Can you love your bees too much?

There is a buzz of excitement in my apiaries at the moment as the bees are flying out and bringing back pollen in quantity. We all breathe a sigh of relief when we see pollen going into the hive in quantity, as that indicates that the Queen has survived the winter and the colony is beginning to expand.

Mouse guards should be removed as this knocks the pollen off the bees legs as they struggle to get into the hive. If you have undersupered you now need to go back to the traditional configuration and put a queen excluder between the brood box and the super above that brood box. You might also use the opportunity for giving hive a fresh floor. Or if you have a blowtorch you can quickly clean up the floor while the brood box is sitting on the upturned roof before putting the hive back together with the traditional configuration.Do this away from the hive as bees don't like being blowtorched. Any wrapping that has been used to keep the hive dry over winter can also now be removed so that the sun plays directly onto the wood. If you are like me you will already have given them a pollen pattie last month in the hope that that will kick start the brood early. Each one of my 13 hives has wolfed down a whole pattie. The reason for putting neopoll on  is that you want a really strong colony next month when the nectar flow begins. I haven't tried any stimulative feeding to get more bees for the coming nectar flow but that may be a consideration for you. However, don't try it with too small a colony as that will stress them out and they just won't be able to process the sugar syrup.This is the one time when a light syrup can be used.

Another scenario for you may be one where you have been overgenerous in feeding last autumn. This means the brood box contains frames of stores which the bees have not even started to eat. If you have  'overloved ' your bees in this way they probably even have a super full of sugar syrup which they haven't touched. The consequence of this could be that there is no room for the Queen to lay. And that means that you won't have a colony big enough to collect the spring nectar flow and you will be denying yourself a spring honey crop. So what do you do? I have talked to Helen and this is her suggestion.

You have two options: a soft option and a hard option. The soft option is to place your super that is full of sugar syrup directly on top of the brood box without a queen excluder. All of the frames are stuffed full of sugar syrup so you need to remove one or two frames and replace them with foundation. This should be directly above the brood nest ( you can discover where the brood nest is by putting an inspection board in the previous day and seeing where the bees are working). You will also be able to feel the heat rising up from the brood nest. What happens in this scenario is that if the queen needs space, the bees will go up, draw out the comb, and she will then lay in the super on those two frames.

The hard option is to put your inspection board in, see where the brood nest is, and then go into your hive and place a frame of foundation next to the brood nest. You will then have to remove one of the frames of stores from the outside and shuffle along all the other frames. However you are not, and I stress not disturbing the brood nest. In this scenario if the bees want more space for the Queen to lay, they will draw out a frame of foundation and put eggs and larvae into that. Keith and Helen seem to differ about whether a frame of foundation will be drawn out at this time of year. I trust Helen on this one as she is far more generous in feeding and has had to rectify this situation in the past.

So you need to ask yourself the question, did I over love my bees too much last autumn. Did I, by overfeeding them, cause myself a problem now (i.e. no space for the Queen to lay) which is going to affect my honey crop this spring?Have I too many frames of stores in the brood box, the unintended consequence of that being that I am preventing the colony building up as rapidly as they should. And then I won't have the  number of foragers that I should to collect a spring honey crop! Only you can know if you have loved your bees too much.
Malcolm Wilkie 16/03/2017

If you are at all passionate about your bees you will have noticed that they now think that spring is here. Temperatures are now regularly above 8°C and the bees are flying out and collecting pollen. These pollen loads are in big round balls and in quantity which indicates that they are now raising brood. If you lift the roof off your hive the bees will come and take a look at you; they are active.

Unlike me, of course, you have cleaned up all your equipment, ordered frames for the new season and have put in place a plan for each hive according to the records that you have been keeping last year. It isn't a bad idea to put your inspection board in for a week now just to check that the varroa drop is non existent. If you have a count as low as five in one week at this time of year, you are going to have a problem this season.! Don't think that this is a low count for the month of February!!!!! Remember the brood rearing season has only just started so the count should be really really low or non-existent at this stage.

