E-training blog

Inspecting your hives

I can’t improve on the NBU’s advice – so here it is.

 Before inspecting, familiarise yourself with the differences in appearance between healthy brood and diseased brood. Consider bringing a smartphone with you into the apiary to assist with identification.

• Wear a clean bee-suit and have a lit smoker close to hand. Make sure the smoker is placed in a safe location away from meltable items such as polystyrene, or dry vegetation that might catch fire.

• Inspect the ground outside the entrance and the removeable Varroa floor (if inserted) for signs of dead/diseased bees or brood; the nurse bees will remove some of them from the hive (Figure 22).

• Remove the hive roof and place it upturned on the ground behind the hive, close to where you are working. Place it so that it does not block your exit route or constitute a trip hazard if you need to leave the hive for a moment.

• If there are supers on the hive, place them on top of the upturned roof. Keep the crown board over the supers to prevent robbing.

• Be gentle when prizing the boxes apart, banging or bumping them will aggravate the bees.

• Remove the queen excluder and check the underside for the queen. If she is present, place her back into the colony, or into a queen-cage for safekeeping for the duration of the inspection. Place the queen excluder upturned on the supers.

• If you have two brood boxes, place the top brood box above the queen excluder on the supers while you inspect the bottom box (the queen excluder will prevent the queen from escaping from the underside of the brood box).

• To begin inspecting a brood box, gently remove the outer most frame (or dummy board) closest to you, being careful not to roll the bees against the side of the box as you lift the frame out. Check that the queen is not on it before putting the frame aside so that you can operate inside the brood box.

• Use your hive tool to gently prize apart frames that are stuck together. A gentle approach is recommended to prevent aggravating the bees. Examine each frame in series, one at a time, placing it back into the box in the same orientation it was in when you took it out; but leaving space to lift out the next frame without rolling the bees.

• Methodically examine one frame at a time. When you find a frame of brood, it will be necessary to shake off the bees if you wish to inspect the brood. This will allow a thorough examination, to look for signs of disease and to find swarm cells.

• To shake off bees hold the frame by both lugs, lower the frame one third the way into the hive and give the frame a sharp downward jolt into the hive, being careful not to bang it against the box or other frames. It may take some practice to do this in a way that clears most of the bees from the frame.

• Check that all stages of brood are present. If there are no eggs and young larvae, this indicates a problem with the queen.

• Carefully check that the brood cells look healthy. Larvae should be ‘C’ shaped and pearly white and capped cells should be dry and biscuit coloured. Read the foulbrood advisory leaflet to learn more about brood diseases.

• Check the frames for signs of queen cells. It is important to learn the difference between swarm cells and emergency queen cells and act accordingly.

• Consider photographing anything that you are concerned may be abnormal. You can study the photos carefully indoors and show it to a mentor if you have concerns.

• Continue until all frames have been examined and gently reassemble the hive. Do not forget to return the queen to the hive if you have caged her during the inspection and to place the last frame (or dummy board) back into the hive so that all the frames have the correct bee spacing. Be careful to replace the queen excluder back in the correct orientation.

June Gap & Swarms

You may have heard about the June Gap – this refers to the period after the end of the flush of Spring blossoms and the beginning of later flowering trees and plants. The so-called “gap” will vary from place to place according to the local micro-climate and soils; and from year to year. The beekeeper needs to be vigilant: not only surveying the local landscape and gardens but also recognising what is happening in each colony. At the end of May I found two colonies that were falling very low on stores of nectar so have already given them a boost of liquid feed. Whilst at the same time, a mile and a half away at home I have a colony with a super nearly full of capped and uncapped honey.

At the same time as possible dearth of food, I have been looking out for signs of swarming and started to consider taking preventive action. Swarming is the natural impulse for a honeybee colony to reproduce by splitting itself in half – or as beekeepers say ‘losing half their bees’.

There are several actions for the beekeeper to take if he or she wants to keep all their bees.

