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.