Brushy Mountain's Question of the Month: July

Question of the Month: Extracting 

This is the time of year when beekeepers are pulling off honey supers and uncapping their frames to extract. Beekeepers always want to know the best way to uncap their frames and what size extractor they will need. This deals with many personal decisions that we cannot make for you, however, here is some ‘food for thought’.

Let’s start with uncapping. The number of frames you are uncapping and the time you want to spend during this step is dependent upon the method you should proceed with. 

Using a Cappings Scratcher is an easy method to work small sections of capped honey at one time. Slide the forks underneath the comb at a horizontal angle and lift vertically to remove cappings. Many beekeepers will scrap the forks against the comb to open the cells.Please note this damages the comb and requires more cleanup from your bees.

A Cold/Hot Knife will slice away larger sections of capped honey from the frame. Place at a slight angle along the top and move down the frame in a sawing motion. Be careful not to ‘dig’ into the comb or tear apart the frame. The Cold Knife has a serrated blade and can stick if not kept clean. The Hot Knife is temperature sensitive and will melt away the wax. Preheat before use. A Cappings Scratcher may be needed for unevenly drawn out sections of the frame.

The Rolling Uncapper will roll over the capped honey and pierce the cappings. Allow the cappings to be pierced by pulling or pushing the Rolling Uncapper parallel to the frame. Do not push roller into the frame. Clean central bar if roller begins to resist in rotating.

If time is of importance, the Sideliner Uncapper is a quick and easy method. Run your frames through the roller blades and both sides of your frame will be uncapped. This does not require you to hold the frame and all the debris is caught in the container underneath the sideliner uncapper. A Cappings Scratcher may be needed for unevenly drawn out sections of the frame.

Let’s discuss extractors. Beekeepers new to the hobby are always excited about their first extraction but are unsure on how to proceed. Do I need an extractor? What size extractor should I get? Which is better, hand cranked or powered? There are three main questions you need to ask yourself and the answers will point to the extractor that best fits you.

How many hives do intend to have?
You do not want to outgrow the extractor. You may have five or ten hives currently but you are expecting to expand your bee yard to thirty hives. By the time you reach your thirty hives you do not want to look back and wish you got the bigger extractor.

What is your budget?<br> Let’s be realistic, an extractor is a large investment. There are different alternatives if an extractor isn’t in your budget. You may be able to borrow/rent an extractor from your local bee association; you can uncap and let the honey drain from the frames; you can strain your comb through cheese cloth; other methods are available. 

How do you value your time?
Extracting is not a ten minute process that will happen in an afternoon. Each extractor will hold an allotted amount of frames. The more frames an extractor will hold the less cycles you will need to run to extract the honey from the frames. Do you have time to run through thirty extractions on a compact extractor or would it be beneficial for you to run six on an 21-frame extractor.

We have developed a Extracting Chart that shows the amount of time needed to extract with each extractor. The time depicted is for running extractor and does not include time needed for uncapping, loading, unloading, and any other actions needed for extracting.

Time consumption for the extraction depends on the Extractor being tangential or radial. Tangential extractors seat frames parallel to the center and only extract one side during the spin cycle. Radial extractors seat frames perpendicular to the center and will extract both sides at once.

Anticipate the numbers you will have in the future before you purchase the extracting equipment you need. 

Brushy Mountain's "Back to Basics" June

Back to the Basics:  Moving Your Hive

Beekeepers will get their hives all setup and painted in a certain location, but sometimes it is not the desired location or they want to move their bees to a different area with a better honey flow.
Either way, sometimes it is necessary to move your hive.

Once bees become established in a certain location, they will go on orientation flights. They start off in small circle, flying back to the hive, and grow the circle until they are set on the location of the hive. Moving a hive will disrupt where the bees are oriented to and beekeepers can lose many foraging bees (Beekeepers hate losing bees!). If you intend to move your hive, we suggest following the rule of 3 (up to 3 feet or over 3 miles). If you move a hive across your 10 foot yard, the bees will return to where the hive was originally located.