You need to assess what type of colony you have. Have you got a small colony that is struggling, or a medium-size colony or a humongous colony? Strategies for the next season will depend on your answer to the above question. What can you do now? February and March is the key cross over period for honeybees. Beekeepers who have been too greedy in taking honey from their charges may have caused a problem now. This is because the bees can run out of honey at this time of year. They are raising the temperature in the brood nest to 37°C and in order to do this they are consuming huge quantities of their stores. Did you leave your bees enough honey so that they could kickstart the colony back into life at this time of year?

Those who are organised among us will have regularly hefted their hives over the winter. They will be able to calculate what the state of play is and whether their bees have sufficient stores until a true nectar flow begins with the warmer weather. Those of you who are less organised can still lift your hive to ascertain how light it is. If it is light, feed fondant above the crown board. I personally have also given every hive a Neopoll pollen pattie. I rolled this out like the pastry and placed it underneath the crown board on top of the frames. On certain hives once this has been consumed I will have to put more candy (yes I was one of the more disorganised among you).

How does one decide on the strategy for the coming season? A humongous colony will need to be carefully managed and on this sort of colony a shook swarm would be entirely appropriate. You will be able to clean them up by doing a shook swarm and at the same time cut down on any varroa problem. This sort of colony will give you a honey crop later in the season and,of course, by doing a shook swarm you will prevent this sort of colony from swarming. On Thursday, 9 March Keith and I will show you how to do this. A small colony on dirty comb cannot be treated in the same way. Admit it, lots of you have a colony of this sort. Even if they are a medium-size colony you probably have not been changing the combs and they are filthy. There will be a build up of minor brood diseases and you are not letting the colony function at an optimum level because of the way you are handling them. A Bailey comb change is the answer. One places a fresh brood box above the old brood box. One places a queen excluder between the two boxes. One raises the Queen on a frame into the top box above the excluder and one places foundation next to that frame. Insolation dummy boards need to be used. And one feeds. Come and see how it is done on Thursday, 9 March. In this scenario you may get a small honey crop later in the season but you will have a fantastic colony in 2018. There will be fresh frames in your box and the bees will thank you.

A strategy must include some sort of swarm management. On 6 April Keith and I will talk you through once again how to manage the swarming season. This is a must if you are a new beekeeper or if you want to remind yourself of everything that you have to bear in mind when dividing a box of bees. I will also try and show you how to bank an old Queen as an insurance policy by using an Apidea.

I look forward to seeing everyone on 9 March and 6 April. Remember you have to let Rosemarie know. She may change the venue if lots if you say you are coming.

Malcolm Wilkie 22nd February 2017

Below is the article I sent out last year to the Improver's Group. Hope it helps everyone. Malcolm 20th August 2016
Monitoring for varroa is something we all need to do now if we have not done so already
Below an inspection board showing a bad mite drop

If you have not done so already, you do need to monitor levels of varroa in your hives. This means that you need to add your inspection board and leave it in for about a week. You will thereby be monitoring the dead mite drop. In other words it is just an indication of the level of the Varroa that your bees are infested with.
If the dead mite drop is four or more a day, you then ought to do something to fight against the varroa. It probably won't be sufficient to use icing sugar, or a product like hive clean. You now need to use a soft chemical and I would recommend either Apiguard or ApiLifeVar. If you decide to use Apiguard, then you need any eke.. However ApiLifeVar, which consists of biscuits impregnated with thymol, does not need an eke. The treatment should go on as soon as possible because the temperatures are still high enough for the treatment to be effective. Be warned once temperatures drop regularly below 15° these treatments will be much less effective. Furthermore the inspection board should be left in the colony so that the vapours stay within the colony thereby encouraging the bees to remove the thymol from the tray. By doing so this will encourage cleaning and no doubt damages the tender mouthparts of the varroa mite, which is what you want to do.
With both Apiguard and ApiLifeVar treatment is started now and then a further dose of treatment is given in two weeks time. This is so as to cover a whole brood cycle. If you don't do this then you won't catch the emerging varroa from all the brood and you will still have a bad infestation as you go into winter.
The most important thing to do is to remove any honey supers as you do not wish them to become contaminated by the thymol. This does not matter in the brood box as you will not be extracting honey from the brood frames. A honey super can always be removed for a month and then put back on once the treatment has been done.
If your bees are carrying a heavy load of varroa you may see hundreds dropping onto the board if you go and look at the inspection board. This is no longer just the natural dead mite drop but all those extra mites that you are killing by using thymol. If you do see such a drop, be encouraged as you will be doing your bees a real service and enabling them to go into winter fighting fit.
After treatment I give my own bees half a pollen pattie (neopoll) the reasoning being that I want them to go into the winter as fat and well fed as possible. This is because a winter bee lives for up to five months and contains fat stores in her body. She is actually different from a summer bee; she lives so much longer and will have to cope in the new year with raising brood once again. She needs to be in tip top condition in Setember and October if you are to have a good working colony next year. Making the right decisions now will ensure colony survival and will make the likelihood of a good honey harvest next year so much more likely.
There are other treatments that can be applied now but I would not classify them as soft chemicals. MAQS is one. A word of warning, beekeepers in our association who have used it say that it kills all the brood. Only risk this if you have a very large colony ( at least seven frames of brood on 14*12 brood frames) and the colony is riddled with varroa. Probably not the case for most beginners.
I have spare Apiguard if anyone needs to purchase any.
Malcolm

