We've had many pleasant visits to our business over the last few weeks, people buying and picking up hives and supplies and asking lots of beekeeping related question. The phone is ringing off the hook, so if you get a busy signal call back, and if you leave a message, be patient as it may take a day or two for us to get back to everyone.
We continue to be so blessed by meeting more and more wonderful people because of our bee business. Frank Schumacher has travel the farthest, all the way from Germany. Well, I don't think he came over to the US just to see me, but certainly he drove down from Chicago. He's a beekeeper in Germany and we swapped great stories, photos and practices.
We have received many phone calls and E-mails from people who have been attending bee schools and reading materials on beekeeping. This is good. However, many people have been confused over what some bee schools teach and practice that are a bit complicated and confusing. Remember, everyone in beekeeping has an opinion. It doesn't mean it is right or wrong, it just means you must remember that what works for one beekeeper may not work at all for you. He keeps his bees in a beehouse and as soon as he gets back home he'll send me some photos and I'll share them with you.
We are creating web pages with our beekeeping lessons so that they can be more easily accessed and searched, but it is a slow process. And, my wife and I have decided that we will hold our first beekeeping school here on our honey bee farm in October. Students will not only have class instructional time, but time in the field for side by side beekeeping mentoring.
Our family and friends are working very hard to keep up with the hive orders. I will be making my second trip to Liberia, Africa in just 8 days, and will be gone from March 25 through April 5, so if you try to reach me, I will be unavailable. 
However, please place your confidence in speaking to my wife. She is very knowledgeable about beekeeping and can certainly answer your questions. She helps me work the bees, so she knows what she is talking about. In 2005 I led a group of adventurous people from our church into the war torn country of Liberia. Our church started an orphanage in Liberia, and while there, we walked the streets and villages and visited homes sharing the hope and love of Jesus to those who seemed to have lost all hope due to the plight of their country's enormous civil war that killed millions. Please pray for a safe and successful trip for us.
Another important work I must complete before I leave is to be sure all my hives that made it through the winter are well fed and have plenty of space for rapid spring build up. It is a challenge.
This winter, I spent much more time researching what a hive does in the winter, how they manage to survive cold weather and how the cluster behaves. I was very surprised in what I found out. Let me share with you what I have discovered and what conclusions I have drawn based on my research and how this will help you manage your overwintered colonies.
THE QUICK SUMMARY OF WHAT I DISCOVERED:
...that working bees when it is at least 30 degrees Fahrenheit can be successful if done very quickly, within a minute or two.
...that the cluster size is critical to colony survivability.
...that we cannot afford to winter our bees with bees that emerge in August. Bees that emerge in October and November are essential to maintain cluster longevity and endurance into February and March.
...that bees protecting January and February brood will not leave that brood in cold weather and feed on nearby honey. They will die before traveling a few frames over to the food source.
...that bees need pollen patties no later than Feb 1st.
...that it is very effective to place pollen patties and sugar water directly above the winter cluster.
PHOTOS & DETAILS OF WHAT I DISCOVERED DURING THE WINTER OF 2008.
Traditionally, beekeepers are told that as long as the hive has 80 pounds of honey, they'll make it through winters up north. And, that's about all beekeepers have done, left plenty of honey in the hive and maybe wrapped some roofing paper around the hive, and accept the fact that there is always a 20-50% expected loss.
To me, that's a bit lazy. To do so little, and settle for such losses is unacceptable to me. My bees are worth more than that to me, and I don't mean financially, but these are my bees that I have been entrusted to care for. Surely I can do better than this. That's why I put extra time in research and monitoring my hives this winter.
Beekeepers often lose hives that have plenty of honey and they usually guess as to why they died with plenty of food. They will say that maybe the Tracheal mites got 'em or maybe the queen died in the fall or maybe it was just too cold or too wet or they had Nosema. Certainly these are possibilities. However, many winter deadouts are caused from poor management...pilot error that could have easily been avoided.
I believe we should work our colonies as soon as we can. Pollen patties should be placed in our hives no later than February 1st. Pollen patties will stimulate the queen to start laying more, while providing the bees some nutrition. Even when it is cold outside, we can quickly open our hives on the warmest day in January with no wind and slide a pollen patty over the top of the winter cluster. 
