About Bees – All about bees and bees products

Nothing is more devastating than losing a colony to disease. But let’s get real. Honey bees, like any other living creatures, are susceptible to illness. Although some of these diseases aren’t too serious, some can be devastating. The good news is that you can prevent many honey bee health problems before they happen, and you can often head off disaster if you know the early signs of trouble. Right away let me clear up one thing. None of the health problems that affect bees have any impact on human health. These diseases are 100-percent unique to your bees. They’re not harmful or contagious in any way to you or your family. Phew! That’s a relief! In this chapter I’ve highlighted the most common health problems that your bees may face. As you inspect your hives, look carefully at the capped and open brood cells (what’s going on in these cells is often the barometer of your colony’s health). Discover how to recognize the telltale indications of health problems.

Medicating or Not?

I know what you’re thinking. Should you put medication in your hive or not? Wouldn’t keeping everything natural and avoiding the use of any chemicals, medications, or antibiotics be better? Maybe you can even save a few dollars? Well, perhaps the answer to that question depends on your practice in other areas. Do you avoid taking your dog to the vet for distemper shots and heartworm pills? Do you send your kids off to school without their vaccines Probably not. Bees are no different. Without some help from you, I can assure you they’ll eventually have a problem. You may even run the risk of losing your hive entirely. Don’t risk it. Follow a sensible annual medication regime and look carefully for signs of trouble every time you inspect your colony. Remember that you should never ever medicate your bees when you have honey on the hive that is intended for human consumption. Medicate before honey supers go on the hive, or after they are removed. For a description of honey supers and their use.

From : “Beekeeping For Dummies” By Howland Blackiston.

If your colony loses its queen and is unable to raise a new queen, a strange situation can arise. Without the “queen substance” wafting its way through the hive, there is no pheromone to inhibit the development of the worker bees’ reproductive organs. In time, young workers’ ovaries begin to produce eggs. But these eggs are not fertile (the workers are incapable of mating). So the eggs can only hatch into drones. You may notice eggs, larvae, and brood and never suspect a problem. But you have a huge problem! In time, the colony will die off without a steady production of new worker bees to gather food and tend to the young. A colony of drones is doomed.

How to know if you have laying workers

_ Be on the lookout for a potential laying-workers situation and take action when it happens. The following are key indicators:

- You have no queen. Remember that every inspection starts with a check for a healthy, laying queen. If you have lost your queen, you must replace her.

- You see lots and lots of drones. A normal hive never has more than a few hundred drone bees. If you notice a big jump in the drone population, you may have a problem.

 You see cells with two or more eggs.

This is the definitive test. A queen bee will place only one egg in a cell — never more than one. Laying workers are not so particular; they will place two or more eggs in a single cell. If you see more than one egg in a cell, you can be certain that you have laying worker bees. Time to take action!

From : “Beekeeping For Dummies” By Howland Blackiston.

Putting a stop to a robbing attack

If you think that you have a robbing situation underway, don’t waste time. Use one or more of the following suggestions to halt robbing and prevent disaster:

- Reduce the size of the entrance to the width of a single bee. Use your entrance reducer or clumps of grass stuffed along the entrance. Minimizing the entrance will make it far easier for your bees to defend the colony. But be careful. If the temperature has turned hot, narrowing the entrance impairs ventilation.

- Soak a bed sheet in water and cover the hive that’s under attack. The sheet (heavy with water) drapes to the ground and prevents robbing bees from getting to the entrance. The bees in the hive seem to be able to find their way in and out. During hot, dry weather, rewet the sheet as needed. Be sure to remove the sheet after one or two days. By that time the robbing behavior should have stopped.

Preventing robbing in the first place

The best of all worlds is to prevent robbing from happening at all. Here’s what you can do:

- Never leave honey out in the open where the bees can find it — particularly near the hive and during a dearth in the nectar flow. Easy pickings can set  off a robbing situation.

- When harvesting honey, keep your supers covered after you remove them from the colony.

- Be very careful when handling sugar syrup. Try not to spill a single  drop when feeding your bees. The slightest amount anywhere but in the feeder can trigger disaster.

- Until your hive is strong enough to defend itself, use the entrance reducer to restrict the size of the opening the bees must protect. Also, be sure to close off the hole in the inner cover.

- Never feed your bees in the wide open (such as filling a dish with syrup or honey and putting it near the entrance of the hive).

