As we have all waited patiently, the sourwood nectar flow has begun. It all seems so simple. Just wait, the flowers bloom and the bees collect the nectar. The bees have been working hard for 2 months now. They are wearing out. Hives seem to be brim full of workers. Life is good. Or, is it?
The working life of a strong bee is about 6 weeks. A lot of the bees are dieing at 4 weeks. Weak bees are not only dieing early but they don’t work hard and fast for their short life. The start of this second nectar flow is a very critical time to manage your colony populations. Genetically weak bees and those showing signs of mite problems will now show up as lots of dead bees in front of the hive. There may be nothing you can do right now, but be observant. As the number of dead bees build up are you getting adequate replacement as new bees? Is the queen getting old, lazy, or running out of sperm (drone brood)? The bees will work the best they can for the duration of sourwood flow, but you need to be ready to take action immediately after the flow to correct any colony deficiencies. Do you need to order a new queen? What about mite surveys and treating? Will cross leveling of bees do the trick? You would not want to swap a weak and strong hive locations as a leveling technique, and then spread disease to a strong hive.
As the bees keep doing their work, the beekeeper needs to stay ready to help them maximize their performance. A real strong hive can draw super of comb, fill it with honey and cap it in 7 to 10 days. This is all under the most optimum conditions, good bees, good nectar flow, and good weather. Be ready to pull supers and extract the honey or just add more supers.
Should you top super or bottom super. What about just pull finished frames and add more internally? I have found you cannot trick the bees. If their mind is set to fill out a super, they will work on it no matter where you put it in the stack. At first you think they will start filling the new super that has been placed next to the brood chamber on the bottom of the stack. I think they walk right through it to finish off the upper super then start on the bottom one. What is the advantage to bottom supering. You can remove the full super from the top of the stack without interrupting the work on the new bottom super. This allows you to postpone extracting the honey from the older super until it is convenient. When you open the hive you will notice little wax bridges going up and down between supers and brood chambers. These bridges make it easier for the bees to walk up the inside loaded with nectar and pollen. Every time you open the hive you break the bridges. The bees repair them, taking workers away from honey storage. Please don’t be a neat nik and scrape the bridges off the frames every time you work the hive.
You might notice a hive with plenty of bees, that are not filling the honey super. Perhaps it is a fairly new colony in a hive body that is not full of honey, pollen, and brood. The bees will work first to get the brood chamber full of winter food. Then they will move up to the excess area of the honey super. All other things being equal this is a hive that can benefit from being relocated to a position where a strong hive is. By giving that queen more workers she can fill the brood chamber faster and get on to putting up more surplus honey. The strong hive that already has a full brood chamber and lots of bees maturing will not notice too much.
Keep ‘em working and keep on robbing
Glen