Spring buildup

[Firebee]

When will the bees start to build up here. I have not looked in my new hive yet this year. Is it time to start feeding pollen. My bees are in a single deep and one shallow full of honey, when sould I add the second deep?

[Jacobs]

Please consider putting your city or county location in your profile since all beekeeping is local. In my area, bees can start building anytime after solstice (around December 21st) when daylight starts increasing.

I am going to put a pollen substitute (8 parts spent brewers yeast, 1 part soy flower, 1 part powdered sugar I made in my coffee "grinder" that works like a small high speed food processor) out for external feeding. If there is no better natural source, the bees will go to it heavily. Once the red maples are in bloom (now to around February 1st in the Piedmont) they will pay less attention to the substitute. Any time now that I have a sunny and warm enough (the closer to 60°F+ the better) day, I will want to go into the hives and put pollen patties on just over the brood. This will give the building brood an over night and bad weather protein source. It will also let me know the amount of honey the bees have and whether I need to feed sugar water or sugar water honey. The more the bees are brooding up, the more stores they will run through. They are more likely to starve in February or March when building brood, but before the flow.

I would suggest you go to the "pink pages" link on our home page and join me in getting yelled at by the late George Imirie. Even though he was in Maryland, his what to/when to "suggestions" [demands] seem to line up with our location. He suggests beginning the reversing of brood boxes in February if you are not dividing brood. If the bees have moved up into the upper box and the lower box is empty, move it to the top.

You asked about when to add a second deep. Is it new foundation or drawn comb. They won't do much with foundation until there is a flow or unless you feed very large amounts of sugar water in periods warm enough to encourage wax production.

I didn't mean to write a book, but basically, you are asking what am I supposed to be doing coming out of winter? I am hoping we can get a replay of David Tarpy's webinar on this topic for our February GCBA meeting.

[Kurt Bower]

Big day for the bees!
Checked all of my hives and found substantial pollen coming in on the really strong hives.
Also found that the hives that were stores acceptable 4 weeks ago were almost starving today!

The warm weather has really taken a toll on the food available in the hive. I will be feeding tomorrow.

[Wally]

Today is the third day I have fed. They are taking a gallon per day.

You need to do a complete check of both boxes before adding another. You want to add one when both existing boxes are 80% or more full.

[Jacobs]

My bees were heavily into the water supply and the external sugar water feeders, but showed almost no interest in the external brewers yeast mix today. They were bringing in yellow and olive green pollen. They clearly appear to be brooding up and I will be keeping a close eye on food stores over the next couple of months. I don't want them to burn through food supplies and starve before the flow begins.

[Kurt Bower]

There are maples in bloom near my house.
That means we are over two weeks early this year. Not sure what this will do to the timing of the honey flow this spring!

[larry tate]

Yes unless nature slows them down its gonna be hard to keep them in the box I think. We are manipulating frames now putting some empties in and taking a few necter filled ones out.

[Jacobs]

I went through my hives this afternoon. The most surprising one had a deep & 3 mediums. The bees were in the top medium and beginning to brood it up. The 2 mediums below had capped worker and drone brood and several drones walking on the frames. I destroyed a fair amount of drone brood built between mediums. This is the only hive showing full spring characteristics. Instead of inspecting the deep, I got another medium with alternating frames of sugar water honey and open drawn comb and placed it above the top medium. I did not see any SHB in the hives at my house. They get full sun. I inspected my hive nearby at a church community garden and killed around 10 SHB and saw several more. This hive gets some sun, but quite a bit of shade. I'm going to have to get aggressive with placing my beetle eaters on that hive and hope for the best.

All had reasonable amounts of honey but will bear watching. I put about 1/2 pollen patty just above the brood on all hives.

[braswell]

Forgive me for somewhat changing the subject. I looked in all the Stokesdale hives yesterday and spring has sprung. I had one hive dead. The hive bettles (not many) where also dead. The bees where clustered in the middle with plenty of honey on top and sides. I want to post pictures for all to see but for now, WHY were the SHB dead also. RB

[Jacobs]

My guess is that the SHB were overwintering with your hive and enjoying the warmth and food until the spring build up. When the hive died, the SHB lost their heat source. Just a theory.

[Jacobs]

I am seeing what I think are external signs of brooding up in my second strongest hive. I have a ventilation stick between my inner cover and telescoping top, but am still seeing some water at the reduced opening of the landing board. I think the growing number of bees are producing heat with condensation and moisture from respiration. They may be using some of it to dilute honey and feed to brood. I hope there is not too much of it for them to deal with. I also saw about a 1 inch chunk of wax paper in front of the hive. It looks like they are consuming the pollen patty and removing the wax paper I could not get off when placing the patty above the cluster. The bees could really be burning through honey now if they are building up brood and this cooler, cloudy weather limits trips to my sugar water jars.

