My brother decided to raise bees this year, but a little late. I ordered my bees in January. He is looking for bees all over the place and can’t find any. By the middle of March there are absolutely no bees available around here.

I lost 3/4 of my hives due to the terrible winter we had. Actually, the Martha hive, is still alive, but is so weak that I doubt if she will make it.

I have four hives coming. Two packages due April 8, and two nucs due about May 1.

My brother wants one of my nucs.

The hive named Connie was active and the bees were bringing back lots of pollen on March 12. The air temperature was about 50 degrees F. I have no idea where they were finding this stuff. Nothing is blooming here. The trees have buds and they will pop soon, but I don’t know where they were getting the yellow and orange pollen.

Martha, though is doing poorly. I don’t think she will make it. I put the feeder on her last week when it was warm. She has not show any signs of taking the syrup. This Wednesday will be in the 60s so I will take advantage of that to feed Connie.

Due to the weather and a slow build-up of bee population down in Georgia, my two packages of bees will arrive a week later.

Some time around 3 in the morning on April 8, I will pick up two packages of bees. Each package is 3 pounds (about 10,000 bees) and a queen. They will be grouchy from sitting in the back of a truck for 15 hours.

I will install the bees early in the morning on the 8th, as soon as it gets light. I will welcome helpers, but I only have two spare veils. The bees will clump around the queen and are not really in a stinging mood. (Last year I was stung through a glove and one ran up my pants leg and stung me behind the knee.)

This date will probably change again if there is more foul weather down south.

I received my payment from eBay Partner Network and blew the whole thing on some hive parts at BrushyMountainBeeFarm

I bought a couple of those fancy copper covers. I am getting set to install my new bees, soon.

I bought sugar over the weekend and will start feeding bees when I have time this week. It is time for them to start their Spring build-up.

Yesterday I turned Martha 90 degrees so she is facing South. I rocked her around. She is heavy. The girls did not like it, and a few came out and I was stung in the leg. I have arthritis in my hip and I hope it helps a little.

Martha was facing east. She is under a large silver maple and it is shady where she is. When I placed the hives, it was morning and I noticed that the spot had a clear shot at the eastern sky, so I thought that she would wake up early. It turns out that in the height of summer, the bushes to the north cut off the sun and the only light filters in from the south. Short of moving the hive, the best sunlight is to the south so I turned her 90 degrees.

She is unstable now. I have to shim the hive so she doesn’t rock around. I worry about her being knocked over. The kids will find the hives eventually and I want to keep them alive as long as possible.

I opened Connie and she was full of very active bees. They were consuming the pollen patty on the top bars. Martha was ignoring the pollen.

I opened one of the dead hives and I found a dead queen surrounded by bees. They may have starved to death. They had burrowed into the comb, but were surrounded by frames full of honey. I guess that they suffocated and there was not enough population to handle the winter cold.

I have to harvest the honey from the dead hives, but the honey won’t flow in this weather. I can’t bring the frames inside as they would make a sticky mess. I want to collect the frames that I can harvest and move them to the deck. I want to seal them up so insects and mice can’t rob the honey and when the weather warms up I will set up the honey spinner and collect it all.

Martha and Connie are showing signs of waking up, in spite of there still being a foot of snow on the ground. The front of the hives have dead bees strewn around from the girls doing Spring cleaning.

Martha’s entrance reducer is being chewed on, either by skunks or opossums, or perhaps mice. So far they have not made a hole big enough for anything to get into the hive. I think anything rooting around would be stung anyway.

I went back and put a shim on the hives and a pollen patty. You don’t need the shim if you don’t mind the inner cover squooshing the patty down onto the top of the frames. I had them so I used them.

Now the girls have a source of protein in addition to the honey they’ve put away. I figure any pollen that they’ve capped is long gone. Also they tend to eat the stores near where they are balled around the queen and will not venture too far, unless it warms up. This week it will go well over 50F for several days, though, and I think they will wander around looking for something good to snack on.

As soon as the snow melts and it is consistently over 40F, I will start feeding. I want a large build-up for when the nectar starts flowing. The girls start bringing back pollen around the end of March, although for the life of me, I don’t see where they find it.

I want to turn Martha around 90 degrees. She is facing East right now. I wanted her to catch the morning sun, but the hives facing south seem to do best. I want to turn Martha south.

I will again consider splitting the two good hives. I will be moving hives about and I need to find room for the two Nucs that I’ve ordered.

I am asking on FreeCycle.org for cinder blocks. When I get enough, all the hives are going to be raised another foot to keep them out of the deep snow.  I want to make a porch roof over the entrances, like they have in Europeane hives. I have read that they do nothing, but it will keep the rain and snow off of the entrance.

I am considering buying the English garden hive covers. The copper tops look very cute on the hives, but they cost $50 each.

I saw a very neat plastic hive system by Omlet, but it costs $850 a hive. Traditional hives cost around $120, so I can’t see the Omlets taking off. If I was rich I would have them. They are built well for bees and are easy for beekeepers.

In spite of 18 inches of snow, the temperature went above 40F this weekend and I decided to find out for sure who has survived so far.

Ethel and Justine are definitely gone. I opened them both up and there is nothing but dead bees in them. There is lots of honey, much of it uncapped. The meaning of the uncapped honey is not clear to me. Otherwise, the hive looks OK. I will take out any frames with capped honey and spin them when the snow melts and it is easier to get back to the bees. There may be 100 pounds or more of honey in the two hives.

