North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Don Yellman <don.yellman@webformation.com>]

Ross:

1.  If you are buying a bee swarm and setting up a hive for the first time, your 
biggest problem will not be the presence or absence of "bee forage" blossoms 
on your own property.  Bees range out for a mile or more, and those in your hive may 
spend little actual time in your yard searching for nectar and pollen.  In my own case, 
the honeybees spend more time on the clover in the grass than anything else, even 
though I have numerous other blossoms throughout the season.  They are, however, 
helpful in pollinating vine crops like watermelons and squash, although these are also 
visited by feral bee creatures.  I occasionally see them on fruit trees blossoms such 
as apples and apricots, but these are a very small part of their nectar sources.  When 
they are gathering pollen to feed brood, their most abundant source is probably the 
many oak and maple trees in my area.  Bees specialize in one type of blossom at a time, 
and one year a particular hive produced a very dark and flavorf
ul honey that I believe to have come from Tulip Poplars, of which I have 
none, but there are some scattered around the area.

2.  I began keeping bees in 1979, and cruised along happily for nearly 10 
years before varroa and tracheal mite infestation began to make it much more 
difficult.  Although at one time I was up to five colonies, I began to lose 
them over winter as the mites took their toll.  I continued to buy very 
expensive new swarms, complete with hybrid queens, but could seldom keep the 
colonies going more than two years, even with treatments such as mite strips, 
grease patties, and ample space in the hives, which I often expanded to 3 
deep supers when the colonies seemed healthy.  Occasionally, I would capture 
and hive up a swarm from one of my own hives, which theoretically contains a 
young fertilized queen, and should have led to a healthy, rapidly expanding 
colony.  But losses continued, and hives that depopulated over winter quickly 
became infested with wax moth, leading to a big mess and lots of damage to 
frames and even hive bodies.  Three years ago, having lost two new colonies th
at cost me a total of $120 to install, I gave it up, but left one empty hive 
consisting of three deep supers simply because I was too lazy to dismantle 
it.  I am sure it was a total mess inside, and full of wax moth and their 
residue.

3.  To my surprise, an exploratory group of workers showed up at the hive 
this past spring, and began showing some interest in the abandoned hive.  It 
was a very small group at first, but I installed an entrance feeder with 
sugar syrup, and more began to show up.  Somehow, they managed to get a 
fertile queen into that hive, because within 3 weeks they were bringing in 
substantial quantities of bright yellow and orange pollen, indicating that 
they were feeding brood.  They began to clean out the 3 deep supers, which 
must be a mess inside, and dumping the trash at the entrance, which I would 
remove with my fingers to help them out.  I have continued to feed them sugar 
syrup at a reduced sugar rate all summer long, which has been very dry, and 
they seem to look forward to my daily arrival with a new quart of sugar 
syrup.  At some point, probably early next spring if the colony makes it 
though the winter, I will have to decide whether to dismantle the hive, which 
must be full of
all sorts of burr comb, and try to renew the frames, or simply place a queen 
excluder and honey super on top and let them just keep whatever they have 
built beneath.  I am so gunshy after suffering so many years of colony losses 
that I am almost reluctant to mess with their apparent success.  I do know 
that they have filled all three of the deep supers with honey, pollen and 
brood, and would guess from the level of activity that they are at least a 
25,000 or 30,000, or even more colony.

4.  The workers in this colony are classic Italian honeybees, and there is no 
possibility they are some new type of feral bee.  They are very gentle, and 
we have not have a sting all summer long.  I can sit in front of the hive to 
clean out the entrance with no problem at all.  I am kind of wondering 
whether this volunteer colony may have developed some degree of mite 
resistance, although only time will tell the story on that.  Now we have a 
new threat, the colony collapse disorder (CCD) that has decimated colonies in 
many regions.   We sure don't need any more honeybee diseases.

5.  So as you embark on your beekeeping experiment, keep in mind that 
diseases and parasites will be your biggest enemies, and getting your colony 
through the winter in a healthy condition your biggest challenge.   Install 
package bees and queen as early as you possibly can in the season, certainly 
no later than mid-April, and even earlier if you can get the bees.  The bees 
will go to work and find forage much earlier than you think possible.  If you 
want to install a shallow super (with queen excluder) for honey production, 
do that early too.  I have found that the spring flow is over by mid-June or 
earlier, and if there is no honey by then, there is no honey.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA