Our March meeting will be Wednesday, March 20 at the Nappanee

TheBeeLine
Creating good and healthy beekeeping throughout MICHIANA
PUBLISHED BY MICHIANA BEEKEEPERS ASSOCIATION
Our March
meeting will be
Wednesday, March
20
at
the
Nappanee
Public
Library in downtown
Nappanee, 157 N.
Main St. also know
as State Road 19.
The meeting will
begin at 6:00 p.m.
and end about 8:30
p.m.
MARCH 2013
MBA CONTACTS
Nappanee
Public
Library
Parking
PRESIDENT
Bob Baughman
574-276-3959
[email protected]
VICE PRESIDENT AND
RECORDING SECRETARY
Tim Ives
574-910-0060
[email protected]
TREASURER David Emerson 574295-1855 [email protected]
Come prepared to tell us about
the condition of you bees and your
survivals and losses.
At left is a previous gathering at
the Nappanee Public Library.
HISTORIAN
Danny Slabaugh
574-315-5586
[email protected]
EDITOR
Henry Harris
574-875-9617
[email protected]
One week later, Wednesday,
March 27 we will have a beginner's
night at the Nappanee Public
Library from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
There is no such thing as an
expert beekeeper but we will have experienced beekeepers such as
those you see at right to advise and help.
There were 57 present at the January
meeting at Goshen College. There were
good discussions and comments, a talk
by Tim Ives and a lively discussion
about winter bees and their use of
vitellogenin, a fatty compound produced
and used by winter bees to make protein
rich food for queens, larvae and
workers, with little or no pollen available.
Henry talked and showed a power point
on producing, harvesting, preparing and
packaging cut comb honey.
1.
FRAMES
There are two kinds of top bars:
Grooved and wedged bar.
Grooved top bars will
accommodate plastic foundation and wax if it is held in
place with a bead of hot wax. Wedged top bars can be
used with any type of foundation.
End bars have wide shoulders to maintain
"bee space" between the combs when they are
pushed snuggly together.
The lower portion of
the end bar is recessed so that when two frames are pushed together bee space
is once more achieved allowing bees to pass around the ends of the frames. The
dado at the top of the end bar is shaped the same by different manufacturers
but the dimensions may differ.
The bottoms of the end bars can come
in four different styles to match the
different types of bottom
bars available. "A" has a full
width slot to accommodate
grooved or divided bottom
bars. "B" has a narrower slot
to accommodate the dadoed
end of the same types of
bottom bars. "C" has a full
center post to be straddled
by the two piece split or
divided bottom bar and "D" has a short center post to fit the
grooved bottom bar which provides more area for glue to hold
than "A" does.
A
B
C
Both bottom bars "1" and "1A"
are suitable for all types of
foundation. Bottom bars "2", "2A",
and "3" cannot be used with plastic
foundation. Both top and bottom
grooved bars are best for plastic
foundation which can be put into one
groove
and
snapped into the
other.
Wedged top
bars with grooved bottom
bars
will
also
work
with plastic
D
foundation.
2.
Wandering with an Old-timer
by Henry Harris
Beginners Without Bees Yet.
Read! Read at least two books on starting with bees. Beekeeping is a
much looser form of agriculture than gardening. Bees are versatile and
tolerant allowing the beekeeper to express his or her own personality or
preferences. The way one beekeeper will tell you to
start may not agree with another's instructions. Neither
is necessarily right or wrong they just promote the way
they are comfortable with. You must choose what you
think makes the most sense to you and which will fit
your time, location and life style.
So read at least two how-to books and listen to more
than one experienced beekeeper and choose the methods
that make the most sense or suit you and your life style.
You may change later too.
First Lessons in Beekeeping, Starting Right With
Bees, Beekeeping for Dummies, The Backyard
Beekeeper are good and there are many more.
If you are into organic and the natural way of dealing
with nature there is Natural Beekeeping, The Practical
Beekeeper and here also many more listed online.
Again, read two, even if you choose to go the natural
way read another non natural book to see where the
differences between the two systems are.
