February is now down in the record books. For us central Wisconsin beekeepers weather conditions were not too bad; only two below zero nights in February. However, these two nights were hard enough on my bees to take out two more hives and two more nucs. A quick check of two showed extremely small clusters which probably could not generate enough heat to make it. My hive and nuc survival percentages at this point are now down to 88 and 86% respectively. This is slightly lower than last winter at this time. Of course, further losses may occur until spring is finally here. I should be thankful for this high survival rate, but any loss hurts. On the bright side, I can look forward to chasing swarms in a few months.
The high survival rate indicates to me that my varroa mite control methodology is working. I had used the same process for the past two years. One oxalic vapor treatment in early April, a 50% formic acid treatment in mid-June, a 100% formic treatment late July/early August, followed by single oxalic acid vapor treatments in September, October and November. These last three oxalic treatments were to knock down migrating mites resulting from robbing or mite bombs. This year I plan to skip the April oxalic treatment on 50% of my hives to see if this change makes a difference.
Speaking of spring, the long term forecast shows that daily highs will creep up into the mid 40’s and even the low 50’s in the next two weeks. Soon we will begin seeing the bees searching for tree pollen. Silver maple and pussy willow are usually the first available pollen sources.
But the nights will still be dropping to below freezing. Even so, the hives are now rearing brood in earnest. To do this they must warm up the brood nest to 92F. This requires honey or sugar to fuel the heater bees. During the warmth of the afternoon the bees will be able to scour the hive looking for honey. However, at night they will again go into cluster over the brood. Make sure your bees do not run short of fuel and starve. I will be adding a sugar disc to all hives one more time in March. At the same time, I will also insert a ¼ or ½ patty of pollen or pollen substitute. Consider that a package of bees or a nuc costs more than $120, so the small cost of the sugar and pollen patties are cheap insurance to prevent starvation. Once tree pollen is available the bees will ignore your offering of the pollen patty.
There is still one more month to go in the beekeeper’s winter, which runs to the end of March. Although you are getting anxious to check out your hives do NOT perform any inspections yet. The maximum that you should do is to quickly raise the inner cover to see if you hive is alive or dead. Pulling a frame to inspect for brood will expose the brood to cold air and kill it. If alive, is the cluster large enough in size for a strong spring buildup? If dead or extremely undersize, now is the time to get replacement bees on order. If the cluster is enormous you could also begin planning for a spring split; be it a walk away split or adding a queen. Do you need to purchase or build more equipment? Remember the 6P’s; “Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance”.
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