Johnston County Beekeepers Association

March 2014 Bee Con Final

Equipment:

• Should have all equipment ready, Now!
• Air out stored supers
  • Remove from Paramoth
  • Freeze stored frames 1 – 2 days

Task:

• Dead winter bees
  • Located on bottom board
  • Toss them out and clean board
• Serve all mice who took up in a hive over the winter an eviction notice
• Remove empty hive bodies and jar feeders from tops of hives
• Assess how many hives died over the winter months
  • Clean out those boxes
  • Freeze the comb
    • Prevents the spread of wax moths
    • Temperature of freezer will determine the length of time:
      • 20° F ~ 4.5 hours (needed to kill all stages of wax moth)
      • 10° F ~ 3 hours
      • 5° F ~ 2 hours
• Entrance reducer can be removed as long as the weather looks good
  • Leave in place until it warms up
• Reversing hive bodies
  • Allows for better distribution of brood
  • Stimulates the growth of the colony

Hive:

• Quick peek
  • Frame removal
    • Inspect hives on nice mild days when bees are flying
    • Any temperature above 65° F is fine for a short period of time
    • Pull out a few frames at the time to inspect bees
    • Note ~ bees will be more aggressive due to cool temperature and lack of heavy nectar flow
    • So wear protective gear
  • Look for swarm preparations (queen cells)
    • Check 2-3 times this month
• Feeding
  • Check the honey stores
    • This is the month when colonies can die of starvation
  • Feed an over wintered colony two gallons sugar syrup to stimulate brood rearing
    • 1:1 (1/2 Sugar to 1/2 water mixture)
      • Approximately 3 pounds of sugar per gallon water
      • 1:2 (1/3 Sugar to 2/3 water mixture)
        • Approximately 1.5 pounds of sugar per gallon water
  • Emergency feeding (if no sealed honey in top frames)
    • Note ~ once you start you will need to continue until they bring in their own food
  • If you feed them plenty of sugar syrup in the fall they should be good
• Pollen Patty
  • Continue or start feeding pollen patties
    • Provide protein for the bees
    • Great for brood rearing colonies
• Check brood chambers
  • Check the brood for diseases each time you open the colony
  • Reverse upper and lower brood chambers if all the brood is in the upper unit
    • Reversing the chambers will cause the queen to use both units for egg laying
    • In two weeks, the queen should be laying in the upper unit filled with brood
  • Reverse the units again every two weeks or as often as necessary until the honey flow begins

Swarm Preventions

• Check for reproductive swarm preps:
  • Brood nest reduction
  • Nectar congestion (at the top of the nest)
  • Poor foraging and/or poor wax production
  • Queen cell / royal jelly / eggs / larvae
    • Particularly in hives with an early Spring buildup,
• Option 1
  • Place into a 5 frame nuc
    • Queen (cage and remove to nuc)
    • 3 frames of emerging brood
    • 1 empty frame
    • 1 nectar / pollen frame
  • Leave in nuc for 7 – 9 days
  • Kill all queen cells left in colony
  • Then return to old colony
• Option 2
  • Remove queen and 5 frames as above
  • Make splits or other nucs using the new queen cells
• Ensure upper central room for expansion
  • Add a super before nectar flow without a queen excluder (to start with)
  • 1 week after bees have used the super put the queen excluder in
  • enlarge the entrance or remove entrance reduce completely