Bee Chronicles May 2013

Whew! We are back to a “normal” year. Well, for a couple of months maybe.

What is a normal year? Here in the mountains of Northeast Georgia, we used to think about cutting hay around the middle of May. In the last ten years I have cut as early as the 1^st of April. That means it was warm enough, early enough and long enough for the hay to grow 16 plus inches tall. Right now it is about 10 inches tall. The henbit and red maple bloomed the second week of March. It was cool enough the blossoms lasted 4 weeks. Henbit is still blooming. The sarvisberry tree bloomed the 2d week of April, it is past blooming at 2200’ elevation, but is just starting at 3300’. This is worth noting if you want to extend your sourwood collection time by moving up hill with the blooms. The red bud trees (bees love redbud) started blooming last week (3d week of April), they have stopped around the 4^th week of April. All kinds of violets are blooming. 22 April and a lavender with yellow center aster about the size of a quarter has started blooming. In Clarksville the wild cherry is just starting to bloom (23 April). In Blairsville the cherry buds do not have color yet (2 more weeks). Black berry is 2 weeks yet and Tulip poplar is about 3-4 weeks.

The cool weather is holding the blossoms on the plants and not evaporating the nectar. We are at the maximum saturation of moisture in the ground from spring rains. Our last killer frost date is supposed to be 13 May. 9 and 19 April stick in my mind as frosts that killed tulip poplar buds. 3 May (2009 I think) sticks out as the killer frost date that took all the blossoms and leaves off the trees.

The slow, lingering blossoms bode well for the bees. The night time temperature lows have been in the high 50’s and low 60’s. Except for 2 nights (16-17 it was 31 degrees). The dogwoods got nipped (“Dogwood Winter”) Reports from all the queens indicate they are loving the weather.

Now is the time to just monitor bee population build up. Four weeks before nectar flow you don’t want to be manipulating your hives. Let them get settled and just build population.

Watch for going “queenless”, if you have 2 year old queens she might die, or go sterile. New packages can be tricky. Some times the bees will kill a queen after she starts laying. Supersession is okay, but can you spare the time while she hatches and mates? Will she be well mated? You may need to order a new queen which is difficult if you didn’t plan ahead last fall and order extra queens. Call around to your bee buddies and beg. If that does not work, ask them where they get their queens and start calling all around the country until you find someone who will sell you one.

Watch for signs of early swarming . Do your bees have room to work? Especially packages that are being fed syrup heavily, the bees will back fill the center of the brood area with honey. I think this is because the young queen does not lay eggs as fast as they can hatch. The young queen then thinks the hive is full of brood and food and will swarm with a very small group of bees. A mature hive might get the one hive body full because they are just a super duper hive. If you are too slow getting the honey super on they swarm 3 days before the main nectar flow. In this case add a few foundation frames and let the hive draw wax. This is the best way to slow down a hive without pulling off the bees that you need for nectar collection. Robust hives can draw comb for brood or honey which ever you need.

Look ahead for post nectar flow splits Queens more available. This will give you a good start on next year going into the winter with more hives which will cover you winter die off. Plus the late summer and autumn gives the bees time to put up lots of winter food stores

Depending on where you live, now is the last time to level populations between robust hives and weaker hives. I don’t like to mess with a hive 30 days before nectar flow. However, sometimes a weaker hive queen just needs more nurse bees to fire her up to lay more eggs. You might be able to move one or two frames of bees out of at strong hive to a week hive without messing the strong hive up to much (judgment call here). If you do the hive location switch between a strong and weak hive, you will have two mediocre hives going into nectar flow.

Start getting honey super wood work done. Inspect stacked honey supers for mouse damage and get repaired before black berry bloom in May. The signal that blackberry is coming is the black raspberry. Black raspberry blooms 2 weeks before black berry. Black raspberry has blueish canes. It does not last as long as black berry (about 2 wks). Do you have enough supers for an extra good honey flow? Today that is my prognostication. But who knows what will happen. I like to be ready for the best.

Make sure you are done with mite treatments before nectar flow. Speaking of mite treatments. An old world famous beekeeper just told me that Apiguard (Thymol oil) is reported to have some good affect on decreasing Nosema Ceraena. Save this thought until after nectar flow and then hit you hives to strengthen then for winter. Treat right after nectar flow and then early November.

Start watching for hive beetle build up. Their larvae hatch will start. Also, egg laying in hive honey and syrup feeder will start especially in weak hives. There were lots of reports of extra beetle population last fall. It was the most I have ever seen. You should expect more new beetles in your area this summer. My new trick is going to be to try and trap beetles outside of the hive. Trapping in the hive is okay but they might have already laid eggs before the bees corral them. Just having them in the hive has to stress bees somewhat.

The beetle trap design and attractant: Get a small plastic bucket, (1 gal) at the paint store. They have tight lids. Figure out how to hang it near the apiary. The beetles can smell honey for 3 miles. I will make a thin paste using honey and pollen patty as attractant. Then I will mix Fipernel (Combat) into the paste as the killer. With this concoction located outside of the hive I think it will be okay. I want to attract and kill the beetles before entering the hive. Mellons were used to attract the beetles when entomologists were first trying to find where the beetles were moving to. But the beetles lay eggs in mellons. We don’t want to attract the beetle and have it lay eggs before it dies, so I am trying to simulate the honey as an attractant and they love to lay eggs in the pollen patties in the hive. Who knows, but monitor your traps. We may have to remove our bait if we see beetle larvae in it.

Folks that should get us through till June