Twelve months in the

By Tim Huffman

January

Brood Rearing: By the middle of January, brood rearing begins again in preparation for spring. As the days get longer, the queen begins increasing her egg laying. She is at first limited by how many adult are available to keep the brood warm. Later she will be limited by how much and and space is available.

Beekeeper Tasks: The extent of early brood rearing is determined by pollen stores gathered during the previous fall. In colonies with a lack of pollen, brood rearing is delayed until fresh pollen is collected from spring flowers, and these colonies usually emerge from winter with reduced populations. The colony population during the winter usually decreases because old bees continue to die...

Anticipating The Next Season: It takes 8 to 9 weeks to build a colony population up to full strength for the honey flow (over 60,000 bees). The bees should have all the brood they can cover and keep warm. If there is plenty of bees and not much brood, give the colony a pollen patty. CAUTION: If you start feeding sugar syrup, you will have to continue feeding until plenty of is coming in. Monitor food stores closely, so they don't run out and starve.

Cluster: Honey bees do not hibernate - they cluster during cold weather. As the temp drops below 55F, the bees stay in the hive. As it gets colder, they cluster closer together and generate heat by "shivering". In a strong hive, there will be a 2" layer of bees around the cluster that serves as insulation. This keeps the heat within the cluster so it is not lost in the cold environment. Bees from inside the cluster continually replace those on the outside so none of them freeze to death. Even when it's below freezing outside, the bees keep the temp around the brood nest about 92F. can help bees maintain cluster temp by wrapping their hives and providing a windbreak.

What is The Intent?

- Honey

- Pollination

- More Colonies

February

The : On a warm (70F) and still day do your first comprehensive inspection. Can you find evidence of the queen? Are there plenty of eggs in the brood? Is there a nice pattern to her egg laying? Later in the month, on a very mild and windless day, you should consider reversing the hive bodies. This will allow for a better distribution of brood, and stimulate the growth of the colony. You can begin to feed the hive syrup.

The Bees: The queen, still cozy in the cluster, will begin to lay a few more eggs each day. It is still “females only” in the hive. Workers will take cleansing flights on mild days. The bees will consume about 25lbs of honey this month.

The Beekeeper: There is not too much to do this month. Attend those club meetings, read, and get your equipment ready for spring.

Honey Bee Activities: Their first objective is always survival. That means a good population and some stores reserves. When the bees “feel” like they have plenty of bees and resources for survival, they begin to prepare for reproduction - that is, they prepare to swarm. And they can be very determined! Brood Rearing: For the hives to reach maximum population by the honey flow, the queen has to be laying heavily 2 months before. This creates several critical conditions for the bees the beekeeper must watch closely: they need to keep enough food stores in the hive for brood rearing and have empty combs above the brood nest for upward expansion.

Honey Bee Activities:

Their primary objective is to store as much nectar as possible. The urge to swarm becomes secondary, but it's still possible if they get crowded.

Brood Rearing: Peaks early in the honey flow according to the queen's capacity to lay. Queens will occasionally exceed 2,000 eggs per day, but 1,600 to 1,800 are more common.

Population: Is maintained at the maximum of the honey flow. If the population is not near maximum when the honey flow starts, the bees have to use a lot of your surplus honey raising brood. Of course, building such a strong population early in the season makes swarm control more difficult. You have to closely watch for swarm cells in March and April so a swarm does not leave with half your bees. Tilt the brood boxes and inspect for queen cells on the bottom of the brood boxes.

Factors Influencing Early Spring Colony Growth:

The beginning adult population determines how much brood can be fed and kept warm. If the adult population is small in mid-winter, brood rearing will begin very slowly.

A shortage of honey store inside the hive can limit brood rearing. Throughout mid- winter and early spring, brood rearing will consume more stores than what is available for the bees to . The number of days of suitable foraging weather influences the intensity of brood rearing. Fresh pollen and nectar encourage brood rearing.

March

The Bees: This is the month when colonies can die of starvation. However, if you fed them plenty of sugary syrup in the autumn this should not happen. With the days growing longer, the queen steadily increases her rate of egg laying. More brood means more food consumed. The drones begin to appear. The bees will continue to consume honey stores.

