February 21 Beekeeping Course Open For More!

NEWS ALERT FROM LONG LANE HONEY BEE FARMS...

We have decided to move our beekeeping class on February 21st to a larger
facility and therefore can now have more students.

This class will be on Saturday February 21st and we can now take another 10
students. I welcome the opportunity to spend a Saturday with you, teaching
you what I know about beekeeping.

Your lunch is included and you'll receive a book and class outline as well.

To register or for more information, give us a call: 217-427-2678

David & Sheri Burns
Long Lane Honey Bee Farms

Lesson 47: How Hard Is Winter On Honey Bees

How hard is winter on honey bees and when it gets really cold, can bees die? Is there anything we can do to help our bees survive a harsh winter?

Hi, this is David & Sheri Burns from Long Lane Honey Bee Farms and thank you for joining us today for another basic beekeeping lesson. In today's lesson, I will be addressing winter wrapping of hives, winter moisture in the hive and what we can do to help our bees survive the winter.

Before we get into today's lesson, let me remind everyone to order your beekeeping equipment from us as soon as possible. You need to also place your package bee orders NOW! Order your package bees, queens and nucs from us immediately. If you wait until late winter or early spring, we cannot ensure that we can meet your needs. We'll do our best, but it pays to be ahead of the game! 217-427-2678 is our order line.

LESSON 46: How Hard Is Winter On Honey Bees

Often I've said, "Bees can survive the cold..." and that is true, but I need to define that a bit more. A healthy full size colony, with an adequate supply of honey and a strong queen can survive a hard winter. Last night, here in Central Illinois, our low was nearly 20 degrees below zero! That's right -20 F.

At that temperature, very small clusters can not stay warm, especially since today's high is only 10. Bitterly cold and harsh conditions such as these will weed out your tiny little swarms you were hoping could make it through the winter. They just can't produce the heat they need to survive.

A healthy, larger hive will have no trouble cranking up the heat because they have the numbers to do it. As I taught in my last lesson, winter survival is all about summer healthy hives, strong in number and ample supplies of pollen and stored honey.

Does wrapping help. Certainly when the temperature gets way into the negative numbers, we all wish we would have wrapped our hives. Obviously, the bees do not have to work as hard if they are well insulated. However, as I've said before, this can increase moisture within the hive.

Moisture in the hive is healthy to an extent. In other words, our queens will start laying a small amount of brood now, and they need that area to be high in humidity to keep the developing brood moist. But what we do not want to see is excessive moisture developing on the inner cover or top cover and freezing and becoming stalactites hanging down only to drip on the bees on the next warm day.

While I do not believe wrapping is essential, I do believe we must make great efforts to remove the excessive moisture from within the hive, especially moisture that is the result of condensation at the top of the hive. While I do not tightly wrap my hives, I have started placing wind blocks around the hives. I make a slightly larger box from scrap wood, panelling or black tar paper and slip this over a hive. There is a few inches between the box and the hive. A direct blast of frigid air cannot pound against the hive because it is blocked by the box.

At the entrance, the box fits onto the bottom board so that the bees can still come and go. I do believe that wrapping a hive increases a hive's chances of surviving the winter, but only if extreme measures are taken to rid the hive of excessive moisture. If these measures are not taken, it is my opinion then, it is better not to wrap.

Wrapping without providing a moisture escape means moisture will freeze above the cluster, then melt and drip down and kill the bees. In fact, since it was so cold yesterday, I was able to briefly pop a few tops off some of our typical hives that do not have our special insulated top cover. You can see in the picture how much moisture has collected and froze on the top cover in the picture.

It is hard to see in the picture, but what you are looking at is the inside of a top cover upside down. All of the white substance is tiny stalactites, like frost standing up about 1/4 of an inch above the brood.

In my last lesson, I presented how to make the top cover in order to avoid this kind of moisture build up. To me, I am amazed that beekeepers are keeping bees without taking these measures with the top cover. This is an absolute necessity for all northern beekeepers and the picture to the left shows what happens without an insulated top cover during the winter. We will replace this top cover with one of our insulated top covers before the weather gets above freezing.

Finally, I landed on the perfect monitoring device to help me draw all of these conclusions. I purchased my monitoring device and software from Practical Design Group, LLC
http://practicaldesigngroup.com

They are the producer of the THUM - Temperature Humidity USB Monitor. At the recommendation of the manufacturer I had to protect the sensor with a strip of screen to keep the bees from placing honey on the sensor. Here's a picture of my sensor with the modified screen protector. This device comes complete with the a USB cable and software. We have hives right outside our lab, so it was easy for the USB cable to reach between the hive and the laptop that monitors the hive.

The monitoring software can be set to reflect an on screen graph tracking the humidity, temperature in the hive and the dew point. This device is probably not useful to the average beekeeper who is not conducting experiments unless you just want to have some fun and can let go of $130 bucks.

In the picture below, you can see a screen shot of my the monitoring software at work.

You can email the company for more information if you are interested, but be sure to tell them that I sent you their way.

sales@practicaldesigngroup.com

My wife and I have sat and wondered why beekeepers in the north are not more concerned about moisture/ice above the cluster. Perhaps they don't know and perhaps they believe the hive will not be weakened or killed by this dripping water. Sometimes the cluster can be to one side, and may dodge the dripping water. But there is a high probability that this dripping moisture will seriously weaken or kill a hive during he winter, especially those hives that are already weakened by other factors such as mites, a lack of pollen or honey etc.