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> Swarming is still going on and yet not all is bad as those of you with well managed colonies will have supers that are currently full of nectar as prosperous colonies take advantage of the nectar flow. In two days a good colony can fill a super with nectar.
>
> However what I want to talk about this month are nucleus colonies. What I mean by a nucleus is a quarter sized or half sized colony. I have 14*12 brood boxes and I have some 'colonies' on about 5 or 6 frames and with between two and four frames of brood. The reasons for small units like this can be multifarious; a bought in nucleus, a nucleus you have made up yourself,a box of bees that has been split (and has then swarmed despite precautions taken ). I cannot imagine that I am the only one who finds himself with a quarter or half sized colony.
>
> So what does one do? Beginners find themselves in this scenario and always ask what do I do about feeding. At least if they are actually asking the question, they have begun to understand that what they do now is going to determine whether the unit they have becomes big enough to then go on and survive the winter. What beginners do not grasp is that the small unit they have has a gargantuan task ahead of them; they need to draw out all the frames in their new hive and at the same time increase their numbers. This is a tall order for a small unit. It is young bees that draw out wax and there are not enough of them to do do it quickly. So what can one do to help them?
>
> The first thing to do is not to give them too many new frames to work on. Put one frame of foundation on the sunniest side of the box (bees need to generate a lot of heat to draw out wax). Put another on the other side of your colony and then add a dummy board. This helps keep in the warmth. The ideal dummy board is one made from cellotex (wall insulation material). And then you need to feed and feed and feed. A plastic frame feeder that is within the hive itself with a wooden float is good (the advantage of a frame feeder is that the bees usually clean it out completely and so it does not need to be washed) or otherwise a small contact feeder (plastic container with a small hole covered by gauze). The later gives a slow continual feed to the bees. You can add some hive clean to the syrup to prevent mould taking a hold. The feeder needs to be washed out and cleaned each time it is refilled because the syrup will go mouldy. In my experience with a small contact feeder it may take them about two weeks to empty it . With a nucleus this is all an uphill struggle. What you are aiming for is to reach that elusive tipping point when the colony is big enough to be healthy and prosperous. They will need a steady trickle of syrup to draw out your frames. If going away on holiday get a fellow beekeeper to come round and top up the feeder. Missing out at this early stage of the summer may have a bearing on what sort of colony you have next year and whether you get a honey crop or not and even whether they then survive the winter. Remember a small unit inside a big box finds it difficult to keep itself warm over the winter period.
>
> If the nucleus is already large, then you may have to be careful not to encourage swarming. You may need to feed, and then stop feeding and then feed again. It will have to be your own judgement. Generosity at this stage will give you a prosperous colony next year able to take advantage of the nectar flows that will occur.
> I hope that those of you with a small unit will now be able to develop a strategy for you bees. I helped a beginner a few years ago by giving him a tiny nucleus in May. I told Richard he could play with it as I just did not have the time to look after it. He was bonkers about having his first box of bees and he fed it and fed it. He had a lovely colony by the end of the year but it was hard work. I called his bees ' the Vivaldi bees' because that is what he played on his car radio to them when he initially took them home.
>
> Malcolm Wilkie July 2016

