Beekeeping in Richmond, Virginia

Are Your Bees Doing Ok?

As mentioned previously, my periodic hive checks in 2011 have (so far) indicated a nice honey store left on all hives (except the Westover Hive, which I cannot currently check – they moved up to the attic in early January…) But, I will continue to check on them, every time it gets into the low 40’s. The bees have had a cold Winter, following a fairly dry Autumn in the Richmond, Virginia area. They are at risk.

As an example, David Stover, an active Top Bar Hive beekeeper in ERBA, sent me the following email today. He agreed to let me post it here, for the folks that check in. I think it is a great Alert for us all – get out there and have a peak. Make sure your bees have some honey (and if they don’t, David also offers a quick recipe to get some food into the hive.)

I received a call from a beekeeper that had just discovered his hive had died out on Monday. I went over to help him take a look. Almost zero honey. The bees starved and froze. Lots of pollen, not that it did them much good. So this morning I made up a batch of Fondant. Checked my hive at home which had stored up what I thought was way more than enough to see them through the winter and it was almost empty of honey. A few frames with a little capped honey here and there but certainly not enough to make it through. I smeared fondant into the combs of three frames both sides, and the bees were on it pretty quickly. I did see a few frames partially filled with wet nectar so the bees have been collecting nectar somewhere when it has been warm enough.

I checked four other hives and all but one were in the same condition. The one hive that was fairly small had a good amount of capped honey. Just as a precaution I added some fondant to that hive anyway. The smaller hives I went through completely and did not see any signs of brood and not much pollen. All hives now have some fondant to help out.

So if you haven’t checked your hives you might want to take a look this weekend. Sunday is supposed to be in the 50’s and sunny.

Fondant Recipe:

1 part water
4 parts sugar
1/4 teaspoon white vinegar
I also added 1/4 teaspoon Honey-B-Healthy (just because I had some)

Put into big sauce pan. Bring to a boil while stirring the whole time to prevent the sugar from burning. Leave it to a gently boil for 5 more minutes or until it reaches 234 F. test with a candy thermometer if you have one. Take it off the heat and let it sit until it cools to 200 F. With an electric hand held soup mixer or whatever mixer you have beat the mixture until it turns sort of white and has lots of air bubbles in it (took about 5 minutes). Pour into a shall container and let it sit undisturbed until cool.

In Langs you can put it on top of the frames over the brood/cluster in a shall dish or on wax paper. (put some sticks in it so the bees don’t get stuck)

In a TBH I either smear it into empty comb or put it in a shallow narrow plastic dish, cut to fit, and slide it on the floor of the hive as far in as I can get it.

Thank the Lord for Good Weather

Last Summer, I set up one of my experimental apiaries down at Westover Plantation. I now actually have 7 daggone apiaries, if you include my home yard. Nobody needs this many apiaries, unless you’re trying to make money I suppose. In an ideal world, I would have all of my hives in one location, so that I could inspect/compare all of them with one trip. But, there are (at least) a couple of reasons to expand out beyond that initial apiary.

To begin with, if you want to try raising Nuc’s (especially those started after June 1), it is very hard to do so in a yard with established hives. The minute it gets dry (which seems to be in June these days, in my neck of the woods), the strong hives pretty much ravage the small Nuc’s. It’s really depressing to see, so I now allocate my home yard as my Nuc yard.

The second reason to try other locations is forage. During my first year, when both of my hives were in my backyard here in Varina, Virginia, my cousin started a couple of hives down in Charles City, Virginia, on land adjacent to my family’s farm. His hives really put away more honey then my two did. At first, I worried that I had a bunch of lazy bees, but I decided it was more likely that his bees simply had better forage. Even though my cousin’s land was only about 30 miles away, it was receiving substantially more rain then Varina. This was likely to be the problem.

So, I decided to prop up several apiaries, with one, two or three hives, in both Henrico and Charles City, to test it out. My goal is to watch how these apiaries perform and eventually reduce my outyards down to 3 at the most. But, that’s what I’m saying now and I seem to change my mind more often then my wife when it comes to bees!