  • Make sure that there is sufficient space for the burgeoning colony to develop. The Queen needs space to lay her eggs and can’t do so if the brood box is full of stores – add a super either as an additional brood box below the existing brood box [to give more space of laying eggs or above the Queen excluder to take more nectar and honey.
  • Check for Queen cups and Queen cells. Don’t unthinkingly destroy all the cups and cells. First, the bees will start rebuilding them as soon as you turn your back. Also it may well be that the colony has decided that it needs a new Queen ie supercedure.
  • Make a split. Read Wally Shaw’s booklet An Apiary Guide to Swarm Control.

Jobs for the month

  • Weekly inspections – looking out for Queen cups and cells
  • Check for disease – European Foul Brood has been reported in the Neath area
  • Check for level of Varroa infestation
  • Consider whether you can take off a Spring honey harvest

Guidance

NBU guidance on Varroa

May bursts onto the scene

The spring blossoms have been and gone. The first two days of May have been like summer. Indeed at 15:00 the first swarm of the year (for me) arrived in my garden. The previous day I had witnessed a lot of activity around the stack of boxes just on the other side of the fruit cage to my single hive at the top of my garden. Hardly worth the name of an Apiary though I have had three hives there in previous years.

As the brood box was stacked between two supers and the bees were exploring a hole in one corner of the brood box (should have repaired that by now) I twisted the brood box so that entry under the corners would be easier. I did not have time to move the brood box onto a stand and floor last night as I twisted my back doing this manipulations without my suit on (always a mistake). So this afternoon I had to watch helplessly as the swarm took up residence in the wrong place.

This is a timely reminder to continue the weekly inspections I started in April. I was lucky to find that all five colonies had survived the winter without the ravages of moth wax which many beekeepers suffered last season. The colonies were Queenright, evidenced by the biscuit coloured sealed brood. No queen cells.

Now in May the likelihood of swarming is increasing and it is important to check your hives regularly for the early signs of swarming. And don’t forget to be keeping a lookout for the health of the colony.

Spring feeding

I’ve just taken off all the feeders in my apiaries and rearranged any remnants of fondant so that the bees will clear this away. No inspections yet but I sneaked a quick view when treating for varroa, dribbling Varoamed up and down each seem where the bees were visible. I’ve not tried this treatment before and used a tray of Apiguard in one hive so I can make some sort of comparison.

Making an inspection of the activity at the hive entrance will give you some guide to the activity going on inside the colony. It’s difficult to tell whether bees are returning with nectar but it is a wondrous sight when they return with bulging pollen bags on their hind legs. This may be an indication that the Queen has started laying and there are pupae to be fed.

My aim in feeding is to give the winter bees the energy to go out foraging as well as feeding the emerging workforce. Lynfa Davies offers a word of caution, because you don’t want to trigger too rapid a growth. She says that this can result in colonies swarming as soon as the weather warms up.

If you live in or pass through the countryside keep your eyes open for the flowers that are emerging. Blackthorn is the first to show in my part of Gower and on the hills by me there is plenty of gorse which honeybees use their magic to make them explode in a cloud of pollen as well as the steady working of catkins of various sorts.

Spring Equinox

The headlines announce that this Spring Equinox is the warmest since 1972. As a human this seems good news with the threat of a late frost diminishing, lighter evenings and the first blossoms on Blackthorn. For honeybees it is just another day.

Some YouTube beekeepers talk fulsomely of bees welcoming the equinox and longer days with increased activity; but there are no sudden changes caused by increased light. What really affects them is warmth and the appearance of Spring flowers full of pollen and nectar. As the winter bees make foraging flights for the first time in many months the Queen is triggered into laying new brood which will become the new generation of 2025. The old winter bees will straggle back to the hive with their loads of nectar and pollen for a few more weeks and then they will be declared redundant as their places are taken by the new generation. April will see a spectacular increase in the number of bees in each colony and activity in each hive will be positively buzzing.

Have a good Spring!

