The February 2014 post detailed late wintertime hive manipulations for last year. These manipulations are similar each year. What varies is the timing, which goes according to the weather. Last year, I did them in mid-February, about the same time the Sandhill cranes flew over. This year, we had a break in the cold weather at the very end of January and I started the manipulations. As I was going about my work, I heard the cranes fly over! Coincidentally, their migration north and my hive manipulations were at least 3 weeks earlier than last year. As I ponder what that might mean for this year's weather, here's an updated version of the February post:

Beekeeping is about weather watching. On January 30th, the mercury on the front porch hit 65 degrees. The honeybees broke cluster and flew madly about the farm--taking cleansing flights and gathering water. The weather service was predicting another warm day on the 31st. This was the break in the weather that I had been waiting for.

Our spring bloom is still 2 months away, but this was a great opportunity to check on the bees. I had not opened a hive since last fall, when I’d inspected and prepared them for winter. 

I was careful not to disturb the brood chamber where the bees cluster in cold weather and where the queen was beginning to lay brood, but I did manipulate the boxes. It has been my habit to run 2 deep chambers topped by one shallow super of honey all year. In all hives, I found that the bees had moved up into the 2nd deep brood chamber. I momentarily set aside the top shallow super of honey while I reversed the 2 deep chambers, so that the bees would have room to expand upward this spring. (If a hive still has bees in both chambers, they should not be reversed. Reversing will split the cluster area and any brood that the queen has laid--spreading it out and making it difficult for the bees to keep it warm. If temperatures dip quickly, as they are likely to this time of year, the brood will be susceptible to chilling.)

I found two hives that had been so-so in the fall had died out, although the hive still had plenty of honey. A handful of dead bees clustered together in each hive pointed to queen failure. She must have died and the numbers gradually dwindled down. I tore these hives down to salvage equipment and comb, and I froze the combs of honey to use in feeding nucs this spring. 

Two other hives were weak and would not make it til spring. I found the queen in the weakest one, killed her, and then combined the occupied brood chambers from each hive with a sheet of newspaper between them. By the time the bees chewed through the paper, the queenless bees would accept the others as their sisters and the queen as their own. The other hives all looked strong and still had good honey stores.

Finally, I performed a manipulation called “checkerboarding.” The purpose is to prevent swarming later in the season by breaking up the honey dome above the brood chamber and thus giving the bees room to expand upward. It also is supposed to increase honey yields. The idea is espoused by Walt Wright and a full explanation can be found by searching him or by searching “checkerboarding” at Beesource.com.

In my setup, the honey dome is that top super of honey. In most of the hives, this super was still pretty full of honey. After I’d reversed the deep chambers, I put this super back in place but removed every other frame of honey. I refilled these slots with empty drawn comb that I’d saved, frozen, from last year. Above this, I added a second super of drawn comb interspersed with the frames of honey that I’d removed from the first super--in a checkerboard pattern. The key to this is having the drawn comb on hand.

This is the 4th year that I’ve performed this manipulation, and with my healthy, survivor hives, I’ve had very good results so far: hardly any swarming and much greater honey yields. This is a controversial topic, but so far my results have been good and I will continue to do it.

I also love this method because I’m a lazy beekeeper. I won’t have to go through my hives and cut out queen cells in an effort to prevent swarming later--usually to no avail anyway, and I won’t have to manipulate the boxes again until next year. All I have to do now is wait for the spring bloom to begin and add supers for the bees to fill with honey!

These late winter hive manipulations now done, I will go back to my weather watching. I will be waiting for signs that the nectar flow has begun. In middle Tennessee, that occurs sometime in April--unless the cranes have heralded an earlier spring? After that, I hope to watch the bees fill super after super with honey! Yes, beekeeping is about weather watching, but it is also about hope!

If you've read my blog for very long, you know that I think keeping bees is a great idea. I think people should keep bees in the city, in the country, in the suburbs, on the rooftops, wherever they can fit a hive. In my blogs, I've extolled all the good reasons for keeping bees: helping the bees to survive when the rest of the world seems hellbent on poisoning and starving them, pollination for your garden, honey for your table.

Despite all these good reasons for keeping bees, some very good reasons exist for NOT keeping bees. I'll list a few.

1. You want a hobby that makes money. Bees are expensive! The woodenware to put them in, the protective clothing, the tools, the actual bees, the vehicle to carry the equipment around in, a honey house and equipment for harvesting the honey, not to mention continually replacing all of the aforementioned. I kept bees for 6 years before I ever made a penny in profit. Since then, it's been hit or miss, like any other kind of agriculture only without the subsidies! 

2. You want a hobby that requires very little work. Keeping bees is hot, hard, heavy work, especially south of the Mason-Dixon line. Harvesting occurs on the hottest days of the year, when you will be sweating inside 2 sets of clothing to lift heavy honey-filled supers from hives of ill-tempered bees. 

Beekeeping requires continual study and learning to stay ahead of whatever is trying to kill them: honey and larva predation, mites, fungus, bacterial and viral diseases, pesticides, to name a few. The many things you will have to learn will include bee and honey plant biology, crude carpentry, and your local weather and seasonal patterns.

3. You think you won't get stung. For some reason, a lot of people think that if they're nice to their bees and handle them just right, the bees will like them and not sting them. This is crazy-thinking! Bees are insects, a super organism. They are intent on their purposes, not yours. If it's a nice warm and sunny day when the world is in bloom, they will fly to and from the hive and probably totally ignore you. However, if you are tearing into their hive on day when they are all home with nothing much else to do, they are going to defend their stores and brood nest! That's why they have those little barbed stingers on their butts--to keep critters like you out of their business. You will get stung from time to time.

If you've read these reasons not to keep bees, and you're still thinking, "Yes, but..." get yourself some bees! I can't image not having hives of these wonderful creatures around my place. They are a source of continual learning, challenge, wonder, and sheer joy (when they aren't making me crazy). Keeping bees will teach you not just about bees, but about the plants they forage on and how bees and wild plants fit into the rest of the natural world. If you're lucky and take the time to be very observant, they will even teach you how you fit into that world! If everyone kept a box of bees, maybe we'd all become humble stewards who care for and try to fit into the world around us rather than arrogant masters who try to control and enslave the natural world and only end up poisoning it and us.

With Winter Solstice and the shortest day of the year just around the corner, the bees have already spent a lot of time in cluster. As I go about my morning chores of chopping up water and haying the goats, I pass by some of the bee boxes and I've wondered how they are faring in there. Do they have enough honey to eat? Just like the goats, having enough feed is what will keep them warm and alive through the winter. Are they able to break cluster and take cleansing flights often enough to avoid dysentery and nosema?

It's tempting to peak inside, but I know I must stay out of the hives in the winter. The bees have worked hard to glue up all the cracks with propolis as winter protection from the elements. They don't need my interference right now.

Yesterday, we all got a reprieve. A spring-like day after days of freezing weather. Everyone wanted to get out and kick up their heels. The young goats frolicked and play-fought each other. The chickens scratched through the leaf litter in the woods for bugs. The dogs got out and tussled in the yard. Even the once-feral cat followed me on my rounds and let me scratch his ears.

And were those bees flying!! Coming and going from EVERY hive! I found bees collecting water at the chicken waterers, at the goat troughs, and along the creek. They were even resourceful enough to find a bit of food. I spied them foraging on the smashed open persimmons that had fallen from the many persimmon trees on the farm! So, for today, the bees are alive and all is well on Persimmon Ridge Honey Farm. Ahhhhhh.