If you are intending to move your hive, no matter how far, screen off the entrance the night before with hardware cloth. Your foraging bees will come back to the hive at night and will be leaving when the sun comes up. Screen off the entrance at night so you will be transporting all your bees (inevitably there will be a few stragglers left behind). Don't strain when moving your hive, use a hive carrier or a hive strap to make moving easier.

If you intend to move your hive across your yard or a short distance away from its original location, you must move it off site (over 3 miles away) for a week and then move it back to where you find more suitable. If you intend to move it to a separate location for a better/different honey flow, ensure that you are moving it further than 3 miles from its original location.



Wait... there is another way?
Sometimes it is difficult to continuously move your hive. 

If your desired location happens to be further than 3 feet and less than 3 miles (a.k.a. across the yard), you can use a different method. To trigger the bee’s orientation flight, the environment outside of the hive must be significantly different. Obstruct or impede the entrance to the hive with brush (grass, tree branches, straw, etc.) so that when the foraging bees leave the hive, they must crawl through the “brush” before they can fly. After a day, remove part of the brush and continue this process until all the brush is removed after three days. They will see the disturbance in the environment and reorient themselves.

It is best to leave the hive in its initial location. Moving the hive will hinder the bee’s production for days and cause stress within the colony. Also note that 10% of queens are lost when moving a hive. Set up the hive in an ideal location that will suit their needs as well as yours. 

Brushy Mountain's Question of the Month: June

Question of the Month

I went out to my hive and noticed a good portion of my bees were gone!!!I saw swarm cells last time I checked, but did not think they would swarm this late into the year. Now, I cannot find a queen anywhere to purchase!
What am I supposed to do with the remaining bees?

Swarming is always an issue a beekeeper must deal with.

• Be alert and add the needed supers when your bees require them (waiting too can allow your bees to become overcrowded).
• Be proactive and have a Cardboard NUC handy... just in case!
• If swarming does occur, there will be a daughter queen remaining with the bees that did not swarm. She will take over as queen of the hive.

The daughter queen will hatch a virgin and must go on a mating flight to become fertile. A mating flight will span the course of 2 – 3 days in which the queen will mate with 10 – 15 drones. If all goes well she will return to the hive and begin laying, in which you will begin to see eggs 1 -2 weeks after your bees swarmed.




As many of us have experienced, things never go well and we must prepare for all things to go wrong. 
Once your virgin queen goes on her mating flight, she may not return.

• A hungry bird, the windshield on a car and many other threats stand in her way.
• If the weather is not excellent, she may not be properly mated when she returns to the hive.

First, beekeepers must check and make sure there are eggs to ensure there is a queen in the hive; Second, you must check the brood pattern to see if she is properly mated. A poorly mated queen may have a spotty brood pattern with multiple empty cells rather than solid with few empty cells or she may be laying drone eggs. If everything appears to be ok, then you know your hive is queen right!

2 alternatives to make sure you come out with a queen right hive:

• If you find that you have a second hive that shows swarming tendencies, you can split that colony and use the queen cells to raise out a queen in the previously swarmed colony (in the case that the swarmed hive remains queenless after 1 – 2 weeks). This will alleviate swarming from your other hive and will give the swarmed colony a second chance at raising out a queen.
• The hive that has, or is about to swarm will develop multiple queen cells. Create aNUC from a separate hive and introduce a frame, with queen cells, from the swarmed hive into the NUC. This will double your chances of having a properly mated queen. If the Swarmed hive or the NUC produces a properly laying queen and the other does not, combine the hives with a NUC introduction board. If both show signs of a queen right colony, you now have a NUC to overwinter with. Great for running a 2 & 1/2 Hives. Larry Conner discusses the advantage of 2 & 1/2 hives in this webinar:

In the end, if you find eggs and the brood pattern looks good, you have a queen right hive.

