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Honey Bees & Beekeeping in New Brunswick, CanadaBee Talk: Spring-Summer 2009
Written by beekeepers
Topics: What's the Buzz?
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Posted on 19 May 2009
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- Christine Dembenski VP: At this meeting we will also be revealing our new CBA logo! Hope to see everyone there!...
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So, Chris M from NBAg – how’s that newsletter coming along :) ? I didn’t get one in the mail yet. Just thought I’d throw that out before Elizabeth got the jump on ya! lol
My friend has discovered a bumblebee nest at his summer place in Cap Pele and would like some advise of how best to dispose of the nest? We do not want to hurt the bees as we hear that bees are in danger but we cannot have them so close to us. Please advise.
Thank you!
Dianne Jean
Hi Dianne,
It is nice that you are attempting new ways of living with the smaller creatures we share the world with. I would think you are a lucky person to discover a bumblebee nest, I have never stumbled across one. As far as moving one, I have never done so but advice on the internet suggests that they do not recover from the damage inflicted on their nest. If you can live with them for the summer they will happily pollinate your flowers and garden. The queen will leave in fall and you can move the nest then. I wish you luck.
how do I subscribe to Bee Talk & also recieve your news letter
Cathy, thanks very much for your interest! You can get updates from the CBA website by email or through our RSS feed if you use a feedreader like Bloglines or Google Reader, etc.
Comments made in the Bee Talk section or on other articles can be followed using this RSS feed: http://cba.stonehavenlife.com/comments/feed/
Sorry, the CBA doesn’t publish a newsletter – since we have monthly meetings plus this website, there’s never really been a need for one. (The reference in Jessica’s comment above was to the newsletter sent out courtesy of the NB Dept of Agriculture to all registered beekeepers in the province.)
Hello
I have a small orchard of apples , pears , cherry, apricots ,peaches , in my backyard in bedford NS
I do not have any mason bees in the area and disperate to either find a supplier who sells them , i prepared required nesting blocks , your help is highly appreciated .
Best regards
bob
If you have’nt tried it, you should – drone comb. Rather than buying drone frames I manufactured them. I cut regular full size foundation into two and three quarter inch or so pieces, installed them in frames and left the bottom part with no foundation. The bees built up the top wax with worker cells and they filled the empty bottom part with drone cells. After the drone cells are capped, cut the drone comb out and replace frame back into hive (in the brood nest) The bees will rebuild it. I uncapped all the drone cells and counted nearly a hundred mites. Most of them were directly under the cappings and I am sure there were more that I missed. Another chemical free mite control.
Sterling – or anyone else – did you ever come across a good way to keep ants away? Don’t want to kill the bees by trying to get rid of ants, which most solutions would do… but a weak colony of mine is quickly getting weaker by trying to defend against so many of those blasted ants, and I don’t know how much longer it can survive at this rate!
I just found this article on Prevention.com with a whack of suggestions, but don’t want to waste time on “old wives tales” while the bees are getting killed off, so would love to know if any of those ideas really work???? I’m going to try the coffee grounds right now and see if it helps…
Rebecca, I experimented with cayanne pepper in a pismire colony and it put the run to them. Lay it on thick .
Perfect, I’ve got loads of cayenne! Thanks, Sterling.
I have some raised flower beds along my veranda. Last summer I thought I saw bees coming and going via a tunnel in the ground. Do they build their homes in the ground? This year there appears to be an enterance and an exit door (two tunnels). How do I get them to go away without harming them? I have two small children and a small yard. Not enough room for everyone.
I checked the hive this morning that I took the drone frame out of on June first – six mites on the bottom tray. The girls have built up the drone cells again and they are full of larvae. I am eager to take it out and see what mite count will be. Gotta luvit.
Amanda, you shoud first make sure it is bees you are dealing with. Yellowjacket hornets build in the ground often as do bumble bees. You may have to “harm” them to get rid of them, sorry.
Got my nucs last night – thanks Murray and Lynn. Doesn’t look good for the coming week, rain for five days. This time last year was the same thing. Please everyone, if you are taking honey make sure the bees have enough to live on. I had to put feed on last year on August third or my girls would have starved. Watch them closely.
Pulled the “drone frame” yesterday, all cells capped. Removed fifty bees from each side of frame and had only seven mites. I am very happy with that. The bottom board had no mites on it. If anyone wants to discuss this method of mitefight, call me at home 339-6786 or at work 339-7019.
