Beekeeping 101 Bee Day

In our day-to-day activities and work in the hives, sometimes we forget to look at the big picture. So the bees are building up and doing well. If you were monitoring them and gave them lots of room they didn’t build or sneak any queen cells by you and there has been no swarming (Yes this is the month for swarms). But now we will go into a cooler time and the dandelion honey flow is almost over so there will be a small “dearth”. How do you want to handle it? One school of thought is don’t worry it will all work out and balance in the end and honey is not guaranteed, but you should always get some. Another school of thought is feed the bees even though there is lots coming in because they are raising a lot of brood and to slow that down or stop it would weaken the hive for the upcoming flow. Feed, “sugar”, its cheap compared to the nectar/honey the bees will be eating to produce wax and babies.

The main honey flow usually occurs June 25 through July 31. Sorry there is no indicator light and it can be early or late, long and slow or fast and short. There are no guarantees! Most beekeepers think it will be early this year and the rest will depend on the weather and moisture. Here is the Main Point… if the queen has not laid the egg by June 26 the bee will NOT be contributing to the main honey flow effort. Here is where most fail to maximize their honey yield, they end up with a hive with 35,000 bees during the flow, but could have had a hive at 70,000 bees during the flow. It has been proven that double the bees will produce 1 ½ times more honey. So if you want the honey, it is time to feed, especially when the weather turns cool and rainy.

What is done in the spring affects the whole season and “early” decisions will have a great impact on the bee’s success. So, we now have Bee Day, the day by which all the raising of bees for honey flow is over and I think that day is June 26.