- Avoid using a Boardman entrance feeder. Being so close to the entrance, these feeders can incite robbing behavior. Don’t be tempted to make it easier for your bees to access the syrup you feed them. I know of a beekeeper who put shims between the hive-top feeder and hive to create a gap that makes it easier for the bees to access the syrup. The result was a furious robbing attack from other bees. Keep your feeding device where only your colony can reach it.

From : “Beekeeping For Dummies” By Howland Blackiston.

Robbing is a situation in which a hive is attacked by invaders from other hives. The situation is serious for a number of reasons:

- A hive defending itself against robbing will fight to the death. This battle can result in the loss of many little lives and even destroy an entire colony. Tragedy!

- If the hive is unable to defend itself in a robbing situation, the invading army can strip the colony of all its food. Disaster!

- Being robbed changes the disposition of a hive. The bees can become nasty, aggressive, and difficult to deal with. Ouch!

Many new beekeepers mistake a robbing situation as being the opposite of a problem. Look at all that activity around the hive! Business must be booming! It’s a natural mistake. The hive’s entrance is furious with activity. Bees are everywhere. Thousands of them are darting in, out, and all around the hive.

Knowing the difference between normal and abnormal (robbing) behavior

A busy hive during the nectar flow may have a lot of activity at the entrance, but the normal behavior of foraging bees looks different than a robbing situation. Foraging bees go to and fro with a purpose. They shoot straight out of the hive and are quickly up and away. Returning foragers are weighted down with nectar and pollen and land solidly when returning to their hive. Some even undershoot the entrance and crash-land just short of the bottom board. Other times, normal activity at the hive’s entrance can look unusually busy. This is when young worker bees take their orientation flights. Facing the hive, they hover up, down, and back and forth. They’re orienting themselves to the location of their hive. You may see hundreds of these young bees floating around the front of the hive, but there’s nothing aggressive or frantic about heir exploratory behavior. In contrast to these normal busy situations, robbing takes on an aggressive and sinister look. Try to recognize the warning signs:

- Robbing bees approach the hive without being weighted down with nectar. They may not shoot right into the entrance. Instead, they fly from side to side, waiting for an opportune moment to sneak past the guard bees.

- If you look closely, you may see bees fighting at the entrance or on the ground in front of the hive. They are embraced in mortal combat. These are the guard bees defending their colony to the death. This behavior is a sure indication of robbing.

- Unlike foraging bees that leave the hive empty-handed, robbing bees leave the hive heavily laden with honey, which makes flying difficult. Robbing bees tend to climb up the front of the hive before taking off. Once they’re airborne, there’s a characteristic dip in their flight path.

From : “Beekeeping For Dummies” By Howland Blackiston.

Hiving your swarm

You can introduce your swarm into a new hive in the following manner:

1. Decide where you want to locate your new colony.

Keep in mind all the factors you need to consider when making this decision.

2. Set up a new hive in this location.

You’ll need a bottom board, a deep hive body, ten frames and foundation, an inner cover, an outer cover and a hive-top feeder (or other means for feeding the bees syrup). Keep the entrance wide open (no entrance reducer).

3. Place a bed sheet in front of the new hive, from the ground to the hive entrance.

This ramp will help the bees find the entrance to their new home. In lieu of a bed sheet, you can use a wooden plank or any configuration that creates a gang plank for the bees.

4. Take the box containing the swarm and shake/pour the bees onto the bed sheet, as close to the entrance as possible.

Some of the bees will immediately begin fanning an orientation scent at the entrance, and the rest will scramble right into the hive. What a remarkable sight this is — thousands of bees marching into their new home. Congratulations! You have a new colony of bees! The swarm of bees (now in their new home) will draw comb quickly because they arrive loaded with honey. Feed them syrup using the hive-top feeder to stimulate wax production. Feeding may not be necessary if the nectar flows are heavy. In a week, check the hive and see how the bees are doing. See any eggs? If you do, you know the queen is already at work. How many frames of foundation have been drawn into comb? The more the merrier! Is it time to add a second deep. Finding a swarm and starting a new colony are typically more desireable earlier in the season than later. That’s because late-swarms don’t have much time to grow and prosper before the winter sets in. There’s an old poem of unknown origin that is well-known to beekeepers:

A swarm in May — is worth a load of hay.

A swarm in June — is worth a silver spoon.

A swarm in July — isn’t worth a fly.

From : “Beekeeping For Dummies” By Howland Blackiston.

