Kalamazoo Bee Club

Windy Winter Weather

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Winter has finally arrived in Kalamazoo with a gusty debut!  This is a good opportunity to check your hives and make sure they are secured for the next few months of our Michigan climate.

High winds and animals pose a significant risk to any hive, but especially any vertical style hive like Langstroth and Warre hives.  This is doubly true for narrower profile hives like 8 frame hives and 5 frame nucs.  If you haven’t already done so, strap them down or weight them with a 20-pound rock or block.  Windbreaks and other wintering preparation provide additional protection, and it’s not too late to give your bees an edge by shielding them from excessive drafts.

The WMU apiary suffered from the strong winds this week, and some corrective measures have been taken.

Images © Todd Smith 2017.

Edit: Be sure to check out Rusty Burlew’s site for a lot of great wintering information.

Remember that beekeeping is a highly local endeavor — what works for someone ten miles away may not work for you.

Tucking in Tidbits

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The forecast this week is full of more unseasonably warm temperatures.  If you haven’t “put your bees to bed” yet, my blog ‘Honey, Bear in Mind’ at www.hubbardhive.com outlines part of what we do when weather allows you to still get in the hive.  There are lots of other opinions and options out there of course, but we generally have better survival than local averages so we must be doing something right.  We also had many years of doing things wrong …

On sunny days, our bees are frantic for this sweet stuff.

On sunny days, our bees are frantic for this sweet stuff.

We’ve had killing frosts, so there’s little forage available.  Our bees are consuming their winter stores, which causes me to wonder what they’re going to eat come February and March.  We’re open feeding 2:1 sugar syrup, but far away from the hives to try to avoid setting off raiding.

Many people have asked how long they should feed.  Bees will slow down or stop when it is cold; we like to have feed available as long as there’s a chance they’ll take it.  And at 2:1, you don’t have to worry about the syrup freezing until we’re consistently well below freezing.Continue Reading

Thinking About Winter, Yes Really

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2015-09-02 19.51.51 garden hives in much snow

As I write this our thermometer records 92, and my glass of tea is sweating even more than I am.  Each evening we stroll through the apiary to see which hive is sporting the most magnificent beard.

I’m fine with the summer swelter.  Too soon (like maybe the end of this week?) a prelude to winter will be here, followed the oft-bitter season itself.  Too soon I’ll have to say good-night to my bees for a long winter’s sleep.  That’s always hard on me.  Not only do I miss working with them, but too often, I don’t greet as many as expected come spring.  Overwintering in SW Michigan has been hard the last few years.

This Tuesday evening the Kalamazoo Bee Club will feature a speaker who knows a great deal about bees and successful overwintering.  Hopefully you can join us, but if not, I’ll try to blog about his insights.

The bees need us to figure out how to help them survive the winter … and we need them.  Hope to see you there.

Creating a New Apiary

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I know this is strange blog posting. But I am working with a local school to set up an apiary. They want to have some basic information for planning. So I worked up the ideas below. I did not get real specific, but would like to know from readers if I have left anything out. Please comment.

Considerations for apiary location

  • Avoid damp or low spots.
  • Provide a windbreak.
  • Position hive to receive the morning sun and some shade in the afternoon.
  • Avoid spraying insecticides in the area.
  • Provide a security fence of at least 6′ so bees fly over peoples’ heads.
  • Provide physical security with a locking gate.
  • Put up a sign to warn people with allergies to avoid the apiary.
  • Build a sturdy weather-proof table to set hive bodies on when working the hives.
  • Provide a locker or storage for equipment, such as bee suits. hive tools, smokers.
  • Arrange hives so they can be worked from the back.

Considerations for apiary managementContinue Reading

Mountain Camp Winter Feeding Method: Quick and Easy?

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It’s great when your bees provide food for you, but every so often in a beekeeper’s career, she provides food for the bees. There are a million opinions about whether or not one should feed bees throughout the year and a million and one opinions about how this feeding should happen. I’m simply going to explain one feeding method that we have tried this year, the reason why, and our experience with it thus far.

