Bee Chronicles October 2016

22 September. White Snakeroot is blooming. Lavender fall asters are starting to bloom. These are the signals for the end of fall nectar flow.

If you have been checking your hives you will notice the fall nectar flow has been minimal. The bees are eating their stored honey.

Two bad results form this. The queens stop laying eggs early and the hive runs out of food before January. Check up on emergency feeding procedures and how to recognize a starving hive before it dies.

Fondant cakes are one of the best emergency foods. Make in your kitchen and save it in the freezer. When the bees start to starve the don’t fly around because they are too weak. “No one coming and going” open the hive and see if the bees have food. They will be clustered, some heads in cells, and weak bees standing around shivering, even if it is warm. Don’t worry about busting the cluster. The bees will die if you don’t check them and feed them.

At the farmers’ market people have been asking for honey with cut comb in it. It might be worth trying to produce next year.

Thin sugar syrup will stimulate comb drawing.

Thick syrup will stimulate honey storage.

Regular bees have become more aggressive. This is because there is no nectar to collect and they are nervous.

As your hive colony gets weak kill that puny queen if she is still alive and combine the hive with another medium or weak hive. Add it to a strong hive if that is all you have. It is better to preserve the bees in a strong or super strong hive until next spring. The weak hive will probably die any way. Next spring you can split the super strong hive and add a queen. The super hive will grow population faster next spring allowing for an early split.

Any time a hive dies work to preserve the drawn comb. Don’t let the wax moths get to it. Para Moth crystals is a good way to do this. You can also put the comb in the freezer. It is too hard to draw comb. You will want it next spring to put a package of bees onto.

Keep your electric fences up and working. The bears are hungry and roaming farther and faster than normal. They need to put on fat for the winter. Bees are a wonderful snack. Know someone with a back hoe in case you need to shoot and bury fast. It is legal in GA to shoot bear harassing you live stock. Take pictures of the knocked over hives. You will want to set them up faster than the game warden can get to you. Remember bears will normally bust up some frames after they knock the hives over. Make sure that is in your pictures. Hope you don’t need that advice.