Bee Chronicles Oct. 2014

What a struggle in the apiary! European wasps attacking my hives. Killing my weak hives (new nucs). Eating my field feeding bees for snacks.

Kill the wasps with a tennis racket, bad mitten racket, or racket ball racket. Time consuming but accurate. Try to follow the wasps home. Throw flower at one to make it white and watch which way it goes. Usually the hive is about ¼ mile away. Then gas then with hornet spray. In the evening after the honeybees stop flying turn on a bug zapper. The space between the protective cover needs to be large enough for the wasp to enter. Wasps and hornets usually fly at darker and cooler conditions than honey bees. Take a little piece of hamburger, marble size, and mix in some Combat roach paste. Place the hamburger near the apiary but not necessarily in it. Wasps and Hornets are carnivorous, they will eat some and die. So will yellow jackets. They might even take some home. Steve Towe had a 2 liter jug trap he made with small holes and sugar water/vinegar/banana peal bait. I have been catching yellow jackets but my wasps are too smart.

Look out for ROBBING. Some areas are reporting less nectar flow than desirable since mid July. This is leaving hives very low on stored honey. Even with all the fall blooms there may be a shortage of nectar for honey. There is plenty of pollen in the goldenrod. This could result in pollen bound hives with too much pollen in and around the brood chamber and not enough honey. This will cause the queen to stop laying eggs because there is no place to put the eggs. Bees will move honey but not pollen. This condition can carry over clear until next spring causing the hive to die out due to no eggs. It can also lead to winter starvation as there is no honey food in front of the clustered bees.

As the food stores in the hive reach critical the strong hives will start robbing the weak hives. These robbers may very well be from you neighbor who is not feeding his hives. To prevent robbing, make sure you hives have lots of honey stored outside of the brood area. Your queens still need to be laying eggs. If the bees are backfilling the brood area with honey you are feeding too fast. Give the bees a break every time the feeder gets empty. If they empty the feeder in one day, wait one or two days before refilling the feeder. This break will also interrupt the hive beetles that are trying to lay their eggs in the syrup feeder. You can also reduce all you hive openings now to give the guard bees a better chance to keep robbers out. All the foragers will figure out how to get in.

If you loose a queen this late in the fall, I recommend just combining the bees on a lesser hive to create a strong hive for winter.

Bees don’t make honey at less than 50 degrees. You might notice your feeders staying full longer. I leave my feeders on until Thanksgiving weekend. Then I put them back on in February when there are 3-4 days a week above 50 degrees.

Pollen patties are a good way to help stimulate you queens to keep laying eggs. Even though there is plenty of pollen coming in, I think the patties do something in addition that stimulates the queen. I like to see brood in most of my hive around Thanksgiving. The youngest bees will be the ones that make it through the winter.

You must fight the mites. Natural sounds good, but death is natural. The bees can withstand a lot of stuff if they are fat and healthy. The biggest detriment to health is the varroa mite. Some “light” chemical treatment will be necessary. Api guard, Apilife Var, oxolic acid fumigation, there are probably others. But do something.

Start planning and/or repairing your honey supers and empty hive bodies. Clean out propolis now while it is still fresh and sellable. Paint as needed while it is still warm enough to paint. Make and paint new boxes while it is still warm. When you need them next spring it will be too cold for glue and paint. DON’T put wax foundation in your frames until next spring (after it is warm enough to handle the foundation with out breaking it). The mice will make nests in your boxes with foundation and you will get to put new foundation in next spring, so just wait.

The question is still out on whether it is necessary to use fumigilian B for nosema apis and nosema ceranea. I use it (follow the directions). It takes one gallon of medicated syrup per hive (per the directions). I put it in all my feeding syrup all fall. There is some thought that for nosema ceranea you need top treat “longer”. That means have it in more honey to be moved and consumed later in the season. Who knows what is right?

Remember: FAT AND HEALTHY BEES