Bee Chronicles January 2014

A new year starting. Where are we in the life cycle of the bee hive?

The bees are clustered in North Georgia! This is good if they have enough stored honey. Today they have enough stored honey, I checked. But, will they have enough at the end of February?

Should I feed the bees? When should I start feeding? The answer is yes and now! If it is questionable whether there is enough stored honey, feed. Bees will not process syrup to honey to food if the temperature is much below 50 degrees. You will not have many days between 1 Jan. and 28 Feb. that are above 50 degrees. If you do in hive feeders you get a little break. With the sun beating down on the hive boxes you might get internal temperatures above 50 degrees and the bees will go to work.

If the hives appear heavy now why would I need to feed? The bees keep the cluster temperature at about 72 degrees when there is no brood. As soon as the queen start laying eggs they jump the temperature up to about 92 degrees to protect the developing brood. This will cause a two fold increase in stored food consumption. One the larvae will require food and two the nurse bees will consume more food for heat production. Whamo! (scientific term for shezam) you are out of stored food quickly and it is too cold to convert syrup to honey. The bees will starve to death in just a few days.

In 2013 I had hives in North GA producing brood early January. Remember our wild fluctuations in weather, both temperature and rain. This was without any external stimulation from me.

Okay, all the advice for this month. But you don’t get off easily. I am sending every beekeeper I know my “Apis Esoteria”. A heap of pages (electronic) on how I do my beekeeping. Broken down by subject. This may not be the correct way to do it, but is the way I do it. (Maybe you can see why I fail occasionally) Feel free to send me the way you do it or comment on my writings. If I am going to give out free advice I would like it to cover all aspects and situations and be close to correct (or at least useful). This is a supplement to my “Bee Chronicles” which is when to do what.