Hive Check: February

With the unusually mild winter that we have been having (and enjoying), there has been a lot of concern about the survival of hives in the city. The warm temperatures have altered the behavior of our bees, resulting in more time out of the winter cluster, an increased number of flights, and the early initiation of spring brood rearing. More activity means higher food consumption. For hives that were insufficiently prepared for winter or poorly maintained, it could mean starvation.

I spy with my little eye...

A queen!  I do, I do!  Esmeralda in Hive #1.

Quick, regular hive checks are an excellent way to see if your hives are on track for spring survival. When the weather is under 50F, you can quickly gauge the status of your hives by 'hefting' them. It's about as simple as it sounds. Go to the back of the hive, get your hands under the base and lift smoothly and gently from the back. If you can lift the hive without effort, the colony is short on supplies and should be reinforced. Dry sugar, syrup, fondant, and full frames of honey from another colony are all options for supplementing a hive light on food.

Tasty, tasty refined sugar.  While Hive #1 has consumed a large amount of dry sugar, Hive #2 has consumed none.

What you give them will depend entirely on what you have available and what kind of mood you're in. Honey from another hive (a deadout, perhaps) is the best and most natural option. Dry sugar is the easiest, but is messy and sometimes the bees don't care for it. Fondant requires time and effort to make, but is nice and clean and the bees take it easily. Sugar syrup is the hardest to use as a winter emergency feed. It is easily cooled to a temperature that prevents the bees from taking it by chilly weather at night. Anything under 50-60F, and the bees won't touch it. Not much help there.

When the weather is well over 50F, you can do a real inspection to see how your bees are doing. If they're flying, it's warm enough to open them up. Even so, you'll want to be quick about it to limit any disruption or potential damage to developing brood. Keep in mind that the bees may be a bit more defensive than normal, and may continue to be so until spring brings new sources of nectar and pollen to distract them. Don't be alarmed, but do be careful and make sure you have your smoker lit and your veil at the ready.

There are a few things you'll want to keep your eyes out for. First and foremost, the priority is to make sure that the hive has adequate honey and pollen to make it until spring. What qualifies as 'adequate' is completely variable and subjective. Some bees are very frugal with their stores and need much less in the way of honey and pollen to make it through the winter. Italian bees from Georgia, for instance, require much more food than northern-bred Carniolan stock. You'll have to make your own determination as to whether your bees have enough food, based on your own experience. The heft test is still a great resource in warmer weather. Remember, if the hive is easy to lift, you should consider supplemental food until natural sources become available.

Hive #1 has about 10 frames this full in their top brood chamber.

While checking for food should be your first priority, if it is warm enough to get in the hives, you should check for signs of brood rearing, as well as indicators of disease. In particular, look out for sick or dying brood, frass (poop) from varroa in brood cells, and dead varroa under the screened bottom board. Even in the dead of winter, many hives will intermittently raise small patches of brood to supplement the cluster with young bees. If you spot a small patch of eggs, larvae, or capped pupae, don't be alarmed, but do take caution. Take note of the size and location of the brood, look for any signs of disease, and put the frame back before the brood is chilled. A small patch of brood is solid evidence that your queen is healthy and laying and a good sign that your hive is doing well.

Lovely hand sized patch of brood.  Brought to you by Esmeralda.
Eggs, larvae, and capped pupae.

A large patch of brood is potentially worrisome. Too much brood early in the spring can prevent the bees from reforming a winter cluster if the temperature dips again. Workers will not abandon young, even at the cost of their own lives. If they can't cluster up, they won't be able to create enough collective heat to maintain their internal temperature and they'll die of cold. Ick.

Queen Lazing from Hive #2 made an appearance.

If you don't see any brood, don't panic. Some queens will hardly lay at all in the winter, and you won't see any brood at all until spring. Just make sure that they have enough food, wait it out, and chill.

Better you than the bees.

