Bee Chronicles

8 September 2020

15 September and the early Goldenrod is starting to bloom. I think there are about 30 different types of goldenrod. The more the better. What a wonderful source of fall pollen. The pollen is necessary for the bees to fill their "fat bodies" to sustain them through the winter in the most health conditions. Next will be blooming the tall goldenrod along with fall asters (lavender clusters all over the place). Last will be the short goldenrod and ragweed.

No one is allergic to golden rod. Their fall hay fever comes from ragweed which looks similar and blooms at the same time as the golden rod. This is a good time to collect Ragweed honey for sale as a medicine for fall hay fever.

Virgin bower, asters, evening primrose, Joe Pie weed, iron weed, and other stuff will all be blooming soon. Stop as you drive by and look to see if honeybees are visiting what is blooming in your area.

Feeding is a supplement to nectar not a replacement. You are trying to maximize honey storage and wax building while there are still lots of hours above 50 and you still have lots of foragers after robbing the honey. Your target is 90# of stored honey in the hive but also maintaining that volume as the bees fly on cool days during the fall returning home and eating that honey.

I am starting to see European hornets, bald faced hornets and wasps at the hive entrances. Put out yellow jacket traps around your apiary. Reducing entrance holes to exactly 3/8" will keep European hornets out of your hives but they will still prey at the entrances. Traps will catch a bunch of them.

Mice will be looking for a warmer winter home. Reduce entrances. If you have old queen excluders you can cut them to fit over you entrance slots to maintain ventilation. It will keep mice and hornets out and the queen in. You can use this entrance cover all year long. Make them about 2" tall and full width of the slot opening. Then use a normal staple gun to staple them to the front of the hive.

Reduce entrances for wind later as cold weather approaches. Close the bottom of IPM screened bottom boards now to encourage food storage lower in the bottom hive body box. I believe the bees will forfeit the bottom 3-4 inches of the frame above a screened bottom because of air flow and light.

Turning hives over now is necessary. You want the queen as low in the hive as possible with the most stored food above her. Remove queen excluders. The honey bees move up during winter clustering. If you forget and leave excluders on the bee cluster will move through it leaving the queen behind.

I am going to be feeding "Ultra Bee" starting now as a feed supplement. The person that told me about it says she went from lots of winter hive losses to none. This was her only management change.