The 2018 honey season is coming to an end, and the 2019 season is about to start with the arrival (production) of the Fat Bees. The Fat Bees will start out like any other worker bees, but they will be fed huge amounts of protein (pollen) to alter their physiology to survive the long winter dearth. Although nectar will still be brought into the hives as long as it's available, the bees will be focusing more on pollen. So why aren't the bees in the goldenrod? I have acres of goldenrod surrounding me and I have yet to see a honey bee on a blossom. There's many bumble bees (big ones, little ones), wasps and butterflies busily gathering nectar and pollen, but no honey bees. Maybe they found a field of asters that they find more attractive? My honey crop this season is dismal, as is everyone's that I've been in contact with, except for that one exception. Member Jack Bremer said he's doing fine, again. Ask Jack what he attributes his ongoing success to and you'll probably hear "location, location, location". Hmmm. Even a sideliner I contacted in the Waupaca area said he's way down. I'm thinking there's magic involved. So why is there so little honey this year?
Right now most of my hives are very strong with wall-to-wall bees, but several are not so strong. Those weaker colonies already have entrance reducers in to help the bees deflect any attacks by yellow jackets. I'll be monitoring my hives for visiting yellow jackets and will add entrance reducers when I see them gaining entry. Because yellow jackets can mimic the scent of a colony, they can often gain entry and go in to check things out. If they detect weakness in a colony, they'll return with their sisters and can destroy a colony in a day. Beware! After the honey supers are off it will be time to feed our bees 2:1 syrup and pollen (or pollen substitute) patties. Here in the north, our colonies require 80 - 90 lbs. of honey to overwinter. I personally leave all the honey that's in the deeps, and feed syrup until the bees stop taking it. But this is also dependent on the hives' winter configuration. (2) deeps or (3) mediums? With a super? A double high nuc? We'll talk about winter preparations, hive configurations, ventilation, etc., at our meeting on September 15. Feeding bees syrup is not necessarily a bad thing since it's "cleaner" than nectar when it comes to pesticides and fungicides. It does lack vitamin and mineral content though, so I add mineral salt to the syrup. I have no idea if it helps them or not, but it makes me feel good. Depending on how many colonies you're feeding, and winter emergency sugar needs, sugar can become a significant cost. Thanks to member Cindy Sheske we were once again able to stock up on free sugar, with a minimal donation to the ECWBA. Fred had a 55 gallon drum of it at the August 18 meeting, and those who were interested, and had their own containers, took what they wanted. We talked, again, about the importance of Varroa control and member Jack Rademacher shared a story. He had treated his colonies with oxalic acid vapor and then checked the sticky boards for mite drop over several days. Zero mite drop, and a happy beekeeper! While working his hives in that time frame, he cut off a chunk of burr comb that had drone cells. Normally, Jack, like most of us, just toss the comb out and leave it at that. But Jack had some free time and decided to take a look. With a toothpick, Jack pulled out around 60 drone larvae and counted 12 mites. A 20% infestation rate with that sample. Jack said he'll be using formic acid this week when the temperature is right. It's a good reminder to us all to not trust a zero mite sample no matter what method we use. All of our colonies have mites, period. The best we can do is keep the levels low so our bees remain healthy. Rhiannon mentioned seeing a lot of drones coming into her hive around 4 o'clock. That gave us the opportunity to discuss how drones work. They typically leave the hive around 10 or 11 o'clock and congregate in Drone Congregation Areas (DCAs) and wait for a virgin queen to pass by and then give chase. The fastest drones (from 1 - 24) will mate with the queen in mid-air, and then fall to the ground, dead. Those that don't mate return to the hive around 4 - 5 o'clock, leaving open the question, which were the lucky ones? Alex and Andi (sp?) from Ripon College attended the meeting to share their plans for sustainable living with us, and asked for guidance in the world of beekeeping. Member Buzz offered to provide beekeeping training at the college, with other members volunteering to help. Member Rick Schneider of Capitol Bee Supply was in attendance and offered to assist