Bee Chronicles May 2016

It is now the 24 April 2016. I need to get more precise on my bloom dates.

Today the Black Locust tree started blooming. This is about the time it did in 2015 also. Dew Berry (very much like black raspberry but not as long lived on the vine) is blooming. The Black Raspberries are developing buds but no color is showing. The Blackberries are developing buds and are not as far along as the black raspberry. Wild Cherry is blooming. Next will be the tulip poplar trees and their flower buds are just starting. This should create a good black locust honey flow. If you are in an area with lots of locust trees you will get a very light, tastey honey.

The bees have been expanding their populations very well. There seems to have been adequate nectar and pollen over the past month. I see lots of pollen stored around the brood chambers. The bigger colonies have frames of capped honey in the outer reaches of the brood box.

Some colonies are on the verge of swarming. This is good for collecting honey but makes it more imperative to manage the hive so it does not swarm. Swarming occurs when you have lots of bees, lots of food, and lots of brood. To avoid swarming a hive must have room to “work” and room to “lay eggs”.

You can remove bees and place them in a weaker hive which will reduce crowding. You can remove frames of bees, spray them with scented sugar syrup (syrup with “honey bee healthy”). This will allow the new hive to accept the frame without fighting. Also spray the gaining colony bees to dampen the queen scent. You can also switch a strong hive with a weak hive. The change in location will cause the foraging bees to come back into the hive located where the bees left from earlier in the day. The foragers from the strong hive will go into the weaker hive and the foragers from the weak hive will come back to the strong hive. Net gain to the weak hive because the strong hive had more foragers out working. A hive will accept strange bees the come bearing gifts of nectar or pollen.

You can remove frames of honey which will create more work for the bees. Replace the frames with brood frames with foundation. These new frames will be good to replace frames with old comb. This also creates more room to lay eggs.

You can also place honey supers that need comb drawn off the foundation to be used later in the season. You can place empty honey supers with drawn comb on top to collect honey.

If you are working with new packages of bees which must draw comb from foundation, feed them sugar water syrup. It takes 8 lbs. of honey to make one pound of wax. Most of the bees in a package are young bees. You don’t have so many foragers. These young “storage bees” will think your feeder is a large forager and take the syrup into the brood area where the “wax makers” can use it for comb. It reduces the round trip time waiting on the foragers to bring in nectar.

There are reports of queens from new packages dieing after they start laying eggs. I see this in my own hives. I lost 5 queens in 10 days. The hives just kept marching on and drawing queen cells. This is more of a supersession situation. It should not be occurring but is the new normal. You can either buy a new queen from another breeder (why buy more of the same problem) or let the hive draw a new queen. You will not loose much time in relation to honey collection. This young hive probably would not collect much surplus honey from the spring flow, especially if they are drawing comb. Most of the honey they would collect will go into the brood chamber. By the time sourwood nectar starts to flow the bee colony will be ready. I think the problem is the result of the breeder having to push too many queens out the door too fast. They don’t let them sit in the “finishing” hive long enough. Really good breeders might hold a queen for a month. The ones dieing on us in 10 days might only have been in the “finishing” hive for a

week or less.

Two things I wanted to enter here.

Recipe for homemade fondant. You won’t need this until next winter.

One bag of marsh mellows

One bag of powdered sugar (10x confectioners)

Mix with water to make very thick frosting

To increase the health factor you might use the “honey bee healthy”, the “new” vitamin and amino acid liquid additives, and/or the probiotic additives. I would use ½- ¼ teaspoon of each to the two bag mixture. Other wise you are feeding pure sucrose sugar with no health benefits. Some folks think the cornstarch in confectioner’s sugar is detrimental to the bees. This is not true. Bees bring in grain flour dust as pollen. It has no nutritional value but as long as there is real pollen and nectar it has no affect on the bees as a food.

The probiotic additives are a new product (1-2yr) on the market. They are the micro organisms in the bee’s gut tract. Agricultural fungicides are supposed to be affecting the bees’ digestion. So some one came up with a “helper”. I don’t know if it helps but I do know these products don’t “hurt” livestock if they are NOT needed. Just like you eating too much yogurt.

The thing is home made “honey bee healthy”

2 Quart total quantity

Lecithin granules 1/8 tsp

Spearmint oil 15 drops

Lemongrass oil 15 drops

5 cups of water

2 ½ lbs sugar

Mix it up and store it. You should be able to also use liquid lecithin. This is just a bonding agent to keep the oil and water from separating, like oil and vinegar salad dressing. Still need to shake before using. Another thing might be “Why keep it in large quantities?” This stuff is suspended in sugar syrup which is what you add it to. Why not make a concentrate of say one or two cups of syrup and add a couple of Tablespoon fulls to your gallon of syrup when you make the syrup. It should save shelf space.