My Colorado Beekeeping Calendar

A Phenological Calendar for Colorado Beekeepers

By undergoing VIT, I successfully reduced my sensitivity to honeybee venom to safe levels! After taking several years off, my interest in beekeeping has not waned, and I'm anxious to restock our hives. I will definitely let you know when that happens.

Meanwhile, what about you? What are your plans for this season? If you're in the Denver metro, maybe my Colorado bloom calendar will help you think them through. ☝️ Yellow bars = mason bee tasks, blue bars = honeybee tasks. The green bars in the calendar are what's blooming now. Keep in mind that the dates can shift a couple of weeks in either direction depending on weather conditions. For example, the excessively warm 2017/2018 winter had elm trees blooming well before Valentine's Day. The snow storm on President's Day, though, cut short its blooming period. You can click on any of the events for more details and additional reading. I hope you find it useful.

And don't forget, Marty Hardison's booklet, "The Appropriate Beehive" is available at right. If you like The List he wrote for when to do what for one's bees, please consider making a donation. It'll ensure "The Appropriate Beehive" remains available through this website.

 

I've been working with Marty on an update for what seems like forever and hope to post it here soon. Until then, may your hives be humming. — BB & HB

Cozy

My Google calendar reminded me several days ago that beehives should be wrapped on Thanksgiving. This year has been so warm and dry, it's not a big deal that I ignored it. Plus there's the fact that I don't have any bees in my hives. My point, however, is that no matter what tool or method you use to determine when to do what for your bees, it's important to be flexible and adjust to the situation at hand. I'm sure if I had bees in my hives, with this weather I'd likely be feeding. How about you? How's the situation in your beeyard?

It was warmer in #Colorado than it was in California today. 81°F ☀️ As a matter of fact, the only cities in the US that were warmer than #Denver today were Phoenix and some place in FLA. #climatechange #macrophoto #photojojomacro

A post shared by @backyardbee on Nov 27, 2017 at 5:17pm PST

Cozy

Just like a young tree, a hive should be wrapped on Thanksgiving. If you have a cozy, now is the ideal time to put it on. See "How to wrap a hive": http://www.honeybeesuite.com/how-to-wrap-a-hive/

Beekeeping Students: If you see front door activity, there should be pollen involved in some of them. If not…

"Clear blue skies, not too much to ask for. They were here before we came, Will they be here when we're gone?" ~ CSN&Y #vernalequinox #springtimeintherockies

A post shared by My brain runs on Bees. (@backyardbee) on Mar 20, 2017 at 10:08am PDT

The following was posted by Don Studinski, author of Beekeeping Mentor In A Book, in his Yahoo! Group, Beekeeping Students.

I'm seeing white Pear trees bloom all over Fort Collins. I've been seeing forsythias for a few days now. Of course, the elm and maple are almost done now.

Your bees are bringing in pollen and nectar already. They are raising brood! If you see front door activity, there should be pollen involved in some of them. If not, it may be robbers that do not live there. Check your bees. 

I'm out checking today for drone brood in anticipation of swarm prevention.

I heard there were 4 swarms in Denver yesterday!

Unseasonably warm. Consider feeding your bees.

Warmest, driest February for you, too? March is when most colonies starve to death. Now, rather than asking if your bees have enough honey in their hive, ask yourself is it where they need it? There's brood in the hive now, and when the weather turns winter-like again the bees will not risk the brood getting chilled. They will not leave to get food. If they are not in direct contact with food, then isolation starvation can happen in as little as 72 hours. Take advantage of this warm weather to rearrange things in your hive. In other words, move combs of honey from the back of your top bar hive right to the edge of the cluster.

You may also be interested in The List.

Unseasonably warm. Consider feeding your #bees. 🐝 #Honeybees are more active than they should be and little is in bloom. The nectary of #JupitersBeard is too deep for them but some pollen is offered freely.

A photo posted by My brain runs on Bees. And 🍫🍫 (@backyardbee) on Nov 10, 2016 at 10:26am PST

[Originally published on 11/10/16.] Did you leave enough honey in the hive to account for record warmth in October AND November? This week would be good timing to make and insert candy for your bees.

