Winter Inspection | Beekeeping in Richmond, Virginia

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.

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!

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=)