Bee Chronicles
23 Mar 2019: Global warming arrived today. I am glad. The weather was 50 with no wind all morning long. Probably got a little warmer with the clear skies and sun. The bees are happy.
My greatest contribution to the hive is my edible pear trees (not Bradford pears) are in full bloom. Maybee the best year ever and they are at least 80 years old. The bees are all over them. The flowering quince is also attracting bees.
I think the Red Maples were damaged by the frost early in March. Even though the blossoms opened the bees did not visit them very actively. A sign the nectar flow and pollen production was damaged.
There is still some Henbit out there but the Pagoda plant is taking its place in the landscape. From a distance the two plants look the same and are great for the bees. The Eastern Redbud bubs are swelling deep lavender color. The Spice bush is showing a lot of yellow but the buds have not popped open. A couple of warm days and the bees will be extatic.
24 Mar 2019: Weather report is for heavy rain, wind and hail tonight. There goes the pear blooms. The petals are starting to fall off normally with a little breeze. Heavy wind will finish them off.
My hive that was acting stupid in January has recovered. They lost their queen. All the other hives were clustering on the warm southern inside of the brood chamber. The queenless ones were on the north inside and acting anxiously. In February I pulled a frame of brood out of a good hive and placed it in "stupid" hive. This was just to "hold" the bees. Give them something to do. They could tend to the new brood and raise some bees to replace those that would die from old age. That worked. So, I put in another brood frame 2 weeks later. On this frame they drew a queen cell. Two weeks later I placed another brood frame in. The queen cell hatched and the population looks good. There are some drones in the other hives. I am sure there are drones out there, but will this early queen get "well mated". You never know. She will come home and start laying eggs, no matter what. If she is only laying drone eggs she did not get mated. If she is laying fertilized worker eggs will she have enough sperm stored up to go all summer. I will have to watch her very closely and not be surprised if she needs replacing. So, I will start a nuc early in the summer to have a queen on standby.
At the BEEKEEPERS' FIELD DAY we were looking in the live hive and talking about inspecting the frame as you look for the queen. The question was, " What am I looking for?" Well, you know, bee stuff! It was fun showing the brood pattern, the eggs, larvae ages, bee bread storage, unripened honey, stored honey, all the workers and drones, and a few hive beetles. Fortunately, no diseases to show them. No visible mite infected bees. Some dark cruddy comb to be rotated out this summer, once the bees start drawing comb.
Bee populations are starting to swell. This is much better than last year with a cool March. Going into April there will be more foragers which will help with comb drawing and honey collection. All this good news will culminate in fighting swarming tendencies found in all good hives.
In April we will hope the normal flowers get started early so there is no break in food supply to the brood chamber. If you question incoming nectar and pollen, be prepared to substitute with sugar syrup and pollen substitute. You don't want worker bee populations to drop off just before the start of May nectar flow. Plan Ahead.
In hives that wintered over keep a close eye on queens. They can go puny under the heavy spring egg laying period. They might die, be superseded or just need replacing. Know where you will get new queens. Out of your nucs you are growing, where you will purchase them, or let the hives supersede.
I am going to bolster my 5 hives with packages for replacements of the hives that died. I will take 5 each 3 pound packages with queens and combine them with 5 each 3 lbs. packages with out queens. This will make 6 lbs. of bees on the new queen. This nearly the same as requeening an existing hive out of thin air. This hive will collect honey at the start of the summer nectar flow.
Another package trick is to buy several 3 lbs. packages, let's say 4. Then when you install the packages don't put all the 3 pounds of bees in with the queen. Close the shipping cage to hold the extra bees. Make 2 lbs. pound nucs. Have 2 extra queens in cages on stand by. Use your extra bees in the 4 packages to create 2 more 2 lbs. nucs giving you 6 colonies for the price of 4 plus the queens. By nectar flow they will grow into 10 frame colonies.