SPRING TIME

Some of our hives will winter quite well only to come up with a queen that may have died or become a drone layer in March. This is a very disappointing experience as the hive may be strong and full of honey. What can be done? It is usually inadvisable to introduce a mated queen to a drone laying hive or one that has been queenless for an unknown period of time. Under these circumstances it is best to combine the hive with another. Usually there will be one of your hives that will be weak but is headed by a fertile young laying queen that can be used to combine with the queenless/drone layer/ laying worker hive.

If the hive is weak with just a frame or so of bees with a drone laying queen or is queenless or having a laying worker the hive probably is not worth combining with another. The best thing is to shake the bees from each of the frames in front of another hive and remove the equipment from the apiary. It is not necessary to find and kill the drone laying queen. Once the hive has been dequeened of the drone laying queen or identified as having a laying worker it may be combined with another hive having a vigorous laying queen and as little as handful of worker bees. The best procedure is to move the stronger hive to the location of the weaker hive and place the hive containing the queen on top of the queenless hive. Reduce the number of boxes on the queenless hive to one. Add some syrup in a feeder to the box containing the queen and add any honey from the queenless hive if it is needed. Use a sheet of newspaper between the two hives cutting a 2" slot in the newspaper with your hive tool near the center of the cluster of the lower hive. The new queen will usually be safe as there are enough of her bees around her that she is readily protected from the other hive. Not moving her location will also help keep her workers present. Putting her on top will force her workforce to travel through the new bees and help them get acquainted. Usually the two hives will not fight and kill each other with this type of system. The two hives will combine and begin looking like a good hive in a week or so. Sometimes the two hives will continue as separate units until you remove the newspaper so it is advisable to check back in about a week to verify that the two have combined and the queen is laying.

Your first inspections should start once there is good flight activity and you observe bees with loads of pollen returning to the hive. Find the frames in the hive having some brood and separate them from the others. Inspect the frames for sealed worker brood. If the brood has a few or many bulging cells the queen is likely failing having used up all of her stored semen. Carefully inspect the cells to make certain there are not drone sized cells mixed in with worker cells. Sometimes there will be some drone cells mixed into the worker cells especially in old comb. When a queen is failing many worker cells will have drone brood in them. The larval stage will have the brood overfilling the cell and the sealed brood will have a bulging rounded cell cap rather than the flat slightly domed cap of worker brood. When a queen is just starting to fail there will be a mixture of worker and drone brood (in worker cells) together. Find the queen and kill her. If there are many eggs in each worker cell and you have sealed bulging cells in the worker cells you probably have a laying worker. Again your inspections must be thorough as often a small cluster of bees will have the queen laying more than one egg in a cell but the sealed worker brood will look like normal worker brood. To conclude that you have a laying worker or drone laying queen the brood must show bulging larva in worker cells or bulging sealed worker cells.

Spring Feeding of Bees This is a large topic with a wealth of excellent articles written about feeding of bees in the spring. I encourage you to read as much as you can and experiment with your bees to learn what works the best for you. The internet has a wealth of good information about feeding with a lot of individual experience that is usually filled with ideas that are new and often novel. Many different types of feeders are available. All have advantages and disadvantages. Many of us just use the division board feeder that is similar in size to a deep or western frame and sits in the hive like a frame. The commercially available plastic division board feeder takes a space equivalent to two frames to allow sufficient space for the feeder. A standard 10 frame box will then have 8 frames and the division board feeder in it. The feeder will hold 3+/-qts of feed depending upon whether it is bulging out or in. These feeders like to fill up with water if you are using migratory covers and the feeder is in the top box. The bees also tend to drown in the feed if you don't provide material for the bees to climb on while they are feeding.

Using 1 gallon jars with lids that have been perforated with a nail inverted above the top frames within an empty deep box works very well as a feeder. These are placed directly above the cluster spaced above the frames with 3/8" thick sticks spacing the lid above the frames. The bees will take feed from these at a rate depending upon the number of small holes you place in the lid. The holes must be small enough that the syrup does not run out. Use a 3 to 5 d nail (frame nail) just perforating the lid. Put a half dozen for slow feeding and 20 or so for fast feeding. You can Making your own division board feeders with masonite sides and also use old 1 gallon paint cans or brand new 1 gallon cans that pine edges is popular with many commercial beekeepers. These you can buy from paint dealers. This method controls the feed delivery rate, protects and retains the quality of the feed, does not tend to be smaller in capacity than the plastic division board kill any bees, will be accessed by the bees even during cold rotfeeders but seem to have less problem with drowning bees or ten weather and is inexpensive to implement. I think this is the with rain water entering and ruining feed. They fit better in the hives not tending to bulge out with the pressure of the feed. You best method of feeding for small beekeepers can find plans for these in the many of the bee books and on the Another popular method is large plastic soda pop bottles that are internet. placed with the lid in a hole in your beehive lid. These will just have a small number of holes and are not good for feeding large The division board feeders must be removed from the hive during the honey flow or the bees will build comb in the feeder and quantities of feed fast but will work well for stimulative feeding. fill it with honey. Removing this comb so you can put your feed The problem with this type feeder is the sun warms the air in the (Continued on page 6) in later is not much fun. very foul with dead bees and fermented moldy feed. I have been using wood floats and they help a little but not much. Some use straw, crumpled up chicken wire, wood shavings, etc. Manufacturers claim that the coarse surface prep on the inside saves bees and it may, they also claim special plastic bumps on the exterior surface keep out water and water still gets in. While these feeders are expedient for commercial operators I think there are better methods for small beekeepers.