other casts that they make.

I have taken some scrap wood and built Nuc-sized boxes that can hang on a tree. Within it, I am placing a frame of comb and several frames of foundation. Finally, a drop or two of lemongrass oil at the entrance and it’s good to go. The beauty of this trap is that the drawn comb makes it appealing and they will immediately start to draw out frames that I can put into a Deep once I discover that the trap is full. Last year, I didn’t get them built until late May, so they didn’t have a good shot. I am very hopeful this year!

Both of the hives on the grounds were doing well. Apache was the hive that went queenless last September (for reasons that I have no idea of). I combined them with my Apache Nuc (laden with the young hygienic queen from out near Farmville). As one might expect, the bees took up residence in the upper Deep where the Apache queen was laying last Fall. The bottom deep was full of nectar and the top medium was full of capped honey (sugar syrup based, for the most part.) I simply swapped the Deeps and removed the medium (and also replaced the old bottom board with a newly painted SBB – insert in place for now.) They were bringing in a ton of bright yellow pollen (compared to the dull gray of most of my yards), which I now believe was due to the dandelions. After setting up a new yard near Shirley Plantation this weekend, I can see that the lands near the river are about a week ahead of the yards inland, on bloom season. They have tons of dandelions in bloom, as opposed to a basic start inland.

It was a good weekend, to be sure. The bees are bringing in tons of supplies and should really ramp up over the next 3 weeks. There should be a lot of opportunities to prep my mediocre hives for honey build and my stellar hives for increase. It is even looking good for my queen rearing experiment, as I should have a hive or two to use for the Starter and Finisher hives. Well, back to churning out more frames! This weekend I start a trap out and attempt a smoke out. Both will be adventures, I am sure.

Walking Drones and New Lessons

Wow, what a Spring in Richmond, Virginia! It is true that this is only my third Spring as a beekeeper, but I have been a gardener and son of a farmer for over 4 decades (which is my whole life…) This Spring is unusual, but it is really working out well for the bees (so far.) The forecast continues to be fairly mild and the only big risk at this point would be an extended cold period (by extended, I would say a solid week of temperatures not rising above 40.) Even a week of that would not necessarily be devastating. Two weeks would probably set all of my hives back though. I am paranoid by nature, but my experience with gardening tells me that such an occurrence is not realistic at this point. So, time to really get into managing my bees!

I’ve been really under the weather the last few days, but managed to get out and check one of the Varina hives this afternoon. My main goal was to grab a few frames of honey from one of my stronger hives and drop them in my winter Nuc’s. Since this is my first year with Winter Nuc’s, I continue to be a tad paranoid about them (I simply do not know what to expect.) So, I walked out to open the Larry hive to grab a few frames of honey off of them.

As a backdrop, Larry ended the season with a Deep, a Shallow and then a Medium (bottom-to-top). They were one of my reserve hives – a place to grab honey if I needed it somewhere. They also have proven to be frugal and early risers, two traits that I am really starting to like. They do not seem to eat a lot of honey over the Winter and they get to work at about 41 degrees – a good 8 to 9 degrees cooler then my other Varina hives. I have never medicated or even put powdered sugar on them and they seem to be thriving. I want to get some offspring off this hive. I may even raise queens from it.

At any rate, back to the point (I can go on endlessly about ole Larry…) Last weekend, I checked Larry and found 5 frames of pretty solid brood. Not wall to wall (a thin edge of honey/pollen along the edge), but pretty daggone good. They say a hive makes up its mind to swarm a month in advance and I am pretty sure that Larry’s mind is made up. This excites me, as I look forward to the challenge of preventing the swarm while harvesting some swarm cells for some Nucs (of course, a month from now I may be singing a different story.)

So, as fate would have it, I had pulled each frame of the top Medium and found nothing but full honey. I skipped the shallow super (big mistake here) and went to the deep, finding tons of brood and a whole lot of capped drone cells. I wanted to get that Super off of them (why that super was in that spot is another story and another lesson for another day), so I swapped the shallow and the medium, moving the shallow from the middle to the top. Now, it was easy to get at and the bees should move up into the Medium.

Ha! Those bees had already moved into the daggone shallow, as I discovered when I peeled off 4 frames to give to my Winter nucs. Basically, I did the HUGE no-no : I separated the brood nest. It is only by the grace of god that the weather has been favorable, as the bees have had to cover brood in two supers, separated by a medium super! I may have inadvertantly messed up the swarm urge, which would be a shame. Tomorrow, when I hope to feel a little better, I will try to rectify my mistake and get them back together.