At any rate, all of this leads up to the main activity of this weekend. My bees down at Westover Plantation were backed up against a small patch of trees that held an old elm tree last year. After I put my bees there, the elm tree fell over (my bees collect honey AND clear land, apparently.) Without this elm tree, the little patch of trees has little value and the farmers wanted to clear it to expand their nearby field. To get it ready for planting, they would probably need to get this done by early March. That meant I needed to move my bees in the Winter!

I have moved bees before several times, but never in Winter. The one problem with monkeying with your bees in the Winter is that you can accidentally kill or damage the Queen. Since it is the Winter, your bees stand next to no chance of getting a new queen going (they might not even have eggs the right age.) But, I had to move these bees and could not wait until Spring. I decided to wait for a warm day and the good Lord gave me one (two) this weekend. I moved them both and even dropped a pollen patty on them to give them a little jump start (they both have a ton of honey, as my back will verify, but I really have no idea how much pollen has been stored.) As a bonus, the owners of Westover Plantation gave me a lot of their bee gear (they had tinkered with bees years ago), which amounted to 3 or 4 full hives with honey supers and frames! All in all, this trip was a big success.

Unfortunately, bad news awaited me back home in one of the double nucs. No activity was emerging from one side, so I cracked her open and found one side to be dead. I immediately did a postmortem and discovered that they had died of starvation. I could even see little crystals of sugar in some of the comb. Apparently, they tried to use the sugar that I put down for them, but probably needed moisture to break it down. The bottom line is that they did not store enough honey in their frames to make it. There are steps that I could have taken (probably, not for certain though) that would have helped them to survive, but that’s the point. I took on this challenge to learn and this experience will be used to form my final conclusions come late March or so. One thing about this Nuc is that it was the only one to hold a non-local queen (it was one of the pair that I purchased last Summer – one for the Apache hive and this one.) This may or may not have had a part in it (maybe the queen rearer medicates and feeds his bees year round, so they simply could not handle it in my yards), but I am actually not that upset about losing this queen. It does not have the value (to me) of my local queens.

For now, my primary plan is to look forward to February. According to the forecast, we have a few days ahead of us that might once again reach nice temperatures in the day. I might use these to get a little more active with my remaining Nuc’s. I will probably also begin a little light feeding (1:1 or .5:1 Sugar:Water mixes) at one or two apiaries, just to see what happens. Well, more on that later.

New Richmond Beekeeper’s Group

I have been given the honor of being the 2011 President of the East Richmond Beekeeper’s Association. My first meeting will be in February, so I have been doing a lot of thinking about what I wanted to do as ‘President’. We are a young group that has grown nicely over two years. So, as my Pop would say, ‘if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it!’

But, I want to do more then simply preside over meetings. So, I have decided to focus on ‘adding’ to what is already there, instead of changing anything. One goal will be to add to our methods of communicating to the public. Although I have lots of ideas on how to accomplish this, I have decided to create a Richmond Beekeeping Yahoo Group (Click Here to check it out and join if you like!) today. Email groups are certainly not the wave of the future (I’d say Facebook and other social media fit that bill), but they do still offer a great way for folks with a common goal to ask questions and get information.

Since I have not presented this to our club, no mention of the club exists in the group just yet. If the club gives the ‘thumbs up’, then we’ll link it to that group and let her roll. Either way, I think it has good promise, especially since the big beekeeping months are right around the corner!

The Mid-January Chores

As mentioned back in October, I generally let my bees alone until mid-January, when I wait for a day that reaches the upper 40’s and try to get out and look at as many hives as I can! The main goal at this point is to make sure that the cluster is surrounded by honey. We’ll probably have some long, cold weeks over the next two months and it’s important to make sure your bees have something they can nibble on (at the edge of the cluster) to keep the cluster fed (and therefore warm.) But, although it is hard to believe, you hear local beekeepers, every Spring, talking about Dead-out’s (a dead hive) with all of the bees face down in the comb, balled up in the hive, with lots of honey stores 4 inches away! Effectively, they went through a cold stretch where they ate up all of the nearby honey and it never warmed up enough to move the cluster – so they starved/froze to death! By making sure your bees have honey nearby in January, you are doing something to prevent this from happening.

