Long live the queen

This time of year is exciting and crushing all at the same time. It's warming up. There is an electricity in the air. You see activity in your hives. Did they make it? Is it going to be a bumper year?

Before you consider it a successful overwintering, take a quick peak inside the hive to make sure that all that activity at the front is hive activity rather than robbing. Is the queen laying yet? Some of our hives have a small cluster of brood about the size of an apple and other hives already have 3 supers of brood. Queens can be so different. Most should be laying right now. If you see this:

I'm sorry to say that your hive starved/froze. But you say you has so much honey stored upstairs in the super! I know, me too, but sometimes, the bees just aren't smart enough to venture up and grab that life saving nectar.

If they don't have enough food, now is the time to give them some extra honey or fondant to help them get through the next couple weeks. You and your bees have worked so hard to get through the winter.

Don't lose in the last couple of weeks!

The art of the combine.

I’m starting to think that beekeeping is really all about breaking apart and putting hives back together. You break them apart to make more and then the ones that don’t seem to take, you put right back together. It’s exciting and then very humbling all at the same time.

This time of year, it’s all about putting hives back together. I know what you’re thinking. You tried so hard to get that hive through the booming spring, hot summer, and beetle prone fall. You have invested time and money on keeping that hive going. The truth, as I see it, is you’re chasing the rabbit. If you’ve put that much effort into raising a good queen through the most productive months of the year and she still isn’t impressing you, it’s time to move on. You’ll just end up spending more money on feed through the winter. Some queens just don’t cut it and the sooner you can see the bigger picture the sooner your beekeeping operation can move forward in a more profitable direction.

So what’s the best way to combine colonies? I don’t know, but I’ll tell you how I do it. The newspaper combine in my opinion is the best and easiest way to marry two colonies. As a rule of thumb, always combine your weaker colony with a stronger colony. Do not combine two weak colonies together. Find your failing queen and remove her. I like to save her in a small bottle filled with rubbing alcohol and use her pheromones as a swarm lure for next spring. It's a lot cheaper than having to spend $15 for someone else to make it. Take a single sheet of newspaper and place it between your two hives as you have just combined one on top of the other. I like to give the bees in the top boxes a way out if they wanted (or a way in) so I leave a solid inner cover on top with open vent holes to allow for traffic or stragglers. If you want to get all technical you can leave your weak colony queenless for 24-48 hours and then combine it with a stronger colony. I don’t like to do that because a queenless (already weak colony) is a beacon for small hive beetles or other pests. Another thing that you could do is spray the weaker bees with sugar water and a hint of vanilla extract. It will act to mask the original queen’s pheromone and allow for quicker acceptance. Also, the bees will be too busy cleaning themselves off to worry about fighting. Take your hive tool, cut a few slits in the newspaper to get the bees started and then close it all up. Within 24-48 hours the bees will chew their way through the paper and the new bees will be accepted making one large colony.

I like to leave the colony alone for a week. After 1 week I’ll come back, make sure all is well, and take a big slice of humble pie. My attempt at making a split did not work. If the hive makes it through the winter successfully, you can bet I’ll give the split another try next year and continue the circle of life.



**Side note: even if you have combined 2 colonies and now have tons of bees and a strong looking colony make sure you have enough honey stores to make it through the winter. If you are low, feed, feed, feed.

You say, "I don't have the skills or knowledge to make stuff!" I say baloney. Read on...

Every day there are more and more women becoming beekeepers. This is no longer a man's hobby. I think that's great and that there is room for everyone! A common theme I have noticed however with the female beekeepers I work with is a lack of self confidence when it comes to woodworking and making your own beehive components to save some money.

Let's face it, this hobby is not the cheapest out there. There are some rather large companies that have grown so big because you and I do not want to be bothered by having to cut, sand, and manufacture woodenware. I'm here today however to tell you that it doesn't all have to be made by someone else. You too possess the means to make some hive components on your own. And it's easier than you think.

Here's today's example: Migratory Covers.
Migratory Covers in my opinion are the cheapest hive top you can get. They are simple in design and don't have the fancy aluminum on top like a telescoping cover. I find them easier to manipulate for ventilation in the summer time and easier to strap down the hive in rough weather because they don't stick off the sides. I can make a migratory cover for $2.75 each without having to cut a single piece of wood myself. You can buy one online right now for $9.95 plus $16.78 for shipping. That's a grand total of $26.73! I've learned the expensive way that bees could care less how fancy your woodenware looks. Plywood and 2x4's made of pine work just as well as the fancy wood. So here's how you can do it...

