Kelley Bee News ISSUE 36 • JUNE 2013 Modern...

Kelley Bee News

Modern BeekeepingISSUE 36 • JUNE 2013

New home for packaged bees. Photo courtesy of Natalya.

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2 The Buzz3 Bee Thinking About 3 For June, 2013 4 Southern Seasonal Beekeeping Insights

5 Healthy Bees 5 Queenright 6 Preliminary Results: Honeybee Colony Losses in the United States, Winter 2012-2013 6 Varroa Mites: Control Them Now 7 Streaked Honey/Dysentery

8 Bee-Havior 8 Open Air, er, In-A-Langstroth Hive

9 Bee-Yond & Bee-Hind the Hives 9 Seven Health Secrets from the Hive 10 Abandoned Bee Hives (Part 1)

12 A-Bee-Cs 12 When to Add Another Box 14 What Should Bee Happening?

16 BeeCause 16 World of Bees Exhibit

18 Heartland Apicultural Society Holds 12th Annual Conference20 FAQs22 Sweet as Honey26 Dronings from a Queen Bee 26 Splits

Kelley Bees News: Modern Beekeeping | Issue 36, June 2013

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The BuzzTake a deep breath in through your nose and exhale—what is it that you smell? I don’t know about you, but to me it smells like the edge of summer. May has finally closed the door on the winter that for many of us refused to go away. We welcome the change; we love to hear bees happily working.

Speaking of change, there have been a few changes within the Walter T. Kelley Company. Walter T. Kelley has a new Sales and Purchasing Director, that person happens to be this month’s writer of “The Buzz”. By way of introduction, my name is Kevin Harrub. I joined the Walter T. Kelley team in late January. Just a little personal history: I was born in Nashville, Tennessee; my work brought me to Kentucky in 2002. I am married to my beautiful wife, Staci, and together we have two amazing children, Noah (age 14) and Grace (age 12). But that’s enough about me.

Our focus at Walter T. Kelley is on you, our customer! In the short amount of time that I’ve been on the WTK team, I’ve witnessed first-hand the legendary customer service that WTK prides itself on. Whether it’s answering a question via the newsletter, Facebook, email, phone, or in person, the team at WTK is committed to providing the best available beekeeping products and services at the best value to all you great folks in the beekeeping community. I’m sure that all of you, at some time, have spoken to one of our sales team members: Mary Glenn, Dana, Stacy, Sharon, Allison, Kim, Mary Kay or Kaytlin. And if those ladies didn’t take your order or answer your question, you might have spoken to Amber, Kay, Jennifer, Sondra, Vicki or Maxine. Either way, I’m sure that all these ladies worked hard to make your experience with Walter T. Kelley a pleasant one. I can assure you, that we’ll

continue each day to provide you with the legendary customer service that you have come to expect from WTK.

Additionally, one of the many ways we serve our customers’ needs is through our monthly newsletter, Kelley Bee News: Modern Beekeeping. As I have learned, this publication has turned into a valued resource that allows and promotes communication to flow from customer (bee keeping community) to company and company to customer, strengthening the relationship and mutual interdependence for both parties. I must say, I like that! There’s a beauty available in that—like a well performed dance between two partners, moving and supporting each other, both understanding the need for the other. This newsletter is one of WTK’s contributions to the dance.

Lastly, change IS inevitable, it’s part of life; however, some things are meant to stay the same—and one of those constants at Walter T. Kelley is our commitment to legendary customer service for you! Whether taking your calls and answering your questions or providing beekeeping information via our newsletter—Customer Service—it’s what we do! So sit back and enjoy this, the 36th edition of Modern Beekeeping.

Sincerely and most respectfully,

Kevin Harrub Walter T. Kelley Company Sales and Purchasing Director [email protected]

Kevin Harrub setting up his new hive.

mailto:kharrub%40kelleybees.com?subject=Kelley%20Bees%20Newsletter

© 2013 Walter T. Kelley Company | 800.233.2899 | www.kelleybees.com

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Bee Thinking AboutFor June, 2013For most of our readers, June is about the first month when apiary management isn’t too different in the north or the south. As always, what you need to do with your hives this time of year varies by your management philosophy, apiary goals, current weather, likely weather, and condition of your colonies.

Here are some things to be thinking about:

As always, your comments and contributions are welcome, email [email protected] or visit kelleybees.com/blog.

Check your brood patterns, especially on starting colonies. Not sure what to look for? There’s a great pictorial guide in our June, ’12 issue, available at www.kelleybees.com.

Is your bee log up-to-date? (Or perhaps still something you’ve been meaning to do?) Keep a good record. You’ll want to know what kind of queen you have in which hive, her age, her survival story. This will be especially helpful information come fall if you’re combining colonies. Track honey production/hive; this will also help guide decisions about the management of particular hives.

Anticipate what your bees will need, before they need it. And order it from Kelley’s before you need it. Stay ahead of the bees with supering.

Extraction—time to gear up, especially in the south where a 4th of July extraction party is often an annual event. Do you have strainer cloth, clean buckets, bottles, labels? Kelley’s does!

Fresh water—verify that it is available, especially if your region is experiencing drought conditions. A bird bath with bee landing pads is very helpful—consider using rocks or sponges in the bird bath, kiddie pool or trash can lid.

Stay ahead of the swarms and the nectar flow. Add boxes and see the article in this issue.

Ventilation—make sure those booming colonies don’t overheat.

Big red dots: splits, swarms, supercedures—they’ve all been going on whether you realized it or not. Consider marking your queen(s) so you know if the royal insect you see is the one responsible for the colony’s performance. Red is the color for 2013 queens.

Pests are probably thriving also. Keep a close eye on mite and beetle levels, and manage according to your apiary approach.

Photo courtesy of Marshall Beachler.

mailto:KelleyBeesEditor%40gmail.com?subject=Bee%20Thinking%20About%20Articlehttps://kelleybees.com/blog/http://www.kelleybees.com


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Southern Seasonal Beekeeping InsightsBy Dennis Brown, Lone Star Farms, www.lonestarfarms.netAuthor of Beekeeping: A Personal Journey and Beekeeping: Questions and Answers

Here in Texas and many other parts of the South, beekeepers depend on the tallow tree for their main honey flow this time of year. Unfortunately, the state of Texas lists the tallow tree as an invasive species and does its best to remove it when possible. Back in the 1970s and 1980s, during my commercial beekeeping days, the tallow tree was very abundant south of Houston all the way down to the gulf coast. Today, you might find 10% of the tallow trees left in those areas. The tree has been removed for agricultural needs, residential building and of course from the state’s crack down on the tallow species.

For those of us who have depended on the tallow tree for needed surplus honey, we are currently moving our bees into the tallow areas. The flow in our area usually starts around the 20th of May and will last around three weeks if the weather conditions have been good.