My first goal was to check the hives at home (in the Wilton Apiary). Everyone looked great here but the continuing oddity was the Larry Hive. These guys come out with a vengeance when it breaches 42 or so. They have been doing this all Winter. At first, it made me think the other hives and double nuc’s were suffering, but it is clear to me that these ladies have a genetic trait that I do not have in my other hives. On the one hand, all of this activity might mean they need more food. On the other hand, it stands to reason that these gals will be out on the pollen and nectar first, during the cool days of early Spring. I’ll probably build a Nuc off of this hive or split it, to push these genes to some of my other apiaries.

Then, on to my two problem hives at the Mountcastle Apiary. During my spot check in early January, I checked the weight of the hives and cracked the inner cover on both of the hives at this new out yard. Per the earlier post, I had concerns about both of these hives.

My first task was to break the Albo Hive open. I expected them to be dead or nearly dead. I could then drop a super from this hive (full of honey) on the Westover Hive to give it some more food (in case it needed it.) To my surprise (and glee), the daggone hive had a nice sized ball of bees in it. I have never broken a hive down to the cluster before, usually taking a super or two off and looking down through the frames. I see now that this is not a good method if a hive appears to be failing. This hive was plenty strong. But, it did have a big problem. The cluster had formed on 4 frames directly against the southern side of the hive (probably for the warmth.) But, the frames to their north and directly above them were very low on capped honey. Time for some re-arranging!

I moved the frames one slot to the north and dropped a fully capped frame of honey on both side of it. I then pushed 4 more fully capped frames to directly above them. This worked well, except that they were very pissed. I had a bunch of bees all over me. Unfortunately, a couple stuck their stingers in my gloves and died, but the rest made their way back into the hive once I finished my business.

I then moved over to the Westover Hive to see if they were still in the upper deep. Of course, they were. The cluster had contracted by a couple of inches (radius), which made sense as the temps were higher when I looked earlier this month. I decided to feed these gals, as I am a big fan of this hive. It is from the tough little swarm that I picked up last April. I did the ‘lazy’ Mountain Camp method, pouring out sugar on a sheet of newspaper and then spritzing it with water (while I shield the bees with another sheet of newspaper, so I would not get them wet) until the sugar was good and damp. I had an old hive that was rotting along the edges, so I had cut it into several 1 inch spacers, to make room for this kind of situation.

All in all, this was a great day. I checked on a couple of other hives, which all looked good. Except for the double Nuc’s, I will next check in on them in February, when I might start a little feeding!

Buyer Beware

I hate to be a curmudgeon (can you be one of those at 44 years of age?), but I have to whine about something that I encountered tonight. It is more evidence to me that you have to be really careful when buying your bees.

I attended the Richmond Beekeeper’s Association tonight to listen to some talks by 1st year beekeepers and a discussion about mentoring the new beekeepers. During the conversation, someone mentioned a deal that they organize for new packages in the Spring. Effectively, someone collects the orders and picks up a huge load of packages to be delivered to members of the club. All well and good.

In the process, someone (not me, although I do agree with this philosophy) mentioned Nuc’s and how they can be more expensive, but you’re getting local bees that have lived in the area. This is really only one of many reasons, but that was the reason mentioned (and it happens to be the primary reason that I purchase Nuc’s when I am in the purchasing mode). They subsequently mentioned a gentleman who might have Nuc’s available for sale this year. I have had a couple of folks who read the blog contact me about Nuc’s, so I wanted to check this guy out. As mentioned last Summer, I was not at all pleased with the Nuc’s that I received from my bee supplier in Varina and no longer recommend the fellow. I was hoping to find another good source that I could recommend.

As we started talking, I asked him about how he manages his bees. He looked at me quizzically (in retrospect, that was a dumb question to ask) and I explained that I wanted to know if he used chemicals and which ones he used. That was the real question that I wanted answered, but I was a bit off my game after my initial vague question, and went on to mumble several other questions so as not to seem like I was some nut who was going to harangue him for using chemicals on his bees. One question (which I assumed that I already knew the answer to) was “and, for example, how do you choose which of your queens you raise Nuc queens off of, how long have these queen lines been in the area, etc…’ Much to my surprise, he immediately stopped me and shook his head. “I don’t use my own queens. I order my queens from Georgia and put them in my own bees.” I have to say that this is one of the last things I expected to hear.