Brushy Mountain's "Back to Basics" May

Back to the Basics

It is amazing to know that the honey bee will travel between 2 to 3 miles in search of nectar producing flowers. This distance for a bee to travel is extremely far. Would it not be more beneficial to have a flowering garden closer to home for the bees to pollinate and forage? But what flowering plants are the honey bees attracted to?


Provide the best bee-friendly garden:

• Choose the right plants: When selecting bee-friendly plants for your garden, you want to consider what will be useful for the bees. Flowering plants will be highly melliferous but are they all beneficial for honey bees? They may produce nectar and pollen but the shape and size of the flower may prevent the honey bee from visiting them.
  Bees enjoy flowering herbs, berries and many flowering fruits and vegetables but they will also travel through surrounding wildflowers. If you have the space, planting any type of fruit tree or other blooming trees such as maple, tulip poplar, sourwood, willow, black locust, sumac, and basswood are all good food sources for your bees. Look into different nectar producing plants for your state.
• Consider Blooming Season: You will want to offer a range of plants in different blooming seasons. Have an early spring bloom, summer and fall so the bees will have a continuous food source. Some plants will have a short infrequent bloom whereas others will have a long rich bloom. The longer the bloom, the more frequent visits it will receive.
• Weeds and Wildflowers are your Friends: When you have noticed your bees bringing in pollen and nectar but you know your garden is not in bloom, you always wonder where they are getting it from. Look around your yard for dandelions or clover;these are vital plants for bees. Your bees will also forage through the native wildflowers.
• Be Conscious of What You Spray: Many pesticides are toxic and can be harmful or deadly to your bees. If there are no other options to using pesticides, use them in the evening so the field force are not carrying the chemicals back into the hive.Do not place pesticides directly onto blooming flowers and try using less toxic or rapidly degradable pesticides. There are different formulations that can be used to reduce bee exposure (solutions, emulsifiable concentrates, and granulars are the best to use). Mention this to your neighbors as well.

When planning your garden, consider how you can accommodate more bee friendly plants. Check on the blooming season of flowers and what vegetation will grow in your area. Providing a bee-friendly garden is as simple as planting small patches of wildflowers, herbs, or a flowering vegetable garden. Start planting your garden for your bees. 

Brushy Mountain's "Back to Basics" April

Back to the Basics

You have set up your hives and installed your bees with the queen cage attached to a frame. We know that you are eager to check on them to see how they are doing but disrupting the colony will hinder them. Give them time to acclimate to the new queen and release her on their own (will typically take 5 to 7 days). Once you have given them time to release the queen on their own, you can open up your hive and see your bees hard at work!

When you first open your hive to remove the queen cage, you may notice no substantial changes. Your bees are working frantically to draw out comb, giving space for your queen to lay her eggs and room to store their nectar. There will be some foraging bees sent out to bring in nectar and pollen but the majority of the force will be building up the frames. Providing feed during this time is vital. As the bees work the frames, they will be consuming feed almost as fast as you are providing it for them. Ensure they have the feed they need!
Other things to be aware of:

• Don’t be frightened to find that your colony seems smaller then when you installed it. This is a new colony and it will take them time before they will grow in population. The population will begin to decrease before it starts increasing because the newly laid eggs must be raised out to replace the older bees.
• As the bees begin to work the frames, drawing out foundation, they may draw out a queen cup. There is no reason to fret. A queen cup does not mean your hive is queen-less, but is a precautionary measure your worker bees take to ensure they can raise a new queen quickly if something were to happen with the current queen. A queen cup is a single cup which is located in the middle of the frame, and will not have an or larva inside.
• When you begin working your hive, your first instincts are to look for the queen. The queen is one of thousands of bees throughout the hive. Although she is much larger than the worker bee, she will be extremely hard if not impossible to find. An alternative is to check the frames for eggs. Eggs signify that the queen has been released and is laying. Eggs are also difficult to see (less difficult than finding the queen) but they appear as small white kernels that are similar to rice.

