TheBeeLine Creating good and healthy beekeeping throughout MICHIANA

PUBLISHED BY MICHIANA BEEKEEPERS ASSOCIATION MARCH 2013 Our March meeting will be Wednesday, March 20 at the Nappanee Public Library in downtown Nappanee, 157 N. Main St. also know as State Road 19. The meeting will begin at 6:00 p.m. and end about 8:30 p.m.

Come prepared to tell us about the condition of you bees and your survivals and losses. At left is a previous gathering at the Nappanee Public Library.

One week later, Wednesday, March 27 we will have a beginner's night at the Nappanee Public Library from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. There is no such thing as an

expert beekeeper but we will have experienced beekeepers such as those you see at right to advise and help.

There were 57 present at the January meeting at Goshen College. There were good discussions and comments, a talk by Tim Ives and a lively discussion about winter bees and their use of vitellogenin, a fatty compound produced and used by winter bees to make protein rich food for queens, larvae and workers, with little or no pollen available. Henry talked and showed a power point on producing, harvesting, preparing and packaging cut comb honey.

MBA CONTACTS

PRESIDENT Bob Baughman 574-276-3959 bob.deb.baughman@sbcglobal.net

VICE PRESIDENT AND RECORDING SECRETARY Tim Ives 574-910-0060 liquidgold2009@embarqmail.com

TREASURER David Emerson 574-295-1855 emerson3434@msn.com

HISTORIAN Danny Slabaugh 574-315-5586 dslabaugh@embarqmail.com

EDITOR Henry Harris 574-875-9617 henry4744@frontier.com

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NappaneePublicLibrary Parking

FRAMES There are two kinds of top bars: Grooved and wedged bar. Grooved top bars will accommodate plastic foundation and wax if it is held in place with a bead of hot wax. Wedged top bars can be used with any type of foundation.

End bars have wide shoulders to maintain "bee space" between the combs when they are pushed snuggly together. The lower portion of the end bar is recessed so that when two frames are pushed together bee space is once more achieved allowing bees to pass around the ends of the frames. The dado at the top of the end bar is shaped the same by different manufacturers but the dimensions may differ. The bottoms of the end bars can come in four different styles to match the

different types of bottom bars available. "A" has a full width slot to accommodate grooved or divided bottom bars. "B" has a narrower slot to accommodate the dadoed end of the same types of bottom bars. "C" has a full center post to be straddled by the two piece split or divided bottom bar and "D" has a short center post to fit the

grooved bottom bar which provides more area for glue to hold than "A" does.

Both bottom bars "1" and "1A" are suitable for all types of foundation. Bottom bars "2", "2A", and "3" cannot be used with plastic foundation. Both top and bottom grooved bars are best for plastic foundation which can be put into one

groove and snapped into the other. Wedged top bars with grooved bottom bars will also work with plastic foundation.

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A

B

C

D

Wandering with an Old-timer by Henry Harris

Beginners Without Bees Yet. Read! Read at least two books on starting with bees. Beekeeping is a much looser form of agriculture than gardening. Bees are versatile and tolerant allowing the beekeeper to express his or her own personality or

preferences. The way one beekeeper will tell you to start may not agree with another's instructions. Neither is necessarily right or wrong they just promote the way they are comfortable with. You must choose what you think makes the most sense to you and which will fit your time, location and life style. So read at least two how-to books and listen to more than one experienced beekeeper and choose the methods that make the most sense or suit you and your life style. You may change later too. First Lessons in Beekeeping, Starting Right With Bees, Beekeeping for Dummies, The Backyard Beekeeper are good and there are many more. If you are into organic and the natural way of dealing with nature there is Natural Beekeeping, The Practical Beekeeper and here also many more listed online. Again, read two, even if you choose to go the natural way read another non natural book to see where the

differences between the two systems are. When you come to a point of conflict call a beekeeper or ask about it at the next meeting keeping in mind that some beekeepers are set in concrete and will not countenance something that does not agree with their system while others are flexible and will be open and fair about ideas other than what they use. Listen to them all and take what you like. If it works for you and your bees it is good, if it does

not work read some more and talk some more until you find what does work for you.

