A Beautiful Day For Bees

Yes... Today was a beautiful day for bees. We had our warmest day of winter so far as the temperature hit 46 degrees. Upon walking out in the backyard and glancing at the hives I saw bees galore, maybe hundreds of them, on the front of the hives and flying out in front. With a closer look I saw yellow spots from cleansing flights all over the snow extending out 20 feet ot so from the hives. Even more interesting was that in front of Virginia it looked like the bees were performing orientation flights. What I did find surprising was that there was considerably more activity in front of Virginia than Georgia. Virginia is the much weaker hive of the two.

I did take the opportunity to initiate some Mountain Camp feeding for Virginia. I have read that late winter and early spring can be the deadliest time for bees as they run out of honey stores and starve to death before the spring nectar flows begin or their keepers begin feeding them for the spring build-up.

To accomplish this type of feeding, I added an empty medium super to the top of the hive, placed newspapers directly on top of the frames, and added dry granulated sugar on top of the newspaper. I poured the sugar on in layers and sprayed with water in between to form crusty layers. This is supposed to encourage the bees to eat the sugar rather than carrying it out of the hive and disposing of it. The final product can be seen in this picture.

Besides providing the bees with something extra to eat, the sugar in this kind of feeding absorbs moisture in the hive. Moisture in a hive can be deadly as it can chill the bees as well as act as a breeding ground for Nosema, a protozoan which causes dysentery in honey bees. I found a good discussion on Nosema from UC Davis here if you would like more information. It is interesting and an easy read.

Now Nosema is something which I am mildly concerned about. As I looked around at the spots on the hive and in the snow from today's cleansing flights, I saw some that looked kind of streaked and had a slight brownish color- 2 signs of nosema. We did treat both hives last fall with Fumigillin-B in their sugar syrup, but Virginia took very little of the sugar syrup we provided to her. Assuming we can get both hives through what is left of this winter we will treat again later this spring

Snow Bees

Here we are at the end of January and man is this winter dragging! Every year I forget how long it stays cold and start looking for the warm weather before it is ready to arrive.

Anyway, we have had a cold but relatively dry winter up until a few days ago. Over the weekend we got dumped on by a big storm system that came through. By Saturday afternoon we had about 7 inches of snow on the ground.


The bees survive the snow just fine. In fact I doubt they are very aware of it at all. I have read that snow piled up around the hive actually helps to insulate them and protect them from the wind.

I did clear the snow away from the fronts of the hives but I don't know that that was completely necessary. The heat from the hives had already melted the snow directly in front of the entrances. What was interesting was that even though it was only 24 degrees outside when I took this picture, there were bees crawling around the front entrances. They are not supposed to break the cluster until it gets well above freezing. The only thing I can figure is that they were taking advantage of the melting snow in front of the entrances to collect water.


Now back to the subject of feeding Virginia. I know I have changed my mind on this subject a couple of times. Back in December I was worried about both hives and wanted to add some dry sugar as supplemental feed. Then, when I peeked in at the beginning of January, Georgia's bees were still in the bottom deep and Virginia's had moved up to the top- I thought they both had plenty of honey so I quit worrying. Since then I have read that if the bees are to last the winter on their own honey, they should still be working on the bottom deep in the first part of January. Apparently spring can be a precarious time for bees and they can quickly starve to death if they run out of honey stores too early. So now I have decided to supplement Virginia with dry sugar- if we can ever get some warmer days that is. I don't want to chill them to death while I am trying to save them from starving to death.

Inside The Hives

It warmed up to a balmy 38 degrees today so I went out to take a peek at the hives this afternoon. There was not a lot of activity but there were a few bees walking around on the front porches. Since it was apparently warm enough for the bees to break cluster a little I decided to peek inside and maybe see about feeding them some supplemental sugar to make sure they could make it through the winter.

Having never opened up the hives in winter before, I didn't know if they would be calm or cranky and if I should gown up or go in bare skinned. I chose to don the hat/veil combo and put on the gloves just to be safe. It turned out that I didn't need to- they were very calm and docile. Not even one bee flew up out of the hives.

As I looked down into Georgia I could hear the bees buzzing in there but couldn't see any without pulling and moving the frames. I didn't want to disturb them too much so I let them be. I guess the cluster was down in the bottom deep hive body. What I did find, to my pleasant surprise, was that all the frames in the top deep were full of capped honey! That really put my mind at ease- I was afraid that I had not fed them enough last fall and they would run out of reserves before spring. I replaced the top cover and moved over to Virginia. Virginia was just as calm but I could see plenty of bees. The cluster had moved up to the center frames of the top deep hive body. I was even more worried about Virginia's stores because she seemed to take less of last fall's sugar syrup, but the 3-4 frames on either side of the cluster were full of capped honey. Let me tell you- that really put my mind at ease. Looks like no mountain camp supplemental feeding will be necessary. I closed up Virginia and went back in much less apprehensive than I had been.

I have one question that I am hoping some of you other beekeepers out there will be able to answer. As I looked down into Virginia I noticed some of the bees looked like they had yellow pollen granules stuck to them. I had noticed the same granules on some of the dead bees outside the hive. It is not on all of them by any means- actually they are on far less than half. Do any of you have any idea what it is and should I be worried?

Let's see- we are now approaching the middle of January. I think it will be time to start spring feeding in a month to a month and a half- sometime in March? I have some pollen patties stored in the freezer- we ordered them to feed the packages when they arrived last April. What I didn't know then but I do know now is that 15 pollen patties will last us several years. I will throw them on the tops of the frames in addition to sugar syrup to give the bees a kick start on spring brood rearing. Hopefully, we will then have two rip-roaring hives going in time for the late spring/early summer nectar flows. I do still want to order a new queen for Virginia- she really slowed down at the end of last summer (even decreased in population a little bit) and her bees got a lot crankier than Georgia's did. I hope that a new queen will calm them down and help them build better numbers.

Winter has been long but the end is in sight! We will soon get to graduate from "Newbie" status and become "Second Year Beekeepers"!

They're Alive!

Just a few days ago I posted Snug As A..... Bee In A Hive and mentioned that it had been to cold for the bees to fly in the past month or so. This had become frustrating to me because A) I miss seeing them buzzing around, and B) I am a little concerned about their winter stores and want to start some supplemental feeding with granulated sugar. Well, shortly after posting that blog entry I happened to look up at the thermometer saw that it was 39 degrees outside. So much for the accuracy of The Weather Channel!

I immediately ran outside to look at the hives and saw.... nothing! I was really disappointed. I crouched down and rapped on the side of each hive with my knuckles and heard a loud buss from each of them. A few guard bees from each hive wandered out of the entrance with their stingers up in the air. They are cranky but still their! It was good to see them, even if they were mad. I stood there for a while and watched as a few bees did a little house keeping and brought some of their dead comrades out of the hive and deposited them a few feet away.

We were just about 20 minutes away from heading out to church so I didn't have time to get the mountain camp feeding going right then. By the time we made it home the temperature had cooled back into the 20's. I guess that will have to wait for another day.