buzzwords - barnstablebeekeepers.org · and keep an eye on it every 3 to 4 weeks. Drone brood...
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buzzwords http://www.barnstablebeekeepers.org May 2020 Upcoming Meetings Zoom Connection will be provided via email in advance. Please do not share it outside the club. May 15 7:30 pm Dr. Jonathan Snow, Ph. D. Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences Columbia University/Barnard College Dr Snow will discuss that honey bee losses are due to other causes and have also increased in recent years. He believes that part of the endangerment may have to do with the way bees are responding to stresses in the environment, such as loss of appropriate food due to human interference with their habitats, exposure to chemicals like pesticides, or attack by microbial organisms that can cause infectious disease. From the President Well, the time that we have all anticipated has arrived…our bees are here! I hope everyone is excited as I am. You are about to embark on a journey like no other. We will be having our May meeting. This will be done virtually, via Zoom. As we are still figuring this out, details will follow. Should you need to contact your mentor, try doing it over the phone, either virtually or in conversation. Those of you that engage in social media, a post to the BCBA Facebook page will also get you answers. I know that we are adaptable to this new way of “doing business.” I wish you all the best. You will all do better than you think you will. But, during this time of uncertainty, and thinking what I would write for this month’s newsletter, this one quote keeps echoing in my mind, as this phrase has a great value in comparison and contrast of two situations and environments, is the opening line Charles Dickens wrote in “ The Tale of Two Cities”……“It was the best of times and the worst of times.” Please be safe, keep your distance…..and wash your hands. Mike Smith Hive Duties In May If you have an overwintered hive coming into the month of May, you must be ecstatic that the hive has survived. And at this point, you have had a warm day to inspect the hive, check the brood pattern, rotate the deep boxes and cleaned the bottom board brushing it clean of all detritus, paper bits and sugar. In most cases, you have fed the hive sugar syrup to stimulate the queen to lay more and more. If you plan a varroa test, now is a good time but I find it difficult to use the alcohol wash at this time. Check out the sugar shake method we have come across that should be effective at this time of the year in another article in this newsletter. Although there are no silver bullets, one easy IPM is to add a shallow frame in the top deep of an overwintered hive. Mark or paint it Newsletter Submissions Please send Buzzwords submissions to David Whalley [email protected]. We are looking for good stories, photos, links, news about talks and presentations you’ve done or seen, book and movie reviews, and items for sale or free to good home! PDF, scanned document files, and hard copy submissions are not acceptable. You can create files in Word, Pages, Notepad, TextEdit, etc. for articles.
Transcript of buzzwords - barnstablebeekeepers.org · and keep an eye on it every 3 to 4 weeks. Drone brood...
buzzwordshttp://www.barnstablebeekeepers.org
May 2020
Upcoming Meetings
Zoom Connection will be provided via email in advance. Please do not share it outside the club.
May 15 7:30 pm Dr. Jonathan Snow, Ph. D. Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences Columbia University/Barnard College
Dr Snow will discuss that honey bee losses are due to other causes and have also increased in recent years. He believes that part of the endangerment may have to do with the way bees are responding to stresses in the environment, such as loss of appropriate food due to human interference with their habitats, exposure to chemicals like pesticides, or attack by microbial organisms that can cause infectious disease.
From the President
Well, the time that we have all anticipated has arrived…our bees are here! I hope everyone is excited as I am. You are about to embark on a journey like no other. We will be having our May meeting. This will be done virtually, via Zoom. As we are still figuring this out, details will follow. Should you need to contact your mentor, try doing it over the phone, either virtually or in conversation. Those of you that engage in social media, a post to the BCBA Facebook page will also get you answers. I know that we are adaptable to this new way of “doing business.” I wish you all the best. You will all do better than you think you will.
But, during this time of uncertainty, and thinking what I would write for this month’s newsletter, this one quote keeps echoing in my mind, as this phrase has a great value in comparison and contrast of two situations and environments, is the opening line Charles Dickens wrote in “ The Tale of Two Cities”……“It was the best of times and the worst of times.”
Please be safe, keep your distance…..and wash your hands.
Mike Smith
Hive Duties In May
If you have an overwintered hive coming into the month of May, you must be ecstatic that the hive has survived. And at this point, you have had a warm day to inspect the hive, check the brood pattern, rotate the deep boxes and cleaned the bottom board brushing it clean of all detritus, paper bits and sugar. In most cases, you have fed the hive sugar syrup to stimulate the queen to lay more and more. If you plan a varroa test, now is a good time but I find it difficult to use the alcohol wash at this time. Check out the sugar shake method we have come across that should be effective at this time of the year in another article in this newsletter. Although there are no silver bullets, one easy IPM is to add a shallow frame in the top deep of an overwintered hive. Mark or paint it
Newsletter SubmissionsPlease send Buzzwords submissions to David Whalley [email protected].