The Apiary in March

As you get more experienced and the more you talk to other beekeepers in the Society you will realise that the start of the beekeeping year begins at very different times according to your local microclimate. So whatever I tell you my advice must be adapted to your local conditions.

March is usually the first respite we get from the cold spells we endure in February. Of course, just when we think the weather has broken we suffer a late frost. If you have been feeding your bees last month, your colonies may still need some extra food.

My advice is always think about what you are going to do. Ask yourself why are you doing it. There are different reasons for feeding your bees. If the Queen is laying and the workers cannot find much pollen then you will need a fondant pollen replacement feed. If your aim is to feed the worker bees to enable them to fly then a proprietary feed like Ambrosia can be fed or a 1:1 sugar feed made up for them.

If the weather is approaching 15ºC on a sunny day then you may take a a Quick Look in the hive. Again why are you doing this? You may want to check whether the Queen is laying and that there are still sufficient stores available.

APIARY JOBS:

  • Tidy up apiary.
  • Clip hedging.
  • Repair fencing.
  • Check stands are still secure

FURTHER ADVICE:

Queen excluder & mouse guard

During the Spring and summer I consider that all the boxes above the Queen Excluder are mine but everything below belongs to the bees. I have to pay attention to all of the colony and monitor the health of the bees.

In the winter the whole hive belongs to the winter bees and they need to be able to range across all the frames including the super you have left on top of the brood, full of honey or sugar syrup. Most of the time the winter bees remain in a tight cluster which moves its position to where there is food. The movement of individual bees is kept to a minimum – they will make journeys to the super and will take down syrup or fondant. If the cluster should move above the queen excluder then the queen will be left behind and starve. REMOVE the queen excluder now before you forget to. It also gives you the opportunity to give the queen excluder its annual clean (and if it is in a wooden frame – a quick repair).

This summer I found a sweet little field mouse had made its nest in some old supers with frames. It had made a bundle of leaves right in the centre of the frames ruining them for future use. Lesson learnt, I have already removed the entrance blocks I had inserted to help prevent robbing whist I fed the bees and inserted the mouse guards fixing them in place with map pins – they are much easier to remove in the Spring, especially when wearing gloves..

I am still feeding three of my colonies – the two splits which were slow to make increase and the swarm which is still only on 6 frames. It is not too late to unite them.

Next time: WAX MOTH

Winter Bees & Varroa

WINTER BEES Between August and November the queen will start to lay eggs that will develop into winter bees. By the end of November all the bees in the hive will be winter bees. These will take the colony through to spring and are sometimes called diutinus bees from the Latin for ‘long lived’. They will live for up to six months. The winter worker bees are physically distinct becauseof their enlarged fat bodies. This has a special function of producing large amounts of a protein called vitellogenin. This egg-yolk like protein is added to brood food which enables bees to live longer.

These bees will only develop into healthy long-lived bees if there is enough feed available during their development and that they have not been weakened by Varroa.

Treating for Varroa There is much written about treating bees for Varroa and different methods come into favour and then dismissed. Some beekeepers completely disparage the use of chemical treatments in their hives, relying on the natural ‘hygienic behaviour’ of their particular breed of honey bees.

The management of varroa is aa all-year activity. The aim of treatment is to keep the level of mite infestation to a low level where harm to the health of the colony is kept to a minimum. It is arguable that treatment at this time of year is the most effective time since the size of brood is reduced. 

The first thing to be done is assess the level of varroa infestation you have in each colony. Only then can you decide what needs to be done. Put the varroa board into the slot at the back of the hive floor and leave for a few days – no more than a week. It can then be inspected to see the level of varroa infestation. You can then decide on whether treatment is needed. If you can count 10-30 mites then action is needed – now.

More on Varroa and its treatment – Lynfa’s podcast

Also read Kirsty Stanton article – Varroa management in honey bee colonies, page 32 Welsh Beekeeper, Summer 2024.

Next time: DOC discusses Queen excluders and mouse guards

Feeding bees – autumn feeding

If you have removed most of the hive’s honey then you have removed the colony’s winter larder. Can they replenish their stores or should you feed them?

