Update 3/14/2024
Today, the first scout bees showed up at my bait hives so if you plan on making splits, there should be swarm cells in some of your hives.
Update 3/13/2024
ADDING SUPERS
I add production supers to all of my large hives right now. Crowded bees tend to be more prone to swarming, the extra space created by the added production supers will reduce crowding. Don't depend on this as your only swarm prevention procedure. SHB are not normally a problem this time of year.
If you plan on producing comb honey, big early swarms are ideal comb honey producers.
If you plan on producing chunk honey in quart jars, use medium supers for cut comb.
If you plan on producing chunk honey in pint jars, use shallow supers for cut comb.
Then cut the chunk honey in strips from top bar to bottom bar on each frame and the strips will fit perfectly in the respective jar sizes.
I use 9 frame supers for chunk honey
if you do not have drawn foundation use 10 foundation frames.
I place a drawn comb frame on each outside and alternate "checkerboard" cut comb foundation frames between so
that each super will produce 4 cut comb frames and 5 frames that I extract.
For me, this combination draws the bees up quicker and I get real thick drawn comb frames for extraction and thin
cut comb frames. Per Walt Wright's checkerboarding" theory, this might also help prevent swarming.
Thin combs are better for chunk honey because you can get a wider comb in through the mouth of the jar.
If you decide to make "comb honey" but you already have
combs drawn from wired foundation in your honey supers, you still can. If you use
an electric foundation wire imbedder, just connect one end of a wire to one electrode on your imbedder (ideally, using an
alligator clip), clip the other electrode to a pair of needle nose plies.
Then, grab the other end of the wire with the plies, wait a few seconds for
the wire to heat and pull it out with the plies. Repeat for all wires. CAUTION, MAKE SURE THAT YOU GET ALL OF THE WIRES OUT. This
will also allow your to pick a really beautiful frame to use. If you
do not have an electric foundation wire imbedder, a 12 VAC @ 2 Amp transformer will work.
For "Chunk Honey", if you have the choice, use Tupelo honey for both the comb honey and strained honey as it, if pure,
will likely not crystallize. "Chunk honey" that has crystallized can be re-liquefied. To do so, place the jar "up-side-down" in a honey warmer set at
90°F or so and remove it as soon as
the honey has liquefied. The cappings will darken but should be saleable. The reason to turn up-side-down is
the bottom of the jar is flat. Comb honey will float so when up-side-down
it does not deform the shape of the comb to match the shoulder at the mouth of the jar.
By the way, if you have both foundation frames and drawn
comb frames in a super that is going to be "un-capped" and extracted, do not alternate them as this will always result in really
thick drawn comb frames and really thin, hard to uncap, foundation frames (don't believe it, try it!!). Instead, group
the foundation frames together.
FREE BEES
If you pick up swarms from outside your own apiary, I recommend that you treat the bees with Apivar or similar (whether a swarm trap or
hanging swarm) immediately after hiving them. This will give you a shot at killing the mites on the bees body since there will be no brood present. I am not that familiar with
oxalic acid but fogging the newly hived swarm might make them abscond, so I do not recommend that.
MAKING SPLITS
At my place in south Huntsville AL, it appears to be a little early to make splits. If you are not sure when to start in your area, set up
swarm traps. When you see serious scout bee activity, it is time to start making splits. Once you see scout bees inspecting a swarm trap, you can usually bet on there being a swarm
within the next 3 days or so, baring inclement weather. It may not be from your bees or you may not trap the swarm but there is likely going to be one. If you see a hive swarm and
wish to make a split, the swarmed hive will likely have several ripe swarm cells but you gotta get them quick as they will soon start emerging and killing each other.
There
is some risk when making splits too early and that is the possibility of very cold weather, which we can surely have in north Alabama. If this happens the splits may not have enough
bees to cover the brood adequately which can result in brood kill. Placing the split on top of the
donor hive, SEPORATED BY A DOUBLE SCREEN BOARD can greatly reduce the
possibility of
a brood chill. This will also work with a "walk away" split. A "walk away" split is one made with eggs but no queen.
SWARM TRAPS
Swarm season is almost here. Your should be getting your swarm traps set up now. So keep close watch for crowded hives. I have not had scout
bees at my traps so far this year. The internet is full of ideas for swarm trap designs and most of them most likely work. I use old boxes that are ready to be scrapped
Click here for a PowerPoint presentation on how
I set up swarm traps".
