May 16th Lamoille County Beekeepers Club Meeting Notes
Presented by Gib Geiger and Jeremy ______
3-4 eggs in a cell is an indication of a “laying worker”, where there is no queen and an unfertilized worker has taken the place of queen. This is bad.
You don’t necessarily have to see the queen- if you see eggs you know she’s there.
Always have an extra setup on hand (Hive, frames, cover, bottom board)
Late June / Early July is a great time to do splits on a Nuc hive. They help control for swarming and also cut back on the mite population by disrupting their lifecycle
Take 4 frames: 2 mixed brood (capped, uncapped, eggs), Pollen, nectar or honey. Scrape bees off of the frames back into original colony, place overnight on top of hive with queen excluder (so nurse bees can cover). Then pull it off the next day and put it with a medium and cover and leave it alone for 3 weeks- will raise it’s own vermont queen.
Need to treat for mites if you want your hive to overwinter successfully
Do a mite drop count to determine when to treat
July is usually a good time to treat (during dearth)
Drop test involves more than 9 mites after 36 hours? (need to research more)
Starting in June, check for mites at least every 2 weeks
Need to treat for mites in EARLY september. If you wait too long to treat your bees will appear fine going into winter but will be unhealthy bees.
Products: Apeavar and Miteaway - Formic Acid. No honey harvest for 3-4 weeks after treatment.
Using IPM (integrated pest management)
If you use IPM, you MUST freeze the drone frame on time (before they hatch at 24 days), otherwise you will quadruple mite population
Pollen patties attract pests like hive beetles, and aren’t necessary at this point in the spring (mid may)
Don’t use hay in smoker as most hay comes treated with chemicals
Get a good hot fire going in bottom of smoker and then pack tight with fuel like pine needles, burlap, bailing twine
Using a butane torch is very helpful for lighting
Queen cells high on a frame usually indicate supersedure; Low in the frame indicates preparations for a swarm
Look at the bottom of the inner cover when you open the hive- if you see white wax this is an indication that bees need more room
Situation in new hives (particularly packages) where there isn’t much drawn comb. You feed them syrup and instead of drawing more comb they just store it and there’s nowhere for the queen to lay. Then the bees get pissed and supersede.
Bees need 200lbs of honey to overwinter.
Leave the screened bottom board wide open so air can flow through hive creating chimney effect
Create styrofoam cover with routed out exit so bees can get out.
1/2” hardware cloth is adequate for keeping mice out of hive, and can be used all year. It shouldn’t be necessary now (mid may), but in early spring if it warmed up and you took it away and then it got cold, you could have mouse problems.
Test your electric fence just before sunrise when it’s at its weakest to make sure it is still charged. If it’s not cutting it get a 6v tractor battery and wire into charger instead of tiny battery.
Ground rods: You need 3’ of ground rod per Joule of charger power. Need galvanized ground rods- much better than copper.
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