We will spend most of June pulling the honey surplus off the hives and getting it extracted. For the small operator, this tallow flow is what they depend on for their beekeeping income for the year. If they don’t make a good tallow surplus, they will have to wait until the next year and try again. The larger operator will truck their bees out of Texas after the tallow flow to other parts of the country. They usually chase the different honey flows around the country to maximize their income.

With good beekeeping skills, good weather and a good nectar source, beekeeping can be fun and profitable. Enjoy your bees.

Chinese Tallow Tree. Photo: James H. Miller, USDA Forest Service, Bugwood.org

Questions or comments about this article? Please go to kelleybees.com/blog.

https://kelleybees.com/blog/


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Healthy BeesQueenrightBy Michael Bush

Editor’s Note: We ran this article a year ago. It is so helpful we wanted to repeat it.

We are coming into the time of year that you’ll be doing inspections and finding queens that are failing, missing, or you’re not sure what the deal is but you think some hives are queenless. The problem with the situation is you may think they are queenless when actually they have a virgin that isn’t laying yet, or you may think they have laying workers, when actually the queen just hasn’t hit her stride yet and laid multiple eggs. How can you do the right thing when you are not certain?

Panacea

There are few solutions as universal in their application and success than adding a frame of open brood every week for three weeks.

• It is a virtual panacea for any queen issues. • It gives the bees the pheromones to suppress laying workers. • It gives them more workers coming in during a period where there is no laying queen. • It does not interfere if there is a virgin queen. • It gives them the resources to rear a queen. • It is virtually foolproof and does not require finding a queen or seeing eggs.

If you have any issue with queenrightness, no brood, or worry that there is no queen, this is the simple solution that requires no worrying, no waiting, and no hoping. You just give them what they need to resolve the situation. If you have any doubts about the queenrightness of a hive, give them some open brood and sleep well. Repeat once a week for two more weeks if you still aren’t sure. By then things will be fine.

If you are afraid of transferring the queen from the queenright hive because you are not good at finding queens, then shake or brush all the bees off before you give it to them.

If you are concerned about taking eggs from another new package or small colony, keep in mind that bees have little invested in eggs and the queen can lay far more eggs than a small colony can warm, feed and raise. Taking a frame of eggs from a small struggling new hive and swapping it for an empty comb or any drawn comb will have little impact on the donor colony and may save the recipient if they are indeed queenless. If the recipient didn’t need a queen it will fill in the gap while the new queen gets mated and not interfere with things.

Michael Bush has had an eclectic set of careers, currently he is working in computers. He has been keeping bees since the mid 70s, usually from two to seven hives up until the year 2000. Varroa forced more experimentation which required more hives and the number has grown steadily over the years from then. By 2008 he had about 200 hives. He is active on many of the Beekeeping forums with last count at about 45,000 posts between all of them. He has a website at www.bushfarms.com/bees.htm.Michael Bush, at Kelley’s

2012 Field Day.


http://www.bushfarms.com/bees.htmhttps://kelleybees.com/blog/


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Preliminary Results: Honeybee Colony Losses in the United States, Winter 2012-2013By Camilla Bee, Editor

The Bee Informed Partnership annually surveys beekeepers on winter losses, and recently released preliminary information. More information may be found at http://beeinformed.org; information will also be updated as it is developed.

Learning about honeybees is a life-long endeavor. We encourage you to check into the information provided on that website as part of your continuing education.

From the press release:

The Bee Informed Partnership, in collaboration with the Apiary Inspectors of America (AIA) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), released preliminary results for the seventh annual national survey of honeybee colony losses. For the 2012/2013 winter season, a total of 6,287 U.S. beekeepers provided validated responses. Collectively, these beekeepers managed 599,610 colonies in October 2012, representing about 22.9%1 of the country’s estimated 2.62 million colonies.

Preliminary survey results indicate that 31.1% of managed honeybee colonies in the United States were lost during the 2012/2013 winter. This represents an increase in loss of 9.2 points or 42% over the previous 2011/2012 winter’s total losses that were estimated at 21.9%. This level of loss is on par with the 6-year average total loss of 30.5%.

On average, U.S. beekeepers lost 45.1% of the colonies in their operation during the winter of 2012/2013. This is a 19.8 point or 78.2% increase in the average operational loss compared to the previous winter (2011/2012), which was estimated at 25.3%. The difference between average loss and total loss is explained by the respondent pool: while a majority of the respondents (95%) were backyard beekeepers, they managed a small fraction of the colonies represented in the survey (6%). For this reason total loss (which is more heavily influenced by commercial beekeeper losses) is more representative of national losses.

Varroa Mites: Control Them NowBy Gary S. Reuter, Apiculture Technician Department of Entomology, University of Minnesota

An important item for overwintering is to ensure mite levels are low—for sure by the end of August. You need to have at least one round of brood raised without mites in the cells to assure healthy winter bees.

There are few treatments that you can use while the honey supers are on. For the hobbyist, I think the best thing to do is drone comb removal. For this you put a frame of drone comb in the colony and as soon as it is sealed you take it out and freeze it for 48 hours, killing the pupae and the mites. At the time you take the frame out, put another one in, and continue this through the summer making sure you NEVER allow the brood to emerge. If you do you will have raise more mites rather than killing some.

Entomology website: www.entomology.umn.edu Gary’s website: www.tc.umn.edu/~reute001 Lab website: www.BeeLab.umn.edu


How Do You Use Drone Comb? We featured a comprehensive how-to article on that very topic in our June,

2012 issue (#24.) You can access it, free-of-charge, at www.kelleybees.com,

under Newsletter & Catalog.

This approach is generally very effective.

Capped drone brood is uneven, bumpy and protrudes further than flat worker brood.

https://kelleybees.com/blog/http://beeinformed.orghttp://www.entomology.umn.edu/http://www.tc.umn.edu/~reute001http://www.beelab.umn.edu/https://kelleybees.com/blog/http://www.kelleybees.com


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Streaked Honey/DysenteryBy Meghan Milbrath, PhD Research Associate, Department of Entomology, Michigan State University

There is nothing worse than opening an overwintered hive to find the bees dead and the equipment streaked and spotted with bee feces—dark brown splatter on top of frames, on the front of the hive, and even on frames of capped honey. While it doesn’t seem safe to feed this honey to your healthy hives, it seems like such a waste to toss out full frames. So what can be done with all this leftover honey?

First, the spotting is a sign of dysentery—this means that the bees were not able to make it outside for their cleansing flight, and defecated within the hive. Generally this is caused by long periods of cold weather in combination with a problem with digestion. The parasite Nosema apis is one of these problems, but it isn’t the only cause. Fermented honey and food with indigestible matter can also cause the bee’s gut to fill up more quickly and create the need to defecate more than the weather allows.

If it is Nosema, the spores can survive on the contaminated equipment, and bees cleaning up

the spotty feces can transmit the disease to each other. While a diagnosis will let you know if you have Nosema apis in your hive, it shouldn’t change the way you handle the equipment. Bees that are weak and have poor nutrition are at high risk for many other diseases, including ones that don’t leave visible signs in a dead hive. So even if you test negative for Nosema apis, there may be other diseases in the honey.