If you set up swarm traps, check them for scout bee activity. If you see activity, there is most likely going to be a swarm. You
may not get the swarm but it is highly likely that there will be one. Swarm traps are excellent predictors of upcoming swarms.
If you see scout bee activity at your bait hives, check for activity on all of your hives. If you have hives with lots of bees, check them for
swarm cells. Once swarm cells are started, it is very hard to prevent swarming by any means other than splitting. If you find queen cells you probably need to split that hive. It generally
works best to take the old queen with the split leaving the swarm cells behind. This more closely mimics a natural swarm. If you find lots of swarm cells, they can be used to make small
splits. Small splits can be a valuable asset later in the year when you loose a queen for whatever reason. Swarm cells generally produce excellent queens.
If you see a hive swarm and go into that hive right away, there will usually be several queen cells left being that you can harvest.
It has been my experience that scout bees prefer a home about the size of one deep and one medium, they like for it to be a used home so
placing 3 or so olds dark combs-in line vertically in both the deep and medium, placed to one side and leave the rest of the available space open works best. I have also found that
Swarm Commander
will draw scouts to a swarm trap. If you have working hives, take the inner cover from a working hive and place it on your swarm trap and give the existing hive a new one. The scent of
an active hive seems to attract swarms.
If you get a swarm in your trap, go in the next day and fill the box with foundation or drawn comb. If you do not, the bees will place combs
wherever they want making the hive virtually unworkable. I find it best to move the trapped swarm into new equipment ASAP and reload the bait hive and place in a new location. Bees are more
likely to move into a hive that has had bees. So moving the bees out and resetting the bait hive increases the likelihood of getting a second swarm in the same bait hive.
NOTE: By definition, I use the terms "Swarm Trap" and "Bait Hive"
interchangeably to be the same thing.
SWARM TRAPS LURES
I have successfully setup bait hives for over 40 years and never found a swarm lure that seemed to help attract scouts until 2020.
In 2020 I tried Swarm Commander
and it appears to work really well.
General information
In north Alabama, brood build up normally starts around mid February and is usually in sync with the Red Maple trees
bloom. In most years, it is a little
unusual for the bees to take full advantage of the entire Red Maple
bloom season but rare that they do not have some flying time. Since it is still too cold for most
plants to bloom, there is little nectar coming into the hives at the same time that the bees are raising large
numbers of young bees. That coupled with the fact that the
bees might well be near the end of the honey from last fall makes this the prime time for
starvation in this area.
- FEEDING: Heft your hives and make sure your bees have adequate stores. Right now (Early March) spring brood build up is in full swing. This is the time when starvation
is most likely to happen because all of those young bees are going to be hungry! If your hives are light, by all means feed but if they are not light and do not need feed, do not
feed.
Click here for syrup mixing guidelines.
- If you are a new beekeeper and your bees do need feed, I recommend feeding 2:1 syrup.
- If you are more experienced and/or know how to discourage swarming or plan on making splits, feed 1:1 syrup.
- 1:1 syrup feed any time of year will stimulate brood rearing.
- If you feed 1:1 right now, you should have a box full of bees when the flow starts and this is ideal if all of that brood stays in the hive.
- The problem is that crowding is one of the cause of swarming and they may swarm.
- If that happens, you are likely not to get a spring honey crop.
- Feeding 1:1 syrup right now will result in lots of bees in the hive
or hanging in the trees!
- If you wish to stimulate brood rearing, feed a 50/50 (by weight or volume - there is virtually no difference) mixture of granulated sugar and water. If inexperienced,
be careful, as improper control of a stimulated colony will near always result in swarming.
- If feeding to prevent colony loss (starvation) feed a saturated sugar solution 2:1.
- I find that I can dissolve 50 lbs. of sugar in 3 gallons of water by heating the water to near or at boiling then add the sugar in about 3 steps. Once you add
sugar do not allow the syrup to boil again before adding the rest of the sugar.
Click here for general feeding sugar to water mix ratios.
- Do not allow sugar to settle to the bottom directly over the heat as it can caramelize the sugar. Caramelized sugar can cause diarrhea.
- Do not be alarmed if your bees stop taking or refuse to start taking sugar syrup. If there is a honey flow on, the bees normally prefer nectar over sugar water
and may not take sugar water. If this happens first make sure the feeder is working properly, and then check the hive for stores. If they have a good supply of honey,
remove the feeder.
- Get your new wood wares built and painted (external parts only) ASAP so the paint can cure before you introduce bees. Bees inserted into freshly painted hives will sometimes
abscond. This could be a $100.00 (or more) package or a nice swarm.