> By now if your colony has been strong you will have been through the swarming scenario. This May has been good from the point of view of the nectar flow as there has been moisture in the ground and high temperatures, and those of you with strong colonies will have had supers filled with nectar which will now be being turned into honey by the bees.
>
> I personally am not in that category. If you do have a colony that has not built up as it should, then you need to ask yourself various questions. Firstly it may be the case that the brood frames in the colony are just too old and this is spreading infection into the bees and preventing them from building up as they ought. What is the brood pattern like? Is there evidence of chalk brood (this is a fungal infection and the spores may be killing off a lot of the larvae). Or it may be that nosema is present and this explains why some of the eggs are dying and that there is a spotty brood pattern. Nosema damages the bee's digestive system and shortens their life.
> In a previous email I explained that a colony needs to reach a tipping point in order to expand. It may be that debilitated by this microsporidian fungus the bees just cannot expand as they ought. This box of bees will no doubt dwindle as the summer continues and will die out in the autumn or winter. There do not seem to be any recommended treatments but 'hive alive' does seem to have some positive effect on colonies according to some.
> The frustrating thing for those of you with colonies that are similar, is that when queen cells are made, then a good proportion of them are not viable. We cut out queen cells that we do not want and there is nothing more frustrating than finding the queen cell is not alive. If you have done a split, then you probably can re-combine the two boxes and the old queen will continue as best she can. Or you could try buying in a queen. Sussex University (LASI) are selling hygienic Queens. You can buy a virgin for only £20 and she will be accepted by bees who have not been able to raise a new queen as long as you haven't left them broodless for a month. No need to remove the accompanying bees. Just break the tab so that the colony can chew out the fondant and accept your new queen with open arms, or perhaps I should say claws!
> It is also important to leave a little space around the Queen introduction cage so the bees in the colony can smell that there is a virgin in that cage. If you have brood, then place the Queen introduction cage next to the frame of brood. You can test whether your purchase will be accepted by placing the cage on top of the frames. Bees that have a virgin already in the hive will be aggressive towards you purchase. Bees that are hopelessly queenless will surround the cage and you will see their little antennae and heads pointing towards the cage showing great interest. If that is the case you are onto a winner. One caveat is that you should not try and introduce a Buckfast queen into a box of mongrel bees. Even if they accept her, they are likely to kill her in the subsequent weeks and raise Queens cells. For some reason they don't seem to speak the same language!
> Beginners find it very difficult to gauge whether a split they have made is queenright or queenless. Once you have calculated the date of the emergence of a queen cell, go in a day or two later and check the queen cell you have marked has been opened. The virgin,if emerged, won't be taking mating flights for a day or two. If you have missed this window then examination should be done in the morning to avoid disturbing a virgin going out on a mating flight. Or alternatively after 6 PM. If the queen cell is still there, don't do anything. Go back in another two days time and check. At that moment carefully open it up. If there is a dead body, then you are going to need to either recombine this unit or get hold of a virgin queen or a mated Queen. Both will be accepted. If you are into not spending any money and you have a second colony, you can give them a frame of eggs. Or you can cut out a section of eggs and young larvae and place it in one of the frames of the queenless colony. However if your queen cell was not viable, perhaps the next ones they raise will not be viable either! A headache! However, you need to do something!
> Some colonies are expanding rapidly still. Add supers so that they can store the nectar for you. Put a frame or two of foundation above the brood nest. They are likely to draw out wax in this warm spot and fill it with nectar. It is good to keep a prosperous colony busy making wax and collecting nectar by putting in some frames of foundation among the frames of drawn comb, but they find it easiest to draw out wax above the warmth of the brood nest. A big colony however will draw out a whole box of foundation for you. Lucky you if you are in that scenario!
> Good luck with your honey production this month. As I speak the rain is falling and that means that if temperatures go up again the nectar flow will continue. Just remember to check the supers and give them space.
> Malcolm 31st May 2016