Preparing Beehives for Vermont Winter

source: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Vermontbees/
Dave Cain & Nancy Turner
Waitsfield, VT

"We live in central Vermont and winters are long and cold here. The first year or two we kept bees we put an extra shallow on top of the inner cover with a screen stapled to the bottom and filled with dry wood shaving as a moisture absorber. That seemed to work fine, but then we heard about the method shown here."

Series of photos – Two Slide Shows
1. Insulating top of hive with rigid foam board... "routed channel provides a flue, or passageway, for moisture and air to vent while the insulation helps to hold in warmth."
http://web.me.com/decthree/Wrapping_bees/Insulating.html
2. Wrapping hive with tar paper... "not much too it. I use a stapler to fix the paper to the wood. It holds well through the winter and comes off easily in the spring."
http://web.me.com/decthree/Wrapping_bees/Wrapping.html

Response to Starving Bees from Steve Parise

Sorry I haven't got back to you all sooner; I have been on annual leave.

I am assuming that the colonies are normal otherwise, that is they have queens, a good population and are not under heavy disease or mite stress. It is certainly possible for bees to have eaten up much of their stores with the prolonged spell of wet weather. This is especially true of Italian colonies. If they are indeed pulling out worker brood (drone brood starts to get pulled around this time of year anyway), then immediate feeding is necessary.

Go with a 2:1 sugar to water, top feed (avoid entrance feeders as this will promote robbing), with the feeder well protected from the weather and other bees. Make sure all extra supers are off the hives. This may have to go on for quite awhile, as they will need 50-60 pounds ideally, to make it through the winter. Let me know if you have other questions.

Regards,
Steve

Stephen G. Parise
Agriculture Resource Management Specialist/apiculturist
Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets
116 State Street
Montpelier, VT 05620-2901

Phone: 802.828.2431
E-mail: steve.parise@state.vt.us

Dead Bees on the Entrance

Hi West River Beekeepers,

After talking to a beekeeper friend who told me that one of her hives was starving, I went home to check on mine, and sure enough, my newest hive was starving. A pile of dead bees was on the Entrance board, and when I went in, a very small number of live ones!!! I immediately started feeding my three newest hives corn syrup. The rest of my hives had little to no honey stores but were plentiful with bees.

On the starving hive, I noticed a bunch of larva-like worms among the dead bees. They were alive and I am not sure if this is the clean up from the cannibalization or what. I scraped them away and there was activity coming and going. The other two weak hives were OK, but no great critical mass of bees or food. We shall see. I don't think there will be any honey for harvest this year. Drat!

Please comment. Thanks, Happy Acres

Help! Query from a beginning West River Valley beekeeper

I received this query today in an e-mail message from a friend. Please respond: any helpful comments will be appreciated.

"...since everyone is talking about harvesting honey we went into the top super to see if there was any honey. A week or so ago there seemed to be a lot of bees in that super, but today although there were a lot of bees there is NO comb. I have been feeding and they are eating the sugar water very quickly. Would you assume that our hive is having trouble maintaining like what we hear of others? Our plan at this point is to feed and leave everything for the bees to have this winter. Tell me what you think?

A little discouraging. We didn't venture to the broods........."

Bees Starving!!

Just wanted to alert other beekeepers that I and another local beekeeper have had bees starving for lack of stores,.....yes, in the middle of summer!
A few weeks ago I noticed dead bees on the entrance of a nuc. When I checked them they had no honey in the frames and they were cannibalizing the brood. They were desperate! I immediately started feeding them sugar syrup, and things turned right around,...they're doing fine now. I checked my other hives & nucs and found some others that were out of stores, too.

Yesterday another local beekeeper called me saying they had a hive with many bees dying, and when I got over there it turned out they were starving, too.
It seems the ones most likely to be on the verge of starving are the hives I made up in the spring or later with frames of capped brood/honey/ pollen. The weather has been so rainy, and we're into the summer nectar dearth, so the bees with little stores have had to consume all they had just to survive, leaving them precariously low, or entirely out of stores.