When you come to a point of conflict call a beekeeper or
ask about it at the next meeting keeping in mind that some
beekeepers are set in concrete and will not countenance
something that does not agree with their system while others are flexible and
will be open and fair about ideas other than what they use. Listen to them all
and take what you like. If it works for you and your bees it is good, if it does
not work read some more and talk some more until you find what does work for you.
Get your equipment purchased and assembled. DO NOT buy the "starter kit" offered by
most supply companies. These kits often contain equipment you will not need this year
and will not contain some equipment you will need.
Talk to a beekeeper or one of our local suppliers for tips. The basic
starter kit at right is just that: Basic. Once you put your bees in the box
you will immediately have to order a second and third box and put them
together: bees in the MICHIANA area need more than one box to get
through winter.
You should have already read your two instruction
books, the entrance feeder is less than adequate, the veil offered is passible and
the gloves are leather which is good.
3.
As a beginner you do not need your equipment giving you
problems or distracting you. The veil above looks like it might
stay put and keep bees away from your head and neck but
the one in the kit below, and at right, only has an elastic
band to hold it and will frequently fall against the side of
your face as you lean. A helmet with a round or square
wire veil is best. The four below are good choices.
Loose mesh is a nono for beginners.
This starter kit has the right number of boxes, 2 deeps and 1 medium, the
veil is poor, the gloves leather, but again you do not need the book or
the entrance feeder. This kit is offered assembled for about $350.00
plus shipping.
Hive tools (big variety but take the basic one to start with),
leather gloves (stingers reach through cloth gloves) and smokers
(the small one is sufficient) are pretty standard and may last as long
as you keep bees.
Wax foundation requires wedge top bar frames and wire to keep the foundation straight.
Plastic foundation is more expensive but snaps into grooved
top and bottom bars quickly with not added work to prepare
the frames.
Talk with one of our area suppliers and ask about frames and
foundation and what the differences can mean to you.
Wooden ware varies a lot. Some suppliers sell high grade,
clear (near perfect wood), also commercial grade, which will
4.
Clear
Commercial
have small, tight, knots but none in hand holds or joints, and
economy or budget, which may have
defects plus knots in hand holds, joints
and edges but they are serviceable.
Budget
You
get what you pay for so buy what you can
afford.
Buying less expensive wooden ware and assembling it yourself can
save money.
Your reading should tell you how to assemble the equipment and if you have
questions most beekeepers are willing to help out.
The MBA will also have a beginner's class dealing with equipment on Wednesday, March
27 from 6:30 to 8:30 at the Nappanee Public Library.
Paint the outside of your boxes, outer covers and bottom boards but no paint inside the
hive.
The inside of a hive is a high moisture environment.
The wooden boxes absorb
moisture and will need to breathe it out.
Use latex paint. All you are doing is providing a temporary weather protection that will
need to be renewed in two or three years but you must not seal the wood or it will
quickly
become
water
logged
and
rot.
Wood
preservatives often contain ingredients that are harmful
to honey bees.
Use any color you like. Many beekeepers prefer the
traditional white but picking up 'mistakes' at the home
center paint counter can cut costs in half.
In this
picture you can see at least 9 different colors have been
used, various shades and combinations of colors.
Pick your hive's new location and set the hive up on it
before your bees come to be sure it will set level, not be
overly conspicuous, and the flying bees will not be a
problem for you or your neighbors. Bees poop in flight and
brown spots on laundry can cause tempers to flair.
Sidewalks and playgrounds need to be protected from
bee flights to prevent stings to neighbors, their kids and
pets.
5.
Putting your hive behind a hedge or fence will make
the bees go up to get over it before flying away thus
putting them above contact and even observation.
One Year Old Colonies
For those whose bees just made it through their
first Winter helping them to build up is the key to
getting a good crop of honey.
The bee cluster will end Winter near the top of the hive with a
lot of empty comb below them.
Bee clusters in the hive replicate the motion of a yo-yo over
the year's time. Early Spring they are high in the hive and begin
filling the cells at the top of the brood nest with honey driving
the queen to lay her eggs lower. As the colony successfully stores
honey in the hive they will have pushed the queen to the bottom of
the combs by Fall. During winter the cluster will eat its way up
through the combs to end at the top again by Spring to start all
over again.
