Fall or Winter is the perfect time of year to decide that you want to keep bees. Why? Because, if you don’t order your package or nuc before too long then they may be sold out before Spring. It surprises me how many people think that beekeeping is a simple hobby. It is far from simple, or cheap, but literally anyone can learn to do it. Find a beekeeping class that is being given in your area. They usually last one day and sometimes they even provide you lunch. You can learn beekeeping from books, from mentors, from beekeeping clubs in your area, and even from the internet. I wouldn’t advise taking all of your lessons from the internet, however. Just remember, anyone can post anything on the internet without any proof or expertise. Just look at me!
Basic Issue
To get started, you will need some equipment. There are many different types of bee hives out there, but for the purpose of this blog post we are going to assume that you are starting with the “standard”. That is, a 10-frame Langstroth hive, named after it’s inventor Lorenzo Langstroth and patented in 1852. I highly advise that you start with two hives instead of one. This way you can take resources from one hive and give them to the other if needed. For each hive you are going to need the following:
1 Bottom Board (screened or solid)
1 Entrance Reducer
2 Deep Hive Bodies
1 Medium Hive Body
20 Deep and 10 Medium Frames with foundation
1 Inner Cover
1 Telescoping Top Cover
Some type of feeding system i.e. Boardman Feeder
A great book that I have read and recommended to others was Beekeeping for Dummies. It really breaks down some of the jargon and terms used in beekeeping, especially for the equipment.
A Few More Things
Now that you have everything for your hives, you will need some additional equipment to aid you inn your beekeeping practices.
Bees sourced from a package, nuc, or even a swarm
Hive Stand
Hive Tool
Smoker and Smoker Fuel
Veil
Bee Jacket or Suit.
Method of Mite Sampling and Treatment
All said and done, you can easily rack up $500 in starting costs. Beekeeping is not a cheap hobby!
I Bought Everything, Now What?
As early as April you are going to receive a phone call from your local Post Office that your bees have arrived. They probably won’t be too happy but they will tell you to COME GET YOUR BEES! Your package of bees will arrive in a screened box with a can of sugar syrup and a queen inside a separate cage. It is important that you install this package as soon as you can. Once you have the bees in the hive and the queen cage in place, then you close up the hive and check back in about 3-4 days. You should find your queen released from her cage by the worker bees. If not, then you release her yourself being careful that you point the cage downward onto a frame. You want her crawling into the hive, not flying away! Take it from me, it hurts seeing that expensive bug fly away from you. With the queen released you then close up the hive, feed it some sugar syrup, and check back in about a week. By that time, the queen should be laying eggs and you can assess her laying pattern. Your first year you can check on the hive every 1-2 weeks to make sure everything looks normal and healthy inside.
Bee Informed
Now that you have your bees all set up, it is important to keep learning all that you can about these fascinating insects. Find a mentor or beekeeping club in your area. Attend seminars and conferences so that you can sit in on lectures given by experienced beekeepers. They are more than happy to pass on their knowledge to upcoming “beeks” in the hopes that their instruction will help you keep your bees alive. If you HAVE to use Youtube as your source of all beekeeping knowledge, at least watch those who are in your area. Beekeeping strategies vary widely from the one section of the country to another. Beekeeping is dependent on your LOCAL environment.
Don’t Get Discouraged
Your bees are going to die. Whether because of you or because of issues out of your control. You are going to make mistakes. My first year beekeeping I lost every single one of my colonies. Now, I average around 10% losses. Learn from your mistakes. Ask help from those with more experience. Try different things. Become a BETTER beekeeper each and every year. Your girls will thank you for it.
Fall is one of the busier times of the year for me in the bee yards. Many beekeepers will tell you that the Beekeeping Calendar begins in August. In a lot of ways they are right. Starting in August, it is essential to make sure that your hives are healthy and prepared for the long winter ahead. Winter is the time of the year when most beekeepers become a little anxious. I personally lose very few of my hives to winter. Hopefully I can share some of my tips to help you get yours through as well.
