Bee Chronicles

5 October 2021

Currently there are a bazillion asters blooming. Some goldenrod, some ironweed, sunflowers, evening primrose, and white snakeroot. That is just enough keep feeding the colony, probably not storing much. FEED, FEED, FEED!

Treat one last time this year for mites if you are not up to date on that. Go into winter virtually mite free and you will come out of winter mite free with live bees.

There is not much to do in October and November in the bee yard.

The bears are becoming a major concern. Females are pregnant and hungry.

They don't want to share their food with this year's cubs.

The cubs are out foraging without supervision trying to find easy food.

The two year olds and up are just looking for a buffet of food.

The old males are cranky and don't like sharing their territory with anyone else. It is their food and they will keep it. We are talking about your bee hives here. Make sure your deterrent system is working at max capacity. Electric fences well charged and strong enough to make the bears work for their honey. That way they will get shocked.

The Department of Natural Resources (these are the people that like the bears) Trapper phone number is 706 896 2505. Call at the first sign of bears. Are they messing with your stored equipment or your feed jars? Don't wait until they tear up your hives. Your neighbor that has bird feeders out and leaves cat food on the porch for the racoons is attacking the bears to your neighborhood.

Knocking the varroa mites down right now is also important too. If you can reduce the mites while the queen is still laying eggs the larvae will be healthier and the bees live longer through the winter.

This cool weather is a good time to scrape propolis out of you wooden hive components. It is more brittle and easier to scrape. I use a large square steamer table pan to scrape into. This catches lots of the propolis scrapings and is easy to pour out of into a jar. If you have extra components, take a clean hive body and transfer the frames into it with the bees. Scrape the top bar ends of all the frames that do not have bees on them. Once all the frames are transferred place the hive body on the bottom board. Scrape the "rabbet" edge of the now empty hive body. Repeat the process until all the hive bodies are scraped clean. Do the same for your stored honey supers. Clean the inner cover where the edge was glued to the box below. You can get up to about 40 grams out of a hive. Some bees put up more propolis than others. A good reason for cleaning the rabbets is so the frames don't stick in the box so much next year. It also reduces the areas the hive beetles can hide in. You can use or sell the propolis.