Plain Talk: A Bee Yard Stroll (224)

Episode 224 – Plain Talk: A Bee Yard Stroll

Jim Tew: Hey, listeners, it's Jim. Finally, after a winter that never seemed to end, after all the times you and I talked about cold and snow and came up with topics that we could discuss without ever really being near the bees, I'm here. You'll probably notice my sound quality, not what we would like, but it's the best I can do here in the field. I came out all during the winter checking things here, nothing to do, but just come look and it just looked terrible.

It's a pleasant surprise to find out that I only suffered about a 30% winter loss here at the colonies. I wanted to sit here and just watch the bees come and go, but I want to tell you some of the situation that I'm in, some of the situation I hope I can resolve this year, and see what you think, and maybe let me know what situations that you're in. Listeners, I'm Jim Tew, I come to you once a week here at Honey Bee Obscura where I just try to talk about something to do with plain talk beekeeping.

Introduction: Welcome to Honey Bee Obscura, brought to you by Growing Planet Media, the producers of the Beekeeping Today podcast. Join Jim Tew, your guide through the complexities, the beauty, the fun, and the challenges of managing honeybees. Jim hosts fun and interesting guests who take a deep dive into the intricate world of honeybees. Whether you're a seasoned beekeeper or just getting started, get ready for some plain talk that'll delve into all things honeybees.

Jim: My friends all down through the southeastern US, warm climate, just kept sending me dire reports that they already had significant winter losses and they had weather that, from a bee standpoint, was to die for. Nice mild winters, they did have some snow, they had some cold, but overall I would have thought that my bees would have loved to have been in the southeastern US and to hear that their bees were dying off was a horror banger, that things wouldn't be good for me here.

For a whole list of reasons that I'm not going to go into now, maybe later, but not now, I've had to neglect my bees for a couple of years and not be the beekeeper I wanted to be. I'm sitting here, I've got a draw in your mind with some mildly looking equipment, needs to be painted, needs to be scraped, just for cosmetic purposes, the bees seem just fine with it, but it's not really very scenic. Ironically if you were sitting here beside me, I don't think you'd be all that impressed with my beekeeping maintenance program.

The flight off of one colony here is just refreshing, I'd like to say exhilarating but let's don't get carried away, Jim. About every third bee that comes in is bringing in bright yellow pollen, and I suspect it's off the maple trees that are all around me here. It's that glorious time of the year where the bees don't really care about me at all, so I'm sitting here just out of their flight path, watching them come, watching them go. There's no significant die off in front of the colonies. These bees have not been beekeepered well for the last couple of years. I won't even tell you how poor it's been because you'd be amazed that there's bees here at all.

Flight pattern is good. Strangely to me, strangely, there's no drones. Having thought that this colony was dead, having been out here thinking that it was gone, has been like a gift. I'm jumping ahead of myself, I'm still going to order, maybe a couple of packages, maybe a couple of splits, I don't know, just ordering those to be playing, to have something to photograph, something to talk about, but more likely something to complain about. I can tell you straight up, I've started with the best survivor here.

I'm not opening them, listeners, I'm not bothering them. They've been on their own, they've managed their own affairs, they seem healthy enough, the equipment's going to need repositioning, I suspect they're up top. They had plenty of honey, plenty of honey, but that was all they had, everything else was to their own devices. Now what's going to happen? This colony is going to swarm. I'm just Jim Tew bee guy, but I can sit here and tell you that this colony flying and this eager, and it was a swarm last year. It's carrying some swarm genetics, off to a start this good, if nothing happens to it, these bees are going to split themselves just in a few weeks.

As the weather progresses, you've got to be somewhat of a weather person and watch the predictions. I'm sorry about the wind, listeners, I've actually tried to do this segment before and the wind was so bad you couldn't hear me. I've made some changes and now I bet you still can't hear me, but nonetheless, nice gentle warm breeze blowing, and I'm getting ready now, expecting these bees to swarm.

