Adding Bee Space, Insulation Removal, Entrance Reducer, Pollen & Sugar Water Stores, Moving Bees

 Two ways to give your bees more space include:

1) Add a second brood box below the original box. We want to keep the eggs, larva, and pupa warm so the first box full of brood is taken off the bottom board and set aside. A second box is added on top of the bottom board. The box full of brood is placed on top of the new box.

2) Remove inside insulation and replace it with frames for the bees to build comb on and for the queen to lay eggs.

INSULATION:

Outer brood box insulation is still needed however the inner insulation boards have now been removed.

POLLEN & SUGAR WATER STORES:

We are seeing lots of tree pollen being carried into the hive by our bees at this time. They no longer need pollen patties until a three or more day period of cold/rainy weather. Our bees have stored a couple heavy frames of sugar water. We don't want our honey made of sugar water. Rather, we want our bees to start foraging for natural nectar. As soon as we see lots of dandelions, we know it is time to stop feeding sugar water. We gave all of our colonies their last sugar water this week. 

Folks with top bar hives should feed sugar water to bees until mid-June to ensure they can build out plenty of honeycombs.

REDUCING THE ENTRANCE:

Our entrance reducers are now set at the middle setting. If it drops below freezing, we will reduce entrances to the smallest setting.

MOVING HONEYBEES: 

It's important to realize we can only move bees three feet to keep them from getting lost when trying to locate their hive. If you move hives from one place on your property to another place, they will go back to the original place and never find their way back to their colony. If you must move your colony, a minimum of three miles as a crow flies is the minimum distance you can move them to keep them from returning to a previous hive location to find no shelter/home.

We have moved ten colonies this year. We wait until later at night or very early in the morning to make sure all the bees are in the hive. We screen off both the bottom and top entrance of the hive and ratchet strap the entire box including both lids and the bottom board. The hive is lifted by the bottom board, not the ratchet straps to ensure the hive components don't slide apart, allowing the bees to escape. The hive is placed in the back of a truck and driven at least three miles away.

Recently, we had to move five colonies from Cold Climate Research Center because a neighboring housing manager said last year's bees chased a couple people. Even though I explained the nature of bees with regards to their behavior at the beginning, middle, and end of the season, he still got multiple friends to call and complain about the bees. Honeybees are not very aggressive in the spring and middle summer because they are predominantly focused on finding resources to feed brood and store for the winter. The time they generally get aggressive is in the fall after the honey has been robbed. This young man said it was later in the fall that the bees had become aggressive last year. This makes sense. Regardless, we were asked to move our bees after many years of keeping honeybees at Cold Climate Research Station. 

We are meticulous at completing thorough hive checks every ten to twelve days to prevent disease and/or swarming.

Brood and Honeycomb Build-up & Swarm Prevention

Thank you for your patience with me. I spent the last three weeks in TN visiting my daughter and her family. Grandchildren are an absolute BLESSING!!! 

While there, I experienced a southern spring and had the opportunity to work with another beekeeper.

Our Apiary Update:

All of our colonies have laying queens with great brood patterns. 

Here are examples of how queens should be laying excellent patterns of brood:

    

Examples of a "spotty queen":

Spotty queens can be replaced however, replacing a queen can be a risk because the colony might not accept a new queen once established.

Main tasks at this time:

1) Keep bees nourished with 1:1 sugar water and pollen patties;

2) Keep bees warm;

3) Regular hive checks every 10 -12 days;

4) Remove queen cups and cells after confirming you have evidence of a queen (eggs, larva, and pupa);

Queen Cup Examples:

Queen cell examples:

    

        

5) Remove any burr comb and save it for melting down for wax products (see examples below):

    

    

• Burr comb is always drone comb.

• When a queen lays an egg in drone comb, the egg will become an unfertilized bee - a drone!

• The more drones a hive has, the more the female workers have to labor to keep the colony nourished well.

• Keeping a small population of drones is important, however, in case you lose your queen. The colony will have drones available to mate with a newly hatched queen.

No Eggs or Larva? 

You probably have a queenless colony if you can't find eggs and larva. This needs to be addressed immediately!

Call Dale Lupton 907-978-1455 to order a new queen.

• If your colony is queenless for more than a couple weeks, some of the workers will develop ovaries and fill cells with multiple unfertilized eggs which become drones. 

• A colony in this condition will eventually have a full population of drones and will die out. 

• Also, this alters the comb in a very undesirable way - worker cells become drone cells - All drone comb must be removed to prevent future queens from laying high populations of unfertilized, drone eggs.

Examples of laying workers:

    

                  

        

Laying Worker Drone Comb:                   

What to do about laying workers:

• Have a replacement queen on hand in a queen cage.
• Lay a white flat bed sheet or blanket on the ground at least 50 feet and preferably with a  building between the hive and the sheet;
• Carry each frame over the sheet and shake off all the bees;
• Place the frame into a tote or a cooler with a lid making sure no bees are on the frames;
• Hang the new queen in the middle of the top brood box, leaving the cap on the queen cage so the bees will have time to get used to the new queen pheromones (If you quick release the queen, the colony may kill her);
• Put all the frames back into the hive boxes.

Any workers who have not developed ovaries will reenter the hive and laying workers will not be allowed back into the hive.

You must re-queen the colony since they will not be able to create their own queen at this late date.