- Get your new frames built, wired and ready for foundation.
- There is no rush in installing foundation in deep frames to be used for new colonies. Honey bees seem to like the smell of new comb so if you have the time
flexibility, install the foundation just before you need it (a week or so).
- If you use plastic foundation, I recommend putting extra beeswax on them before using them.
- I clean my queen excluders with a heat gun in the fall. The beeswax that I get from that process also includes propolis. That is the wax I use for coating frames
- (For standard 10 frame Langstroth hives) You have the option of using either 9 or 10 frames in the brood chamber.
- Using 9 frames allows more space for manipulating frames when removing frames for inspection and
the like (less chance of "rolling the queen).
- 10 frames is more volumetric efficient.
- For production supers, I recommend using 9 frames (they
must be equally spaced) if foundation or 8 if drawn comb. Since the bees maintain ⅜
to ¼ inch workspace, fewer frames yield thicker combs.
Thicker combs are easier to uncap. There is a lower limit
however to the number of frames (less than 8) can result in random comb placed between frames and those combs
are really difficult to deal with.
- Most references recommend using 10 frames in
production supers if they are all foundation. I have had great
success using only 9. It is imperative that
they be equally spaced.
- If you have both drawn comb frames and foundation frames, keep the drawn frames and
the foundation grouped together in individual groups (ie.. do not alternate
them). Although alternating seems logical it will
invariably result in the drawn combs becoming thicker and the
foundation combs
being very thin making
"un-capping" difficult at harvest time.
- The one exception to this rule is to place drawn comb frames the first and last frame position with all foundation between. This seems to draw
the bees up onto the foundation frames quicker.
- For "comb honey" I alternate cut comb foundation with drawn combs, I prefer thin
combs for "comb honey".
- As an aside, medium frames work better for "Chunk honey" in quart jars and shallow frames work best for "chunk honey" in pint
jars. Slicing the comb honey vertically in booth cases produces the right size comb for each respective jar size.
- DEFINITION: Chunk honey is a chunk or chunks of comb honey in a jar with strained honey poured over it.
%20honey.jpg)
- If you are starting from packages, get them on order NOW.
- If purchasing splits, get them on order NOW.
- If making splits, if you use live queens, get your queens on order NOW.
- If you medicate your bees in the spring, make sure that your medication is out of the hive 28 days or whatever the medication
manufacturer recommends before placing production
supers on your hive.
- Follow medication product labels to the letter.
- Get your
swarm traps (bait hives) ready and put them in place ASAP.
- If you have old frames and or hives to clean, do it now so as to have time for repairs and repainting, if necessary.
- Get ready for swarms. It is a few weeks before swarm time but the first swarm near always surprises you. The first swarm in north Alabama generally issues around the
last week in March.
- Get started on weed control by cutting the grass around and in front to hives.
- If you have hives with low activity, go in and see if they have brood if not then you likely have lost your queen. If that is the case, I recommend moving a frame or two
of brood and clinging bees from one of your strong hives into the ones with no queen. Make sure at least one of the frames has eggs so they can raise themselves a queen.
Make sure that none of the frames that you move has the donor colony's queen.
- Installing a new caged queen obviously would be better than letting them raise their own but I doubt you can find queens
in early spring. The brood emerging from the
frames moved in will bolster the colony while their new queen is developing. The brood moved from the strong hive will reduce that colony's honey production but nowhere
near to the extent a swarm would have and moving the few frames may prevent them swarming.
- Get your production supers on in early March (in north Alabama) or as soon as the time has expired on any medication
you might have used in the hive. Super strong colonies heavily.
The extra space will be used by the bees to spread the spring honey out for drying. Although beetles can be a problem, the extra space is not likely to cause a beetle problem this time
of year unless the hive is pretty weak (but then it would not need lots of supers!). I have found few Small Hive Beetle in my hives so far this spring. I have not had a Small Hive
Beetle problem and did not have to treat for them for the past 5 years. For what it is worth, if I do have to treat for SHB, I use Fipronil in Beetle Barns between the inner and outer
cover of the hive (NEVER IN THE HIVE). I have also found that beekeepers that use their own concoction of bait material in modified Jewel Cases or other distribution methods seem
to have a bigger SHB problem than those that use only Fipronil.
- If you set up trap hives, start getting them setup and in place now.
- Rotating boxes in the brood chamber should help prevent swarming. If you choose to rotate, do it as soon as the cold weather is over (normally around the mid March in north
Alabama.
