By: Kim Flottum
This article originally appeared in the Winter 2016 issue of BEEKeeping Your First Three Years
The Care and Feeding Of Honey Bees. Or Not.
There’s two extremes on being a beekeeper. Way over there, there’s a group that says any intrusion into your bees, any time at all, is one too many. The bees know what they are doing and you simply don’t need to bother them. Opening a colony is a stressful activity for them because you disrupt the normal course of events, cause a mass communication interruption when you add smoke, break bridge comb and propolis seals, and in all likely hood you will kill a few bees no matter how careful you are. You have, goes the feeling, extremely violated their personal space and time, and caused some level of chaos that most likely wasn’t needed.
On the other side, not paying attention to what’s going on borders on neglect and, goes the sentiment of this group, these bees will surely die if you aren’t right on top of everything that’s happening and making sure everything is exactly the way…somebody…thinks it should be, all…of…the …time. Certainly twice-a-week examinations are required and more often if you even think there’s something amiss. Their goal is to remove every frame, find the queen every time, count the drones, measure the honey, smell the brood, look for mites, take Nosema samples, scrape all the burr comb and propolis off every surface, destroy every small hive beetle, and keep everybody in check with enough smoke to get the local fire department excited.
Well, let’s think about this from a couple of different angles.
First, both extremes are just that – extreme. Let’s start with where the bees are. In a box they didn’t choose, in a place they didn’t choose. Yes, bees do know what to do, if they have the tools necessary to do what they need. First, they need a cavity…think hollow tree. What’s the difference between a tree and the box you put them in…no matter square with frames or long with bars? For starters, your box is right on the ground, not 20+’ in the air. It’s got an opening big enough to drive a truck through, not a knot hole the size of a quarter. It’s got an ‘r’ factor of 3 or 4, not less than one. On the bottom it has a collection area that is a living ecosystem of biotic consumption, not a hard floor that’s hard to clean, or a screened floor that’s a major draft all of the time. So there’s some differences you need to think about, and anticipate. Winters are cold in a box only ¾” of an inch thick, so is additional protection a good idea? Reducing that entrance is a good idea too. And that’s just for starters.
Another thing about location is there aren’t 2, 3, 20 colonies all sitting together, sharing everything everybody has…like a kid in a class room with a cold, soon, every kid in that class room has that cold. Same with bees.
And your queen. The one that came with the package you got last Spring, or will get next Spring. How’s she doing? Here’s the thing about queens. Or one of the things about queens. In the wild or in a hive that’s not being kept, the colony will deal with the queen…if she’s making enough brood and enough pheromones, the rest of the colony is going to be happy…in a manner of speaking. If something goes missing…she dies, gets old, diseased or quits for any reason, they’ll get rid of her, fast or slow but she’s history, and they’ll raise a new one. But there are some maybes that can happen. If the colony swarms for instance, the reigning queen leaves the colony with the swarm, leaving behind queen cells ripe and ready to get going. Soon, just one of those new queens ends up running the show and colony life goes on. Sometimes though something goes wrong and there is no new queen. And, without a queen there is no brood and with no brood there is no way the colony can continue and it will die. No questions asked.
In a regular hive, managed oh, so carefully by a beekeeper, queens can go missing too. Dropping off a frame, getting squeezed between the frame and the wall, squished with a hive tool…all happen. Now, that’s not the end of the world for the colony. They can and will raise a queen, given they have the resources to do so…brood, food and time. That’s where the beekeeper can step in and help. Adding brood from another colony if none exists, feeding, and doing it all in a timely manner. That’s the difference between keeping bees and having bees.
There’s more of course. Simply feeding. This past Summer in my part of Ohio there was an extreme dearth from the end of June to the middle of September. Not much at all coming in. Not enough, in fact, for most of the colonies to get by day to day. Some beekeepers had to feed in Summer. In Summer! Or those colonies would have starved. You can say a colony that can’t make its own way should be allowed to continue, but that colony did not choose to be where it was put, and if it doesn’t rain…
That feeding thing happens again in the Fall, before Winter sets in. A light Summer crop, over harvesting, no Fall crop, a colony goes queenless and is short on foragers later in the Summer, pests or disease happen, can get fixed, but you have a weak colony…all these point to a stored-for-Winter food shortage. Left alone, the colony is dead come March. Checked and fed, the colony is alive and well come April.
