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~ The more I studied beekeeping, the less I knew, until, finally, I knew nothing. But, even though I knew nothing, I still had plenty to unlearn. Charles Martin Simon

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Tag Archives: seasonal management

Midlands Beekeeping Calendar for August

01 Monday Aug 2022

Posted by sassafrasbeefarm in beekeeping, beekeeping calendar

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

beekeeping, beekeeping calendar, seasonal management, summer management

August_Calendar

Visit the Honey Bee Health Coalition for Information on Mite Treatments

As always, all beekeeping is local. Here’s my offering for the beekeeping calendar for the South Carolina Midlands for the month of August:

Plan on checks twice this month but be brief when opening hive to prevent triggering robbing. This month you should focus on mite control, other pest control such as Small Hive Beetles and yellow jackets, and feeding as needed. Unfortunately, controlling pests is not a great deal of fun.

Monitor and control pests – Varroa, Small Hive Beetles, Yellow Jackets.

It is now critical that the beekeeper assess varroa levels (sugar roll method or alcohol wash) and treat this month as needed. (If you have not treated yet, most likely you will need to treat.) Varroa mites are now outbreeding your bees. Fewer drone cells means the mites will start entering more worker cells. Additionally, while your bees are reducing their populations as a result of a decrease in their food supply, the mites are continuing to multiple exponentially. It is critical that you determine the effectiveness of your treatments by measuring varroa levels post treatment. Do not assume that a treatment was effective. Establishing a healthy population of bees now will be reflected in your fall bees and ultimately in your winter bees. Allowing your bees to maintain a high mite load now will result in weak fall bees and sickly winter bees later. Depending on your current mite level your bees may not get to winter if this is left unaddressed. If you are seeing deformed wing virus you likely have a serious case of mites, a high virus load, and need to take immediate action.

Dearth continues this month. Even if you left the bees plenty of honey consider feeding a thin 1:1 syrup to provide hydration and calories. Syrup is quick and ready for the bees to utilize helping them keep the brood fed, cool the hive, and keep the hive at 50% – 60% humidity. Additionally, if the population is dropping or brood is looking poorly fed, i.e. no brood food in larval cells, offering syrup will increase the population. You’ll also notice an increase in colony activity (who doesn’t enjoy a refreshing drink in this heat?). It’s also a good time to start monitoring honey stores by hefting the back of the hive, comparing the felt weight to the stores found inside on inspection. The bees are not bringing in much nectar now (if any) and will consume what is currently stored as we continue through dearth.

August will be your last opportunity to obtain local Midland’s queens. Early contact with your local supplier is suggested. If you need a queen after this month you will probably have to order online from out of state.

1) Treatment options for varroa control are now limited due to the extreme Midlands heat in August. Options for August include oxalic acid vaporization, Hopguard III, Apivar, and other hard chemicals. If using oxalic acid vaporization, a series of treatments is suggested (Rusty  Burlew covers various treatment schedules here as does Randy Oliver here.) Remember to harvest any honey for human consumption prior to treating if indicated.

2) Implement pest control measures to contain Small Hive Beetles and Yellow Jackets.

3) Monitor and reduce entrances to assist the bees with guarding. This can be helpful to avoid robbing from other colonies as well as pests. Spilled syrup or honey can start a robbing frenzy. Be exceptionally careful when working your colonies to not spill syrup or drip honey when working colonies.

4) Re-queen as necessary – a weak or failing queen will not improve over the fall. The stressors of winter will need a healthy colony – now is the time to strengthen weak colonies if you suspect a failing queen.

5) Unite weak (but otherwise healthy) colonies with stronger colonies if no disease is present.  If a colony is weak and not showing promise of strengthening, rather than allowing it to dwindle and fail, combine it with a strong colony. Consider that combining two weak colonies does not improve either and results in a colony that continues to weaken.

6) A small upper entrance may be beneficial with venting excess heat. Depending on your colony strength, staple a screen to prevent unwanted visitors yet allow ventilation. Or another idea is to use popsicle sticks, or pennies, between the inner and telescoping covers to allow heat to escape.

