What should the bee keeper be doing now? Wood work and ordering.
Now is the time for the bee keeper to start the 2010 Bee Journal. What is happening in January and what am I doing about or with it? With the current cold spell the bees started flying 13 January. There were some serious purging flights after 10 days of being cooped up in the hive. Should I open the hives and look to see how everyone is doing? Not necessarily.
You do want to determine the amount of food stores in the hive in the hive. Tipping the corner up may be an adequate measure. Is it heavy or light. I like to feed this time of year if the bees are flying. They are burning calories that need to be replaced. I also think the bees get a little anxious if they are out foraging and don’t find anything. This makes a field feeder ideal. You don’t have to field feed all your syrup requirements, but it will give the foragers something to do. Your in hive feeders can still provide the majority of syrup. Field feeders are good for feeding your neighbors bees also. I know my bees get anxious because when I open the hives on a windless day of about 60 degrees or more the bees buzz and sting more readily. A sign they are not the most happy.
I am also concerned that the pollen stores are running low. This is a good time to start pollen substitute. You only want to put an amount into the hive that the bees will consume in about 5 days. You don’t want the hive beetles to start laying eggs in it or the wax moths to move in. As the bees start getting adequately balanced food stuffs the queen will start getting interested in egg laying. I am still using 2:1 syrup to discourage this until I see wild pollen. At the first sight of wild pollen I switch to 1:1 syrup to better stimulate egg laying.
This year I want to divide most of my 8 hives at least once. Therefore I need lots of workers early.
If you have all your wood working done and painted, you might turn your thoughts to apiary maintenance. Are your post still firm and the wire taught. Bears will be a concern in April. They come out of hibernation hungry. I use solar powered electric fence. I don’t have to worry about power that way. Bears are hard to shock. They have too much hair. You want them to have to wiggle, push and pull, to get through the fence. That way when they back up a little the wire is pulled into the hair against the skin. I alternate and hot wire and a ground wire just to make sure the circuit gets closed.