FEBRUARY 1ST HIVE CHECK

This article describes how I and some close beekeeping friends keep our bees.  These methods may or may not work for you or fit with your beekeeping philosophy.

We are now about two thirds of the way through our central Wisconsin winter.  I consulted my records for the previous 4 years and a majority of losses always occurred in January.  Early January had its share of below zero nights, while in late January there were several short thaws.  Weak hives usually succumb during those below zero nights, so I am always apprehensive when checking hive survival after that.   I heard we are now getting 2 additional minutes of daylight every day.  This should soon trigger the queens to begin laying eggs. 

Do you know the status of your hives?  Now is the time to find out because it is time to place your reservations for bee packages.  Its also the time of year to make plans for the next bee season.  Are you going to replace losses via splits or packages?  Are you going to expand your apiary?  Current thought is that its best to expand using local bees, but the choice is up to you.   February is a good time to refurbish old equipment or assemble paint new equipment.

As of January 31st my hive survival is not as good as last year.  I tried to repeat last year’s winter preparation process, but simply put the results are not to my satisfaction and are falling short of last year’s good results.  Currently, my overall survival is at 72%.  Survival by queen type is:  Saskatraz-100%, Ankle Biters-91%, Russians-73% and a miserable 33% for package queens, which I think were Italians.   The competition between wrapped versus unwrapped hives is a draw.   This is the first year the Russian queened hives have not performed the best.  I’m wondering if their genetics are getting diluted as the hives replace their queens.   The poorer performance of the package queened hives was not unexpected.  Package bees just don’t seem to handle the Wisconsin winters as well as bees acclimated to cold winters.   I’m kicking myself twice; first because I didn’t replace those packages queens; the second time because I raise queens and have them readily available for my personal use.  Several hives have also shown signs of Noesema apis.  As a precaution I have added Fumigilan to the emergency food sugar disc’s I put in the hives in mid-January. 

My experiment with overwintering nucs is also not going well.  Only 1 of 3 is surviving.  The surviving nuc was set up in early August.  The two that succumbed were not set up until late September.  So next summer I will make sure nucs planned for overwintering are started by early August.   We’ll see if the remaining nuc survives.

Emergency food is in all but three hives and I am hoping for no more losses until spring, but spring is still a long way off.  In February I will be topping off the emergency food supplies in each hive and also adding a partial pollen/protein patty.   

Looking at my data I see that hives that I had fed in the fall have a slightly lower loss rate.   I may need to rethink my fall feeding methodology.   Last fall I had fed sugar syrup only to startup hives; 2^nd year hives were not fed.  Last year I had fed all hives and overall survival was higher.  Is this the difference? 

First year queened hives have a slightly higher survival rate than hives headed by two year old queens.  However, I can’t be sure if the fact that I fed all first year queen hives, but not two year old queen hives is affecting the results.  Is it the feeding or age of the queen that makes the difference?  So far, I can’t tell.  So next fall I will just feed all hives and then I can get a clearer comparison between one and two year old queen survival.    

I have been dreaming about spring and thinking about long term improvements for my apiary.  I currently have two Mite Mauler queens on order; which are reputed to be more aggressive against mites than the Ankle Biter.  I will also be getting either a Saskatraz breeder queen or several OHB (Olivarez Honey Bee) Saskatraz production queens to round out my genetic improvement plans.   With these new queens coming and the need for bees to support the queen rearing aspect of this hobby I have decided to go against my own advice and order several packages.  (Last fall my intent was to have high winter survival and replace all losses through splits.  I didn’t quite make it.)   However, I do plan on replacing the package queens when the Mite Mauler and Saskatraz queens arrive.  By doing this I hope to avoid the package hives from raising drones and putting their undesirable genetics into the local gene pool.