Now, to his defense, he is getting bees ready far in advance of regular Nuc’s. He’ll probably have his ready at the end of March (most local Nuc’s won’t be ready until May). In addition, he should have a queen that has already been accepted by the bees (you can’t guarantee this with a package.) But, after a couple of months, you basically have a bunch of bees from Georgia. The whole genetics of this Nuc turn to ‘non-local’ right off the bat (well, with a couple of months anyway…) My beef with this is that many (if not most) folks recommend Nuc’s because you are getting local bees. And by ‘bees’, they mean the queen too!

Again, I feel like a whiner, but I can say that this is not what I mean when I say ‘Nuc’. It is another example of ‘buyer beware’ when it comes to purchasing Nuc’s.

Winter Hive Inspections to Start 2011

Although 2010 went out cold and snowy in Varina, Virginia, 2011 came in like a Spring day. Jan 1 popped up into the mid-50’s with intermittent Sun and a little wind throughout the day. Effectively, it was a perfect day to peek in on the beehives, so that’s what I did.

All of the hives looked really good with a few exceptions, which I will explore later in my post. I was surprised by the fact that the majority had not even ventured into the upper supers yet. Most still had a fair amount of honey in their primary brood chamber and the honey was right where it needed to be. The clusters were in various places (they were not all on the east, west, north or south sides ), so nothing to be gleaned there. I did not break the clusters apart, but was able to find most of them by either removing the top super (or two, in some cases) or by simply looking down into the hive. The latter mechanism worked great on any of the hives that I put a white political sign under a screened bottom board. I could really see the bees against the white material.

The first exception that I found was at the Haupt apiary (only 1 hive here as of right now). This was a really strong hive with a full deep of honey above them. They were still strong (or so it seemed), but they had a ton of dead bees out front. This is not a huge deal, as I have seen dead bees in snow before, but I do not recall seeing this many. I wish I had snapped a picture of them. The one difference between this hive and the rest of my hives is that it basically has no protection from the North or West. It receives direct wind from across a large field. Could it be that this lack of protection is causing more fatalities? I am not so sure. Early on, I subscribed to the school that temperatures do not matter – lack of food matters. Until I leave that school, I will write this observation off to an anomaly. Another delta with this hive is the lack of direct Sun in the middle of the day. I must say that I have not been a fan of this location for some time now, so these doubts may simply be my subconscious building a case to move the location.

The second and third exceptions occurred at the Mountcastle Apiary. The Albo Hive is clearly suffering. They have a nice amount of honey, but the cluster is pathetic. I am not hopeful that this hive will make it. In truth, this Hive has never been a superior performer, so it is all for the best (I prefer to look at hive losses as ‘improving my gene pool’). The Westover Hive was a real anomaly. They were huge. More bees here then anywhere else (as far as I could tell.) The worst part about this was that the cluster had already moved up into the upper deep. This is definitely not normal (for what I am used to), but it may not be bad. A beekeeper to the west of Richmond had bees in his upper deeps in early December and he was not concerned. So, that’s one positive spin…

Finally, the Overwintering Nucs are doing great. I have some frames of honey for them (to be used in mid to late-Jan) and will continue to monitor them the most (for both educational and to help them make it through the Winter.)

So, where am I with all of this? The unprotected hive with lots of dead bees is educational. No work involved here – just wait and see. The suffering Albo hive is more of a ‘survival of the fittest’ scenario. Nothing to be done here but wait and see (I would have to be insane to feed an underperformer and encourage the propagation of these genes!). The Westover Hive is another story. I said that I would not feed my hives this Winter, but this queen has been too daggone strong for me to let perish due to lack of food. So, this is where my only ‘work’ lies in the coming weeks. They may need some frames of honey or some sugar (Mountain Camp Method), if they eat through their food. The hive felt heavy and I could see full frames of honey on the edges, but I did not break this hive apart (the cluster spanned from the top of the top deep all the way into the bottom deep – it was in the 50’s, so they were spread out a bit).