As you may remember, none of my four hives produced very much honey this year, so my husband and I knew that we were going to have to feed throughout the winter if we had any hope of the bees surviving. When beekeepers feed in the winter, they generally feed a sugar-water mixture. This can be made and served in various forms:Continue Reading

What’s a Beekeeper to do in Winter?

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It’s cold outside. What’s a beekeeper to do?

We have had a fairly mild winter so far, especially relative to last winter.  However, there is a definite winter chill in the air as I write this. The bees are safely clustered in their hives, awaiting the arrival of a day in the 40’s so they can at least get outside and use the bathroom. Fortunately, we have had a few of those already. I managed to check on some colonies a few weeks ago when the temperatures approached the 50’s. I have already lost a few and added honey to others that seemed like they might need it. I am hoping for another shot of warm temperatures, so I can check on things again, but that is hard to predict.

So what should we be doing when the cold keeps us inside and it seems like there is nothing to do? Beekeepers have the same issue as avid gardeners; winter has put the kibosh on being outside and participating in our preferred pastime. Gardeners spend their time reading, planning and ordering seeds. Beekeepers would do well to follow this as well.

So here is a list of things that one could be doing on these long, dark days of winter.

Plan for next season.

  • Are you going to add any hives this year?
  • Are you worried that your bees won’t make it? What are you going to do to replace them?
  • Are you prepared, if your bees do make it? Do you have a plan to prevent swarming? Is the extra equipment on hand, if there is a good honey flow? Do you have a nuc box ready so that you can have an emergency queen on hand through the season?

Order your bees.

  • Now is the time to make sure that you have bees coming to replace any of your winter losses, if that is how you operate. You need to decide what type of replacement bees you want.
    • Are you ordering packages? If so, the demand has far outweighed the supply the last few years. Don’t wait until the last minute. I know that suppliers at the Kalamazoo Bee School stopped taking orders that 3rd Saturday in February last year.
    • Are you planning on using nucs?  If so, are you going with imported or local nucs or are you going to make your own? Local nucs will not be ready until later in the spring, as it takes time for producers to build them up after the long winter. If you are ordering imported nucs you will have a jump on the season, but be sure that you know where they are coming from and remember that the date they are promised and the date they arrive may be two very different things. Look for a future blog post about what to look for when you are examining nucs for purchase.

Clean up and repair any extra equipment.

  • Now is the time to look through your woodenware and see what needs to be replaced. This is the time of year when I go through all of my supers frame by frame; checking to see which frames need to be replaced, scraping burr comb and collecting propolis, and cleaning up the supers and making any necessary repairs. This also allows you to inventory what you have and what equipment you might need to order.

Order and assemble your new equipment.

  • Are you planning on expanding the number of hives you have? Do you have a nucleus hive ready, in case your hive survives and booms and you need to split it to prevent swarming? Do you have frames that need to be replaced? This is the perfect time to assemble equipment. Temperatures right now may prevent you from painting boxes in your unheated workshop, but that is an easy job for later if your equipment is already assembled. Last winter was a harsh one and I didn’t think I was going to be able to fill my existing equipment, much less increase my hive count. But we had a great honey season in my area and I found myself (once again) scrambling to make frames and assemble and paint woodenware to keep up with my bees. There are currently 100 frames I never got around to making that are waiting for me to get out to the shop and start building.

Expand your knowledge.