Get your equipment purchased and assembled. DO NOT buy the "starter kit" offered by

most supply companies. These kits often contain equipment you will not need this year

and will not contain some equipment you will need.

Talk to a beekeeper or one of our local suppliers for tips. The basic

starter kit at right is just that: Basic. Once you put your bees in the box

you will immediately have to order a second and third box and put them

together: bees in the MICHIANA area need more than one box to get

through winter. You should have already read your two instruction

books, the entrance feeder is less than adequate, the veil offered is passible and

the gloves are leather which is good.

3.

As a beginner you do not need your equipment giving you problems or distracting you. The veil above looks like it might

stay put and keep bees away from your head and neck but the one in the kit below, and at right, only has an elastic band to hold it and will frequently fall against the side of your face as you lean. A helmet with a round or square wire veil is best. The four below are good choices.

This starter kit has the right number of boxes, 2 deeps and 1 medium, the

veil is poor, the gloves leather, but again you do not need the book or

the entrance feeder. This kit is offered assembled for about $350.00

plus shipping.

Hive tools (big variety but take the basic one to start with),

leather gloves (stingers reach through cloth gloves) and smokers

(the small one is sufficient) are pretty standard and may last as long

as you keep bees.

Wax foundation requires wedge top bar frames and wire to keep the foundation straight.

Plastic foundation is more expensive but snaps into grooved

top and bottom bars quickly with not added work to prepare

the frames.

Talk with one of our area suppliers and ask about frames and

foundation and what the differences can mean to you.

Wooden ware varies a lot. Some suppliers sell high grade,

clear (near perfect wood), also commercial grade, which will

Loose mesh is a no-no for beginners.

4.

Clear

have small, tight, knots but none in hand holds or joints, and

economy or budget, which may have

defects plus knots in hand holds, joints

and edges but they are serviceable. You

get what you pay for so buy what you can

afford.

Buying less expensive wooden ware and assembling it yourself can

save money. Your reading should tell you how to assemble the equipment and if you have

questions most beekeepers are willing to help out.

The MBA will also have a beginner's class dealing with equipment on Wednesday, March 27 from 6:30 to 8:30 at the Nappanee Public Library.

Paint the outside of your boxes, outer covers and bottom boards but no paint inside the

hive.

The inside of a hive is a high moisture environment. The wooden boxes absorb

moisture and will need to breathe it out.

Use latex paint. All you are doing is providing a temporary weather protection that will

need to be renewed in two or three years but you must not seal the wood or it will

quickly become water logged and rot. Wood

preservatives often contain ingredients that are harmful

to honey bees.

Use any color you like. Many beekeepers prefer the

traditional white but picking up 'mistakes' at the home

center paint counter can cut costs in half. In this

picture you can see at least 9 different colors have been

used, various shades and combinations of colors.

Pick your hive's new location and set the hive up on it

before your bees come to be sure it will set level, not be

overly conspicuous, and the flying bees will not be a

problem for you or your neighbors. Bees poop in flight and

brown spots on laundry can cause tempers to flair.

Sidewalks and playgrounds need to be protected from

bee flights to prevent stings to neighbors, their kids and

pets.

Commercial

Budget

5.

Putting your hive behind a hedge or fence will make

the bees go up to get over it before flying away thus

putting them above contact and even observation.

One Year Old Colonies

For those whose bees just made it through their

first Winter helping them to build up is the key to

getting a good crop of honey.

The bee cluster will end Winter near the top of the hive with a

lot of empty comb below them.

Bee clusters in the hive replicate the motion of a yo-yo over

the year's time. Early Spring they are high in the hive and begin

filling the cells at the top of the brood nest with honey driving

the queen to lay her eggs lower. As the colony successfully stores

honey in the hive they will have pushed the queen to the bottom of

the combs by Fall. During winter the cluster will eat its way up

through the combs to end at the top again by Spring to start all

over again.