The Beekeeper: Early in the month, on a nice day and when there is no wind and bees are flying, you can have a quick peek under the cover. If you do not see any sealed honey in the top frames, you may need to provide some emergency food (fondant or granulated sugar if cold temps prevail, syrup if the weather is mild.) But remember, once you start, you should not stop until they are bringing in their own food supplies. If you are going to do a spring varroa mite treatment, now (or soon) is the time to start the application.

Food Stores: This is the time that honey bees collect more honey than is needed for their survival. If we have a strong hive (15 frames of bees) when the honey flow starts and plenty of supers for nectar storage, we can average over 60lbs (5 gallons) per hive. The key to a good honey crop is having strong hives and controlling varroa mites and hive beetles.

Beekeeper Tasks:

Check food stores weekly by lifting the back of the hive and checking the weight.

Reverse hive bodies when needed to keep the brood on the bottom. (2 or 3rd deep) (Having 3 deeps sets you up to split). Do not reverse if the brood nest is in both hive bodies.

Add a BEFORE the bees get crowded.

Food Stores: Checking food stores is important right up to honey flow. As spring progresses, more nectar and pollen are available, but the bees will use more resources for brood rearing than they are bringing in.

April

Hive Beetles: Install a beetle trap at least by April. It keeps the beetle population inside the hive to a low enough level that there should not be an issue.

Anticipating Next Season: Make a thorough hive inspection around the middle of April, making good notes for reference. The objective is to have the hive in good shape so the bottom two boxes won't have to be disturbed until after the honey flow.

Beekeeper Tasks: Disturb the bees as little as possible. Check or rearrange the honey supers, but don’t go into the bottom two boxes unless you suspect a serious problem. You can tilt the brood hive bodies and look for queen cell on the bottom of the frames. It can take up to 3 days for the bees to repair and get back to 100% of where they were before inspection.

Honey Flow

Conditions: The weather is fine and comb (heavy) honey flow begins around mid to late April. By the end of May, the heavy flow is over. Some areas continue to produce through June and even into July, but in the piedmont decline significantly after May.

Swarm Cells: If you find a dozen or so queen cells near the bottom of the frames, you can bet the hive is ready to swarm. Do not try removing the queen cells. It’s usually a losing battle. Good time to split hive as needed. You might want to have a queen castle available at this time.

Combined with crowded conditions, the queen also increases egg laying in preparation for the natural division of the colony by . (Quit working a day or two beforehand.) In addition to rearing workers and drones, the bees also prepare to rear a new queen. A few larvae that would normally develop into worker bees are fed a special gland food called , their cells are reconstructed to accommodate the larger queen, and her rate of development is sped up. The number of queen cells produced varies with races and strains of bees as well as individual colonies.

May

The Bees: Unswarmed colonies will be boiling with bees. The queen’s rate of egg laying may drop a bit this month. We should be in the middle of the honey flow going into May in the piedmont area.

The Beekeeper: Add more honey supers as needed. Attend bee club meetings and workshops.

Think about how many hives would you like to have? Then get your equipment ready for the season. There’s always a swarm to catch and having a hive ready to go sure makes it easier.

Swarming: Our first defense against swarming is to re-queen in the fall. Young queens less than a year old tend to swarm less than older queens.

June

The Bees: If the weather is good the nectar flow may continue this month. On hot and humid nights, you may see a huge curtain of bees cooling themselves on the exterior of the hive. These are forager bees that have nothing to do.

The Beekeeper: Extract honey as soon as possible. If you cannot extract right away, your honey is safer in the hives than in the honey house. Hive beetles can survive, thrive, and multiply in honey supers stored in the honey house. The beetle larvae will defecate in the honey, causing it to ferment and ruin.

Put the wet combs on the hives. When dry, remove the supers and store them properly to prevent wax moth infestation. Store supers by using the wax moth crystal method (do NOT use moth ball).

Inspections and split hives healthy enough. After the supers have been cleaned by the bees and removed, start feeding sugar water. Start feeding if you want to build hives bigger before splitting the 1st of September.