Installing your package is just one of the first steps into this exciting hobby. Once your queen has been released and starts laying eggs, you will begin to see a large field force in your garden, buzzing from flower to flower.
Here are some helpful hints to help you in these beginning months:

• Even though you see that your bees are bringing in nectar and pollen, feed still needs to be provided for the colony. They are still trying to build their honey stores and if there are days when it is rainy, your bees will need that feed. However, you should remove the feeder once you add the first honey super. We want to harvest honey, not sugar water!
• A great looking brood frame will have a central section of brood in different stages. You should find eggs, larvae and capped brood. If you find that your brood frames are spotty (small patches of brood with many empty cells around the brood patches) you could have an under-productive queen. This can happen with a newly installed package, as the queen gets settled into her new environment. If the problem persists, she may need to be replaced.
• Once you find that your outer frames are being worked and comb is beginning to be drawn out on them, it is time to add on the next brood chamber. The rule of thumb is that if 6 to 7 of your frames are drawn out, add the next super. Adding the next story will give your queen the space she needs to lay and can alleviate congestion in the hive.

With the first steps behind you, you will begin to see the true joy of beekeeping. Keep feeding your bees and let them build up in population.  

ORIGINAL SOURCE:  BRUSHY MOUNTAIN 

Wintering a Beehive in New England with the Gleasons...

Thanks to club members Dan and Joseph Gleason for sharing their new over-wintering experience!

Brushy Mountain's Back to Basics March...

SPRING CLEANING

Hives are beginning to replenish their winter losses before spring arrives.This is the ideal time to do some spring maintenance for your hive. Temperatures fluctuate during March but we will begin experiencing warmer temperatures. Choose one of these warmer days (above 50 degrees F) and head out to your hive.

Over the course of winter, your cluster would have been migrating upward in the hive,consuming their honey stores. This can place the majority of brood nest in an upper super. Beekeepers will want to reverse the boxes so that the brood nest is on the bottom, creating the sense of more space in the hive for your queen to move up and lay into.This will lessen the possibility of swarming.
If your brood nest is mainly clustered in your bottom box, there is no need to reverse boxes.

While we are working the hive, checking the brood and honey stores, why not do some cleaning?
Here are some ideas for you:

• With minimal brood and stored honey, this is the time to cull out some old frames and foundation. Foundation becomes dirty and will absorb chemicals and diseases.This needs to be replaced every 3 to 5 years, and this can be accomplished by replacing 1/3rd to 1/5th of your frames every year.
• Make your hives more functional by cleaning off burr comb from frames, feeders and queen excluders.
• Your bees will be cleaning frames, preparing for the nectar flow. Sometimes they do not remove the debris completely from the hive and its left on the bottom board. Help the bees and clean off the bottom board.
• Every beekeeper tries to save money by using equipment, year after year, however, there does come a point when you need to replace it. When you see rot in the wood or gaps between supers, it needs to be replaced.

Spring is getting closer and your colony is beginning to grow in population. Your bees are out foraging for nectar and pollen. You are ready for the beekeeping year to begin!

Here are some other things to consider:

• If the adult population coming out of winter is small, the brood rearing will start off slow. The small population must keep the brood warm and with empty space throughout the hive, they will have a hard time. Reduce the size of the hive until they grow in population.
• Food Stores need to be maintained. We harp on this every year as winter comes to an end. This is vital to the production of brood and the survival of your hive.Checking the food stores is important until you find that your bees are bringing in nectar, ignoring your supplied feed. They much prefer nectar compared to sugar water or corn syrup.
• Swarm Management. As the colony continues to grow in population your hive can become overcrowded. This can lead to swarming. Add the next super on before the bees get crowded.

ORIGINAL SOURCE:  BRUSHY MOUNTAIN

Brushy Mountain's Question of the Month March...

I treated my hive for Varroa Mites in the fall, do I need to do the same in the spring?

The Varroa Mite population directly ties to bee production. As the queen begins to lay heavily, trying to reach maximum population before the nectar flow, the Varroa mite population will also rise.

