Bee Chronicles March 2016

21 Feb. Weird Weather: 55 degrees and severe thunderstorms, today, tomorrow and the next day. Then maybe snow. Let’s slap the bees around a little more. We are about normal on temp, but a week ago we were 5 degrees too cool. Still better than last year (2015) when we were between 10 and zero.

The bees have awoken. Any day we are above 45 degrees the bees are flying. This helps us know they are alive. The proverbial “BUT” has to step in as a qualifier. But, the more they fly the more they eat when they get back home.

All of my hives have significant brood, eggs, larvae, capped, and emerging. You would think that is good news, But, maybe not. How are your food stores? Flying around will consume store food. But, worse than that, the brood area now has to be kept at 95 degrees. That really starts to consume food. And, oh, by the way, the new hatching bees need to be fed. As the population increases the hive can run out of food in days.

You will need to put syrup on you hives and/or monitor the food very closely. Better to feed syrup and have unripened honey in the hive than get caught trying to do emergency feeding.

I have croqui, jonquils, and lentin roses blooming. I do not see any wild flowers out and about. The red maple flower buds are swelling and just starting to show color. It will be a couple more weeks before the red maple blooms. I see color on quince buds. The quince started flowering back in the freezing weather. I don’t know how damaged those blossoms will be.

In order to keep the queens laying she will need pollen substitute. You need to make a decision. Do you want her to keep laying? I say yes. I want my hives to build as rapidly as I can get them so they will be really heavily populated when honey collection starts. I also might want to make a split or two to expand or replace hives. Or maybe sell a few bees to my buddies.

The draw back to early expansion is you will have to monitor for swarming and overcrowding earlier. To me this is a good activity.

If you can, this is a good time to do spring varroa mite control. Don’t let the queen get too much brood before treating. Remember the mites will be in the capped brood and you can not get as affective of a kill ration with brood. Clean the hive out now.

The latest comment on bee problems is that agricultural fungicides are affecting out bees. This is affecting the bee’s ability to digest its food. Bad digestion will lead to lower resistance to every passing pathogen. There are a lot of fungicides out there that us back yard beekeepers have not been paying attention to. The most common is “captan”. Aply in the early dewey morning so it sticks to the plant. Spray fungicides can get on the pollen in flowers. What a new mess.

Just last year I started seeing probiotics on sale for bees. That is gut digestive bacteria and fungi. I was thinking what a new hoax. Now I am thinking I had better add it to my syrup. Like “Honey Bee Healthy” and vitamins and minerals, does it really help? I don’t know but it can’t hurt the bee. I only know I have to do the best for the bee to get the honey.