7) Remove colonies from mountains and extract Sourwood honey.

8) Cotton bloom has typically already started but you still have time to place colonies on upcoming soybeans.

9) If not already accomplished, continue to reduce hive size (internal volume). If you have not been feeding syrup, and still have honey on any remaining colonies you may harvest for human consumption. If you have been feeding, some beekeepers place excess frames of stores in the freezer for feeding, if needed, during winter. Always leave at least one hive body, often referred to as the feed chamber, of honey for bees.

10) Monitor pollen supply coming into hive. We occasionally see a late summer pollen dearth that lasts a couple weeks depending on weather. Some locations produce more pollen than others. Bees must have pollen just as they must have nectar or syrup in order to create brood food and to maintain a healthy immune system. Monitor pollen stores by observing the presence of pollen on brood frames especially the frames on the edges of the brood nest. If your colony needs supplemental pollen consider feeding dry pollen or substitute in open pollen feeders. Do not use pollen patties inside the hive as they create Small Hive Beetle problems here in the Midlands. More information here: Pros and Cons of Feeding Dry Pollen Substitute.

11) Starting the last week of August begin to increase your syrup feeding using a 1:1 mix and provide enough to stimulate brood production. Do not use essential oils this time of year as it may incite robbing. Monitor honey stores as well. The goal is to start raising the nurses that will raise the nurses that will ultimately raise your winter bees. It is important that you begin to raise well fed, healthy bees free of mite loads, and viruses in late summer. Do not let sick or compromised bees do the job of raising your fall nurse bees or winter bees.

12) It’s also time to start monitoring stores to ensure you will reach the goal of one full super (the feed chamber hive body directly above your brood nest) for winter.

13) Keep water available at all times for your bees. If you don’t provide water they will gather water elsewhere such as your neighbor’s swimming pool.

14) The South Carolina State Fair will be hosting competitive events this year. Registration is now open. You can register online in the Agriculture Section HERE. Registration is free until September 1st. Start preparing your entries!

15) Attend your local monthly meeting. Volunteer to educate the public on the importance of honey bees.

The above are general guidelines for the average bee colony in the Midlands of South Carolina. We all have hives that may be outperforming the average. We also have colonies that underperform the average. Use your judgement in making changes suggested here. Beekeeping is an art as well as a science. Only you know the many, many particulars associated with your physical hives as well as the general health and population of your colonies.

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It’s Time to Plan for Spring by sassafrasbeefarm

31 Thursday Dec 2020

Posted by sassafrasbeefarm in beekeeping, beekeeping seasons

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

beekeeping seasons, goals in beekeeping, preparing for spring, seasonal management, seasons

red-maple-6836_1280

Red Maple – Harbinger of Spring

Sooner or later, if one stays in beekeeping, it becomes apparent that success is directly related to being proactive in one’s management of the bees rather than reactive. After all, this is exactly what the bees are doing. The bees never wait until the last minute to put up stores for winter. Nor do the bees wait until the day before the spring nectar flow to gather a full house of foraging bees to harvest nature’s bounty. Rather, the bees work months ahead to make sure they have everything needed to succeed. You too should follow their lead in preparing now for spring beekeeping if you want to have the best chance of success.

For short term goals I would direct you to the beekeeper’s calendar for your area which will guide you as to the tasks at hand for the immediate future. This article will discuss longer term goals.

Let’s consider some likely beekeeping for colonies here in the Midlands which you can work on during the coming months:

– Establish your goals for 2021
– Inventory your current assets
– Assess your needs (equipment mostly but may include outyards, personnel,etc.
– What knowledge will you need to be successful?
– Lay out your time management plan.

Assessment:

What can you do now to ensure your spring will be the best spring ever? Let’s start with considering your goals. Often, I have heard questions asked at monthly meetings that get the response, “Well, it depends.” Answering the question usually goes into what the beekeeper’s goals are. Are they making bees or honey? Do they want to grow their apiary or just manage a few hives for pollination? Are they hoping to produce enough honey to sell or do they want to make queens or nucleus hives for sale? What our management practices are depends directly on our goals. If you are planning a trip to California for almond pollination, you’ll start feeding pollen substitute in early January, but if you do that with colonies you are leaving here in the Midlands you may end up with your bees in trees before it’s warm enough to manage splits. So, before we begin, take some time to decide now what your beekeeping goals will be for 2021 – everything else hinges on this decision.

