Honey Run Apiaries-A Beekeeper’s Blog

It’s May 28th.  Do your hives look like this in Ohio?

10 of the 14 hives in this apiary look this strong right now.   The 2nd to the top super was added to the hive just 2 weeks ago and most hives already have a significant amount of honey in it or have it filled and were building comb on the top of the bars.  They desparately needed more space and I added yet another super this trip (the top super shown in the picture).    Also keep in mind that 3 or 4, 5 frame mating nucs were made up from each of the hives in this yard just 6 weeks prior to this picture.

Not all hives look this good, but a large number of them do and I account much of it to the effort made last year to requeen nearly all of my hives and improve the stock.  I must say I’m very happy with the result.  The down side is that it’s going to be a real chore lifting off all the honey to get down to the brood nest to pull larvae for grating on some of these that are breeder queens.

The Maumee Valley Region will be holding it’s class on June 6th and 7th.   It is a hands on class where you will learn both the theory of queen rearing and practical methods with a slant on rearing queens in Ohio.  Cost of the class is free to members of the Ohio Beekeeping Association, otherwise the cost is $20 and includes a 1 year membership to the association.

Full details and a map to the location can be downloaded in this PDF - 2008 Queen Classes

If you have any questions or to reserve a spot call me at 419-371-1742 or email tarheit@watchtv.net

Classes will be held this year in 8 regions of Ohio.  Should our class not fit your schedule or location, check out out the OSBA webpage for other queen rearing classes held in Ohio this year.

I’m still here in spite of my absence from the blog for about a month.  Not to worry, I’ve suffered no tragic accident, I’ve simply been busy with work and bees from dawn till dusk and sometimes much later.

The weather here has been cool and wet and we are still consistently well below the average temperature for this time of year.  It has made it difficult to keep the queen rearing on schedule because there have been very few days warm enough for mating flights.   It hasn’t been as bad as it was a few years ago where a 3 week cold spell April and May caused a complete halt to production and loss of all queens in the mating nucs because it simply took too long for them to get mated, though I did have one batch of queens that was about a 50% loss.  Fortunately it looks like things may break this weekend and temperatures may be above normal for awhile at least.  I’m looking forward to it.  We shouldn’t have to be running the pellet stove in May.

It’s always a busy time of the year, inspecting hives, splitting up hives for mating nucs and for sale, grafting, etc.  and the weather can make it even more difficult.  Still, it’s nearly done….nearly 200 mating nucs are in production, hives have been inspected and supered if needed, nucs for sale have virgins running around in them just waiting for a warm day later this week to mate, and I’m starting the first batch of  II queens this week.    It’s a couple weeks behind because there have been very few days were drones were flying to collect for II. 

One thing I would change for next year…If we have such a wet spring, I need to buy a pair of waterproof boots.  Carrying equipment and bees though water because you can’t get the truck back to the apiary isn’t fun, but it’s worse with wet feet.

The spring season has started in earnest. This past Saturday the silver maples started blooming and by Sunday enough was blooming that the bees were completely ignoring the open feed pollen substitute. Probably a good thing as real pollen is better for them and I was starting to run out of substitute as they had consumed nearly two 5 gallon buckets worth.

The weather Sunday was quite warm in the upper 60\’s. Many of the hives had a significant amount of drone brood and the strongest had adult drones. At least one hive had several hundred adult drones…which means it\’s time to start grafting…right on time. I made up one queenless hive, reducing it from 4 medium boxes to 3 from the strongest hive I had checked and grafted the next day, Monday. Checked the grafts on Tuesday and found almost all were accepted so things are progressing nicely. The real work begins late next week…inspecting hives and making up dozens of mating nucs.

Researchers at the Ohio State Bee lab announced they have found a new tool to fight terrorism, the honey bee.

In 2005, scientists from the University of Montana, Montana State University and The National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration conducted successful tests showing that the honey bee could be trained to find landmines.  By feeding the bees sugar water containing traces of the explosive, the bees will hunt out the land mines by smell and the bees can be tracked with Lidar.  These amazing insects only miss their target less than 1% of the time.

Now researches from Ohio State have found a way to use this same mechanism to hunt out terrorists in Afghanistan and elsewhere.  They have found that they can train the honey bees to seek out humans by body oder. In addition, by using the more aggressive Africanized honey bee, who’s defense response can be triggered by CO2 in our breath, the bees will actively seek out and sting their target.  While this may only serve to be a minor annoyance to the terrorists, researchers are working on potent sedatives that can be fed to the bees that won’t affect the bees but will find it’s way into the bees venom.  While the bees do die when they sting, they are relatively inexpensive and it is simple to train new bees.

"The goal is not to harm anyone, but to incapacitate them so troops may move in safely.  This could revolutionize how suspects are apprehended up and virtually eliminate hazards to our troops or civilians.  It’s a very promising technology and we’ve had interest from the FBI and several other state law enforcement agencies hoping to use it."

Recent calls to the Ohio State Bee Lab to obtain additional information and verify the above fact were not returned.

No terrorists were immediately available to comment on the ironic use of suicidal bee attacks to apprehend terrorists.

The news reported this week (a Columbus TV station) that the winter loss of bees in Ohio this past winter was only 15% compared to a 72% loss last year.  And  a recent article from New Jersey reported that they are experiencing a 10-15% loss this year compared to 40% the year before.   Reports from elsewhere mirror these two reports. These reported losses make things appear completely normal and that last winter was just an anomaly.