Whoop! Silver Maples Are Blooming

As I often do, I dreamt of bees last night. I dreamt of big, fat white larvae. Drone larvae. I dreamt this because it's official. Silver maples are blooming so the beekeeping year has begun!

#macromonday #ifttt

If you have overwintering colonies, then Presidents' Day weekend is the perfect time to find out what your bees need.

Phenology aside, here's a few "If This Then That" statements that guide me.

Xeriscape Plant Profile: Armenian Speedwell

My posts have gotten fewer and farther between but I noticed a spike in views of Xeriscape Plant Profile: Rock Soapwort so I'm finally adding to what I'd planned as a series on xeric bee plants.

Armenian Speedwell is a little-known species of speedwell. I received mine as a seller's alternate from High Country Gardens, and for many years had no idea what it was other than a veronica of some sort. Veronica armena forms a low, thick carpet of soft lobed leaves, and its bright blue flowers are some of the earliest in my garden every year. Honeybees will take nectar from it but I've only ever seen native bees gathering its pollen. If snow storms haven't destroyed the blossoms, spring trees such as crabapples (also quite xeric) provide more abundant food, so honeybee sightings on V. armena (or even dandelions) are infrequent, making this ground cover perfect for edging walkways (i.e.: there's no fear of a bee flying up your pant leg).

Looking a little blue on a rare overcast day, Armenian Speedwell dukes it out with Dragon's Blood sedum and hens-'n-chicks among the stone steps on a south slope. It doesn't get any more challenging than this!

Extremely drought tolerant, this evergreen creeper grows happily with gravel mulch, between flagstones, on level or sloped ground, all without a care. After its profuse 3-week long bloom period in May, I like to deadhead it to tidy things up but it's not necessary. I often see birds picking at the spent flower stems, looking for nesting material.

A cool blue companion for Stachys byzantina.

leaf detail

flower detail

It may be a while before I post again. It's getting harder and harder to maintain a beekeeping blog without actually keeping bees. Damn anaphylaxis. So before I sign off, one last pearl of wisdom: Swallows = Swarming. When the swallows return to play in the streams of Denver metro traffic, swarm season in upon us. Next time you're stuck at an intersection, put down the phone, watch the swallows playfully fly and plan out your next hive inspection with swarm control in mind. TTFN

Winter's Coming: Did you insulate your hive?

Unseasonably warm days will have your bees out and about, flying and foraging when little is blooming. They're burning lots of calories but bringing nothing home. They have no thoughts of clustering and chances are they've eaten quite a bit of honey that would normally be close to the brood nest. Without honey stores in contact with the cluster, this first Wintery cold snap may be a colony killer. It only takes 3 days for a colony to die from isolation starvation, and we've got 6+ days to worry about.

Insulation can give your bees the extra time they need to move and form a proper cluster. Don't wrap the hive tight, just make sure their heads are warm. The other thing you can do — TOMORROW the last of the warm days — is make sure the honey combs are butt up against the brood nest. Remove all empty combs between the nest and stores. Believe me… I learned the hard way… the bees will not leave brood to cross a single empty comb to get food. Don't worry about breaking the propolis seal and disturbing them. They need the food more than the draft-protection.

Yet Another Harvest (and One Last Supering)

When the TV news starts reporting that bears are raiding dumpsters looking for food to fatten up for winter, you know time is running out on bee season. Only one more inspection is planned after today's.

Bees do have a tendency, though, to throw your plans to the wind.

Primer: When to Feed Pollen Substitute?

Disclaimer: this post is a collection of a Notes to Self because feeding is a complicated issue and I can't remember anything unless it's written down.

In addition to carbohydrates from honey or sugar syrup, bees also need protein and minerals. Young bees need protein to strengthen their muscles, and also to produce brood food. Naturally, they get their protein from pollen. When it is in short supply, both the house bees and the brood they are raising may not develop to their full potential. In times of dearth, pollen substitute or supplement can help. Pollen Substitute is a pollenless combination of soy flour, brewer's yeast and milk powder. Pollen Supplement is just substitute plus real pollen.