When I can see beyond the next weather front, which is supposed to be a good one, high wind, rain, whatever, I will do my thing and I'll open these bees up, figure out where they are in these three deeps, and reposition them. As soon as I can get a queen, I'm going to splurge, buy a queen, if I can get one, instead of letting them raise their own. Speed things along, bump them up some. Best colony first, good shape, a lot of flight, pollen coming in, no drone activity.

I started with the best colony first, I'm going to come back, figure out where they are in these three deeps. I'm going to move the brood nest down to the bottom, position some food stores up top. I may or may not do a spring mite treatment, I may hold off till early summer, depending on what the mite drop fall looks like, and then somewhere along the way I'm going to split them. I'm going to buy queens, if I can get them, instead of letting them produce their own. That's the best colony.

Now from here, let's just slightly go downhill. The colony literally six inches from it, I don't know if it matters, it's in the expanded polystyrene foam, it's the bee box device from Finland. It didn't weather as well, that's not a comment on the box configuration, could be genetics, could be mites, it could be anything, could be the box, but it's not wintering as well. Whereas the colony eight inches, six inches away is just coming and going, coming and going, this colony is clearly weak.

Listeners, in fact, it's not too late for this colony to die. If there's another cold snap, they could be in trouble because they've got brood now. They too are bringing back pollen. I estimate they have about one-fifth of the entrance activity that the better colony has. They both clearly have brood, I think I can say they clearly have brood because of the amount of pollen they're bringing back.

Since they have brood, now they've committed to maintaining incubation temperatures so it's going to be more difficult for the next squall that comes through, for them to cluster up, maintain that brood nest temperature and keep things the way it should be. Other than being lazy and old, that's one of the reasons I don't want to open them up right now. I don't want to disturb them, harass them, confuse them, and break up the system that they've evolved inside the colony. There's yet another colony I want us to talk about, but I've got to move to it. While I'm moving, why don't we take a break and hear a word from our sponsor.

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Jim: Listeners, I've moved. Standing by a colony that's ridiculously tall, it's in five deeps. Last fall I had issues that affected my beekeeping and one of the colonies died before winter ever even started. It almost had two deeps of honey on it, so I just set them over on the colony beside it. This colony is in five deeps. Since I'm from a warm climate, even in Ohio, which is a moderate climate, I still stagger the upper deeps so they have an upper entrance. That's what they're using right now, is that upper entrance.

There's a lot of flight. It's about probably three-fourths of the one that I'm eager about. A lot of pollen coming in. It's good flight. They're coming in at the top slot three deeps up. Now whining, whining, whining, complaining all the time that I do, I'm honestly going to have to have help to get those top deeps off. They were dead weight heavy last fall. I'm going to try to get a grandson or another beekeeper to come help me get those top deeps off to find the brood nest and then to reposition this into a more manageable colony so I can get a mite program underway.

Go ahead, ask me. Ask me why you don't just open that colony up, stand on a short ladder, and pull out a frame or two at a time. I've tried that in the past. It works, but it is work. It's time consuming. The bees don't like me doing it. If I can't get help, that is in fact what I'll do. The colonies are sitting on some nice stands that I got at Betterbee, really nicely positioned, they're stable, but it also means they're about 18 inches off the ground. The colony is actually taller, higher than my head, and I'm standing at an old man 5 feet and 11 inches tall.

This is a tall colony. There's good activity here. It seems unfair to the queens that have done all this, but if I'm going to be an efficient beekeeper, this colony should be re-queened. I'm going to think about that a lot, talk about that with you a lot more. Do you just let the bees do it themselves and save $40? Do you get right in the thick of their lives and put the queen in there they may not want? All those things are questions for another day, not for this day.

Right now, just to say again, this is a nice, warm, breezy spring day, late winter day. Still some winter coming, but right now this is a good day just to be in the bee yard and honestly not be bothering the bees, just letting them be bees. I'm going to move again, there's yet another colony, but it is not in the same situation. Stand by while I move again. Listners, I've moved yet again, and I'm standing by two colonies that are totally dead.

