Beekeeping Calendar

April Newsletter

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Spring is here! This is a very busy time for both the bees and the beekeeper, and now you get to see if your preparation during winter was enough. As far as the forage, there is an abundance. At this point, the honey flow should be in full swing, a sure sign of which is white wax on your frames. 

There are several nectar and pollen sources that are carrying over from March with Blackberry and Holly being two major sources in the Upstate and a variety of Tupelo in the rest of the state. Parts of the Midlands are fortunate enough to overlap with these regions. 

April Checklist

Queens

Queen quality will always be an important issue, but something very important happens this month: Local queens will be available for purchase this month! This means your worries about your queen quality or even a queen that has gone missing are easily resolved. Make sure to check with your local supplier or bee club for availability. Another positive of bringing a purchased queen to your apiary is the increase in genetic diversity. Make sure to check the source titled, “Honeybee Breeds” at the end of this document for a breakdown of traits to find the breed that works best for you (thanks Eversweet Apiaries). Additionally, make sure you keep an eye on your mite load. If your numbers are above the 3% threshold you should consider treating. Check the label of your treatment before to see if you need to remove your honey supers.  

Swarm

Swarm season is practically here.The Clemson Extension says that May and June is the normal season, but there are exceptions. The increase in nectar provides the bees with resources and motivation they need to find a new home. There’s a lot that you can do to mitigate swarms, but it is ultimately up to you. As mentioned last month, consider splits to increase the number of colonies or the Demaree method for a bigger honey harvest. Youtube is your go to for “how to” videos on this topic. 

Additional Equipments and Expansion

Make sure you have additional equipment on hand in the event you need to add more supers, you are called to remove a swarm, or decide to do a split. The  additional supers are in the event that the honey flow is very strong and the supers you put on last month get filled. If you don’t have any additional supers, you can harvest the honey from those frames and put the boxes back on. Make sure that 70% of the frame contains capped honey before you harvest to make sure the honey moisture isn’t high enough to cause fermentation. We’ve already talked about swarms, but you will eventually need to rehome the bees from a swarm trap into a more permanent hive body. Nucs are going to be your “plug and play” option for apiary expansion; however, you can also look into purchasing a package. Nucs typically contain 5 frames of drawn comb with a mixture of honey, pollen, and brood plus a queen and bees of varying ages. Packages typically contain 3 pounds of bees and a queen. Nucs are more expensive but are ready to go out of the box. Packages are cheaper and will take more time to build up. Regardless of which option you pick, April is a great month to expand due to the incoming nectar and pollen. 

Honey Extraction Supplies

There is nothing wrong with waiting until May to buy your extraction supplies, especially if space is limited where you store your equipment. I’m a planner, so I like to have my first round of supplies early. I don’t know what my harvest will look like this year, but I do know what my goal is, so I bought enough bottles, caps, and labels to achieve that goal. You also need to think about how you are going to extract the honey. Some associations have an extractor available for rent, so make sure you check with your local association. There are methods of extraction that don’t require a radial extractor but they often include destroying honeycomb and in the beekeeping world, comb is like gold. Make sure you check your state’s laws when it comes to the sale of honey. In the sources, you’ll find the “South Carolina Honey Sales Quick Guide” that has a lot of great information. 

Conclusion

This month is a busy one. You should conduct inspections every 5-7 days to make sure there are no signs of swarming and so you can add supers in a timely manner. To me, this is a fun month. The bees are calm because they are busy, and the hives smell amazing from all the nectar being brought in. Enjoy your time in the hives and make sure you remember that beekeeping is local. If you have questions about what is going on in your beeyard, make sure you talk to other beekeepers. Joining your local association will greatly help you in this venture. 

Special thanks to Jason Hewett from the Pee Dee region and Larry Cobble of the Midlands region.

Sources: SCNPS Native Plant Directory; Bee Plant Pollen Dates; Map of Native Trees and Plants in South Carolina; Beekeeping365; Honeybee Forage for Upstate and Midlands; Honeybee Forage for Midlands, Pee Dee, and Lowcountry; Honeybee Breeds; Clemson Fact Sheet on Colony Removal; South Carolina Honey Sales Quick Guide

March Newsletter

As many of us know, March is a bipolar month when it comes to the weather. Will Spring come early? Will Mother Nature seem like she is going to freeze us out only to pull a fast one with a week of warm weather before sending temperatures plummeting again? One thing we know for sure is that the bees are ready to stretch their wings and an inspection can tell you a lot about just how eager they are. 

By this time, we should start to see the first significant blooms of the year in full swing. Red Maple will add much needed color to the trees on your drive to and from work. Dandelions will start to grow in people’s front yards. With that first significant food source for bees, we should see a significant build up in our bee populations. With the scene now set, let’s look at what you should have on the forefront of your mind as you pop the top on those propolis sealed hives. 