But wait… The USDS is reporting that the loss of bees to CDD this year has increased to 37%, up from 30% the previous year.    This number comes from a study of commercial beekeepers and the hives they moved to California for pollination.  So things are clearly not better for the commercial operator and the bees that pollination our crops.   These increasing numbers aren’t reflected in the Ohio or NJ counts because these commercial hives aren’t in Ohio or New Jersey.  They may be later in the season for pollinating other crops, but they typically don’t call Ohio or NJ their permanent home.  So just because Ohio and NJ don’t have a big loss this year, they will likely still be affected by the loss of bees elsewhere. 

Unfortunately no one seems to have any real answers yet, though some possible causes have been ruled out, and there still is lots of speculation on what the cause may be.   There is interest in the senate now calling for money for research into this problem.  The bill calling for $20 million in funding for FY 2009 has passed the senate but (as of last Friday) is stalled in the house.  If this is something you are concerned about, you need to talk to your congressman (or woman) now.  (H.R. 1709 ‘Pollinator Protection Act’)

Today was the warmest day we’ve had in quite some time, reaching the mid 50’s.  All the hives were very active and there was more activity at the open fed pollen than I have seen so far this season.  Apparently there was too much  traffic at the bucket to satisfy some bees, so several hundred were working over the fresh pile of sawdust composting in the garden.  Bees are know to work bird feeders and animal feed for the dust that collects there, but this was the first time I’ve seen any significant number working on sawdust.   I’m not sure what value they can see in it.  Shortly after adding a second bucket of open fed pollen substitute an placing additional substitute on the bucket lids, more than half the bees abandoned the sawdust pile in favor of the substitute.  I saw a few bees nosing around the maple trees, but no significant pollen is coming in from them still.

 

It’s been in the mid 40’s and still below the average for this time of year for several days and we even received a light dusting of snow last night.  Still the bees have been active almost every day when it’s sunny and breaks 40 degrees.  I’m actually rather surprised by how active they are given the temperature.  While my father reported the bees at his house have been working the early blooming bulbs, there is not yet any significant pollen source for them to work and they continue to fee on the open fed pollen.

The weather forecast predicts this week will warm up some, but won’t get above 50 until next Monday.   The buds on the maple trees are swelling and it will only take a couple good days for them to really open up.  A few in my yard have just started to open, but aren’t yet producing pollen.  These unspectacular buds could easily be missed by most people but are typically the first good pollen source in the spring and there is nothing quite like walking under a maple tree in late March and listening to it literally humming with busy bees.  The maples do seem to be running a week or so behind previous years and it still could be a bit longer before they really bloom if it stays cool.

Most beekeepers use deep boxes (9 5/8") for their brood chambers.  So it’s almost universal when you see nucs offered or ’single story’ hives for sale that they are using deep frames.  But the deep is not the only size useable for brood chambers.  In fact, when hobbyist and sideliners were asked if there was anything they would do different if they could go back and start again they often answer that they wished they had started with all medium (6 5/8") boxes.  Why?

• Weight.  A deep box full of honey can weigh 90-100 pounds or more when full of honey.  This may not be a big deal for the young bodybuilder.  But most of us don’t fit that description and boxes seem to get heavier the more you have to move.  Plus we all are getting older and our ability to lift dozens of 100 pound boxes in the summer heat won’t be getting better.  It also may help prevent or delay back problems and may allow younger beekeepers to help out.
• Interchangeability.   (or One Size Fits All).  There is nothing better to start a swarm or package on than drawn comb.  But unless you have a dead out, who has spare drawn deep comb when you need it.  When you are running all medium boxes you simply need to grab a honey super and call it a brood chamber.  There is only once size you need to buy, assemble and carry around with you regardless of what you need to do with the hive.   When it comes to harvest time, if there is a frame of brood in the honey super because the queen got past the excluder (or you don’t use one), then just swap the frame with a frame of honey from below.  You can’t do that with a mix of medium and deep boxes.
• Cost.  Foundation and the frames themselves often slightly cheaper.  Plus if you build your own boxes, 1×8 boards are far more available and cheaper for building medium (6 5/8") boxes than the 1×12 boards required for deep boxes (9 5/8").
• Extracting.  Medium frames are simply easier to handle when uncapping.  Plus, many extractors will handle more medium frames than they will deep frames.  My extractor will only handle 10 deeps, but it will handle 20 mediums.

Of course it’s not all roses.  You will need 3 medium boxes to have the equivalent space of 2 deep boxes.  So this means you will need more frames and boxes and it will likely cost you a bit more in total (at least for the frames).    It’s also more frames to look though when trying to find the queen, though there are tricks like placing queen excluders between the boxes 4 days in advance that will actually make it easier.

(Note: The picture shows medium and deep frames and is from Mann Lake’s catalog, I didn’t have any new deeps handy for a picture). 

We have had some weather in the mid 40’s to 50’s in the past week, plenty warm enough for bees to fly on most days.  I have yet to see any real pollen coming in, and the activity at the pollen bucket pretty much confirms my observation.  When it got into the 50’s the bucket of pollen substitute looked like a swarm of black and white bees covered with pollen.   

Maple trees may be a bit behind where they were last year and the buds on the trees in my yards don’t look like they’ll be blooming anytime soon.  The 10 day forcast doesn’t show any warm days yet either.  Still, I can smell spring coming and it shouldn’t be long now.