Capturing a swarm

If your bees do swarm and you can see where they landed (and you can reach it safely), you can capture them and start a new hive. You may even be lucky enough to get a call from a friend or neighbor who has spotted a wild swarm in his yard (beekeepers are often called to come capture swarms). Either way, capturing a swarm is a thrilling experience. Despite their rather awesome appearance, swarms are not that dangerous. That’s because honey bees are defensive only in the vicinity of their nest. They need this defensive behavior to protect their brood and food supply. But a swarm of honey bees has neither young nor food and is usually very gentle. That’s good news because it makes your job easy if you want to capture a swarm of bees. If you live in an area known to have Africanized Honey Bees, you must be very cautious — a swarm might be this undesirable strain. There’s no way of telling just by looking at them. If you’re in doubt, don’t attempt to capture a swarm — unless you are certain this swarm originated from your hive. Be prepared for a crowd of awestruck onlookers. I always draw a crowd when I capture a swarm. Everyone in your audience will be stunned as you walk up to this mass of 20,000 stingers wearing only a veil for protection. “Look” they’ll gasp, “that beekeeper is in short sleeves and is not wearing any gloves! Are they crazy?” Only you will know the secret: The bees are at their gentlest when they’re in a swarming cluster. You have nothing to fear. But your neophyte audience will think that your bravery is supreme. To them, you are a bee charmer — or the bravest (or nuttiest) person alive! The easiest swarms to capture are those that are accommodating enough to collect on a bush or a low tree branch — one that you can reach without climbing a ladder. Obviously, if the branch is high up in a tree, you should not attempt your first capture! Gain experience by first capturing swarms that are easy reaches. Then you can graduate to the school of acrobatic swarm collection. Say your swarm is located on an accessible branch. Lucky you! Follow these steps to capture it:

1. Place a suitable container on the ground below the swarm.

You can use a large cardboard box , an empty beehive, or a nuc box . This container will be the swarm’s temporary accommodation while you transport the bees to their new, permanent home. The container you use should be large enough to accommodate the entire cluster of bees and a hunk of the branch they are currently calling home.

2. Get the bees off the branch.

One approach is to give the branch holding the bees a sudden authoritative jolt. Doing so will dislodge the swarm, and it will (hopefully) fall into the container that you have placed directly under it. If this approach works, great. But it can be tricky. The swarm may miss its mark, and you may wind up with bees all over the place. In addition, this violent dislodging tests the gentle demeanor I promised! I prefer a more precise approach that enables you to gently place (not drop) the bees into their “swarm box.” This approach works if the swarm is on a branch that you can easily sever from the rest of the foliage. You’ll need a pair of pruning shears — a size appropriate for the job at hand. Follow these steps:

1. Study the swarm.

Notice how the bees are clustered on the branches. Can you spot the main branch that’s holding the swarm? Are several branches holding it? Try to identify the branch (or branches) that, if severed, will allow you to gingerly walk the branch with swarm attached over to the box. In this manner, you can place the swarm in the box, not dump it.

2. Snip away at the lesser branches while firmly holding the branch containing the mother lode with your other hand.

Work with the precision of a surgeon: You don’t want to jolt the swarm off the branch prematurely. When you’re absolutely sure that you understand which branch is holding the bees, make the decisive cut. Anticipate that the swarm will be heavier than you imagined, and be sure that you have a firm grip on the branch before you make the cut. Avoid sudden jolts or drops that would knock the bees off the branch.

3. Carefully walk the swarm (branch and all) to the empty cardboard box and place the whole deal in the box. The bees will not leave the branch as you walk, but you should walk as gingerly as if you were walking on ice.

3. Close up the box, tape it shut, and you’re done. Whew!

Get it home right away because heat will build up quickly in the closed box. I have modified a cardboard box for swarm captures. One side contains a large “window” cutout that I have fitted with mosquito screen. This window gives the captured swarm ample ventilation. Alternatively, punch some holes in the box with an awl or an ice pick to provide ventilation.

From : “Beekeeping For Dummies” By Howland Blackiston.

They swarmed anyway. Now what?

Okay, the bees swarmed anyway. You’re not alone; it happens. The good news is that you may be able to capture your swarm and start another colony.  You wanted a new hive of bees anyway, didn’t you? In any event, what should you do with the half of the colony that remains? Follow these steps:

1. A week after your colony swarms, inspect the hive to determine whether you have a new queen. You might spot a queen cell or two along the lower third of the frames . Good! That’s an encouraging sign. It means a new queen is “in the oven.” But you must ultimately determine if the colony’s new queen is laying eggs. One week after a swarm you’re unlikely to see any eggs — it’s too soon for the new queen to get to work. But do have a look and see if you can find her majesty. If you can, great! Close up the hive and wait another week. If you don’t see the queen, wait a couple more days and have another look. After the swarm, it will take six to eight days for the queen cell to open and a new virgin queen to emerge. Then allow three to four more days for her to mate with the drones. After another three to four days, she will start laying eggs. The total elapsed time since the swarm is about two weeks.

