Flexibility in Beekeeping by sassafrasbeefarm

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beekeeping, beekeeping management, flexibility in beekeeping, opinion, summer management

Our local club past President, Danny Cannon, delivered one of the best lectures I’ve ever sat through at a MSBA meeting several years ago. It was titled Flexibility in Beekeeping, Being Flexible in Beekeeping, or some such similar title. It literally changed my beekeeping.

That lecture keeps ringing through my brain lately and for good reason. One of the ideas in the lecture was the understanding that we must move backwards and side to side as easily as we move forward in our management. For instance, recently I’ve been playing musical chairs with supers, frames, and bees. Let me explain.

In the Spring it’s all about adding, expanding, and growth. Things seem to get bigger. A lot of “addition” taking place – boxes, hive stands, and new hives. The thinking is, If I can stay ahead of them with “more” they won’t swarm. Add, add, add. Grow, grow, grow. Feed, feed, feed. Gotta add more boxes! Look and act – usually with more, more, more. Find a swarm and be prepared and flexible enough to have an extra stand, bottom board, and box – capture, and add to the apiary. And that’s how most of the management goes in the Spring.

And then comes the post flow Summer, Fall, and early Winter management. But can I break my addiction to adding? Can I be flexible enough to read the bees and act according to the situation? The queen will slow her production down as nectar wanes and more so when the days start getting shorter. Can I tap the brakes, slow down, make changes? I sense that I’m reluctant to pull that super off that I worked so hard to build them up to needing. Or maybe they’ve swarmed and the hive is half empty now, yet I want to leave those boxes on in hopes they will build back up – and they very well might if I’m flexible in my management!

Maybe a queen starts to fail and it becomes noticeable at the hive entrance that activity has slowed. But it’s hot and I’d rather not suit up and look inside; say it isn’t so because I’d really rather not have to track down a replacement queen.

Or I have two hives that are in steep decline, should I combine them with stronger hives? After all, I have a vision of how many hives I need to complete the mental picture I have of my hives sitting on their designated hive stands in my well designed apiary. I want X number of hives not X – 1 hives.

And so, I return to the topic of flexibility. Can I be flexible enough to respond appropriately during these months post nectar flow? Oh, it’s difficult. But if I don’t employ the discipline of flexibility in removing sparsely or unpopulated boxes, combining weak hives, or replacing a failing queen what penalty is paid? Unlike the threat of swarms in the spring, the lack of my flexibility now is paid for with increased pests, hive failures, and loss of valued comb. Hives no longer able to cover comb with bees allow Small Hive Beetles to go unchecked and run amuck in nectar. Worse still is the bane of Wax Moths that move in on weakened or poorly populated hives and destroy your most precious resource – your hard earned comb. Weak and declining hives, if disease free, may need to be combined with strong hives and I have to accept that empty spot on the hive stand and tell myself that maybe a split may be possible later in the year or at least next spring.

It’s all flexibility. I’ll read the bees as best I can, make adjustments, go with the flow every time I visit the apiary or open a hive. I must accept that it’s a roller coaster with ups and downs, round and rounds, bright lights and dark tunnels. When I get off the ride I don’t want to say I enjoyed the ups but not the downs or the round and rounds. No, really I enjoyed the ride itself. Be flexible.

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Musings on Minimalist Beehive Management by Tom Hebert

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beekeeping, beekeeping management, management, minimalist beekeeping management

How much intervention in the hive is enough? Some beekeepers do lots of management, entering their hives at least weekly, if not more. Others are minimalists with little or no inspections. Every beekeeper has their own unique situation that dictates their management.

In their zealousness, some new beekeepers always want to get into their hives to see what is happening. They are overly enthusiastic with this new endeavor and want to do inspections a couple times a week. And then there are other beekeepers who do minimalist management, letting the bees do what they know how to do with infrequent intervention. And sometimes it becomes very infrequent or even nonexistent.

So, is more management better? Is less acceptable? My guess is many beekeepers will say there’s a point when the beekeeper will overdo their inspections. But this debate could also be about whether the beekeeper does not do enough inspections.

I consider myself a minimalist when it comes to the management of my top bar hives. Often, I put little effort into checking them and managing them. It sometimes reaches the point where a person can consider me more of a bee-haver instead of beekeeper. I don’t even touch some of hives except to harvest them.

For example, one of my apiaries is in the mountains of Honduras on a coffee farm. I don’t get up there very frequently. The last hives in the line get the least attention. Time runs out and the truck is ready to take the workers back down to town. This is a Saturday and they work only until noon. I must go with it (or take a couple hours and walk down the mountain which is not likely after spending all morning in the hives). These are the hives that I only enter to harvest.

But minimal management works for me in my situation. I want honey from them but I don’t do beekeeping as my primary income source. I’m an elementary school teacher and bees have become a secondary income (unfortunately). They give me what they want for effort I put into their management. I accept that and I’m grateful for it.

Read the full article with lots of great pictures here: Musings on Beekeeping

Introducing Queens by Lytchett Bay Apiaries

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beekeeping, beekeeping management, queen introduction, queens

Whenever a new queen is introduced to the existing colony there is always a chance your worker bees will not accept her, and the result of this could be the death of your new queen – no matter which method of introduction you use.