One final note for any new beekeeper reading this. The main thing, in my opinion, about doing Winter inspections is to never get into the thick (cluster) of the bees. Only mess with the edges. Folks will say that breaking the cluster is bad just because you do not want to mess with the dynamics of the cluster. Quite frankly, that’s not why I stay clear of the cluster. Within the cluster, near the center, is the Queen. I never put her at ANY risk in the Winter (where the heck can I get a replacement queen!?) So, I never go there. Guess I’m chicken=)

Christmas, Snow and Rearing Queens

Snow on the Geronimo Hive — The Last Snow of 2010 - Christmas at the Geronimo Hive

Christmas has come and gone, but a blanket of snow persists in the central Virginia area even today. I did not measure it, but it appeared to be about 4 inches of snow that came down between late Christmas day and the following evening. It was really the perfect snow for Christmas, blanketing everything (including the beehives) but leaving the roads mostly clear since the daytime temperatures had stayed above freezing since then. For the garden plants, snow is one of the best things around. It creates a blanket over the ground, effectively keeping it right at freezing (for the most part) even during the brutal nights when it gets down into the teens. But, does it help the Bees?

I doubt that snow has much effect on bees except that it provides water for the surrounding landscape, which indirectly helps the bees out. One of the things that folks up north worry about is snow that is higher (due to the depth) then the bottom entrance. Some folks (Michael Palmer, up in PA, for one) have switched to all or mostly top entrances to prevent this. Although I am not worried about snow covering the bottom boards of my hives, I am going to try a top entrance hive this year (2011) just for fun. I am interested in seeing how they work when it comes to managing the hives.

Thinking about the top entrance reminds me of one of my main goals of a beekeeper this time of year: identify and target achievable goals for the upcoming year. There are tons of things to do with bees. Many of the things you have to learn on the spot, as you are simply reacting to something going on in one of your hives. But, there are a lot of things that require planning. To do them all would be impossible (for me, anyway). To do them right, I need to identify the learning goals of the coming year and begin preparation in December of the previous year. For 2011, I have three main ‘learning’ goals.

Icicles hanging off the front porch at Wilton — Winter Setting In

My first goal is to dabble in Spring Nuc creation. I am currently thinking that I will attempt to start 4 Nuc’s the traditional way (traditional to me, at any rate), letting them raise their own queens. I will be happy with a 50% success rate, but will certainly take more! I will definitely keep one Nuc to watch it grow and might trade one for some local bees from another beekeeper, to continue to diversify my genetic pool. If more then two do well, I’ll worry about dealing with them later. The long term goal is to possibly start selling Nuc’s, but I will not sell them this first year, as this is a learning year.

The second goal is to start a Top Bar Hive. I have already cut a lot of the wood from an old fence to make it. The key will be getting some bees into it. Hopefully, I’ll get a swarm in April to use. Otherwise, I’ll figure out a way to transfer a hive from my Langstroths.

The third, and final, goal is to raise some queens. I received some queen rearing gear and books for Christmas that I am looking forward to trying. It included a system from Mann Lake which is basically the Nicot System and a queen castle (which is really a deep hive that has been divided into 4 cavities, each for a new queen). I hope to raise four queens, but will be happy (as with the Nuc’s) with raising just two. Again, I will use one myself and hopefully trade one for a queen from another local beekeeper’s stock.

The bottom line is that I have three goals in mind that I will begin working towards now. At this point, I simply want to do as much research as I can (to develop my initial plan for each goal) and to obtain/build/paint any gear that is necessary to make it happen. I want all of this in place by March 1 so that I can be working on my goals as of April 1!

All of this, of course, assumes that I am not wiped out (all of my hives perish this Winter)!

Winter Feeding Adventures

We have had a good stretch of fairly cold weather over the last couple of weeks in central Virginia. Here to the east of Richmond, it’s been dipping into the 20’s nearly every night. Although this used to be normal a few decades back, I do not recall a stretch of cold like this in December in the recent past.