[Jacobs]

I took advantage of yesterday afternoon's 60°F+ to check my home hives. Only 2 had not completely consumed or largely consumed the 1/2 pollen patty I had given them, so they got another. All have decent stores, but some will need watching since they are considerably lighter than they were in the fall. They all appear to be taking in and storing sugar water that I have been feeding. I take this to mean that, up to this point, they are not consuming every bit that they bring in and that they have it and the capped honey to fall back on if we get a several day period of rain or cold weather.

All are queen right. Two are weak but appear to be building and may make it through winter. (A weak survivor hive is not all bad for me. It would be my "show" hive--the one I can open, pull a frame of bees, and find the queen quickly to put in an observation hive for spring school/organization bee presentations.) I did not see any where I felt it was necessary to reverse brood boxes as of now.

I am seeing drone brood in the majority of the hives and emerged drones walking around in the hives in some of them. I have seen a few healthy looking drones trying, but unable to fly, but I have not seen drones successfully making orientation flights with the new foragers.

Is anyone else seeing drones in the hive on their inspections or has anyone seen drones flying?

[Jacobs]

I am seeing some drones flying from and returning to a couple of my stronger hives at the house. This is the first time this season that I have seen mature drones successfully take off, fly, and return to the hives.

[ski]

Quote from Rob's post:
"This is the first time this season that I have seen mature drones successfully take off, fly, and return to the hives."


Ski's question:
Just curious how you knew they were mature drones?

[Jacobs]

I meant in the sense of being able to leave the hive and return. I did not squeeze the abdomens to examine the fluids to see if they were mating ready.

[ski]

I was hoping you had mature mating drones.
I have only seen a few drones in the hive and have not seen any flying yet. Must be a week or so behind.

[herbcoop]

Mr. Jacobs,
You wrote this and I have a question sir.
"I would suggest you go to the "pink pages" link on our home page and join me in getting yelled at by the late George Imirie. Even though he was in Maryland, his what to/when to "suggestions" [demands] seem to line up with our location. He suggests beginning the reversing of brood boxes in February if you are not dividing brood. If the bees have moved up into the upper box and the lower box is empty, move it to the top."

I got to do a hive inspection yesterday, I've used medium hive body and a medium super over the winter, taking off the tel. cover and inner cover I inspected the foundations the 2 outer on both sides have no honey with few bees. The 6 in the middle have honey stores with a bunch of new works and more drones than I saw when I got my hive started last July.
I removed this medium and looked in the hive body which I didn't see any honey stores and alot of eggs and a whole lot of bees, I also saw the queen while I was in there.
From what you posted above I read in a book as well I switched the positions, but when I was done and sitting inside I second guessed myself saying I wanted the food to be on top and the brood area with no food on the bottom, so I went out and got the girls a little cranky by moving them back to where they were when I started. Did I do the correct thing by putting things back where they were or should I have switched them?
Thanks in advance. (please excuse any spelling as well "lol")

[Jacobs]

If I am reading you correctly, I think your second guessing was the right move. If the brood is in the bottom of 2 mediums, and the food is in the top medium, that is where you want it. The bees will move up to the honey and consume/remove it. The queen usually moves up into the cleaned out areas and lays eggs. When doing my winter/early spring checks, I am looking to see if the bees have moved up into the top food super, and if so, in what numbers. If they are in large numbers just under the inner cover on these inspections, I generally take that as a sign that I need to get them more food (some options--mountain camp-dry sugar on newspaper over the cluster, add a medium with sugar water "honey" from my freezer).

Reversing the brood boxes is something to consider when the bees have moved up into a super, are using it for brood, and the former brood super is under it and is essentially empty of brood. By taking the empty brood super and putting it over the super now being used for brood, it allows the queen and workers to keep moving up to add brood. The theory is that this will lessen the likelihood of the bees feeling crowded and going into a swarm mode. The honey or food super stays above the brood supers.

[Wally]

""If the bees have moved up into the upper box and the lower box is empty, move it to the top.""

Herb, did you miss this??

[herbcoop]

Mr. Jacobs you were correct in my question thank you

Wally- no bothe of the hive body and my upper medium have bees in them
The hive body looked to have more bees in that one than the top medium
so I'm going to leave the hive the same as what I started with and add some food for Precaution

good