Either substitute or supplement can be combined with honey or syrup to make it shapeable into a patty. The advantage of a patty over the dry powder is quickness of putting into the hive. Patties should be placed directly over the winter cluster. We don't have small hive beetles in Colorado, so the patties won't become breeding grounds for them. While easy and inexpensive to make on your own, I don't like having miscellaneous leftover ingredients hanging around for which I need to find both containers and storage space. Small house, remember?

1/3 of a pollen patty on top of sugar candy

Another Honey Harvest

"Keep the supers on and stay ahead of the #bees." http://t.co/0WEHco7aEV
— HB (@Hello_Kitty_) July 28, 2014

It wasn't our intent to harvest honey. Our goal was to to get our legs back under us while making sure the bees' needs were met. It's been a year-and-a-half since we worked a hive, so a quick look-see/assessment — to stay ahead of the bees — was our plan. Unfortunately Marty did that – just yesterday – so there wasn't anything for us to do. It turns out, however, that he'd acquired another small hive (same design as ours) that we could work. So we did.

A Single Comb Harvest

The Beekeeper's Calender: When the Perseids Fly, It's Time to Think about Winter

The Perseid meteors can appear in any part of the sky, but all of their tails will point back to the radiant. Image copyright: Spaceweather.com

What you do in August may very well determine whether your bees survive the Winter or not.

Bees require four things to survive a Winter
A) a good queen
B) a population of healthy young bees
C) adequate food stores (both honey and pollen)
and D) protection from the elements.

Late-Season Management: Combining Two Warré Colonies

First, a quick update on the TBH: after the deadout, it was restocked with a package and a Carniolan queen this Spring. The hive is about 3/4 full, and forage in the Boulder area continues to be "superb." The hive will be moved back, however, closer to home to overwinter. Can't wait to see her again!

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Here's the skinny on the Warré hive. After four swarms, the parent colony (AKA Remainder) dwindled and dwindled until it was apparent that there was a problem. Traffic was decreasing, not increasing, and comb construction in their second box was slow at best. (Gotta love them windows.) We had hoped Remainder's new queen was as well-mated as the one in Swarm #4, but it turns out that she was short-bred and is now a drone layer.

The one good thing to this is that the bees, having little brood to care for, have been able to focus on honey production. While their numbers are not great, they managed to fill several combs with honey. Rather convenient for her daughter hives.

File Photo: Honeybee on marigold taken with a Canon 20D, EF-S 18-55 f3.5-5.6 lens and Cokin 3X filter.

The prime swarm is doing great, due to the fact that it is headed by a queen that is in her second year. She shares genetics with the Ole School Survivor queen that we got from Grampa's Gourmet last year, and she lays honey-producers. It's the 2nd, 3rd and 4th swarms that are in predicaments. This is not unexpected, as an afterswarm typically issues while the daughter queen is still a virgin and it takes a good 2 weeks for her to mature, mate, and really get to laying eggs. And all the while worker bees are dying off.

The Beekeeper's Calendar: Late-Season Management

This is the time of year to think of supering for the fall flow, of requeening, and of combining weak colonies. Perhaps you do not actually do all of these things in early August, but you do think of them and begin to observe and plan. — excerpt from Hive Management: A Seasonal Guide for Beekeepers by Richard E. Bonney

Swarms 2&3

Swarms #2&3 were hived on May 29&30. The bottom box was baited with a ladder on 16 Jun. As of 9 July, the box is maybe half-built. This late in the Summer, we must say this is a weak colony.

The main nectar flow is over with just a few young Lindens still blooming. It's late Summer and today we are assessing our colonies. Our hivesitter JB has had a busy year with a full backyard apiary and a couple of outyards. Here's the situation where our hive (called "Remainder") resides:

Maintaining Momentum

Today's goals:

• Remove 4 blackened combs.
• Push the brood nest forward.
• Add drawn comb or topbars relative to colony activity.

