Bee Chronicles

2 October 2018

What is happening in the Bee Yard today?

Lots! There is a good bloom going on right now (20 Sept). The temperature is in the mid-80’s. We are having pretty heavy dew in the mornings with a little rain around the neighborhood. You may not get rain directly but the dew is watering the wild flowers. The nectar is up in the flowers and the pollen is adequately dry.

There is the tail end of the “iron weed” bloom. Golden rod comes in many varieties, early, late, tall, short, wrinkle leafed, you name it. BUT, it blooms for a long time and this year it is showing off. A great pollen source which the bees are taking advantage of. I see yellow, white, orange, and lavender asters. The lavender is the last aster to bloom and it is just reaching the peak bloom. Asters are great nectar sources. As it cools down snakes become lethargic and you might step on one. The good news is the “white snake root” is just starting to bloom. About 2’ tall found at forest edges and into the darker forest. The bees love it. As the leaves fall off the trees the ones deeper into the forest bloom last. It can create a 4-6 week nectar source. The root is the antidote to snake bite.

The new rumor on the street is to treat for mites on a 5 day interval for 5 periods. This has to do with the time a varroa mite takes to mature and return to the cell to attack the next larvae. This is 4-5 days. On the old rule of thumb, treat once a week for 3 consecutive weeks equaling adequate treatment for the 21 day hatching cycle is not exactly good enough. You actually have mites maturing and returning to the cells for 3 untreated days. Hence, now the 5 day concept. Also most of our treatment “medicines” are not as strong and persistent as the deadly old chemicals. Be judicious but bee frequent.

My bees are all brooding well. I do have mites. Most of my hives have very few if any hive beetles. No wax moths as all my hives have strong populations. No mice yet. Now is the time to reduce entrances so mice cannot enter. Oxalic acid fumigation is a good treatment for hive beetles. However, as your neighbors’ hives die out the beetles will move the 5 miles over to your bees. One day you will find your hives flooded with beetles. A strong colony will keep them corralled until you can gas them.

I see a small amount of questionable brood pattern. At first you think you have a queen problem, but maybe not. I try to have VHS queens. That is “varroa hygienic sensitive”. If the bees sense that a cell has too many varroas attacking the larvae they open the cell and chuck the larvae out the front door. This creates the appearance of “shotgun brood”. This time of the year the queen is slowing down egg laying so she is not back filling the cells as fast as she does mid-summer when you don’t notice the hygienic behavior. Don’t kill a good queen too fast!

You should be feeding your bees now 1:1 syrup so they can mix it with the nectar flow creating a more nutritious honey (vitamins, minerals, amino acids, etc). The bees will use the 1:1 to draw comb if you need to. 2:1 is more like moving honey around. It encourages storage but not wax building. You need to have 90 lbs. of honey stored up before Thanksgiving. That is one 10 frame Deep hive body. That is in addition to the space the bees are living in. That amount of honey might get you through until the end of February. Remember, here in the mountains the bees fly all winter long (not every day, but, every week). They consume a lot of stored honey but cannot make new honey in those same cool days. Not as much as they eat, creating a net loss accumulating all winter long. On what we think is a warm day the honey bees might only convert syrup to honey for 3-4 hours during mid-day. I think they only make honey above 50 degrees. They will take purging flights when there is snow on the ground.

This is a good time to clean up your dead hives and old frames full of wax. You can scrape propolis now also. I see some of my frame ends and inner covers virtually glued down. Propolis tincture sells for $15-30 a liquid ounce. 7.25 oz. of propolis dissolved in 892 fl. Oz. 180 proof Everclear gives you 30% propolis tincture. A 4 oz. bottle goes for $120. It is an excellent whole body wellness tonic at 2 drops twice daily. It is 10x more affective than honey as a medicine.

Make sure your electric fence chargers are working full strength. The bears are roaming around trying to fatten up for winter. You have done a good job raising bees and the brood chambers are putting out the come hither pheromone. The bears can smell the grubs. Don’t become their restaurant.

Enjoy the fall weather