BlueRidgeBee

If you have followed my previous blogs you know that I had one of my two hives die last year. I purchased a new package this year. There are two main ways to buy bees, either  a package or a nuke. A Nuke is four frames in a small hive box that has bees and queen already working on the frames producing brood and drawing out wax and such. Advantages are that you have a head start on production. Draw backs are that you may get some infestation with the frames. A Package comes in a little box that looks like a cage with about 3000 bees and a queen in a little cage. To install this you have you take a little cork out of the queen cage and place the queen cage between two frames in the middle of the hive. Then Dump the rest of the bees into the hive or take 4 frames out of the hive and put the opened package box into the hive over night and let them come out on their own. Every year they mark the queens with a differnet color this year it's blue. My wife doing the hard work o...

Before I was a bee keeper I used to wage war on weeds in my yard. But now weeds have become my friend because my bees love  them. Dandelion, henbit and clover are all loved by my bees. Now when I cut grass and I see all those weeds I think, that will make great honey. Even kudzu makes a blueberry flavored honey I am told.  One of my bees enjoying some hinbet in the pre-spring seacson.  Dandelion, Henbit and Burclover - Some common lawn weeds in the south that honey bees love.

So As Spring is a approaching I want to keep my bees healthy going into the nectar flow season. So I want to treat for varroa, if needed, before they start making honey. Most treatments say to give them a couple weeks after treatment before putting on honey supers. I use Apivar and you need to put it in for  at least 42 days, so I wanted to put them in by end of February. For a complete guide on honey bee health go to the Honey Bee Health Coalition web site at https://honeybeehealthcoalition.org/ They have a guide you can download that is the best. I use the powder sugar method to check for varroa. You take a 1/2 cup of bees which equals about 300 bees and you put them in a jar with 2 tablespoons of powdered sugar. Shake them for a minute then shake it all out on to a plate. Then spray the plate with water to dissolve the sure and count the mites. You want a mite count of at or below 3% which would be 3 mites per 300 bees. I only found 2 but treated anyway. See the mites below. ...

Late February in South Carolina and we are starting to see signs of Spring. I saw my bees bringing in the lime green pollen which comes for Red Maples. See the picture below I don't know if you can make out the color very well. The one in the middle has it's hind legs loaded down.  On warm days, above 50 degrees I take a look at the hive to make sure all is well. I found some mold that comes from the condensation in the hive. Condensation comes because it is cold outside and the bees are keeping it at 90 degrees in hive around the queen. I had to raise the lid a little to let the moisture out. I just used a 1/8th inch piece of wood placed on the top board.  The bees have been finding a lot of pollen but I have not seen much honey. So I have been supplementing the much needed carbs with fondant. This cuts down on moisture that would come from sugar water, plus it won't freeze. I just laid it on top of the top board and they consumed it all. Probably I should cut it th...

 My bees making the most of a warm day to defecate outside the hive and forage. Warm is relative 45 to 50 degrees.  Winters are a hard time for honey bees as they like it warm since they are cold blooded and do not hibernate. So during the winter they kick out the drones and form a cluster around the queen on the brood area of the hive. The workers create heat to keep the temp in the hive at about 90 degrees. Because of this you have to watch out that condensation doesn't happen, so many keepers will put a shim under the edge of the top cover to allow ventilation. I have don this. Because they are creating all of this heat they need food. As said before honey is the carbohydrate and pollen is the protein. It is best for them to get their food from their honey store and pollen from nature. But sometimes you have to supplement. I am going to use fondant for the carbs and ultra Bee for pollen. Normally I use sugar water but the fondant will cause less condensation. O...

Hives do die sometimes, even if you give them the best of care. As I have said in earlier posts, I had two hives one strong and aggressive and one docile and weak. The weak one did eventually die. It didn't happen all at once, it was more of a progression. I will detail that progression in this post. I first noticed that some of the bees in the weak hive had DWV, Deformed Wing Virus. As pictured here.    I treated both hives with Apivar strips and talked with others that said the hive should be ok. DWV is one of the main diseases that honey bees get from the varroa mites. If wide spread the hive will not be able to provide for and itself and die. I next noticed strange looking brood cells in the weak hive compared to my strong hive. See below the left is good brood the right is all droan brood. The worker bee brood is flat across the top and the droan brood is humped up. Droans are the males and are only needed for mating. They do no work in the hive like the fema...

Our bees are getting ready for the winter. Kicking out the drones and keeping the queen warm.  I reduced the size of the opening and put a bottom board on.  During the winter the bees will cluster around the queen and on the brood keeping keeping them warm through the winter. They will keep the temp around 90 to 95 degrees. I have left a super (6 5/8" box) with honey in it for the bees to eat during the winter. My goal is to keep them alive and healthy through the winter.