Everything you do in the Spring should enable the bees to maintain momentum... which is "back­wards" in a top bar hive. We had to move every single comb, one at a time, to create space in the back of the TBH. I did not lift every comb out to inspect both sides, like I've done in the past so you'd have pictures. And while I would've loved to see eggs and larvae, or the queen, I really wanted to be done in less than the hour+ I spent the last time I went into the hive. So you and I will just have to be happy with these pictures.

An Early Spring Cleaning in Late Winter

I didn't see any open brood at all but, as I said, I was trying to not dilly-dally. Nothing to worry about, though. A colony tries to not allow its queen to lay more eggs than it can feed and keep warm, so they probably interrupted her egg-laying every time we had a snow storm. We had two 10-inchers this month, the last one just 5 days ago.

When we were done, the brood nest was moved closer to the entrance (and incoming food) but I'd only succeeded in removing two old combs. The two combs I left in aren't black with use, just a pretty dark brown, and they were brimming with nectar and pollen. The bees worked hard to collect those precious resources, so rather than set the colony back days or weeks, those combs get one more year in the hive.

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TIP: I like to use spacers at the front of the hive. This enables me to inspect from the front of the hive without disrupting anything else.

Reversing Hive Bodies

Interpreting Langstroth to TBH

"Bees normally move upwards through the honey in the hive during winter. In early spring, the upper deep back of the hive is full of bees, new brood, and food. But the lower deep-hive body front of the hive is mostly empty. You can help matters by reversing the top and bottom deep-hive bodies occupied and unoccupied brood combs."

"This reversing procedure enables the bees to better distribute brood, honey, pollen, fresh nectar, and water. Reversing gives them more room to move upward grow, which is the direction that they always want to move." — from Beekeeping for Dummies

Photo Credit: Backyardhive.com 

Reversing is usually done to prevent swarming of overwintered colonies. While you're at it, take the opportunity to get rid of old blackened combs. With the dandelion flow about to start, it's time to:

• take out the oldest (and hopefully still broodless) combs near the front of the hive
• push the brood nest forward
• place empties (or fresh top-bars to build on) in the back.

In effect, reversing hive bodies. How does this help with swarming, you ask? It's supposed to remove any perception of being crowded by giving the bees space ahead. In a Langstroth hive the bees have been moving up all Winter, but in a topbar hive they've been moving backwards. So that's where we want to give them room to grow. We can certainly just leave them be, and they'll likely just reoccupy the empty combs they left behind, but we do have a 2-year old queen to consider. Colonies with older queens are more likely to swarm. Giving the colony topbars that need to be built out also helps suppress the swarm urge by distracting them with busy work. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. We shall see...

Emergency Feeding in February

Bees won't move down in Warre.
Help needed getting bees to build into bottom box.

The problem of getting a colony to grow in a Warré hive is discussed frequently in the beekeeping forums. The conversations address why they stall and what might encourage them to build down (or up), but Warré beekeepers tend to subscribe to a somewhat laissez-faire method of beekeeping, and advice on feeding a single-box colony is vague at best.

Today's post is a progress report of sorts, depicting our feeding program. We gave our colony their first solid meal on Thanksgiving and have been taking the roof off the hive every 10 or 15 days since! Not ideal, but it's been necessary. At first it was maintenance feeding (with just fondant) but now I'd call it emergency feeding, with both fondant and MegaBee Hybrid pollen substitute. By rule of thumb, February and March is when colonies starve; they're growing, stores are depleting, and there are no natural foods sources yet. Our colony will not survive without help.

emergency feeding

I chose the images in the slideshow to illustrate a) how much food fits inside a feeding rim and b) how quickly the bees consume fondant and pollen substitute patties. It's been driving me crazy that all I can find is general instruction to "replenish as needed." How is that helpful? I hope you find this information useful.

P.S.: I've had some trouble with my fondant, which I'll fess up to later.

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P.P.S.: Here's a Note-To-Self in my Google beekeeping calendar that you might find helpful:

Basic Beekeeping Lesson 30: bees need pollen patties no later than Feb. 1st. Pollen patties will stimulate the queen to start laying more, while providing the bees some nutrition. N.B.: Once you start feeding, you must continue until natural pollen and nectar is available. ANOTHER NOTE: by fooling the colony with patties and sugar water, hives may came out of winter overcrowded, ready to swarm. Be prepared to split.