Yesterday I went to my local Lowes and bought (1) 4x8 sheet of 23/32" utility plywood. I had a store employee wheel it over to the cutting station. I then had him cut (12) pieces each with the dimensions 14"x22"

I also had him pick up (8) 2x4's and cut them into pieces 14" long. I had him place all the wood back in my cart. I could have even had the employee wheel the cart out to my car. I was lucky and he didn't charge me for cutting any of the wood. Even if he had, it would have cost less than $5 for all the cuts. I took the wood home (without having to lift any of it) and found some old nails, screws, and glue around the house. I nailed and screwed the wood together and....voila I have 12 new migratory covers.

If I wanted, I could have bought some "oops paint" for $5 per gallon and painted the cover for extra insurance. Remember, I did this without any sawing or heavy lifting. All I needed was a screwdriver or hammer. In the end, my grand total for 12 new migratory covers was $33. That's $2.75 each!

"But Jay, what if the plywood warps or falls apart in a year?" I say, who cares. Throw the warped cover out and grab a new one. I've got covers that are 3 years old that are just as good as the day I put them together.

The moral of this story is use your resources. Just because you don't have a fancy wood shop out back doesn't mean you can't save some money and build your own components. I have minimal woodworking skills and I'm able to hack my way around all this. You can too. The help is out there. Take advantage of it!

The "Weekly Queen Rearing" System

I’ve just returned from a screening of “Queen of the Sun” here in Nashville. It was a great documentary and I encourage you to check it out if it comes to your town.

To me, the take home message was that we all need to practice sustainable beekeeping practices from now on. It’s a message that I feel us “slow-beekeepers” have been trying to promote for quite some time but haven’t had a big enough bullhorn to use. “Queen of the Sun” might be that bullhorn.

Another clear point in the film was an exposure to the sorry state of our queen bees today. The movie compared them to our cattle or pigs that are so weakened they need help just to stand up and be fed. While our queens are still able to crawl and lay eggs, I can’t agree more about how broken the industry appears. It’s also the aspect of the beekeeping industry I think you and I can make the most immediate difference. The more we learn and raise local queens of our own, the more dynamic and stable our apiaries will become.

Anyone can raise queens. You don’t need insemination kits, queen cages, or fancy grafting tools. You just need a strong, healthy colony you can be proud of. Simply take 3-5 frames of bees, brood (open and closed), and pollen from your healthy colony. Take these frames and make up a nucleus hive (making sure your original queen is not on the frames). Move this hive to a new location. Leave them alone for a week. Come back and check the frames for queen cells. If you find some, come back a week later and look for a queen. If you see a queen come back a week after that and look for eggs. If it doesn’t work, start the process over again with fresh frames of bees. If it did work, you now have a locally raised queen to help grow your apiary and put you one step closer to becoming the King of Queens…

***Special Note*** It is worth mentioning, there are many variations to raising queens. In my opinion, this is the simplest, least risky way of trying out queen rearing. One could argue that you’ll get better quality queens if you move the original queen to the nucleus hive and have the parent colony (the one with the most bees) raise a new queen. If you don’t care about honey production, this might be the way to go. Play around and see what works for you. The best part about it is you’ll know within 3 weeks if you’re a success of not.

The Towering Inferno

This time of year it seems there is always a large group of people at the bee meetings talking about how their queen has all of a sudden shut down, swarmed, or gone just plain missing. They don't know what happened and describe the state of their hive as something along the lines of a towering inferno of chaos!

It's a great time to go over the term "Honey Bound". Simply put, the queen's space to normally lay eggs has been decreased to make room to store nectar. The strong nectar flow has caught the beekeeper off guard, and the bees become short on space. The foragers start putting honey in the top of the hive and as it fills up, they work their way down, thus forcing the queen lower and lower until she has no room left. Without the space, she either shuts down or takes off for a roomier house. Worse still, after the old queen swarms, with little brood left in the hive, the chances of the nurse bees raising a new queen cell from 1-3 day old larvae are fairly slim. That's a depressing situation.

So here are a couple simple things to practice:

-Give your queen the space she needs. Give her room but not too much room.
-Take notes. Bring a pencil out to the yards and write on the outsides of your boxes what's inside and what's free space etc. For example, if a super has 3 frames of Brood, 2 frames
of Honey and 1 frame of Pollen write 3B/2H/1P on the outside back corner. I'll know by some quick math how many frames I still have remaining that are open for use. If you don't want to worry about the math for next time write /4E or 4 Empty. There is no hard rule here, just come up with a system that works for you. You want to get even simpler? If you notice a hive is starting to get crowded and you want to add another super on your next trip to the yard, place a rock on top of your hive at the front. If you think the hive has plenty of space place a rock at the back of the hive. The key is to be consistent in your marking with every hive because when you get over 5 hives, your memory starts to blend the hives together. ;)

Turn your towering inferno of chaos into a towering masterpiece of beekeeping lore with a simple system and some good preparation.

