August marks the start of the beekeeping year, as well as the end of the previous cycle.
It can be a very difficult month to work through. The bees are in transition, and so are
the crops. Lots to do!
Today, the 12th, is the first sunny afternoon in a while. The list of to-do’s reads like this:
- Make sure the mating nucs have space to grow. At last look, the newly mated queens had 2-3 frames of brood and were stashing away nectar, totally plugging up their 5 frame boxes. I placed grafted queen cells during the heat wave in July, expecting a low mating percentage, actually hoping for a low percentage because the equipment status was getting dire, but was rewarded with 85% and overachievers to boot. The bees are no longer pulling out frames of new comb, and they have nowhere to go! Terrible problem to have.
- Do varroa mite checks. This can’t be emphasized strongly enough. Mite numbers increase in proportion to brood, but as bee numbers decline, untreated or non-resistant colonies will become overwhelmed. We did a few checks last week and found mostly 0- 4’s in both treated and untreated hives, but 1 untreated hive had 53 mites. I am going to pick at the sealed brood and do a Harbo assay to get a better picture of what is going on in that poor colony and then nuke it with formic acid. The queen may succumb, which is actually ok, but I want clean frames of brood and nurse bees to help boost smaller colonies later in the month.
- We pulled honey over the weekend, and the wet supers need to be put back on hives for the bees to clean. There may be a fall flow, but goldenrod is somewhat unpredictable. If it happens, we will collect honey one last time. For now, the bees will welcome a snack.
- Finally, assess whether the bees have enough forage coming in. The rainy spell and time of year may have brought on a dearth, or shortage. Most years, which are typically dry in August, we have started to feed the colonies at this time, getting them as buff as possible to produce the special bees that will overwinter. We look for pollen on legs and workers coming in to drop off nectar as signs of plenty of resources to harvest. Crabby colonies and agitated bees are sure signs of disgruntled, underemployed workers.
To work!