George Imirie's PINK PAGES
September 1999
PREPARATIONS FOR WINTER
I don't like things left until the last minute, particularly when you positively
know that cold weather is surely coming and we might have frost in October and surely
in November. Maybe you have someone to put up your storm windows, add antifreeze to
your boat engine or your car, get your boots, gloves, scarfs,sleds, and skiis down from
the attic, cook your Thanksgiving turkey, and do your Christmas shopping; but I will bet
that you have to prepare your bee colonies for the winter all by yourself! Hence, let me
help you by telling you WHAT I do and give you the REASONS why I do it.
STORES:
In our Maryland weather, I like to have 70 pounds of honey on the colony before November 1st. If we have a long winter of continuous cold and very few days of
temperatures over 50 degrees, 70 pounds of honey is more than enough to last until the
spring nectar flow. However, if we have one of these "warm" winters where the tempera-
ture goes up and down like a yo-yo and there are quite a few days that the temperature
goes over 50 degrees or even 60 or 70, this is very stressful on the bees and they break
cluster and have to re-cluster, even start early brood rearing, go out on cleansing flights,
fly long distances hunting nectar or pollen for brood rearing, and all this activity really
uses of 70 pounds of honey rapidly, even requiring additional feeding in late winter. Many
beekeepers depend on the fall flow of goldenrod and/or aster honey for winter stores.
However, it is not unusual that these two floral sources don't yield nectar some years, but
this honey crystallizes rather quickly which makes it poor quality for winter stores. I
much prefer feeding heavy (2:1) sugar syrup for winter stores because it will remain
liquid and the absence of certain minerals found in the fall honeys lessen the chance of
dysentery with the bees. What could be worse than loose bowels when it is too cold to
go outside for a cleansing flight? Heavy (2:1) sugar syrup is 10 pounds of granulated
sugar dissolved in 5 pints of BOILING water (and that water has to be really boiling to
dissolve the sugar (not just hot water, but 212 degree BOILING water). I cheat a little
bit (just to make the job slightly easier) by dissolving 15 pounds sugar (3 five pound bags)
in 1 gallon of BOILING WATER. (1 gallon = 8 pints = 8 pounds of water). DON'T EVER FEED
YOUR BEES ANY HONEY EXCEPT YOUR OWN HONEY, because it might be filled with American
oul Brood spores! (Most commercial honey is loaded with AFB bacteria, because the bees
are normally treated with Terramycin which just hides the AFB symptoms, but does not
CURE AFB. That is why I hate Terramycin and refuse to use it.)
How much is 70 pounds of Honey? Depending on the thickness of the comb, a deep
frame holds about 6 pounds of honey, so your colony needs about 12 deep frames of honey
to equal 72 pounds. If you keep your bees in all Illinois boxes (with 6 1/4" frames) like
I do, each frame holds about 4 pounds of honey, so you need about 18 frames to make 72
pounds of honey.
Let me mention something rarely mentioned. CLUSTERED bees move UP, but have
difficulty spreading sideways. Hence, it is far wiser to have all FULL frames of honey
stored near the center of the hive, like frames 3,4,5,6,7,&8 of each box, while frames
1,2,9,&10 of each box are empty or partially filled.
Another fact: a colony of 2 deep bodies ready for winter should have a gross weight
of about 130 pounds, whereas a colony of 3 Illinois boxes ready for winter should have a
gross weight of about 145 pounds.
Don't wait for cold weather when the bees can NOT cure or properly distribute their
stores in the colony space. If you are going to use 2:1 sugar syrup, start feeding in the
warmth of September, so the bees can handle it properly!
TREATMENTS:
I assume that you have followed my advice and installed 50 grams
of MENTHOL in the brood chamber between August 15th and August 31st. As I have clearly
stated, installation AFTER August is usually NOT EFFECTIVE, because the temperature is
not warm enough to convert the solid menthol into a gas (vapor) that the bees breathe
to kill the microscopic tracheal mites in their lungs. If you find your colony dead in late December or January, but the hive still has plenty of honey, there is a 90% chance that
your bees died of tracheal mite infestation; and you will remember in future years to
install menthol in August to kill the mites. Although September is very, very late to
start treating with grease patties in place of menthol, because the cost is so small, you
might try. Just make a "big hamburger" pattie from 2 parts of granulated sugar mixed
with1 part of Crisco shortening and place it on the frame top bars of the bottom hive
body, and replace it as soon as it is gone, maybe in October or November. The successful
use of grease patties in place of menthol requires their presence in the colony 365 days
of the year, even during your nectar flows. Their use is quite labor intensive; but Dr.
