August To Dos
For those of you that didn’t catch our July meeting, I wanted to cover a few things you should be looking at right now. Feel free to reach out if you need any help or mentoring with these issues below! 406-871-6551
- Mites – If part of your beekeeping management includes mite treatments, now is the time to addressing them. Why? Because the eggs being laid right now will become your winter bees. They are susceptible to parasitism in the larval and pupal stages right now. If you treat for mites, do your mite counts now (sugar rolls, bottom board drops, or alcohol wash) and treat if you are over the 3% threshold.
- Which Treatment should you use? Please review this pdf at Honey Bee Health Coalition to pick which strategy you want to use. There is also a Varroa management tool link from the Montana Agriculture department here. If you want to speak to an expert in person, Alyssa at the MT state agriculture office 406-444-3790 has visited us before to talk about bee diseases and will be happy to assist.
- Do I have to Treat for mites? No, many beekeepers practice a form of beekeeping called “Darwinian” beekeeping that favors strains fit enough to survive the mites on their own by developing coping skills for mites. It does mean, however, you could lose your money investment on the bees if you purchased them. So most people who practice treatment free catch bees and make splits from their survivors each spring to be sustainable. So please keep this in mind when making your decisions whether or not to treat for mites. Watch this series of 4 videos presented at the National Honey Show to see the scientific communities approaches natural mite resistance.
- Safety – Please be aware that vaporizing acids is extremely dangerous, for you and for the bees. A special face mask that keeps dangerous vapors from being inhaled must be worn when you are using a vaporizer. You can click on the link above to see one option from BetterBee. Also, please be aware there are recorded risks to bees and the queen when introducing these chemicals into the hive. They are insecticides, bees are insects. They are susceptible to them and the chemical should NOT be repeated frequently, despite what many backyard beekeepers do and suggest. You risk killing your colony trying to kill the mites. Please follow the guidelines on the products and in the Bee Health Coalition guide linked above.
- Honey Harvest – If you are doing mite treatments, since most require the removal of honey first it’s a good time to go ahead and harvest the supers over your hives. You can put the extracted super back on your hives for the bees to continue to build in. Here are some great videos of how to harvest honey from the University of Guelph.
- Do not harvest open nectar unless you have tested it and the moisture is under 18%. Capped honey only. A small amount of open nectar on the frame is ok
- Do not harvest honey from your brood chambers. The bees will need that for the winter.
- Your bees will need 90 pounds of honey going in to winter if you are running double deep brood chambers. If your brood chambers feel light and the bees have most of their honey up in the supers, harvesting all that honey could be detrimental to them. They uncap and “move” the honey down in to the brood chamber in the fall. Keep that in mind when harvesting.
- If you don’t have an extractor, you can do crush comb honey instead. Here’s a simple video. While she was crushing wild comb, you can do the same process by scraping down to the foundation of your frames using a spatula or wide putty knife.
- Robbing – We are entering the time when desperate wasps and other honey bees may try to rob from your hives, decimating them. You can help this by:
- Reduce the entrance down to the smallest size, possibly even block with a rock to only the width of 2 bees at a time
- Purchase or build a simple robber guard. (And the most fast, cheap version can be viewed here) Yes, your own bees may be confused when they first come back from foraging of how to get in the maze. They will figure it out eventually. Robber guards create a maze that only the bees that live there know how to traverse.
- In extreme robbing events, throw a soaking wet sheet over the hive so it drapes towards the ground for the day. Remove when the robbers leave.
- August Heat – Please do not ventilate or prop up anything on your hive thinking you are helping your bees with the heat. They have intricate thermodynamic skills by fanning at the entrance to maintain the exact 94 degrees inside the hive. Opening things up inhibits this circulation they create and makes more work for them, not less. If you truly want to help them out in this heat, here are the two things you can do:
- Shade – you can place something like a piece of plywood over the hives to create afternoon shade if they don’t have any
- Water – make sure ample water source is close by (under 1/4 of a mile). The “dirtier” the more they seem to like it. They use water to cool down the brood and the honey in the hive by placing water on the comb and fanning to evaporate the heat away.
We have a “hive” in an old building. Bald Faced Hornets invaded and took it down to a level that smaller wasps(?) could enter through the quarter inch screening I put up with impunity. We always complain about the bees being there BUT!