06/14/2022
The Bee Year:
May First, 2022
Weather or Not
Honeybees are extremely sensitive to changes in the weather, and so are beekeepers. Watch any YouTube video by the commercial beekeepers Bob Bennie or Ian Steppler and you will hear them talk about the weather. The reason is simple: Weather is probably the most important factor in beekeeping. If it’s too cold, below 50 degrees F. (10 C.), the bees don’t fly. If it doesn’t rain the nectar dries up. If it rains too much it dilutes the nectar and knocks the pollen off many flowers, and it takes about two days for it to be replenished. Of course, bees don’t fly in the dark. Rainy, cloudy, stormy, and windy days will often keep the foragers confined to the hive where they sort of get cabin fever and become “defensive”; beekeeper talk for ornery. While the bees are all home, they are, of course consuming stores rather than bringing them in.
So, after giving the bees two weeks to settle in after hiving the swarm, I knew I had to check and see if I had a laying queen. Of course, the queen is the only bee that lays eggs in the hive, which makes her, well, important. Many things could have happened to the queen between leaving her old home and moving into her new permanent residence (palace?). She could have gotten accidentally crushed by the clumsy beekeeper while transferring her to the new hive. If she was a new (virgin) queen, she may have been rejected by the other bees, or she could have gotten eaten by a bird or dragon fly or smashed on a windshield on her mating flight.
On the day I was going to go into the hive for the first time, the weather was to be stormy and windy. Low clouds scudded across the sky threatening rain all morning. I wasn’t looking forward to dealing with a bunch of angry bi***es trying to kill me. Then, about 3 pm the skies cleared briefly, and I quickly opened the hive. The smoke did its job, and the bees were mostly calm. It was a quick inspection. I only wanted to see signs of a laying queen. On the third frame over, I saw what I wanted to see: Capped brood. I quickly closed the box. The Queen is very nervous for the first few weeks after swarming and if she gets too upset, causing her pheromones to be reduced. the other bees will often kill her; called “balling the queen.”
Since the yellow poplars were blooming, signaling the main nectar flow of the year (the black locust would be next) I put a super of drawn comb on the box, with a queen excluder beneath it. Queen excluders do just that: They keep the queen from laying eggs in the boxes you are reserving for honey. They are controversial; some beekeepers swear by them and others avoid them altogether, calling them “honey excluders,” believing they prevent the bees from quickly moving up to the next super. (As you will find out through these posts. There are about as many opinions about how to do things as there are beekeepers. An oft repeated phrase is,; “Ask three beekeepers how to do something and you’ll get five different answers.”
I knew the bottom box was full of drawn comb and had a little honey in it, so I figured the bees would move some of the honey up to the super to give the queen more room to lay eggs.
“I like big butts and I cannot lie.”
A queen bee standing amid cells of capped brood. Eggs and larvae can also be seen. Photo credit: Beerealhoney.com
