Mary and Jay's Presentation
November: floral source: Dormant
Goal: last month for hive inspections (temperature not withstanding) and last month to do mite checks. Preferable last month for feeding as well.
– Inspect hive once every two weeks or once a month depending on your preference.
-Check mite levels if temp is above 50 degrees (alcohol wash/powder sugar/ sticky boards). If you have more than 3 mites with an alcohol/powder sugar wash, then treat again.
-Be sure hives have a slight tilt to them, just enough for water to drain out the front but not enough to topple over. Entrance reducers or something comparable do the trick.
-Reduce entrance to 1 inch opening if you prefer. If you have a weak colony (less than ten frames of bees) then highly advised.
-Feed 1.5:1 to 2:1 sugar to water, as needed (need at minimum 40 pounds of weight on the hive or a full medium for Marietta area). 1.5 parts sugar is easier to mix and it does much of the same things.
Overwinter hives in double deeps or singles or deep & medium
December: floral source- Dormant
– Goal: hives have plenty of weight and don’t need to be inspected. Enjoy the holidays!
– Only break apart the hives and pull frames if the temperature is above 50 degrees. You could chill the bees or brood.
-Best time to treat for varroa mites with OA vaporization because brood should be at a minimum. If you need to break apart a hive to treat bees then wait till spring. If you need to break apart the hives for treatment, make sure it’s going to be above 50 for a few days.
– If the hives need more feed, Feed 1.5 to 2:1 sugar to water. Sugar mountain method (newspaper with sugar on top) or placing bags of sugar in the hives with slits cut in them works too but put them directly on the top of the frames. Place the food as close to the cluster of bees as possible without crushing them.
January: floral source-Dormant
– Goal: hives have plenty of weight and don’t need to be inspected. Enjoy the holidays!
-Emergency feed if necessary
February: floral source- Red maple, Redbud, Titi, Native Blueberry, various other pollinators.
Goal: Check to see if hives need feed and if they are starting to brood up due to Red Maple pollen influx. Add a box to the hive if needed.
-Inspect when a few days are above 50 degrees.
-Start to feed 0.5:1 to 1:1 sugar to water, when you notice the weight of the box get light and you see new frames of brood appear. Seeing new fresh pollen on the bees or in the combs is a good indicator that the hive is beginning to build up. 0.5:1 imitates incoming nectar so it promotes brooding up, if you don’t want this or don’t bother then 1:1 always is a good option.
-If bees are above 7 frames of brood then add a box of drawn comb to tamp down swarm tendencies. If you don’t have a drawn box of comb then checker the frames. Bees will draw out frames that are touching brood the fastest.
March: floral source-red maple, blueberry, Orchard plants, redbud, jessamine, henbit, wild cherry trees, black locust trees
-Goal: Check to see if bees need food, this is the most dangerous month for starvation, make splits out of strong hives, and boost up weak hives!
– feed 0.5:1 to 1:1 sugar to water, when you notice the weight of the box get light due to brood production, at least feed once a week.
– The month of March is about controlled expansion; we want our bees to peak during the flow in April and not before the flow. A good rule of thumb is 5 deep frames of brood in the box by late March.
-Start making splits when you see purple eyed drones as well as grown ones. This will allow the queen to be mated. Splits — (3-5 frames of bees, 3 frames brood in multiple stages such as emerging, larvae, pupae, 2 frames resources in a nuc box without the queen, they can make a new queen or put a caged queen in the nuc then move the hive as far away from the original location as possible. For best results at least a mile away.
-Hives will be wanting to swarm this month so equalize colonies (steal brood frames from strong hives and give them to weaker hives).
-If you see swarm cells, check to see if they need more room to expand, check for the queen and if you find her then destroy the cells and give them more room to expand. If you don’t find the queen, then pick the five best swarm cells and leave them in the hive so it can requeen itself. If the queen cells are supersedure, then check for signs of queen failure. If no signs are observed, then allow the hive to requeen itself or you replace the queen. 1 year old queens are the best for hive health and honey production. Also taking out entrance reducers or giving the hives a top entrance can decrease swarming.
April: floral source-various flows of clover, tupelo, blackberry & brambles, tulip poplar, apple, black locust trees
-Feed if very light, however there should be enough sources to keep them going by now.
-Goals: Swarm control, super strong colonies for honey production.
-Equalize colonies & cut queen cells to knock back extra strong colonies. You do not want hives swarming right now! Do everything in your power to prevent swarming!
-Make splits if you want more colonies or they are trying to swarm and you can’t control the tendencies.
– Order new queens, find & replace failing queens being careful to introduce them properly (YouTube balling & queen introduction/acceptance).
