January - February
1. Heft your hives and feed if necessary. Check all of your hives for stores.
If you checked recently – do it again and do it often.
For survival feeding feed as strong a mixture of sugar to water as you can. For brood stimulation feed a 50/50 mixture (by volume) of sugar to water. If you opt to stimulate brood rearing start feeding the weak mixture around mid February in north Alabama.
Successful brood stimulation will result in lots of bees come first bloom will insure a good honey crop IF the colonies are managed properly. Be aware that it can also result in big early swarms and near NO honey production.
If you opt to stimulate feed, consult an experienced local knowledgeable beekeeper for advice. Stimulation feeding is primarily to try and get large populations of worker bees at the beginning of the bloom season. That is good but large volumes of bees appears to be a major factor in swarm production. Stimulation feeding works very well if splits are planned and are made early enough.
If you feed Fumidil-B start feeding it in early to mid February. Fumidil-B has not normally been needed in north Alabama particularly in warm winters to treat for Nosema apis. However other parts of the country are reporting occurrences of Nosema ceranae which may be a factor (some think the cause) in the the occurrence of CCD (Colony Collapse Disorder). Fumidil-B is also effective against Nosema ceranaea and may be a required treatment in Alabama in the future.
2. Do not go into the hives at this time unless there is a compelling reason to do so.
3. Start getting ready for spring; it is just around the corner.
Get queens, packages and or splits on order ASAP. Make sure you know who you are getting splits from as this can be a way to gain diseases and beetles.
4. Check your yard for “dead outs”. Get them out of the yard and clean them up ready for re-use now.
5. Remove, render or dispose of old black comb from frames that are not now in hives.
Old, black comb makes excellent fireplace starter material. Use it sparingly as a little goes a long way. Also I have no idea if and to what degree it might add creosote to your chiming.
Old black comb is also very good to use in swarm traps and now is the time to get your swarm traps in order for spring swarms.
6. Get old frames cleaned, wired and ready for foundation particularly for your swarm collection hives and new start colonies (hold off on installing foundation until as chose as possible to actual need – the bees seem to like the fresh wax smell).
7. Get your order placed ASAP for new wood that will need to be painted. Get it painted so the paint can cure before you install bees. (Hives and related wood ware need not be need painted on the inside, just the surface that will be exposed to weather. It is a good idea to paint both sides of a reversible bottom board and the wood on wood framed queen excluders.
If you are using soft wood, it is best to dip (not soak) the corners (end grain) of all surfaces exposed to the weather in Copper Naphthenate (wood preserver) and let them dry thoroughly before painting. Make sure you use a wood preserver that can be painted over. It has been my experience in the last few years that soaking in Copper Naphthenate will cause soft wood to absorb too much Copper Naphthenate. The excess Copper Naphthenate will bleed through the paint when exposed to summer heat. It appears the manufactures of Copper Naphthenate have improved its ability to penetrating soft wood.
If you use cypress wood, Copper Naphthenate is not required but can be used. You do not really have to paint cypress but I recommend that you do.
Cypress wood will split pretty easy so pre drilled nail holes is helpful.
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Last updated 1/2008 brf
