Bee Chronicle June 2021
Writing 1st of May
Dog wood winter 21-22 April 32o Since my last writing we have passed through "Dogwood Winter", "Blackberry Winter", and "The Last Frost day". Now if we get frozen out it will be COVID's fault.
During Dogwood winter the temperature did get down to 23O F at my house. Some tender leaf shoots were damaged but not the dogwood blossoms. Dogwood bloom ended with frost. Not too much of a problem as bees don't visit it much. It is the other blooms and buds I worry about
The Tulip Poplar blooms made it through also. We couldn't tell that until 2nd week of May when the blossom buds started falling on the ground. Those buds were being helped by the squirrels. They eat the buds and are fumble fingered enough to drop some so we can check out the stage of bloom on the tulip poplar. 23 May, I came home from 4 days away, the flower petals of the tulip blossoms are all over the ground. This is not good. There was no bad storm. This means we are past the middle of the bloom period for tulip poplar and those flowers which have been pollinated are maturing into seed pods. Looking to the top of the trees I still see yellow blooms. I can not predict the length of the season out past maybe a week. That makes a 3 to 4 week tulip poplar season. That is too short to collect the anticipated 3 shallow honey supers per strong hive. "Darn it!"
Blackberry winter came and went with just cold weather, down to the low 40's at night on 11-13 May. Black berry blooms are looking good and the bees are working them. They should have bloomed 10 days before tulip poplar but started at the same time. That is better than coming after tulip poplar. The more blooms the more work for the bees to do. If your populations are large enough it is good. Smaller populations can only work so many flowers at a time. We hope for a lingering bloom season to make up for the overlap in blooming.
The weather person on TV was announcing a cold wedge coming in from the Northeast. Wedges are formed on the line where High pressure zones and Low pressure zones meet. High pressure moves in a clockwise circle and Low pressure moves in a counterclockwise circle. This can create a "sucking" affect to draw cooler air from the north to the south quickly enough that it does not warm up while it is moving.
13 May was our last "killer frost day" according to the almanac. The rule of thumb is: don't plant sensitive above ground plants until after Mothers' Day.
Black locust not showing buds yet. The buds must have gotten frosted. There was no Locust bloom at all.
Watching blueberries, they were in full bloom, good amount of crop, looking for frost damage but don't see any. May 15 and blueberry fruit starting to form. Looks like a good crop.
Quince got a little frosted.
Sassafras blooming and did not get frosted.
Blooming seems to be sliding back to more normal period. That is an unquantifiable term meaning we are not so much ahead of schedule. That can change!
It is good for bee population growth. My packages are up to 4 frames brooding and pulling comb on the next two. My wintered over hives are packed with bees. I am using them to draw comb and convert syrup to honey and store it. Then I move those frames to packages and weak hives to reduce their work load while keeping the large colonies busy and adding "room" to prevent swarming.
I have pulled off one hive body with 6 frames of bees for the weakest colony with a slow queen. I want to see if extra the extra workers will increase output from the queen. If not, she is a goner.
Cool weather is extending the bloom times which gives the bees more opportunity to collect pollen and nectar
Still feeding smaller colonies heavy on syrup and pollen patties to keep colonies growing at max capabilities. I want comb and stored honey from syrup so tulip poplar and eventually sourwood nectar goes into honey supers not the hive bodies.
Best hives I stopped feeding and put honey supers on (13 May). Mediocre hives keep feeding until hive bodies are full. Each hive will be different. When they are ready, I stop feeding, put on honey super and let it fill up with tulip poplar honey. Weak hives I keep feeding so they are ready for sourwood. Use in hive feeder to keep from mixing syrup and nectar in the honey.
Hives should be established by the time the tulip poplar is in full bloom (14 May). Those still requiring manipulation and help just add foundation near brood to avoid swarming. Move bees to weak hives. Balance populations across the apiary versus actual splits. Add honey supers as the colony fills up one hive body. I use queen excluders on all one hive body colonies. I drill some 3/8 " holes in the front of the honey super so the bees can by-pass the excluder while keeping the queen down and hornets out of the honey super.
A technique to increase honey production is to make nucs with queens from full hives when blackberry blooms. Or about 2 weeks before a major nectar flow. As old hive grows a new queen there is a drop in larvae that needs feeding (because there is no queen to lay eggs). This allows more nurse bees to convert to foragers and storage bees putting up honey. You can feed pollen patties above the brood during honey collection. This will reduce the number of forager bees collection pollen and increase the number collection nectar.
These nucs are 2-3 frame splits with old queen. You don't want to pull a lot of workers off the old hive. The old hive will not swarm if there is no queen to follow. These nucs will grow into "repair part" nucs.
The large queenless colony will grow a new queen and in about 49 days (when new queen's babies start to emerge) the population will start to grow again replacing foragers that died during the queenless period. This will be about the time sourwood nectar flow starts. This break in brooding will also reduce the number of varroa mites in the hive.
Make sure you have adequate honey supers on hand. A strong colony can put up 3 or more shallow honey supers during tulip poplar. That same colony can do 2-3 sourwood supers. If you don't have time to extract honey between the two flows you need as many as 7 shallow supers per strong colony and 1-3 for the weaker ones.
24 May, the challenge now it to manage the bees for Sourwood season. Tulip poplar nectar is out of our control. We just need to keep the colonies growing and not swarming.
Should you do bottom supering or top supering? When do I know and what do I do when the sourwood nectar flow starts?
I bottom super. When the bees have only the outer 2 frames left to fill and cap place the next super on. The easy way is to top super. Just remove the cover and place the next super on top. To bottom super, you lift off the super the bees are working on and place the new super below it on top of the brood box.
Bottom supering accomplishes several things simultaneously. You reduce the distance that the bees must transport the nectar inside the hive before it is placed in the honey comb. This speed up the work. The storage be can return to the entrance of the hive sooner. If you need the "full" honey super to extract because you don't have enough supers you can just lift off the top full super and process it without unstacking the supers being worked. Theoretically, the queen will not cross empty comb to lay eggs. Bottom supering helps keep her down in the brood area and not laying eggs in the nearest honey super because the brood chamber is full of brood. The worker bees will work this super quickly knowing it is needed soon to expand the living quarters of the colony. They will also continue working on the nearly full super. I think that you cannot distract the honeybees from finishing work that they have already started. But with top supering they might ignore the new super until they are finished with the nearly full super.
You need to learn to identify the blooms on the sourwood tree. Pick a sourwood tree in your neighborhood and watch it. The ones by the paved road will start blooming soonest because of the heat from the road. Sourwood is the only tree that will blooms and it will be white, during this season. The blossom will be 5-7 green strings hanging down like the fingers on your hand. This is hard to see. Then little green ball will form a row down the strings. Still hard to see. The green balls will swell and eventually start to turn white. Easier to see. All the balls will turn white as the flower bud matures. This is easy to see. Then the white buds will start to open into white bells starting at the top of the "string". Easier to see. The flowers will open from top to bottom. This entire process takes several weeks. Hopefully, when the blooms start to open it will take 10 days to 3-4 weeks to open. The longest I have seen is 7 weeks. We need light rain and cool days. Heat and storms will shorten the bloom season. A good hive in a good season should collect at least 3 shallow honey supers. Expect at least one super.