Whats happening on the bee front.

By now beekeepers should have treated their bees for mites and have fed any colonies that were light on food stores.
 The weather is changing, as it starts cooling off, feeding bees will get more difficult. Bees will not take cold syrup very well.
 Next week looks like highs in the 50's later in the week. A light frost is possible.
As the temperatures cool, mice will start moving into hives. So it is time to put in entrance reducer with the wide opening, or put on mouseguards.
Still to early to on winter covers.
Looking ahead, hives should be treated again for mites in late October using Oxalic Acid.
 Oxalic Acid is applied either with the dribble method or a vaporizer. Do not use a bug fogger. Oxalic Acid vapoizers for mites have been engineered for this purpose. Many do it yourself vaporizers give too much or too little of a treatment. In both cases you are injuring your bees, jeopardizing their survival.
 Oxalic acid is applied in late October, when the temperature is 40 degrees Fahrenheit, at the time of treatment. More on this in upcoming posts.

Feeding and how much honey to leave in the hive

As fall progresses the days will start turning cooler. As it cools off the bees are reluctant to take down syrup. Long range temperatures have highs in the 50's.
 A hive going into winter needs to have 8 full frames of honey and one partially filled frame in the top box. The lower box on a two deep hive or middle box if you are running three deeps, should have about four frames of honey.
 The partially filled frame should be in the middle of the top box. This partially filled frame is used to help the bees to transition from the lower box to the top box in late January. Bees don't like to crawl up on to frozen honey. The cluster can move up on the partially filled frame because the lower part of the frame is empty of honey. The bees can easily warm the empty beeswax cells. As the cluster moves up on the frame, the bees can begin to warm up honey on the adjacent frames at the same time.
 The upcoming week should be in the upper 60's to low 70's. Perfect weather for feeding bees. Try to get the feeding done as fast as possible. Feeding is a nectar flow, the nectar coming in will keep the queen laying. With the increased brood production there will be more mite production. What a vicious circle we beekeepers have to live with. For this reason, treating with Oxalic Acid in late October can counter the new brood/Varroa production. Try to get the feeding done as soon as possible, so we don't have brood in the hive for Thanksgiving.

Asters, the last hurrah for the bees

The flowers are going away. Goldenrod is in major decline. With the exception of  some late blooming perennial gardens, the last show in town for the bees are Asters.  Asters definition on Wikipedia
I was on my morning walks on the local state trails and have found Asters blooming everywhere. The are a small headed flower. The bees do work them.
 Don't expect much more nectar to come into your hive. If your top deep box is not full of honey, you need to feed now.
If your top box is not all drawn out and only partially full and if your hive setup is three deep, remove that top deep and winter the hive in two deep.
 A hive should never go into the winter with a partially filled top box. As winter progresses the bees move up from the lower box. If they move into the partially filled box, there will be insufficient stores for winter and they will starve. Once the bees move up, they will not move down to get honey in the winter. If the hive is a three deep hive and not drawn out, the odds are, the middle box may have more honey. Remove the top deep and take any frames of honey and put them in the middle box. Feed the bees if the hive still needs food. The weather will be cooling off soon and the bees will not take syrup very well when it starts getting into forties.

Asters come in a variety of colors

On the state trail near Stillwater

Near the St Croix river on the state trail

Feed for bees

There are many options for feeding bees. There is sugar water, High Fructose Corn Syrup and ProSweet. They all have pluses and minuses. Using the right feed at the right time can lead to better quality bees and increasing winter survival. Let's break them down.

• Sugar, sugar has been the feed that beekeepers have used for the last one hundred years. Table sugar" or "granulated sugar" refers to sucrose. It is mixed with water and fed to the bees. The spring mixture of sugar and water is 1 part sugar to one part water. Fall mixture is heavy syrup, 2 parts sugar and one part water. The bees take this mixture of feed down into the hive and use the carbohydrate for their food and wax production. The bees need to turn this feed from sugar water to honey for long term storage. Sugar water will ferment with time. If the bees don't take it fast enough, sometime the syrup spoils and has to be thrown out.
• High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS). A fructose based sugar. There is two types of HFCS, HFCS 42 and HFCS 55. HFCS 42 granulates very quickly, about 2 weeks to granulate, not many commercial beekeepers use this. HFCS 55 is widely used by commercial beekeepers, it can granulate within a month. Heating HFCS can produce toxins for the bees, that is why with HFCS 55, only purchase what you need to use. HFCS will add weight quickly to a hives winter stores. HFCS is sold by Mann Lake and their dealer network. Mann Lake has the exclusive North American contract with Cargill to sell HFCS to beekeepers. A commercial beekeeper would order a half a semi truckload or full truckload of syrup for their operation. Hobby beekeepers sometimes struggle with the problem of granulation with HFCS.
• ProSweet, ProSweet is a custom feed developed by Mann Lake. It is widely used by both hobbyists and commercial beekeepers. It is purchased in the semi truckload or in 2-1/2 gallon or 5 gallon containers. ProSweet is both sucrose and fructose. Honey is both glucose (which has the same general sweetness as sucrose) and fructose. Honey weighs 12 lbs per gallon, ProSweet weighs 11.55 lbs per gallon. ProSweet does not granulate or ferment. For spring feeding ProSweet gives the developing bees the proper nutrition for proper gland development, because of the providing both sucrose and fructose. ProSweet is available to use direct from the container it comes in. No mixing required. It lasts from one season to the next. Out of all the feeds out there, ProSweet is the most attractive for the bees in my opinion. For fall feeding the bees can take down ProSweet and do not have to dehumidify the syrup, like they have to do for sugar water. ProSweet is more concentrated than sugar water. If you feed a gallon of sugar water, after the bees work to dehumidify the syrup the net amount of syrup is less than a gallon that was started with. The net food after the fact may only be about 2/3rds of a gallon. With ProSweet, you feed a gallon and the net amount of food in the hive is one gallon. So a beekeeper has to feed more sugar water to get the same amount of feed as ProSweet. That leads to increased trips to the hive costing time and gas money. If a beekeeper needs to feed a lot of syrup to a hive, if it gets cool the bees may not be able to get enough sugar water into the hive. The bees may then starve from lack of food. Or the bees may not have enough time to convert sugar water to honey. This may cause the sugar water to ferment in the hive. Fermented syrup and honey can give the bees dysentery and cause the hives demise. By feeding sugar syrup for a long time in the fall can lead to more brood in the colony and higher mite counts. The higher mite counts can increase viruses in the bees. With ProSweet, beekeepers don't have these problems. Feeding is done quickly and the bees don't have to do anything extra for their feed to be ready for winter.

Robbing

The next couple days will be very warm and muggy.
Robbing will be an issue. Every bee, wasp and hornet will want to get to your bees honey stores.
 It would be a good idea to put in entrance reducers on with the largest opening being used.
 There may be some bearding with the warm temperatures.
 If you have robbing screens, put them on.

Bees being used for new organic Pesticide application

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/bees-will-be-used-deliver-new-organic-pesticide-will-it-n1054416

White Snakeroot

White Snake Root is blooming everywhere around me. The bees do gather pollen from this plant. The pollen is white.
White Snakeroot is not a good plant for domesticated animals.
Read all about it: White Snakeroot