Tag: monthinthehive

Posted on by

January in the Hive

 

Entering the new year with even colder temperatures can be nerve-wracking for any beekeeper. Here are some tips for checking on your bees without too much disturbance to the hive:

  • If there is snow on the ground, check the areas around your hive. There may be brown spots signaling that the bees have recently had the strength to fly outside and relieve themselves. There may be visible dead bees outside, particularly in areas with heavy snowfall, but this should not be cause for alarm.
  • The easiest way to check on your bees from outside the hive is to listen to them. Stand, or kneel, at the corner of a hive. Set your shoulder against one surface and bend your neck so your ear is flat against the hive body, just around the corner. Other keepers have found success listening through the walls of their hive with a stethoscope. You should be able to hear the familiar buzzing of your bees. Even a faint whisper is a good sign of life.
  • If you discover that your bees did not survive over winter, don’t be discouraged! Over wintering bees in cold climate is challenging, especially with temperature fluctuations and length of the winter temperatures. When warmer weather comes, take time to inspect the hive to determine what caused the colony to die; Beekeeping Made Simple’s Hive Autopsy may help figure this out. Take steps to clean equipment, learn, treat neighboring hives if needed, etc.
  • Some dead bees may have piled up by the entrance. This is normal for the wintertime as morgue bees may not risk venturing outside to dispose of the dead. You can help them by using a long, flat stick or metal rod to sweep out the dead bodies from the entrance and from along the sides and corners of the hives.
  • You can also check the weight of your colony. In January, it should still feel heavy compared to their fall weight, because bees do not use up much of their honey in the early winter. If your hive feels too light, you can provide extra food for your bees, like loose sugar or fondant. However, once you start feeding you may encourage the bees to move upwards, prematurely leaving some stores behind. If you provide supplemental feed, keep doing it regularly until the bees can forage again.

 

 

Posted on by

December in the Hive

 

Winter should be a quiet time for your bees. Take a look at our November In The Hive blog for any last-minute preparation you may be doing to prepare your bees for cold weather. You should avoid disturbing the beehive too much during this time, but occasional checks can help you identify issues early.

Keep your eyes out for signs of disease, pests or deceased bees in or around the hives entrance. If you can hear a quiet hum outside of your hive, that is a good sign that your bees are actively maintaining their temperature.

Posted on by

November in the Hive

 

You should already be preparing your hives for colder weather by providing plenty of food for your bees and insulating the hive, but November means your bees may be entering dormancy.

A strong hive won’t need much help feeding during the winter. To know how much assistance your bees may need to keep their nutrition up, look at their stores of honey. If the honey has been recently depleted or the bees have simply not produced enough, it may be time to add sugar, fondant, or liquid feed to the mix before it gets too cold.

You can also prepare for the cold by providing wind-breaks, such as hay bales or scrap metal, to protect your hives from harsh wind. But be careful not to shade the hive, as the bees will be needing as much warmth and sunlight as they can get.

Now is the time to start preparing for next year! Take stock of what kind of equipment you’ll need, such as more hives, new foundations, or more specialized tools. We have a variety of bee equipment and hive tools available for purchase online at Great Lakes Bee Co.! You can also spend the extra time this winter not tending to your bees by studying up on bees and beekeeping. Check out this selection of books recommended by the Best Bees Company!

Posted on by

October in the Hive

 

As we near the end of October, there are several things you should be keeping in mind as the weather continues to get colder.

Now is a great time to be checking on your queen bee. If she is no longer present in the hive, don’t wait to find a replacement. It’s best to find a new queen bee sooner rather than later so she will have time to settle into the hive and lay eggs. This would also be a good time to consolidate hives if you have multiple weak ones. Any hives with empty space should be restructured to allow enough room for the strongest bees.

Another aspect of preparing your hives for the colder winter months involves hives insulation. To insulate your hive, wrap it in black tar paper to absorb heat from the sun, remembering to leave the hive entrance and upper ventilation holes uncovered. You can also utilize a hive stand to protect your bees from the cold while preventing moisture problems. Moisture is one of the biggest things to look out for, as too much moisture could potentially freeze your bees. Wood chips or burlap in a quilt box can help keep condensation out of the hive.

Lastly, make sure your bees have enough food before winter. If you were keeping them healthy throughout the summer and early fall, ensuring they had a productive queen, you shouldn’t have to worry much. But if your hive doesn’t have 60 to 100 pounds of stored honey, October will be your last chance to feed them with liquid feed. You can also use fondant or sugar bricks. Pollen and pollen substitute is not recommended at this time, as the reduction in pollen flow signals the bees to finish rearing winter bees as they prepare for winter.

Posted on by

September in the Hive

 

This September is extra sweet … not only is it National Honey Month, but we’re also celebrating the 50th anniversary of Hasselman’s Honey!

Initiated by the National Honey Board in the U.S. in 1989, National Honey Month is a time to celebrate bees, honey, and beekeepers – just in time for harvest. People throughout the world depend on honey bees and their role in pollinating the ecosystem. Did you know about one-third of the average person’s diet in the United States is derived from insect-pollinated plants, and honey bees are responsible for about 80 percent of that process? It’s true! Without honey bees, we wouldn’t have apples, cabbage, lemons, onions, or watermelon, and other fresh crops.

Because of beekeepers, honey production continues to thrive. Rounding out the harvest season this September, there’s plenty for beekeepers to pay attention to in their hives, and some might start thinking ahead to the winter months.

