Beekeeping in Richmond, Virginia

Bees Get a Bathroom Break!

After a little over 3 weeks (I think), the bees finally were given a pass to take a Bathroom break today. The temperatures made it into the lower 50’s, although I saw them milling around the landing board and doing cleansing flights in the mid-40’s this morning. Basically, the little wenches have been in a tight ball, staying warm, for 3 solid weeks. Since they do not use the bathroom in the hive, they had to hold it the whole time! As my wife might say, that sounds awful!

At any rate, both hives had some activity, although Hive 1 was clearly stronger this time. To begin with, it’s outstanding to see that both hives have live bees. I could be off, but I believe that my risks are decreasing substantially now. The bees are starting to ramp up for the coming nectar flow and I just need to help them get through this last leg now.

On Sunday, the temperatures could hit the mid-50’s, so I plan to break the hives open and find the clusters. To date, neither of them have appeared to make much a move into the upper deep. I wonder if the Sunday check will show something different!

To finish this journal entry out, I actually painted 4 Deeps and 1 screened bottom board today. With the weather, I am hoping to work on a few more tomorrow and get everything back into the garage before Monday’s rain. My experience with paint, rain and these temperatures has been pretty bad (I have had painted, outdoor fences long before I had bees!), so the plan is critical. The good thing is that I learned a lesson from last year. In 2009, I didn’t get around to painting the things until April. In May, when I started to use them, the paint was not really dry enough and the bottom boards and the deeps stuck to one another. This year, I expect the results to be much different!

Richmond Area Bee Meetings

The East Richmond Beekeeper’s Association has canceled their February meeting due to the rough Winter weather we are having (and the prospects for more in the near future.) They have moved this Feb talk to March. It will focus on a talk by Kenny Andrews on dealing with your wooden-ware. This should be good, as Kenny is one of the more knowledgeable Beekeepers around (in my opinion, anyway.)

The Richmond Beekeeper’s Association has not canceled their meeting (yet) for this month. A following is a copy of the news alert that I received on this meeting:

The next meeting will be held Thursday, February 11th in the Lewis Botanical Gardens educational building in Richmond, and is scheduled to go from 7 to 9pm. The topic for the February meeting is “Illinois super? I thought it was a medium!” The nomenclature of beekeeping. We will discuss the various types of beekeeping equipment and the names we use for them. It’s also show and tell. Do you have some special equipment you like using? Do you prefer a specific type of feeder? Bring it with you to the meeting.

Hive Body Reversal, Feb Feeding and Snow, Snow, Snow

The weather continues on its current course of ‘lots of moisture’ and ‘cold temps.’ In truth, the moisture is the only oddity, from my standpoint. The temps have not been too bad. We had 10.5 inches of snow at the Wilton House this past Saturday. A lot of it is still out there, since the nights have remained below freezing. As with the December snow, several bees from both hives either crawled out to die on the landing board or were able to muster enough energy to fly a few feet before dying (unless that was the work of the ‘Undertaker Bees’!) I am not nearly as worried about this as I was in December. It seems that both hives were pretty strong a couple of weeks ago, despite all of the cold weather.

But, there is always the threat of starvation. It would appear, based on conversations and reading, that February and March are the real times when starvation is a threat. In February, a strong hive begins to build up for the early March blooms of the Maples (and, I am guessing, the hollies.) With all of this new brood to care for, a long stretch of cold can keep the bees from moving to their food source. Even if they can move, they might have eaten it all up.

So, February is the time to go in and check on them (when the temps rise above 50). Make sure that a full frame of honey exists on each side of the cluster. If not, they must have some supplemental food (sugar water and some pollen.) The ramp up of brood needs to be in full swing by early March, when the Maples should be blooming.

This is also a good time to consider a Hive Body Reverse, where you swap the top Deep with the lower Deep. Basically, the bees should have moved fully into the top Deep, eating into their reserves. Swapping the Top Deep with the Lower Deep will put the bees back at the bottom of the stack and create the illusion of empty stores above. This is another option to the Checkerboarding strategy that I discuss elsewhere on the site.

Encouraging Activity During a Warm Spell

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

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

Weak Becomes Strong…or robbing?

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

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

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

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

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

First January Hive Check

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Winter is a time for Education

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

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

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

The topic this month is

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly: My First Year of Beekeeping. People entering their second

year of beekeeping will discuss the highs and lows they experienced for those of us starting to

keep bees for the first time.

New Year Comes in a Chill

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

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

The Storm Passes…the Sun Arrives

Dead Honey Bees on the Landing Board — Casualties from a Cold, Winter's Night

Late last night, perhaps around 11:30 PM, I took the dogs out to do their nightly nature calls and noticed that snow was still coming down, ever so lightly. The temperatures had dropped into the 20’s and were scheduled to get lower here in central Virginia. My thoughts to the bees were only of passing curiosity and a lot of amazement. How they can keep the cluster warm in times like these is nothing short of amazing.

This morning, the good ole Sun finally poked through and we quickly went to a full sun day. The temperatures have risen to about 35 degrees and are expected to go a bit higher. Regardless, they will not get high enough for a bee to come out. Still, this morning I went to look at the hives and found several dead honey bees out on the landing boards on both hives.

A dead bee in the snow — A dead bee, about a yard from the hive

I have to assume that this death is natural. I wonder if they actually dragged themselves out to die or not. It is said that part of a honey bee’s defense system against disease is its altruistic behavior of flying off to die away from the hive when it feels poorly. Perhaps these bees were sick. Or, maybe they were simply some of the older bees that could not take the weather of the past couple of days. Still, if they did not drag themselves out, I am wondering about those brave girls that took them out in this cold weather. I am guessing that they must have dragged themselves out. There were a couple, beneath each hive, in the snow around the hives. One was a few feet away, so flight took her to her destination. Who knows if it was her own flight (most likely) or that of a sister carrying her to her final resting place.

Hopefully, all is well. It will be at least a week before I can check them again, which is probably for the best. I would like to put some more feed on the weaker hive. We’ll see if that ever comes to pass.

Winter Bee Equipment Order Placed!

Snow on my Bee Hive — Eight inches of snow in December

I am doing a lot of reading these days, some of it in books and periodicals, but the majority of it online, reading a couple of the really great forums out there. While on Beemaster.com, I found a post stating that Dadant was shipping bee equipment for free in December! Since I am a Dadant man, I gave them a call today to confirm.

The kind lady confirmed this great news and I have ordered a set of deeps, shallows, some swarm lure (for fun) and a few honey-harvesting related supplies (who knows! I might have honey this year!)

At any rate, this was a great find and something I will remember to check next year. I had planned to make a special trip while down at South Boston with the Inlaws over Christmas, so this was a great time saver.

One note about the foundation – they do not like to ship that this time of year. The temperatures and treatment (in the mail) can damage the foundation pretty badly. They only ship ‘at the buyer’s risk’ and advised me against it. I was cool with that, as I can always make another trip later to get that (or maybe have one of the beekeepers in the East Richmond Beekeeper’s Association pick it up during one of their trips.)

At any rate, this was a great Christmas present.