But, the one big bonus that I found was walking drones! On the two little shallow frames that I pulled with brood, both had a few drones on them, walking around! That’s huge news for my Nuc experiments. I am currently going with the rule of thumb (you’ll get differing opinions on this, as with everything) that it takes 14 days from hatching for a drone to become a romeo. My other rule of thumb is that it takes 20 days for a Nuc with eggs to send forth a good queen who is looking for a romeo. Basically, I could start a Nuc today and she would have some drones out there to mate her!

So, one of my goals for the season begins a new phase this weekend, as I will start two new Nucs as part of my experiment. It only seems logical to me that waiting another week or two will really give all bees a chance to get a bunch of drones out there (and thus increase the odds of getting a good mating), but I want to experiment. I will start a couple of Nucs each weekend into April and watch how they do. Let the experiments begin!

Sustainable Beekeeping and More Early Blooms

Wow – this year is turning out to be a weird one. Today, I noticed a couple of dozen dandelion blooms over at one of my rentals! My bloom chart is getting a bit of a skew this year, as this seems really early. For some reason, I didn’t record the Dandelion bloom last year, but I think it was mid-March. This will be an interesting Spring for the beekeepers around Richmond, Virginia for sure. Having gardened for several decades, I know full well that very cold temperatures are in our future for two months ahead, but the last two weeks and the next two are like early Spring and not mid- to late-Winter! The bees are collecting nectar and pollen well in advance of when they normally do. In two of my yards, they are getting syrup and taking it down like piglets. How will this play out when it gets cold?

The big concern that most folks have is that the bee will ‘over lay’, effectively creating more brood then they can keep warm, should the temperatures drop. A big cold snap hits and they suffer – they stress themselves trying to keep a lot of brood warm. Normally, without the syrup or early blooming flowers, they wouldn’t have that much brood to cover. The other concern is around moisture in the hive. Putting a lot of sugar syrup in the hive somehow is a detriment. Having a fairly good background in chemistry and physics, I definitely do not understand this logic (we put buckets of water in the greenhouse to keep the temperature up – water stops it from getting cold, due to the massive energy it takes to convert water from a liquid to a solid.) Ventilation should resolve moisture issues and I think having a liquid in a structure actually keeps the temps from dropping as fast or as far!

In my opinion, the bees do what they need to do. I am pretty confident that they will be just fine, but only time will tell.

Sustainable Beekeeping

This past Friday, the Central Virginia Beekeepers Association out of Ashland, Virginia had Billy Davis of Sustainable Beekeeping up in Northern Virginia. It was an interesting talk and only cemented my resolve to focus on bees that are born and bred in my neck of the woods. Billy Davis focuses on splits, Nucs and overwintered Nucs to do increases off of bees that make it through his Winters. By ‘make it through his Winters’, he means that they do so after he gives them a lot of pre-stored honey frames and a big block of candy. I absolutely respect his work, but it does not surprise me that he has a ton of success overwintering bees in that manner. If you used the exact same strategy on a full hive, you’d probably have great results as well. But, the point is that he is doing it not to just ‘survive’ but to end up with an increase Nuc off of his prime hives. He advocates that we should all do this, trading our increases with other beekeepers or selling them to others in the area. This spreads good genetic material throughout, which benefits both the honey bee and the beekeeper.

He really focuses on using bees that are his version of ‘survivor stock’. He did not mention whether he uses chemicals or not, but you have to admire his tenacity. He uses tons of hives and weeds out the weak, making a great stock for his neck of the woods. If I lived up there, I’d get all of my bees from him. And that’s his goal. Folks up there should start getting their bees from him and from each other, effectively spreading survivor genes throughout the region and eventually (a tertiary goal that he mentions) leading to feral bees again. To be fair, he jammed a 6 hour lesson into 2 hours, so I probably missed a lot of the meat. I will take the full course from him in the future.

On a few points, I believe he is mistaken. The biggest is the African Honey Bee. He points out that getting local hives will prevent the spread of this bee to our region. I am here to say that AHB is coming and will be here, no matter what mankind does. The new Honey Bee pest in Australia will eventually get here as well, no matter what mankind does. Mother Nature rules, but we still fight it. As mentioned in previous posts, I believe that the future of our bee (the European) will hinge on the African strain (and the Russian strain and many others.) They will need the best traits of the mix to make it in this rough world!

Maples are Blooming!

Bee On Crocus Bloom in February — Enjoying a little Early Season Forage

The Winter in Richmond, Virginia started out with a sledge hammer but appears to be going out like a tack hammer. It was really rough in December and most of January, but February has been uncharacteristically warm. Today, it appears to be heading into the upper 60’s and I really do not see much real cold in the foreseeable future (plus, we’ve already had nearly two weeks of weather like this!) We will no doubt see more cold weather, but March is just around the corner, which is the start of my favorite time with the bees!

