Strengthening a Weak Colony

This time of year it is critical that your colonies are strong enough to raise brood. A colony with a low population can not keep the center of their cluster warm enough to raise brood. The only way to get the queen to start laying again is to add more bees to have a larger and tighter cluster with adequate core temperature for incubating brood. If bees become protein deficient, from not having an incoming source of pollen or bee bread in the comb, they lose their ability to produce royal jelly, which all larvae is fed during the early stages of development. Since the larvae can not be fed and dies, the protein deficient bees will eat them from the cells in order to clean the cell and for a source of protein. In a case like this you may think that your queen has failed when the old worker bees with protein deficiency are to blame. The addition of young nurse bees is vital at this point to ensure colony survival.

I had two colonies which ended up being really weak over the course of the winter. I discovered that these two colonies were not doing as good as they should be when I put pollen patties on them two weeks ago. At that time, I also seen which colonies would be strong enough to take some frames of brood and young bees to add to the weaker colonies. I finally got the chance to strengthen the two weak colonies yesterday.

Pictured below is one of the weak colonies. This colony performed well over the season last year as I made two nucs from it and gathered three shallow supers of honey. The queen looks as yet she has to be fed in order for her to start raising brood. Adding more bees which are already in build up mode, they will definitely begin feeding the queen and get her to start laying. The upper deep is packed with capped honey and has plenty of stores available for when the colony kicks into high gear raising brood in a few weeks from the addition of brood and young bees which will only help to raise more brood and feed the queen.



The next picture is of the donor colony that was selected to donate some bees and brood. The bees had been eating the pollen patty that I placed in it two weeks ago. This colony had six frames of bees in the lower deep and about six frames of bees about half way up the upper deep so I'm sure that it can spare two frames of bees and brood.



The absolute most important thing to do when taking frames of brood with bees to add to another queenright colony is to locate the queen so that she is not transferred to the other colony. If this would happen the two queens would fight to the death. The colony from which the queen was taken would become queenless. There is larvae of appropriate age from which a new queen could be raised, but this time of year it is likely that the new queen could not become mated any time soon due to the shortage of drones. It takes a queen approximately 23 days from day one as an egg to become fertile and ready to mate. From day one as an egg it takes about 38 days for a drone to become fertile and ready to mate with the queen. It would take up to five and a half weeks for the queen to become mated if drones eggs have been laid.

In the picture below you can see the queen as well as some capped drone brood. Drone cells are capped at ten days, so if I would of removed the queen it would still take a month to have a mated queen in this colony. Four weeks of no brood rearing would set this hive back dramatically. This is why it is important to isolate the frame which contains the queen so that she stays where she belongs.

The queen is on the lower left hand corner of the frame and the capped drone brood is to her right. It looks as if the colony has already hatched out some drones but I did not waste any time trying to locate any in the colony as I was pressed for time. You can click on the picture to enlarge it to get a better view of the queen, drone brood, and worker brood which is closer to the center of the frame. You can also see some of the newly emerged bees as they appear fuzzier than the old bees.



After locating the frame with the queen and setting it aside I needed to chose two frames of capped brood with young bees to add to the weak colony. I made space in the weak colony by removing two drawn frames with some honey and some empty space to add back to the donor colony. The frame pictured below was chosen due to the amount of capped brood and young bees on it.



Before placing the donor frame into the weak colony I sprayed each side of the frame to lightly coat the bees with a Essential Oil Scent Masking Syrup. I made a gallon of 1:1 inverted syrup and added somewhere between twenty-five to thirty drops of spearmint essential oil to act as the masking agent. You can click on the picture to enlarge it to see the bees being sprayed.



The bees in the recipient colony also got sprayed with the masking syrup. The weak colony only had a small cluster of bees on three frames. Pictured below is the weak colony after adding one frame of brood and bees. The first frame on the left is a honey frame. The second frame is one which was originally in the colony and contained only a small number of bees. The third frame from the left is a donor frame with brood and bees. The fourth frame contains the queen and some bees from the weak colony.



After adding another donor frame and the last frame from the weak colony to complete the process, the lower deep of the weak colony looks a lot better and the chance of survival has exceedingly increased.



The donor colony still looks good though its frames of bees and brood in the lower brood chamber have been lowered by 33%. All that was left to do was to put the upper hive body back onto the lower one and to lay the lids in place.