Mites
I treat for mites in early July-Late August. My usual mite management regimen consists of MAQS (formic acid), followed by OA (Oxalic Acid) vaporization sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I call this their “holiday gift”. Some people may argue that MAQS causes queen loss. I don’t find that to be an issue. For example, every one of my 64 hives received MAQS this year and only 4 lost their queen. In her place, I found nice, fat queen cells which produced healthy, laying queens. That equates to about 6% of my hives losing their queens, but they all requeened themselves successfully, and now those hives have a young, healthy queen going into winter. That’s a win-win all around. To minimize queen loss, you must observe the temperature restrictions that come with the MAQS packaging and ensure that your hive has good ventilation.
I experienced a very large mite drop on the sticky boards this year so I am glad I used such an effective (and natural) product. Another natural, and effective treatment is Apiguard, or Apilife Var. These treatments both use thymol in their formulations. Whichever method you choose, it is important to keep your mite count low to ensure you have healthy bees that can better survive the winter.
Honey
We are very fortunate in this region in that we usually have a very nice Fall flow of Goldenrod and Asters. In my area, the early Goldenrod starts blooming around the first week of August and will continue until about the middle of September. The asters will bloom until the first frost. You can always tell when your hives are bringing in Fall nectar because your hives will smell like old, stinky socks. Fall honey has a stronger flavor than what most people are used to, but I personally enjoy it.
September 15 is the date I mark on my calendar to take my supers off of the hives. I remove ALL extra hive bodies and get them into their configuration for how they will be wintering. This gives the bees plenty of time to organize the nest and to securely seal up any cracks that could let in a cold draft with propolis. I use 8-frame, medium hive bodies, and I stack them 4 boxes high for my winter configuration. They say over 100 lbs of honey is needed for our winters. I know my hives are heavy enough with honey when I can barely lift one side of the hive off of its stand. As insurance, I feed the hives heavy syrup until they stop taking it or until the 1st week of October, whichever comes first.
I extract any full frames of honey and place the empty, wet supers on top of the hives, above the inner cover, to let the bees clean them out. I try to avoid putting them outside for the bees clean them, as that will attract neighboring bees and any of their parasites/pathogens that are hitching along with them. This time of year, I try to feed and pull supers very early in the morning or close to sunset to avoid starting a robbing frenzy. Then, these cleaned boxes are put outside in direct sunlight to discourage any wax moth infestation. So far this year they have not been a problem.
Mouse Guards
The first week of October I install mouse guards. I do this on a nice, warm day when the bees are very active. This ensures that there are no mice hiding in there who will be trapped. I’ve used commercially made mouse guards which are very effective and not expensive at all. I’ve also used half-inch wire mesh, cut to the length of the hive entrance and either stapled in place or bent in half and wedged into the entrance. Whichever method you use, it is important to keep the mice out as they can cause a lot of damage in the winter if they find their way inside.
Insulation
Every one of my hives receives a rigid, 2-inch foam insulation board cut to fit below the top cover. I put this insulation inside a box that rests on top of the hives, as a modified inner cover. You could also use what’s called a quilt box. This insulation on top of the hive prevents condensation from forming on the inside of the hive’s ceiling. This cooled water could then rain down on the bees and kill them in short order. Bees can survive cold winters. Cold, wet winters….not so much.
Ventilation
Even with insulation, the moisture buildup inside of a hive is still a big problem.  You may have opened up a hive to find that your bees are dead. Lots of mold on the top bars and on the dead bees could mean moisture is the culprit. To combat this, simply provide some sort of upper entrance. This helps to vent the excess moisture out of the hive. If the bottom entrance is clogged with snow, then the bees can still fly out on a sunny day.
These are simple strategies you can you use to help ensure that your bees make it through the winter months. Just remember these key points:
keep your bees well fed
keep your bees healthy
MITE TREATMENTS
Keep your bees dry
I hope this post was helpful. Winter is coming fast.
By now everyone knows that the honey bees are very difficult to keep alive. You’ve heard about Colony Collapse Disorder and bees dying in record numbers. What I bet most of you DIDN’T know is exactly why bees are dying.