As proof, I was finally rewarded with a few blooms over the past week! The crocuses started blooming around the 10th and I have had a few bees on them. But today, my early Maples started! Whoohoo! The bees have started to work the blooms a bit and I am hoping for a good brood build up. I expect to have a look at some of the hives in the apiary with the sugar syrup tomorrow. They have basically gone through 20 lbs of sugar (or what amounts to about 8 gallons of syrup) over the past two weeks and I am wondering what they are doing with it.

Now is really a good time to get some painting done. I have actually stayed ahead of this chore fairly well since last Fall, with a lot of painted deeps, mediums, shallows and nuc’s to show for it. But, I still have unpainted wooden-ware and now is as good a time as any to get that done, just in case. I am a firm believer in having twice as much as you think you will need and a little extra for any swarms or cut-outs that come along. One of the things that I am working on this weekend is equipment for two trapouts that I will be starting in March. I plan to use these bees to start several Nuc’s, if all goes well, so I want this stuff ready well in advance.

A trapout is mainly used to get the majority of the bees in a feral hive and eventually force the queen to leave the spot, due to no foragers returning. The beekeeper effectively takes most of the bees back to his yards and can then use them to start Nucs with queens from his best lines. The problem with trying this in early March is mainly that the bees will have only just started to grow their populations. So, you really only stand to get a fraction of the bees you might get if you started it in June (when the hive should be at max population.) But, that is all theory. There may be very good reasons to do it in March that I simply do not know since I have never tried it. Come April, I will have the results and it will be another lesson for the bee books!

Let’s Experiment

Last Spring, there was a lot of consternation about slow build up. Of course, this was only on my part, as the bees went about their business with no worries whatsoever. Basically, both of my hives were building up at about the same pace, but I had spoken to (or emailed) other beekeepers in the area that were seeing more mass (more bees in their hives.)

During one such conversation, back in the Spring of 2010, a beekeeper from Buckingham mentioned that some folks in his neck of the woods would put light syrup on their hives in February to give the hives a jump start. The general theory is that you put a weak sugar-water solution (1 part Sugar to 2 or 3 parts water) on the hives. This makes the bees think that the nectar flow has started and they begin to ‘build up’ (a term that basically means the Queen starts to lay a bunch of eggs). By the time the real nectar flow starts, they will have a TON of bees and really be able to sock away the honey.

Since last Spring, I ran into a wizened beekeeper from yesteryear who put out buckets of syrup water in his apiary to get an early build up. As always, I am fascinated by simple approaches and decided to give it a whirl in one of my outwards.

Bees Eating Syrup from a Dog Waterer — Dog-waterer Turned Bee Feeding Station

I mixed up a batch of weak sugar syrup (10 lbs Sugar, 3 Gallons Water) and poured it into one of my old dog waterers. On Sunday, around 11 am, I placed it in a central area between the hives (it was as much as 40 yards from two of the hives and 30 yards from the other three). By late afternoon (right before I went to watch the Steeler’s get a whooping- booyah!), the bees had found it and were on it pretty thick. During lunch today, I checked in on them around noon and they were really putting the stuff down.

It will be interesting to see how this works. I am pretty sure that I never even considered feeding from outside of the hive (now or in the Summer) as I did not want to feed the feral bees. Now, I am having second thoughts. This was very easy and it did not cause any robbing (like it does, on occasion in late Summer, when the syrup is placed within one hive.) I may not ever feed in the Winter again (we’ll see how it goes with this experiment), but I will most definitely feed outside again (until such time as I figure out a good reason not to.)

Close Shot of Bees Feeding in February — Bee Jamboree at the Feeding Hole

I actually checked one of the hives and it appeared that they were storing it around the brood nest. I am torn about this behavior. I have a gut feeling (no evidence) that honey from real nectar is much better then my sugar syrup (even if I do have Better Bee in it.) This is the roughest time of the year for a bee, so why give her second rate food (assuming there is a difference between nectar and syrup)? But, on the other hand, it gives me a bit of comfort to know that they are socking away some stores exactly where they’ll need it if (quite honestly, I should say when) it gets cold again (at the edges of the cluster.) But, on the other other hand (is that three hands?), are they filling up cells that the queen might want to lay in? Ha! Who knows. The bees know and that’s all that matters.

Finally, I also put pollen patties on each of the hives in this yard (if brood rearing is going to ramp up, they are going to need some pollen! – well, they may need it if they were lazy last Fall and didn’t put enough away!) This brings me to my last observation for today – protein from the bird feeder! I had heard of it, but had never seen it. Folks have said that bees will sometimes scour bird seed, looking for a few bits of protein in the stray pollen. This past Friday, I found one of my bees (well, a bee in my yard anyway) doing just that! She was running in and out of the feeder, filling her legs up with some dust substance (which was pollen, no doubt – probably not the best, but still worth collecting in her mind.)

Bee In Bird Feeder Closeup — Yum! Bird Feed Pollen!