I had been wanting to strengthen this colony for going on two weeks and finally caught a chance to do so. The weather was borderline flying weather and the bees were a little temperamental from being disturbed while in the cluster. I'm glad I finally got the chance to strengthen colony as I have been worrying about it every time I think about the bees. I really could not have picked a better time to have done it. After I finished with both colonies it began to rain which confined the bees to the colony. The young bees would of stayed with the brood anyway but some of the older bees could have returned to their original hive and recruited other bees to help rob out the weaker colony. This has happened to me before. I was prepared to screen the entrance if I needed to but the rain made a better screen than I could have. Also with using the masking syrup the bees did not fight with one another and began grooming each other to clean the syrup off of their bodies. If I could not have accomplished this task when I did the two weak colonies could have died out before the weather would have been cooperative again. Below is a picture of what the colonies look like today. Snow and lower temperatures make good screen too. Once it warms up the bees will have become accustomed to their new home and I should see some orientation flights taking place as the young bees take to the air for their first time.



When I added the frames to the weak colonies I made sure that at least one donor frame contained some eggs. I did this just in case the queens had failed and needed to be superseded. Also if something would happen to the queens, like being balled by the new bees which were added, the workers would have some young larvae of the appropriate age to raise a new emergency queen from. I will be raising some queens this spring and the queens in these two colonies will be replaced from my feral stock.

Hopefully by reading this you will take the initiative to strengthen your weak colonies so that they can survive through the winter. I know some of you may think that this may be a little drastic but I feel it is much better than to simply sit back and watch my bees dwindle away to nothing or to go out to a dead out just to look in and say that they starved (like I have in the past). By inspecting your colonies and strengthening your weak ones until they can be requeened your percentage of successfully overwintered colonies will increase. Thanks.

Building Up an Overwintered Nuc, Part 1

I had a colony last summer which had a single deep and a shallow super for the brood nest. I wanted to take the shallow away from the colony ans replace it with the deep that was over the shallow. Since the shallow had brood in it, the top deep was full of honey, and I had a few queens on hand the time was right for making a nuc. I took eight frames from the shallow and made a two story four frame nucleus colony. I did not do anything else for this nuc for the rest of the year and it has overwintered just fine and now is the time to start giving it extra room for the spring build up.
I put a double inside feeder on the nuc a week before I went back to give it extra room.
Last Sunday, 2/17/08, I went back to add a pollen patty, a deep nuc box with four frames of honey and pollen, and to refill the feeders. Pictured below is my daughter, Mindi, who was brave enough to remove the outer lid and inner cover for me.



When she took of the lid she told me that one of the inverted jars were empty. So she reached in pulled it out.



She then took the other jar, empty deep nuc box, and the double inside feeder off of the nuc.



After we got down to the brood area I went over to take a look while Flower came over to paw around on Mindi's leg and seemed jealous that the bees were getting her attention.



After looking at a few frames I found some eggs and some larvae so I put the frames back into the nuc box and added a pollen patty. Putting the syrup on the nuc a week earlier got the queen to start laying.



After adding the patty I added the deep nuc box with four frames of honey and pollen. The frame below is a good example of a honey dome. At the lower center the cells are empty, around that is some pollen, or bee bread, then a band of honey. This little nuc got lucky I had a dead out or it would not have gotten drawn comb with honey and bee bread. For a closer look at the frame click on the picture.



Then we put the inside double feeder on the top bars of the deep frames.



With the double inside feeder in place, Mindi put the inverted feeder jars into it. I'd like to see the queen move up to the deep frames to lay her brood. Since the bees were never given any additional space last summer they built a lot burr comb. If the queen moves up and lays in the deep frames I won't have to worry about damaging the brood in the shallow frames when I move the nuc into full sized boxes. With the feeders on top of the frames the bees will probably move up closer to the syrup.



Then she put the empty deep nuc, inner cover, and outer cover back onto the nuc. She's quite brave around bees being only ten years old.



I'll continue to give this nuc more room as it needs it. Hopefully in the next few months we will see this nuc become a nice productive colony as it grows in population and size. Thanks for reading this post and be sure to follow this small overwintered nuc during its journey through the upcoming year.

Are Your Bees Alive, Do You Need to Feed Them? Part 2

Do you remember the colonies that I fed back in January? I put granulated sugar atop one colony and icing in the drawn comb of another. The bees in the colony with the icing really took to it. Here is a picture of one of the frames that had the icing in it.



This is what one of the frames looked like before I put it into the colony when it had icing in it.