Most bees in the wild have a small hive and small cluster
populations resulting in very little honey stored in excess of what they need.
We want lots of honey which takes lots of bees to make so we need to encourage
the colony to grow faster and bigger than it normally would.
Most bees in the wild have a small hive and small cluster populations resulting
in very little honey stored in excess of what they need.
At right is what our colony looks like
in early March.
Since heat rises the vast, empty hive
below the small cluster at the top is cold
and unwelcoming. This colony's queen will
only move down to lay eggs when brood in
Bees
the cluster emerges to make covering the
Brood
comb below the cluster possible.
At this size the colony will only
increase by a couple of hundred bees each
day.
Honey
To increase the area available to the
queen to lay eggs in we need to arrange for
more heat in the hive. I suppose you could
Pollen
"light a fire" under the hive and give them
artificial heat but there is a better way.
It is called reversing.
When the top box is put on the bottom
6.
and the empty bottom box is put on top the heat
will rise from the cluster to warm the comb
directly over the cluster. The queen can move
Rising heat
into this warmer area and lay eggs increasing
warms the area
the rate at which the colony will grow without
above the cluster
the
colony
needing
to
increase
honey
consumption to produce more heat.
A colony like this could also use some sugar
syrup, honey (only your own honey, never,
never, never anyone else's) and some protein
supplement.
If your colony has grown faster on its own
so that it fills the top box and has even a
small amount of brood in the bottom box leave
it alone
except
for
possibly
the
feeding.
If you reverse this colony the brood in the
bottom box will be separated from the rest
of the cluster and likely die along with the
nurse bees trying to care for it. This will
set your colony back rather than help it.
Keep in mind what our banquet speaker,
Kent Williams said, "if you keep bees you
will get stung and your bees will die". Even "Master"
beekeepers experience colony deaths. But if you know
how to make more bees you can go on.
If your bees did not survive Winter you are not alone. You are not a lousy
beekeeper or a bee murderer. This is a tough time for bees and beekeepers.
In the next picture the bees appear to
have died of starvation. In the very center
of the cluster the bees can be seen head down
in the cells, a sure sign of starvation.
Also, there is no honey in the comb around
the cluster.
Knowing why a colony died can help
prevent a repetition.
In some cases you may find honey several
frames away from the cluster indicating that
the bees were held in place by extreme cold
7.
until they used up all of the honey in their immediate vicinity. If this was the
case better wind protection, wrapping in tar paper to draw the sun's heat so the
cluster can move, or getting the hive out of a low spot where cold air settles and
stays when higher areas warm up could keep a future colony from freezing the same
way.
If the colony died with no more honey at all in the hive you know that you need
to leave more honey for the bees next Fall or feed a substitute.
Not much needs to be done with a "dead out", colony that died. You do not want
to leave it for mice to tear apart and if there is honey in the hive it can be
donated to other colonies.
If there are no live colonies to give the honey to it can be left in the hive
on the stand. Do not seal the hive up or you will encourage mold. Make sure it
has good ventilation and screened so mice cannot get in and let it set.
Later, maybe April, when everything is warmed up you can open the hive and dump
out the loose, dead bees, clean the bottom board and get the equipment ready to put
new bees in.
Do not worry about the dead bees in the cells. The new bees are better suited
to remove these bee carcasses than you are and any mold that may have started on
the combs too.
If you really must do something about those dead bees take a hint from Sir
Isaac Newton when he was trying to get them out of his combs. This conundrum was
what led him to two of his greatest
discoveries.
#1
An object
at rest
tends to
stay at
rest.
Hold upside
down frame
still.
Tap the
frame's top
bar with
hive tool
DO NOT do any of this tapping or jarring when the weather is cold.
Bees wax is thin and fragile and shatters easily when cold.
8.
Dead bees
try to stay
still as
frame
moves
away from
them.
#2 An
object in
motion tends
to stay in
motion.
Dead bees
continue to
move as the
frame stops
abruptly.
Swing top bar
of upside down
frame against
hive tool or
some other
stationary
object.
Wait until it is warm then do your tapping and banging gently. Many light taps
with the hive tool or bumps against a hive body will eventually get the job done
and leave your combs in good condition for the bees to use later.
