The honey flow is going full throttle.
Clover, alfalfa, basswood, trefoil, and crown
vetch are all in bloom.
The black locust
bloom has come and gone.
Strong hives
are packing away nectar and capping it once the water content is reduced below
20%.
Yes, somehow the bees know how to
gauge the water/sugar content of the honey.
On a few overwintered hives the bees are starting to work their fourth
honey super!
The key words in that
sentence were “few” and “overwintered”.
Unfortunately,
it takes work to get all hives to perform in that manner.
This honey bounty also has its downside.
When the supers are on the hives it becomes
more difficult to conduct hive inspections and to apply mite treatments due to
the added labor of removing and replacing those heavy honey supers.
The honey flow also urges the bees to
reproduce.
Consequently many
overwintered hives build swarm cells that a lazy beekeeper like me does not
always remove.
Based on checks I have
done it appears that up to 6 of my hives have swarmed.
Luckily, I was able to capture and hive 4 of
the swarms.
However, since it takes a
hive about a month to rebuild its strength, a hive that has swarmed misses out
on storing a lot nectar from the honey flow.
I estimate that each swarmed hive costs the beekeeper about 2 supers (60
lbs) of honey.
So do as I say, not as I
do.
Inspect your hives every 2 weeks and
remove swarm cells if you want to deter swarming.
Most hobbyist beekeepers never realize their
hive has swarmed and wonder why “their bees” do not gather as much honey as
their neighbors hives.
Our club President has reminded me that with the passing of the summer solstice the urge for reproductive swarming is reduced.
During the second week of June my apiary was inspected by
the Wisconsin state apiary inspector.
His primary focus was in finding American Foulbrood, European Foulbrood,
Hive Beetles, and Varroa.
My apiary had
no adverse findings.
Mite counts were in
the 0-1 range.
He did identify two other
minor diseases; “snotty mite brood’ and “Sacbrood”.
These
two minor maladies are usually not treated and strong hives will cure
themselves.
Comparing hives is interesting.
Overwintered hives (that haven’t swarmed) are
now busy packing away honey.
The hives
started with overwintered nucs this spring are also storing honey, but only
about ½ the amount of the overwintered hives at this point.
My mid-April packages have, at this point,
just put a minor splash of honey into the supers.
The May 1
st packages are still
struggling to populate the 2 brood chambers.
This shows of importance of keeping your hives alive through the
winter.
Not only does it save you the
expense of buying a new package, but overwintered hives also greatly outperform
packages in spring buildup and honey production.
The key to winter survival is: (you guessed
it)
VARROA MITE CONTROL
This past week I treated all hives with a 50% dose of
FormicPro in order to keep the mite populations in check.
Note:
Formic acid is the only mite control method approved for use while the honey
supers are in place.
The main honey flow will continue in our area for 3 to 4
more weeks.
After mid-July the nectar
flow really tails off.
To take maximum advantage of this flow:
1)
Make sure to add an empty super when the present
super is about 75% filled.
2)
Rotate outside frames into the center of the
super. The bees tend to concentrate on
the center frames and sometimes do not fill outside frames.
3)
Adding the new super below the filled super
(called “bottom supering”). This reportedly stimulates the bees and they increase
their honey storage efforts.
4)
Keep removing swarm cells until mid-July. At that time the weakening nectar flow
lessens the urge to swarm.