Read George Imirie's paragraph on STARVATION: http://pinkpages.chrisbacherconsulting.com/2004_Mar_-_March_is_a_VERY_IMPORTANT_Month.html

Book Review: The Art & Adventure of Beekeeping

by Ormond and Harry Aebi (©1975)

Art & Adventure, now out of print, is the only book I've heard Marty Hardison recommend. He began keeping bees about the time the book was published, and I can see that it influences him even today.

The Aebis kept bees in Oregon and California, and their book gives very specific details regarding keeping bees there, particularly Santa Cruz. Remember, beekeeping is a localized specialty, so if you're a Santa Cruzan, this book could be particularly useful to you.

The book focuses on their goal of maximizing honey production to break a world record for honey from one hive, though they clearly had a love of bees and nature. (Disregard the paragraph where Ormond suggests dowsing the ground-nest of wasps with 2 quarts of used crank case oil and stabbing the Earth repeatedly with a spade.)

Surplus honey production isn't our focus, but understanding how to enable the bees to put up ample stores for themselves is a goal every beekeeper should have. Here are some things we had not read or heard before (in bold), followed by my read-between-the-lines interpretation.

If you are buying bees for 2012, buy them NOW!

Much of the bee supply comes from the colonies built-up from almond pollination, which is about to start. Packages and nucs can be in short supply if the build-up isn't as strong as hoped, and they will sell out fast with the every-growing number of new beekeepers, and beekeepers replacing Winter losses. For best pricing on package bees, contact your local beekeeping club as they are surely placing a bulk order. (See the Resources page for links to local clubs.)

This almond orchard reminds me of the graveyards in Queens.

For nucs, try to find a local producer. My goals as a beekeeper are confined to sustainability and survivability (not honey-production, not gentleness on the comb, not non-stingy/swarmy...) so a local queen is important to me. I lucked out with Grampa's Honey, which is selling nucs with Survivor queens, as well as Buckfast, Carniolan and Italian queens. I'm almost positive they are chem-free beekeepers, and they're not coming out of the almonds, which is a big plus IMO. ZiaQueenBees is definitely chem-free. They'll start taking orders soon and they WILL sell out. If you're in Durango, while not treatment-free, ApisHive is a new option for top-bar nucs (pick-up only). Scientificbeekeeping is not local to me but Randy Oliver's northern CA nucs are notable. Like ZQB, he's producing some with proven, fat queens. ZQB says overwintered queens are Cream of the Crop!

If you plan on starting with a swarm, contact your local beekeeping club and get your name on their swarm list. If they haven't started their list yet, ask them when they are and call again then. Swarming season won't start until April, but it's first-come first-served so you want your name at the top of the list. Your bees will have a lot of work to do.

If you are starting with mason bees, order them NOW, too. There are not a lot of suppliers, so what's available sells out. We bought our Blue Orchard Bees last February from seemingly the last available anywhere, at USABirdSupply, and are very happy with what we received, house and all. But had we planned earlier we would've bought from MasonBeesForSale since they have BOBs that are a "hearty mountain bee" in the correct ratio of male to female cocoons.

And for my last bit of advice, be sure to check retailmenot for discount codes whenever you shop online.

P.S. Thanks, TB, for inspiring this post.

Winterizing your bee hive for winter. Colorado temps drop Wednesday night!

Still don't know what the tiny green things are. Will let you know if they've changed when we harvest the BOB and leafcutter bee cocoons. Seems like a good "snow day" thing to do, so stay tuned...

This is an email I just received from backyardhive.com, the company from which we bought our original hive. If you would like to receive emails like this, send a request to the email at the bottom of the post.

The Colorado weather forecast calls for a sudden drop in temperature this Wednesday night. The temperatures will go from 70°F today, 50°F tomorrow and then into the teens by Wednesday night. You can do some winterizing steps to help out your bees.

