WINTER NUCS

Many of you have just bought expensive bee packages or nucs this spring.  This video shows an alternative.  A side benefit is that locally sourced bees usually have a higher winter survival rate than purchased packages.  This video is from 150 miles north of us in Hudson, Wisconsin.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNio5w7eQWM&feature=youtu.be

Although too late for this spring you can begin planning for next winter.

MURDER HORNETS IN WISCONSIN???

NOT TO WORRY!!!  Read this article.

https://www.postcrescent.com/story/news/2020/05/08/murder-hornets-wisconsin-dairyland-not-risk-infestation-expert-says/3100159001/

EARLY MAY IN THE FLYING SQUIRREL APIARY by beekeeper Fred

What’s happening at the Flying Squirrel Apiary?

I ignored the advice of a recent club newsletter to check that all overwintered hives have sufficient honey to tide them over to the beginning of the honey flow.  I noticed a decline in flight activity from one hive.  Opening it, I noted a 6 inch diameter cluster of dead bees.  Inside the cluster were 3 frames of capped brood.  Outside the cluster absolutely zero honey throughout the hive.  More attention to detail could have saved that hive. 

If there is any question on adequate food I provide the colony with one gallon of 1 to 1 sugar syrup. 

I had previously reported on a hive that had 50% drones, which is odd for this time of year.  In the recent warm spell, I looked at this hive in detail.  There was one capped emergency queen cell of doubtful vitality.  No worker brood.  Plenty of drone brood, but in the random distribution normally seen with laying workers.  I will attempt to re-queen the hive by inserting several queen cells, but don’t have a lot of confidence this will succeed.   I also detected what seemed to be a second queenless hive when writing this article.  Immediate action is needed to prevent them become hopelessly queenless. 

About April 19^th I began seeing dandelions.  Although not a big source of nectar for our bees, the dandelions is a sign that spring is here.  

On the warmer days where temperature got above 60F I was performing three actions.  First, I simply verified hives are queenright.  Next, I lift the two brood chambers off the bottom board to permit a quick scrapping of all dead bees from the board.  At that time, I also determine if the brood chambers need to be reversed.  If I see the queen is laying in both boxes, I leave things alone.  If the queen is only laying in the upper brood box, I do the reversal.  Bees always want to move upward.  If there is no open comb above the brood nest the bees don’t always use the option to move into the lower brood box and instead decide the hive needs to swarm.  This gets amplified if there is a strong honey flow and the bees are filling the lower brood box with honey. 

Although conditions were not ideal, I made my first attempt at queen grafting April 18^th.   About 60% of the queen cells were capped.  On April 28^th I candled the cells and it appears about 80% seemed viable.  Not bad for this early in the season.  On April 30^th I was starting to see movement in about 25% of the cells.  By the morning of May 1^st of the initial quantity of 24 cells, 13 queens had emerged, 7 the queens were moving in the cells, one (1) still looked as a probable and 3 duds.   Now the scramble starts to get the new queens into mating nucs.   This time of year, it takes about 3 frames of bees in the nuc to keep the new queens warm if we get a cold night.  Hopefully, mature drones will be available and the weather will be favorable, when these queens are ready to mate about May 6^th.  Time will tell.  Raising queens this early in the spring is always a gamble. 

Things to accomplish in May.

1)      If you haven’t done it already clean your queen excluders of excess wax and propolis.  A heavily propolized excluder may inhibit the movement of bees from the brood chamber to the honey supers. 

2)      Honey supers and excluders for overwintered hives will get installed in mid-May.  Consulting my notes, the honey flow doesn’t really begin in our area until late May.  Minor sources are available prior to that and extremely strong hives can begin storing honey as early as mid-May, but that is an exception.

3)      Make sure you have inspected and repaired any damaged honey super frames beforehand.

4)      If this is your first year at beekeeping the honey frames will not have drawn comb on them.  In that case the bees are even more reluctant to cross the queen excluder barrier.  It is recommended that you not install the excluder until the bees have started to draw comb.