Can I extract and use the honey for myself?

Nosema diseases are very specific, and aren’t dangerous to humans, so the honey is safe to extract and consume from a pathogen standpoint. However, many beekeepers treat their hives after they have removed most of the capped honey, so make sure that this honey wasn’t on frames while you were using a treatment that isn’t safe for humans.

Can I feed the honey to my bees?

Nosema spores can remain infectious for months in honey, so there is a risk of infection with Nosema or other diseases if you feed frames from a dead out to other hives. While you can’t bring this risk to zero, there are things that you can do to reduce the risk of transmission.

1. Scrape away as much of the feces that you can, so other bees don’t have to clean it. If you use your hive tool for this, make sure to clean it afterwards. Remove the stained cappings from the supers—there shouldn’t be as many pathogens inside the stored honey, because the bees should have been collecting it and covering it before the issues with the dysentery.

2. Freeze the honey—Nosema and many other pathogens are susceptible to freezing. If the colony died early in the winter and you live in cold climate, nature has probably already put your equipment through many cycles of freezing. If you use a chest freezer, leave it in for long enough (a few days if possible) so that all the honey can get to a low temperature.

3. Put these supers on your strongest colonies. A strong and healthy colony is always much more able to handle small amounts of pathogens than a weak or malnourished colony.

A heart-breaking site … so much work. Photo courtesy of Meghan Milbrath, PhD




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Bee-HaviorOpen Air, er, In-A-Langstroth HiveBy Camilla Bee, Editor

Carl from Missouri shared this adventure with us.

He found this open air hive, which he’s since named Cedar Bees, in the top of a 30-feet plus tree. Carl’s ladder tops out at 28 feet.

Capturing these beautiful bees involved strapping the ladder to the tree, some trout line for tying the limb loppers and smoker to the ladder so not to drop them, and luck. Carl noted that to cut them down he had to hold the branch with one hand and use the limb loppers with the other. That would leave, well, no hands holding him to his perch on the ladder 28 feet in the air.

The swarm weighed 25-30 pounds. Carl took his time carrying them back down the ladder, one gentle step at a time.

When he arrived back on earth, sweet earth, he put them in several empty honey supers, required to hold their comb.

He reports that two months later they are still doing well.

Carl, thanks for sharing, although we should probably not encourage folks to capture swarms from such precarious locations!

Readers, thanks for making us part of your beekeeping adventures. We’re always interested in your thoughts, recommendations and photos; send them to [email protected].

Does anyone suspect that maybe bees are wanting to get their picture in the newsletter, and are thus posing in all sorts of extreme locations?

1: Bees in a red cedar tree. 2: Carl climbed this to get them down. 3: He had to cut out these limbs. 4: Trying to fit honeycomb into a box.

1

2

3

4 5 6

5: Close-up of the top leaves which are covered in wax.

6: Bottom box has frames with honey; the other boxes are empty. Photos courtesy of Carl.

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Bee-Yond & Bee-Hind the HivesSeven Health Secrets from the HiveBy Ol’ Drone

Contributions of honeybees to mankind are so overwhelming that we often forget to recognize their complete value and importance. We remember that hive products offer food and practical medical support but we may forget that the major contribution to the global economy and ecology is the sustaining, by pollination, of most of the wild and cultivated flora. In addition, no other insect species furnishes as many useful products as do the bees.

Let’s review these products that we can harvest from the honeybee hive:

HONEY: Concentrated from the sweet nectar collected from blossoms, it is composed of 82% sugars and packed with minerals, vitamins, and enzymes. It is prized for cooking and a multitude of important medical properties such as antiseptic and burn treatment. We enjoy its sweet, natural floral essence but need to remember that it is not JUST FOR TEA!

POLLEN: An important medium for cross-fertilizing flowers, worldwide food crops, and many natural foods that sustain wildlife of all kinds. Collected by bees to feed their young, it is 35% protein, mineral rich, and contains many enzymes. It also furnishes for us, a nutritious food supplement and is widely used to alleviate symptoms of hay fever, asthma and other allergies.

PROPOLIS: An amorphous, resinous material gathered from plant buds and bark to strengthen the hive comb structure and varnish the inner surface of the hive, with its antiseptic, anti-viral, and anti-

fungal properties. It is an effective treatment for ulcers and bed sores and widely used in topical and internal medications for its healing properties. Also used in fine varnishes and in ancient embalming.

ROYAL JELLY: The special nutritious food produced by nurse bees to feed young larva; converting the ordinary worker larva into a fertile, female queen. It is rich in lipids, amino acids, vitamins, and enzymes, and is widely used as food supplement and in dermatological cosmetics.

BEES WAX: Secreted by young bees, it is molded into strong hexagonal shaped comb cells to furnish support for brood and honey storage. Honey sealed in wax comb provides long (3000 years) shelf life. Unique properties provide wide usage for candles, waterproofing, dentistry, polishes, and many health products. Compared to petroleum-based paraffin, beeswax candles burn longer, give less smoke, less dripping, and fill the room with fragrant floral essence.

BEE VENOM: Toxic liquid injected during a bee sting. Several proteins and enzymes cause painful inflammation during defensive stinging. Used by dermatologists to test for allergy sensitivity. Bee sting therapy reported to treat the symptoms of arthritis, multiple sclerosis and other auto immune conditions. For more info visit American Apitherapy Society at www.apitherapy.org.

BEE BROOD: In certain cultures and different parts of the world, (mainly Asia), the larva and pupal stages of honeybees are consumed as food. They are rich in protein and fat. In Japan brood is sold in cans labeled “baby bees”.

That is quite a list! No wonder we use the phrase “busy as a bee”!


Photo courtesy of Marshall Beachler.

http://www.apitherapy.org/https://kelleybees.com/blog/


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Abandoned Bee Hives (Part 1)By Dana Stahlman Master Beekeeper, Author, and retired OSBA President

Strange things happen to beekeepers. Almost anyone keeping bees has a story to tell. My story begins with an unexpected find that led to this story of recovering one hive of bees from an abandoned commercial bee yard.

After 24 years of living in close proximity to Columbus, Ohio I moved to rural central Ohio. As a new person moving into a community, I visited several of my neighbors to let them know I would be putting bees on my property.

One of my neighbors owns quite a bit of the land around my five acres. Once people know you keep bees, they usually have a lot of questions about bees in general. To my surprise, my neighbor informed me that he owned woods just a quarter of a mile north of my new home that had a commercial bee yard. However, no one was taking care of them and had not for at least ten years. He doubted there were any live hives there.

How does any red-blooded beekeeper react to this opportunity?

I immediately asked permission to visit the woods. I did not expect to find much usable equipment but who knows. I did have a general location to look for the bee yard, but this was a big woods. It’d been cut for timber, and rutted trails ran in all directions.