Based on the theory that the hives suffocated, I will reuse the hives and frames. My new bees will have a ready made hive with lots of comb and some uncapped honey to get started with.

I am going to order some honey buckets and sieves to make the extraction easier. I have been pouring the honey into cheesecloth and then squeezing it – all by hand. I want to try just letting it sit for a day or two and drain through the sieve. The honey bucket has a gate in the bottom for bottling from the bottom. This way there will be less wax in the bears.

Now, Martha and Connie have lots of dead bees outside the hives and a few live ones on their backs. I opened up Martha and took a peek in and saw a large clump of bees near the front. A bee started to come up out of the box so I put the cover back on quickly – and then bang! I was stung on the top of my head. That was the first sting since last July.

I noticed that there was lots of noise from the have – snap, crackle, and pop sounds. I put my ear next to the boxes and I they were fairly loud.

I went to Connie and listened and there was the same snap, crackle, and pop. Connie, too, was cleaning house and I saw live bees dragging dead bees out the entrance and dumping them. Connie, my strongest hive, is doing well.

My April packages will be Justine II and Ethel III. I want to get some cinder blocks and raise all my hives another foot above the ground.

I am also getting NUCS in May from the New Jersey bee farm. I will need boxes for these. A NUC is a small hive (about half the number of frames) that has lived through the winter so it should be strong. (I am not sure the nucs I am getting are “over-wintered”, though).

I think six hives is too much and I may sell one. I should be able to get $250 for a strong hive, maybe even more than that. An empty hive kit with two deeps and frames is about $100 plus $40 shipping. A package is $120. I would need to get about $260 to get my money back. I also would have done all the work and got the hive started so I should get about $100 for that part. I might advertise a complete hive for $350 in May and see if I get any offers.

I am going to order the pretty copper tops for my hives. They look very cool, but they cost $65 each, plus shipping. I’ll start with a pair, I think.

I just got word that I will be in the Mall at three O’Clock in the morning April first, with a bunch of other beekeepers getting my packages. I will install them early that morning – between 7AM and 8AM. Anyone who wants to help and doesn’t care if they get a sting or two can meet in the back yard. I have an extra veil, gloves and hat.

Now, April 1st is just a target date. It depends on the spring weather in Georgia. The big bee farms set a “best guess” date, but lots of rain or cold weather can slow the spring growth and the packages might no be ready by then. This will be the third year, and for the last two years the date has been pushed off at least a week.

April 1st is sold out, but there will several other dates. If you want bees, you had better order them this minute.

I am getting my packages from AZapiaries.

(via BEE-L and James Bruckart, M.D.)

JINGLE BEE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS

‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all though the hive
Not a creature was stirring, are they even alive?
Empty honeycomb makes the cluster despair,
They hope that Jingle Bee soon will be there;

The larva and pupa all snug in their cells,
Dreams of royal jelly and bee bread’s sweet smell.
Queen in her castle and nurse bees attending,
These are cold nights that seem never ending.

When up on the roof, there arose such a clatter,
Smoke at the door, can you see what’s the matter?
Bright light and cold breeze in our house does appear,
A white-suited monster is looking in here.

He is chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laugh when I see him, in spite of myself.
He speaks not a word; but goes straight to his labor,
Looking and checking, with his blasted smoke maker.

His actions are swift to avoid chilling trouble,
Sugar and pollen to the hive he does shuttle.
Honey in frames to the cluster he brings,
Fresh food for the bees to last until Spring

The roof is now back and the darkness restored,
But the hive knows Jingle Bee visits once more.

“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.”

(Adapted from original poem by Clement Clarke Moore.)

It has been dark in the morning when I go to work and dark at night when I come home. In the other seasons, I always walk around the hives to see if they are having any problems. Lately, I only have time for a quick check on the weekend.

Today, Christmas Eve day, I walked back and pulled the entrance reducers off of each hive to discover hundreds of dead bees. The Italians, Justine and Ethel, had the most dead bees. They appeared fresh, as though they had died in the last day or so. I hope they are healthy and this is just the outer bees in the ball dying off.

It has not gone above freezing in weeks so the bees cannot take cleansing flights, and I can’t open the top to check on them.

I tipped each hive to see how much they weighed. A hive with good stores will be heavy and a hive light on honey will be light and easy to tip. Martha and Connie seemed heavy. Justine and Ethel seemed light. It is too cold to put in pollen patties or fill a feeder with damp sugar. As soon as the weather goes above 50°F, I will give them all a winter feeding, just in case.

Martha, the Russian did not have dead bees, but an animal had pulled out the entrance reducer. Either this is a good sign, or else an opossum is eating the bees. Connie, the strong Russian/Italian hive had dead bees, but not as many as the Italians. Connie went into the winter with a lower population than she did last year. Russians are like that, but I hope she has enough spare bees to make it through the winter.

I have to decide next week how many packages I should order for next spring. If I underestimate I will have only two or three hives next year. If I overestimate I will have to buy new hives for the spring to house the extra packages. I bought two packages last year, one to replace the original Ethel and one just in case (Justine), which I put into a new box.

So far, the winter has been much colder than last year. Last year the bees were hardly stressed, except for January. It has been mostly below freezing since before Thanksgiving here (lower Hudson Valley). It is hard on the bees, and there is little I can do about it.