Now that the weather has been warming up some, it is a good time to begin checking your colonies. Make sure any medication left in is removed, and if you plan on medicating this spring, have it off 4 weeks before putting honey supers on.

Make sure they have plenty of stores. A surplus of 30 pounds is a good goal. A good and quick way to determine the amount of stores is to lift one side then the other. If the hive feels nearly empty, you need to feed it. If you check the hives often enough, you will become familiar with the weights that are in the normal range and with those that are not. Comparing the weights of different hives is another good way to determine the amount of stores. If you find a hive or two that’s unusually light, you need to feed. Whenever you feed them, make sure other colonies don’t rob them out. Boardman feeders, those that fit in holders on the outside bottom board, are notorious for promoting robbing whenever you have a weak colony among several strong colonies. To avoid this, use a feeder that is inside the hive. Frame feeders are OK except you have to remove a frame to put it in and there is always some drowning of the bees. Plus, they will build comb in it if you don’t take it out during the honey flow. Baggies are good, but they require an un-reusable plastic bag and a feeder box to hold the bags above the brood. A feeder in a hole of the inner cover is also good. It keeps the feed right where the bees need it and it can’t get robbed. It can be replaced easily, but requires an empty box on top of the inner cover. You can fit an Illinois super over a one-quart feeder in an inner cover. For larger scale beekeeping, a community feeder works OK. Protect it from the rain and the bees in the yard (as well as bees in other nearby yards) will find it and quickly consume it.

For the type of feed to use, there are several options. You can use Fructose 55, which is very convenient, and consists of 77% dissolved solids and 23% water, by weight. The solids are Fructose 55%, Dextrose 40% and other sugars 5%. That means it has a combined sugar/water ratio of over 3 to 1. If you want to use this in a 1 to 1 ratio to stimulate brood rearing, you need to add four parts water to five parts Fructose 55 by volume. In other words, for every 5 gallons of Fructose55 you use, mix 4 gallons of water to achieve a sugar/water ratio of 1 to 1.

Another option is to simply use sugar. But sugar is mainly Sucrose, not Fructose, and the bees need to convert this sugar to use it. Another option is to use honey. Old honey, from dead hives or honey taken from a wax-melter is often used this way. The only problem with used or old honey is there may be foulbrood spores in it that may infect the colony with foulbrood. If you know the source of the honey and are confident it is not infected, it will make a good feed for a weak hive.

If you do end up feeding some of your hives, you may want to consider adding Fumidil-B to the feed to control or suppress Nosema, if you think your bees may be infected with Nosema. Good ways to field test for this is to catch a bee and pull the abdomen from the head and inspect the gut. It should be a light brown with signs of striations along its length. Other signs are indications of dysentery on the outsides of the hive or on the ground. Nosema has not historically been a major concern in North Alabama.

While checking your hives for stores, it is a good idea to dust them with a Powdered Sugar/Terramycin mixture. Terramycin is an approved antibiotic for control of foulbrood. It doesn’t cost much and is a good insurance against possible trouble later in the year. Three dustings, one at 3 to 4 day intervals is recommended. There have been a few reported instances of foulbrood, both American and European, in Alabama. If you have reason to suspect foulbrood, get in touch with the State Inspector and have him check your hives.

Mostly likely, you will find, as I did recently, all hives are pretty strong and they have wintered well so far. I have a few however that still need feeding, but the feed I put on in November is still there and they are taking that.

Learn more about the care of your bees now at the March 13th meeting. Be sure to attend this because we are going to have the top Apiary guy in Alabama on the program. Dennis Barclift, Chief of the Alabama State Apiary Department will talk about the Africanized Honey Bee (AHB) in Alabama. We need to show him our support for the fine work he has done on behalf of all of the beekeepers in Alabama. Although we have not had any evidence of the AHB in North Alabama, there are signs that we may eventually find some in our midst. We need to be prepared ahead for this eventuality and Dennis will tell us how to do that. We will also receive reports from some of our members that have attended National and State events, such as ABF/AHP Convention in Sacramento, CA, the ALFA Commodity Organizational Meeting in Birmingham, AL, the Auburn Workshop, the American Farm Bureau Honey Commodity Advisory Committee meeting in Irving, CA, plus announcements of other important upcoming events.

Looking forward to seeing you all there, 

Hal Green, Pres., MCBA

END brf 2/13/08