If you’re harvesting honey, we recommend extracting your supers as soon as possible to avoid wax moth and small hive beetle larva, which can damage your hives. Beekeepers should also monitor for extra space in your supers, as any that are light with nectar will create more space for wax moths and small hive beetles to invade. Getting your supers extracted also lets you set them up back outside as a community feeder to both let bees build their stores, and get your combs cleaned out for winter storage. You should put these far away from the hives, or freeze them to reintroduce to the hives when needed.

Enjoy the last few weeks of summer with your bees! Thanks to you and your bees, beekeepers help make the world a sweeter place. Join us during Fremont’s Harvest Festival Parade on Sept. 26 as we celebrate the 50th anniversary of Hasselman’s Honey and Fremont’s OG Beekeeper, Larry Hasselman!

Posted on by

August in the Hive

 

August is a big month for your bees! As the summer grows hotter, asters and other wildflowers create an abundance of pollen and nectar for the colony. This will help the bees as they start to prepare for winter, and you can support them in this process too!

This time of year, beekeepers should be checking hives for mites and other pests. Varroa mite populations increase in hives during the summer and hit a peak just as honeybee colonies are laying eggs and raising brood for the winter. To fight back against a mite population in your beehive, take precaution and follow the Honey Bee Health Coalition’s Varroa Management Decision Tool.

The most important thing we recommend for beekeepers in late summer is to help keep your bees cool. During the hot summer months, keep water available at all times, such as in bird baths, tubs, or other shallow containers. Even a simple bowl of water with rocks and sticks can be extremely helpful for those busy bees!

If your bees are happy, the keeper is happy!

Posted on by

Month in the Hive – February

 

Are you getting into bees and confused by all of the hubbub about queens or “breeds” of bees? Well, it is easy to say it doesn’t matter and bees are bees. But that doesn’t really answer the question. One thing we need to remember is that when someone is selling Italian bees, Carniolan Bees, or Russian bees, they are selling bees based on traits and characteristics more than genetics. These traits have been selected for years in breeding programs to accentuate characteristics found in the namesake populations. Much like cultivar groups of brussels sprouts, broccoli, cabbage, collard greens, kale, and kohlrabi are the same species of cruciferous, but express different traits due to selective breeding.

When someone is selling Italian queens or bees, they are selling bees that tend to develop large clusters. With the large clusters, Italians tend to produce ample honey crops. Also, they are fairly gentle bees that show little aggression toward the beekeepers’ missteps. The large clusters can be a blessing or a hindrance going into winter. Bees huddle together to keep warm in the winter, so more the merrier, right? Well, with all of those mouths to feed they need more resources in the cold winters and spring that follows. A well-stocked Italian hive will survive winter and spring, but if the pollen and nectar fail to materialize, Italians will burn through resources to be ready for an eventual flow. This can lead to starvation in a delayed spring if the beekeeper does not keep an eye on them. As far as physical traits, Italian bees tend to be blond in color with brown to black stripes. Italian queens tend to be blond to light orange/amber with occasional brown to black markings.

Carniolan queens and bees, on the other hand, winter in smaller clusters. This is great for conserving resources, but can lead to excessive die off in exceptionally cold winters. They do develop strong clusters in the spring, but unlike Italians they will pull back brood rearing if resources become scarce. Carniolan bees are one of the gentlest bee varieties you’ll find. The bees tend to be orange/amber to black with black stripes, while the queens range from a dark orange or brown to black.

The last common variety of honey bee is the Russian. Russians are an interesting mix. They winter with good sized clusters and produce good honey crops. They have been shown to carry lighter mite loads and have lower tolerance for mite presents. So, what is the downside to Russian bees? Well, they are a bit more aggressive than Italians or Carniolans, and tend to swarm more. Some will say that more aggressive bees will produce more honey, but in our experience aggression does not correlate to honey production. The tendency to swarm helps with mites by introducing brood breaks. The coloring of Russian bees would fall about in the middle of Italians and Carniolans, while the Russian queens tend to be blond to orange/amber in color and often have brown to black stripes.

Finally, you may have heard of bee brands like Beeweaver, Saskatraz, and Ankle Biters. These brands have meticulously bred bees to focus on traits the breeder finds attractive. Each and every brand will tell you in detail what they focus on, but in general they focus on mite resistance, gentleness, and honey production. You may come across Varroa Sensitive Hygiene (VSH) and VSH stock is the fruit of breeding programs that select breeding stock based on the tests that evaluate hygienic behavior. Hygienic behavior for bees is seen in uncapping, recapping, and removal behavior of brood that is not “normal” or healthy. This behavior translates to fewer mites in the hive and a less hospitable environment for mites to reproduce.

Where does this leave you for selecting the type of bees? Personally, we recommend new beekeepers start off with Carniolans or Italians. This is because of their gentleness and they are a bit more forgiving of “newbees” mistakes. After several years, once the newbee has become a proficient beekeeper, then one might bring in stock with traits they want to introduce into their apiary.

Posted on by

Month in the Hive – March

March is here! This is an integral time for the health of your bees. Just because the temperature is increasing, doesn’t mean your bees will survive. You’ll likely see lots of bee deaths this month, so it’s important to check the hive and clear out the dead bees to ensure proper ventilation into the hive. A good time to check on the bees is on the days when the temperature hits 50 F.

Continue reading Month in the Hive – March