Bee Chronicles Dec 2013

This November/December seems to be normal. If that is not a loaded statement?

November has been pretty cool with a little rain mixed in. Some of the clear days were warm enough for the bees to fly. Some of the cool days without breezes were warm enough to thoroughly work one or two hives each afternoon.

In all of my hives (except one), the queens seem to mostly have stopped brooding. This does not hold true for one of the beekeepers in Rabun County (NE corner of GA). He has many hives with a fairly good brood pattern. I am going to lay my blame on my varroa mite treatment. This year is the first year that I used Apiguard in the single treatment packets. Early September with the temperatures in the mid 80’s I place the packets in the hives. I had good strong hive with large brood areas. My plan was to get two treatments of mite control before the queens stopped laying eggs. My thought was if I could reduce the mite damage on the larvae, I would have stronger bees going into winter. Hence, higher survival rate next spring.

Right off I started getting young larvae die off. They were being chucked out the front of the hive. The instructions indicate that this may be because of too high of a dose rate in the hive. This can be caused by too high of a temperature. The instruction also put too high of a temperature at 104 degrees. I don’t think that was the problem. Older brood seems to have survived and hatched out.

The queens stopped laying eggs. I think this was because the oder in hive mask the queen and brood pheromones. By the end of October all my brood had hatched. I thinned my sugar syrup to 1:1 and put pollen patties over the area the queens were hanging out at trying to trick them into thinking there were flowers and pollen out there. It did not work.

The bees are working hard putting up honey as winter stores. That is right on schedule.

How bad do I think I messed up? Only time will tell. Who survives the winter? Reducing the mites can not be a bad thing. I just wonder if it was enough.

I am the type of bee keeper that just has to do something. I know, you know, that something can frequently not be the best thing. For the past 5 years I have been a very not aggressive/non-chemical user. I have suffered nearly 100% die off each winter. I had to change something. If you change too many management techniques simultaneously, you don’t know which one did the trick.

I am going to assume that queen bees like the non-egg laying period in the winter. Some hives in Florida never stop laying eggs. In Florida the foragers are out gathering something almost all the time. If I can trick my queen into thinking she is at Disneyworld, she might start laying eggs. OKAY How can this backfire???

The queen has had a 2 month break. It is cool to cold outside. The hives are pretty strong. There is a good amount of stored honey and pollen in the hive. I am going to raise the temperature inside the hive. The queen doesn’t get out, she won’t see the frost on the ground. I am going to cover the sides of the hive with black insulation material. The tops I will leave uncovered for ventilation. I will place empty bordman feeders in the front of the hive and quart baggie feeders and pollen patties in the tops. I will close all the hive bottoms and place entrance reducers with the smallest holes in the fronts.

I have noticed my bees clustering on the inside of the hive on the wall and frame ends facing the winter sun. They are trying to get every BTU of ambient heat. The black insulation should create more heat (albeit out side the hive) to soak through the hive walls. By reducing the wind penetration ambient temperature should hold a little higher. The empty jars on the bordman feeders will heat up from the sun and the expanding warm air will enter the hive.

If this works the queen will start laying eggs. This will force the nurse bees to keep the cluster temperature at 92 degrees. This will require a lot of food consumption. Is the cluster large enough to cover the eggs the queen is laying? I hope so. If we have nice weather for several days in a row the queen could lay more brood area than the cluster can cover on a cold night. Hence, brood die off. But, Some brood should survive. This is a situation commonly experienced in the early spring. It really slows down population build up. However, since I am stimulating the queen abnormally early I can accept slow build up. Between the winter stored honey, the 1:1 syrup with Honey Bee Healthy, and pollen patties I should be able to meet the feeding requirements for the developing brood.

One more joker up my sleeve! Right now, Thanksgiving week, my bees are bringing in pollen. It is witch hazel. It is blooming about a month early. But, it is fresh pollen. The queen will notice this.