The other colony I fed with granulated sugar.



They didn't use hardly any of it. However that is a good thing about Carniolan bees. They are extremely frugal with winter stores and have a smaller winter cluster than other races of bees and will thereby also use less stores.



Both colonies were approximately the same strength when I gave them the feed. They also had about the same amount of stores available. It is quite clear to me that they prefer the icing over the granulated sugar although feeding granulated sugar can be a great way to keep your bees alive and should not be discounted.

The left over sugar has been removed and will be made into syrup shortly. Both of these colonies will be set up with some inverted jars with 1:1 to help with brood rearing.

The colony that had the sugar on it now has a pollen patty and an empty shallow of drawn comb. Hopefully when the shallow is full of brood around the first of April it can be taken off the deep hive body to start another colony with.

Feeding Pollen Patties To Your Colonies

After you have decided to feed your colonies pollen patties, whether they are premade patties or you make your own, you need to put them on your hives. The first thing to do is to prepare your hive by smoking them in order to calm the bees before you open them. I like to puff some smoke into the entrance and wait a few minutes before opening the hive.





After smoking the entrances and staying ahead to give the bees time to become sedated, I take off the lid to make it easier to lift the upper hive body of the brood chamber from the lower one. Once the lid is off I separate the two hive bodies and puff some more smoke between them before lifting the upper hive body off. I find the bees remain more calm this way and I rarely use smoke under the outer or inner lid like I have seen some people do. I might use a little smoke when adding a honey super but I mainly do it to sedate the bees between the inner and outer covers before removing the outer cover.



After removing the upper hive body of the brood chamber I could see the remnants of a sugar cake that added to the colony a while back. A really friendly beekeeper in Washington state gave me a recipe for the cakes. The colony didn't really need the cake but I needed an excuse to open the hive.

After opening the hive down to the cluster area I decided to examine the the frames for brood. It had been a weeks (maybe three?) since I looked for any brood or eggs and this time I found some! The bees are not bringing in pollen yet so they are using last years reserves to begin brood rearing. It looks as if I intervened at the opportune moment. If you click on the picture to enlarge it you can see eggs in the cells adjacent to the capped brood. The frames beside this frame have a similar brood area. The bees are rearing brood closest to the center of where they cluster in order to keep the pupae at the proper incubation temperature and to avoid chilled brood.



The next picture has the queen in the midst of the workers. She is on some natural comb from a colony which I extracted last May. I can easily tell that the comb was from the cut-out because it is in a swarm catch frame.



After looking at the frames it was time to place the pollen patty. When placing the pollen patty be sure that all bee are off of the top bars. You can do this by gently smoking the bees or by lightly brushing them. After the top bars are clear of bees scrape off any comb that may be on the top bars before placing the pollen patty.





After the pollen patty is in position the upper hive body must be put back into place. Be sure to look at the bottom bars of the frames to ensure that there is no bees that will be squashed into the pollen patty. If there are bees there smoke them off and scrape away any burr comb that may be on the bottom bars.



Here's a picture of the top hive body back atop the lower hive body. This hive body is still full of honey and heavy. I doubt if I will need to feed this colony syrup. The only syrup this colony will most likely be getting is from stimulative communal syrup feeders.



Here's another colony with a pollen patty added.



Here I am clearing a seat for another patty.



Once the way is clear the patty is put into place.



Around an hour after placing the patties within the colonies I could see a big difference in the behavior of the hives. All the colonies were abuzz with action. Pollen patties encourages the foraging of honeybees as well as brood rearing.



It was really neat to see the increase in activity outside of the hives. It has been warmer here today in the past few weeks than it was today and the colonies exhibited much less activity. Though I monitored the entrances for bees returning to their homes I never did see one bee return with pollen. I believe it is a good thing that I gave them each a pollen patty since they are raising brood and do not have a source for pollen as of yet.

I surely hope that you enjoyed this post to my blog. This time of year it seems that there is always a lot of chatter about feeding pollen patties as everyone wants their colonies to start raising a lot of brood. Now instead of talking a big game I just go ahead and do what I want or need to do. I didn't need to add the patties but I wanted to help ensure healthy populations in a few months so I can start making nucs and raising queens. Thanks for reading the post and stay tuned because there is more to come.