Puff Puff Give

Recently I was dropping off a nuc to a great new beekeeper and we got to talking about smoking your beehives. The classic image of a beekeeper and his smoker has been around since Langstroth modernized beekeeping at the end of the 1800's. The dirty (or clean) little secret is you don't always need a smoker when working your bees. Sure, it has its advantages but I'd say I pull it out about 1 in 10 trips to the bee yard. Why choke your bees out every time you say hello?

Pretty soon they'll realize like Pavlov's dogs that every time they see you, it's not going to be fun.

Here's some reasons why I don't like to use smoke:

I don't like breathing it in.
It irritates my eyes.
It agitates the bees.
It can shut down the queen laying for 24-48 hours.
It can make the honey smell and taste smokey.
You can burn yourself.
It brings more attention to you and the location of your hives.
You don't need it when capturing swarms or working nucs.

Here's when I do like using smoke:

When I have a strong defensive colony sitting on a lot of honey that I need to quickly calm down.
When I have alarm pheromone on my hands or clothes and I want to cover it up.
When I'm cutting a beehive out of a structure that's been there a long time.

You know that feeling of agitation you get when you're outside on the patio at a great restaurant and someone lights up a cigarette at the table next to you? You tolerate it, but you scowl at them and eventually if the wind changes and it gets bad enough you snap. Well with the smoker, it's like you're now sitting at the same table with the wind in your face. How's that relaxing?

Consider this anger management training. Leave the smoker in the truck.
Dismissed. ;)

A reminder to stay chemical free

We are constantly reminded of the advantages to staying as chemical free as possible in life. We just don't know the far reaching effects these things have on our lives and our future. Doesn't it seem like every day you read another article backing up this point? Well in case you haven't had your daily dose, here's one for you.

Get to know your farmers.

Get to know your beekeepers and ask questions. Do they use chemicals? How often? What kinds? Do they use antibiotics? Where are their bees foraging? We deserve to know what goes on behind the fence line!

A cheap varroa catcher

Economy hitting your beekeeping wallet??

Make your own drone frames! Let's face it. I'm a cheapskate. If I can save money in my beekeeping addiction I'm all for it.

Here's one way...Instead if buying some fancy gizmo, take a medium frame and place it in a deep brood box. During swarm season, let the bees draw out drone cells along the bottom. Once the cells are capped, take the frame out and cut off the drone cells and replace the frame to let them do it again!
This is an easy way without the use of chemicals to reduce the varroa population and help in swarm prevention.



Varroa are more attracted to drone cells (especially in large cell bees) due to the higher level of juvenile growth hormone contained in the cells.

The best part is once you're done you can feed the comb to your chickens! It'll be like christmas for them. They'll love you forever.



Try it sometime and tell me what you think.

Location:Franklin,TN

10 Tips I wish some old guy had told me when I started beekeeping

This list is by no means complete. In all reality this could be expanded to 100 tips every beekeeper should know. But in the end, some information is better than nothing. I may follow this up with 10 tricks every beekeeper should keep in his or her back pocket but that will come down the road as I gotta get back to my yards right now...

So here goes:

1. Every beekeeper has their way of doing things and according to every beekeeper, their way is right. In the end, do what works for you. Manage your bees so that you enjoy it. Beekeeping should be fun. Not depressing!

2. Buy 2 hives to start. If one hive dies, at least you still have one more and won't have to start all over again next year. If one hive is stronger than the other, rob from the stronger to feed the weaker and even everyone out.

3. No matter what you do sometimes a beehive will die. Use this opportunity to be a detective and learn from your mistakes so that you can avoid them in the future.

4. When you first arrive at your bee yard, take a moment and watch the front of your hives. What is the activity level like? Are they bringing in pollen? Are there dead bees around the front door? Are they hovering in circles in front? Are they darting in and out? Are they so heavy that they can barely make it to the landing board? All these are signs of different things going on inside the hive...

5. Never stand in front of your hive. Pay attention not to cast your shadow on the front door of the hive. Remember, bees use the sun to orient and if you're blocking it with your big head it makes them mad. Speaking of making them mad, don't eat bananas before visiting your bees. You'll smell the same as their alarm pheromone which never works out well for you. And don't wear black. They'll think you're a bear and start attacking you and you'll get super hot in the summer sun. If you don't believe me, try it sometime.

6. When possible, catch swarms! They are free bees and are usually very docile! Plus it'll help add local genetics to your stock. If you do catch a swarm, keep them separated if possible from your other bees for a short period of time to make sure they are healthy.