Diana Sammataro Ph.D. thesis showed that continuous use of plain grease patties pre-
vented the extensive breeding of the tracheal mite (but not kill it) so that a colony could survive and function, although not at full strength. Too many beekeepers ASSUME their
bees are free of tracheal mites, because they are microscopic and can not be seen; and
hence their bees die. Tracheal mites are still out there from Maine to California, so kill
them with menthol.
Varroa mites have now been seen by almost everyone (ugly, aren't they); but not
everyone has accepted the best TIME or TIMES to treat for them. Worse than that, unfor-
tunately, there are some lazy, know-it-all, hard-headed, socalled "experts" that OVER
TREAT with Apistan strips by using too many, or particularly, leaving them in the colony
TOO LONG, which is longer than 42 days (6 weeks). As a result, some mites have become resistant to fluvalinate, the active chemical in a Apistan strip, and the strips no longer
are effective and the bees die. It is my contention that this beeHAVER (proof he is not
a beeKEEPER) killed his bees by not following directions on the label, or what scientists
like me have explained ad nauseum. I'll do it again: Varroa mites are MOST active and can
produce new mites faster than bees can be produced during the heavy brood rearing time
of a colony. Contrary to this, since varroa mite eggs are layed in the late stages of bee
larva development and uses this bee larva as food to develop into an adult varroa mite,
the most effective time to kill varroa mites so they can't reproduce is when there is no
bee larva to serve as their food host. In Maryland, generally the queen is "taking a break",
slowing down her egg laying in October and curtailing all egg laying for about 6 weeks
from November 15th to about January 1st. Hence, THIS IS THE BEST TIME TO GET THE
MAXIMUM KILL OF VARROA MITES. Therefore, put 4 strips of Apistan (2 in each brood
chamber hive body) in your colony on October 1st and REMOVE them after 6 weeks (Nov 12).
If it is below 50 degrees on November 12th, the bees are clustered, so wait a few days
until it warms and the bees break cluster so it is easy to remove the strips. If you are
one of those who can't take time off from work and only do bee work on weekends, perhaps
you should not have bees, but you MUST remove those strips even if you have to break the
cluster. Not following these directions is UNFAIR to the beekeepers who are acting
correctly, because you might be creating resistant mites that can destroy my bees or
other duty bound beekeepers. I have been using this treatment of placing my strips in my colonies on October 1st for over 10 years in all of my 100+ colonies in 4 counties and two states, rarely having to ever make any 2nd treatment, and have never lost a colony to
varroa mites, so I know that a single 6 week long treatment beginning October 1st and
ending about November 12th works very well.
How do I average 132 pounds of honey per colony each year and you don't? Are your
bees slightly sick with an upset stomach or loose bowels? How well can you work if you
suffer an intestinal upset? Bee researchers and scientists estimate that about 60% of
all the hived bees in the country have NOSEMA disease, a gut infection that often appears
in the spring after a winter confinement. Although this disease rarely kills a colony, it
surely weakens it and shortens the already short 42 day life expectancy of the worker
bee. Just one chemical, fumagillin, has been found effective for prevention and control
of nosema disease. This is packaged under the name Fumidil-B, and the suggested dose is
to feed 2 gallons of 2:1 heavy sugar syrup containing 2 rounded teaspoons of Fumidil-B
in the fall. I like to start this feeding anytime after October 1st so the bees will store
it away for winter feed and hence get the benefit of being treated almost every day during
the winter confinement as they eat this food. It costs about $2.00 per colony per year,
and if that keeps my bees from feeling sick so they can collect 132 pounds of honey each spring, then that $2.00 expense turns into many extra dollars of honey receipts.
WEATHER:
Forget you anthropomorphic thinking and forget trying to warm a bee
hive like you warm your house. Bees have been doing fine when man lived in caves. Your
major concerns are WIND and DAMPNESS. Your hives should not be subject to the prevail-
ing northwest winds that also bring rain and snow. If they are not already shielded by
some natural barrier, make a temporary artificial one with snow fence or something to
break down the wind force. Surely, you have entered a long closed up house like a beach
house and it felt damp, cold, and dreary; and you remedied that by throwing open the doors
and windows and let it "air out". Provide the SAME THING for your bees which are cluster
confined in the winter, by providing an UPPER ENTRANCE with a slot in the front edge of
the inner cover. Warm air rises and the bee's breath is both warm and damp with
moisture, just like yours, so an upper entrance allows hive ventilation letting this
damp air escape the colony to outside; and the bees keep warm by clustering rather than
having their whole hive interior warm. I do not believe in constricting the bottom board entrance with an entrance reducer or turning the bottom board over, because I think good ventilation is far more important that reducing entrance space. After all, feral bees
living in a hollow tree don't change their entrance space when winter arises.
