Bee Chronicles

5 November, 2019

What a weird warm October. There are still asters out there providing a small source of pollen for the bees. If the bees are forced to, they will collect aster nectar which makes a poor honey source because it is hard to dehydrate and crystalizes rapidly. This would be another reason to feed sugar water syrup to the bees. They then would mix the aster nectar with the syrup making it a better honey.

I am having a hard time predicting this coming winter. When will it come? How cold will it get? How long will it last? I have not seen my first "wooly bear caterpillar" yet. They are a fairly accurate prediction of the length of winter. The wider the black stripe the longer the winter. I have seen snow flakes at Halloween. I have had vine ripe tomatoes for Christmas. Just be prepared for ??????

We are mostly in the watching mode. Keep treating for mites as necessary. Your queens still may be brooding which gives the mites some where to reproduce. The less mites the healthier your new bees.

The younger bees will be the ones that get your hive kick started next spring. I like my queens to be laying eggs until Thanksgiving. I have had them lay into January. The January-February cold snap will stop the egg laying. The cluster will go ahead and hatch out the brood. Usually there is enough pollen and honey in the hive to feed the hatching out bees.

With good weather the queen will start laying next years brood the end of February or early March. With out feeding syrup and pollen substitute patties, you will have to watch for the Hembit weed and the Red Maple trees as the sign that pollen and nectar are coming in. In a Warm January, the Pussy Willows will bloom and the bees will collect pollen then. Most of that will be stored for later in the spring.

A new point of science! The varroa mite does not subsist on honey bee blood (hemolymph). They inject a solvent (like mosquitoes do) into the abdomen of the honey bee. This dissolves the "fat bodies" which are the honey bees' stored food. They also are a key antibody fighter helping the honey bees' immune system. When the mite leaves the bee (or is killed by mite treatment) the wound continues to leak the dissolved fat bodies. This weakens the bee in two ways. First, the bee cannot fight off pathogens that historically it has been able to do. Secondly, the fat bodies are stored food reserves for times when there is little food available (end of winter or periodic dearth). This special fat which is stored in the "fat bodies" comes from eating pollen during the blooming season and as winter food stored in the hive. It is a dangerous situation when the bee loses her fat and there is little to no pollen available to replenish it. Think inside the hive at the end of winter when there is a massive population crash. Even healthy bees which are not affected by varroa mites but starve due to lack of pollen while honey is still present in the hive. My question is: should we feed pollen substitute when there is no brood present?