Yellow Sweet Clover

I did see some yellow sweet clover blooming in a ditch yesterday. This usually suggests the main nectar flow is getting ready to start. Yellow Sweet Clover does not give huge nectar flows in eastern Minnesota because it is too humid here, but where it is drier in the western part of the state and the Dakota's it is the major honey crop. In the Dakota's one hive can give you 300 to 500 hundred pounds of honey per hive when they get enough rain to keep it green. This year the Dakota's have been too dry and the Yellow Sweet Clover flow is going to be a bust.
 White Sweet Clover will be blooming soon. White Sweet Clover is the honey crop for most of us. Supers should be on your hives now if they are ready for them.

Black Locust Flow

I talked to a commercial beekeeper who runs 700 colonies. He says he has been having a heavy flow of Black Locust honey. He told me that all his colonies have filled one super of honey. He runs deep boxes for his honey supers. Deeps weigh about 90 lbs when filled and capped with honey.

Supers On

This hive is having a nectar flow. New white comb can be seen on the darker burr comb. The white new wax means nectar is currently coming into the hive. This is a way to identify a nectar flow.

The weather this coming week is perfect bee weather. The warm temperatures will be getting many plants towards their blooming stage of their lifecycle. There is an old saying that the nectar flow starts about 10 days after the first clover is spotted. I had clover blooming in my yard about four days ago. Supers should be put on now on any colony that is ready for them.
The southern part of the state of MN may already be into a nectar flow and it may be coming very soon into the metro area. Black Locust trees are in full bloom right now. I was driving east on Hwy 36 last night. I saw several stands of Black Locust trees blooming between Dale and 35E on the southside of the road.
 Package bees, if the bees are done drawing comb in the deep boxes put your supers on now. If the colonies are on their last box, monitor them closely. Colonies with just have a frame or two to finish, it would be best to put the supers on. All colonies right now are exploding with bees. There may be six frames of brood emerging in a very short time. A deep box of foundation that took a month to draw out a short time ago, now can be finished in ten days. Colonies drawing foundation still should be fed syrup, but that may be ending soon. Weak colonies are the exception and still may need syrup on for a while yet.
 With the higher populations everything will change quickly. As beekeepers, we need to be prepared for the changing condition of the hive. Colonies should be checked on a seven day cycle for swarm cells.
 When putting supers on with new foundation, the supers with foundation need to be put on so they are located right above the brood boxes. Supers with already drawn comb can be stacked on top of each other. As the supers fill up and a new super is needed, supers with foundation are put underneath filled supers. Supers with drawn comb, just keep stacking them on.
 I do use queen excluders on all my colonies. But with new supers with new foundation, I usually leave the queen excluder off until I see wax and nectar on a frame or two in the first super. I do quick check of the supers looking for a queen, if she happens to be there, I encourage her to move down into the top deep with a little smoke. I then slip the excluder underneath the supers.
 Supers go on two at a time. This time of year, if the honey flow starts off with an intense flow. As super can be drawn out, filled and capped in one week. Check your colonies once a week to monitor the progress of the supers.
 The honey flow is almost here. Beekeepers have worked towards this goal all spring. We have nurtured small colonies from three and four frames of bees to a hive that is packed top to bottom with bees. We are now approaching the payoff with boxes of golden nectar.

Sold Out Of Queens

We are sold out of queens for 2017 and will not be getting anymore this year.
If you need a queen,
try Olivarez HoneyBees Inc
1-877-865-0298

Reversals

The nectar flow is coming very soon. This is the time of year reversals cause confusion. Normally on package bees with new foundation, when the bees finish their last box, beekeepers should do a reversal. Bottom box is changed with the top box. Bottom box to top, top box to bottom. The reasoning is this, there is more pollen stored in the bottom box, with the bottom box now on the top, when the nectar flow starts the bees will fill the top box with honey. This honey is the winter stores for the colony.
 During winter the bees will move up into the top box sometime in late January. As the bees uncap honey for winter food, the bees will expose stored pollen. The queen will start laying around mid February. Now that there is brood in the colony, pollen is needed to feed the young larvae. No pollen means no brood. The last reversal has helped to insure that pollen will be available.
 So now the confusion. If a package colony has not finished the top box and the nectar flow starts. The bees will fill the top box with honey. If the top box is very heavy and is filled with honey it is too late to do a reversal. I have had several customers do a late spring reversal and put the top box full of honey on the bottom of the hive. Their bees died over the next winter because all of the winter food stores were on the bottom of the hive. The bees will not move down to get honey. The bees may starve even though there is a large amount of food stores in the bottom of the hive.
 So what to do? If the top box is full and you missed the reversal opportunity, grab a frame of pollen from a lower box and put it into the center of the top box. The bees will fill in honey on top of the pollen. This will give the bees some available pollen in February. If this doesn't work for you, pollen patties can be given to bees a little earlier than normal to fill the pollen gap.

European Foulbrood

There has been some European Foulbrood (EFB) being reported by several of my customers.
 European Foulbrood can come with a cool wet spring. This type of Foulbrood can clear up on its own. It does not leave scale that reinfects colonies. But treating with Terramycin clears up EFB very quickly.
 European Foulbrood responds well to Terramycin , an antibiotic.
Speaking of antibiotics, several beekeepers that have this problem tried to purchase some Terramycin to treat their bees. But there was a federal law change. and beekeepers can no longer purchase antibiotics without a veterinarian visiting the hive, looking at the hive, troubleshooting the disease, then writing a prescription.
The beekeepers with the sick bees called a few veterinarians to help them. Most were uninterested and did not know anything about what the brood diseases looked like anyway. So what traditionally was a problem that beekeepers fixed, now will cost them some major money to fix. A vet visit, a prescription, what is that going to cost. I can't imagine a vet doing a site visit for less then $100.00.
 I think the result of this law, while intended to keep antibiotics out of the food chain, will result in colonies going untreated and may cause widespread colony outbreaks on some infectious diseases such as American Foulbrood, because beekeepers will not pay that vet fee.
 I think a better solution is requiring beekeepers to get a comp card like a pesticide applicator would have to get. There is only a few diseases that beekeepers need antibiotics for.  So, a short course of disease identification is all that would be needed, a test to prove that a beekeeper is competent, and a card is issued. The card would give the beekeeper the license to purchase the antibiotic.
 By getting a vet involved in disease troubleshooting is bad business for beekeepers but good for vets. In my opinion, this sounds like a money grab by the Veterinarian political lobby. What is the next step, prescription for mite treatments and pollen patties? I think it is time to put some heat on our federal Congressmen and Senators .

Entrance Reducers

The next couple days will be getting quite warm. Any colonies in at least two deep boxes should have their entrance reducers removed off their hive. Leaving entrance reducers in on very warm days can cause a hot hive. The bees may be bearding in front of a hive and can cause swarming issues. Tomorrow, Thursday may be 85 and humid. It would not be surprising that strong colonies will be bearding out the front of the hive even with the entrance reducers out.