THE KENTUCKY BEEKEEPER

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1 THE KENTUCKY BEEKEEPER A publication of the Kentucky State Apiarist Sean Burgess Vol. 4 April 2013 Nucleus colonies arriving from the south Bee Shipments Beginning in April every year, thousands of packages, and nucleus colonies of honey bees arrive in Kentucky. These bees are from breeders who are located in the southern United States.

2 You may wonder why so many bees are needed in Kentucky in the spring. There are many people within the state that are just beginning to keep bees; there are others who are wishing to increase or to recover their winter losses. Without an early queen breeding season in Kentucky, we find if we want bees prior to the main nectar flow, we must look to southern breeders for them. These packages and nucleus colonies will be headed up by young vigorous queens and will be able to build up, so they have sufficient numbers of bees and stores to survive the winter. In a good year you may even be able to make a surplus of honey. The Scenario The main nectar flow in Kentucky begins anywhere from April to May, depending on where your located. The weather in any given year will effect these dates as well. In order to take advantage of this flow you need to have an established productive colony of bees if you hope to make a decent honey crop from them. If starting new colonies from splits or grafts, you can t start until you have mature drones, or can time it to their maturity. In Kentucky this will be about the 3-4 th week in April. (This year it may be later) If we take that date (let s use the 21 st of April) and make our splits relying on the bees to make their own queen from an egg, we know she will emerge from her cell days from egg lay. She will take a couple of days to harden and another couple of days for orientation flights before she flies to a DCA (drone congregation area) She may take mating flights on successive days and this too, is dependent on the weather. We will have to start this split about 3 weeks prior, or on the 1 st of April. As I write this on the 25 th of March, it is 30 degrees and snowing and I have not been able to get into my hives to see if I even have any drone brood. I wouldn t attempt this kind of split until the weather stabilizes and you are sure that drone brood is present. Drone brood/much larger than the flat worker brood

3 Another option would be to purchase a mated queen from a southern or western breeder. This will give you a big jump in establishing new hives from splits. If you purchase nucleus colonies you may get a rapid buildup and make a honey crop in your first year, with a good flow. These nucleus colonies will have a mated queen, brood and stores. Package bees may make a surplus the first year however this is more unlikely as the bees will need to draw about 10 square feet of wax in its first year to survive the winter. This will require a large percentage of the nectar they gather to be metabolized so they can produce wax. In either case, treat both of these young colonies as weak and feed them heavily. Bee Friendly Kentucky An initiative has been put into motion to recognize this beautiful agricultural state that we live in, to be considered Bee Friendly. I first became aware of this through the Capital City Beekeepers prior to the Bluegrass school. I believe this is a great idea, and while it is in its infancy right now, it could have tremendous value to beekeepers in this state. This is grass roots; let s call it a Blue Grass Roots movement, in what I am hoping will involve the Kentucky Department of Agriculture, local governments, chamber of commerce s, universities, Kentucky bee keeping clubs and the Kentucky State Beekeeping Association. My definition of a Bee Friendly community; A commitment to help our pollinators To allow citizens to keep bees within city limits To call a beekeeping club or a beekeeper, when there are swarm or nuisance bee calls

4 To seek amicable solutions to concerns raised by the non-beekeeping public. To consult with the State Apiarist for solutions to problems with honey bees To provide plantings along roads and highways that are attractive to pollinators throughout the growing season To be sensitive to bees when applying herbicides and mosquito applications and to limit their uses Again, this program is in its infancy and I am sure there will be many suggestions and comments as it develops. If you have any suggestions please send them to me and they will be reviewed. If we can get 300 Kentucky Beekeepers to participate in this survey we will have some meaningful data that can be used to help us cut winter losses. I urge you to take the survey! Bee Informed Partnership Are you ready to survey? The Bee Informed Partnership (BIP) is a USDA/NIFA (U.S. Department of Agriculture/National Institute of Food and Agriculture) funded project with the stated goal of reducing colony losses. The program is a collaboration of research institutions, Universities and beekeepers in the US. It is now time for your active participation! BIP and the nation s beekeepers, cooperatively seek solutions to reduce colony losses. While some beekeepers are experiencing near normal loss levels, others