So, how does this effect the bees? The key for the bees is really the daytime temperature. If it rises above 40 during the day, my bees move around a bit (within the hive) and get their nourishment. We did have several days, back-to-back, that did not breach 38, but it was not long enough of a stretch to cause the bees problems, in my opinion.

The key to remember is that bees rarely die from cold. They die from starvation. I read a study last year where a scientist put a few hives in a deep freezer where the temperatures were kept below -20 degrees! He made sure the bees had plenty of stores and monitored them. They did just fine.

How do bees starve? They can either run out of food or the weather stays very cold (daytime temperatures do not rise above 30 degrees) for a long time. I do not know for sure what ‘a long time’ is, but it is probably several weeks. Bees do not move much when it is really cold. So, they eat the honey around them to keep warm but it remains too cold to move over to another batch of honey (or to retrieve honey from another area and bring it back to the cluster.) In either case, no hive should be starving at this point. But, it’s good to keep in mind come Janurary-February. You can move frames of honey to the cluster (either from the same hive or even from another hive.)

At any rate, the main reason I decided to post boils down to a little situation that occurred yesterday. Basically, the temp’s jumped up into the mid-40’s. At around 40, my bees come outside to use the restroom and stretch their legs. In the mid-40’s, I do not have a problem cracking the cover to look in, as long as it is not too windy. By ‘look’, I actually mean just that: look. I am definitely not breaking the hive apart in any way. But, it’s only December and I know that none of my hives are in any trouble now (well, I do not KNOW this, but I do know that any hive having a problem now is beyond my control – plus, I really don’t want that gene pool anyway.) But, I do have a few Nuc’s that I am overwintering. These guys do not have the stores that my regular hives do and this is my first year overwintering them. So, I needed to have a look. I decided to keep this to one double-Nuc (a deep that has been split in half to hold two 4 frame Nuc’s.)

Well, I can tell you that they still have the energy to attack. I guess I was lazy, as I did not suit up. This basically meant that my neighbors got to watch me sprint away from my hive the moment that I opened her up. They came out, armed for bear. In the end, I got a look at both clusters and could still see a good amount of capped honey on the frames. I was actually sort of surprised, for some reason. I guess I have not really bought into this ‘overwinter a few pounds of bees on 4 frames’ idea. Despite my subconscious misgivings, these bees were doing great. Today, when it breached 40 again, I put two cups of sugar on both hives (1 layer newspaper on top of the frames, two cups sugar and then used a cone to direct a few spritz of water onto the sugar to dampen it a bit.) This is called insurance. I currently do not subscribe to doing this with a seasoned hive, but I am not that confident in these Nuc’s, so they are going to get the full guns this year. In future years, once I have more experience with this, I may change my protocol.

At any rate, the amusing story took place with moving this double nuc. As mentioned above, it got cold quicker then I thought it would. So, I ended up with 1 double Nuc down at the Goose Pond Apiary. I like to have my Nuc’s close. Plus, this Nuc didn’t receive the sheltered Southern sun that I give my home Nuc’s behind my huge patch of Burford Hollies. This area was the first to have complete snow melt after all of the snows last year. It really is the best wintering location that I have and I wanted these Nuc’s in it. The other problem was that I never took the mason jars of sugar water off of them (another issue with having a distant Nuc yard.) So, I had to move them and I didn’t want to break the cover and let any bees out before I transported them. I hoped that the jars were empty.

This was a learning experience (never ‘hope’ for empty mason jars), as neither jar was empty. Once I got the double nuc into the back of my Trailblazer, I immediately noticed sugar syrup seeping out of two corners of the hive. This was a potential disaster. I was not sure if any of the bees were even alive. But, if they were, I just introduced a major threat to them. Bees cannot get wet in the Winter as they simply cannot generate the internal body heat to deal with it. They die. In my mind’s eye, I could see both of my clusters covered in syrup at that exact point (although I did occasionally waffle to the notion that all of the bees were probably already dead anyway:).