• Female mite enters a cell of maturing bee before it is capped
• She waits 60 hours before laying eggs (lays an additional egg every 30 hours)
• First egg will be male and subsequent eggs will be female
• Mites will feed on the pupating bee (this can infect bee with viruses)
• Female mites will exit with adult bee

Every hive needs a thorough inspection to ensure that the mite population is not overwhelming, diseases are not found, and there is a strong population of bees in your colony. With continuous production of brood, the mite population will grow faster and be larger.
The Varroa Mite creates open wounds on the bee, leaving the bee more prone to infection, as well as vector (transferring) viruses, which compromise the health of the bees and the entire colony. 
There are several ways to check for mites within your colony:

Sugar Shake. Place a few table spoons of powdered sugar in a mason jar (replace the lid with #8 hardware cloth) along with roughly ½ cup of bees (around 300 bees) and gently "slosh" them around, ensuring they are fully coated. The sugar will dislodge the mites,allowing them to fall through the hardware cloth onto a clean surface. Count the mites that are dislodged from the bees; if the mite count exceeds 3, treatment is recommended.

Corex Sheet. This is a sheet which slides under a screened bottom board. Spray the corex sheet with a cooking oil so when the mites fall from the hive they stick to the sheet and can then be counted. Insert the sheet for 3 days and then remove it to count the mites. Once you have a total, divide it by 3 to get the average mite drop in a 24 hour period ; if the mite count exceeds 10, treatment is recommended.

If this is your first year in beekeeping or you just purchased a NUC or a Package, and you received your bees from a reliable source, they would have already been treated for mites prior to your pickup, but may still have mites; however, these colonies should not need treatment until late summer/early fall. 


Treatments

Integrated Pest Management (IPM) methods work with the behavior and biology of the target pest to aid in its control. Several methods that can control the mite population include:

• A screened bottom board which allow the mites to fall out of the hive
• Drone trapping/Varroa trapping using a Drone frame or Drone foundation
  Remove frame after cells have been capped and freeze for 48 hours. Reinstall frames after thawing.

IPM methods often are not a sufficient form of control and more traditional methods need to be used. We, and many in the scientific community, strongly encourage the use of “soft chemicals”. These are naturally occurring products and many naturally existing in honey. The two most common are:

Api Life VAR. Api Life VAR is made with thymol, which is used in mouthwash, and other essential oils. Evaporative wafers are placed on the hive and the thymol vapor kills the varroa.
MiteAway Quick Strips. MiteAway Quick Strips use food grade formic acid, which naturally occurs in honey.
Other treatments, such as Apistan and Check Mite Plus, are on the market but resistance has been documented; therefore, further monitoring is necessary. A newer treatment, Apivar, is labeled to kill 99% of mites with a single treatment.

Monitor your mite count and if infestation is high, treat as needed. 

ORIGINAL SOURCE: BRUSHY MOUNTAIN 

Bill Crawford, Professional Beekeeper- UPDATE...

Hello Hampden County beekeepers,  

I hope everyone and their bees are doing well.   As some of you had heard, I have decided to jump to beekeeping on the commercial level.   I starting this summer by subcontracting to a beekeeper in the South Dakota praire during the Sweet Clover flow, running about 4500 hives, mostly alone.  I worked there for about 7 weeks until arranging to work for my friend of mine's father with about 3000 hives near Gettysburg, PA.  I worked there for about a month, splitting hives and preparing the hives for fall and winter.  When the labor demand there began to slow down, a friend of my boss said his friend in Lewisburg, PA.  As it turns out, I am now sub-contracting long term for Hackenberg Apiaries, the first people to be hit with and blow the whistle on Colony Collapse Disorder.  The owner is a very outspoken critic of the chemical and pesticide industry.  He has been featured on 60 minutes for talking about CCD and have been featured in the recent bee documentary movies.   I plan on working here for a couple years, that is until I break off to return to Mass with 600-1000 hives.  

