Bee Chronicles Dec 2014

December, the watching month. Bad stuff has already started. Folks are reporting “winter die off”. I have experienced that myself. But, I don’t know what it is. To me there are three things that can kill your bees in a sneaky fashion. Traceo mites, Varrroa mites, and nosema ceranea. I can only recommend treat for mites, treat for mites, treat for mites. If you have any questions, “Treat For Mites”.

Nosema ceranea in sneakier. I still don’t know what symptoms to look for. You should use fumigilian B in syrup feed to fight it. It is a prophylactic so treat before you have symptoms. Or don’t treat. I have seen recommendations that say treat but treat more than the instructions say and I have seen advice, that if you get nosema ceranea you bees are dead anyways no matter what you do. I treat. I put fumigilian B in my syrup all fall long. I don’t use it so heavily in the spring. I do treat any new bees that I purchase. It has to be in the honey that the bees are eating and feeding to the queen and larvae.

Some folks say the treatments are expensive. Yes. Some folks worry about the fall/winter/spring syrup being expensive. Yes. Some folks worry about the price of bees being expensive. Yes. Did I clarify that? Seriously this is a major problem we are facing with bees today.

Bees that make it through the winter should expand fast next spring allowing you to split some hives, perhaps replacing the ones you loose without “buying” more.

Then you spend all of next year trying to learn techniques that will prevent a repeat. But do any questions really get a firm positive answer?

I personally just keep trying.

There is not much you can do now that the cold weather has settled in. Apilife Var is a good mite treatment that may work since it is inside the hive and close to the bee cluster. There are many flying days left in the winter so the clusters will expand and contract making the treatment available to the bees.

Oxolic acid is still available as an in hive fumigant for mites, wax moths, and adult hive beetles.

For nosema, I have heard of another way to get it into the bees. Since it might be too cold to make honey from the syrup, you might mix it very well into a sugar patty or mix it with powdered sugar and place that near the bees. Maybe more bees will eat the medicated syrup than would be involved with turning syrup into honey and eating that. So enough bees might get treated to allow the colony to survive the winter.

If you are going to loose a colony because the cluster is too small, you can try combining the weak hive with a strong hive. You forfeit a queen doing that, but maybe the bees will strengthen the stonger colony ensuring it will survive. Maybe the two clusters don’t combine and a) you have two clusters in the hive and the small one dies anyway or b) the strong hive fights the weak on and they don’t combine, but enough bees died in the fight that both clusters die off. Or, maybe it works. One never knows until they try.

Another technique is to stack one hive on top of another hive. You have to have your imagination working here. Put the weaker hive on top because the little bit of heat produced will rise. Using screened bottom boards, place #8 hardware cloth (screen) on the underside of the bottom board. You now have two layers of screen separated by the 7/8 inch of wood of the bottom board. Remove the telescoping cover and the inner cover of the stronger hive. Place the new double screened bottom board on the top of the strong hive as if it were the cover. Now set the weak hive body (without a bottom board) on the double screen bottom board on top of the strong hive. This will create a pile of wood work like this from bottom to top. Bottom board, strong hive body, double screened bottom board, weak hive body, inner cover, then telescoping cover. Each hive has a separate entrance to come and go. Also a separate entrance to place a feeder if you desire. Internal feeding gets a little harder because you need two feeders on two levels separated by the double screened bottom board. I recommend reducing both entrances and closing the lower bottom board, mostly because it is winter and it will help reduce wind. You might be inclined to turn the upper weak hive body backwards so both doors are not on the same side. This would be okay.

One thing you will notice in all your hives is that the bees will congregate on the side facing the sun. The queen will also start laying eggs on that side next spring. Think about it, that is the warmest location in the hive.

Now if you are using entrance feeders that are not on the warmest side of the hive, will the bees move that extra 6” for the syrup? Probably not, especially it they are weak. Similarly, would it be a good idea to staple black (dark) material (plastic, paper, etc) on the two best solar heated sides (Southeast and south), to add heat to the hive. It probably would not hurt as long as good ventilation was maintained.

Now Go Forth and enjoy Christmas.