Hive Check: October

Now that spring has sprung and summer has past, the hives I started this year are preparing to go into their first winter. Fall is the crucible of any new hive; a test of their ability to stand on their own six feet and survive. Once the queen breaks her brood cycle and stops laying for winter, the bees are more or less on their own. As a beekeeper, you can keep on jamming in some extra feed and ensure that they won't starve, but the most important factor is the basic health of the bees themselves.

Bees are getting testy and I've started to wear a veil again.
Image c2011, James Barilla

Smoking down Hive #2 while Alex Brown works his magic.
Image c2011, James Barilla

The health of any hive is a mixing pot of a huge number of factors; genetics, location, food quality, food quantity, mite load, climate, and more. You can make an educated guess as to the status of many of these, but it is only a guess and sometimes bees defy your best intentions and die anyways. It's a gamble, and it's one that all beekeepers have to accept.

Beekeeping in the fall is all about trying to maximize the overall health of the colony in any way you can and minimizing any disruption of the hive activity. The bees have their proverbial proboscises to the grindstone and the less you interrupt them the better. At this point in the year, I'm doing a hive check every 2-3 weeks and even those are cursory.

Got food? Check.
Got brood? Check.
DONE.
Close 'em up.

Chillin out, maxin, relaxing all cool,
And all shooting some b-ball outside of the school.
Image c2011, BoroughBees.com

When a couple of guys who were up to no good
Started making trouble in my neighborhood.
Image c2011, BoroughBees.com

Not only do the bees have to scrounge up any last bit of nectar and pollen left to store away for winter, they have to combat dropping temperatures to keep their remaining brood warm and viable so that the colony has a fresh generation of the young winter (or 'fat') bees needed to keep the hive viable until spring. These 'fat' bees now being born will never forage for nectar or pollen. Their sole purpose in the hive is to maintain the temperature of the cluster throughout the winter and create enough heat (95F!) for the hive to begin raising new bees as early as February.

To this end, the physiology of young workers born in the late fall is adjusted to maximize their usefulness as heater bees and nurse bees, as well as their long term survivability. These winter bees have more fat bodies (hence the term 'fat bees'), more sugar and fat in their haemolymph (blood), enlarged brood food glands, and lower hormone levels. These physical changes combined with the behavioral changes resulting from cold temperatures result in a lifespan measured in months rather than weeks. Winter bees tend to live about 6 months, and winter workers up to 12 months old have been observed. Summer bees work themselves to death in an average of 6 WEEKS.

Most first year hives have to be provided with additional food to help them build up the stores required for winter, and mine are no exception. I didn't harvest any honey from these colonies this year and Hive #1, headed by the Brooklyn Queen "Esmeralda", looks to be in fine shape for the winter. The top hive body is full of freshly capped honey, there is a nice ring of pollen around the broodnest, and Esmeralda has drastically curtailed her brood laying activity. This is a good sign- it means that the bees have recognized that winter is coming and that they can't afford to maintain an excess population.

Full of honey, each of these frames weighs over 10lbs.
Image c2011, BoroughBees.com

A hive of Italian bees require up to 100lbs of honey to make it through the winter.
To put it in perspective, at NYC honey prices, they'll eat $3000 worth of honey by the spring.
Image c2011, BoroughBees.com

They'll need pollen to raise new brood in the Spring and it looks as if they have it.
Image c2011, BoroughBees.com

Throughout October, I've watched the broodnest slowly shrink from an area the size of a basketball, down to approximately half the volume. Still, a little extra food never hurt, so I've provided them with a little extra thick (2:1) sugar syrup and fresh pollen patties.