5)      The tendency of the bees is to store honey ABOVE the brood chamber.  They are sometimes reluctant to refill the side honey frames around the brood nest.  Experienced beekeepers do not add the honey supers until they see that new white wax on the honey frames around the brood chamber.  The new white wax is an indication the bees are actively filling the outside frames. 

6)      Change the entrance excluder to the 4 inch setting. 

7)      Order supplies if you intend to perform a June mite knockdown treatment. 

If you have hives in which the bee population is exploding you may want to consider: a) doing a split or b) removing bees and brood to start a nuc or c) removing bees and brood to aid a weaker hive or d) add another brood chamber box until you figure your plan of action.  Failure to take action will probably result in the hive swarming.  Although swarming isn’t inherently bad you will be losing about 50% of the hive’s work force and also the hive’s queen.  This will set the hive back at least a month because of the time it takes the hive to raise a new queen and get the work force back up to snuff.   By the time the hive recovers the major honey flow in our area could be over.  Also the hive will only successfully re-queen itself about 60% of the time.  Note to new beekeepers: A new hive started from a package or nuc rarely swarms in its first year. 

BEEZY DAY

Finally two warm days in a row.  Several ECWBA members took advantage of the nice weather to clean out the club hives and install nucleus colonies (nucs).  The UV light in sunshine was killing any COVID19 virus spores that might have been present out in the clean country.

Many hands make the job go fast.  Roger Manock, Fred Ransome and Gerard Schubert quickly cleaned out the deadouts.  Although Gerard was operating the camera in this shot, he also dug in and got his hands dirty with the rest of us.  We even kept socially distant. 

The two hives with syrup feeders in place are all set to grow.  

Mid-April in the Flying Squirrel Apiary

Beekeeping is always full of surprises! We had a few warm sunny days and then back into the deep freeze.  However, as of this writing no hives or nucs succumbed to this hopefully last bout with winter.
  

On those few days where we were getting into the high 50’s I was doing a cursory inspection of the hives and nucs by simply raising the inner cover and quickly peeking in to assess hive strength. As normal there was a big variation in strength; from about 6 frames of bees to the entire box boiling over.


To strengthen some of the winter nucs I was transferring full frames of bees and brood from the strongest hives to the weakest nucs. While doing this I was already seeing capped drone cells and a few active drones. Based on the few drones I was seeing swarming will probably not occur before mid-May.  But remember beekeeping is full of surprises.


One surprise was a hive where 50% of the bees are drones. Very unusual. I think the queen’s supply of sperm had run out and she was only laying drone eggs. If we get a warmer day I will try to assess the situation further. Since I don’t have a replacement queen this hive will probably just dwindle away.


Surprise number two. I have been supplementing the food supply of my winter nucs by giving them 1:1 syrup via a quart mason jar. A racoon has found this bounty and has removing the jars and drinking the syrup three nights running. I have had to temporarily stop the feeding while I try to live trap the racoon. So far, the racoon is winning. Luckily, he is not damaging the nucs and the bees have not minded the 3 inch hole in their roof.  


What’s ahead?  

When we get into the 60’s I will be scraping the bottom boards. Then I will do some more bee and brood transfers between strong and weak hives. This is called leveling. It suppresses the swarming urge of the strong hives and strengthens the weaker hives.


I hope to start queen grafting if we can get a few 60 degree days in a row.  By the time this several week process is complete there should be mature drones available for mating.  Then I just need to pray for warm sunny days for mating flights.  Mated queens may be available mid-May if all goes well.


I always get the urge to put on honey supers near the end of April. This year I will fight that urge and not add the supers until I see the bees making fresh white wax on the outer frames of the brood boxes.  This means they are busy filling the comb with honey. Adding the honey supers too early lets the bees follow their normal instinct, which is to place the honey directly above the brood nest. Forcing them to put the honey into the brood box outside frames ensures a good honey supply for next winter. The only danger is that if there is an early and strong honey flow they may start filling the brood nest area itself, which can induce swarming.  Knowing when to add the honey supers is part of the “art” of beekeeping.


Happy beekeeping.