Offering all natural honey and a full range of beekeeping supplies and services. Shop our online store and save on hive components, tools and accessories.

s
c
s
Home / The Bee Blog
The Bee Blog
Bee Time Again
The red maples are putting out, so it is time to get our bees ready for the spring honey flow.  It is important to get your bees healthy so they are able to take the excess nectar and turn it into surplus honey.  We as beekeepers should strive to get our bees healthy because if your bees are not healthy they will die.  We need to make sure the queen is laying well and that the bees have enough stores.  Treat your bees for mites and nosema at least 4 weeks before the honey flow.  If your bees are in good shape and you want the increase, split your bees to prevent swarming and to ensure a good honey crop.  I hope all beekeepers have a wealth of bees and a great honey crop and if you have any questions contact us and we will try to assist you.
Honey Flow
The honey flow is in full swing be sure you have adequate honey supers on your hives to encourage the bees to store excess nectar that they gather. The bees cannot store excess nectar if your supers are in the garage or basement. Basswood trees are starting to bloom in this area and produce a very good honey. Keep an eye on your bees make sure they are healthy and that the queen is laying well.
Package Bees
It is once again time to order your package bees.  I hope no one has winter losses and just want to expand their apiary.  I am now taking orders for package bees and queens for delivery the first week of April 2013, weather permitting.  You can contact me at the web site or at 276-386-7786 or 276-690-6118. A 3 lb. package with a marked queen will be $85.00.  Queens will run about $22.00 and will be marked.X
Winter Bees
In doing your fall preparation for winterizing your bees don't do a quick look in the top to see if there are a lot of bees.  I would advise you to check the brood chamber to make sure that there is capped brood and that the queen is there and laying.  If you are short on stores feed as much as they will take and place a winter patty on the top bars so they will have something to feed on.  If winter time temperature allows check for food stores and add winter patties as needed.
Fall and Winter To Do List

(1)  Make sure your bees are queen wright. Check to make sure there is brood.  This is probably the most important factor.

(2 ) Make sure your bees have enough stores for winter. You need 40 lbs. to 60 lbs. of stores'

(3) Take off excess supers and store them so wax moths cannot get at them.  Freeze them or use Para-Moth.

(4) Install entrance reducers or mouse guards to protect your bees.

(5) Check for mites, hive beetles, and other pests and diseases.  Treat as needed.

(6) Make sure you equipment is in good shape.  If not replace and repair old equipment over winter.

(7) What you do in the fall has a great deal to do with what kind of honey crop you have next spring.

Swarm Season

If your bees have not swarmed you either did a good job of management or you are very lucky. Swarming is a natural way for bees to increase their numbers. It can be controlled somewhat if you don't want more bees and a good honey crop.  You can do a controlled swarm on your bees by removing the old queen and about three frames of brood, one frame of honey and a frame of pollen and place them in a nuc and let the old hive raise a new queen. You can either keep the nuc to help boost a weak hive or sell it to another beekeeper. I hope everyone has a great honey crop and as many bees as they can manage.

Package Bee Day

Saturday April 7th was package bee pickup at Poor Valley Bee Farm.We hopefully made several new beekeepers happy.

March to do list

I'm sorry for not posting for a while there was a problem with the web site.

Check brood chambers.If all the brood is in the upper part of the brood chamber, reverse the upper and lower brood boxes.  Reversing these will cause the queen to use both boxes to lay eggs.  In about two weeks reverse the boxes again.

Feed overwintered colonies one-to-one sugar syurp to stimulate brood rearing.

Check the brood chamber for disease each time you open the colony.

Prepare honey supers with new foundation.  The major honey flow is not far off.

Check for queen cells.  Swarm season is just around the corner. This is a good time to split your bees if you want to increase your numbers or to prevent your bees from swarming.

Pollen!
I placed winter patties on the bees today,which also serves as food since they contain sugar and Honey-B-Healthy protein and carbs.The bees were flying great and bringing in pollen.The red maples are putting out can spring be far off.
It's time to get ready for spring!!
Now is the time to start preparing for the spring necture flow. Check bees for honey stores to make sure the supply is adequate until the necture flow starts. If stores are not sufficient, you can feed pollen patties, winter candy and, if they will take it, one to one sugar syrup. This should only be done if weather permits.