Itty bitty brood nest, but nice and solid with a ring of eggs and young larvae.
Image c2011, BoroughBees.com

I'm gonna submit this to Mike and Tom Eat Snacks.
Image c2011, BoroughBees.com

Hive #2, headed by the Georgia package queen "Lazing", remains where it has been all year- lagging behind its sister. Despite having been fed significantly more than Hive #1, they have drawn significantly less comb. This is probably due to poor genetics and I am not really expecting them to survive the winter. Still, I'll do my best and force feed them as much as possible, just to hedge my bets. I can't do anything about their cruddy genetics at this point in the season, but at the very least I can make sure that they won't die of starvation.

Lazing?  More like lazy.  Outermost frame of Hive #2.
Emily is sad.
Image c2011, BoroughBees.com

A bit better.  Frame #2.
Emily is comme ci, comme ça.
Image c2011, BoroughBees.com

Covered in bees!  Hooray!  Now we just need to fill it with food for the winter.
Emily is happy!
Image c2011, BoroughBees.com

Dying light.
Image c2011, BoroughBees.com

This recent spate of warm weather has been extremely helpful, allowing me to make some last minute adjustments to the internal arrangements and dig in to the hive further than I might otherwise for fear of chilling the brood, but it will be over soon and I'll have to winterize the hives soon.

Beautiful white cappings on their winter stores.
Image c2011, BoroughBees.com

But that's for another post...

Report From Home

"Bee report: Good population and honey in all four hives. :-)"

As texted from my dad in Ohio after his first early spring check.  You can see the bag of grease patties he is about to give the hives in the baggie he's holding.

In Ohio, we have a hive of Minnesota Hygienic hybrid bees, as developed by Marla Spivak, and multiple Carnolian hybrid hives that were captured as swarms.  The latter hives are a bit more aggressive than the Hygienics, but they seem to be remarkable producers and overwintering well.

I'm looking forward to my next trip home to Ohio, so that I can work with them some more!

Super Sad True Bee Story

So. . .

The bees died.

At least the ones I keep with my neighbor did—the hives in Ohio seem to be doing well. Unfortunately, losing colonies is a common experience, one that is shared by all beekeepers. Everyone loses their hives at some point. The key to successful beekeeping is accurately determining WHY your bees died and taking realistic precautions to prevent it from happening again. Beekeeping is a constant learning experience and it is so important not to let yourself
get stuck in a rut, making the same mistakes over and over.

Mistakes are an OK thing, so long as you take the opportunity to learn from them.

This isn't the first time I've had hives die. It won't be the last time I'll have hives die. It will be sad every time. I'll try to avoid getting any more philosophic than that.

Instead, I'll walk you through my process of determining why these two hives died. In the US, the most common reported causes of death are starvation (32%) and weather (29%), followed by weak fall colonies (14%), mite infestation (12%), and poor queen quality (10%). That leaves less than 3% for losses due to diseases, including CCD. (source) These numbers are probably more than a little skewed, as they were based on responses to surveys, not impartial inspections. Beekeepers are a prideful bunch and are reluctant to admit their mistakes, so when someone asks you why your hives died, it's easy to pass the buck and blame the weather. I'll get this out of the way now:

Welp...

I misplaced the USB stick that has the articles I was working on (Wintering pt.2, Red Honey pt.3) and I am cranky about it because now I have to rewrite everything. Whoops.

If it makes y'all feel any better, here is a picture of me with a sting in my arm:

Wintering 101 Part One: It’s a-Comin’.

There is probably no subject in beekeeping that sparks so many debates (and arguments) as preparing hives for winter. There are an infinite number of methods, practices, tricks and superstitions, and every beekeeper has his or her own beekeepers brew for overwintering. Regardless of what anyone will tell you, there is no RIGHT way to overwinter your bees. There is no universal method that works the best for everybody everywhere and leaves everyone happy because all of their bees survived the winter and everyone is happy, hooray.

Brrrrr...

There is, however, a right way for you.

You'll have to find it out for yourself, building it up from the dizzying array of methods and strategies. You'll make mistakes along the way (I did) but eventually you will arrive at a method that is right for you. I'll try to help by explaining some of your options and the rationales behind them.