I am not sure if this made any difference, but I simply jacked the temp in my trailblazer up on the way back to Richmond. Once I got there, I parked in the field beside my house and listened to the hive. I could definitely here the bees buzzing! They were alive! So, I let them sit in the sun, remaining plugged up in my car (the inside of my black Trailblazer always stays comfy in the sun). I took my Greenhouse temp monitor and placed it in the car, monitoring it throughout the day. It did get into the lower 70’s, but no higher. My goal was simple: If some bees did get doused, I wanted them to be at a temperature that they would ‘lick’ it off of one another. By around 2 pm, the weather was still in the lower 40’s and I could see bees at my other Nuc’s making cleansing runs. So, I put them out in the field, popped the cover quickly to get the mason jars, and opened the entrances. Who knows if this helped or hurt, but I am recording it here as another one of my adventures. The bees looked great today, so I do not think it hurt much – it may have helped a ton. I am good with it, either way.

I guess the next hive update will be in January, under the assumption that we have some days that climb into the 40’s and are not too windy (ideally, the sun will be out, but I do not make that a rule for Winter checks, just a nice-to-have.)

Getting Your First Beehive [Pick-up Day!]

Per the previous post, someone recently asked me about what they needed to be prepared for getting bees this Spring. After we talked for awhile, the first thing that I realized was that he had not ordered his bees yet. My previous post went over how you get your hives but, as mentioned by Doug, I got lost in the explanation and forgot one of my primary points of the initial post – no matter how you are getting your bees, order them right now. Nuc’s run out quickly and, from what I have been told, packages also run out from the best suppliers. So, get your orders in now.

Now, as to the point of this post, when I was talking to this gentleman who was expecting to get bees in the Spring, he asked me what kind of ‘Nuc hive body’ to buy. This made me realize that the whole process of actually ‘installing’ your bees might be confusing to some. So, I will review it (at a high level – I recommend further research and talking to your local club members of course!) now.

With my preferred method, purchasing a ‘Nuc’, you are basically getting four or five frames of bees with a queen. The term ‘Nuc’ really refers to the size of the hive body that is used to ‘grow’ the bees. Although some folks might give you a cardboard box that holds the 5 frames, I have never heard of someone actually selling a wooden Nuc hive body with the 5 frames. So, you are really just getting 5 frames (they are going to be Deeps unless you specifically work out something else with the seller), so you are going to need a Deep hive body (w/top and bottom) to put the frames in. Since a Deep holds 10 frames, you are going to need to purchase at least 5 other frames to go in the Deep to fill it out (with your five frames of bees.) Check with your supplier, as they may want you to ‘swap frames’ with them, so you have to give them 5 empty (foundation only) frames for their 5 full frames of bees. If this is the case, your initial Deep Hive Body should also have 10 frames of empty foundation (5 to go with the 5 you will get from the seller and 5 to give to the seller.) This will give you the bare necessities.

If you are getting a package, it is pretty much the same deal. A single deep with 10 frames (and top/bottom) will get you started.

Most folks (including me) would recommend getting your expansion gear now too. As a first year beekeeper, I recommend getting another Deep so that your bees can expand their broodnest to a second level once they get going. I would also get a medium or a couple of shallows in case you have a banner year. You can make the call on what you do with this, should the occasion arise, but I am pretty militant about not taking honey off of any 1st year hive, regardless of what happens.

This should get you started for a great learning experience. I should close with a couple of other thoughts.

1. There are a lot of folks that use the ‘all Medium’ strategy. This really means that you do not use Deeps or Shallows but instead use nothing but Mediums for all of your bees. I do not use this strategy, but have nothing against it. My personal advice is to start with what has always worked (2 Deeps) and make up your mind about the Medium strategy once you have experience with bees (maybe in year 2 or 3.)

2. I pretty much talk about ‘One Hive’ in this and the last post. I am a huge believer in getting two hives, especially if you are getting packages. Once you get going with Bees, they are good little soldiers and make it fine from year to year. But, at the start, there are all sort of variables that can cause problems for you and most of them are beyond your control (Doug mentions a poor queen in a comment to the previous post). Get two hives so that a casualty does not leave you completely bee-less. You’re going to lose hives once you get into it and you’ll come to adjust to it. But, losing all of your hives in year 1 is a good way to give up on the hobby, which would really be a shame. In addition, you have something to compare to. It really helps with the learning experience.

