Ely Fire

I was up in Ely this weekend. The fire from a week ago has scarred the south side of Ely on Hwy 1. You can see several homes that were surrounded by burnt trees that were saved by firefighters. Already the green has been returning. Usually after a fire, some of the first flowers to emerge is fireweed. Fireweed produces some of the lightest honey in the world.

Hot Weather Brews More Than Storms

The hot humid weather makes the inside of a bee hive very hot. Water collection and evaporation to cool the hive is difficult for the bees. Being the dewpoint is so high, water evaporation slows and the ability to cool the hive gets harder to do. This is part of the reason on hot days, bees will leave the interior of the hive and beard underneath the front of the bottom board or cover the front of the hive. This is not a preview of an imminent swarm, they are just hot.

hot hive

 The added heat does brew up the reason to swarm. So we need to be vigilant in a 7 day inspection schedule looking for and removing swarm cells.

What's blooming

There are two plants that are blooming or about to bloom.
Black locust trees are about to bloom. Black locust trees grow quite tall and flower large clumps of showy flowers that will yield some very nice honey.

Black Locust Tree flowers in late May

Yellow Sweet Clover is blooming in ditches

Yellow sweet clover is blooming in ditches. This plant while a major nectar flow west of Minnesota. Never seems to give up nectar in this side of the state. Observing these two plants will tell the beekeeper if there is any nectar coming in by how much they are being worked by the bees.
White Sweet Clover should be blooming soon and is a major honey plant in Minnesota.

Bee build up

Swarming of over wintered colonies is going on still at a high rate. Beekeepers not able to divide has the hive dividing itself. This will hurt the honey collection of these colonies considerably, but sometimes life gets in the way of the bees and the beekeeper can't get there.
 The package bees have been building up with most beekeepers in their second box. With the greater number of bees in the hive, the bees will draw foundation at a faster rate. Feeding the hives that are drawing comb is still a priority. Colonies need to be monitored for food in the hive so they don't starve.
Speaking of feed. Right now there is not much blooming around Stillwater. I have heard of yellow sweet clover blooming in some parts of the metro. I took my dog for a walk last night and came across some clover starting to bloom in my back food plot. Old beekeepers use to say that the main nectar flow starts ten days after the first clover bloom. It may start as a trickle or a torrent one never knows. Overwintered colonies should have two empty supers on right now. Ten days can make a huge difference in hive population. If a queen has been laying 1500 eggs a day in 10 days there should be 15,000 more bees in the colony than at the present time.  If the timing is right the supers may start filling up earlier than normal. So let's get the supers on.
In the words of a beekeeper master"May the flow be with you"

Swarm aftermath

I went through the hive that the swarm came from. I first checked the top bars and bottom bars for swarm cells. Found a few capped. I scrapped them off. I decided I wanted to check the brood for disease. I started pulling a few frames. The beekeeper had 10 frames in a couple boxes that made it tough to get the frames out. One box had 9 so that one was easy. It is a good thing I pulled frames. I found another 15 queen cells that were ripe and ready to hatch. I am sure they would have emerged in the next hour or so. I squashed all the cells. The brood looked great, all pearly white. No eggs as expected but older and capped larvae through out the 3 box hive. After the inspection I installed a new Carniolan queen that the beekeeper can release when he is back from his business trip.

Picked up a swarm today

I got a call from a spouse of a beekeeper that their bees had swarmed. The beekeeper was on a business trip and has not been able to divide. So the bees did the work for him and were up in a tree.

 The day was rainy so they were not going anywhere. I was able to bend the tree they were in over my 5 frame nuc. A quick shake of the tree put the bees in my box and on the tarp I had put down. Most of them were marching in the entrance when I left to go do other things.
 I will go to pick them up at dusk.

Nature's Nectar Closed Memorial Weekend

We will be closed Memorial weekend. May 25th - May 28th.
Open May 29th 5 - 7 pm.