People and Bees Don’t Mix
It’s true. Humans have been a thorn in Mother Nature’s side ever since we expanded out of Africa and started walking upright. For honey bees, there are many hardships that we put them through.
migratory beekeeping
spreads pests and diseases from across the country
pesticides
as well as fungicides, herbicides, and every other deadly chemical cocktail we spray everywhere
habitat loss
loss of quality AND amount of floral sources
loss of large trees to call home
bad beekeepers
yes, they exist!
global climate change
no, it’s NOT a conspiracy
invasive species of parasites and pathogens
I could definitely give my opinion on each of these points but today I am going to focus on the last one.
Invasive Species
World wide trade has it’s good points and it’s not-so-good points. We now have the ability to travel and transport goods from one side of the globe to the other in a matter of days. But that convenience comes at a cost. One of those costs is the spread of a foreign species to an area that has no competitors or predators to speak of. Infamous examples would be the Kudzu vine in the south, rabbits in Australia, and various species of Carp in American lakes and rivers. What you don’t often hear about, however, is the unintended introduction of pathogens and parasites from other countries.
Varroa mite is behind the bee’s head.
Origin Story
The Varroa mite is a parasitic arachnid not unlike a tick. It was first discovered as early as 1904 in Asia on the Asian honey bee (Apis cerana). The mite and the honey bee in that region have co-evolved over time so that neither species is seriously affected by the other. During the 1940’s, the varroa mite was transported to Africa, Europe, and finally North America via beekeepers who brought their hives into these regions. Once the beekeepers went back to their original countries, the varroa mites were now on a new host, the European honey bee (Apis mellifera) which we know simply as “honey bees”.  It was discovered in the United States in the mid-80’s.
Having a pesky hitchhiker coming on board a ship or a plane is one of the consequences of global agriculture which we still experience to this day. Unlike the Asian honey bee, European honey bees had no evolutionary history in which to deal with this parasitic newcomer. Unfortunately for the honey bee, the Varroa mite became a far worse problem than anyone could have foreseen.
One Nasty Bug
The Varroa mite loves to grab onto a bee and hitch a ride into the hive. The mite then finds where larva are getting ready to be capped with beeswax. The mite sneaks into the cell and hides underneath of the larva. When the bees cap the cell with beeswax, the fertile mite lays an egg. This first egg produces a male mite. The “mother” mite then lays eggs which become female mites every 30 hours until the bee emerges from the cell. These daughters then mate with their brother and exit the cell with the bee. These impregnated females then hitch rides to another cell to start the cycle all over again.
Bee pupa infested with mites.
It’s the Little Things
What advantages did the Asian honey bee have that the European honey bee did not? Why has the varroa mite been able to overrun bee hives so effectively? Let’s explore that a little bit more.
Asian honey bees have several characteristics that make living with Varroa much more tolerable. Asian bees will swarm and abscond (abandon their home) much more readily than the European honey bee. This causes what we refer to as a “brood break”. Meaning, the bee’s reproductive cycle is suspended which, in turn, disrupts the mite’s reproductive cycle. This slows down and restricts how quickly the varroa’s numbers increase within the colony.
Asian honey bees have a shorter development time from egg to adult. The Asian honey bee is a full-fledged adult in only 19 days while the European honey bee takes 21 days to mature. That gives the Varroa mite two full days to pop out an additional offspring. That one extra mated female mite per bee larva exponentially increases the mite population to very high levels. The mite population can double every 3-4 weeks between spring and fall.
Asian honey bees display a very high level of grooming. They are constantly grooming each other and will shake or vibrate to let another bee know that they need groomed. This helps to dislodge mites from the bees and interrupt their hitchhiking ride.
Varroa mites feed almost exclusively on Asian honey bee drone (the male) larva. In the honey bee world, the drone’s only purpose is to mate with the queen. When Varroa met the European honey bee, they were able to feed on the worker larva as well as the drone. Therefore, every function in the hive, from pollen collecting to nursing young bees, is weakened because of this parasite. Also, more prey for the Varroa means more food and, therefore, quicker population buildup.