7. Use local stock. Don't buy bees from halfway across the world. It may sound romantic to have bees all the way from Hawaii but the truth is, those bees have no idea what it's like in your region and as a result aren't going to know when to ramp up or slow down the population. Buy local bees and work towards someday raising your own queens using local genetics.

8. Get a notebook and call it your "Bee Journal" Bring this with you every time you visit the bee yard. Establish a numbering system for every yard so that you can easily identify and write notes about each hive. When you're done with these notes at the end of the day think about entering them in online hive tracking software such as www.hivetracks.com or beetight.com.

9. Don't requeen your hives every year because you read it in a magazine or the queen breeder told you to. You don't go out and buy a new car every year just because it's a year old. Evaluate your queens every year. Which ones did well over the winter? Which ones have a great laying pattern? Some of my hives have done better in the 2nd or even 3rd years. If you keep starting over with a new queen every spring in my opinion you are essentially starting from scratch genetically. Did you know that almost all the queens produced commercially in the US come from roughly the same 500 queen mothers? Trouble is brewing....but that's another post.

10. An incredible beekeeper named Michael Bush says "if you don't know what to do with your bees, don't do anything. In the end, they will figure it out." Listen to your bees. Let them guide you. Every day I visit those tiny little insects they teach me something new. My hope is they do the same for you.

She was kind of waspy...

I witnessed incredible bravery today. She was half the size of the wasp that was invading the hive yet she attacked with all she had to protect her kingdom. In the end it was a group effort that defeated the intruder. The individual honey bee is only one small part of the "super organism" that is a hive.

We are all tiny pieces in a much bigger picture.

Any way you shake it, the courage shown was humbling to say the least.

The "On your toes lesson"

It was cold. It was rainy. The same as it had been for the last 4 days in a row. Do I go out to the yard? No I thought, it's early in the spring. Day temps are ranging in the high 40's, low 50's. Surely they won't have that much activity. They'll barely break cluster to be able to draw new comb out besides I have a bunch of work to do around the house...

I was wrong.

This is a prime example of what happens when you leave a strong nuc on it's own. You must stay on your toes no matter what. Stay ahead of the bees and you're life runs a lot smoother. Put it off due to bad weather or a hectic home life and the bees gently remind you who is really in charge!

I had left an empty nuc box on top of the hive to give me room to place cans of sugar water (on top of the frames) that had come with the new packages I installed the week before. They drew 2 brand new combs complete with pollen and freshly laid eggs from bottom of my hive top feeder! It was mostly drone comb (as I'm sure they had swarming on their minds).

My bees taught me to pay more attention to them especially when they are young. I think that's a life lesson we can all appreciate.

Aw snap, it's cold

This cold snap we in the mid-south are experiencing is rockin the boat.  This is such a touchy time of year for Tennessee.  On one hand, you've got hives that just barely have made it through the winter and on the other you have freshly installed packages trying to become established.  It's like the first day of freshman year in high school; you don't know how you successfully got there and you're just hoping an outside force (senior) doesn't crush your dreams.
This has been such a hard winter for so many fellow beekeepers I fear more people than before are going to be starting over with new bees.
I predict a common theme among the people starting over will be that they took too much honey in the summer and settled on feeding back all sugar water in the fall.  They essentially took away all the good food rich with vitamins and minerals and replaced it with empty calories.  Goodbye farm stand - hello McDonalds.  Even the strongest of bees can't always bounce back with no food in their bellies and a Ph level that is more acidic due to all the sugar water they've eaten.
Any way you shake it, spring can't come soon enough for all of us!

Hello blog world!

I’ve always been against blogs.  They always seem so self indulgent.  Why would anyone want to hear more of what I have to say?  What I’m finding is people actual do want to hear a little bit extra especially when it comes to beekeeping.  It’s an art form that really hasn’t changed in over a hundred years and yet recently it is coming under attack by pests and unknown diseases.  Right now it’s harder than ever to successfully keep your colonies alive year after year.  Ironically, we are experiencing a major influx of new beekeepers wanting to try their hands at this classic pastime. 

Even though I’ve been trying my hand for 4 years now, I’m part of this influx.  Us “newbees” are all dying for information and tips.  Since it’s so hard to pinpoint the exact problem with the bees it’s really anyone’s game…even the rookies.  For once, even the old timers with all the experience are scratching their heads. 

I believe this is an exciting time in the beekeeping world.  From great defeat is born great success.  The varroa mite is showing us all our weaknesses.  The small hive beetle is telling us we can’t run a hive with low populations.  The wax moth is telling us not to oversuper and get lazy.

If I can pass on any little tidbit I’ve learned then this blog is a success. I don’t claim to be all knowing, but I do claim to be part of the process.  We need more conversation, more ideas.  We need each other.  This is where my blog is born.  Happy reading.

Tell me what you are thinking….