Most bees in the wild have a small hive and small cluster

populations resulting in very little honey stored in excess of what they need.

We want lots of honey which takes lots of bees to make so we need to encourage

the colony to grow faster and bigger than it normally would.

Most bees in the wild have a small hive and small cluster populations resulting

in very little honey stored in excess of what they need.

At right is what our colony looks like

in early March.

Since heat rises the vast, empty hive

below the small cluster at the top is cold

and unwelcoming. This colony's queen will

only move down to lay eggs when brood in

the cluster emerges to make covering the

comb below the cluster possible.

At this size the colony will only

increase by a couple of hundred bees each

day.

To increase the area available to the

queen to lay eggs in we need to arrange for

more heat in the hive. I suppose you could

"light a fire" under the hive and give them

artificial heat but there is a better way.

It is called reversing.

When the top box is put on the bottom

Pollen

Honey

BroodBees

6.

and the empty bottom box is put on top the heat

will rise from the cluster to warm the comb

directly over the cluster. The queen can move

into this warmer area and lay eggs increasing

the rate at which the colony will grow without

the colony needing to increase honey

consumption to produce more heat.

A colony like this could also use some sugar

syrup, honey (only your own honey, never,

never, never anyone else's) and some protein

supplement.

If your colony has grown faster on its own

so that it fills the top box and has even a

small amount of brood in the bottom box leave

it alone

except

for

possibly

the

feeding.

If you reverse this colony the brood in the

bottom box will be separated from the rest

of the cluster and likely die along with the

nurse bees trying to care for it. This will

set your colony back rather than help it.Keep in mind what our banquet speaker, Kent Williams said, "if you keep bees you

will get stung and your bees will die". Even "Master" beekeepers experience colony deaths. But if you know how to make more bees you can go on.

If your bees did not survive Winter you are not alone. You are not a lousy

beekeeper or a bee murderer. This is a tough time for bees and beekeepers.

In the next picture the bees appear to

have died of starvation. In the very center

of the cluster the bees can be seen head down

in the cells, a sure sign of starvation.

Also, there is no honey in the comb around

the cluster.

Knowing why a colony died can help

prevent a repetition.

In some cases you may find honey several

frames away from the cluster indicating that

the bees were held in place by extreme cold

Rising heat warms the area

above the cluster

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until they used up all of the honey in their immediate vicinity. If this was the

case better wind protection, wrapping in tar paper to draw the sun's heat so the

cluster can move, or getting the hive out of a low spot where cold air settles and

stays when higher areas warm up could keep a future colony from freezing the same

way.

If the colony died with no more honey at all in the hive you know that you need

to leave more honey for the bees next Fall or feed a substitute.

Not much needs to be done with a "dead out", colony that died. You do not want

to leave it for mice to tear apart and if there is honey in the hive it can be

donated to other colonies.

If there are no live colonies to give the honey to it can be left in the hive

on the stand. Do not seal the hive up or you will encourage mold. Make sure it

has good ventilation and screened so mice cannot get in and let it set.

Later, maybe April, when everything is warmed up you can open the hive and dump

out the loose, dead bees, clean the bottom board and get the equipment ready to put

new bees in.

Do not worry about the dead bees in the cells. The new bees are better suited

to remove these bee carcasses than you are and any mold that may have started on

the combs too.

If you really must do something about those dead bees take a hint from Sir

Isaac Newton when he was trying to get them out of his combs. This conundrum was

what led him to two of his greatest

discoveries.

DO NOT do any of this tapping or jarring when the weather is cold. Bees wax is thin and fragile and shatters easily when cold.

#1 An object

at rest tends to stay at rest.

Hold upside down frame

still.

Tap the frame's top

bar with hive tool

Dead bees try to stay

still as frame moves

away from them.

8.

Wait until it is warm then do your tapping and banging gently. Many light taps with the hive tool or bumps against a hive body will eventually get the job done

and leave your combs in good condition for the bees to use later.

But really, the bees can do it better.