As we leave September behind us and October tempts us to think there is some mild weather ahead, we should give careful thought to whether each colony has sufficient food stored away to see the bees through the winter. Ideally when the bees go into their winter cluster they should be surrounded by comb full of honey or syrup. It is not impossible to feed bees during the cold periods but expecting them to leave the cluster to visit a feeder is not realistic. The bees may completely ignore the fact that you have provided them with a reservoir of food. Indeed, bees often ignore the fact that there are frames of capped honey on the opposite side of the brood box. There is nothing more disheartening to find that the colony has died of starvation and yet there was ample food in the hive for them.

To feed or not to feed?

If you have taken off most of the honey crop from the hive then the answer is that you must feed them. They are unlikely to be able to store enough winter stores collected from Ivy, Himalayan Balsam of other autumn flowing plants. The choice is to use a manufactured liquid feed or a homemade diluted sugar feed.

Liquid feed can be made at home using white granulated sugar (see Wally Shaw’s recipe below) or by buying a commercially prepared syrup. My own preference is a commercial feed but this can be expensive. The two leading products are Ambrosia and Invertbee which comes in 12.5 or 14kg plastic jerry cans. They are easy to lift and carry over short distances but if your colonies are any distance over rough ground then decanting the syrup into smaller containers makes sense.

Q. How much feed should I give each colony? A. It is difficult to advise but my rule of thumb is buy one jerry can for each colony (then you should have some left over for the spring if it’s needed). Wally Shaw says that a colony needs about 2.3kg of stores/feed a week – so 35kg to take them up to Christmas. The more honey you already have on the colony the less you will need to supplement with syrup.

Q. When should I feed my bees? A. Now! If the weather is still warm enough to inspect your hives, you can see how many stores are in the brood and in any supers that you are leaving on the hive overwinter. Heft the hive – that is, lift up the hive from one side of the floor and get used to its weight. If the hive feels like it is glued to the ground then the bees have stored enough for the winter. You will be lucky to find yourself in this position. More likely it will feel quite light. Then you must feed them

Q. How do I feed my bees? A. There is a choice of feeders- an inverted bucket or a feeder with a lid. I prefer the latter – called a rapid feeder- mainly because you can see how much liquid feed the bees are taking down into the hive. Both of these feeders are placed on a crown board over its central hole. You need to put an empty super around the feeder and then the roof. You will need to check how quickly the feed is being used and top it up frequently. 

A word of warning

Two things to remember. 1. Feeding can lead to robbing if you have more than one hive in your apiary. 2. If you are leaving a super of stores above the brood you MUST remove the Queen Excluder. [It’s good practice to remove it in the autumn to give it a good clean before replacing it in the Spring.

Online advice: Feeding Bees by Wally Shaw

Next time: DOC talks about varroa and winter bees.

Preparing for winter

After you have removed the last honey harvest you will need to turn your attention to the nutritional needs of your bees over the winter.

The winter period starts at the end of August and continues until the end of December. Preparing the colony for winter is most important.There is much to consider. It can’t all be done in a single visit to the apiary.

  • A colony will need to be checked for disease – particularly the presence of varroa. If the varroa mite count is high then the colony needs to be treated.
  • The beekeeper wants each colony to be producing the majority of its winter bees when the varroa count is as low as possible to ensure that mites do not damage these long lived winter bees.
  • Bees die from damp and lack of food.They can usually withstand the cold.The colony needs through ventilation.
  • If you have a hive with a large brood chamber then it is possible to overwinter with just the brood box. With a National box it is better to have a super on the colony full of feed (ideally honey).
  • Preparing the colony for winter will include feeding to ensure there are enough stores. and also removing the queen excluder.
  • Mouse guards are put in place before any frosts to prevent mice and other small mammals hibernating in the colony.
  • Plastic bags or wire screens are needed where there are woodpecker problems. 

Online advice: The Beekeeping Year by Lynfa Davies

Next time: DOC talks about winter feeding.