Seems strange to begin this year's blog immediately after plowing 15" of snow from the driveway but it's good to dream of warm summer days ahead. Last year's beekeeping ended with a thud. Gayla's dad suffered a massive stroke in September-just as work travel accelerated-leaving precious little time for tending to the bees.
The best news is Dad is an obstinate ol' bird and refused to give in to the stroke and is recovering wonderfully! Now to the girls...As I said, my getting the hives ready for winter was seriously cut short. When I left the hives in August, everything seemed to be going well. I had anywhere from 2-3 supers on all the hives and thought all would be fine. When I returned to the apiary in October, I was surprised to find the deeps were basically empty and the hives were very light. I immediately started feeding 2:1 syrup. Luckily it stayed warm enough for the girls to go through over 40 pounds of sugar before it became too cold.
I installed a bamboo reed windbreak on the North side of the the 3 main hives and piled evergreen boughs against the back of the other hive and nuc (pic 3). I still thought a couple of the hives were light so I decided to try the Mountain Camp Method of feeding. This is where you add a medium to the top of the hive, line it with 1 sheet of barely damp newspaper and pour in granulated sugar to provide food for the bees during the colder months (see pic 4). Make sure you lightly wet the edges of the sugar pile to help them start to take it. Replace your inner and telescoping covers back and cross your fingers. This will not only serve as a food source, it will also help reduce moisture in the hive as the sugar will absorb it. The bees will eat through the newspaper and hit the sugar as needed. I do believe this will be a mess come Spring and should only be used in a definite emergency. This pic is from a couple of weeks ago.
Since I have done this, I have learned that this technique may actually increase the chance of nosema, as pure sugar changes the pH of a honey bee's stomach, making it more susceptible. Hereis an excellent discussion about this started on Beesource.com by Michael Palmer www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=237506 It is definitely worth reading and is a big reason why I will not try this again and will pay A LOT more attention to my bees in August through October. Michael is a phenomenal beek with over 700 hives and nucs in northern VT. I have one of his queens and have 2 more already on order for my June splits.Current Conditions:
This is the most dangerous time of the year for northern hives. The bees are getting low on stores and the queens are starting to want to lay. It's critical to make sure they have food or the hive simply will not make it until Spring.As of last weekend, the ladies were out and buzzing in all hives and the nuc. I added a pollen patty to 3 of the hives late January (pic 4) and, except for Hive 1, they were definitely devouring them. All of the hives seem quite content. Hive 1 has a very small cluster and a fair amount of bee excrement on the front of the hive. As they are Buckfast, I am not worried about the cluster size. When I checked inside, the hive appeared clean so I'm not sure if I have a nosema problem or not. There is plenty of honey left which is not surprising for Buckfast honey bees. Again, I do not treat for any condition with the exception of starvation and if I manage my hives properly I will not have to worry about that either.
Plans for Spring:
Assuming they all continue to survive, this year I hope to be able to split 3 of the 4 hives and will definitely move the nuc into a new home. That will make 8 hives, 2 of which will be off site. I intend to also build a Kenyan top bar hive (TBH). I need to decide if I'm going to try to use my bees or buy one last package to get it started. No offense intended, however I hope to never again buy a package from down south. Many of the packages (forget the queens!) do not even make it to Fall, they increase the chance of importing Small Hive Beetles, mites and other parasites, as well as increases the chance of bringing Africanized genetics into our area. I am seriously trying to generate all of our bees from overwintered hives and nucs. More on this and TBH later.
Come on Spring!