This was my first view of the bee yard.

One might expect to see hives. But on a general walk through the woods, nothing really stood out until I spotted what looked like a hive body. The actual bee yard was covered in brambles. I could see some bee boxes but on first glance, I saw no standing hives. It was cold and I saw no bees flying.

A closer look gave me more hope. At least I could see several hives in an upright position and yes, it was obvious that at one time this was a fairly good-sized bee yard.

The guys who cut the timber saw a good location for depositing their trash. Everywhere I looked were buried pallets—at least eight meaning there were most likely 30 plus hives in this location. To whom these hives belonged is still a mystery.

I did find one hive bees could possibly still occupy. Getting to the hive was a bit of a problem. These brambles had thorns and it would take some effort to check the hive. There was a light covering of snow on the ground and if I could pull the branch on the cover off, I might take a look.

All photos courtesy of Dana Stahlman.


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As it turned out, the branch is what most likely made it possible for the bees in the hive survive. The top cover was missing half of the telescoping woodenware and the metal lid of the cover protected the inner cover below from the elements.

I macheted my way to the hive to determine if there were bees in it. I pulled off the top cover. Some critter had stored nuts in the upper shallow super and the area above the inner cover. But, I could hear bees! This hive still had a queen excluder above the brood nest and the winter cluster was below the excluder. Eventually a few bees came up to investigate.

At this stage in the game, I did not have permission to remove the hive but I was excited. Many questions needed to be answered. This hive had survived into February from the previous summer. How long they had bees occupied this hive? I had no idea. I was sure of one thing—I wanted this hive.

I was given permission to save the bees and move them to my property. I would need a trailer. In addition I would have to move a lot of trash trees and bee hive junk. I waited for the temperatures to get colder in order to get the hive out of the woods. The ground was firm; a hand truck made the move very easy. Later would come the day when this hive would have to be taken apart, inspected, and decisions made on its future. I was hoping that the bees in this hive and their queen exhibited some special characteristics that could be used to raise some survivor queens. After all, they made it this far without any help from humans.

These bees may have been a swarm that moved into this equipment, or they might have disease or like 50% of the managed hive they made it thru the winter, just like their managed cousins. Was there anything special about these bees? With spring, we would soon be finding out!

Editor’s Note: Watch next month for Part 2, covering transferring the bees and inspection the hive.




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A-Bee-Cs

When to Add Another BoxBy Gary S. Reuter, Apiculture Technician Department of Entomology, University of Minnesota

This procedure applies to both existing and package colonies.

When the bees are using more than 80% of the first box add a second box. We find it best if you take a frame with some nectar on it and move it up to the middle of the new box. This will draw the bees up there. Be sure not to move brood up there because it will make it difficult for the bees to keep it warm.

The Next Hive Body (or Bar in a TBH, or Box in a Warre, etc.)

Many folks are uncertain when to add room to a hive. There are many factors to take into consideration, including:

Does the queen have room to lay? Is her laying slowing down (late season)? You need to give her plenty of seasonally-appropriate space.

Is there a lot of brood? If it is “chocolate-colored”, and there is plenty of it, the hive is about to “explode” (a good thing.) Make sure there’s room for all those bees to work and the queen to keep laying.

Is Mother Nature cooperating with nectar flow? Is there good forage available?

See any small hive beetles? Wax moths? Don’t give honeybees more room than they can effectively monitor.

Honeybee expert Gary Reuter lends his insights on when to add the next box. Please keep in mind it is written from the perspective of the Twin Cities area in Minnesota, and for Langstroth hives. Adjust for your apiary as appropriate, remember that beekeeping is often more art than science. This towering hive is composed of (from the bottom),

three deeps, three honey supers, an inner cover, and a vent super. The top honey super (light green) is there so the bees could clean up its just-extracted frames. With the “eyes” of the vent super and the “smile” of the top honey super’s handle, it almost looks like the hive configuration is very happy about its productivity.


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When the bees are using more than 80% of the second box add a third box. Again, we find it best if you take a frame with some nectar on it and move it up to the middle of the new box. This will draw the bees up there. Do

you get the idea I think this is important? This will draw the bees up there.

This next step is a very important in preparation for winter. When the bees are using more than 80% of the third box do a full reversal. When bees bring in pollen they tend to put it in the box closest to the entrance, in this case the bottom box. We want them to have some pollen available at the end of the coming winter. By doing the full reversal the bottom box (they were putting a lot of the pollen into) will now go on the top. They will use some of it but they will put honey on top of a lot of it. At the end of next winter (like now) they will have eaten the honey and exposed the pollen and then can use it to raise brood. Natural pollen is way better than pollen patties for nutrition.

Once the bees have about 2” of sealed honey in the third box we add honey supers. This usually assures that they fill that third box with honey for themselves for winter. So by doing this manipulation throughout spring and summer we have assured the bees have sufficient stores for winter.

Entomology website: www.entomology.umn.edu Gary’s website: www.tc.umn.edu/~reute001 Lab website: www.BeeLab.umn.edu


The hive on the left shows three deeps; the hive on the right shows what bees will do when it is a muggy summer day and the beekeepers were gone for two weeks in early June. The beekeepers said in hindsight they wished they had added a third box before they left.

Beek HintsWe LOVE our readers! We’ve had several folks share beekeeping hints. Some we’re saving until the time of year when they’re more relevant; the following apply to most folks now:• Be sure to freeze your comb honey before you sell it—at least 24 hours, 48 is better. It is really awful when wax moth

eggs hatch in it and eat their way out. Really cuts down on shelf appeal! —D. F., Tennessee• If you can’t get that swarm out of the top of a tree, it doesn’t mean they’re lost. Watch for them—

they may come back. We had one a few years back they went WAY up in an oak tree and then a hour later returned to the hive, those little devils. Guess the things you do to humor yourself when you’re bored those rainy days and all. —J. Rocks, Wisconsin

• Don’t treat for ants with ant poison. Apparently bees like it too. Set me back a year. —W. Wright• I initially didn’t understand the problem with wearing wool or dark colors to work bees. I guess bees

think you’re a bear if you’re wearing dark colors, and wool (or probably anything not closely knit) lets them grab on and really put in the stinger deep. —Shannon F.

http://www.entomology.umn.edu/http://www.tc.umn.edu/~reute001http://www.beelab.umn.edu/https://kelleybees.com/blog/


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What Should Bee Happening?By Camilla Bee, Editor

If you started bees from a package, you’re probably wondering if what’s happening in your hive is normal and appropriate. That answer varies widely by when they were started, the weather they’ve had since, and what’s available for forage in your location.

While there are plenty of variables, there are still some key milestones. Within about two weeks of installation, you should be able to find eggs, and perhaps even some capped brood. Some comb should be drawn.

Scott Keller, of Portage, Michigan, shared progress of his package bees installed on Langstroth equipment toward the end of April.

