Phil Craft Hive Craft

It was warm enough today to take the covers, and inner covers, off my hives today, and to observe what it looks like inside my hives. I call this popping lids, the earliest spring beekeeping activity I do. Yeah, i know, it is not really spring, but it was about 50 ͦf, and bees were flying to my bee water supply. I DID NOt pull frames, this check is only to see what hives are alive, and to get an idea of colony strength. I do this by noting the size of the cluster, in the top box. Typically, this time of year, the bees have moved into the top box.

All colonies reported to be alive and well! No winter losses, so far, but they looked OK.

Sometimes we can be fooled as to whether a colony is alive or not by bees flying from the hive. I ask beekeepers: are they flying “in and out”, or “out and back  in”? There is a difference. By observing the cluster, I know my girls are all flying out and back in.

I also placed a winter patty, which I had purchased from the local Dadant branch, on the top bars of the op box. This is similar to bee candy, and will give them a boost, if food stores are low.

Finally, I warn new beekeepers about opening hives and pulling frames very early in the spring. There is the danger of disturbing the cluster, and little to learn. Hold off on pulling frames until we get extended periods of above 60 ͦ F weather. It will come, I hope soon.

In cooperation with the University of Kentucky’s Ecological Research and Education Center (EREC), a one day beginning beekeeping class will be held on February 28th (Saturday), in Lexington, Kentucky. All instruction will be provided by Phil Craft. Registration will be limited to 40 participants, and pre-registration is required. The class will cover:

• A brief introduction to honey bee biology and behavior: Beekeepers manage their colonies through an understanding of basic honey biology. The course begins with these fundamentals.

• How beekeepers keep bees: Beekeeping is much more than getting a hive and some bees and placing them in your backyard. Even though our grandfathers may have done it that way, modern beekeeping requires management – much like keeping other, larger livestock. Beekeepers must monitor, and sometimes intervene, to keep their bees healthy and productive. This phase of the course offers an overview of what this management involves.

• An introduction to beekeeping equipment: The first step in owning your own hive is the purchase of the hive itself, along with protective clothing, and a few other pieces of essential equipment. This portion of the course will demonstrate the equipment and provide information on where it can be purchased, and estimated start-up costs.

• Getting started as a beekeeper: Once you know the basics, you’ll need to know where to get bees, and how to go about setting up a hive. We’ll cover where to locate a hive, where to purchase bees, and how to install them.
• 1st year hive management: The final section of instruction will be an overview of management issues, including potential problems which may arise in the first year of beekeeping.

• Question & answer session: Before we disperse for the day, you will have an opportunity to ask additional questions in an informal question/answer session.

The course will be held from 9:00 AM to 4:30 PM at the University of Kentucky’s Ecological Research and Education Center (EREC) at 1737 Russell Cave Road in Lexington. Find out more about EREC at http://darwin.uky.edu/~erec/.

Course material provided will include handouts, the beginner beekeeping primer First Lessons in Beekeeping, by Dr. Keith Delaplane, and Phil’s contact information for follow-up questions and opportunities for future instruction.

The course fee is $40; pre-registration is required; class size will be limited to 40 participants. Contact Phil for at phil@philcrafthivecraft.com for a registration form, or for more information.

It is finally looking like spring at my old Kentucky home, bees are flying, a lot of blooming underway, bees are bringing in nectar and pollen, and I am putting honey supers on my hives. However, I continue to receive questions about colonies lost this past winter. Winter is rough on bees, winter colony losses occur in hives in nature (trees), as well as in managed colonies. Our role as honey bee shepherds, or beekeepers, is to help our bees survive better than in nature. 

Below are a couple of photos of what beekeepers often see when opening colonies that have died out in winter. The first (below) shows dead bees with their head down in the cells.

Dead bees in that position indicate starvation, even though there was stored honey elsewhere in the hive. The other is a very small, baseball sized cluster of dead bees.

I’m certain that the low population contributed to the colony’s final demise. It is not unusual to see clusters of starved bees, in the winter or early spring, inches from honey.

When I speak to beekeepers about helping our bees get ready for winter, I talk about three major issues: 1 – numbers of bees, 2- food stores, and 3 – colony health. Continue reading →

To my fellow beekeepers,

While we have a lot of great honey bee research going on at our state universities, I am greatly impressed by the work of a group called the Bee Informed Partnership or BIP. Based at the University of Maryland, one of the primary roles of the BIP programs is collecting and analyzing information of honey bee health and colony losses, including management practices that may contribute to better health of our colonies. One of the important tools of this data collection are annual surveys of winter colony losses and management practices. I encourage ALL beekeepers to participate in these surveys. The surveys can be filled out on line, Continue reading →

I received this press release today, announcing a federal government program for reimbursements for livestock losses – the ELAP program, which includes honey bee colonies. For more information, you can see the 2014 Farm Bill fact sheet, but there is not a lot of information there. Alternate and perhaps best source of information is contacting your local Farm Service Agency office. I’m attaching the link for state FSA offices, from the state office webpages, you may locate your local office. Sign-ups for the program begins April, 15, 2014.  

Hopguard is a varroa miticide that came out a few years ago (2011?). The active ingredient is “hop beta acids”, which are derived from hop flowers – more commonly known as a flavoring for beer. Hopguard is marketed as a natural miticide, which it is. It can be used even with honey supers on the hive, though not inside the supers. As a contact miticide, as opposed to a fumigant, it can be used without regard to outside air temperatures. The strips are made of cardboard and are saturated with hop acid, so they are wet and brown in color when removed from the packaging. Continue reading →

See this link http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-101494/All-Chinese-honey-ordered-shelves.html for article concerning removal of ALL imported Chinese honey from store shelves in Great Britain. Testing is said to show the presence of the antibiotic chloramphenico in 40% of the Chinese honey sampled.