BEE HEALTH

Here is a website that has a variety of articles on honey bee health.  Such as:

Varroa & Honey Bee viruses
Small Hive Beetle
Winter Loss Survey Results
Best Management practices

http://www.extension.org/bee_health

Ants in your pants? oh, I meant Hive

This link provides "natural" solutions to prevent ants from getting in your hive.  I also have ants in  some of my hives.  I usually take two approaches.  1) Do nothing (how much honey can an ant eat anyways, 2) Use ant poison external to the hive.  Note:  Most ant poisons have sugar in them to attract the ants.  You must make sure the bees can NOT get to the ant poison.

http://www.keepingbackyardbees.com/ants-in-the-hive/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=KBBees%20eNews&utm_campaign=06.11.15%20-%20KBB%20eNews

HONEY FLOW TIME

Here in central Wisconsin it is now prime time for this year's honey flow.  Although the black locust flowering is complete many other large volume nectar sources are starting.  In my walks around the neighborhood I have seen the following plants are now either in bloom or just beginning to bloom.

Ladino clover
Dutch clover
Alsike clover
White and yellow sweet clover
Red clover
Trefoil
Alfalfa

Please note that the florets of the red clover blossom are too long and prevent most bees from reaching the nectar with their tongues.

It is a good practice to check the status of your supers on a weekly basis.  A strong hive can easily fill a super in a week if nectar is available.  Of course there will be a big variation between hives.  Last week I was pleasantly surprised to find I have two hives that already filled the two supers initially installed on the hives.   I happily added a third super to each. Conversely, other hives have yet to deposit any honey in the 1st super.  My records, kept over several years, show most hives will have restocked the outer brood chamber frames and started storing honey in their supers by June 15th.  You should have installed your honey supers by now; even on hives started with new packages this spring.  Inadequate space to store the honey flow can also trigger swarming if the bees start storing honey in the brood chamber proper thus restricting the space in which the queen can lay.   Proper hive management helps yield more honey.

CONSIDERING ANOTHER TYPE OF LIVESTOCK? CHICKENS AND BEES TOGETHER

Here is a short article on the benefits of raising both bees and chickens.

http://keepingbackyardbees.com/chickens-and-bees-together/

ECWBA FIELD DAY RESULTS

So how did you bet on the Russian queen cell yield?

The manual graft of 20 cells only yielded 5 capped cells.  I guess it must be operator (beekeeper Fred) error.  Unfortunately, I don't know where I may have gone wrong, but suspect I may not have had enough bees in the swarm box or didn't select one day old prime larvae.

The graft done using the EZ queen kit yielded 18 capped cells out of 20.  There was a 19th cell fully drawn, but had not been capped.

If I can find them homes the queens from these cells should be mated and laying by June 26th.

                                                         Queens made with kit

                                                                Queen hand grafted

As a side note I was out randomly checking a few hives for honey in their supers.   To my surprise one hive had already filled two (2) supers!   Make sure your hives have the supers installed and don't miss out on the honey flow.  I suspect this honey has come from either black locust flowers or dutch clover which are both in bloom right now.

Also, swarm season is here.  I got a call from the local school about a swarm in the playground.  The swarm looks to be about 5 pounds of bees and filled two brood chamber boxes.  If lucky I might get a honey harvest from this swarm this year.  What's the saying?  A swarm in May is worth a load of hay.  A swarm in June is worth a silver spoon.  A swarm in July ain't worth a fly.