1 2015 April May June SC Spring Beekeeping Spring Management Activities begin as soon as we have warm days. The Queen begins laying worker bees and drones. Be Ready! Recent Facebook Post During Package Installation Nectar Flow Starts in April Adding Supers Monitor honey frames Checking for Varroa Mites Arranging for Honey Extraction What are you going to with your honey? Copyright David E. MacFawn 2014; SCBA and SC local associations have permission to use. Each week during the nectar flow, which lasts from April thru the first part of June in most of the state, you should be checking the colony weekly and adding empty supers as necessary. Adding a lot of supers at one time may be necessary if you have an out yard of some distance. However, the bees will tend to store the nectar/honey up the middle of the supers. You will have to rotate the center frames to the outside to get a full super. If you are producing comb honey, you need to be rotating the comb honey super so they will store honey throughout the comb honey super. The comb honey super should be watched carefully to avoid travel stains on the caps and pulled prior to travel stains occurring. When adding empty supers, I typically top super, or just place the empty super with frames on top of the hive stack. It is quicker and easier than removing all the full supers and placing the empty super on top of the feed chamber/super, or bottom supering. You get almost as much honey yield with top supering compared to bottom supering and it is a lot easier and quicker. adding supers
2 You can use a refractometer to determine honey moisture content prior to removing the supers (it should be 18.6% or lower) or, you can use the old rule of thumb that the frame should be about 7/8 capped or higher to extract. The nectar flow usually stops in Lexington around the second week of June. The queen tapers off her egg lying at this time. This is a good time to check for varroa and treat if necessary in most parts of the state. You should also check for Varroa in August / beginning of September and treat if necessary. You should also be checking for other diseases such as American Foulbrood (AFB). Pull a sampling of Drone and Worker brood to detect for Varroa Mites. Tools Needed: Tweezers Copied from Hive Tool
3 In June, after the nectar flow and when the queen minimizes laying, is an excellent time to rotate two center brood combs to the outside of the brood chamber in positions one and ten. The other frames are pushed toward the center. When any remaining brood hatches, the old combs in position one and ten can then be replaced with fresh frames with foundation. One fall back of the timing of this procedure is it is difficult to get the bees to draw out the outside frames in June. An alternative is to move two inside frames to positions one and ten in the late August / early September time frame, replace with frames with foundation in the February / March time frame. This will result in the frames with foundation being drawn out during the nectar flow. Toward the end of June the Sourwood flow starts in the mountains. Hence, supers full from the spring flow should be removed and extracted (quickly to avoid Small Hive Beetle SHB issues) and the empty supers or additional supers placed on the hives. This way if the sourwood produces you will have totally sourwood honey which you can sell for a premium.
4 Toward the end of the spring flow in May, you should examine the hive to determine how many supers of honey you have. A deep frame is about six pounds of honey, a medium frame is about four pounds of honey and a shallow frame is about 2 ½ - three pounds of honey. This is based on ten frames in your super and will vary more if you use spacers in your supers. You can then ensure that you have enough jars or buckets on hand to store the honey. I typically pull my ripe honey supers and extract mid-june. If you wait longer your spring honey may get mixed with the autumn honey. If you only have a couple to a few hives, it is typically cheaper, to pay a friend to extract your honey rather than invest in a lot of extracting equipment. This is especially true if you are a new beekeeper and are just trying out the waters. An extractor and extracting equipment will cost you $500 to $800 range. In Lexington there is a dearth after the spring flow ends around the second week of June through August. Hence, you should typically leave enough honey on your colony to get the bees thru this dearth period and thru the winter if you plan on feeding the bees the honey they produced rather than robbing them down and feeding syrup. You should make sure that at least the feed super, immediately on top of the brood chamber, is left on the hive and is full. You need to be determining what you will do with your honey. You can certainly keep it for yourself and family or you can sell it. A honey exemption can be obtained if no more than four hundred gallons (4800 pounds) of honey are produced annually and said honey is only sold directly to end consumers. Furthermore, labels are required on all containers of honey that are sold in South Carolina and must be in compliance with the Fair Packaging and Labeling Act. Send application and label (s) to: Angie Culler, 123 Ballard Court, Columbia, SC 29172 Email: aculler@scda.sc.gov, Phone: (803) 737-734-7321 West
5 David MacFawn Biography David Elgie MacFawn: He is a North Carolina Master Craftsman Beekeeper, Co-Founded the South Carolina Master Beekeeping Program, awarded South Carolina Beekeeper of the Year, assisted Dr. Fell at Virginia Tech in the Virginia Master Beekeeping Program, Incorporated the South Carolina Beekeepers Association as a 501 C 3 Non Profit Corporation, and published several (over five) articles in the American Bee Journal. David has kept bees in Maryland (Dark German bees), Virginia (Italian), North Carolina (Italian), Colorado (Russian), and South Carolina (Italian and Russian Hybrid). David s Work History: David has a BS in Electrical Engineering and a Masters in Business Administration with concentrations in Finance and Operations Research. David was in the computer business for over 30 years and was a Customer Service director responsible for worldwide support planning, training/education, logistics, call center support, and professional services at Sun Microsystems and a subset of this at NCR. David was also a Federal Systems Product Manager responsible for new DOD system definition and development at Data General. David s Beekeeping Business Endeavors: David is a beekeeping author and has co-authored a practical guide to beekeeping book, "Getting the Best From Your Bees". He also developed, marketed, and supported spreadsheets analyzing financial aspects of the honey and pollination businesses, and beeswax candle production and sales. David and his wife reside in the Columbia, South Carolina, and is an active sideline beekeeper. Copyright David E. MacFawn 2014; SCBA and SC local associations have permission to use. All artwork & graphics was taken with permission from the web or was the personal property of Cynthia Robinson. If you are interested in reprints of this document, please contact dmacfawn@aol.com or rainbowcirclehoneyfarm@gmail.com Cynthia Robinson Bio The Winter Management was edited and graphic layout created by Cynthia Robinson. Known as the Beekeeper On Duty. Cynthia lives in Clover, SC with her husband. She has two grown married sons with three grand children. Cynthia began beekeeping in 2005 with Sally Adams/Mamabeehive as her mentor. Cynthia is a Journeyman Beekeeper and is now holding a SC State office as Secretary and acts as media tech at all SC Conferences. Cynthia also serves as the Web Administrator for SC State Beekeepers Association. Cynthia has published many beekeeping newsletters for local and currently produces the State Association Newsletter.