with their needs as well. The ECWBA is being well represented in this endeavor. (They probably should've been cautioned about asking 2 beekeepers about beekeeping and getting 3 answers. They'll find out.) We discussed whether to continue on with outreach Events, and the consensus was to continue but to limit the scope of the Events so that they are well covered by ECWBA members. So instead of committing to a four-day Event with little to no coverage during part of the Event, to commit to maybe two days with full coverage. We can also discuss the Event prior to committing, and find out how many members are willing to donate time to it. This will be an ongoing discussion. Patti proposed the idea of purchasing a small utility trailer to store our equipment (tables, displays, demo hive, tools, etc.) so that it's all in one place, and not necessarily on her front porch. This proposal has merit, but there is a cost involved. This was tabled and will be discussed further at a future meeting. I brought up that the bees at the club hives are doing well, but the costs of maintenance need to be addressed. Fred and I have each donated (5) drawn deep frames to replace plastic frames that the bees had been ignoring, but there's still several more untouched plastic frames in the deeps. Both hives have supers with all plastic frames, but a few are partially drawn out. I have also donated (2) FormicPro treatments and have ApiGuard for a September treatment, and both Pam and I have donated syrup. Going forward, there needs to be a budget in place to maintain these colonies, and we will discuss this at our September meeting. No one at the August 18 meeting expressed an interest in scheduling an extraction party at the Meadery, but Pam had told me that Sundays are the best days to extract so as not to interfere with Shane's operation. It will now be up to Pam to pick a Sunday for an extraction party, and those who want to participate are welcome to do so. A flyer will be sent out when a date is scheduled. Fred forwarded a beekeeping class schedule that is being offered for free by Tim Wilbanks of Heritage Bees, and I have attached the information in a Word document. I have also attached Patti's August 18 Meeting Notes. Our next meeting is September 15 at the Caestecker Library in Green Lake starting at 9:30 a.m. We'll discuss winter preparations along with the items noted above, and anything else that anyone would like to discuss. If you have stories from the apiary to share, bring them along. Tucker (our Shichon) and I just got back from a walk to the apiary. I didn't have my gear on so I didn't check for pollen coming in, but it was much quieter in the hives than it has been the past month or so. Just a low hum of wings and the scent of honey. Much nicer than a roar of wings and the scent of steam. Gerard
I went to check for honey (for me) in the apiary and the hives were roaring with thousands of fanning wings. Unfortunately for me, they were fanning cells filled with water to cool the interior of the hives and not drying honey. There wasn't much excess honey in the supers of any of the 12 hives that I could take, but there are a lot of healthy looking bees. I removed the FormicPro pads and the sticky boards after the 14 day treatment. One sticky board had a pool of water on it, probably from when I tipped the upper deep back to remove the pads. All sticky boards had a lot of "hive litter" (chewed brood cell cappings) but I didn't see any mites that I could confirm. Lots of "black pepper specks" that may have been baby mites, but too small to tell for sure. After I clean the sticky boards I'll put them back in for a 24 hour drop and see what I get, with far less hive litter to poke through. I did not see any evidence of Deformed Wing Virus, K Wing, chalkbrood, or any other diseases, and the bees appeared very robust. Most of the deeps were very heavy with honey (which I won't take), so it looks like they're well on their way for what it takes to survive a Wisconsin winter. Except G3. There always seems to be an exception. That colony started out as a 3 lb. Carniolan package on April 28. In mid-May it wasn't queenright and I didn't find a queen, so I waited three weeks in case they were in the process of supersedure. On June 11, when I went to install a purchased queen, I found a queen so I left them alone. Now it's August and there's not a whole lot of bees, just a whole lot of empty cells with very little brood and very little honey and pollen. In an effort to help the colony, I killed the queen and installed a new one (in a cage, standard queen introduction technique). I also put in a brood frame from G2 and put