March Checklist

Queens

A good quality queen in March can make your honey crop but a poor quality queen can doom your colony. Oftentimes if a queen is of poor quality, the bees will take care of the issue themselves but that may take longer than you want. The unfortunate thing for us is you will have to wait until the end of the month or even into April before local queens are available. Regardless of which region you are in, you should take note of how your queen is doing. March will most likely start off slow but with brood production but will pick up throughout the month. If you have a poor quality queen, plan to requeen. If you are wanting to save money, you can always pinch the queen once you see drones walking on the frames. If this is your chosen method, it will take almost 6 weeks for you to see eggs from the new queen, assuming she returns from her mating flight. 6 weeks from the time drones are walking on the frames puts you well into the honey flow, which means your field force is smaller than it should be and you are missing out on the flow. I like the genetics in my apiary but I recognize that there is far less down time if I purchase a mated queen from a local supplier, so I typically wait until they are available before removing problematic queens. 

Food

As stated, the weather in March is unpredictable. Because of this it may be too cold or rainy for the bees to forage. That means that the bees are going to start devouring what’s left over from the winter, which is why this time period is when your bees are most likely to starve. When you do your inspections, take special note of the amount of food on the frames. You will probably start to see nectar in the cells, which is a good sign. On the colder days you can lift the hives. If you see that the hives are light on food, now is a good time to feed. The Lowcountry and Pee Dee will most likely have warmer weather so the bees will be able to find food sources and may not require syrup especially around the Ides of March (3/15). The same is true for the eastern part of the Midlands. The Upstate and western part of the Midlands may require feeding later into the month. As always, beekeeping is loca,l so make sure you talk to other beekeepers in your area. 

Swarms

With the warmer weather and the blooms opening up we will start to see the population in the colony rapidly expand. Because of this expansion, there is an increase in the swarming impulse. This will require at least weekly inspections if not inspections every 5 days. So what do you do if you see queen cells? The answer is: it depends. You have to ask yourself what your goals are. If you want to expand the number of colonies in your apiary, you will want to make splits and nucs. If you want to focus on honey production, consider the Demaree method. There are an endless number of videos on YouTube on these techniques. A third option when it comes to swarms is to do nothing. While I am not an advocate for this method I understand why people may choose this option. They may not have the time to address swarms or the equipment to make splits and nucs. No matter which option you select, I highly suggest setting up a bait hive. Why? Cause we all love free bees! The Lowcountry and Pee Dee regions will most likely see signs of swarming early in the month than the Midlands and the Upstate. Swarm season will be in full swing for all SC regions by late March. 

Pests

Mites are a problem. March is a great time to test for mites either with alcohol washes or sugar shakes. If you have more than 3 mites per 100 bees you should treat. A cup of bees is roughly 300 bees so 9 mites per cup is your threshold using that measurement. If you meet or exceed this threshold, you should treat. There are many different options such as Apiguard, Apistand, Apivar Hopguard, Mite Away, and Oxalic Acid. No matter which treatment option you choose, make sure you read and follow the label instructions. It is also highly recommended that you rotate treatment options to avoid chemical resistance. Additionally, make sure you remove the treatments prior to adding honey supers. Small hive beetles (SHB) should not be an issue this time of the year and a strong hive will handle SHB.

Hive Configuration and the Honey Flow

Depending on where you are, the honey flow may start as early as the end of March. As you move towards the Upstate this timeframe is pushed back into April. So what do you need to do to get ready? Again, that depends. If you run two brood boxes in your winter configuration, make sure you rotate those boxes to give the queen plenty of room to lay so you will have a large field force when the honey flow hits. Of course, be mindful of where the queen is when you do this and remember that this could be the first domino to fall that creates a quick build up that could then trigger the swarm impulse. See the previous section on swarming to address this. The Lowcountry and coastal Pee Dee will need to add supers with drawn comb to their hives around mid to late March while the rest of the state will want to do so by the last week in March. Before doing this, make sure you remove any medication or treatments as you do not want the treatments to transfer onto your frames in your honey super. If you do not have drawn comb there are methods you can use to persuade your bees to drawn comb. Checkerboarding is the method I would use which means you will put frames with little to no comb between frames that have comb. Most success with this method comes from placing these frames above the brood chamber. 

Conclusion

Remember, beekeeping is local. While I feel what you have read here is beneficial it does not mean that it is gospel. My goals are different from your goals. My apiyard is different from yours, even if we are in the same county. The best thing you can do is your own research. Talk to other beekeepers, watch YouTube videos, read a book on beekeeping, and join your local beekeeping association. Special thanks to Jason Hewett from the Pee Dee region and Larry Cobble of the Midlands region.

Sources: SCNPS Native Plant Directory; Bee Plant Pollen Dates; Map of Native Trees and Plants in South Carolina; Beekeeping365