The bees normally cluster in a tight ball between the combs to keep warm in freezing temperatures. Since the bees have not been in a cluster due to this warm weather, the sudden drop in temperature may catch them by surprise and they may not all get into a full cluster as nicely as they should.

So you can help them out by:

1: Insulating:
Put some insulation, a warm blanket or the like on your hive Tuesday night. You can always get a better setup once the weather warms back up again. Also placing a roof on the hive adds extra warmth. Blue insulation board can be used underneath the roof for added insulation. Stacking straw bales around the hive can be used for when we are deep into winter temperatures and the days and nights are staying cold.

2: Moving the Falseback:
You can move your falseback, placing it behind the last full comb in the hive, at the back of the hive. If you have some partially drawn out combs or empty combs at the back of the hive you can place the falseback in front of these combs. Moving the falseback forward creates a smaller area that the bees have to keep warm.

3: Feeding Your Bees:
If your hive is only about half full of combs, you can feed your bees. Refer to the article, Winter Feeding in a Top Bar Hive, on our website for more details on how to do this. If the bees have filled up ¾ of the hive with combs, it is not necessary to feed them.

4: Reducing the Entrance:
 This is an important topic! Since we are seeing different weather patterns and anomalies in the weather, we no longer sell the entrance reducers. Placing an entrance reducer in now can over heat the hive once the temperatures warm up again. There needs to be circulation in the hive when the temperatures reach the 60s or 70s.

You may not need to reduce down the entrance of the hive if the bees have done it on their own with propolis. Some colonies won't have propolised their entrance and you can help them out by placing some straw, twigs or grass, over part of the entrance. The bees will be able to push out straw, twigs or grass if they need to, regulating the entrance opening. You may need to replace the straw, twigs or grass if they push it out when the weather warms up and they still have not propolised their entrance. Just keep a watch on this.

If you do feed your bees, remember that once the weather warms up again, the honey in the dish, inside the hive, attracts all kinds of robbers. Bees from other hives, yellow jackets, etc. Your bees should be able to fend off these robbers. But if you have a weak hive, a low number of bees or they have not propolised their entrance you can help them out by using the straw, twigs or grass method.

Lastly we will have wooden covered blue insulation panels available next week if you are wanting an alternative to the “cozy cover” we currently offer on our website. Look for the email when those will be available for purchase.

Please check out the articles on our website: http://www.backyardhive.com
They offer more detail and have pictures: Winter Feeding in a Top Bar Hive and Insulating your Hive

Happy fall to everyone and their bees!
Karen, Corwin and the BackYardHive Team
karen@backyardhive.com

Last 2010 Manipulation

This post is a bit tardy. We have a rule about completing winterization tasks by Halloween, so this post is about 2 weeks after the fact.

Last 2010 Manipulation

With a horizontal hive, if the bees have not backfilled the combs so the honey stores butt up against the brood nest, beekeepers are told to consolidate the space in the hive by removing empty combs and pushing the honey stores toward the bees. As our colony had several unused combs between the stores and the nest, this was the advice we'd been given by the biobees forum and by Marty Hardison. But we weren't comfortable with the amount of manipulation required.

First, we weren't sure just how many empty combs there were and we didn't want to be in the hive long trying to find out. Second, bees tend to be protective at this time of year, meaning prone to sting, so we weren't keen on trying to loosen and move 6 heavy honeycombs. Instead we simply pulled out a couple of empty combs and replaced them with drawn comb and honey we had in our freezer. If we'd had more resources, we'd've swapped out more than just two; there are still several combs between the nest and their stores. While devoid of brood, these combs do hold a few pounds of honey for the bees, and we hope it entices them to move deeper into the hive.

We are currently experiencing our first cold weather and the bees are very tightly clustered at the very front of the hive, with the bulk of the honey stores 4-6 combs away. All bees store some honey within their broodnest itself, but I don't know how long it lasts. If they consume it all, they will have to move closer to the honey stores. If they don't move in the next couple of weeks, before the real cold weather settles in, they could end up starving just 6 inches away from ample food.