Oh! My Liver!
It was previously believed that the Varroa mites fed on the hemolymph, or blood, of the honey bees. Recent research from Samuel Ramsey, however, has shown that the mites are actually feeding on the fat bodies of the bee. These fat bodies, containing vitellogenin, act as an organ that not only provides storage for extra food reserves, but they also produce royal jelly and provide hormone functions. Such functions include:
regulating foraging behavior
act as antioxidants and help extend the life of the bee
regulate the insect’s growth
aids in immune system function
helps the bees to live longer and survive the winter months
So, as you can see, a honey bee that has had their fat bodies eaten by a parasite is a honey bee that is going to have some serious health problems.
The Bug Has Bugs of Its Own!
As if feeding on the fat bodies of the honey bee weren’t bad enough, the Varroa mite vectors as many as 20 different viruses to the bee when feeding. The most damaging is Deformed Wing Virus, also called DWV. In the photo below, you can see that the bee’s wings are shriveled and almost nonexistent. A bee that can’t fly is … well …. not going to live for long. It certainly cannot help the colony collect water, pollen, or nectar. It cannot even help defend the hive. Other members of the colony will most likely kick the diseased bee out of the hive. This virus has developed into even more dangerous (virulent) strains thanks to the Varroa mite’s ability to hitch a ride to another hive.
When a virus becomes too lethal and kills its host before it can spread, then that lethal strain of the virus dies with its host. However, when the virulent DWV kills a colony of honey bees, other bees from nearby hives come into the dead/dying hive to collect any leftover honey that is in the now undefended colony. The Varroa mites that are carrying the virulent strains of DWV then hitch a ride on to these “robber” bees and go on to infect the next colony. This usually occurs in the Fall when the mite’s population (and virus load) are at their highest. A hive will die, the mites will hitchhike to another hive, and then that new colony will most likely not make it through the winter with all of the extra mites it picked up.
Look closely and you will see the shriveled wings.
How to Kill a Little Bug on a Big Bug
So here we have a tiny bug that lives on a small bug. This is what makes it is so difficult to control the Varroa Destructor mite. How do we kill it without harming the honey bee? Better yet, how do we kill the mite without contaminating the hive, and the honey that we eat, with whatever chemical we use to kill the mites? Unfortunately, we do not have a perfect solution yet. Because of the increased virulence of DWV, if you do not control a mite’s numbers then the colony will die. If a hive is left untreated, it runs a much higher risk of collapsing and dying than a treated hive. Integrated Pest Management (IPM) techniques help to reduce the mite’s numbers but require a lot of work on the beekeeper’s part. Thankfully, some organic acids are available to use inside of a hive. The vapors from these acids are able to kill a large amount of mites while minimizing any damage done to the rest of the colony. They also do not contaminate the honey or beeswax inside of the hive.
A little Hope on the Horizon
Thanks to the work of people such as Randy Oliver (http://scientificbeekeeping.com) and Samuel Ramsey, there has been a lot of great research conducted on Varroa mites and how to combat them. If you’d like to help contribute to a worthwhile honey bee research project, please click here.
Also, there have been a multitude of breeding programs to try and breed a honey bee more tolerant to Varroa mites. You can use these new Queens and breeding techniques in your own apiary to continue the breeding process. In this way, you can develop a strain of bee that can survive a little better on its own.
You can use some very simple IPM techniques to help disrupt the mites’ breeding cycle. The most effective, in my opinion and observation, are drone brood trapping and creating a brood break by splitting your colonies.
Honey bees and the pollination they provide are a very important part of our ecosystem and to our country’s agricultural system. We need to breed a more resistant honey bee that can survive the Varroa mite infestation. Until then, beekeepers will have to continue to scrap and fight with this scourge of the honey bee.
Please leave your thought or questions in the section below.
This week I will be making nucs by doing some late season splits of my colonies. Living in the North, time is running out for this type of management strategy to increase your total number of hives. Normally I would do this around July 15, but I am running late this year.