- Honey bees prefer to look up, eat up and store honey up.
- In early spring, if there is stored honey above the cluster they seem to feel crowded and tend to start swarm prep.
- If instead they see open space (empty combs) they are less likely to start swarm prep.
- Since they eat up during winter, the lower box is likely to contain
mostly empty combs while the upper combs will contain any honey not consumed during winter.
- Thus rotating the boxes helps prevent swarming.
- If this condition exist you can rotate, CAUTION, if it does not, do not rotate.
- If the cluster is located near the center of both boxes,
rotating can divide the brood cluster
into two separate clusters. If this happens and very cold weather is encountered, the bees may not
be able to cover both of the separated brood clusters in which case they will likely abandon one and cover the other resulting in a sizeable brood kill.
If the brood ball is even near centered between the two boxes DO NOT
ROTATE as this will divide the brood cluster into two separate clusters. If this happens and very
cold weather is encountered, the bees may not be able to cover both of the separated brood clusters in which case they will likely abandon one and cover the other resulting
in a sizeable brood kill.
- (If you rotate boxes for swarm control), when the bottom board is exposed scrape/clean all of the black peers from the inside of the bottom boards, these can become hiding places
for small hive beetles.
- When you separate boxes, remove inner cover and or queen excluders, there will likely be cells broken that contain larvae. This larvae is almost always drone larvae. Inspect
these larvae carefully for Varroa Mites. Varroa Mites prefer drone larvae because it is in the sealed cell longer than worker larvae. If you find mites apply preventative treatment
of your choice to control the mites.
- Remove all burr and bridge come and save it for coating plastic frames, if
you use plastic frames. This wax usually includes some propolis, the bees seem to prefer this wax to
draw comb from.
- If you use queen excluders, get them cleaned and ready for use. A heat gun works great for this task (remove from the hive, clean and
returned).
- Get your deeps, bottom boards and covers built or cleaned
and your frames ready for foundation. (Per above) I try and hold off on
installing foundation until close to time to "put bees in the box"-
the bees seem to like the strong smell of new wax, but this is not a
necessity. Swarm season is right around the corner (normally the last
week in March so get ready.
END OF FILE
Thin combs are better for chunk honey because you can get a wider comb in through the mouth of the jar.
If you decide to make "comb honey" but you already have combs drawn from wired foundation in your honey supers, you still can. If you use an electric foundation wire imbedder, just connect one end of a wire to one electrode on your imbedder (ideally, using an alligator clip), clip the other electrode to a pair of needle nose plies. Then, grab the other end of the wire with the plies, wait a few seconds for the wire to heat and pull it out with the plies. Repeat for all wires. CAUTION, MAKE SURE THAT YOU GET ALL OF THE WIRES OUT. This will also allow your to pick a really beautiful frame to use. If you do not have an electric foundation wire imbedder, a 12 VAC @ 2 Amp transformer will work.
For "Chunk Honey", if you have the choice, use Tupelo honey for both the comb honey and strained honey as it, if pure, will likely not crystallize. "Chunk honey" that has crystallized can be re-liquefied. To do so, place the jar "up-side-down" in a honey warmer set at 90°F or so and remove it as soon as the honey has liquefied. The cappings will darken but should be saleable. The reason to turn up-side-down is the bottom of the jar is flat. Comb honey will float so when up-side-down it does not deform the shape of the comb to match the shoulder at the mouth of the jar.
By the way, if you have both foundation frames and drawn comb frames in a super that is going to be "un-capped" and extracted, do not alternate them as this will always result in really thick drawn comb frames and really thin, hard to uncap, foundation frames (don't believe it, try it!!). Instead, group the foundation frames together.
FREE BEES
If you pick up swarms from outside your own apiary, I recommend that you treat the bees with Apivar or similar (whether a swarm trap or hanging swarm) immediately after hiving them. This will give you a shot at killing the mites on the bees body since there will be no brood present. I am not that familiar with oxalic acid but fogging the newly hived swarm might make them abscond, so I do not recommend that.
MAKING SPLITS
At my place in south Huntsville AL, it appears to be a little early to make splits. If you are not sure when to start in your area, set up
swarm traps. When you see serious scout bee activity, it is time to start making splits. Once you see scout bees inspecting a swarm trap, you can usually bet on there being a swarm
within the next 3 days or so, baring inclement weather. It may not be from your bees or you may not trap the swarm but there is likely going to be one. If you see a hive swarm and
wish to make a split, the swarmed hive will likely have several ripe swarm cells but you gotta get them quick as they will soon start emerging and killing each other.