on a feeder with 1:1 syrup and half of a pollen patty. This is their last shot and I hope it works. If you haven't done so already, now is the time to treat your colonies with formic acid to help the larvae that are under the cappings (which will be the nurse bees to the Fat Bees) to be as virus free as possible. But watch the temperature forecast. Formic acid treatments can be applied in a range of 55F to 85F, and right now the forecast shows that possibility starting Wednesday, August 15. This is the final opportunity to get those treatments in to help the Fat Bees' nurse bees, which ultimately helps the Fat Bees. Now is also the time to analyze colony strength and making decisions. If the deeps aren't full of bees, honey and pollen, those weaker colonies should be combined with stronger colonies, or fed syrup and pollen or protein patties. If you plan to overwinter in nucs, you'll have to come to a meeting and ask another beekeeper that knows something about that technique. I haven't done it......yet. (I was going to try it and started (2) nucs this summer, but one didn't thrive so I have already combined them into one colony in 8-frame boxes.) Also, if you have a weak colony that you're trying to bring up to winter strength, it's a good idea to put in an entrance reducer to help them keep robbers out. Weak colonies will be targeted by other honey bee colonies and yellow jackets for both honey and protein (aka; larvae) when it's no longer available from the plant kingdom. Some beekeepers re-queen their colonies in August/September so that there's a young, fresh queen to help carry the colony through winter and into spring. If you're considering that, make sure you know that you will be able to get a queen BEFORE you out the current queen. That's what I did with G3. I contacted Fred and he had a few queens still available. When he said I could get one, I killed the queen that was not producing, picked up the new queen the next day, and installed her in the hive. Long live the queen......if she lays well. Know that queen producers are winding down their operations for the season and that very soon they will no longer be available. It's also time to start planning for feeding. When the goldenrod is done blossoming there won't be much for nectar or pollen available to the bees. I've been picking up 10 lb. bags of sugar here and there all summer because I usually use around 400 lbs. in fall and winter. Once the goldenrod is done, the feeders go on with 2:1 syrup and a pollen substitute patty. I feed until they stop taking it or I go broke. Fred has been able to score a pallet of sugar on which the bulk bag had been damaged, and will be bringing a 55 gallon drum full to our August 18 meeting. This sugar is being offered to the membership for free (thank-you Cindy Sheskey), but a $5.00 donation to the ECWBA per 5 gallon bucket is suggested. You must bring your own containers. There should be enough sugar for at least (8) or (9) 5-gallon buckets. If there are more members wanting sugar than is available, we'll put numbers in an ECWBA cap (or something) and have a drawing. We have been contacted by Alex Julian of Ripon College, and below is the body of his inquiry: My name is Alex Julian, and I am working with the sustainability program at Ripon College and we have been looking into bringing bees back onto Ripon Campus. We would like to start hives early this coming spring, but before any bees come to campus the interested students need to go through some training in apiary and I was wondering if you could help us find such training. I invited Alex, or a representative of the Sustainability Group, to attend our August 18 meeting to start some dialogue on how the ECWBA can assist. I have attached the updated Apparel brochure, and items can be ordered at our meeting, our by contacting Laurie at: [email protected] Anyone wanting to use the club extractor, contact Pam to make arrangements: [email protected] We can also discuss if we want to schedule an extraction party (many hands make light work) at our August 18 meeting. Lastly, August 18 is National Honey Bee Day, and although the ECWBA has not planned anything to celebrate honey bees on that day, we may want to consider doing something in future years. Of course, anyone wanting to bring cookies, cakes, etc., made with honey is encouraged to do so. Next meeting: August 18 at the Caestecker Library, Green Lake, 9:30 a.m. We will be talking about harvesting honey, fall and winter preparations, and whether to discontinue, or limit, our Events. Maybe eating cookies or something too. See you on Saturday. Gerard
|
ECWBA NewsletterSince 2009 Archives
March 2019
|