Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
On a typical brood frame in the broodnest, you can find both worker and drone brood.
The worker brood is in the center of the frame, which is the warmest part of the nest.
Drone brood is ordinarily along the cooler edges of the frame, especially as shown
here, in the top-left corner. Drone brood is capped with large, dome-shaped cappings,
which make them easy to spot on a frame. They can sometimes be found on top bars in
the broodnest when brood frames are crowded.
In the moderate regions, it's still cold in late winter, but not so cold that managed
colonies can't be examined by beekeepers on warm days. It'll be a while before good
flying weather arrives, but brood rearing is increasing rapidly, and the need for stored
food is critical.
By early spring, in the warm and moderate regions, the population is expanding rap-
idly as the early food sources become plentiful and the weather is increasingly favor-
able for foraging. In the northern hemisphere, dandelions begin to show in warm areas
in February, and populations approach the critical stage. Additional room for expanding
brood and food becomes a limiting factor, and swarming behaviors can be observed.
Two to three months after the days being to lengthen, swarms emerge in the warmest
areas. In the northern hemisphere, this happens in mid-April to mid-May, and mid-May
through June in the colder areas, though these times vary depending on the location,
management procedures, and weather.
Food is abundant in the spring in most warm regions, but as late spring and early
summer approach, resources often diminish, and by mid-July they are mostly gone.
From then until early fall there is often little forage available, and colonies go on hold,
living on stored food (if enough was made during the flowering season, and the bee-
keeper was not greedy).
In moderate and cold areas, nectar and pollen sources come on strong right after the
spring swarming season, and given adequate storage, a colony will collect most of the
season's surplus crop starting in mid-June in moderate areas, and early July in the cold
areas north of the equator.
In many places in the moderate and cold regions, there may be a slow nectar- and
pollen-producing period in midsummer. Commonly called a dearth, this situation can
last for a couple of weeks to a couple of months. A prolonged drought is another matter