We’ve added comments to his photos to help folks understand what they show.

Again, great progress in drawing comb, and filling some of it with liquid gold.

The fourth frame from the left was a frame of fully drawn comb, from a beekeeping buddy. Drawn comb can really help jump-start a package of bees. That frame shows use—pollen stains, and wax residual of burr comb built atop of it.

Good job bees! Those white-capped cells found along the top rim of the frame contain honey, which the bees have capped. In the center of that frame there appears to be some odd-looking comb. Bees don’t read the same books we do. For some reason, they decided to draw it out differently. Perhaps there was excessive space between frames they wanted to fill; maybe (can’t really tell from this picture) they didn’t like the provided cell size, and were making their own comb to raise drones, who need a larger cell size.

This frame shows that bees are working it nicely—lots of bees, and some beautifully drawn comb on the right.

After a couple of weeks, the bees had drawn out 2-3 deep frames, according to Scott. While that isn’t obvious from this photo, you can tell that bees are generally found across three frames, and are probably working 4-5 frames. A quick “read” of this suggests the bees won’t be ready for the next box for a while, as they’re only working about half of them.


15


JUNE 2013 EVENTS Walter T. Kelley Annual Field Day June 1 Contact Kelley's for more info. You must pre-register for this event. kelleybees.com/education/resources/2013-Field-Day.pdf

ISBA Summer MeetingJune 29–30Holiday Inn Convention Center, Gurnee, IL

JULY 2013 EVENT Heartland Apicultural Society Annual Conference July 11-13 Tennessee Tech University, Cookeville, TN www.heartlandbees.com/

SEPTEMBER 2013 EVENTS WAS Conference September 14-21 Santa Fe, NM http:groups.ucanr.org/WAS/WAS-Conference

Alabama Beekeepers Association Annual Meeting September 27-28 Taylor Road Baptist Church in Montgomery, AL More details to come.

We’d love to share news of your upcoming events. Please send the event name, date, website and/or contact information to me by the 10th of each month for inclusion in the following month’s issue. [email protected]

You can save shipping costs by meeting us at industry meetings. We note on our website which meetings we’ll be attending, and we’d love to meet you there to hand-off your equipment.

Upcoming Events

If the weather is favorable, what bees can do in a month is jaw-dropping. Kelley’s employee and beekeeper Amber Walls shared these photos of her top bar hive’s progress in a month—last year. May 2012 was more favorable for rapid hive expansion that 2013’s was.

Yes, impressive. Notice how the comb color-ation changes from white to yellow as bees track pollen on it. White is the color of freshly built comb.

This is a great photo showing the difference between capped brood and capped honey. The capped honey is at the very top; it will re-main lighter. The capped brood color darkens as it ages. If you look closely you’ll see some white larvae in a few cells.

Most of us can always use practice finding the queen. See her and her long, elegant amber abdomen? She’s mid-photo, headed toward 11 o’clock.

https://kelleybees.com/blog/https://kelleybees.com/education/resources/2013-Field-Day.pdfhttp://www.heartlandbees.com/http:groups.ucanr.org/WAS/WAS-Conferencemailto:KelleyBeesEditor%40gmail.com?subject=Upcoming%20Events


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BeeCauseWorld of Bees Exhibit

By Louise Lynch

Bees. They have buzzed about Earth’s angiosperms for millions of years. They are nature’s agriculturalists, carpenters, architects. They contribute to the pollination of one third of the foods we eat. They pollinate many of the bobbing and aromatic wild flowers that pepper our landscape. They visit our gardens and individually appreciate each blossom. While many people celebrate these industrious creatures, bees can simultaneously illicit fear and panic in many others. “The World of Bees” is an interactive children’s exhibit with the mission of opening up people’s minds to the beauty, diversity, conservation and biology of bees.

Since the age of dinosaurs, bees have visited flowering plants to collect nectar and pollen. Visitors to the exhibit can admire a small amber specimen that holds a stingless bee captured 17 to 25 million years ago. Thousands of years ago, humans were familiar with the honey produced by the honey bee, as evidenced by a famous Paleolithic cave painting of a honey hunter scaling a cliffside to gather from a wild colony. A muralist’s rendering stands on one of the exhibit walls.

An important goal of “The World of Bees” is to introduce visitors to bee diversity. Connecticut alone has more than 320 species. The United States boasts a modest 4,000+ species, compared to the estimated 20,000 bee species worldwide. While the honey bee is the world’s best known bee, it is one sister in a very large family. Bees come in all sorts of colors—blue, green, yellow, black, red, purple, orange. Many are named for behaviors associated with the way they build their nests—mason bees, leafcutter bees, carder bees, carpenter bees. Sweat bees, on the other hand, are so-named for their attraction to human sweat! Visitors are welcome to get a close look at a large, 3-D metallic blue mason bee mural, a child-sized stuffed bumblebee, pinned bee displays and preserved specimens.

Everything about a bee’s body caters to their pollination behavior. They are furry with an electrostatic pull in their fur to capture pollen. Even their eyes are hairy! Bees have a very special relationship with flowers and see them very differently. And just to clarify—bees have five eyes! Three, small simple eyes sit on top of their head to help them detect light and dark. Their two large compound eyes, composed of thousands of eye units, see a world vision that is very different than ours. Bees, while red-blind, see past violet visible light rays, into the ultraviolet (UV) spectrum. Flowers often have UV nectar guides, invisible to us but useful in helping bees find the nectaries of a flower. Visitors can see how flowers appear to humans and bees, side by side in the “Bees Eye View Box.”

All photos courtesy of Louise Lynch.


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At the heart of nectar and pollen collection is pollination, the method by which flowering plants procreate and produce seeds. Carbohydrate-rich nectar and protein-rich pollen are the rewards produced by flowers to get bees to pass along pollen for them. Their colorful petals, sweet aromas and tasty nectar bring bees in. But flowers only give a little nectar reward, encouraging a visiting bee to seek out other members of the flower’s species thus increasing successful pollination. It is this flirtatious game that produces many of our fruits, nuts, vegetables and seeds. Exhibit visitors are invited to partake in the “Pollination Picnic” activity in which many foods available wouldn’t be so without bee pollination. Apples, almonds, alfalfa, onions, broccoli, carrots, coffee beans, sunflowers, cantaloupe, avocados, tomatoes, herbs, cherries, grapes, macadamia nuts—the list goes on, including even many meat and dairy products that are affordable because of the cheap alfalfa feed pollinated by the Alfalfa Leafcutter Bee. Younger visitors can help move chunky pollen balls from a big bumblebee to a flower.