This time of year, with the reduction in time spent managing your colonies, is ideal to inventory your assets. Get out and inspect your supers, scrape frames, and make sure you have enough equipment to handle your spring goals. Write down your current inventory on paper or start a planning notebook. Later, as you begin to see the plan come into place, you be able to compare your list of current assets against your list of needed assets to accomplish your goal.

Planning:

After you inventory your assets, write down your shopping list of equipment for ordering later. In addition to woodenware you may need lumber for hive stands, or other less obvious equipment like a new tire for your trailer. Making a list now will help you stay within budget. What’s important now is to develop the plan and determine what is needed. Wait until the plan firms up before ordering equipment as plans may change based on current assets, or other unexpected events which can come up during this planning stage.

Also included in the planning stage is thoroughly thinking through your plan. If it involves establishing out yards, have you located and secured permission for land use? If not then you may want to use any of several methods including the ‘stop and knock’ method, Google maps, or an ad in the local or state Market Bulletin.

Education may also be needed in the planning stage. If your goal is making increase you may want to order books or attend a local course on making splits and nucleus hives. Queen rearing may become something that you’ll have to consider. And if you are not ready for queen rearing, then making plans for purchasing queens to place in those splits if you hope to have them ready in time for spring sales. Purchasing queens would then become an item on your budget which may cause some changes to the original plans. Be flexible.

The idea here is considering all the implications of your plan. Hammer out the timeline now so that you can adjust early in the process. Once spring comes, you’ll be busy managing your bees, so time spent planning during these cold days is time well spent.

Implementation:

Once you’ve completed the assessment and planning portion of your spring preparations it’s time for implementation. Time to finally start the project. By now you have purchased the needed equipment, read up on aspects of your goals, and laid out a timeline for your tasks which includes consideration of the bees’ and nature’s timeline. Let’s get started!

Over winter, it’s time for equipment maintenance and to build boxes, frames, and other woodenware if needed. Also, you may need to visit potential out yards to determine suitability. If you are planning on renting colonies for pollination a pollination contract with dates and other particulars needs to be written and established with the farmer. Will you need more bees or queens? If so, make sure you get your orders in on time to reserve your bees. Also, make it a point to attend as many educational bee meetings as possible. You never known when someone will offer up that nugget of knowledge you’ve needed to hear that will save you a mistake in the future. The final part of implementation will be the actual harvest of the product, the sales of the honey or bees, or the pollination of the crops. Or perhaps the establishment of an out yard which will serve you in the future. As you work through implementation enjoy the process. It’s great fun to see a project come together step by step.

In closing, now is the time to make those plans for success next spring. Start daydreaming now, develop a viable plan, and implement your plan to ensure success next year no matter what your goals may be.

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Mite Treatments by What Should I Be Doing With My Bees This Month?

02 Thursday Aug 2018

Tags

art, beekeeping, seasonal management, varroa, varroa destructor, Varroa management, varroa mites

Mite treatments will be the hot topic for all beekeepers very soon. Look at the graph above about the bee and mite population and the timeline. The Varroa population lags the bee population, up until early September. Then the mite population keeps increasing as the bee population goes down. This high infestation of mites damages the bees physically and also exposing honeybees to viruses. This high infestation of mites is what kills honeybee colonies.   Beekeepers need to stop this rising mite population during the month of August before the Varroa population explodes. Looking at the graph one can see there is a sharp rise in the month of August in the mite population. Treating colonies in September in many cases is too late. The bees may be so damaged by the rising mite population that they cannot recover.

Read the full article at:  Mite Treatments — What Should I Be Doing With My Bees This Month?

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Posted by sassafrasbeefarm | Filed under beekeeping, varroa, varroa destructor, varroa mites

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