Finally, let me address how cold weather can kill a package of bees. Since we advocate that a large, healthy hive can survive the winter, most people assume a small package can survive the cold snaps which are common in the early spring. But this is not true, especially if the package is installed on undrawn comb. The smaller the colony the more difficult it is to stay warm during an extreme cold snap that last for several days. This is why we do not ship packages prior to mid to late April. A 3 lb package of bees equals around 10,000 bees. A healthy hive going into winter runs around 60,000 bees, which is a lot more heat and insulation.

In summary, winter wrap is not essential, but a wind block can help. An insulated top cover, or replacing your inner cover with some sort of insulation sheet will dramatically reduce the moisture build up within the hive. In our last lesson, I gave details on how to make an insulated top cover. If you do wrap, be sure and allow for the reduction of moisture build up.

We'd love to hear from you! We enjoy answering your emails and phone calls. And, if you have a questions, feel free to call us and leave a message for our Studio Bee Live program. That number is: 217-427-2430. We'll answer your question on an upcoming program.

Remember to check our our Internet radio for beekeeping, Studio Bee Live! It's located on the web at: http://www.honeybeesonline.com/studiobeelive.html

Here's our contact information:
David & Sheri Burns

Long Lane Honey Bee Farms

Order line: 217-427-2678

Email: david@honeybeesonline.com

WEBSITE: http://www.honeybeesonline.com/

Until next time, remember to BEE-have yourself!
David & Sheri Burns

The Order Line Opens At 8:00 a.m. Central Time Monday Jan. 5th, 2009

Hello from Long Lane Honey Bee Farms, this is David & Sheri Burns. Now that it is 2009 it seems like the beekeeping season has begun. I know for those of us in the North, it still seems like we have a few months before we can expect our bees to fully break cluster. And yet, now that it is January, this is the right time to start securing your hives and bees to start keeping bees.

Today, our honey bee farm begins taking orders for package bees, nucs and queens. Since the early 1900s, beekeepers have been ordering 3 lb packages with queens for spring delivery through the postal service.

Here's how it works. As soon as package bee suppliers open their lines in early January, beekeepers from around the country clamor to be first in line in fear that unless they place their orders first, suppliers can run out. And it is true, suppliers do have only so many orders they can fill. Every year, those who wait too long find it very difficult to find package bees.

This was the first year that I heard bee suppliers taking order in December and the first year I've heard reports that some are all booked up.

So today, Monday January 5th, at 8:00 a.m. Central Time we begin taking orders. Call us at 217-427-2678. If the line is busy, please wait a few minutes and try again. We are also taking pre-orders for nucs and queens as well.

We've also produced a Studio Bee Live broadcast explaining the cost, shipping and details about ordering your bees and queens.

For many of you, it will be your first time to keep bees. Please review Lesson 7 about installing a package of bees. This will help you prepare for when your bees arrive in he spring.

Please do not make the mistake of ordering your bees and failing to order your hives. Each year, during the busiest time of the bee season, when packages are arriving, some people realize that they failed to order their wooden ware and hive equipment. They try to rush their orders to beat their arriving bees, but at that time of the year, most suppliers are weeks behind, swamped with orders.

So we invite you to please make sure you place your hive orders at the same time you place your package bee orders so that we ensure your hive arrives prior to your bees.

As always we encourage you to start with 2 hives so that you can compare your two hives and share hive resources and equalize your hives if necessary.

Sheri is ready to start taking your calls at: 217-427-2678 at 8:00 a.m. Central time, Monday January 5th, 2009.

We look forward to hearing from you tomorrow! Here are a few points to know:

1) 3 lb package with a marked Italian queen is $75 plus shipping

2) Provide us with your zip code and Sheri will tell you what the shipping cost is. Bees are shipped USPS.

3) If you are in far away shipping zones, we ask you to consider paying a little extra for 2nd day UPS for faster delivery.

4) Zones beyond zone 4 cannot be insured, but we will replace a dead package 1 time at our expenses.

5) We are taking pre-orders for our queens that we raise. The cost is $20 and are shipped 2nd day express mail only.

6) Though we do not have an exact ship date, we are targeting mid to late April or the first week of May at the latest. The weather is a big factor.

7) We also will provide several hundred packages for local pick up and nucs in April from our honey bee farm in Central Illinois.

8) We do not ship nucs. Local pick up only please.

9) We ask for payment to be made upon placing your order. However, we do not cash your check or process your credit card until a few weeks prior to shipping the bees in the spring.

Finally we want to express our appreciation for your business and we are very excited with you on your new adventure into beekeeping. We are here to help you enjoy beekeeping, so feel free to consult us as needed!

Once again, the number to call to place your order on Monday is: 217-427-2678

Our Feb 21st class here at our bee farm is booked up. However, I can squeeze two more in if you really wanted to make this class. Just let Sheri know when you call it.

David & Sheri Burns

Long Lane Honey Bee Farms

217-427-2678

www.honeybeesonline.com