There
is some risk when making splits too early and that is the possibility of very cold weather, which we can surely have in north Alabama. If this happens the splits may not have enough
bees to cover the brood adequately which can result in brood kill. Placing the split on top of the
donor hive, SEPORATED BY A DOUBLE SCREEN BOARD can greatly reduce the
possibility of
a brood chill. This will also work with a "walk away" split. A "walk away" split is one made with eggs but no queen.
SWARM TRAPS
Swarm season is almost here. Your should be getting your swarm traps set up now. So keep close watch for crowded hives. I have not had scout bees at my traps so far this year. The internet is full of ideas for swarm trap designs and most of them most likely work. I use old boxes that are ready to be scrapped Click here for a PowerPoint presentation on how I set up swarm traps".
If you set up swarm traps, check them for scout bee activity. If you see activity, there is most likely going to be a swarm. You may not get the swarm but it is highly likely that there will be one. Swarm traps are excellent predictors of upcoming swarms.
If you see scout bee activity at your bait hives, check for activity on all of your hives. If you have hives with lots of bees, check them for swarm cells. Once swarm cells are started, it is very hard to prevent swarming by any means other than splitting. If you find queen cells you probably need to split that hive. It generally works best to take the old queen with the split leaving the swarm cells behind. This more closely mimics a natural swarm. If you find lots of swarm cells, they can be used to make small splits. Small splits can be a valuable asset later in the year when you loose a queen for whatever reason. Swarm cells generally produce excellent queens.
If you see a hive swarm and go into that hive right away, there will usually be several queen cells left being that you can harvest.
It has been my experience that scout bees prefer a home about the size of one deep and one medium, they like for it to be a used home so
placing 3 or so olds dark combs-in line vertically in both the deep and medium, placed to one side and leave the rest of the available space open works best. I have also found that
Swarm Commander
will draw scouts to a swarm trap. If you have working hives, take the inner cover from a working hive and place it on your swarm trap and give the existing hive a new one. The scent of
an active hive seems to attract swarms.
If you get a swarm in your trap, go in the next day and fill the box with foundation or drawn comb. If you do not, the bees will place combs
wherever they want making the hive virtually unworkable. I find it best to move the trapped swarm into new equipment ASAP and reload the bait hive and place in a new location. Bees are more
likely to move into a hive that has had bees. So moving the bees out and resetting the bait hive increases the likelihood of getting a second swarm in the same bait hive.
NOTE: By definition, I use the terms "Swarm Trap" and "Bait Hive"
interchangeably to be the same thing.
SWARM TRAPS LURES
I have successfully setup bait hives for over 40 years and never found a swarm lure that seemed to help attract scouts until 2020.
In 2020 I tried Swarm Commander
and it appears to work really well.
General information
In north Alabama, brood build up normally starts around mid February and is usually in sync with the Red Maple trees
bloom. In most years, it is a little
unusual for the bees to take full advantage of the entire Red Maple
bloom season but rare that they do not have some flying time. Since it is still too cold for most
plants to bloom, there is little nectar coming into the hives at the same time that the bees are raising large
numbers of young bees. That coupled with the fact that the
bees might well be near the end of the honey from last fall makes this the prime time for
starvation in this area.
- FEEDING: Heft your hives and make sure your bees have adequate stores. Right now (Early March) spring brood build up is in full swing. This is the time when starvation
is most likely to happen because all of those young bees are going to be hungry! If your hives are light, by all means feed but if they are not light and do not need feed, do not
feed.
Click here for syrup mixing guidelines.
- If you are a new beekeeper and your bees do need feed, I recommend feeding 2:1 syrup.
- If you are more experienced and/or know how to discourage swarming or plan on making splits, feed 1:1 syrup.
- 1:1 syrup feed any time of year will stimulate brood rearing.
- If you feed 1:1 right now, you should have a box full of bees when the flow starts and this is ideal if all of that brood stays in the hive.
- The problem is that crowding is one of the cause of swarming and they may swarm.
- If that happens, you are likely not to get a spring honey crop.
- Feeding 1:1 syrup right now will result in lots of bees in the hive
or hanging in the trees!
- If you wish to stimulate brood rearing, feed a 50/50 (by weight or volume - there is virtually no difference) mixture of granulated sugar and water. If inexperienced,
be careful, as improper control of a stimulated colony will near always result in swarming.
