Bee Chronicles
1 December, 2020
What beautiful weather! Just makes you want to run around in shorts and a T shirt. Uh, Oh! 24 December, rainy all day with the threat of winter storm warnings at higher altitudes, above 2700'. But wait a minute. This is Georgia in the mountains. The temperature just dropped from high 40os and the snow started falling. It is 4PM. Now it is 5:30 PM. About a quarter of an inch of snow on the deck railing. It is now a "Merry Christmas" morning with the first white Christmas in 10 Years. An inch and a half of fluffy snow on the deck railing. All the trees are coted and it is 12o outside. A beautiful Christmas with the 26th starting off at 4o. But wait a minute! We are still in Georgia. The 27th topped out at 48o and we are expecting warmer temperature the next three days. Is this the warm week in early January when you can total disassemble your hives for a thorough inspection? If so it will follow the precious few years where the weather pattern comes earlier in the year (up to 4 wks earlier). We will wait and see.
This is not good bee weather this time of the year. Yes, there are no yellow jackets or hornets. Yes, the bees appear to be happy and flying. BUT, there is no food out there. So, the bees fly around and come home hungry and eat their winter stores. You need to closely monitor the amount of honey and pollen in the hive.
Adult honey bees do eat small amount of pollen (stored as bee bread) during the winter. Ideally, most of that bee bread is to start feeding the new larvae next spring. However, there is some evidence that the bee needs some bee bread to maintain the fat levels in their "fat bodies" which are glands that act as the bee's liver and a reserve food source.
I am trying a new fall feeding pattern. I am keeping up on feeding 2:1 syrup to replace honey and feeding powdered pollen substitute to keep the bee bread stores full. I see good bee bread storage patterns in my hives. I think larger than previous years. However, I never really paid attention before. I do not see signs of any frame being "pollen bound". I was concerned that that might happen. Next spring will tell me if I am on the right track.
The warmth allows the bees more time each day to convert the syrup into honey. They are doing a good job of that. Of course, there is more honey being stored in the hives with larger populations than there is in the weaker hives. I keep feeding the strong hives as much as they will take in. This allows me to move full frames of honey from the strong hive to a weaker hive that may have adequate number of bees to survive the winter but not enough stored honey.
Keep feeding as long as there is "good" weather. Without flowers the bees will eat up all their stores.
If a hive dies over the winter or in the spring leaving honey behind, I will move those frames to a surviving colony.
Most of my hives still have small brood patterns. It is okay for the queen to keep laying through Thanksgiving. The last bees to hatch have the best chance of making until spring. Provided they are not overloaded with varroa mites.
With the extended brooding you might need to extend your mite treatment regime until just after brooding stops. This will kill most of the mites on the adult bees and with no larvae there will be no new mites coming along.
My best colonies all have solid bottom boards. This is very obvious. They have more brood and more food stores. Over the years I have kept about 50-50 solids and screened bottom boards. The bees definitely prefer solids. They will not work the bottom 4" of a frame above the screened bottoms. It may be the increased light or the coolness. You pay the price come winter by not having that extra food for the bees. If you have screened bottom boards' I would recommend closing them up in late August while the bees are still foraging. Or you can just figure on having taller hives (more boxes). The draw back to more boxes is the extra space between each box makes winter clustering and feeding harder for the bees.
I am still doing mite treatments because of the continued brooding.
I still have an old fashioned mum (looks more like a large daisy) that is blooming. The bees are visiting my hardy camelia. They have started visiting the Mahonia Holley buds. Mahonia or grape holly blooms during the winter and the bees go crazy for it. The witch hazel bushes should be about ready to bloom. Anytime from Thanksgiving until Christmas.
One more month before the bears are asleep.