It's that bizarre situation that almost happens every year. They were strong colonies, so it had to be mites. In the old days it would have been queen failure or maybe some other disease, but I'll just bet you that it was mites that did this to these two strong colonies. They are in one, two, three, four deeps and a super. There must be 120 pounds of honey here. I have a lot of robbing activity going on.

I've talked to you at length, I've written articles at length about this whole robbing business. I've really developed a personal philosophy on this. Every bee knows how to rob, it's not something that beekeepers train them to do. It's very practical to rob. Other than maybe some maple and some other very early spring flowers, late winter flowers, there's nothing for them to work on, so why would they not come over to a neighboring abandoned colony and pick up this free honey?

On the front of the colony, there's a mess. It looks like it's probably a mix of wax and propolis where they've tracked in and out, tracked in and out, and they've left a spot on the colony. All of this bee activity here, that's not foragers. This is not a living colony. There's a little bit of tussling every now and then when the bees come and go. There's some opportunistic flies, probably some sarcophagids and some blue bottle flies that are here because there must be some kind of detritus inside that they're able to feed onto.

The one right next to it is in two deeps. It was just a blistering colony last year, it's dead. Every year some of the strangest colonies die. The colony I've already discussed, the green expanded polystyrene equipment, it was not much of a colony last fall. Why is it alive? At the same time, that green colony over there that I can see from where I'm standing has also been under a degree of robbing attack because that colony that's just eight inches from it will shamelessly go over and kill off its neighbor and take its stores.

There's nothing more important to bees than their nest. It appears that if they sacrifice another colony next to them, that's just how things were supposed to be. The strong get stronger. I'm not really all in a tizzy about this robbing going on because as soon as there's a good nectar flow going on, ironically the bees will move away from this. There'll always be a few bees here, but the intensive activity I've got here now-- intensive is the wrong word, listeners, eager activity. Let's go with that.

There's not thousands of bees here. There's hundreds of bees here. They're very active, very coming and going, very flighty, very darty as they explore this free larder of food here. I'm not all watered up over it because it's most likely my bees. I can't guarantee that. Could be bees from neighboring colonies that are coming over here. I'm convinced that bees know where their neighbors are in the community, but that's another story for a different time. I'm not really bummed out about all this robbing going on because it's self-limiting.

As soon as I feel like that spring is here to stay, I'll get this mess cleaned up. Is it a mess or a situation? Let me say I'll get this situation corrected and get it under control. To me, it's interesting. I've not seen a single drone. Now here in late March, early April, I guess you'd say it's a bit early for drones, but I will bet you in those colonies that have brood that they've already got drones production underway. Not because they're going to mate with those drones in those colonies, but they're actively producing these drones to contribute to the gene pool.

Other colonies are doing the same. When those queens take their early season flights, there's possibility for them to successfully find mature drones out there. I bet you that there's drone production underway. In retrospect, it's just a good day to take a walk in the bee yard. I've been given a bit of a gift in this yard. There's more colonies alive here than I ever dreamed. There's one that's going to be particularly alive if I don't do something about it.

The other two colonies have a chance of surviving. I'm going to split that one colony, if I can, before it swarms. I'm going to get a few packages. I'm going to turn back into a more consecrated beekeeper than I have been for the last couple of years. I hope you stand by, hold my hand, if you've got some comments, send them to me. I always read them. I don't always respond, but I read every comment every time. If you've got a reprimand, send that too. I need to know what you like and don't like.

You need to know, I always truly enjoy talking with you. It's just a very fulfilling thing for me to do, to come out here and hang out with my bees for a few minutes and not be the pest to them that I can be. Until I get a chance to open these bees up and tell you more about what's inside, it looks like yet another season has started. How many seasons has this been? More than I really care to count. It's that time of the year. I deeply appreciate you listening and keeping bees. It's just a great thing to do. I'll be talking to you next week. I'm Jim, telling you bye.

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