So I just wanted to let other folks know, and you might want to check your hives and feed any that are light.
Hopefully the fall flows of goldenrod and bamboo (japanese knotweed) will be good.
Good luck!
Denny

Beehive cameo

An apple orchard in bloom is a nice place to bee.

There's a hive about three minutes into Five Minutes in Miller's Orchard, starring Dwight Miller, Jr., of Dummerston, Vermont.



By Tegote

There are Hungry Bears in These Hills!!

A black bear saunters out of the woods and starts flirting with the edges of a yard. This Vermont bear is hungrier and bolder than usual because beech nuts and other favorite foods have become scarce this spring. The animal spots, most likely smells, a bird feeder in the yard and eventually works up enough courage to knock it down with its massive claws and starts eating. While there, the bear smells something equally delicious. Ah, the sweet juicy smell of HONEYBEES!

Does this scenario sound familiar to you? It does to a lot of us.

Last week, I was awakened at 2:10 am by a strange sound on the deck outside my bedroom window, followed by a chorus of intense alarm barking from our dogs. At the sliding glass door, I saw in the moonlight a medium large black bear standing upright on two legs and holding the handrail of the gate in its front paws, as if trying to open it. Even though I had remembered to bring in our sunflower seed bird feeder, I had forgotten about the hummingbird feeder, and the little pile of thistle seed! The dogs and I made a lot of scary noises and the bear retreated back into the woods. I had trouble going back to sleep that night from worrying about our bees.

Happy news in the morning! The hive was safe and happy. (Of course our hive lives in a "Safety X-treme" bee yard designed and constructed last year with the assistance of a VT Game Warden, and the many lessons learned from several bear attacks over the years, but that is another story.) This very hungry bear returned about 2 am every night for the next four nights, although its presence was sensed only by the dogs.

PLEASE whatever you do, bring your bird feeders inside each night, or stop feeding them all together. And please add a comment to this post, you can do so even if you are not a member. Let the rest of us know where the bears are active in your neighborhood, and what you are doing to keep your bees safe.

Be a Bee Blogger. Thanks

What has happened to these bees?

Happy Acres wanted to post the following photos of the frames from one of his hives that died over the winter. Notice the circles of dead bees. The bees in the center look dark as if they were burned. Notice the white substance around them as well. Does anyone have any ideas as to what might have caused this?

Please make a comment below. Thanks.

In you go

Well, I put the two packages in yesterday as today's weather was uncertain. Alas, today did have some fair moments. They seem to be doing well. I gave each of them a "global patty" of pollen which I purchased at Betterbee.

I was able to send Carol the pictures of the one sick hive and I will try again to send them with this note.

Mite Control

I have an old Navy buddy down in Kentucky that is also a struggling beekeeper. He was up here about three years ago and found me working at the problem and now we trade tidbits when we can.

I told him about the bottom screens to reduce mites. They have been using that method for years but don't put anything below the screen. I'm sure their weather is warmer and the season longer so they just leave the hive bottom open.

Something else they do is put a paper towel saturated with vegetable oil on top of the upper super. The theory is that the bees try to rid the hive of the trash and in the process coat themselves in oil that repels the mites. He says it seems to help.

Has anyone heard of such a thing?

Another thing he is trying is starting with a larger package when he starts a new colony.

Bud

Opening Day

Greetings All,

I guess this is my entry into blogosphere! I was able to come home for an hour today and opened up my three hives. Two did not make it and one did. If I had pre planned I would have invited anyone to come by to join. Sometimes it seems I forget everything from season to season! So the middle hive which was struggling with laying workers and did not make a queen in spite of Denny's efforts to introduce other brood with the hope of them raising a queen was dead. It was rather messy with some odd patterns of dead bees and black rings of dead ones. I took some pictures and will try to attach them. Some of the honey was loose and drippy and over all it was a mess. My question is should I scrap all the yucky foundation off and put them in once cleaned or just remove the dead bees and the parts that are moldy? Also some of the foundation is glistening with either water or perhaps honey. Again, remove it all or let the new batch take care of it. On the bottom board were several 1/2 inch white worms or larva. Yuck. I scraped them out and left the bottom board to get some sun to kill what ever might be there.
The other hive was dead but none of the odd stuff found in the middle hive. The one hive that made it had robbed the honey but I figured that was OK. This hive will not need much cleaning before I put a package in.
The hive that made it look OK with decent activity. I did not see any brood except for a couple of larvae in between the two supers and a few drone cells. I did see one queen cell but did not have time to look for her. I hope she is there! I do hope this one begins to take off. I removed the one honey super that I left on and some of the bees were either making it or storing what they had robbed, The comb looked new.
The delivery of my two packages from Better Bee has been delayed again with the delivery for next Friday. I got a note card indicating such as well as a phone message. It was said that the weather is poor and very windy for shaking.

