Week Three: Managing and Working with the Bees

Dara K. Dimitrovdkd4@waikato.ac.nz

When to look in the hive

You need to learn to inspect your hives REGULARLY but the calendar year is important Spring

Summer

Autumn

Winter

Time of Day

Try to Open the hive in the middle of the day If the weather is too cool – the bees will be agitated

If it is late in the day – it will be too cold

Or they have been annoyed too often

Bees can inherit defensive behavioural traits – species of bees

Stinging readily may mean you have to smoke them

What you are looking for in the hive (Brood box) The number of bees in the hives

What types of bees are there

If the bee numbers are low – the queen might be failing

The number of frames of brood We can if there is continuity in the bee production

Eggs, larvae, capped brood

Honey stores?? - have the bees got food

Examine the brood – and the patterns Looking for disease (we will cover this later)

Spring – September to December

You will open the boxes more regularly as the weather warms up Health of the colony

Smell the hive box – Unpleasant smell?

Sound of the hive – loud and agitated – probably queen-less

The condition of its queen (looking for eggs – brood)

Varroa Mite Strips go in (and out before honey boxes go on)

This is the time to take corrective action if you think the hive has problems

Spring

The number of the bees increase quite quickly

The hive needs to have adequate food – if not naturally – then you have to feed them (a bit on this later)

The hive will begin to build queen cells This is the natural way that the hive will reproduce itself

Hive splitting can be done now – more successful than in autumn

The Queen Excluder is VERY important It is used to separate the brood from the honey boxes

The size allows the bees to pass but prevents the queen and drones

If there is a problem --- You can see it

Queen fails - No Queen --- no eggs or larvae

Hive has low bee numbers

Low Brood numbers - No brood – queen has failed or died

Low honey – No honey –You can’t see any in the frames

No pollen?

The bees will be starving – and you will need to feed them

You may have to re-queen the hive if there is low brood numbers (more on this next week)

Summer -- Dec to March (Honey)

The bees basically take care of themselves – the less you disturb them – the happier they are

Checking them regularly (every 2 weeks – weekly if you think there is a problem)

Checking the honey flow – the bees shoot out of the hive like they have been fired from a gun There are flowers everywhere – blooms and trees

Summer

Checking how much available space is in the hive This is the time you begin to put honey supers on (the honey

boxes go on one at a time)

You entice the bees up into the honey supers by putting a couple of frames of honey into the Honey super

Extra room stimulates the bees to store more honey

Remember the WEIGHT OF THE HIVE –

Full depth supers can weigh as much as 40 kilos

¾ depth supers can weigh as much as 25 kilos

Honey Supers

Important to put the first one as soon as the bee numbers build up

Put the second one on when the first one is half fill (put a frame up in the second one to entice the bees up)

As you get higher – put the filled boxes at the top and the empty boxes above the brood (easier for the bees to get to the empty supers)

This is called Top Supering – you just keep adding supers until the honey flow stops

You can begin to harvest the honey

Autumn – March - June

The peak of the honey flow has passed Take the honey supers off but leave enough for over

wintering Varroa Mite strips go back in

Check the queen and the brood (eggs, larvae) – the queen slows down the egg laying

Can split the hives now too

Reduce the entrance to the hive to keep the warmth in

Can put on extra hive protection (like carpet above the hive matt) to give the hives extra warmth protection

Winter – June – August (early September)

The queen will slow right down on laying eggs

There is no food about for the bees so they usually cluster in the hive Basically a ball of bees in the middle of the hive (the size of

the ball depends on the number of bees in the hive)

The ball is heated to around 35 Celsius (no matter what the temperature is outside the hive

The cluster is layers of bees lined up side by side which creates a thermal barrier

The bees can still move about and eat a little honey

IF the cluster loses heat – the hive will die

If there are too few bees in the hive and the outer shell of the cluster loses heat – the hive will die even if there is honey in the hive The bees can’t leave the cluster to go eat – there can be

several ‘shells’ of the cluster

Keeping the hive warm is paramount

Cluster can cover 8-9 frames on a strong hive

Very cold – cluster will be reduced to 2-3 frames

Never open the Hive

When it is raining, cold, or windy

WHY? Chilled brood – the bee larvae and capped brood die

Dead bees still STINK

You have to remove the frames and clean out the hive box

The bees have to work harder to draw out the wax

The hive will become weak – and will probably die out over the winter

Bee Temperatures

35 Celsius – is the optimum core temp in the hive

18 Celsius – the bees will begin to cluster

14 Celsius – the bees will become motionless in the outer cluster shell – even though the bees inside the cluster may still move about

Feeding the Hives (or they starve)

This is the time of the year when the bees run out of stored honey –

This can happening from mid – winter to early spring The weather is too cold for the bees to break cluster

You feed the hives from inside the hive (dripping syrup into the hive sometimes help if the hive is weak)

If the winter is very cold – your nucs will die off as they can’t maintain cluster and feed (too few bees) ---you may have to put them on top of a stronger hive to save them)

Feeding bees -

Pollen Patties – protein source for the bees (I make my own up) – see hand-out

Sugar Syrup – you need sugar feeders –

Sugar Fondant – sets (so not syrup) – treat it like a pattier

Sugar Syrup in Zip Lock bags

Questions?????