Bee Chronicles
5 March 2019
Starting with a look back.
5 February the first Jonquil bloomed. About 10 February the flowering quince started blooming. 13 February the Henbit on the south facing sunny slopes started blooming. 15 February I saw my first red maple tree blooming. I have seen dandelions. This is all within ½ mile of my house. My dandelions, henbit, and maple are still asleep. This is OKAY! These flowers are all within foraging range for my bees. My house is on the North facing side of the mountain in the shade. 21 Feb: my bees are flying after 4 days of rain. The mahonia (grape, not native) holly is getting ready to bloom. About on time, but it is usually colder this time of the year. The bees will be all over it. 22 Feb: after 4 days of rain (total 4 ½ Inches) the pussy willows are soggy to death and will not be available to the bees if it dries out. Chickweed is blooming.
The news is official, 2009 was the lowest honey crop in the southeast ever. Average hive honey volume was 55 lbs. Normal is close to 70 lbs. Part of the statistical trick was they only counted hives that produced excess honey. Hives that produced no excess were not counted. Most of mine were in the no excess category. Of 12 good hives I got a total of 7 honey supers (Spring and Sourwood combined)
2009 Spring started out like this spring. Warm early and it stayed warm. The Tulip poplar was in full bloom before the end of March. The bees were working it but the colonies had not had enough time to grow very large. Around the 9th of April there was a 3 day-long killer frost. It took the leaves and blossoms off all the trees. The next plant to bloom was the mountain laurel. The bees were ecstatic! They collected the lightest, clearest, poisonous mountain laurel honey. The last time that had happened was 1958. Watch your trees, it could happen again.
Back to 2019: Spreading out the bloom period will allow the queen more time to lay eggs. A long slow bloom season will allow more bees to hatch creating a larger work force next month. As the work force grows the queen will lay more eggs.
Today this sounds wonderful. Ultimately in May the hives could be packed full of bees requiring splits to prevent swarming just before the main nectar flow starts. You have to start preparing for those splits now. Get the nuc boxes or hive bodies and frames ready now.
My favorite split in the spring is to put a third hive body on a double hive body colony. As the colony grows into the third box vs. a honey super you resort the frames in the colony. Put a couple frames of brood in the third hive body with a couple of frames with honey (not necessarily full), some drawn comb, and some foundation. You don’t need 10 frames to start with unless you have that many bees to move.
You do not have to worry about the queen. If move her to the new third hive body she will just keep laying eggs. The old colony with most of the capped brood, open brood, and eggs will draw a new queen. The advantage to this is you save $25 for a new queen. Also, if this queen was so prolific that she needed splitting, she is “good” and you want some of her daughter queens. Drawing a new queen will slow the population growth in the old hive. But, there should be enough workers to go through the nectar flow with very little reduction in honey production. There is about a 30 day drop in egg production while the new queen is hatched, mates, and starts laying eggs. This will reduce the chances of swarming between the spring and sourwood nectar flows. The new queen will be really fired up by the time sourwood flow starts and you will have more bees to collect sourwood than you did for the spring flow. In the spring flow nectar is so abundant a few bees can produce a lot of honey. In sourwood the number of blossoms is less (all though very apparent) that more bees will be needed to collect the same amount of honey. WIN WIN! Usually I get 2/3 of the annual crop in the spring and 1/3 off of sourwood.
If you have early splits you can use them to collect sourwood honey if the colonies are large enough. Then come back and feed the colony to make up for the 3-4 frames that you steal from them. Mixing the syrup and the nectar in the middle of the summer is a good idea. Just don’t mix it with the honey you want to eat.
Be prepared! Keep treating for mites to keep the bees healthy. Feed syrup and pollen substitute as needed to achieve the results you desire. Early build up or slower build up. Know where to get cheap sugar in case you have a weather induced dearth (no nectar). Maybe, better have enough sugar on hand to cover a month long dearth. It stores nicely in a sealed 5 gal bucket.