But really, the bees can do it better.
March is one of the most dangerous months for
honey bees. The weather is warm and pleasant one
day with pussy willows and daffodils blooming and
giving pollen to raise brood with and the next day there
is a snow storm with temperatures in the low 30 os or
20os and the bees have to tighten up their cluster.
A lot of honey will be used to keep the temperature
in the low 90os in the cluster plus feeding all of the
brood and bees and starvation can kill the colony suddenly.
Keep an eye on the food stores and feed both sugar syrup and protein if necessary.
It may be hard to believe but in just a month the
bees you are now trying to keep alive will be
getting ready to pack up and leave. Swarming
does not happen over night, it takes a lot of work
on the part of the bees to build up the population,
store adequate honey and pollen for the parent
colony, raise drones and finally to raise queens, but
it is coming.
9.
Heat is one of the keys to raising brood. Bee eggs can be refrigerated for short
periods and still produce healthy bees but open brood, especially capped brood,
needs the 94o +/- to incubate, molting through several stages to become an adult
honey bee.
Heat lost by the beekeeper opening the hive for anything other than to make a
quick check on food will cause the colony to suspend efforts to raise brood and
produce heat instead. It may also cause the bees to tighten up cluster to conserve
heat leaving some brood outside the cluster's protection where it will chill and die
harming colony growth.
Anything you need to do inside a hive when it is less than 70o outside should be
done as quickly as possible. When brood is chilled it dies and that will set your
colony's growth back. Get in and get out in seconds, not minutes.
Moisture is another key to raising brood in a bee hive. That heat mentioned above
is usually heavy with moisture and letting the heat out lets the moisture out too. Even
if it is warm out, 70o, if it is a windy day the wind will siphon the moisture away and dry
brood dies. Get in and get out quickly.
If you are going to reverse hive bodies do not dawdle.
Take the outer cover off then lay the colony on its
back. Pry the bottom board off, scrape debris off it and
put it back on the stand.
Take a box or bucket along to scrape the trash from
the bottom board into so you do not end up with it
ground into your shoe treads and taken home for the
house cleaner to get upset about.
Break the two brood boxes apart and put the top box on the bottom board.
OPTION #1
At this point you can leave the hive as one deep by putting the outer cover on the
top box on the bottom board. You can then take the bottom box back to your shop
to repair or replace frames, maybe paint it. In a day or two, you do not want to wait
too long, take the refurbished bottom box back and put it on top of the top box for
the bees to move up into.
If you have a spare, already refurbished brood box you can take it along and put it on
the top box and take the original bottom box back to work on.
OPTION #2
Otherwise, pop the inner cover loose from the top box now sitting on the bottom
board, set the bottom box on the top box and put inner and outer covers on the hive
and you are done.
2013 Meeting Schedule
Saturday, April 20, 9:00 a.m. to Noon, Christo's Banquet Hall in Plymouth
Saturday, May 18, 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., Lehman farm in Middlebury
Saturday, June 15, 9:00 a.m. to noon, Carol Shaw's in Granger.
Saturday, July 20, 9:00 a.m. to noon, Tim Ives' in North Liberty.
Saturday, August 17, 9:00 a.m. to noon, VanZile's in Union, Michigan.
10.
September to be announced.
Saturday, October 12, 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m., Nelson's Port-A-Pit in Wakarusa.
Saturday, November 2, 9:00 a.m. to noon, Nappanee Public Library.
Making your own supers is not too difficult and can save you
money. Joints can be easy or complicated. Commercially made
supers usually have box joints as seen in #1, possible but not easy to do
on a table saw. #2 is a rabbet joint, much easier to make in the home
shop. #3 is a simple butt joint, the simplist but the weakest joint. The
butt joint would not survive long in a commercial operation but would be
adequate for a back yard beekeeper with 2 or 3 hives. If possible avoid
cupped boards as in “A”. The sides are more likely to split and the joints
where supers meet may not fit well. If you insist on using cupped
boards, use them as you see here with the bow out in the center. If you
use bar clamps for assembling and long screws you may get a fair joint
but there is always the chance of further warping and cracks for wax
moth and other pests to enter the hive.
11.