One item often forgotten is to make sure the colony tilts slightly forward, so that
rain water does not run in the front door and puddle on the floor.
MICE:
In cold weather, what place could be nicer than a nice quiet, dry, wind-free,
secure home than a beehive for a field mouse? Further, if the mouse is pregnant, surely
she will make her nursery within the protection of hollowed out brood frame. Mice have
sharp teeth and can gnaw away wood to enlarge the open space of your wooden entrance
reducer to let mice in. I go to the hardware store and buy 1/2" hardware cloth (rat wire),
cut a piece to about 14 3/4" long and 2-3" high and staple it with 4 staples to the hive
front over the entrance. This allows plenty of space for bees to enter and exit, it breaks
up strong wind, and keeps mice out of the colony. These should be put on in October before
"mother mouse" starts looking for a nice dry wind-free winter home.
QUEEN EXCLUDERS, BEE ESCAPES, "stupid" BOARDMAN FEEDERS, and other add-ons:
None of these should be on a hive during the winter, particularly the queen
excluder (that is why mine are paited RED) unless you want a dead queen in late winter
as the cluster has move up to get more honey leaving thequeen on the wrong side of the
excluder. Boardman feeders are absolutely useless in the winter, because bees cannot
leave the warm cluster and walk "downstairs" to get some sugar syrup.
Lastly, remove all the weeds, trim the grass, make it look like a well managed
apiary, and don't forget to put a brick on the top of each colony to keep a strong wind
from blowing their "hat" away. Now go and watch football on TV.
Montgomery County Fair THANKS!
The FAIR is over and it was a great success due to the volunteer help from about
40 of you members, even some first year beekeepers. I am not going to name all the help, because they know how much it was appreciated plus I think they enjoyed it. However, I
do want to mention 3 people. The decorum and items shown at Old MacDonalds Barn was
created and done by Master Beekeeper Barry Thompson and it certainly deserves THANKS
from every member of MCBA. Barry, it was OUTSTANDING! JoAnne Leatherman, the FAIR
Director, was concerned about the effect of the sun on my bees in the screen cage DEMO
BOOTH, so she suggested moving it to the shade in Farmer's Triangle. Not only was their
little bee death, but I had crowds of over 100 people at some of the 3 demonstrations
each day, which was far, far better than previous years. Knowing of Jimmie Powell's
enthusiasm, I suggested that he help me on Tuesday night, and he agreed but said that
he had to wear a veil and not be "naked" like me. I got him in the cage and his enthusiasm
overuled his temerity and he opened the colony, found the queen, moved the bees around
with his bare fingers, and FORGET TO PUT HIS VEIL ON! Of course, neither of got stung
because Jimmie has paid attention to my teaching and did nothing wrong. On Friday
night, "about to be Master Beekeeper Susie Robinson" appeared, and after performing
3 times a day for 7 days, I needed a rest. So I asked Susie if she would make the DEMO
while I went home to bed. Several reported to me that she did a wonderful job and
entertained a large audience with her talk, knowledge, and performing in T-shirt and
shorts. That is why Susie will be our next (10th) Master Beekeeper.
If there was any disappointment, it was the absence of honey and honey related
entries in Fair competition. We have talked about it for months, I have written about
it, Bill Miller has offered free transportation of entries to Howard County Fair, our
Montgomery County Fair, and the Maryland State Fair, and still there were less entries
than previous years. The drought hasn't been that bad. My bees averaged 4 supers per
colony, but I did not make any entries in fear of being accused of UNFAIRNESS. Gosh, I
should have entered and won a lot of that prize money.
I hope you get thinking about next year. I already have made some serious plans,
and my age and stroke disablement indicate that I have earned the right to take it easy.
However, as long as beeHAVERS need help, the public needs to be informed about the
value of honey bee pollination to our human food supply, and the nice people I meet,
I am going to keep "working at the FAIR".
George Imirie
Certified EAS Master Beekeeper
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