  • Read a book, or (two or three)! There is not much time to expand your knowledge of beekeeping when the bees are taking up your (spare) time. The number of books on beekeeping books continues to expand on what seems like a daily basis. Local publisher, Wicwas Press, has a nice selection of books of their own and other authors as well.
  • Subscribe to at least one of the Bee Journals. There is something in them for everyone. I end up reading both The American Bee Journal and Bee Culture throughout the year, but winter is the time that I revisit them, rereading some of the articles and getting to the ones that I somehow missed before the new edition arrived.
  • Attend a club meeting or a national conference. Go to a Bee School. This is the perfect place to connect with other beekeepers and expand your knowledge. The places are filled with inspiration for beekeepers at any level. The Kalamazoo Bee School will be held Jan. 21, 2014 at Kalamazoo Valley Community College. This is one of the best local spring meetings I have attended in Michigan and a great place to start if you have yet to attend such an event.

Make some stuff.

  • My final suggestion is to use some of those other resources you harvested from the hive to create some value added products. I am won’t go into this in much detail on this post. I will be speaking about Value-Added Products of the Hive at the Kalamazoo Bee Club’s January meeting. Keep checking back for future posts on value added products that you can make to while away those winter days and evenings.

That’s all for now. Stay warm and cross your fingers for some 40 degree (or warmer) days so we can peek at the bees.

January Bees in Michigan

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I had an opportunity to hear Mike Palmer from French Hill Apiaries in St. Albans, VT speak in November 2014 about keeping bees in the frozen north.  Typically a Vermont winter would be as bad or worse than ours here in the Kalamazoo area.  After the winter of 2013 I found myself re-thinking overwintering in Michigan.  Although I have kept bees through ten winters, none had ever been as severe as that winter.

I never bothered to do anything special for overwintering, like wrapping the hives because it didn’t seem to make any difference either way.  Well, 2013 changed all that.  I lost all my hives that winter.  It just got too cold.  Traditionally beekeepers at or above the 45th parallel always have to wrap hives.  Beekeepers at or below the 40th parallel don’t need to do anything special for overwintering.  Here we find ourselves at the 43rd parallel, which means sometimes we need to and sometimes we can get away without.  I decided that it is better to be safe than sorry.  From now on, I will prepare like I am further north, which brings me back to Mike Palmer.  Vermont is mostly a bit further north than us, so what works for him, ought to work for us.Continue Reading

Winter in the Hive

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Man, beekeeping is an emotional roller coaster. Two years ago, our three hives survived the mild, Michigan winter like champs. My husband and I did everything the books told us to do and it was a success! We were feeling pretty darn proud of ourselves. Then last winter hit: record cold, record snow, wind gusts that, I swear, blew straight through the house. It was a nasty one. Now this year, we seem to be back into the mild category once again (although all true Michiganders know it’s way too early to make bets!).

Last year provided the opportunity for my husband and I to lay awake in bed, night after night, listening to the screaming wind and wonder, “Can the bees survive this?” Then when we looked out in the morning and saw snow drifted over the hives we wondered, “Can the bees survive that?” Then when the weather forecasters said, “We’re looking at record cold temperatures for the third day in a row.” We worried, “There’s no way they’ll survive that.”  Well, it turned out they did not survive these things. In fact, roughly a quarter of the beekeepers who responded to the Bee Informed spring survey reported colony losses as well.  If you were to eavesdrop on conversations around the 2014 Bee School put on by the Kalamazoo Bee Club, most of what you’d have heard would have been beekeepers lamenting the loss of their hives!Continue Reading

What’s in your attic?

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I have 16 inches of blown-in insulation over 4 inches of batting in my house. The walls are insulated, along with new windows and doors, as well as a high efficiency furnace. It’s cozy. And so are the bee colonies that live in old trees, they have 8 to 10 inches of wood insulation on the sides and many feet on the top and bottom of the hive.Bee attic
But what about my back yard bee hives? All they have is a half inch of wood for insulation. Not cozy! Yes they say it’s moisture not cold that kills bees. But if they have to eat more stores to keep warm, it takes its toll. So why not insulate your hives?Continue Reading

Welcome to the Blog

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Back before social media was so easily and widely used, this website was used to share insights and key bee activities. The blog is no longer updated BUT — there’s some great historical information here, and thus we’re leaving the info here, although some of it may be a bit outdated.