The main things you need to be sure of when introducing a new queen, whether it be into a full colony or nucleus, is that you do not have a virgin queen or indeed a mated queen that has simply gone off lay in your colony. You need to ensure you have removed all queen cells or queen cups, shake the bees off the frames if necessary to find the queen cells they hide in the edges of the frames. Also ensure you do not have laying workers in your hive.

Read full article here: Introducing Queens — Lytchett Bay Apiaries

Pros and Cons of Feeding Dry Pollen Sub by Bee Informed Partnership

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beekeeping management, pollen, pollen substitute

Most beekeepers have come to realize that due to lack of natural forage in our urban and agricultural landscapes, feeding pollen substitute has become necessary to keep bees healthy in most parts of the country. Last summer was an especially challenging season in the West due to extremely hot and dry conditions. Despite a wet spring in California and Oregon last year, the spigot was shut off abruptly early in the summer and what little forage was available quickly shriveled. Beekeepers who had not been providing supplemental feed saw their colonies dwindle as the summer went on. Although it’s still early, this year is looking like it could be similar.

Read the entire article here: Pros and Cons of Feeding Dry Pollen Sub — Bee Informed Partnership

What have you done for me lately? by sassafrasbeefarm

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beekeeping management, dearth, feeding bees, providing water, summer management

Water in Boardman feeders.

Based on my own experience, and in talking with others, honey removal places an additional stress on the colonies. And, if you think about it, it does so in several ways. Of course we just took away much of their stores. Often we have taken apart their entire structure and rearranged the order they had created. The scent of torn honey combs may have caused some robbers to investigate which necessitated defense of the colony. Simple removal of a hive body changes the thermodynamics and ventilation characteristics. And on top of it all we have done all this at the beginning of one of the most stressful times of the year – dearth and pest season.

I’ve lost colonies within a month of harvesting in prior years. It may have been because of mites or robbing and simply coincided with harvest but regardless, the stress of harvesting played into their inability to maintain the healthy state they were in prior to my disruption.

So, back to my original question, What have you done for me lately? Or more appropriately, What have you done for your bees lately?

Are you providing ventilation to allow them to cool the hive? Screen bottom boards? Small upper entrances to allow air flow? Popsicle sticks under the outer cover? We know they are working hard to cool the hive as evidenced by water gathering. Are you making it easy for them to gather water?

Syrup on top where it can be protected and not start robbing.

Are you giving them some syrup to replace some of the stores you took? You might say that you left adequate stores on the hive but would access to a little feeding of light syrup not be welcomed rather than having them gather water and reconstitute honey left on the hive? Remember honey harvest occurs at a peek in colony population and brood rearing and they are consuming lots of carbohydrate while unfortunately nectar flow has just dropped off so they must now take on the additional job of diluting honey and using it to feed the larvae along with all the other tasks.

Are you monitoring for hive beetles? I’ve already found a few in smaller nucs. Stronger hives seem to still have them well managed in my apiary. Soon it will be yet another job for them to guard and corral the SHBs.

Have you made adjustments in the size of your hive? You may need to add a hive body or remove one depending on the colony population.

Assess for mites. I checked my mites in early June to be ready for action after harvest. I’ve already completed my second OAV treatment and can see an increase in the enthusiasm of the bees already as the mite load begins to drop. This management of the mites means the bees can do more for themselves by lowering their stress levels so that they can perform the many other jobs they have to do.

It’s hot outside and it can be difficult to motivate yourself to get out and work your bees like you did in the spring. Regardless, your bees need you more than ever right now. Hopefully they are strong and will be able to handle the many challenges awaiting them through dearth, pest season, and ultimately winter. As beekeepers we know that last minute preparations rarely yield the results we want, so we must find a way to work with them now rather than later. Try getting out early in the morning while it’s still cool. I recommend you do as the bees do this time of year – get out and get your work done early and stay home and dance after it gets hot. I’ve found the bees gentle in the early hours recently. Most foragers are out early to gather the nectar produced overnight and many of the house bees are cordial enough. Limit your inspections to ensuring they have what they need and are well. Lower their stress levels with some feed, water, and mite control, and they will do much of the rest.

Pictures above show thin syrup on top (protected) and water in Boardman feeders.

Bee Report — Splitting Hives and Raising Queens (Part I) by Low Technology Institute

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beekeeping management, Cowenta Beekeeping Method, making increase, OTS queen rearing, queen rearing, splitting

Many beekeepers depend on purchasing packages (screened boxes full of bees with a queen) or nucleus hives (mini-hives to be inserted into a full-size one), which cost between $150 and 250 each, depending on the local variables. Some beekeepers end up purchasing bees each year to replace dead-outs (bee colonies that died during the winter). In addition to often getting a mix of random bees with no known genetics or winter survival success, its cost has caused some beekeepers to give up the hobby. One solution to this problem is to split your own surviving hives, creating new queens and colonies from your existing resources. Beekeepers have developed many methods to do this, but I follow a modified version of Mel Disselkoen’s On-The-Spot (OTS) queen rearing method and the Coweta Beekeeping Method. In this post, I’ll describe how to split an existing hive and encourage the growth of new queens. In the next post, I’ll go over how to finish the split by making hives for honey production or population increase.

Read part One of this Two Part Series here: Bee Report — Splitting Hives and Raising Queens (Part I) — Low Technology Institute