It is the honey bee that tops the charts when it comes to popularity, agricultural pollination and, of course, honey production. Exhibit visitors are able to enjoy the excitement of an indoor observation hive, dress up like a beekeeper with Walter T. Kelley-donated apparel and inspect a Langstroth hive with a plush smoker and hive tool. One of the most awe-inspiring honey bee behaviors is their ability to communicate using dance languages. Visitors are able to learn about the different components of the waggle dance and try out the steps themselves on a Waggle Dance rug. The core of the exhibit is the 12-foot wide, hexagonal “Hive Castle” that serves as a maze and activity center. Inside, children can dress up as a bee and take on different worker bee rolls (from queen bee to nurse bee to drone and more!), playing with child-sized egg, larva and pupa plush toys.

Many visitors have heard about bee declines in the news. Information about pesticides, pests, predators and parasites that can harm bees is provided along with different things people can do to help pollinators. Try keeping bees, whether they are honey-, bumble-, leafcutter or mason bees. Keeping a garden is a fun and rewarding way to help. Visitors can see examples of some simple native bee houses to try at home. Also, leaving some weeded, untidy areas on one’s property provides nesting habitat for ground nesting bees and overwintering habitat for bumblebee queens. Having these bees nearby only helps garden productivity and provides an opportunity to observe these incredible creatures in their element.

“The World of Bees” was my Master’s Project, developed under the auspices of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. It received its first run at the Hudson Highlands Nature Museum in Cornwall on Hudson, New York. The exhibit was redesigned and reconstructed as a Bees Louise L.L.C. project for the New Canaan Nature Center in New Canaan, Connecticut where it is on exhibit as “The World of Bees: Pollination, Conservation & Communication”. For more information and a virtual tour, please visit www.beeslouise.org. For directions and hours, go to http://www.newcanaannature.org/.


http://www.beeslouise.org/http://www.newcanaannature.org/http://www.newcanaannature.org/https://kelleybees.com/blog/


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Heartland Apicultural Society Holds 12th Annual ConferenceBy Jane Sueme, Communications, HAS

The 2013 Heartland Apicultural Society Conference will be held July 11–13th on the Tennessee Tech University campus in Cookeville, about 150 miles west of Smoky Mountains National Park in central Tennessee.

This premier regional conference will be swarming with instructional programs in the classroom and “hands-on” classes in the apiary. Programs are designed for beekeepers at all levels of skill development from beginners to seasoned veterans. Classroom sessions include: basic bee biology, beekeeping equipment for new beekeepers—what you really need, urban beekeeping, producing comb honey, setting up a small scale pollination business, setting up an online beekeeping business, removing colonies from buildings and trees, pollen sources for honey bees, introducing queens, Varroa mite biology and their migration between honey bee colonies, Africanized bees what to expect in the future, collecting and selling pollen, small hive beetle biology and management and more. There will be a Queen Rearing Short Course as well as apiary sessions on making and using nucs, understanding what you’re seeing in a hive during inspection, bee behavior, and using a double screen. In the Bee Lab sessions will include Nosema diagnosis, candle and soap making, cooking with honey and plenty more. Sustainable beekeeping topics include a “survivor” panel of experienced beekeepers who keep bees without mite or other treatments, how to set up a regional queen and nuc project, state “queen projects” and more.

There will be a large vendor show, evening social events, and sightseeing tours in the Cookeville area.

Special rates for HAS guests will be offered at nearby hotels, with meals available on-campus. The evening social gathering on campus is a great time to meet fellow beekeepers from the region. Member states include Alabama, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan, Missouri, Tennessee and West Virginia.

According to Stu Jacobson, HAS Program Director, the Heartland Apiculture Society was founded in 2001 by Tom Webster of Kentucky State University, Greg Hunt of Purdue, and Zach Huang of Michigan State University to provide a economical regional 3-day beekeeping conference every summer, with instruction from the country’s

premier beekeepers and educators along with an opportunity for hands-on training.

Pre-registration forms and program deta i l s w i l l be ava i lable for downloading at http://www.heartlandbees.com. Forms will need to be returned by mail only (no on-line submission) to HAS Treasurer, 15275 Meacham Road, Bluff Springs, KY 42240-8484.

On your way to HAS, stop by

to see us. Or, we can meet you

at the show with your order, and you’ll save shipping!

http://www.heartlandbees.com


19

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Sideliner Powered Extractor KitThis kit has all the above items, but includes the Powered 9-Frame Stainless Extractor, Cat. # 3100-P, instead of the hand crank extractor, shown below.

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20

FAQsEditor’s Note: Because if you ask ten beekeepers the same question, you may get at least ten different answers, we’re sometimes walking on controversial ground with this regular feature. Our recommendation is to read, research, and discuss to figure out what’s best for you and your bees. There are few black and whites in beekeeping.

Q. Any secrets for getting bees to move up into a super? My two deeps are full of brood and I just placed a medium with drawn-out comb. There seem to be 30-40 bees in there each time I’ve checked, but they aren’t putting honey or anything else up there. Any tips? (They were a new package installed in April of this year.) M.W.

A. A couple of things might be happening. Has the nectar flow stopped where they are? Maybe there just isn’t anything to put in that box. Another possibility is that the super was stored by chemicals or gas that was absorbed into the wax. In that case, airing out the wax, or getting rid of it, may be the best option. You could also try spritzing it with sugar syrup to encourage them to move up.

Q. How long do you feed a nuc colony after you’ve moved them to the permanent hive? D.G.A. Nuc to permanent hive, nuc or permanent hive—it doesn’t really matter. The real question is, “How long do you feed?” And the answer is, “However long they’ll take it.” We’ve found that bees will stop taking feed fairly quickly if there are better options available.

Q. As you might know we here in Tennessee had problems with some packages this year. It mostly involved queens. I would like to know what to look for if the queen in the package is dead. Could she have been killed by a virgin queen shook into the package? If so, would her attendants all be dead also? Should I wait to replace the dead queen? If so, what would the procedure be? J. Ash

A. A virgin in a package would not be able to get to the queen in the cage and probably would not try; she is stressed out just like the other bees. Nor would she kill the attendants. Excessive heat or cold, or getting soaked by syrup would be likely causes for the dead queen.

If you receive a dead queen, obtain a replacement as soon as possible. If you do not get a queen ASAP, you run the risk of a laying worker, a situation extremely difficult to correct. Kelley’s guarantees its queens; instructions on what to do should your queen arrive dead are provided when you order a package of bees from us.

Kelley’s sells a variety of feeders, including the pop-ular Division Board Feeder, which takes the place of a frame. It is available for deep and medium boxes (catalog #158-A or 158-M.)

See that queen? She’s the most important bee to the colony.


21


Cleo Hogan, one of our favorite beekeepers and regionally known expert (as well as an annual speaker at Kelley’s Field Day) shared that he is frequently asked by people who have purchased nucs (from various sources) why there are queen cells/supercedure cells etc. in them. His answer follows.