With my current gig, I am able to come home on weekends if I so choose, allowing me to continue with my local honey sales and to run hives in both Massachusetts and Pennsylvania with some additional ones in New York.  As the situation works,  as I work for the family, they will in turn also be helping me grow to the point where I can break off on my own.  The apiary I am now working for are primarily pollinators, after beefing up the hives in Florida and Georgia in January, bees are sent to almonds in February,  then later in the season to pollinate blueberries, apples, and pumpkins, and after all is said and done, placed for summer and fall honey.

I have learned NUMEROUS things over the past few months, way too many to list.  But the thing that makes one a better beekeeper, is learning from your mistakes, and mistakes of others.  

The beekeepers nationwide this fall, are suffering major losses, with a good portion losing over half already.  For us, we have already lost almost half due to corn and soybean pesticides, varroa mites, viruses, and CCD.  Just this morning, I went around and checked about 1700-1800 hives divided into your bee yards for blown off lids from the storm, we ended up losing about 100 hives to drowning.

I hope by this time, everyone has their hives fed and have proper weight, with mouseguards on.  If you think of treating for nosema now, dont, it was too late and you will do more harm than good, as the hives tend to go downhill for a little while after treatment before getting back on track.  Raise you outter cover up about a half an inch to help expell moisture and keep the hives out of the bears reach.  I will be down south with my boss and I's bees and will be back in April.    I will send out another message soon regarding nucs and detail if anyone is interested, my coworker, my boss, and myself will be making nucs for sale once our bees get back from almonds, and if there areenough people interested I could bring a load to mass for people, they definitely have an edge over packages, 4-5 frames of bees with a laying queen.  

If anyone has any questions, don't hesitate to email me.
Bee Well,
Bill Crawford
Billy81389@aol.com

How Often Do You Inspect Your Hives?

In the most recent Brushy Mountain News Email, they've added a section called Tips for Success.  Beekeepers from all over can submit their tips and the winner is then chosen monthly by Brushy Mountain.  The winner's tip is published in the newsletter and they receive a discount on an order.  That seems like a good deal so if anyone wants to submit, the info is included below. 

I found the winning tip to be an interesting one.  It's got me wondering how often our new beekeepers are inspecting their new package hives, how often our more experienced members would check a packaged hive, and if I'm checking my new package hive too often.  Please comment below.

From Brushy Mountain's News Email

This is a new section that we have added to the e-flier and we are turning to you to help us with it. We are asking you to submit to us your tips, tricks, and keys to successful beekeeping. Each month we will select a winning entry and publish it in the subsequent e-flier giving credit to the winner. The winner will also receive 10% off their next order. 

Entries must be emailed toinfo@brushymountainbeefarm.com with "Tip for success" in the subject line. Please include a day time phone number at which you can be reached should you be chosen as the winner. 

This month's winner is Dean Pearson.  Dean's tip for success speaks to the beekeepers who are unsure on when or how often it is needed to check on a colony. Dean mentions that in his third year as a beekeeper, he noticed that after replacing or starting a new colony, it is best to visit the hive as little as possible. In the email Dean States: "Last month I replaced three hives that I lost over winter with packages of bees. I know that some beekeepers want to get back into the hive and check on things; my advice is to let them be. I'll only go into my hive once after installation to remove the queen cage and make sure she has been released. I won't check on the hive until I think they are ready for more supers".

Every time you visit your hive, you disrupt the colony and set them back two to three days in production.

For a newly installed colony, over working the hive will interrupt the efficiency of your colony,slow the building of comb and growth. After installing a package it is not necessary to check on them daily. Go in about a week after installing the package to remove the queen cage and verify she is laying. Your colony will need weeks, after removing the queen cage, before it has built up enough comb on the frames to add another layer to the hive, and this can be determined without intensive frame inspection.

Note: Having an entrance feeder will allow you to check your feed without disturbing colony.

Overworking your hive will lead to a lack of developed frames, requires a constant feed supply and no honey harvest. This can also lead to a weak colony that will result in higher mite counts and more diseases. Not over working the hive will allow the bees to draw out comb, forage for nectar and pollen, and rebuild the colony properly.