July

During hot summer days, the colony temp must be held down to about 93 F. The bees do this by gathering water and spreading it on the interior of the nest, thereby causing it to evaporate within the cluster by its exposure to air circulation.

August

Varroa Mites: Colony survival and next year’s honey crop depends upon the summer treatment for mites. Everything may look good at your July inspection – plenty of bees and honey – but we cannot see the mites because they are hidden in the brood cells and the underside of the bees. Varroa mites can double their population in three weeks. Use whatever treatment method you like, rotating the chemical used for treatment to reduce the chance of the mites building a resistance to one chemical. If using the oxalic acid method you must treat once a week for three weeks.

September

This is the best time to split the hives that you have been feeding with sugar water after extraction (Split hives when drones return). Split into single deep and feed as needed.

Split double deep into three singles: Remove the queen and 2 frames of capped brood only (no eggs or lava). Add the two frames with queen and capped brood with 2 frames of honey (one on each side of the brood) to a nuc. Move this nuc to other side of yard. This nuc will not have forgers for 1 week.

The hive being split must have eggs and young lava in order for the nurse bees to draw queen cells. Replace removed frames with frames with foundation only on the outside of the frame. Close the hive for 8 days leaving it in original location.

On day 8: Split the original double deep hive into 2 hives with equal frame types. Divide the frames queen cell, pollen and honey frames equally. Do not inspect these hives for 30 days (do nothing to these hives) but feed. Added entrance reducers using the smallest opening!

The activities of a colony vary with the seasons. The period from September to December might be considered the beginning of a new year for a colony of honey bees. The condition of the colony at this time of year greatly affects the prosperity for the next year.

Colonies with plenty of young bees produced during the fall and an ample supply of pollen and honey for winter usually have a strong population in the spring.

October

The Bees: The colony’s growth is diminishing. Drones are still around, but outside activity begins to slow down as the nectar flow slows.

The Beekeeper: No more chance of swarming. Watch for honey robbing by wasps or other bees. There is not too much for you to do this month. Switch sugar water to the 2 to 1 mix and feed as needed to pack for winter.

Get into a habit of picking up back of hive at least once a month. Configure hive for winter, with attention to ventilation and moisture control.)

November

When nectar in the field becomes scarce, the workers drag the drones out of the hive and do not let them return, causing them to starve to death. Eliminating drones reduces the consumption of winter honey stores. When the temp drops to 57F, the bees begin to form a tight cluster. Within this cluster the brood (consisting of eggs, larvae, and pupae) is kept warm – about 94F (plus or minus 3) – with heat generated by the bees. The egg laying of the tapers off and may stop completely during November or December, even if there is pollen stored in the combs. During cold winters, the colony is put to its severest test of endurance. Under subtropical, tropical, and mild winter conditions, egg laying and brood rearing usually never stops.

Varroa Mites: Mites require honey to reproduce, so there is little or no reproduction in winter. When temps are suitable, chemical treatments can be highly effective in winter because there are few, if any, mites hidden in honey bee brood cells. Hive Beetles: Beetles shut down reproduction in winter. The adult beetles survive with the bees often within the honey bee cluster. On warm days, the bees will still chase the beetles so beetle traps will kill most if not all the beetles over the winter.

December

As temps drop, the bees draw closer together to conserve heat. The outer layer of bees is tightly compressed, insulating the bees within the cluster. As temps rise and fall, the cluster expands and contracts. The bees within the cluster have access to the food stores. During warm weather periods, the cluster shifts its position to cover new areas of comb containing honey. An extremely prolonged cold spell can prohibit cluster movement, and the bees may starve to death only inches away from honey.

The queen stays within the cluster and moves only when it shifts position. Colonies that are well supplied with honey and pollen in the fall will begin to stimulatively feed the queen, and she begins egg laying during late December to early January – even in northern areas of the United States. This new brood aids in replacing the bees that have died during the winter.

The Bees: The bees are in a tight cluster. No peeking!

The Beekeeper: There’s nothing you can do with the bees. Read a good book on , and enjoy the holidays!