Bee Chronicles October 2013

After a drier than normal September, what should we be doing in the hive this month? After a month of just monitoring the hive, it is time to get excited.

FEED, FEED, FEED!!!

Why? Because, my area has been short in nectar. Can you believe after all the rain we had this year and the periodic showers in September that the flowers are dry of nectar.

Me neither. A combination of several situations in the hive make it difficult for the bees to collect and store excess honey for winter food.

Most of my hives still have several frames of brood. Anywhere from 2 (both sides full) to 8 (both sides full). That is a large food requirement for the brood. With the low nectar flow it has taken all the bees can do to feed the brood. The bees are doing a good job of bringing in pollen. Of course, it is goldenrod season.

With the objective being “fat and health” bees, you have got to get lots of winter food stores put up. If you normally don’t feed syrup to your bees you need to closely evaluate your situation and make sure you still don’t have to. You need to use the large bee population left over from summer to forage in large quantities for those winter stores. Once the weather starts dropping in temperature, the bees are not so efficient in converting nectar or syrup) into honey. Use the warmer weather before the end of October. It takes about 90 lbs. of stored honey to get a good hive through the winter.

Any day that is warm enough for the bees to fly they will come home and eat honey. If they don’t find nectar they will deplete their winter stored food. The draw back to living in the south is the bees find lots of winter days they can fly.

Balance the bee populations between your strong hives and weak hives. Some of my strong hives are nearly full of honey. My weaker ones need help. I can put all the food I want out in the field and there won’t be enough bees in the weak box to bring in anymore nectar than they already are. My technique is to switch the strong and weak hives. During the day when the bees are out foraging, move the two hives between locations. The foragers will come back to the spot where their hive used to be. Since there are more foragers in the strong hive, they will go into the weak hive increasing that hives population. The weak hive’s foragers will go into the strong hive so there is not too much of a population drop there. Bees bringing home nectar and pollen are normally allowed into a strange hive. “Normally”, there will not be protective fighting. You know, “Normally”!

Should you be medicating your hives? Yes. That is; be sure you are following your IPM regiment. Integrated Pest Management program (IPM) dictates that you check the level of pathogens in your hives and then take appropriate action to keep the pathogens below the economic threshold. A pathogen is something that will hurt the bees, fungus, bacteria, mites, beatles, nosema, etc. Figure out what is the best treatment for your level of “infection” and treat. If that means doing nothing, you did right by thinking about the situation. Previously, I have been a fairly organic (less is better) sort of bee keeper. After 5 years of pretty heavy winter losses, I am elevating my attack methods. Price wise, oxolyc acid seems to be a decent mite control. There are techniques you must follow to not kill the bees, but it seems simple enough. Thymol (Apiguard, Apivar) in its may configurations seems to be a good product, without being too hard on the bees.

Varroa mite control is essential to survival. After the bee emerges from the cell, every bite wound created by varroa in the pupal stage will remain as an open wound for the rest of that bee’s life. These wounds are also entrances for other pathogens to enter the bee’s body. These secondary attacks seem to be the main killer of honey bees today. A strong fat healthy honey bee is necessary to make until next March.

The last bees born this fall will be the bees that start your build up next spring. Make them healthy. If you wait until all the brood has stopped hatching, before you do your mite control, all your late born bees will have mite damage. I recommend doing a treatment that covers at least 2 birthing cycles to really reduce the mites in the third cycle. First treatment knocks the mites off the adult bees but does not kill the mites in the pupal cells. Second treatment puts a large dent in the mites that emerged with the hatching. The third hatching will not have too many mites so many of the bees will be born mite free. If you want to get vengeful and kill more mites wait until the queen has stopped raising all brood. Now all the mites are out in the open and you can knock the population nearly to 0.

Put entrance reducers in hives now. At 60 degrees daytime the mice will be attracted to the warmer hives at night. Go to the pound and hire lots of cats.

Bears are at their peak food foraging before hibernation. Look at all your beautiful full hives with bees sitting around out front. Can you smell that brood chamber. Yogi, S. t. Bear, and Buba can! Go electric fence, noise, lights, or go to the pound and hire lots of dogs. Little yappy ones are the best. Not only will they irritate the neighbors, they will irritate the bears. Also, the pound will take them back next spring.

Good Luck and Happy Bee Keeping