5 are experiencing devastating losses. BIP seeks a collective approach to gather and share information on what works and what doesn t work. We need your participation on two annual electronic surveys, covering both annual colony losses and management strategies. The information, after coming directly from beekeepers, is then analyzed and displayed graphically in a way that is easy to understand. Beekeepers can find out which management techniques correlate to lower colony loss when beekeepers anonymously share data. More data is always more accurate than less data. Last year s survey included over 5,000 participating beekeepers sharing information. As the third year of these surveys approaches, the goal of the partnership is to increase participation and report it so it is more significant and meaningful to beekeepers. This third year of data will enable us to conduct multi-factorial analysis and report results on a more regional basis; especially in states with large participation. Commercial beekeeper data will be separated to highlight this group s special needs and concerns. The cost for participating is free. It will take less than 20 minutes to take both surveys. In return, you will have access to the compiled data from all aspects of bee management. The information you enter into the survey is completely anonymous deigned to improve everyone s beekeeping success. Go to Beeinformed.org to see what we have gathered so far and sign up for this year s survey. More Beekeeper participation means more information and more answers. We want you to BEE INFORMED. The surveys will be available beginning March 29th and will stay open until April 15th. For more information, to sign up to participate or to fill out a survey on March 29th, visit beeinformed.org or Karen Rennich, BIP Project Manager at usbeesurvey@gmail.com This is a very worthwhile project and I encourage all beekeepers to participate!

6 FAQ S Please note: Correspondence submitted to the newsletter (or subsequent publications) becomes the property of the State Apiarist. We reserve the right to print or not print any correspondence and it may be edited for length and/or clarity. It may be published or republished in any format or medium and/or licensed to others for publication. If we publish your correspondence, we may attribute it to you and may include your name and city, unless you expressly request that you remain anonymous. Submit your questions to; sean.burgess@ky.gov I have been receiving a lot of calls recently regarding colony loss. I believe a lot of this is due to the freeze thaw cycle we have been experiencing this spring. When the bees fly on warmer days they are cleansing and foraging. These are the bees we see, but there is also a lot of activity that is occurring within the hive. Nectar is being received and stored, pollen is being packed into cells, small amounts of brood is being cared for, honey is being uncapped and consumed, the cell cleaners and undertakers are busy and the queen is beginning to lay more eggs. When the temperatures drop at sundown the bees recluster, but the clusters they form are loose and bees may be caught out away from the cluster. In addition the brood may not be covered adequately. Compound this with any queen problems or high mite loads and this can be a recipe for colony loss. Q- I think I have AFB (American foul brood) in my hive. I will attach some photos of the bottom brood chamber. I have removed it from my hive as it is empty except for the dead bees and larvae. There is honey at each of the side frames but the center frames are dark brown and there is one frame with the possible AFB. I opened some of the chambers and pulled out the fully developed bee, shown in one of the pictures. From what I can read from the descriptions I am guessing at my diagnosis. The bees in the chambers are fully developed, they are moist and there are small holes in the cap.

7 The bees are all in the upper, now only box on the hive. The queen is present and the bees are on 4 frames. There is plenty of honey in the brood box. I checked and saw no evidence of mites, but I did have some SHB last season but saw none when I looked yesterday. I have installed a screened bottom board with a SHB trap. Hopefully you can let me know if it is AFB. If it is, the book says that the hive has to be destroyed. Let me know. A- As always, it is very hard to come up with a positive diagnosis from pictures. Judging by what I see, I am guessing that what I am looking at is chilled brood, which will present similarly to AFB with perforated caps. A good field test would be to stir a cell with a toothpick containing melted larvae, (for lack of a better word) and slowly withdraw the toothpick. If the melted larvae rope out it is probably a positive and should be sent in for analysis.

8 When the larvae in an AFB infected hive succumb to the disease they go into a septicemia like state. When this larvae dries and hardens it is called scale and will be settled on the bottom of the cell. This scale is very hard to remove. Do you notice any sour or fishy smell to the comb? Are the open larvae in this hive a pearly white in color? If darkened this can be another indicator. If you require a positive analysis you should remove a section of the comb with infected cells and double bag them in Zip-Loc freezer bags and send them to; Thomas C. Webster Associate Professor and Extension Specialist College of Agriculture, Food Science and Sustainable Systems Atwood Research Facility 400 E. Main St. Kentucky State University Frankfort, KY Speaking Schedule 4/2/13-7:00 PM Northern Kentucky Beekeeping Association 237 & Hwy s 18 Burlington, KY Disease Prevention and green controls 4/8/13-6:30 PM Pennyrile Beekeeping Association Christian County Extension Office Treatment free & recognizing disease 4/22/13-11:00 AM Earth Day Events- Louisville, KY Package Bee installations and talks me for more information

9 Contact Information; Sean Burgess Kentucky State Apiarist 100 Fair Oaks Ln Suite 252 Frankfort, KY Phone: Mobile: Fax: Thank You and happy beekeeping! A-

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