Making Pollen Patties

Why would someone want to feed their bees pollen patties? To build the population of the colonies of course. Beekeepers have different reasons for wanting an early spring build up. The reason I am doing it is so hopefully I'll be able to start some nucs sooner and have plenty of bees in each colony to do so with. Some beekeepers do it to build the colony population so they can demand top dollar on pollination contracts. Other beekeepers do it to have higher populations of bees in order to collect a greater surplus of honey. Some build up their bees to make packages or shook swarms from them. Whatever your reason be sure that you implement some preventive swarm management if you give your colonies stimulative feed unless you just like catching swarms.

Making pollen patties for yourself is fairly simple. You may choose to feed a store bought pollen substitute or or mix your own. I bought some pollen substitute to mix into patties instead of mixing a bunch of different ingredients and to keep things simple. When I made my pollen patties all I needed was pollen substitute and sugar to make into syrup. High fructose corn syrup can be substituted for sugar syrup. The amount that you need depends on how many colonies you plan on feeding.







After I open a bag of sugar, and in this case also pollen substitute, I like to store it in a five gallon bucket. The lids to the buckets have rubber o-rings and are airtight. I don't have to worry about the contents drawing moisture and becoming ruined.

I have only sixteen colonies that need patties on them so I'm trying to make only enough for each colony. After doing some math I decided that a gallon of 2:1 syrup mixed with some pollen sub should be ample. To get a gallon of 2:1 you need to stir in eight pounds of water in to two quarts of boiling water. Be sure to add some cream of tarter to invert the syrup. The pollen patties will retain their moisture longer when using inverted sugar syrup.





After making a gallon of 2:1 invert syrup I measured out approximately one gallon and a half of pollen substitute.



Then I added the syrup.



After adding the syrup I began mixing the syrup and pollen sub with a paint mixer attached to a drill.



I used the drill and mixer until the ingredients were well mixed. The mixture was too thick so I added another pint and a half of 2:1 syrup so the mixture would gain the the texture of dough.



The best way I could think of scoping the mixture from the pail in which it was mixed was with a drywall finishing knife. One pound of the mixture will make a sizable patty when flattened to fit between the frames within the brood chamber of a colony.



Before scooping out some of the mixture it best to already have a piece of waxed paper ready and waiting to receive the mixture.



After I flattened out the patties I weighed them and was pretty consistent in making each patty close to one pound. I adjusted the tare on the scale according to the weight of the plate being used.



Below is a picture of the last four patties I spread onto the waxed paper. The patty on the right is for a little four frame nuc that I'll be building up over the next few months.



I did rather well with my guesstamation of how much syrup and pollen substitue to use. I did not have much left over after making sixteen patties. What I had left over was used to make some heavier patties for the bigger colonies since they can got through them quicker. I hope this helps you if you are thinking of making some patties and haven't before. They are really easy to make if you have some time and the right ingredients and equipment. I'll be sure to let you know how good my bees build up between now and when I split them.

If you enjoyed the information that I have passed along in order to help you make your own pollen patties, please click on one of the Google sponsored advertisements to show your appreciation. It would be like Throwing a few cents into the "need a penny, take a penny" tray at the gas station, only that it isn't your pennies!!! Thanks for taking the time to read this post.

Recipes for Beekeepers

Occasionally it becomes necessary to supplement a colony’s diet. This may be due to lack of food stores, to encourage a particular behavior, or to medicate the entire hive. Here are some recipes that are considered to be bee safe. Each of these recipes may be of benefit when supplied at the correct time and prepared properly.

HONEY

Though you may think it because they make it, honey is not the best feed for bees. Honey is in essence bee food that has been processed so that it won’t spoil. Bees prefer to eat nectar when given the chance. Be sure to know the source when honey is used as a feed or as an ingredient in one of the following recipes. If at all possible only re-feed honey to the same hive it was harvested from. Never use store-bought honey. Store-bought honey may contain AFB or other such spores that can be deadly to bees.

Sugar Syrup

Check out my previous post for making invert sugar syrup.

High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS)

It is not uncommon for a beekeeper with many hives and little time to use high fructose corn syrup in place of 2:1 syrup, however this method is not cost effective or practical for small-scale beekeepers. Pollinators are more prone to feed with corn syrup because most of the crops that they pollinate doesn't produce enough nectar for all the colonies in the field. Be sure to check the list of ingredients when purchasing high fructose corn syrup not specifically packaged as bee feed. Many suppliers often add extra ingredients that may not be desired when feeding bees. Your best bet is to buy from a supplier of beekeeping equipment such as Mann Lake.

