What Does the Novice Beekeeper Need to Know?

Number 1d

Are you Preparing for early spring?

"And Why"

It is now January. This is mid-winter for the honey bees. November was the beginning of winter. Winter is only 90 days long here in the North Georgia mountains. Hence, the second 30 day period (December) is the middle of winter, with January being the end of winter. February is the beginning of spring and some queens will start brooding with no stimulation from the beekeeper.

There will be some significant warm weather in January. Normally 5-7 days long. Be prepared to do a thorough colony inspection. Look for cluster size and location. Are they high in the hive or mid-way up? Lower is better. Too high is not good either. If the colony has moved up against the inner cover and eaten all the food right there, they could starve to death with honey out along the peripheries of the hive. Split the cluster on a very warm (60^o) day and place frames with honey in the middle. When it gets cold the cluster will reform around the queen who should have relocated to where the food is.

Have any of the colonies lost their queen. These bees could be combined with a colony with a queen. Smoke the dickens out of the two colonies before combining. If you use syrup on the bees they might "chill" and die. If you use the newspaper technique to combine two colonies it will take the bees too long to eat through the paper and may not cluster and die. Without a queen the bees don't know exactly where to cluster and will probably die anyway so you might as well try to combine them.

How are the food stores? Both honey and pollen (bee bread) are necessary to survive the winter in a healthy fashion. If there is some stored honey but you feel it is not enough you have time to feed some syrup 2:1. Fondant is a good winter food inside the hive. It has its own moisture. You can feed granulated sugar sprinkled on the top bars for the bees to lick up. If they are out of pollen, I would put a little on the top bars for the bees to pick up. The bees need the pollen to replenish their body fat.

Are the hive bottoms closed up? They need to be to reduce the draft in the hive. Entrance reducers need to be in place also to reduce wind draft.

Are your hives adequately ventilated, so that no moisture accumulating? This seems counter to the paragraph above. However, internal moisture accumulation needs to be controlled. Paper towels stapled to the underside of the inner cover with a hole in the middle for air flow is adequate.

Now you just have to wait for the weather to break in February. At which time you need to be prepared for the queen to start brooding. This will require syrup feed and pollen patty substitutes.