- If feeding to prevent colony loss (starvation) feed a saturated sugar solution 2:1.
- I find that I can dissolve 50 lbs. of sugar in 3 gallons of water by heating the water to near or at boiling then add the sugar in about 3 steps. Once you add
sugar do not allow the syrup to boil again before adding the rest of the sugar.
Click here for general feeding sugar to water mix ratios.
- Do not allow sugar to settle to the bottom directly over the heat as it can caramelize the sugar. Caramelized sugar can cause diarrhea.
- Do not be alarmed if your bees stop taking or refuse to start taking sugar syrup. If there is a honey flow on, the bees normally prefer nectar over sugar water
and may not take sugar water. If this happens first make sure the feeder is working properly, and then check the hive for stores. If they have a good supply of honey,
remove the feeder.
- Get your new wood wares built and painted (external parts only) ASAP so the paint can cure before you introduce bees. Bees inserted into freshly painted hives will sometimes
abscond. This could be a $100.00 (or more) package or a nice swarm.
- Get your new frames built, wired and ready for foundation.
- There is no rush in installing foundation in deep frames to be used for new colonies. Honey bees seem to like the smell of new comb so if you have the time
flexibility, install the foundation just before you need it (a week or so).
- If you use plastic foundation, I recommend putting extra beeswax on them before using them.
- I clean my queen excluders with a heat gun in the fall. The beeswax that I get from that process also includes propolis. That is the wax I use for coating frames
- (For standard 10 frame Langstroth hives) You have the option of using either 9 or 10 frames in the brood chamber.
- Using 9 frames allows more space for manipulating frames when removing frames for inspection and
the like (less chance of "rolling the queen).
- 10 frames is more volumetric efficient.
- For production supers, I recommend using 9 frames (they
must be equally spaced) if foundation or 8 if drawn comb. Since the bees maintain ⅜
to ¼ inch workspace, fewer frames yield thicker combs.
Thicker combs are easier to uncap. There is a lower limit
however to the number of frames (less than 8) can result in random comb placed between frames and those combs
are really difficult to deal with.
- Most references recommend using 10 frames in
production supers if they are all foundation. I have had great
success using only 9. It is imperative that
they be equally spaced.
- If you have both drawn comb frames and foundation frames, keep the drawn frames and
the foundation grouped together in individual groups (ie.. do not alternate
them). Although alternating seems logical it will
invariably result in the drawn combs becoming thicker and the
foundation combs
being very thin making
"un-capping" difficult at harvest time.
- The one exception to this rule is to place drawn comb frames the first and last frame position with all foundation between. This seems to draw
the bees up onto the foundation frames quicker.
- For "comb honey" I alternate cut comb foundation with drawn combs, I prefer thin
combs for "comb honey".
- As an aside, medium frames work better for "Chunk honey" in quart jars and shallow frames work best for "chunk honey" in pint
jars. Slicing the comb honey vertically in booth cases produces the right size comb for each respective jar size.
- DEFINITION: Chunk honey is a chunk or chunks of comb honey in a jar with strained honey poured over it.
- If you are starting from packages, get them on order NOW.
- If purchasing splits, get them on order NOW.
- If making splits, if you use live queens, get your queens on order NOW.
- If you medicate your bees in the spring, make sure that your medication is out of the hive 28 days or whatever the medication
manufacturer recommends before placing production
supers on your hive.
- Follow medication product labels to the letter.
- Get your
swarm traps (bait hives) ready and put them in place ASAP.
- If you have old frames and or hives to clean, do it now so as to have time for repairs and repainting, if necessary.
- Get ready for swarms. It is a few weeks before swarm time but the first swarm near always surprises you. The first swarm in north Alabama generally issues around the
last week in March.
- Get started on weed control by cutting the grass around and in front to hives.
- If you have hives with low activity, go in and see if they have brood if not then you likely have lost your queen. If that is the case, I recommend moving a frame or two
of brood and clinging bees from one of your strong hives into the ones with no queen. Make sure at least one of the frames has eggs so they can raise themselves a queen.
Make sure that none of the frames that you move has the donor colony's queen.
- Installing a new caged queen obviously would be better than letting them raise their own but I doubt you can find queens
in early spring. The brood emerging from the
frames moved in will bolster the colony while their new queen is developing. The brood moved from the strong hive will reduce that colony's honey production but nowhere
near to the extent a swarm would have and moving the few frames may prevent them swarming.