These are just a few examples of the difference between having bees – that is leaving them to their own devices and live or let die, and keeping bees. Like keeping all livestock, the keeper assumes the responsibility of care and maintenance when you start, and for the duration of your care. That care can range from minimal where only the toughest problems are given assistance, to average care, where preventive maintenance is a normal routine and usually the best direction to follow, to excessive care, where it borders on or is actually interfering with the day to day…but no matter where you are…neglect and abuse are not on the list.
Have a plan. Really.
Almost without exception, any task you set out to do requires some planning. Maybe just a second’s thought on…Wow, it’s really nice outside, time for a stroll around the neighborhood; to, I need to expand the garden next Spring, now where will that go, what tools will I need, when will I have time, and who can help? Planning goes from completely spontaneous, to hours of prep.
Keeping bees falls somewhere in between, once you’ve got everything established and you’re involved in the usual care and management of your hives (see above). Getting started, of course, is an ongoing, but this is the time of year for some reflection on this past Summer…maybe your first, maybe more than your first, but right now, be spontaneous, take a seat, lean back and let’s think about how things usually go when you go out to work the bees.
Let’s start simple. Why are you going out to work the bees? Before you get your suit, smoker, hive tool, and work bucket and scrap pail, why are you going to open a colony and take a look? Did you review your last visit in the notebook/computer/mobile/whatever it is you keep your records in? Wait, no records? I’m going to guarantee you don’t have records of some kind, you’re not going to remember what you did, what you’ll need, when you should go, or anything about keeping bees. You’re simply going for a visit if you don’t have a plan, and a big part of that plan is what’s going on so you know what to prepare for. Get a record keeping device of some kind so you can keep records. There’s all sorts of ways to do this…high tech with your mobile phone in the bee yard to the cloud so you and as many of your friends as you want can see what’s happening all over the area…that’s about as high tech as you can get, to something as simple as a spiral notebook and a pencil, which is about as simple as you can get.
But if you have a good record book you’ll know where to start. What should you expect to find if you…did nothing last time except look and see? Did you note how much brood, both open and sealed there was…a simple guess is good…say, eight frames about half sealed on both sides is a good estimate, along with – maybe three frames with some open on both sides. Both of those give you a starting point this time. Are you looking to see how much honey they have? How much comb has been built since you were there last time? Just to see if the queen is present…eggs, open brood are good places to look to see if she was there recently, three days ago at the most. Looking to see if they need food, have eaten the food you gave them and need more? What about moving frames around a little bit, getting those on the outside that haven’t been touched closer to the middle so they do? All of these things are notes from last time, or, notes for next time so you know what you had, and, what you should expect, or hope to find. Without a past the future is in trouble.
But wait, there’s more.
No matter why you are going to take a look, do you have everything you need, just to get there and back in one piece. When I was just starting, working for the USDA folks in Wisconsin, we had a sign by the door that said – Got Your… – and it listed everything you would need on a beeyard run. Now, our yards were maybe 20 miles away from the lab so if you forgot something retrieving it was a major task, so the list by the door.
It had the obvious items…smokers, not one but always two. A couple of pails with hive tools, not one, but always three (there were always two folks making the trip), newspaper, bee brushes, mouse guards, hive closures, a hammer and nails and screws, and a dozen or so frames and rolls of duct tape. Then the extra beesuit under the seat, the extra veil, too, in case one got ripped or tom,. or .. ,well, just in case. We always, always had feeders and feed in the truckbox before we left, and we always, always had a pail of smoker fuel there too to keep it dry. There was a weed whacker, a shovel, a couple of 2 x 4s in case one of the hive stands was broke, and we always had tied down an extra cover and inner cover, because covers would always go missing…vandals, wind, ghosts, we never knew, but we always had one, along with a couple of bottom boards and deep and medium supers. Not so obvious was a notebook, pencils, (when paper gets wet in the rain or from honey or sweat, ink runs, pencil lead doesn’t and won’t, always use pencil), calculator, maps, gas can, ruler (both foot long, and a tape measure), two raincoats, extra gloves, both medium and large sizes, flashlights and spotter lights for the truck and I’m sure there was more I am forgetting. But you see the point.
When you go to the backyard, the garage is only steps away, and something forgotten can be retrieved easily, well kind of. A trick is to keep a lot of this stuff in the beeyard, in a plastic bag in a super on a bottom board with a cover. Easy to get to, saves steps and time, and it will, I guarantee you, make you a better beekeeper because you’re are keeping bees, not running errands.
