Bee Chronicles February 2013

It is the 16 of January. All my queens are laying eggs. I see bees with yellow pollen in the hives. This is early for the mountains. I had some colonies laying eggs after Christmas. I didn’t know if they were early or late. January is definitely early. In the past I would start stimulating my queens with syrup and pollen patties the first of February. Since my queens are anxious I will do my best to keep them going. I am still using 2 to 1 syrup. This is easier for the worker bees to convert to honey. I am using pollen patties about 1 inch wide by ½ inch thick by 4 inches long. I want these patties to be consumed in less than one week. I do not want any hive beetle eggs in the pollen substitute.

I have hives that are brim full of bees. I have hives that I bet will survive. Also, there are 2 hives I bet will not survive. Ten total hives that survived the winter out of my 30 hives last August. I don’t think that is good statistically, but we don’t have a choice. It is better than the 100% losses I have suffered in the past.

My unscientific sample indicates beekeepers around the mountains are doing “as good as I am”. I have more colonies of bees on order than I expect to lose. There will always bee a neighbor that lost more bees than they expected and I can sell any extras locally.

By forcing my colonies as early as I can, I create a situation where I can split my good colonies. My regular mediocre colonies will be more robust earlier than “normal”. Maybe I can save my weak colonies. I always caution that the mountains of Northeast Georgia aren’t like the rest of Georgia. We will still have cold weather and a killer frost in April. We have to keep bees just a little different than the rest of the United States. This is because of the frequent up and down temperature periods that wake the bees up and then cut off their food supply sources.

As the queen lays eggs the nurse bees will raise the temperature of the late season cluster to 90 degrees. This will require increased food for the nurse bees to use for the energy to create the heat. If we have a 14 day warm spell the queen can get a larger brood pattern than the cluster can cover when we have a 3-4 day cold snap. This will kill the larvae and eggs left outside the cluster. The strong bee colony will recover but as beekeepers we need to know this could happen and help as much as we can.

All winter long your favorite pet hive beetles have been wintering over in the center of the cluster. Honey bees being the gracious host that they are have been feeding them. Once the queen starts laying eggs, the hive beetles become ungracious guests and start eating the eggs and larvae. Even a few beetles can put a dent in the rate of expansion of the bee population early in the egg laying season. Kill all those beetles you can. Some type of beetle trap will be necessary. The cool nights will make the bees guarding the hive beetles at the outer edge of the colony retreat to the cluster at night. This will constantly release the beetles to move back into the center of the brood area. The secret to a good hive beetle trap is the attractant in the trap. Experiment a little. If your mineral oil and vinegar trap isn’t working as well as you desire, try placing honey and pollen as the attractant. That is what draws the beetles to the hive in the first place. As the bees chase the beetles around the inside of the hive, they will dive into the trap to get away. You may need more than one type of trap in a hive. The trap needs to be very close to the location of the beetles. Don’t forget, just squishing them works also.

Not yet, but be ready! Next you will start having affects from varroa mites. If you colony was not pretty well clean of varroa last fall when the brood ended, the adult mites on your bees will be looking for new brood to share their nesting cells with. As the queen slowly lays eggs on these up and down cool days there will be more adult mites available to enter the larval cell at one time than there would be in the middle of the summer when there are many more cells to enter. This causes your first hatching bees to be grossly deformed by varroa mite damage to the larvae. These are the new nurse bees you desperately need to start expanding your colony. Use a soft mite treatment to make sure your colony is as free of mites as possible. I like to use powdered sugar dusting and screen bottom boards.

Another observation I had on 16 January is that I have drones in some of my colonies. These are not necessarily my strongest colonies. Now, we all know that “ALL” the drones are ejected from the colonies in the fall. These must have been some really cute sweet talking fellows. Real southern gentleman bees I am sure. This is a first for me and no mistake about it they were old drones. They did not hitch a ride into the neighborhood with some bees hives from south Georgial.