Consider marking your new queen once you’ve found her. It’s common for a beekeeper to place a daub of color on the queen’s thorax (back). Marking queens makes them easier to find during future inspections, and verifies that the queen you see is the same one you saw during previous inspections.

2. Two weeks after the swarm, open the hive again and look for eggs. Do you see eggs? If so, you have a queen, and your colony is off and running. Close things up and celebrate with a glass of mead. If there’s still no sign of a queen or her eggs, order a new queen from your bee supplier. Hive the replacement queen as soon as she arrives . If you don’t follow up after a swarm, the colony can easily become queenless without you ever being aware of it. No queen, no brood. No brood, no good.

1. Have at-the-ready a new hive body with nine frames and foundation, bottom board, hive-top feeder and outer cover.

2. Turn your attention to the suspect hive. Smoke and inspect, looking for the frame with the queen on it. When you find that regal frame, gently put it aside. Be careful! The queen is on that frame! You can make use of a empty nuc box or another empty hive body to hold this frame out of harm’s way. In any event, find a way to keep the queen and frame safe and sound while you tend to other things.

3. Move the old hive at least 10 feet away from its original location (here’s where a wheelbarrow or hive lifter comes in handy).

4. Now place the new hive setup where the old hive was previously located.

5. Place a bed sheet in front of the new hive, from the ground to the entrance board. You are creating a ramp for the bees that you are about to unceremoniously dump in front of this hive.

6. Back to the old hive. One by one, take each frame out of the old hive, and shake 80 to 90 percent of the bees off the frames (use a bee brush if you prefer) and onto the bed sheet ramp in front of the new hive. They will march their way right into the new hive. Make sure you don’t shake all of the bees off the frames. About 10 to 20 percent of the bees should remain on the old frames.

7. Put these old frames (with some bees still clinging to them) back into the old hive. At this point, the old hive has nine of its original frames containing brood, larvae, eggs, and about 10 to 20 percent of the bees. Remember that these frames must contain at least one queen cell. Add a new frame and foundation to take up the empty (tenth) slot.

8. Here’s where you take the frame with the old queen and gently brush her onto the entrance of the new hive. Bee careful!

9. Take the frame that the queen was on and slip it into the tenth slot of the new hive. Your new hive now contains this “old” frame, nine new frames with foundation, and about 80 to 90 percent of the bees. Plus the original queen.

10. Feed syrup to both hives using hive-top feeders or some other suitable feeding device. It’s a good practice to close up the new hive for a day or two by pushing screening along the entrance way. Confining the bees in this manner gets them working on building new comb and helps them get over the swarming instinct.

From : “Beekeeping For Dummies” By Howland Blackiston.

Keeping the girls from leaving home

There are two primary reasons bees swarm: congestion and poor ventilation. Occasionally, a poorly performing queen can contribute to the swarming impulse. But all these conditions can be anticipated and avoided. Here are some things you can do:

-  Avoid congestion. Because overcrowding is a primary reason a colony  will swarm, make sure to anticipate your bees’ needs and provide them with more room before they need it. If you wait until it’s obvious that the colony is crowded, you’re too late! The colony is likely to swarm, and there is little you can to prevent them from swarming once they’ve set their minds to it. However, you can do the following to prevent congestion from happening in the first place:

• Reverse your hive bodies in the early spring to better distribute the fast-growing population.

• Add a queen excluder and honey supers before the first nectar flow in the early spring (stop feeding and medicating before you add honey supers.

-  Provide adequate ventilation. To ensure proper ventilation, you can do a number of things:

• If your inner cover has a notched ventilation hole in the front of the inner cover, make sure it is open. Here’s how. Stand at the rear of the hive and push the outer cover forward. Doing so prevents the overhang of the outer cover from blocking the notched hole on the inner cover.

• Glue a short length of a wooden Popsicle stick to each of the four corners of the inner cover. By doing so, you create a thin gap between the inner cover and the hive and improve air flow into and out of the hive. (Alternatively, you can place a short screw with a fat, domed head in each corner. The fat head of the screw creates the gap you want.)