- Get your production supers on in early March (in north Alabama) or as soon as the time has expired on any medication
you might have used in the hive. Super strong colonies heavily.
The extra space will be used by the bees to spread the spring honey out for drying. Although beetles can be a problem, the extra space is not likely to cause a beetle problem this time
of year unless the hive is pretty weak (but then it would not need lots of supers!). I have found few Small Hive Beetle in my hives so far this spring. I have not had a Small Hive
Beetle problem and did not have to treat for them for the past 5 years. For what it is worth, if I do have to treat for SHB, I use Fipronil in Beetle Barns between the inner and outer
cover of the hive (NEVER IN THE HIVE). I have also found that beekeepers that use their own concoction of bait material in modified Jewel Cases or other distribution methods seem
to have a bigger SHB problem than those that use only Fipronil.
- If you set up trap hives, start getting them setup and in place now.
- Rotating boxes in the brood chamber should help prevent swarming. If you choose to rotate, do it as soon as the cold weather is over (normally around the mid March in north
Alabama.
- Honey bees prefer to look up, eat up and store honey up.
- In early spring, if there is stored honey above the cluster they seem to feel crowded and tend to start swarm prep.
- If instead they see open space (empty combs) they are less likely to start swarm prep.
- Since they eat up during winter, the lower box is likely to contain
mostly empty combs while the upper combs will contain any honey not consumed during winter.
- Thus rotating the boxes helps prevent swarming.
- If this condition exist you can rotate, CAUTION, if it does not, do not rotate.
- If the cluster is located near the center of both boxes,
rotating can divide the brood cluster
into two separate clusters. If this happens and very cold weather is encountered, the bees may not
be able to cover both of the separated brood clusters in which case they will likely abandon one and cover the other resulting in a sizeable brood kill.
If the brood ball is even near centered between the two boxes DO NOT
ROTATE as this will divide the brood cluster into two separate clusters. If this happens and very
cold weather is encountered, the bees may not be able to cover both of the separated brood clusters in which case they will likely abandon one and cover the other resulting
in a sizeable brood kill.
- (If you rotate boxes for swarm control), when the bottom board is exposed scrape/clean all of the black peers from the inside of the bottom boards, these can become hiding places
for small hive beetles.
- When you separate boxes, remove inner cover and or queen excluders, there will likely be cells broken that contain larvae. This larvae is almost always drone larvae. Inspect
these larvae carefully for Varroa Mites. Varroa Mites prefer drone larvae because it is in the sealed cell longer than worker larvae. If you find mites apply preventative treatment
of your choice to control the mites.
- Remove all burr and bridge come and save it for coating plastic frames, if
you use plastic frames. This wax usually includes some propolis, the bees seem to prefer this wax to
draw comb from.
- If you use queen excluders, get them cleaned and ready for use. A heat gun works great for this task (remove from the hive, clean and
returned).
- Get your deeps, bottom boards and covers built or cleaned
and your frames ready for foundation. (Per above) I try and hold off on
installing foundation until close to time to "put bees in the box"-
the bees seem to like the strong smell of new wax, but this is not a
necessity. Swarm season is right around the corner (normally the last
week in March so get ready.
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In north Alabama, brood build up normally starts around mid February and is usually in sync with the Red Maple trees bloom. In most years, it is a little unusual for the bees to take full advantage of the entire Red Maple bloom season but rare that they do not have some flying time. Since it is still too cold for most plants to bloom, there is little nectar coming into the hives at the same time that the bees are raising large numbers of young bees. That coupled with the fact that the bees might well be near the end of the honey from last fall makes this the prime time for starvation in this area. |
- If you are a new beekeeper and your bees do need feed, I recommend feeding 2:1 syrup.
- If you are more experienced and/or know how to discourage swarming or plan on making splits, feed 1:1 syrup.
- 1:1 syrup feed any time of year will stimulate brood rearing.
- If you feed 1:1 right now, you should have a box full of bees when the flow starts and this is ideal if all of that brood stays in the hive.
- The problem is that crowding is one of the cause of swarming and they may swarm.
- If that happens, you are likely not to get a spring honey crop.
- Feeding 1:1 syrup right now will result in lots of bees in the hive or hanging in the trees!
- If you wish to stimulate brood rearing, feed a 50/50 (by weight or volume - there is virtually no difference) mixture of granulated sugar and water. If inexperienced,
be careful, as improper control of a stimulated colony will near always result in swarming.
- If feeding to prevent colony loss (starvation) feed a saturated sugar solution 2:1.