With all the rain we’ve been having, what should I be looking for?
I’m planning on attending the meeting on 7 July, but haven’t wanted to upset the hives by opening them when the weather has been so wet, humid and basically, bad for bees and humans alike!
I have a bit of a peek this afternoon, but they got testy rather quickly, despite the moments of sun we had. I haven’t done a thorough hive inspection siince I picked them up; it has been raining every day since then!
The next CBA meeting is on July 14 — sorry, I’d posted the wrong date! — hope you can still make it!
Meanwhile, about your hives… the weather has certainly not been cooperative! At this time of year, the big concern is swarming but the wet cool weather should slow that down a bit. On the other hand, bees need to spread out the nectar through the comb in order to try to condense it, and with the high humidity this month it will be tricky for them to do that evaporation, so you’ll want to make sure they have plenty of space.
You can quickly pop the lid on a hive and take a quick peek, at the minimum. If they seem to be well advanced on working the frames in the top super, you can add an extra super on top to give room for expansion. I often put a piece of newspaper on top of the existing supers then add the new super on top of that – it helps reduce the amount of space the bees are trying to heat, and they’ll quickly chew through the newspaper to get at the new super when they need the space.
Another thing you can do it look for swarm (queen) cells. Supercedure cells will be built out on the sides of the frame, but swarm cells tend to hang down off the bottom so you can do a quick check for them even when the weather isn’t conducive to pulling out frames. Just tip up each super and look at the bottom. A helper will come in handy for this, and sometimes a flashlight too, depending on how heavy the supers are and how dark the day is! If you see swarm cells that are close to being capped, you’ll know that you will definitely need to take action (good time to make a split) as soon as the rain stops for a bit, whether or not the bees are grumpy about having you in there!
Sterling, great tip on the drone comb trapping of varroa mites – we’ve done a bit of that and it does seem to be very effective.
For anyone interested, you can buy drone-sized foundation-frames for the purpose, or let the bees build their own for example by giving them cut-down foundation like Sterling is using or by putting a shallow frame into a full-depth super. I haven’t used the special drone foundation myself but I like the idea. When there isn’t a lot of worker brood mixed in, you can pull the drone frame and put it in the freezer for a while to kill the varroa and brood, then give it back to the bees. Less work for them in building comb… or at least that’s the theory! Has anyone tried it?
I help the bees with drone frame cleanup by extracting the brood out after freezing with a shop vac with a small nozzle attachment. All they have to do is polish the cells for the next batch of eggs.
A reader named Thomas is looking for someone in the Fredericton area to supply 10 pounds of unprocessed honey. He didn’t leave a last name or contact number – but if you’ve got honey for sale in the Fredericton area, feel free to leave a comment here with your info and maybe he’ll get in touch.
Bob Seaman (http://www.rjhoneybeefarm.ca) is looking for a beekeeper who is making beewax candles. Phone 506-756-2796 to get in touch with him.
I am coming back to bees after a 25 year absence. Is it too late to start a new colony in the Hillsborough area and expect it to survive the winter?
jim
i am a new beekeeper i already love them. i have to hives
i worry about them
found some dead bees outside the hive to night???
is that normal. i already added the honey supers ( still learning all the terms)
linda
Hi!
Just wondering if there would be anyone interested in queen cells.
We may have some extras that would be available late next week.
Bethany yes please call me at work 339 7019 or after 5 pm at home 339 6786
Thanks for the information about the bees and the miserable wet weather we’ve been having–the last two days of sunshine are great, but I could do with a bit less humidity.
I’d like to move a hive from one location to another (a more sunny location) where I have my other hive. The distance is about 1/4 to 1/2 mile; is that going to be confusing to the bees, or should I go ahead and give them a better view?
Oh, and one other question: the honey supers are definitely lighter for lifting–does anyone use them as brood supers, and skip the deep supers altogether? Thanks for all the tips, everyone! I benefit from all the questions I see answered here!
Yes, you can use the boxes that are intended for honey supers for brood supers if you want – Fletcher does this, in fact. And if it works on a commercial scale, you know it’s possible for the smaller beekeeper… Benefits: they’re lighter to lift, which is good for us women beekeepers, plus you can swop around supers as needed and not worry so much about keeping the brood out of the honey supers for when it comes time to harvest and extract. Also, I think in early spring it may be good for the bees to have less space to try to keep warm, but that’s just my theory. If I didn’t have such a pile of deep supers, I would probably switch over to all medium-shallows for those reasons.