We are looking for good stories, photos, links, news about talks and presentations you’ve done or seen, book and movie reviews, and items for sale or free to good home!PDF, scanned document files, and hard copy submissions are not acceptable. You can create files in Word, Pages, Notepad, TextEdit, etc. for articles.
and keep an eye on it every 3 to 4 weeks. Drone brood should be found below the frame and once capped, should be cut off culling a good number of varroa in your hive. If you have chickens, they love the eliminated section!!
With this mild winter, it is possible we might have some early swarming so watch the build-up. Perhaps a split might be in order. Just do not let the frames become totally jammed with brood and bees. Honey shallows can be added early to mid -May in strong hives but all feeding must be stopped.
BTW – If you have an opened box of Apivar ( amitraz) we now understand that once a package is opened, it slowly degrades and is not effective to use for another season.
Formic Pro and ApiGuard both are stable for a second season.
For Our New Beekeepers
Your main concern is that you have a laying queen producing a nice solid brood pattern and that the feeding pail never runs out. All your frames in both boxes need to be drawn out with new cells before you can put the feeding pail away and you can add a honey shallow.
Therefore, priority should be that you have sugar available at all times. And once you have established your queen is out after 3 to 5 days, a quick inspection should be made every 7 days or so to make sure you have eggs, larva and then capped brood. And please, no smoke as it is not needed and will upset your new hive. Use your sugar spray if you are a bit apprehensive when opening the hive. What you do not want to see is drone brood or bullet shaped cells. That is an indication that your queen was not properly mated and should be replaced. Make that decision early as the longer you wait the harder it might be to requeen or add another queen from the supplier. And enjoy your new hobby!!
Claire Desilets
A How To Sugar Roll
If you really do not want to kill 300 bees this spring, here is a quick and effective way to test for Varroa:
MATERIALS • Very dry powdered (convectionary) sugar• Screened jar provided by the State• ½ cup measure• White pan• Water spritzer – spray bottle• Timer/cellphone
*Use only a new box of sugar, best sifted (I bake my sifted sugar in 150 deg oven for 15 minutes)
*Find a frame of bees with OPEN brood – these nurse bees most apt to have varroa ready to jump into open larva cells. WATCH FOR QUEEN!!
* Shake frame into white pan and scoop ½ cup (300 bees) and add to screend jar. Dump rest of bees into hive
* Cover jar with screened lid and add 2 to 3 tbsp sugar through screen.
* Roll jar briskly at an angle for TWO minutes (timed!)
*Let jar sit for TWO minutes (timed!) in shade.
* Shake jar into clean white pan vigorously for TWO minutes (timed!)
* Open jar and dump bees back into the hive and put the hive back together
Check out the BCBA Facebook page for shared links, photos, and questions/answers! Join the conversation!https://www.facebook.com/groups/BarnstableCountyBeeA/
Did You know
A hummingbird has to visit at least 1,500 flowers a day in search of nectar because of their great expenditure of energy to stay warm and maintain their heart rate. A flower’s nectar is high in sucrose, which is a sugar that is easily digested. It is also a form of quick energy. Farmer’s Almanac 2020
* Spritz white pan with water to dissolve sugar and count varroa.
* Two mites per 100 bees or more consider a treatment using information at www.honeybeehealthcoalition.org/varroa
Taken from archived newsletter from BetterBee, NY
That Dreaded Varroa Mite
Below is a graph that some of you might remember from the recent webinar series sposnored by the state apiary department. There was a lot of information made available to us and if you missed any of the four presentations, they are now available at http://neipmc.org/go/vm2020.
Can you spot the varroa on these dead honey bees? As a rule, you will not see the varroa on the backs of bees. They will be found on the underside where they burrow in. This hive was a dead out! Contributed by Melissa C.
This graph is quite indicative of how our hive builds and peaks and along with it the varroa mite population. From this we need to decide just when is the best time to treat our hive if the count exceeds 2 mites or more per 100 bees. Monitoring in July is critical as that will be when our hives have or are close to a peak population. Waiting to August to treat might spell a bit too late so that alcohol wash in July is important.
MENTORING ……AND THANK YOU!!