Bee Candy

Occasionally it is not advised to feed bees syrup. Sometimes when emergency feeding it is best to use a dry or semi-moist food. Some times bee candy is used because it is not as messy as feeding syrup. Even though bee candy may be convenient to use as feed, it is not recommended as a complete substitution to syrup.

Un-prepared Sugar

The simplest bee candy is crystallized cane sugar. Pure sugar is generally only fed during dire emergencies. Bees will sometimes carry it out of the hive rather than consume it. In the winter when syrup is not a preferable supplementary food source,s ome people place it over the top bars in a hive on newspaper. If the colony runs out of stores it can eat its way up to the sugar. I have a good description and pictures of this method of feeding in the post entitled, "Are Your Bees Alive, Do You Need to Feed Them?"

Fondant Bee Candy

Fondant bee candy can be fed directly to the bees once cooled. Fondant is a good food source for mini-mating nucs because there is no drowning involved when you have a small amount of bees. It is also common to use this recipe in small quantities to plug the hole on a Queen Cage.

> 4 parts (by volume) white sugar
> 4 parts (by volume) 2:1 Syrup or HFCS
> 3 parts (by volume) water

Boil water and slowly add the syrup and sugar until dissolved. Continue heating until the mixture reaches 238°F (114°C). Without mixing allow the solution to cool until it is slightly warm to the touch. Then begin to mix and aerate the solution. As you do this the color should lighten. Pour into shallow dishes or mold and save for later use. I prefer to make the fondant thin enough to where I can work it into an empty frame of drawn comb.

Quick Candy

If you are pressed for time quick candy can be used in place of Fondant Bee Candy. It is easier to prepare but may not be as easily workable.

> 1 part (by volume) confectioner’s sugar
> 1 part (by volume) 1:2 Syrup or HFCS or Clean Honey

Just knead the two ingredients together like bread dough until it is mixed thoroughly.

Pollen Substitute

Sometimes there is a shortage of pollen or a beekeeper may want to stimulate the queen into rearing brood before the spring flow. Pollen substitutes can be used in such situations. Despite its name pollen substitutes are no real substitute for genuine fresh pollen.

Dry Pollen Substitute

Dry pollen substitute can be placed directly into the hive or used in bird feeders to attract local bees. If you wish to not order or purchase a prepackaged pollen substitute from a beekeeping equipment supplier you can make your own with these ingredients which should be available locally.

> 3 parts (by weight) Soy Flour (expeller-processed soybean flour)
> 1 part (by weight) Brewers Yeast
> 1 part (by weight) Nonfat Dry Milk (Not instant milk)

Simply mix the powders together and use. Occasionally bees may refuse to eat pollen substitute, most often when fresh pollen is available. It is however possible to trick bees to take the substitute when necessary by adding a small amount of Vitamin C into the mixture. Often 1 teaspoon per 5 cups can be added. If a powered form is not available, it is possible to crush a Vitamin C tablet to add to the mixture.

Pollen Patty

To make a pollen patty mix the Dry Pollen Substitute with enough 2:1 Syrup or HFCS to make a putty or dough like consistency. Some beekeepers will add other ingredients to increase the amount of certain vitamins or amino acids or will add the extra ingredients to make the patty more palatable for the bees.

Grease Patties

Grease Patties that contain both wintergreen oil or tea tree oil and mineral salt appear to have an effect on varroa mites and tracheal mites. These effects can be seen when brood is present and has a devastating effect on mites when brood is not present. Remember that grease patties with essential oils should not be used during time of honey collection for human consumption. When the bees are making a surplus of honey grease patties without essential oils can be used to a lesser effect. For any noticeable effect a grease patty of some form should be used at all times. Replace any consumed patties. Grease patties are awesome to use in the winter time and if mixed to the right consistency can easily be pressed into an empty frame of drawn comb or placed on the top bars above the cluster on a piece of waxed paper.

Simple Grease Patty

> 1 part (by volume) solid vegetable shorting (such as Crisco)
> 2 parts (by volume) white sugar

Mix sugar and shortening until well combined. Split into approximately quarter cup (~6 centiliters) portions and store excess in the freezer sand witched between sheets of wax paper.

Grease Patty With Mineral Salt

> 2 lbs solid vegetable shorting (such as Crisco)
> 3 lbs whites sugar
> 1 lb 2:1 Syrup or High Fructose Corn Syrup or Clean Honey
> 1/3 cup pulverized mineral salt (~1/5lb Depending on mineral content)

Prepare the same as you would a simple grease patty recipe.