That’s it for my ‘getting your bees’ posts. I have really only scratched the surface here and interjected some of my own opinions in several points. So, this is not designed to be the final resource, but just an ‘FYI’ for anyone thinking about getting into bees. Good luck!

Getting Your First Bee Hive [Overview]

A nice fellow from a recent ERBA meeting contacted me the other day about getting bees and what were the next steps. After an email or two, he secured a couple of Nuc’s and is ready for the bees that will hopefully come his way this Spring. His initial assumptions did get me to thinking that the whole process is not well documented. Some might think it is a decision that they can make in the Spring, which is far from the truth. So, I thought I would lay out a general outline of how it works. There are exceptions and this is fairly high level, but it should prove helpful to some folks.

There are four basic ways to get your hands on some bees. When I say ‘bees’, I literally mean the mass of workers, drones (maybe) and queen that make up the group of bees that you are going to start with. For the vast majority of folks, they get their bees by either buying a Nuc (Option 1) or a Package (Option 2) of bees.

‘Nuc’ is short for ‘Nucleus Hive’ and pretty much refers to a small hive body (When I say ‘hive body’, I am typically referring to the structure that the bees live in) that only holds 5 frames. To create a Nuc of bees, the seller takes a few frames from his existing hives and puts them in their own separate box (the actual Nucleus Hive Body), without a queen. They either raise their own queen or perhaps the beekeeper takes a queen from a swarm cell that he has taken from his existing hives. The point here is that the queen is usually from the seller’s own stock and the bees hatch her out, being by her side from day one. After about a month, the queen should be laying and the existing bees expanding into all 5 frames of the Nuc. I am a big fan of Nuc’s. You have a queen from your area (presumably she has traits that make her well suited for the environment) and a band of workers that have worked with her from the start. They are already a team.

A Package (Option 2) refers to a cardboard box of bees that you purchase from someone who is usually from another state. You receive a few pounds of bees in one package and a queen in another. This group is not a team yet (most of the time, the queen was not raised by the bees that were sent to you, so your bees have not become a team with your queen yet). Part of the initial job for a beekeeper who orders a package is getting them into a wooden hive body and then, over the next few weeks, making sure the bees and queen become a cohesive unit (i.e. your bees don’t kill your queen, thinking she is an enemy.) You also do not know if this group of bees has any genes that have thrived in your environment (typically, they are raised down South somewhere). I have never purchased a Package, but I have friends that have. So far, my bees have done better.

A third way to get some bees is to purchase an entire hive from another beekeeper. Most of the time that you see something like this advertised, it is simply a larger version of a Nuc. The seller has taken a bunch a bunch of old frames, filled them with bees without a queen and let them raise their own queen. The seller can get a higher price (double or triple) then what they would get for a Nuc. Getting a full hive, you have a lot of the same advantages of a Nuc, except you do not have an opportunity to learn from watching a hive grown from 5 frames to 20. There is so much value in these early lessons that I do not believe a new beekeeper should start with a full hive.

The final way to get some bees is through capture. These take the form of catching a Swarm, doing a cut-out or trying a trap-out. You are basically getting feral bees. I love these kinds of bees, but you once again do not get all of the great learning experiences that you get with a Nuc. A swarm can teach you a lot, but you have to really make sure that you have a queen after you catch the swarm. And, if you do not, you will not have any frames of eggs to give the bees to help them get started. So, although I believe you can learn a similar experience with a swarm (as with a Nuc or Package), I do not believe a new beekeeper should use this as their sole way of obtaining bees at the start.

So, that covers the main points about getting the bees. Since I am a Nuc man, I will spend a few minutes explaining ‘how to purchase a Nuc.’ The number one thing you want to do is to get it ordered right NOW! In fact, I would order my bees in the Sept/Oct timeframe, to ensure that I got them. If you wait, the entire order will be spoken for and you’ll be waiting another year.

The number 2 thing to do is to get a couple of deeps and frames to fill them. You will be bringing you deep to the seller and he’ll put those bees into your box (or he’ll give you a cardboard Nuc, but you’ll still be moving the bees into your empty Deep.