Nucs
What is a nuc? Basically, it is a separate hive, usually smaller with typically 5-6 frames per hive body. The main advantages are using less equipment and creating a less stressful environment for the bees. Using less equipment is desirable because you are creating a brand new colony and it does happen where the queen is not accepted or not mated well.  Using the smaller nuc equipment lets you use more resources towards your established production colonies until you know whether or not your nuc is going to be a successful hive. A smaller cavity that the nuc provides allows the smaller number of bees to better regulate the conditions inside of the hive, therefore providing a less stressful environment.
Every one should have some nucs in their apiary. They are a great way to maintain the number of colonies in your apiary, propagate the genetics of your high-performing queens, keep a queen on hand for emergencies, or produce extra nucs for sale all while minimizing the amount of equipment necessary for a typical hive.
What’s the Big Deal About Nucs?
Creating nucs helps to control Varroa Mites. The brood break caused by the lack of a laying queen disrupts the mite’s breeding cycle. While waiting the 4-5 weeks for a new round of brood to be capped, the mites are so desperate to lay eggs that they will all converge on the limited number of brood oftentimes killing the pupae in the process. This will cause the adult bees to clean out the cells which further disrupts the mite’s reproductive cycle. The 4-5 weeks of no new, baby mites also helps the bees reduce the mite numbers through their natural grooming behavior. Bees get groomed off, but no new mites are being born to replace them.
There are a few different ways you can provide a new queen for late summer/early fall splits:
Graft the queens yourself and insert the new queen or ripe queen cell into the queenless nuc.
Purchase a mated queen and introduce her to the new split
Let the split make it’s own queen.
The last option is the most controversial, so of course that is going to be the way I split my colonies this fall. I hear SOOOO many arguments against letting the bees raise their own queens. Hey, whatever works for you and your apiaries, please feel free to continue doing it your way. Personally, “walk away” splits have been very successful for me and my bees. It ensures I am getting the genetics from the bees that I want, and I don’t have to spend the precious little time I do have by:
grafting
creating a Cell Builder
buying/maintaining Queen Castles
transferring queens to their new homes
Let’s Make a Nuc!
For those of you who think that you can only get inferior queens by the Emergency Queen Rearing Method the bees will be doing, I disagree. There have been many experts, far wiser than I, who have studied this subject and have found that when you give the bees the tools that they need then they will produce a good quality queen.
Now, I have a few hives that have produced AMAZING honey crops this year, are absolutely loaded with bees, and have a very gentle disposition. Not to mention they survived this past winter. These hives did not swarm this year, so they are working with a 2nd year queen. I don’t want to risk losing these genetics over the upcoming winter, so I am forced to split them a little later than I normally would.
Let me explain how I am doing my late Summer splits this week.
I move a colony that I am NOT splitting. This is where I will be placing my nuc. This way, the returning field force from the colony I moved will greatly increase the nuc’s numbers. Moving colonies is a little easier for me since I place my hives on a pair of 4’x8’s resting on cinder blocks. This allows me to slide a colony over to make room for the nuc.
I pick a colony that is an excellent honey producer, grows quickly, and has a decent temperament.
In the nuc goes 2 frames of honey and 1 frame of pollen (if available).
I EVENLY split up the brood frames between the parent colony and the nuc, ensuring that each has at least one frame with some eggs in it.
Sometimes I make a little notch in the wax underneath some of the eggs, a la Mel Disselkoen’s method. This allows a little more room for the bees to make room for the peanut shaped queen cell. Not necessary though.
Replace the frames from the parent colony with drawn frames and use drawn frames to fill out the boxes in the nuc.
That’s it! Check on the nuc periodically to make sure it has room to grow.
I am sure that in the future I will be trying my hand at one of the grafting methods available. But, for now, walk away splits into nucs work very well for me. I have produced queens in this manner that are prolific layers and make a surplus honey crop for me to harvest. I also get to have more control over the genetic traits in my apiaries.
How do some of you increase your colony numbers? Do you keep nucs in your apiaries? Let me know in the comments section below.
Bee Safe.
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