– in April, the bees should stop taking feed and you should see nectar start appearing in the hives on its own (sugar water is clear, natural nectar is yellow). Put queen excluder (if you want to) on and add honey supers with drawn comb or if you don’t have drawn comb. Make sure the queen is in brood chamber or, below the excluder, and move some of the brood (a frame or two) above the queen excluder. Often the bees won’t pass the excluder unless there is brood or drawn comb above it. You can induce swarming if you just put undrawn plastic foundation above an excluder. Also putting a queen excluder above a double deep brood chamber can cause the bees to become honey bound and swarm. Single brood chamber or deep/medium brood chamber doesn’t have this problem.
-If you have a weak colonies when the flow begins, if you want to maximize honey production, take a brood frame or two from your weaker colonies and add it the strongest to maximize honey production. (best to use this method if there are plenty of supers for room because there is a chance this can induce swarming if there isn’t enough room).
-The flow should begin second to third week of April. It’s slightly different every year. Look for tulip poplar leaves about to bloom as well as Black Locust trees blooming. If they bloom the flow is already on.
– There is no difference in putting empty boxes closest to bees (under supering) or putting empty boxes farther away from the bees (over supering) so do what you want. However, give them more room then you think they need during a flow.
-You should inspect the hive at least once a week due to swarming activity and the honey coming in.
– Personal tip: I would add three empty medium supers of drawn or checkered with drawn and plastic foundation during the flow and wait till that top box is 75% full and add another box. The reason for this is if the Bees don’t have enough room to go up they start to backfill and then they shut down when they have too much honey or they swarm. You don’t want that to happen if you want a large crop of honey.
May: floral source- various flows of clover, tupelo, blackberry & brambles, tulip poplar, privet, honeysuckle
– Make splits if desiring or need be
– inspect twice a week if they have plenty of supers on top in the hives.
– Add supers to the hive as needed. (See previous month)
– The flow should last to first or second week of June. When you pull honey or spill it and bees are robbing it then you can make an educated guess the flow is over.
June & July: floral source-sourwood, sumac, mimosa trees, kudzu
-In Blue Ridge, Georgia, the sourwood flow begins give or take a week around 4th of July. In hardiness zone 7B/8A sourwood seems to provide honey but not enough for a true flow.
-In the month of June, you pull supers, spin honey, bottle and enjoy!
-Watch for robbing, add robber screens at entrance of hives if your fear is they are being robbed out. A strong hive will kill a five frame nuc. Reducing entrances on weaker hives is also an effective way to deal with robbing.
– let the bees rob out your empty honey frames and once they are dry from honey, put them in a cool dry place with plenty of air circulation and sunlight. A barn is a good place if you can hang them up and get air to go through them or shine a bright light down through them.
– If you freeze your frames for a few hours and then store them in a cool dry place you can avoid wax moth issues as long as they are sealed (or see above).
-You can also store the equipment w/ Para-moth or other moth products that are 99% Dichlorobenzene. Just stack and seal them up with the Para-moth.
-Treat for ants, if necessary, with Amdro. Make sure the stuff you use doesn’t affect the bees.
-Look up various methods to treat hive beetles if those problems occur.
-Feed 1:1 sugar to water in yard, you must replace the nectar you took. These months include a dearth of nectar, so it is vital to keep feeding to help the bees survive.
August, September, October: floral source- golden Rod, lespedeza, sumac
-August is the first month in the Bee Calendar
-Treat for Varroa mites, numerous methods online. Personal favorite is OA vapor or slow release.
-As hives decrease in size, remove boxes you really only want a double deep or a deep/medium going into winter if you don’t want to feed it all year round.
– You can always Feed 1:1 sugar to water. The more sugar the heavier the hive will weigh. 0.5 parts sugar promotes brood growth and hygiene but doesn’t really add weight. 1:1 is a good compromise, and you get the best of both worlds. 2:1 puts weight on them really fast but also adds a little more stress on the bees to render it to honey.
-August is really the last month to rectify queen problems-combine weak hives if necessary, and kill weak queen (YouTube combining hives) and replace them. You can combine hives effectively and keep a queen alive by using newspaper as a divider, cut a slit in it, and add a top and bottom entrance.
-The next major nectar source is Golden Rod which occurs in later September and through October. Most of the time it provides pollen but little nectar, depends on the area. The smell of goldenrod is sweaty gym socks so if you think your hive is sick cause of the smell, make sure it’s not golden rod honey.
Sources:
https://extension.uga.edu/publications/detail.html?number=B1045&title=honey-bees-and-beekeeping
Bob Binnie – Lakemont, GA https://www.youtube.com/@bobbinnie9872
Kaymond Reynolds – Sevierville, TN https://www.youtube.com/@kamonreynolds
BrucesBees – Dothan, AL
https://www.youtube.com/@brucesbees
David Burns – Illinois
Fredrick Dunn – Illinois