June 2024 Newsletter

The season is well under way. You should have divides made from the overwintered colonies. Your packages should be doing well. You should check your mite levels monthly. If you are considering treatment, be sure to read the label to see if you can have supers on during treatment or how long until you can put them on and watch the temperature considerations.

Many of you that have come through winter with strong colonies are worried about swarming. Strong colonies should have been divided and your parent colonies (colonies with the older queen) should have either the 3rd deep added or have 2 deeps and at least 2 supers. For strong colonies, rotate the deep boxes every week to keep stored nectar below the brood nest and add more supers, if needed. Rotating the brood nest helps to discourage swarming.

How do you know if you should add a second or third box? The next box goes on when the colony is using 70-80% of the previous box. If you started on foundation, it is easier because if they have drawn out 7 or 8 frames then you add the next box. On drawn comb you need to look in the comb to see if the bees are using the comb or you can look down the “seams”. If the seams are full of bees, they are using the frame. It does not matter if the bees are using the comb for nectar, pollen or brood. If they are using the comb for something, it counts. When adding another brood box, be sure to move a frame with honey and no brood up from a lower box to the new box. This is to draw the bees into the new box. Once the comb is drawn, there should be 9 frames equally spaced in the box.

When your divides or packages are using 80% of the 3^rd box you should do a full reversal. If we are having a strong honey flow (which I hope for) it is easy for the bees to fill that 3^rd box with honey before you notice and do a reversal. If the third box is more than half full of honey do not do this reversal and just add supers.

The most important thing in the coming months is to keep the equivalent of 2 empty supers (18 medium frames) on honey producing colonies at all times. As the bees fill up the supers, add more. If you do not provide room and the bees need to put honey in the brood nest, then the colony may swarm. During a big nectar flow a strong colony can fill 2 supers in a week. This is the reason for always having the equivalent of 2 empty supers on the colony.

For the rest of the early honey flow, you should do reversals on 2 deep colonies and look for swarm cells every 7-10 days and add more supers as they are needed. Remember to keep empty supers on so the bees have a place to put the honey that is coming in.

If a colony has swarmed, (here’s hoping you caught the swarm) then leave the remaining bees alone and they will work it out.

If you see swarm cells and you confirm the queen is still there, meaning they have not swarmed yet, then you need to take action if you want to prevent swarming. First remove all the swarm cells from the colony. If you want to make a nuc, then remove a frame with swarm queen cells and bees along with another frame with bees and brood. Put those two frames in a nuc box with a honey frame and a couple empty frames. Don’t put the queen in the nuc. Then put empty frames in the parent colony to replace the frames you removed. To be sure you remove all of the queen cells from the colony, you may have to shake the bees off the frames to see the cells better. Remember: the bees do not read the books, so the swarm queen cells are not only on the bottoms of the frames. If you don’t make a nuc, then you can take 2 or 3 frames of bees and brood (not the queen or queen cells) and put them into a divide, a package, or a weaker colony that can use some help. Put empty frames (preferably drawn comb but foundation if that is all you have) in the parent colony to replace the removed frames.

You should be checking your varroa mite levels monthly. Record the results. If you have varroa now you cannot treat with some chemicals until the honey flow is over. There are now some treatments that can be used with supers on (read the label). BE SURE TO FOLLOW THE LABEL for any product you use. You can also use the drone brood removal method to keep the number of varroa down. Plan on taking your supers off early and treating late summer.

Gary
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