Goatmilk & Honey Soap

2 great logs of Goatmilk & Honey Soap.  Ready to age and become gentle, natural soap !

dry pollen

Honeybees need pollen to raise baby bees. This process starts inside the warm cluster months before Spring. Pollen was gathered during the fall and stored for this purpose. If weather conditions do not allow good fall pollen foraging, the bees can be in a pollen deficit. I filled my pollen bucket about 10 days ago - today it was empty !

I filled the pollen bucket and about 20 minutes later..... a crowd had gathered. This pollen will be used to raise young bees that will be responsible for gathering nectar to make honey for them, me and maybe you.

More cold on the way....dry sugar feeding....

Today was a balmy warm day with temps above 60 degrees.  More polar cold on the way. No time to mix candy for the bees so a little dry sugar will have to do.  Some colonies have good honey stores in the top box, some are too light weight.  Sometimes a colony will "starve" with a full box of honey on top - for some reason they just will not move. This will at least ensure that each cluster has some food within easy reach. .

Success ? Maybe...

My emergency feeding may have been successful.  The bees definitely ate the candy mix that I provided.

Emergency Feeding...

The first week of January 2014 brought a forecast of record low temps for the time of year in our upstate area.  With the coldest temps in 20-30 years being in the forecast, I was filled with worry for my bee colonies.  My worse fear was for my marginal colonies, ones that might make it through a mild winter and thrive but will perish in extreme cold.  These smaller clusters happen for various reasons - some maybe my fault - some maybe bee genetics or pests/disease issues.

Despite good fall prep, I am always concerned that clusters wont be able to reach food when it is needed.  I hate making candy boards and the required rims/shims.  My answer was to try to give the bees a scoop of sugar right on top of the cluster for emergency rations.

First I mixed pure cane sugar in a bowl with just enough warm water stirred in to make it start to stick together. I also added in a bit of Honey B Healthy and a small amount of honey.

On a "somewhat" mild day before the "polar vortex", I quickly opened each colony (not removing any frames and trying to minimize the time with the colony open.  I found the cluster and placed a piece of newspaper on top of the cluster - dampened this with a spray of sugar water - dumped a clump of the candy mix on top and got the top box back on.  The candy mixture was pliable and molded between the boxes not requiring a shim.  I am convinced that this practice helped some of the colonies survive.  This was an emergency situation and I hope helped some of the smaller clusters survive the record cold.

bee tongue

A honeybee "tongue" or proboscis is actually made up of several mouth parts that come together to act like a straw - used to suck up liquids.

Sticky bees

Every beekeeper has had bees drown in sugar water feeders.  We try to keep the deaths to a minimum because we are trying to help the bees not kill them.  When a feeding bee gets a little sticky syrup on her, she will try to clean herself well before taking flight back to the hive.

Honeybees gathering dry pollen

Each year I put out dry pollen substitute for the bees.  My normal choice is Megabee.  I placed the bucket out Saturday and the next day it was a popular spot !

Coldest blast in 20 years ? not good for honeybees

With the record breaking cold weather that we have experienced, I fear that many of us will have dead colonies.  It has been too wet/cold to look since the cold spell but ASAP I will do a very brief  inspection to see who survived.  Package bees will sell out very fast if we experienced great losses .  Also bees use extra food when it is cold, at least give your hives a quick look to check food stores when the weather allows !

Deadout

A day no bees will die ?  I don't know when that will be.  With the frigid cold in our forecast, I fear many colonies will perish in the next few days.  Is it "survival of the fittest ?"  Maybe so but nothing is sadder to a beekeeper than a dead bee colony.  The bees in this picture are dead and it is my fault.  Yes they would have probably died even if they lived in the wild without beekeeper management but they didn't die in the woods.  They died in a box that I put them in.  They obviously starved during a recent cold spell even though all the colonies seemed to have enough food not very long ago.  The warmer weather we have had causes the bees to use more food.  Maybe these bees were not a thrifty with their food reserves, maybe a larger colony robbed them of some food, maybe they were weak from a virus or other health issues.  We will never know.  Failing colonies are a part of beekeeping, sometimes no matter what we do a colony will die -  it does sadden my heart though :(

New year, time to order bee packages ....

Each year new beekeepers order package bees to start new colonies and experienced beekeepers buy bees to replace those that die over winter. The bees come in a wood & screen package with the queen in a special structure inside and a can of ...syrup for food while in transit Where to purchase bees is a controversial topic and this is MY opinion. Everyone has one. I purchase my bee packages at Bee Well in Pickens. (No I do not get a discount) They have the best price, the packages have statistically done very well for me and the owner goes to the bee farm in GA to pick up the bees himself and often helps fill the packages. They never spend time in the hands of postal workers or others who do not understand the needs of bees ! The most important aspect of a bee package for me is healthy bees in the group and a good weight(number of bees) to the package. If I want to add new genetics to my apiary, I can order queens from other sources and diversify my bee genetics during the summer after the honey flow is over. Consider starting your beekeeping adventure this year !