• Drill wine cork–sized holes in your upper deep (below the hand hold) and in all your honey supers. Doing so not only provides extra ventilation but also provides the bees with additional entrances. This ventilation can even be helpful in the cold winter months. You can control airflow and access by blocking and opening these holes as needed with corks or strips of duct tape. Be sure to close off these entrances for a new colony whose population is still too small to defend all these extra openings.

- Make the bees comfortable in hot weather by doing the following:

• Supply a nearby water source. The bees will use this water to regulate the hive’s temperature.

• Shield the hive from a full day of blazing sun. Particularly if you live in a blazing hot area. Locating the hive in dappled sunlight is the best solution.

- Remove queen swarm cells — all of them. The earliest evidence that your bees are thinking about swarming is that they start to make swarm cells. During the spring and early summer, inspect your hive every week or ten days to look for swarm cells. They can be found along the bottom of the frames. If you see any, remove them by cutting them out with the sharp end of your hive tool. The colony won’t swarm if it doesn’t have a new queen in the making. This technique only works if you remove 100 percent of the swarm cells. If just one cell remains behind, the colony has the green light to swarm.

- Replace your queen every other autumn. Colonies with young queens are far less likely to swarm. If the hive is simply boiling over with bees and you failed to take any of the above precautions, there is a last-resort emergency measure. You can remove all the frames of capped brood from the hive (with bees still on the frames) and replace them with frames of foundation. A colony will not swarm if it does not have capped brood equal to the number of bees swarming. Make sure that the queen is not on any of these frames. You can use these frames of bees and brood to start a new hive! If there are eggs on those frames, the “new” hive will raise a new queen. Or you can play it safe and order a new queen from your bee supplier.

From : “Beekeeping For Dummies” By Howland Blackiston.

Swarms are a dramatic sight, and a completely natural occurrence for the bees, but swarms are not good news for you. A colony that swarms is far less likely to collect a surplus of honey. That means no honey harvest for you that year. A colony that loses 50 percent of its population and 50 percent of its honey also will have a difficult time regaining its population and productivity. It also means the bees may have a tougher time making it through the cold winter months (assuming you have such weather). It’s unhappy enough news when your bees swarm, but the later in the season they do it, the worse the news is for you. If the bees choose to swarm later, and you live in an area that experiences cold winter months, there simply isn’t enough time for the colony to recover during that season. If you’re a first-year beekeeper, rest assured that a new colony is unlikely to swarm during its first season. But older and more crowded colonies are likely candidates for swarming behavior. Remember, swarming is a natural and normal instinct for bees. At one point or another, your bees will want to swarm. It’s only natural. It’s nature’s way of reproduction. But discouraging them from doing so is a skill every beekeeper should have as a swarm means less bees to make honey for you.

From : “Beekeeping For Dummies” By Howland Blackiston.

A swarm of honey bees is a familiar sight in the spring and early summer. It’s one of the most fascinating phenomena in nature and an instinctive way that honey bees manage the colony’s growth and survival. To witness a swarm pouring out of a hive is simply thrilling — though the pleasure may be less so if the swarm of bees is yours! Immediately before swarming, the bees that intend to leave the colony gorge themselves with honey (like packing a box lunch before a long trip). Then, all at once, like someone flipped a switch, tens of thousands of bees exit the hiveand blacken the sky with their numbers. Half or more of the colony leaves the hive to look for a new home. But first, within a few minutes of departing from the hive, the bees settle down on a nearby surface. There’s no telling where a swarm might land. It could land on any convenient resting place: a bush, a tree branch, a lamppost, or perhaps a piece of patio furniture. In any case, the swarming bees won’t stay there long. As soon as scout bees find a more suitable and protected home, the swarm will be up, up, and away. In its temporary resting place, the swarm is a bundle of bees clustered together for protection and warmth. In the center of it all is their queen. Depending on the size of the hive that swarmed, the cluster may be as small as a grapefruit or as large as a watermelon. The bees will remain in this manner for a few hours or even a few days while scout bees look for a new home. When they return with news of a suitable spot, off they all go to take up residence in a hollow tree, within the walls of an old barn, or in some other cozy cavity. Not sure if your hive has swarmed? A regular inspection during the month of May and June will reveal the situation. Know the key indicators: no eggs, fewer bees, and all the cells have only older larvae and/or capped brood. And there are always queen cells present along the lower third of the frames.

  From : “Beekeeping For Dummies” By Howland Blackiston.