Grease Patty With Mineral Salt and Essential Oils

> 2 lbs solid vegetable shorting (such as Crisco)
> 3 lbs whites sugar
> 1 lb 2:1 Syrup or HFCS or Clean Honey
> 1/3 cup pulverized mineral salt (~1/5lb Depending on mineral content)
> 3 table spoons wintergreen oil

Prepare the same as you would a simple grease patty recipe.

Extender Patty

If a grease patty contains terramycin, it is called an extender patty, and is considered one of the best ways to control American Foul Brood. Some research has shown that the Terramycin will stay at strength for up to 6 months in this application. Extender Patties can be used in fall on over wintering colonies or during early spring. Extender patty use has been sanctioned by the FDA. Despite this approval, caution should still be used if taking this route of medication as spore resistance has been noted with this form of application.

> 1/3 lb powdered sugar aka Baker's Blend Sugar, not to be confused with confectioner's sugar
> 1/3 lb solid vegetable shortening (such as Crisco)

2 tablespoons Terramycin TM25

This patty can be used to eliminate three weekly dustings of powdered Terramycin, but should only be used to medicate and not as a prophylactic measure.

General Purpose Essential Oil Mixture

A well known commercially available general purpose essential oil product for bees that is similar to the following recipe claims many benefits even though many of those claims have yet to be proven. The following recipe should work about as well as that product and is way cheaper. It can be added in small quantities to feed to encourage feeding. It has been known to occasionally cause robbing behavior due to its great appeal to bees.

> 5 cups water
> 2 1/2 pounds of sugar
> 1/8 teaspoon lecithin granules (used as an emulsifier)
> 15 drops spearmint oil
> 15 drops lemongrass oil

Bring the water to a boil and stir in the sugar until it is dissolved. Once the sugar is dissolved remove the mixture from the heat and quickly add the lecithin and the essential oils. Stir the mixture thoroughly. This solution should have a strong scent and not be left open around bees. Cool before using.

Use the Essential Oil Mixture in early spring and during periods when no nectar is available and to build up packages, nucs ind swarms. Two teaspoonfuls in a quart of 1:1 sugar syrup delivers a total of one cc of both essential oils. The essential oils are evenly distributed throughout the syrup. The Essential Oil Mixture helps produce rapid build up of bees when used as a feeding stimulant. In addition, using 4 teaspoons in a quart of one to one sugar water of the Essential Oil Mixture as a spray instead of smoke helps calm the bees, and spraying caged new queens and bees helps with queen acceptance during cage introduction and reduces balling during direct release when sprayed on new queen and bees. It also helps to reduce stings: mix a little on your hands and watch the difference in bee behavior-very few or no stings at all. Acts as a bee calmer when sprayed on the bees and helps prevent fighting when combining nucs, swarms, and colonies. Spray on a colony while doing a cut-out for some extra calm bees! When sprayed on new foundation helps encourage the bees to draw out new comb or plastic comb.

Smokeless Smoke

A solution of the above general purpose essential oil mixture and 1:1 syrup can be mixed and used in a spray bottle. This solution has varied effects depending on the specific history of the hive. Because of differences between each hive it is best to try a ten to one [1:10] mixture of essential oil mixture to syrup and vary the ratio as necessary. Have your smoker readily available during your first few trials in case the bees don’t react to the solution. The bees will stay more calm when this mixture is used as compared to simply using the sugar syrup by itself to spray the bees.

Essential Oil Scent Masking Syrup

Nearly any essential oil can be mixed with a 1:1 syrup solution to mask an undesired scent in the hive. A masking syrup can be used during queen introduction or when joining two hives. Simply add the desired amount of oils to the spray bottle before using the syrup. The stronger the scent the better it will serve to mask other scents. Since essential oils have a strong smell they should be used sparingly. One of the more common oils to use is peppermint oil, but be sure not to use banana oil.

Scent Masking Syrup

A cheap scent masking syrup can be used in the same way as the recipe for essential oil scent masking syrup. Prepare a 1:1 syrup and add one or two crushed peppermint candies for every two cups of prepared solution. Load the solution into a spray bottle and use as needed.

I hope these recipes help you out with your bees. Maybe you can help them in the winter if their stores are low, feed them stimulatively to begin brood rearing a little early, use pollen substitutes for rearing of brood, and employ the other uses that these recipes come in handy for during certain situations. I hope you appreciate the time I have shared with you to help you and your bees.

What to do with a dead-out?

I made a sad discovery yesterday when I found a colony that had recently been visited by the Grim Keeper. I don't get upset like I used to when I have a dead-out. I have come to expect them in the winter and almost every beekeeper experiences them from novices to experts. Since I have not been using any chemical treatments against parasites, pests, and diseases dead-outs are sometimes unavoidable. However I feel that maybe this dead-out could have been prevented if it had not been for my lack of better judgment as beekeeper.

The best thing that I could have done for this colony would of been to requeen it last August. The colony was outperformed by my other over winter colonies. I feel that the queen had lost her fecundity and her ability to to produce queen mandibular pheromone due to her age. Not only had the queen lost her fecundity, or ability to lay a large amount of eggs, but she also shut down earlier than the other colonies. This resulted in a smaller size winter cluster. By lacking the ability to produce a sufficient amount of queen pheromone the hive began to have a sense of queenlessness and became hot and harder to work. I was going to requeen the colony in the spring when I raised some queens but for now on I'll go ahead and purchase a queen to requeen in the fall. That would have been the smart thing to do because the colony would have had a large enough population to overwinter successfully and would have been going into a new season with a new and more vigorous queen.

When I inspected the colony on the 6th of this month the cluster was in the upper deep. The upper deep had very little stores in it but the lower deep was pretty much full. I should have reversed the positions of the hive bodies then but thought I would have been better off waiting until the first of February when I was planning on putting some pollen patties in the hives and giving them syrup. It may have help the colony to survive but I feel at this point it would of only prolonged the inevitable. I know better than to procrastinate when it comes to the bees but I still inadvertently make mistakes. Now I can honestly say that a winter cluster will not move down to food stores and a beekeeper should definitely make sure to keep stores directly above the cluster. If you can't use honey as stores above the cluster be sure to at least put some sugar or fondant above them.

I originally obtained this colony form an older gentleman who had become unable to care for his bees. He told be that he hadn't been in his colonies for three years. Being confined to wheelchair and partially paralyzed from multiple strokes he could only sit on porch and watch the bees work. When I picked up the hives from him in July he told me he probably had about twenty swarms that spring. He said it broke his heart to see the swarms cluster in one of the trees in his yard to only leave for a new home a few hours later. I hate to even think of it.

I opened the colonies before I bought them home and gave them a good inspection. The supers were only half filled with frames and the bees had drawn comb in all the empty spaces. He said he had a neighborhood kid to rob him a few frames of honey every now and then and neglected to put any frames back in. The supers were a real mess and were very hard to remove from th top bars of the brood chamber. The brood combs were old and black but there was not any signs of disease. I would not have been surprised to find Apistan strips in the colonies but when asked he said he had never treated against mites. After inspecting the colonies I decided to start culling the old comb as soon as I got them home. That was four years ago.

Last October I sent some samples of bees to the Beltsville Bee Lab for disease diagnosis. In this colony that died out there were no traces of nosema disease or tracheal mites. However they did find one varroa mite in the sample from this colony. I numbered the colonies as I took samples so I could easily identify the colonies with the results from the lab.





I'll usually write info about the colony on the back of the hives but this year as my apiary numbers increase and with the addition of a few outyards I will be using colony strength and health record sheets in order to keep up with all my colonies. If I would have been keeping records last year maybe I would have requeened the colony simply by reminding myself about it every time that I would read the record sheets.

So now I'm looking down into the dead colony and wanting to know why this colony died when there was only one mite in the sample. I don't even think that were enough bees left to stock a mini-mating nuc with.



One of the big reasons is that the colony dwindled away to a very small cluster outlined in the picture above. Maybe when I collected the sample to send for diagnosis all the mites were in the cells with capped larvae. I physically examined every bee as I removed them from the comb. I counted sixteen mites from the bees on the combs and four mites from the ones on the bottom board.



I wish I would have taken better pictures. All the pictures I took with a bee in my hand are blurry. You cant see it but there is a mite between the scales on this bees abdomen.

Before I get too far ahead of myself, here is a picture of part of the cluster and the queen.