About moving a hive to a new location:
That’s a short distance for a move, and the bees will want to go back to their original hive location. Better to move a hive either a couple miles away, or just a foot or so at a time. That way the bees don’t get dis-oriented. To move 1/4 to 1/2 mile, close up the hive and move at night. Close up with screen over the entrances the same way as for taking to pollination to let air in. Leave screen in place (closed) for a couple days.
So, it looks as if I have a million bees in one hive and absolutely not a speck of brood. At this stage in the summer, would it be better to try and requeen, or to combine the hive with a less well-populated hive? The sun comes out, and bam! there are discoveries left, right and centre!
I have to sell my seven hives (three from last year and four made up in May) because of health reasons. They are all double deeps. Is anyone interested? Please contact me at 433-1737 or e-mail at reidas@nb.sympatico.ca
About what are people charging per hive to put their bees on the blueberries this year?
And, in the case of bees managed as ‘organic,’ does the risk of field spray, disease from other colonys, and bee drift threaten their organic status?
Saw a strange event unfold yesterday. Hanson called me to catch a large swarm. I went home to get my gear and went to get the swarm. When I arrived at the site, the swarm was just leaving the tree they were in after only a half hour. Where did they go – back to the hive they came out of. Been beekeeping since 1999 and this is a first for me. I wish all swarms were that co-operative. Has anyone else seen this happen ?
I was interested to see you comment on a swarm leaving and then returning to the hive
it came from.
It reminded me of an occasion several years ago where I was visiting one of my yards late in the day (about 4:00 PM). I arrived just in time to witness the swarm leaving the hive. It circled in the area around the yard for several minutes a couldn’t seem to find a suitable location to settle. To my surprise, as in your case, they finally returned to their hive.
I think it may have been related to the time of day.
Question……….Does diatomaceous earth kill veroa mites,……………….I know it certainly does kill small hive beetles????????????????????
Aren’t swarms a beautiful thing. I hived two in the last week which I suspect were honeybound. They are a great way to get foundation drawn into comb. In one week they can build ten frames of comb and store syrup in it. As long as you give the girls one to one sugar syrup they will keep drawing comb for you. Later you can unite the swarm with a weak hive and you have extra drawn comb on hand.
This is for Rebbecca’s statement
I used cinnomon to keep ants away before and it worked like a charm. The benifit is you hive area smells really nice. I went to the dollar store and bought a couple of 500ml bottles and sprinkled it around the hive. Hope it works for you.
Recently a large swarm of what I suspect and several others suspect are Honeybees, arrived in my garden. I am worried about their survival for the winter months as the winters here are especially harsh. They are already becoming quite dormant.
In the Fredericton area, when do we wrap up our hives for the winter (or has everyone already done theirs?)
And any other tidbits for the new beekeeper going into winter? I missed the last beekeepers meeting because of germs. I kept my kleenex and germs at home but missed all the good info!
I wrap mine around November 15 or just before crappy weather is on the way. Last year I wrapped them one day and it snowed the next day.
Thanks Sterling! I was surprised to see so much activity around the hives last weekend when it was sunny. I thought that the frost that we’d been having would have discouraged them for making a foray out at this time of year, but they looked happy and productive!
I treated my hives last week I found lost of mites. It has snow 6 inches last thurday should I be able to treat them one more time our the once is enought till spring.they are doing good today at + 6 and cloudy.
This is a question to all our reserch teams around the world……..Has anyone ever had a look at the contents of the stomach of FLYING FOXES ?????????
COULD THEY BE A CARRIER OF NOSEMA, APIS…….. AND……… CERANAE?????????????
Corection to the above ………..after CERANAE add PARASITES
This Question is also to to all our reserch teams around the world……..Is it a coincidence ( or otherwise ) that the feaces of bees sets like cement on my car , (just like Flying Fox feaces sets like cement on my house, ) when Flying Foxes and my bees are both working the same flowers, eg, Spotted-Gum in the middle of winter in Australia, Nosema creanea is endemic in Australia????????????????????????????
Am I the only bloke who has hives superseding in the middle of winter?????????????