Bee Chronicles

3 May 2022

May is the month to grow bees. Anything you can do to grow the bee population in the colony is a benefit. You want your colonies right on the verge of swarming when the big nectar flow starts at the end of May. This can come earlier or later. You can’t out guess mother nature.

Instead of “splitting” colonies to avoid swarming, make “repair part” nucs. If you see queen cells developing make a nuc. By pulling off two frames of brood and food with the old queen you force the loosing colony to grow a new queen. If there is no queen to follow they will not swarm. You don’t have to worry about moving the right aged eggs to the nuc so it can start a queen. There is the correct eggs (queen cell) left behind. The mature queen in the nuc will grow the nuc faster than waiting for a virgin queen to emerge, mate, and start laying eggs.

11 April Bees quit taking in powdered pollen substitute again. There must be enough real pollen to keep the scout bees happy

Hard to see what new is blooming.

Ornamental cherries, some late apples, late service berry , (pagoda plants (lots) a main source of pollen and a little nectar), henbit, dandelions, hawthorne, tulip poplar leaves starting Carolina silverbell trees blooming.

Attached is a picture of tulip poplar leaf bud shells and flower bud shells. Since everything has bloomed out of order the past few years, this will give you a heads down on what to look for. Tulip poplar is the volume spring nectar flow. You do not have to look up into the 100 foot tall trees to see what stage the bloom is in. The squirrels will help you by dropping the flower buds on the ground half eaten. The wind also helps. When you see these fingernail looking green “parts” and flower buds you can start judging how long before the nectar will collect in open blooms

List of queen producers

Now start Syrup 1:1 One reason is you get more syrup feed per pound of sugar. This cuts costs. The queen bee is monitoring the amount of nectar coming into the colony, not the calories of carbohydrate (sugar content). The larger “artificial nectar” flow will stimulate the queen to work harder. Since it takes more bee work to convert the 1:1 to honey, wax production will slow down. The hive body stored honey will go up.

Foundation drawing (wax production) make your good hives work hard. Then move product (comb, honey, brood) to the weaker hives. Make your splits around mid May if possible (later is better) based on the number of bees in the hive, activity (queen cells), and blooms. Splits create a good brood break to reduce varroa mites. When no brood is being raised no varroa mites are being raised. Those mites that get old and die without mating, reduces the number if mites in the colony.

Perhaps you don’t want a big split creating more colonies. That is okay. If you can keep your hives from swarming just before a nectar flow (tulip poplar and again with sourwood) you will collect the most honey. Just make repair parts nucs with 2 frames as often as necessary and rebalance populations with the extra bees in a “full” hive. I like to make my bees draw honey super comb once the brood chamber is full.

Early spits grow slowly, you need to leave lots of bees left behind in the old colony for honey production. With the queen only laying as many eggs as the nurse bees can care for, less bees in the colony slows down population growth. Better to feed the bees syrup and pollen (if necessary) and grow double hive bodies. Just before nectar flow (wild blackberry bloom, or wild raspberry, or tulip poplar tree; which ever is first). Pull out the queen and 2 frames of brood and food to make a nuc. Then after honey flow, split the hives by just moving one hive body. During this queenless period of honey collection the double hive body will grow a new queen. This can take up to 55 days before new brood is hatching. During this period of brood break you are greatly reducing the number of varroa mites in the hive. The adult worker bees continue to collect nectar. There is less new brood larvae to feed. The colony puts up more stored honey than if they are feeding larvae. When you split the double hive body colony you can take the queen out of the nuc and reintroduce her into the hive body without a queen. The nuc can grow another queen. The nuc has also been growing larger population so it can be up to 3 or 4 frames by now.

If the colony is not growing fast enough to add a second hive body completely drawn and filled with honey before tulip poplar bloom, then take the honey super comb drawing avenue. Put the honey super on and let the bees work until just before the bloom. When the bloom first starts remove that honey super and place it away from the apiary and let the bees rob out the syrup honey. In two days replace that super on the hive and the bees will finish drawing out the comb and fill it with nectar honey. This saves nectar honey from being used for was building resulting in more stored honey.

It is now 15 April. After I get done with my tax return, I am going to medicate my hives for mites. Thirty to 45 days before nectar flow is a good time to do the last mite treatment. That gives you a couple of weeks before the honey collection (for food consumption) should start. I am guessing last week of May as a good date for honey collection to start. If it looks like it will be earlier, I will remove the treatment be for its prescribed end date.

I want the least number of mites in the hive when honey collection starts because we have to go until the end of Sourwood nectar flow before we can treat again. That can be the middle of July, or in a good year later.