I removed the queen and placed her in a ziplock baggie. I placed all the bees in the same bag as I removed them and inspected them. Pictured below is where the bees starved out. The arrow pointing to the left is pointing to some bee bread. The bees were watering it down so they could eat it. I tore open the abdomen of some of the bees and the contents were the same color as the bee bread. I guess bees can't live on bread alone. The other arrow pointing down is pointing to a mite. You can click on the picture to make it larger and you should then be able to see the mite.



Here is a picture of the other side of the comb where the cluster was.



After I removed all the bees from the surface of the comb I proceeded to remove the ones that were head first in the cells with tweezers. When bees die head first in the cells it is usually indicative of starving but there could always be other factors just like in this case.



Looks like the bees had built a supersedure cell cup in preparation to replace their old failing mother last autumn. Maybe it got too late for them to replace her or it was one of those cell cups they start "just in case" they need it. I unintentionally tore apart a lot of the bees as I pulled them out of the cells but some came out easily and ended up in the baggie with the other bees. After I got finished with the combs I moved on to the bottom board.



On the bottom board I found three bees that had mites on them. One of these bees had two mites on the underside of her abdomen between the scales. I found a couple more mites on the landing board and I wish I would of had a magnifying glass handy. I don't think they overwinter very well when their host dies. I also put the bees from the bottom board into the baggie.



The reason I put them in the baggie is that I am going to send them in for testing. I am very curious to learn if they had managed to acquire any nosema or tracheal mites since I submitted my last sample. When you collect a sample you need to add some alcohol to preserve the bees while they are in the mail. They can not use decayed bees so if you wait too long to collect samples they can not be tested. Since we have had freezing temperatures here for the last few weeks I believe the bees are in good enough shape to be tested. When you add the alcohol to the bag you don't need to drench the bees. You only need enough to get all the bees wet.



I had been culling comb from this colony for four years. This year I would have had all the old comb replaced with new comb. Here are a few pictures of the frames with honey from the lower deep.





While culling the old comb I mostly gave the colony starter strips cut from Dadant's thin surplus wax foundation which is 5.05 mm and the most cost effective starter strip when using wax. The bees in this colony seemed to consistently draw out 5.0 mm cells for worker comb. When using foundation I use Kelley's crimpedwired wax foundation with hooks which is also 5.05mm. Below is a picture of a frame of the original natural comb that was going to be culled this spring.



If you count the cells between the arrows you will see that there are ten cells to five centimeters. This works out to 5.00 mm per cell. I would like to know why the bees picked one of the oldest combs in the hive to cluster and die on, especially when they had freshly drawn comb to cluster on. Maybe the cocoons in the wax absorbs and holds heat and makes it easier to keep the cluster on or the older comb has more pheromones embedded into it and is more attractive to them than newer comb. Hopefully someone in college who needs to do a thesis might read this and decide to do a study on it.



Above is some natural comb that was drawn out last spring. The cells are still very near to averaging 5.00 mm. Below is some natural comb drawn out last year as well. Where the tape measure is it looks as if the cells are closer to 4.9mm than 5.0mm.



After working on this colony for the last four years to cull the old comb and to help keep it healthy I am quite disappointed with myself for letting this happen. I can't blame the bees because I knew to do better than I did in my management of this colony. The only good thing I can say about this dead-out is that I had the opportunity to share it with you so that you can learn from my mistakes. The only other thin that is good about it is that I know have two deeps full of drawn comb with some honey. The best way to store drawn comb or honeycomb is in a freezer.



Do not ever store comb that has honey in it with Para-Moth or Para Dicholorbenzene Crystals. I no longer use any chemicals so I either freeze the comb or use blue painter's tape from 3M. The painter's tape will seal the supers together and if you do it right the moths can not get in. I really don't know what I'm going to do with the drawn comb. I do have some options. I could use them for swarms, packages, making nucs, bait hives or swarm traps, or could use them bolster existing colonies. Whatever I us them for I need to make sure they are protected form pests until I use them.
I hope that by reading this that you will requeen your colonies as soon as they need it. It is a part of practicing good beekeeping management. Keeping a young queen helps to prevent swarming, provides more bees from a queen with a greater fecundity, and will give a larger surplus of honey. Be sure to feed you bees early in the autumn or summer until the colonies have enough stores for your area and climate. Here we need about 70 pounds of stores for overwintering. Make sure your bees have their stores above them and can remain in contact with them while they are clustering. Just by doing these few simple things this will help your bees avoid the Grim Keeper. Don't make the same mistakes that made with this one colony. I hope you enjoyed the post. Thanks for letting me share this with you. Keep checking back for new posts.