I guess this is a little mea culpa. I sure hope I’m continuing to learn and, just as important, continuing to learn from my mistakes. It’s just that sometimes I get into a pattern of doing things the same way over and over because it seems to be working. Well, every once in a while, reality sneaks up and slaps me in the face.

 

1. Heft Winter Management

For a long time, I was a proponent of the “Heft Winter Management” system. Basically, you grab a corner of your hive and heft it to judge the weight and winter stores. If it’s impossibly heavy then it probably has enough winter stores and if it is way too light you need to continue to feed. The trick is in the middle ground. When is “sorta heavy” enough to make it through the winter? To the beginner, this seems like one of those things that they can’t imagine having enough experience to comprehend. All of us have lifted the different hive components separately right? We instinctively know how much a hive cover weighs, an empty super, etc… Most of us also know how much a super full of honey weighs too.

The “heft” method just adds up that weight to estimate the amount of honey in the hive. Simple? HA, far from it!  This winter, as I was moving supers from here to there, I realized I had no idea what I was talking about!  Sure I can tell by weight if a super is empty or full. But, from the weight, I’ve no idea what is making it heavy. I thought all the stored boxes were empty, but super after super was heavy. It turned out that I had a lot of pollen-bound frames (frames that are filled with pollen). Pollen-bound frames are heavy too. While they were not as heavy as honey, it is impossible for me to tell in the aggregate if a hive has “honey” or “pollen” weight without checking. This year, I haven’t lifted the corner on a single hive.

 

2. Small Hive Beetles

For a couple years now, I’ve been saying that hive beetles aren’t that big of a deal. When they first appeared in my hives, I lost a couple of medium strength hives to sliming but haven’t had any trouble since. I figured that the bees and small hive beetles (SHB) had just figured things out. My control method involves the dexterous use of two thumbs. Well, this year I’ve returned them to the “significant pest” list.

It has been an odd SHB year. For the majority of the season, I didn’t see great numbers of hive beetles in any of my yards. Some of my apiaries seemed devoid of any hive beetles. In other yards, I’d see only one or two on the inner cover. I figured this was a good thing, right?

After I took the honey and started to feed, the hive beetles appeared in massive numbers. I don’t know where they came from but in several of my yards, hundreds per hive just appeared. Not good, not good.

I tried an experiment this season of some fall re-queening in about 30 hives. One of the hives I picked was quite strong. I removed the old queen and let it sit for two days before introducing a young new queen. In that two day interval, it was completely overrun. The hive collapsed with the poor bees hanging on the outside of the hive, demoralized. Inside was the start of a typical mess. I don’t know why 50,000 bees couldn’t figure it out, but they didn’t. Yes, the hive was a goner, a formerly good strong hive.

Now, I don’t know what I think about small hive beetles.

 

3. Feeding Dead Hives

I seem to do this every year. When I started feeding, I just ran through the apiary, pouring sugar water into each feeder. I use large top feeders (2 to 3 gallon size) and don’t typically inspect any bees when I’m in feeding mode. Inevitably, I will get some fall die-off (from what is another topic of conversation) and inevitably I end up feeding dead hives. I see bees behind the feeder’s screen so I think all is well, but I’m just fooling myself.

See, neighboring hives happily rob out the feeder, from the inside of the hive. I’ll pour gallons and gallons of sugar water onto the hive only to later discover that I’ve only been feeding their neighbors.

 

4. Stored Comb

I’ve written a little about my new honey house. It turns out that I’ve a logistical issue that involves my drawn comb. My approach to extracting is to pull all the honey from a yard and extract it before proceeding to the next yard. After extracting, I move the wet combs outside to let the bees clean them up. I live in the country so frenzied robbing activity doesn’t pose any neighbor problems. The now “dry” supers should then be stored properly in the honey house to prevent wax moth damage.

I have a bunch of yards and my extracting season can take over a month depending on how much time I have to devote. The problem is that I only have one honey house, and it can’t be used for extracting at the same time as comb storage. There just isn’t room. Where do I put my drawn comb until I finish up the honey? I figured doom and a wax moth feeding frenzy were my fate. However, I had read an article about someone who stores their comb hanging up in a drafty old barn. The picture with the article showed the supers hanging on their sides. Hoping the experiment would work, I stacked my boxes sideways with plenty of space between the supers for airflow. Voila, minimal wax moth damage.

I suppose I could leave it out there all winter but didn’t want to push my luck.

 

5. Cooking Observation Hives

I’ve been trying to sell honey at a few events over the last couple of years. Normally I just sell wholesale. Obviously, my wholesale price is a lot lower than my retail price. The advantages of wholesale time and ease generally outweigh the financial difference. I can move a lot more honey in a lot less time. I’m definitely not one of those people who could sit, week after week, at a farmers market stall selling a couple jars per week.

Nonetheless, in an effort to sell a little more and at a higher price, I’ve set up a tent at a few events. The tent provides some shade for me but as the sun moves along the horizon, the shady moves too.

Nothing draws attention at a fair like an observation hive with live bees so it’s part of my normal setup. My observation hive is a single deep frame, behind glass with a stand, screened air holes and a convenient handle. It works as the attention grabber I need. I try to keep bees in the observation hive for the minimum time possible before returning them to their hive. It’s stressful being in a small unit and especially being locked in, unable to forage and enjoy all the other outside activities.

Just this October, I forgot just how stressful it can be. I put a beautiful frame of brood in the observation hive one day but with too little food. I watched them eat up the little corners of nectar in the morning. In the afternoon, the shortage of feed was visually impacting the brood. I’ve seen the bees get hot too. They will start to run around the frame rather than being steady and tending to the brood. I pour a little water down the ventilation holes and it usually calms then right down.

The weather, this October day was intermittent clouds, a nice breeze, mid 70s. Nice weather all along.  It was a little slow around 2pm and I decided to stretch my legs a bit. I was gone maybe 15 minutes only to find that the observation hive was sitting in the full sun, cooking. The bees were running around crazily as the brood was starting to develop that wet sheen. There just wasn’t anything I could do to cool them down. The glass sides to the observation hive was trapping the heat and wouldn’t let it go. I poured several cups of water inside but the little hive was just too far gone. I didn’t have a choice but to break down my tent and head back home to release the poor bees foregoing further sales.