The bees will be here by the time you read this newsletter but I wanted to express my thanks to the 40+ members that have agreed to be a mentor for our new graduating class of “newbees” We made this all happen before “the covid” hit the Cape. I think we can all still mentor 6’ apart with masks when the newbee wants to see an established hive and showing the difference between the brood, honey and pollen, etc. We also have great information through the “Clams” program at the Libraries on the Cape (when they open) as well as the internet and You Tube. However, bee discriminating about what is on the Internet. We had recommended “Beekeeping for Dummies” as a good starter book to purchase during the course. And the Mentors can certainly answer a lot of questions over the phone. It is certainly possible to do Face Time with our Mentees when we are working our hives. Maybe you will come up with other options during this distancing. In the meantime bee safe and thanks again for the Mentors in our club.
I just had to pass this email on. Claire and I spend a good bit of time trying to match the Mentees with a Mentor in the same area. This response makes our time spent feel rewarded.
Hi Marte!
It’s great to hear from you :) I would love to bee a mentor and yes, I will for your newbee.. Just a background, I’ve been trying to bee a beekeeper for several years now - my 4th maybe? but I only managed to collect honey the first year and have NEVER been able to over winter a hive. I didn’t have a mentor when I started. I feel I’m pretty good at set-up though - I can help with putting together hives and frames and I’m good at installing new bee packages (I’ve had plenty of experience with that!). I also loved extracting honey that first year - it was amazing.. but for some reason I haven’t been able to grow my hives into the supers these last few years. But I can also help with that portion too.. I would be willing to help more than one person with any of this in/around the Barnstable area and out toward Mashpee or Yarmouth.
Can you imagine my delight in receiving an email like this!
Marte Ayers
Put On Your Reading Glasses!!
So how many queens can you find on this frame? What a shock when I pulled this frame. First, I see one queen on the right and she was very visible. Then as I checked across the frame, what do I see but another queen backed in laying an egg. Wait? This is April, not later in the season when supersedure occurs. Chances are this is a mother/daughter arrangement. We can only assume that the mother is running out of sperm (but her pattern is still decent) and the very small hive has decided to replace her. It is too soon to know if the daughter has mated with few drones in the area at this time. Now if I had only marked the original queen in the hive, my question would be answered. Shaping up to be a very strange season for sure.
Claire Desilets
April Showers … Bring May Flowers & Happy Bees!
Just a FYI, the rain fall in East Sandwich since December 1, 2019 to April 30th has been 27.53 inches. December alone had 10.65”. April, 2020 came in second with 6.29” These measurements were taken in a CoCoRaSH rain gauge. Don’t you agree that this will be the best nectar collecting spring ever just based on all this precipitation?
Claire Desilets
Massive Burr Comb
This is what you might find if you leave your shim on too long moving into the spring. The above is not from a shim but from a Vivaldi board for winter insulation. It does provide a space for feeding with sugar bricks on top of the frames. When inspecting this hive recently at the club’s apiary, we found this mess. The first thing one thinks of is to scrape off the burr comb and put the hive back in normal order, however this amount of burr com was just too much to safely scrape off with the large volume of bees on and in the burr comb. What if the queen was in the middle and we did not see her yet scraped all away? Could put the hive in dire straits. It was decided to leave the burr comb for now but placed it over an empty deep. Hopefully, on cool nights, the bees will move down to the frames below. Might not happen with all the brood to keep warm but a chance we had to take.
BTW, this hive has overwintered, has two full deeps of nearly every frame with brood, capped and hatched drone but with no swarm cells just yet. We added a third deep for the next week or so when we might share some of the brood with nearby weaker hives.
Cape Bee
Bee Pickup
What a great two days weather to get the bees to the Cape and distribute them to our members. Good luck, everyone!
RESOURCES
The following officers and directors are a great resource to answer questions and requests for assistance.
Officers
President Michael D. Smith [email protected]
Vice President Maria Cashdollar [email protected]
Recording Secretary Claire Desilets [email protected]
Treasurer Lynn Heslinga [email protected]
Directors
Marthe Ayers [email protected] Louise Hopper [email protected]
John Beach [email protected] Mary Anne Mann [email protected]
Deborah Carmel [email protected] Andy Morris [email protected]
Todd Cashdollar [email protected] Brian O’Donnell [email protected]
Jennifer Cattin [email protected] Lisa Sheehy [email protected]
Melissa Caughey [email protected] Donna Tompkins [email protected]
Peter B Cooper [email protected] Dave Whalley [email protected]
Olga DiSavino [email protected] Miguel Zamora [email protected]
Edward Hegner [email protected]
