Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Sugar syrup may develop a black mold in the pail when the bees don't eat it for a
couple of days, or it may actually ferment if the weather is warm. A good rule of thumb
is, if the look or the smell of the syrup is such that you wouldn't drink it, don't give it
to your bees. Sugar syrup is an inexpensive and easy way to ensure your bees don't run
into the stress of a food shortage, even for a single day.
You don't want the queen wandering up into these brand-new honey supers to lay
eggs and thus darken the honeycombs, so you need to provide a barrier. There are lots
of management tricks you can try, but by far the easiest is to place a queen excluder
between the top brood box and the honey super(s) above it. When the top brood super
starts filling, move a frame (or two or three) with some honey (and no brood) into the
super you are going to use for honey. What you are doing is laying some ground rules
for management. Above the queen excluder—only honey. Below—honey, pollen, and
brood.
The frames with even a little honey above the queen excluder send a message to the
food-storer bees that this is an acceptable place for nectar and honey to be stored. Given
all this room, and the open invitation to store the food, the food storers will (almost
always) begin moving honey up, leaving the three broodnest boxes for mostly brood,
pollen, and a little honey.
In the warmer regions, this activity is going strong by early spring (by early summer
in the coldest areas), so be prepared ahead of time with the right equipment.
Once you've decided that your colony is growing at an acceptable rate (recall the
brood ratios of 1:2:4), the queen is doing well, food is coming in at a pretty steady rate,
the weather has calmed down, and available room for incoming nectar storage is run-
ning low (all frames have some comb and none are empty), you can consider adding
additional supers for surplus honey storage.
At this point, the sugar syrup feeder has served its purpose and can be removed. If
you don't remove it, some syrup may be taken by the bees and stored in the honey su-
per. This isn't a critical mistake, but some of the honey you harvest will be sugar syrup,
not floral nectar.
You
can't
have this happen if you are selling honey, but the bees don't care one bit.
Remove the feeder, clean it well, and store it for future use. No matter where you are
during the nectar flow, be mindful of the wrinkles that can occur. Check the broodnest
every week or ten days, and the honey supers at the same time. The greatest stress on
your brand-new colony the first season isn't going to be the common diseases and pests
you will eventually encounter but, rather, the immediate challenge of establishment.
Your goal the first year isn't a crop of honey, but a healthy, well-established colony.
Next year, and for years after, your goal is management for production.