March is one of the most dangerous months for honey bees. The weather is warm and pleasant one day with pussy willows and daffodils blooming and giving pollen to raise brood with and the next day there is a snow storm with temperatures in the low 30os or 20os and the bees have to tighten up their cluster. A lot of honey will be used to keep the temperature in the low 90os in the cluster plus feeding all of the brood and bees and starvation can kill the colony suddenly. Keep an eye on the food stores and feed both sugar syrup and protein if necessary.

It may be hard to believe but in just a month the bees you are now trying to keep alive will be getting ready to pack up and leave. Swarming does not happen over night, it takes a lot of work on the part of the bees to build up the population, store adequate honey and pollen for the parent colony, raise drones and finally to raise queens, but it is coming.

#2 An object in

motion tends to stay in motion.

Swing top bar of upside down frame against hive tool or some other stationary

object.

Dead bees continue to move as the frame stops

abruptly.

9.

Heat is one of the keys to raising brood. Bee eggs can be refrigerated for short periods and still produce healthy bees but open brood, especially capped brood, needs the 94o +/- to incubate, molting through several stages to become an adult honey bee. Heat lost by the beekeeper opening the hive for anything other than to make a quick check on food will cause the colony to suspend efforts to raise brood and produce heat instead. It may also cause the bees to tighten up cluster to conserve heat leaving some brood outside the cluster's protection where it will chill and die harming colony growth.

Anything you need to do inside a hive when it is less than 70o outside should be done as quickly as possible. When brood is chilled it dies and that will set your

colony's growth back. Get in and get out in seconds, not minutes.

Moisture is another key to raising brood in a bee hive. That heat mentioned above is usually heavy with moisture and letting the heat out lets the moisture out too. Even if it is warm out, 70o, if it is a windy day the wind will siphon the moisture away and drybrood dies. Get in and get out quickly. If you are going to reverse hive bodies do not dawdle. Take the outer cover off then lay the colony on its back. Pry the bottom board off, scrape debris off it and put it back on the stand. Take a box or bucket along to scrape the trash from the bottom board into so you do not end up with it ground into your shoe treads and taken home for the house cleaner to get upset about. Break the two brood boxes apart and put the top box on the bottom board.OPTION #1 At this point you can leave the hive as one deep by putting the outer cover on the top box on the bottom board. You can then take the bottom box back to your shop to repair or replace frames, maybe paint it. In a day or two, you do not want to wait too long, take the refurbished bottom box back and put it on top of the top box for the bees to move up into.

If you have a spare, already refurbished brood box you can take it along and put it on the top box and take the original bottom box back to work on.

OPTION #2 Otherwise, pop the inner cover loose from the top box now sitting on the bottom board, set the bottom box on the top box and put inner and outer covers on the hive and you are done.

2013 Meeting Schedule

Saturday, April 20, 9:00 a.m. to Noon, Christo's Banquet Hall in Plymouth

Saturday, May 18, 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., Lehman farm in Middlebury

Saturday, June 15, 9:00 a.m. to noon, Carol Shaw's in Granger.

Saturday, July 20, 9:00 a.m. to noon, Tim Ives' in North Liberty.

Saturday, August 17, 9:00 a.m. to noon, VanZile's in Union, Michigan.10.

September to be announced.

Saturday, October 12, 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m., Nelson's Port-A-Pit in Wakarusa.

Saturday, November 2, 9:00 a.m. to noon, Nappanee Public Library.

Making your own supers is not too difficult and can save you money. Joints can be easy or complicated. Commercially made supers usually have box joints as seen in #1, possible but not easy to do on a table saw. #2 is a rabbet joint, much easier to make in the home shop. #3 is a simple butt joint, the simplist but the weakest joint. The butt joint would not survive long in a commercial operation but would be adequate for a back yard beekeeper with 2 or 3 hives. If possible avoid cupped boards as in “A”. The sides are more likely to split and the joints where supers meet may not fit well. If you insist on using cupped boards, use them as you see here with the bow out in the center. If you use bar clamps for assembling and long screws you may get a fair joint but there is always the chance of further warping and cracks for wax moth and other pests to enter the hive.

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