- I find that I can dissolve 50 lbs. of sugar in 3 gallons of water by heating the water to near or at boiling then add the sugar in about 3 steps. Once you add sugar do not allow the syrup to boil again before adding the rest of the sugar. Click here for general feeding sugar to water mix ratios.
- Do not allow sugar to settle to the bottom directly over the heat as it can caramelize the sugar. Caramelized sugar can cause diarrhea.
- Do not be alarmed if your bees stop taking or refuse to start taking sugar syrup. If there is a honey flow on, the bees normally prefer nectar over sugar water and may not take sugar water. If this happens first make sure the feeder is working properly, and then check the hive for stores. If they have a good supply of honey, remove the feeder.
- There is no rush in installing foundation in deep frames to be used for new colonies. Honey bees seem to like the smell of new comb so if you have the time flexibility, install the foundation just before you need it (a week or so).
- If you use plastic foundation, I recommend putting extra beeswax on them before using them.
- I clean my queen excluders with a heat gun in the fall. The beeswax that I get from that process also includes propolis. That is the wax I use for coating frames
- (For standard 10 frame Langstroth hives) You have the option of using either 9 or 10 frames in the brood chamber.
- Using 9 frames allows more space for manipulating frames when removing frames for inspection and the like (less chance of "rolling the queen).
- 10 frames is more volumetric efficient.
- For production supers, I recommend using 9 frames (they
must be equally spaced) if foundation or 8 if drawn comb. Since the bees maintain ⅜
to ¼ inch workspace, fewer frames yield thicker combs.
Thicker combs are easier to uncap. There is a lower limit
however to the number of frames (less than 8) can result in random comb placed between frames and those combs
are really difficult to deal with.
- Most references recommend using 10 frames in production supers if they are all foundation. I have had great success using only 9. It is imperative that they be equally spaced.
- If you have both drawn comb frames and foundation frames, keep the drawn frames and the foundation grouped together in individual groups (ie.. do not alternate them). Although alternating seems logical it will invariably result in the drawn combs becoming thicker and the foundation combs being very thin making "un-capping" difficult at harvest time.
- The one exception to this rule is to place drawn comb frames the first and last frame position with all foundation between. This seems to draw the bees up onto the foundation frames quicker.
- For "comb honey" I alternate cut comb foundation with drawn combs, I prefer thin combs for "comb honey".
- As an aside, medium frames work better for "Chunk honey" in quart jars and shallow frames work best for "chunk honey" in pint jars. Slicing the comb honey vertically in booth cases produces the right size comb for each respective jar size.
- DEFINITION: Chunk honey is a chunk or chunks of comb honey in a jar with strained honey poured over it.
- Follow medication product labels to the letter.
- Installing a new caged queen obviously would be better than letting them raise their own but I doubt you can find queens in early spring. The brood emerging from the frames moved in will bolster the colony while their new queen is developing. The brood moved from the strong hive will reduce that colony's honey production but nowhere near to the extent a swarm would have and moving the few frames may prevent them swarming.
- Honey bees prefer to look up, eat up and store honey up.
- In early spring, if there is stored honey above the cluster they seem to feel crowded and tend to start swarm prep.
- If instead they see open space (empty combs) they are less likely to start swarm prep.
- Since they eat up during winter, the lower box is likely to contain mostly empty combs while the upper combs will contain any honey not consumed during winter.
- Thus rotating the boxes helps prevent swarming.
- If this condition exist you can rotate, CAUTION, if it does not, do not rotate.
- If the cluster is located near the center of both boxes, rotating can divide the brood cluster into two separate clusters. If this happens and very cold weather is encountered, the bees may not be able to cover both of the separated brood clusters in which case they will likely abandon one and cover the other resulting in a sizeable brood kill.
If the brood ball is even near centered between the two boxes DO NOT ROTATE as this will divide the brood cluster into two separate clusters. If this happens and very cold weather is encountered, the bees may not be able to cover both of the separated brood clusters in which case they will likely abandon one and cover the other resulting in a sizeable brood kill.
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MADISON COUNTY BEEKEEPERS ASSOCIATION
For many years, at the beginning of each meeting of the Madison County Beekeepers Association, approximately 5 minutes was devoted to Beginners Corner”. This time was used to answer any novice beekeepers questions, let him/her know what is normal and should (or should not be) happening in their colonies as well as advise what actions he/she should be taking at this time in the beekeeping year.
This practice does not always take place so you are welcome to check back here for this information. Feel free to email me.