The calendar lies. April 2 was the first day of spring. At least around here.
How do I know? It was warm, sunny, a hint of moisture in the air from the much-needed rain that fell the night before. Bird calls filled my ears, and by afternoon my truck sported a fine coat of pollen. On the morning dog walk, two butterflies floated by, we saw a pesky squirrel, heard a woodpecker, and observed that the fine green coating on the forest floor that precedes the explosion of ground cover that can make bushwhacking a hassle.
At my elevation, trees don’t have leaves yet, but some bushes do. In the valley below, both the domestic cherries in people’s yards and the wild ones in the woods are blooming. Not up here, at least not yet. The apples will follow the cherries, and both will keep the bees happy.
We’ve had warm days before, but not as warm as today. I let the chickens free-range longer than normal, just so I could soak up some sun. I even opened the basement window, and the temperature in my man cave climbed to 68°F. ‘Round about August that will sound enticing. Right now, I wouldn’t mind if it was degree or two warmer down there.
It was a good day for a nap in a hammock. I didn’t take one, but my neighbor did.
Beekeeping Heats Up
The bees are thriving in the warm weather. When I checked the split I made 13 days ago, the new hive had five queen cells. I cut out the smallest and weakest. If she hasn’t already, the queen will be emerging about now, killing off any still in the cell and fighting it out with any survivors. In a few days, she will take her mating flight, heading off to a drone congregation area where she will mate with anywhere from 20 to 40 drones, as the male honey bee is known. That will give her enough sperm to fertilize eggs for the rest of her life. (The average worker bee lives six weeks; a queen can last three or more years.)
When I check the hive in another two weeks, it should be full of eggs and young brood. If not, that means the queen never made it back to the hive. She could have gotten eaten by a predator, gotten lost or damaged and unable to get back to the hive. That happens to about one in five queens. At that point, the hive will have to be reinvigorated with frames of brood and eggs from stronger hives, and they’ll try to raise another queen. In the wild, the hive would wither and die, but a smart beekeeper can intervene and keep that from happening.
Earlier this past week, I split a hive in my other apiary. It was so strong, it was just overflowing with bees. I removed five frames, placed them in an empty hive, and later added another frame of bees from another hive. With any luck, they will make their own queen, and I’ll be up to 11 hives.
More Splits Means More Hives
I also have a hive that showed no sign of a queen. It had a couple of frames with some very mature drone brood, but nothing else. That meant the queen had been missing or dead for two weeks or more.
I don’t know what happened. This hive was not on my endangered list. It’s always possible that I mistakenly crushed or rolled the queen the last time I inspected the hives. It’s also possible the bees tried to replace her, but that failed. I took resources from the stronger hives and bolstered this one. If all goes well, it will be just like a split, and they will make their own queen.
I’m due to check those hives on Wednesday, at which point any queen cells should be fully capped but not as fragile as they will be coupled days later when the queen’s wings are forming. (You don’t want to move the queen cells then.)
I hope that each hive will have several frames of queen cells so I can leave one in the hive and move the others to a nuc or a queen castle. A nuc is a small, five-frame hive that is like a starter home for young queens. A queen castle is like a condo for young queens. It looks like a standard hive but it has three sealed compartments. This is where young queens get their start in life. I can then use mated queens to start larger hives or sell them for $40 each.
Building a Bee Yard
In my March 24 post, I talked about how four hives is a self-sustaining number. A beekeeper with at least four hives should be able to keep his or her bees alive indefinitely, barring a major disaster like a flood or a bear attack. (Solar fence chargers work great, in my experience.) The above is a good example of how that works. I went into the winter with ten hives, came out with nine, and was losing another one, but already have three new hives in the works. If all goes well, by the end of the month I’ll have 11 full hives, three with brand new queens.
More bees means I need more equipment. I have enough hive bodies, but I need more bottom boards, lids, and feeders. I like to place an online order at a major bee supplier in the state and then drive there to pick it up to save on shipping. It’s a two-hour trip each way, but my wife and I make a day of it, stopping at her favorite stores along the way and enjoying lunch out. I’ll also buy all the glass jars and plastic bottles I expect to use this year, and they will go right into the storage unit until I need them.