So I will try to post the pictures and let me know what you think. If anyone is interested in coming by when I open them again let me know and I will post when I will do this. I am hoping to take off the first full week in May to get my garden in order.

Many thanks in advance for reading and your feed back. Again, I would be most pleased to host a bee gathering at my place any time.

Best,

Christopher

P.S. I can't figure out how to get to the pictures I took today. I need remedial help!

Quick Update on the New Bees

Everything seems to be settling down to work as usual. A lot of pollen carriers coming home loaded out.

I took Denny's advice and added the second brood box of mostly new foundation frames to give them something to work with. That has solved the wild comb building in the empty feeding chamber. I peeked in today to check if they needed any more syrup. Seems they are not taking as much as last week. They are only taking about half of a pint every couple of days.

When is it OK to pull the feeder and let them fend for themselves? Is that the time to put on a honey super with the excluder? It seems that there must be a tipping point from needing food to storing food. That point eludes me.

We could not ask for better weather to get the new hive started. I feel good about the prospects. Our apples are just starting to show some pink up here. No dandelions yet though.

Bud

Denny's bees...

This spring weather is really warming up and of course the bees are building up fast now. I just finished going through all my hives, taking note which queens are doing best, and there are some that need new queens. I'm going to order some Carniolan queens from Koehnen & Sons, Calif.

http://www.koehnen.com/queens.html

I've had good luck with their queens in the past, and another beekeeper in the village has a very strong hive headed by a Koehnen Carniolan introduced into her hive last year. Here's a photo of it at the beginning of April.... right in the middle under the bees is a pollen patty I had given her... the bees all over it. I feed within an empty chamber.

Last year I had a bottom mounted Sundance Pollen trap on a hive and gathered 5 or 6 quarts of pollen, which I froze and used in my pollen patty mix this spring, and gave all the hives a series of pollen patties beginning around the first week of March. It really helps kick start the brood rearing, especially for those clusters that don't happen to be parked near any frames with pollen. It's also good to give them sugar syrup, 1:1 ration of sugar to water.

The pollen patty recipe I use is ... equal parts of feed grade Brewer's Yeast and Mann Lake "Bee Pro", ...then add to that between 15-20% bee pollen by weight, 1 tablespoon olive oil, add some honey from my bees, and enough 1:1 sugar syrup mixed in until the consistency is like peanut butter.  I paddle out fistful portions and squish between wax paper, ... here's a patty ...notice the bee pollen pellets within.

This supplemental spring feeding will help your bees build up for the early flows such as Black Locust which have that light colored wonderful, elegant honey which doesn't crystallize quickly.

Right now the Red Maples and Willow should be giving the bees some good pollen.

I hope your bees are all doing well in the warm spring weather.

Also, here's a great beekeeping forum that I've found to be a great resource... http://www.beesource.com/forums/index.php

More later..

Denny

Organic Approaches to Apiculture offer promising results

Todd Hardie of Honey Gardens Apiaries in Ferrisburgh, VT, is a lifelong beekeeper and part of the challenging, yet exciting and hopeful, effort to develop holistic beekeeping practices. He is featured in Jan Cannon's new film, "Health & the Hive: A Beekeeper's Journey." http://www.jancannonfilms.com/honeybee.htm

Ross Conrad of Dancing Bee Gardens in Middlebury is the author of the newly released book, "Natural Beekeeping." http://dancingbeegardens.com/Books.php

Call Dover Free Library (348-7488) to see if their copy of the book is currently available.

Ross also appears in the film "Health & the Hive."