Actually it is quite normal to see queen cells, supercedure cells, etc. in a nuc. When a split is made to start a nuc colony, it contains unsealed brood. Often, a nuc is not provided to a new queen for a day or so, (whenever the beekeeper gets to it, or receives queens.) Partly because of the reduced size of a nuc box, bees in a nuc determine very quickly that they are queenless, and immediately take action to make a new queen while the eggs are still viable. Even when the queen is introduced and in her cage, she is of no benefit to the new split because she cannot lay eggs in a cage, and the clock is ticking.

I tell people not to worry about swarm, supercedure, or queen cells in nucs. It does not mean they are about to swarm; it just means they are taking immediate action to ensure their survival. If the new queen gets out, and starts laying, most often the queen cells will be destroyed. Sometimes the bees will allow the survivor queens to emerge, be bred, and return to the hive before eliminating all but one. That’s why you occasionally see two queens in a nuc for a few days. Apparently they don’t want to kill one of the new queens until they are sure the other queen is a good one.

I try not to interfere. However, if you put a real expensive queen in the nuc, and/or a queen with genetics you desire, you might want to kill the queen that emerged from the brood, or destroy those queen cells. Otherwise, that emerging queen may kill your purchased queen, or the colony may do so in preference to the queen they made. Conclusion: Nucs are highly unlikely to swarm for at least a few weeks, and then only after they have had a chance to build up and become overcrowded.



22

Sweet as Honey

“ Please remind your readers, especially the new beekeepers, that getting honey from a first year hive is not typical. I am mentoring a young couple who secured a booth at a farm market to sell their honey this summer, and they installed their eight packages at the end of April. They were stunned to find out it might be another year before they see any tangible return on their investment. Thank you. —M. Marshall, Indiana

“ Before I got my first bees, I asked the allergy clinic to test me for bee venom and they refused! They told me that they didn’t want to risk provoking an attack. So I went into beekeeping not knowing if I would be able to stay in it. Fortunately, I have (so far) not experienced an allergic reaction. I attended a lecture at the U of I on allergy to bee venom, and the research indicates that if you are stung more than 100 times, you are unlikely to develop anaphylaxis. So every time I get stung, I chalk one more up for my goal of 100. —Maggie W.

“ Just another swarm my buddy Rich, from Newberg, Oregon, caught today. Swarms everyday around here these days, just crazy. Sometimes I wish I could get your magazine in paper. Even so, the free e-magazine is great, of course. Best wishes. —V.M., Oregon

Editor’s Note: Nearly each issue we receive a couple inquiries about whether we publish a hardcopy version of the “newsletter.” Sorry folks, but to keep costs down, we just do an e-version.

It is delivered in a PDF however, which means it is easily printable on just about any printing device We also send two versions—one with a lower resolution for those of you with slow download speeds.

I put “newsletter” in quotation marks as some of you have also noted it’s probably time to stop calling it a newsletter and instead a magazine. As we approach our fourth year, and with giant thanks to your substantial contributions and suggestions, this magazine has certainly become more robust and comprehensive than anticipated.

Speaking of substantial contributions, this photo on the next page is from Stephen Lester, who has shared some spectacular photos of his beautiful apiary. He also shares this swarming insight:

A frame of capped honey is the goal, but it takes a while to get there, especially with a first year hive.

We’d jump up and down to find a large, conveniently located swarm like this one! Thanks Vlastic, for sharing.


23

“ Swarming has been a big problem with my bees the past two years. I had one hive of Russian Hybrids that swarmed six times from April-October. When I asked older beekeepers why I was having so many swarms, the answers I got were, “That is just the nature of bees to swarm,” or, “You are feeding your new hive of bees too long!” Those answers did nothing to help me understand the why I was having so many swarms from this one hive. After doing a little research on why bees swarm, I discovered that there are (1) pre-nectar swarms and (2) nectar swarms. The first type of swarm is because there is not enough room in the brood box and the second occurs because there is not enough room in honey supers. Make sure you check your hives at the right time of the year and provide the bees with the room they need. This all centers around the nectar flow which can change from one year to another. This should not have been such a mystery for the older beekeepers or the new beekeeper. I know that there can be other reasons for swarming to occur with a healthy group of bees, but this helped me as a new beekeeper to have a better understanding of swarming.

Pollinator Week is June 17-23, 2013. Vital pollinators go beyond honeybees to also include bats, birds, butterflies, beetles and a few other kinds of critters that don’t start with ‘B’.

What can you do to help celebrate and build awareness of honeybees? We always recommend “taking honeybees to lunch” by planting honeybee-supportive plants appropriate for your area, and letting areas of your property become havens for native plants. Also consider buying local honey to support beekeepers, reducing or eliminating chemical usage, mentoring new beekeepers to help them succeed, and sharing your knowledge with gardening clubs, schools, and retirement communities. You may also want to check out http://pollinator.org/pollinator_week_2013.htm, which has other information and ideas.

Speaking of pollinators, we enjoyed this shot of bees barreling in with golden pollen.

http://pollinator.org/pollinator_week_2013.htm


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“Dear friends at Walter T. Kelley Co. My family and I had the privilege of meeting Walter T. Kelley in June 1983 when we were passing through the area. My four children were between 5 and 7 years old. Mr. Kelley took our family on a personal tour of the Bee Hive Factory. He was so proud of the company. We remember him as being a gentle and gracious man. I am so glad I took this picture. He has been a major part of my 35 years in beekeeping. I thought you all might enjoy this picture. Blessings, Jeffrey Hawkins

Editor’s Note: We followed up with Jeffrey as we’re always interested in folks’ beekeeping stories, although this one admittedly made me a little envious. Here’s some of the further information he shared:

“ I remember the good ol’ days when it was not too hard to get a 100 or so pounds of honey out of one hive. In 1984, when living in Illinois, I extracted over 2000 pounds of honey from 25 hives. One hive produced over 300 pounds. I have not seen anything like that since. In Central Tennessee, around Clarksville, I was doing well to get 200-300 pounds from 4-5 hives. I have also learned to keep honeybees without chemicals. I lost all my honey bees in 1996. I had been “out of the loop” for a few years with moving. Found out real quick that beekeeping was not like it was in the ‘80s. The greatest feature I started using in mid to late ‘90s was the screened bottom board (SBB). Thymol was also very effective for mite control. My dear friend and beekeeping partner Allen Meyers (Letcher County, Kentucky) and I learned hard and fast how to work with the bees, make honey and enough money to support our beekeeping habit. I am now in Louisiana with six hives of the old stock we developed in Eastern Kentucky. This is my first season here, so we will see. Now I have to also be concerned about the AHB. Kelley’s has been a source of beekeeping supplies for me for many years. I started ordering from you all as far back as 1979 or 1980. I think I first met you in the Bee Culture magazine. If my memory serves me right it was Kelley’s that fabricated our extracting system we used in Letcher, Kentucky. I would love to have one today!

