The Bee King Cautions Patience

Tonight Mark talked to Harry Fulton, who recently retired from MSU-ES and is our local bee expert.  He said:

• the bees won't start eating the honey in earnest until they start making brood in earnest, which likely won't happen for another week or two at least.
• no need to add hives until April -- they'll make room for the brood by eating up the honey stores we currently think are extra (but apparently aren't really)
• order some "green-friendly," soon-to-be-approved treatment for Varroa mites
• that he's not going to gather swarms this year as he's working having certified Russians, so he'll steer any swarm calls to Mark. He also suggested notifying local Extension offices and police departments, so I may do a small poster or something for him to take around.
• now is the time to treat for American Foul Brood and to work on integrated pest management.  We haven't had any problems so far, so I'm leery of doing a lot of chemical treatments.  We'll have to do some more research and discussing.

I'm sure there was more to the conversation, but I was making sloppy joes so I didn't hear everything.

So for now we wait and watch.  We have bee tea and one candy patty left so as long as we're paying attention, none of them should go without food.

Hive 1: The Big Split

Mark consulted a couple of experienced beekeepers about the number of supersedure cells and what to do about it. The verdict: they're trying to swarm, so split the hive.

As Mark had wanted six hives all along, he wasn't going to argue.

So today, he drove to Shannon, MS to buy two queens from Tommy Holman. He has a 220-frame extractor and 600 hives, so Mark was pretty impressed with his operation. For the second time this week, two queen condos were brought to Bee Hill.

Hive 1 originally had 2 deep supers and 2 medium supers. The lower of the two deeps (with the bulk of the brood) and the top medium super full of honey (completely capped) became Hive 6. When I visited Bee Hill tonight, it looked like this (picture at right). I suggested we set a stem of leaves from a nearby plant on the entrance, to give the bees a marker, as I've seen on Steven's Bees. Mark was kind enough to indulge me.

Hive 1 is now the upper of the two originals deep supers, a medium super with honey (though not much is capped), and an empty deep on top to accommodate what we assume will be the greater number of bees. He put a new queen in both hives. Mark didn't look for a queen in the lower brood box when he moved it to be Hive 6, and his hope is that both of Holman's queens will be released and become the dominant forces in each of the "new" hives. The new Hive 1 (pictured at left) also had bees around the entrance, though not as many.

Hive 5, the "Macon" bees, seemed to be thriving and he added a pollen patty. Mark plans to return and add a medium super to make sure they have enough room.

Hive 4 got a jar of diluted honey rather than sugar water, from the odd smelling stuff I processed from the Kemper County project. Odds are it was goldenrod that gave it that odor, which will eventually go away according to the experts, but we'll just use it to feed the bees.

All six of the hives were treated with Terramycin (TM) for American and European Foul Brood.