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Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers

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Chronological Thread  
  • From: Randall Austin <ra41717 AT gmail.com>
  • To: Bynum Hoekstra <bynumhoekstra AT gmail.com>, "mmorrissey AT fastmail.fm" <mmorrissey AT fastmail.fm>
  • Cc: Orange County Beekeepers Association <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] USGS - Early Spring declared
  • Date: Wed, 1 Mar 2017 08:50:12 -0500

Bynum & Michael,

Without anything else to go on, I can only assume that the blooming times have shifted this year, they haven't been rearranged or enhanced. All beekeeping is local and you may have agriculture, etc. nearby that change your patterns, but for most of Orange County, the relative March dearth comes between the maple bloom (January/February) and the tulip poplar bloom (the main honey flow in April/May) (see article <here>). The dearth is "relative", not absolute -- there are plenty of blooming plants but the bee population has built up so much on the maple pollen that the amount of nectar available isn't sufficient to feed all of those new hungry mouths. A beekeeper who doesn't watch stores in March can easily have colonies starve.

Now maybe the warm days we've had have enabled the bees to more effectively harvest the nectar that is available (e.g. there are more days with adequate flying temperatures). So maybe we can hope for more March honey than normal. However I wouldn't count on that -- hope for the best, plan for the worst.

At my place, the main harvestable flow starts with tulip poplar, and that is still several weeks/a month or more away.

Michael -- I did my first-of-year inspections last weekend and found 2 boomers that I will be making splits from this week in a desperate attempt to ward off swarming. The rest of my colonies were a bit advanced for this time of year but they don't look like they'll be starting the swarming process in the next few weeks. If you've got LOTS of bees then checkerboarding (alternating drawn but empty comb in the broodnest with frames that contain brood) may be a good strategy for providing space in the broodnest, but beware of very cold nights. The bees in cluster must be able to cover the brood or the brood on the edges will freeze to death. Spreading out the nest by checkerboarding makes covering the brood harder to do.

Randall


On 2/28/2017 6:21 PM, Bynum Hoekstra wrote:
Thanks, Randall! Now, for a practical question, would you say that based on the rough flowering schedule, are we entering or exiting the March "dearth"?

Sent from mobile device

On Feb 28, 2017, at 5:05 PM, Randall Austin <ra41717 AT gmail.com> wrote:

Cool stuff, Bynum! That aligns very nicely with my observations. In my neck of the woods, I use Bradford Pears as my visual benchmark -- they typically "explode" on March 10th here (far northern Orange County, near the Person County line). They popped out this past week, so 2 to 3 weeks ahead is right on the money. It's nice that we are normal in our abnormality!

Randall


On 2/28/2017 3:33 PM, Bynum Hoekstra wrote:
Many of you may have already seen this, but I found this article from the USGS to be reflective of what we're seeing in our own backyards, which is that spring is arriving about 2-3 weeks earlier than usual. 

 



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