“ I enjoy your e-mail/newsletters. They are informative and amusing. It is a pleasure to hear from you and the dear folk at Kelley Bees. I too, hope we all have a great season bee keeping this year. —G. Combs

Mr. Kelley’s spirit lives on as we strive to provide unmatched quality, service and knowledge. We so appreciate hearing from folks who have personal remembrances of him; thanks Jeffrey.

The screened bottom board, catalog # 57, addresses a variety of concerns like Varroa and ventilation.


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Many of us have experimented with top bar hives (TBH); many of us successfully use them. Here’s an update from one beekeeper who encourages us to manage them properly:

“ I am a “new-bee.” A beekeeper caught one of his swarms and installed it into my TBH. My 4-foot long hive is about length full of comb. Yes, you read that right! I had not looked INSIDE the hive the whole time until last week. Took a deep breath, made sure my netting was in place, gloves, used the hive tool to pry up the lid, removed it to find a comb being built on the UNDERSIDE of the lid, which does not fit tightly because I did not paint the box and it is swollen, noted many bees on the recessed top bars with a portion of said comb, and wondered what to do next. Yikes! I don’t think this is supposed to be happening! De-rattled myself, noted that bees were watching, and proceeded to gently pry apart two sides of one top bar and then the ends to where I could start to force up the bar in order to grab it in my fingers. Much to my shock the comb separated from the top bar and a tremendous amount of dark golden honey spilled out and down into the hive! Near panic ensued. Replaced the separated bar and removed another top bar easily and left some space between several bars. By now the bees were getting agitated. I decided to leave the scene of the crime and return in the evening when it would be cooler. That evening, I returned to the hive, was met by bees exiting the spaces I’d made between the bars and started moving them close to one another again. I could see some new comb had been started near the open areas of the bars. It was a large swarm to begin with and it was now two months later. I know I squished a few bees in the process and felt badly. I returned the lid, carefully, to the top of the hive, leaving the airspace at the front as it had been, due to the ill-fitting lid. More than a week has gone by, and I am getting brave enough to go into the hive again. I have obtained more information on TBHs—like how to manage a hive, prying a space between the top bars, and slicing down the ends of the comb on either side of the hive box where the bees attach full and heavy comb, to keep it from pulling away from the top bar (duh), then gently raising the bar and comb from the hive. One little bee hitched a ride home that evening, moved up and under my netting and got caught in my hair which was braided and tucked under. I could hear it buzzing. I quickly removed my hat/netting and took out my bobby pins. Could feel the bee crawling on my skin, in my hair and tried to “comb” it out with my fingers. It became more excited (buzz sound changed) and I did too -- the bee was still on my scalp under my hair, when it finally flew off and I scooted to the house, barely containing the panic which was quickly welling up within me. Inside, I realized: the bee flew off—I DID NOT GET STUNG! Miracles still happen. J.T., Pennsylvania


26

Dronings from a Queen BeeSplitsBy Charlotte Hubbard

Until a month ago, high school cheerleading was about the last time I did splits, and high school was—well—a woman isn’t supposed to reveal her true age. When I was in high school though, dirt had just recently been invented, and the devil was still designing the Varroa mite.

But now, billions of years after high school, I find myself again doing splits—splits of several hives.

Being able to split a hive is a wonderful beekeeping milestone. It means you have a colony strong enough to likely make two colonies. This is a first for me; my only previous bee expertise was the ability to kill most of my colonies every winter. This spring found all my hives alive, and most of them thriving!

Golly, I’m a stellar beekeeper. As I throw out my shoulder patting myself on my back, I must also confess that golly, I have no idea how I managed to overwinter all my hives. I believe a lot of luck was involved—a lot of luck and not too many mites.

After reading last month’s issue of this newsletter about splits, I decided to do walk-away splits, but a Charlotte-modified version.

In a true walk-away split, you place the specified frames in a box, and walk away, checking weeks later on the progress of the new queen.

In the Charlotte-version, you place the specified frames in a box, and walk away until the next day. The next day (and the next day and the next and next and next) you hover around the split, clutching your hive tool behind your back, and repeatedly reminding yourself to walk away and just let it bee.

Ignore this temptation to open and check for as many days as you possibly can.

I held off for ten days until curiosity devoured me. I don’t recommend peeking, but boy-oh-boy was I glad I did. One of the hives had nothing but frames of drone brood. Hard for them to make a girl bee when there are only thousands of boy bee eggs.

Stepson Lucas doing hive splits. A male beekeeper who saw this photo commented “if I did that, it wouldn’t be a walk-away split; it’d be a “call the doctor” split.


27

I loved making splits—and I don’t even yet know if they’re successful. Not only does it give me a great excuse to avoid spring cleaning, but this setting the stage for bees to work their magic is addictive. In the splits where I found long, beautifully capped queen cells, well, I felt like I’d personally birthed them. Should those queens emerge, mate and successfully begin building new colonies, this “grandmother” will be posting constant updates on FaceBook.

I’ve been asked: “how do you know when to split the hives?” That’s a somewhat tricky question. If you split them too early, the queen may not successfully mate, brood may be chilled, and your cherry pies will forever overflow the crusts while baking. If you split too late, your bees will mock you from the top of a maple. Thus, the key is to split them before they swarm.

“When are they going to swarm?” is the really hard question. Bees may give you a few in-hive signs, but when you live in a place with weather extremes, like Michigan, you can’t check in the hive because it snows in the morning and hits 90 degrees in the afternoon. Before you can put on a veil, you’ll hear your bees laughing at you from the top of a newly leafed maple.

I hope doing the splits has discouraged my bees from swarming. But as a back-up measure, I’ve also posted swarming rules in the apiary. They include:

48 hours notice required!

Swarm only to locations easily visible and accessible to me

No swarming on holiday weekends

Bees swarming to the empty hive already set up get their own FaceBook page

I post these swarming guidelines for my bees every year. Do they work? Not yet. But hey, I’d never successfully overwintered all my hives either, and this year it happened. It is the season when hope springs eternal.

Of course, it is also the season for bees to swarm, no matter what I do or hope for.

The maple in the backyard stands ready.

Random thought I had while writing this on Mother’s Day. What

does Mother’s Day look like in a hive where there’s one Mom and

10,000 – 50,000 children?



The BuzzBee Thinking AboutFor June, 2013Southern Seasonal Beekeeping Insights

Healthy BeesQueenrightPreliminary Results: Honeybee Colony Losses in the United States, Winter 2012-2013Varroa Mites: Control Them NowStreaked Honey/Dysentery

Bee-HaviorOpen Air, er, In-A-Langstroth Hive

Bee-Yond & Bee-Hind the HivesSeven Health Secrets from the HiveAbandoned Bee Hives (Part 1)

A-Bee-CsWhen to Add Another BoxWhat Should Bee Happening?

BeeCauseWorld of Bees Exhibit

Heartland Apicultural Society Holds 12th Annual ConferenceFAQsSweet as HoneyDronings from a Queen BeeSplits

Kelley Bee News ISSUE 36 • JUNE 2013 Modern...

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