See this photo of a winter cluster in one of my hives. This is the top of the cluster in the second deep hive body. Then, I simply slide in a pollen patty and let it sit on the top of the frames right above the cluster. I turn my inner cover up-side-down so that the wooden rail is down, allowing more of a gap between the frames and the inner cover to accommodate the spacing needed for the patty. I can do that in less than 30 seconds. In this photo I placed an empty deep hive body on top of the second deep, so that I can feed the bees more easily with sugar water in a jar. Then I put my top cover on top of the third deep box.
When placing the patty in the hive, LEAVE THE PAPER ON!! If you take it off, the patty will become too moist and can mold. The bees will remove the paper themselves. I know you don't like eating your cheeseburgers with the wrapping on, but the bees do!
CLUSTER SIZE is crucial for hive survivability and endurance into February and March. The colder it is the larger the cluster needs to be. 
That's why hives die in March. Naturally, the cluster is very small in March, and if there is a severe cold snap, a very small cluster cannot stay warm. This cluster is probably not going to make it. They are too small because the queen stopped laying early, probably in August or September and the bees simply died of old age reducing the number in the cluster. We must work our hives in the fall so that the queen continues to lay into October and November. Again, the easiest way to do this is to feed the hives pollen patties and 1:1 sugar water.
Then, people will ask, "But a larger cluster means they will consume more food and possibly starve". Again, what good is it to have a small cluster and 80 pounds of honey and the small cluster dies and the honey is not consumed at all? Take a large cluster of younger bees into winter and if they consume their 80 pounds of honey be February 1, it doesn't matter because you can beginning feeding them pollen patties and sugar water. They'll stay warm with plenty of food. Remember, the cluster generates the heat.
PROTECT THE BROOD OR MOVE OVER TO A FRAME FULL OF HONEY?
Here is a picture of a dead hive that was doing well in early February but died after a very cold snap in late February. They still had 50 pounds of honey three frames over. The queen started laying in late January or early February, as you can see the winter brood in the lower left hand corner of the frame, but the cluster was too small. As a result, the small cluster made one last ditch effort to keep the brood warm, yet were unable to move vertically over to the frames with honey. If they had, they would have become paralyzed by the cold and died away from the cluster and the brood would have died as well. They froze and starved with 50 pounds of honey five inches away. So typical. Had I moved the honey over next to the frame with brood on it, they would have made it fine.
For example, this is what i did on on another hive. In this picture you can see how I placed a super of honey on top of the top deep hive body containing the winter cluster. You can click on the image for a larger image. Since heat rises, the top of the cluster was able to move up a bit into the super with honey temporarily to eat.
This is why beekeepers must work their hives in February. Frames of honey must be slightly scratched open and moved over next to the cluster.
DO NOT disturb the cluster, but move the frames of honey either right beside the cluster or directly above it. I placed this pollen patty on Feb. 1 and in 23 days they had consumed half of the patty.
Another effective way to help the bees along is to give them sugar water, 1:1 ratio. This is a bit more tricky, because water will freeze during the winter. I found one method that works great for me. I place sugar water in a ziploc sandwich bag and poke three holes in the top of the bag with a needle or a pen. I don't want the water to drip out, but just make a very small pool on top of the bag. As the bees move onto the bag, more sugar water comes out. 
And above the cluster area, it will not freeze. In one month they emptied this bag. I know you'll ask what that strip is between the bag and pollen patty so I'll tell you. It was a larger piece of comb that had honey in it. I removed it from another super and just laid it on top. On the pollen patty you can see where they have eaten the pollen beneath the paper.
FEEDING BEES IN THE SPRING...
Once we begin feeding our bees pollen patties and sugar water, it is best to continue until natural pollen and nectar is available. If we stop feeding, then the queen would have laid lots of eggs, but there would be no sources of pollen and nectar to raise her young. You've fooled her in the worst way. She's a good momma. She will not have kids unless she knows the colony can feed them. If you tell her you'll do the providing until spring comes, then keep your commitment to her and her daughters. Once nature starts producing nectar and pollen you can discontinue feeding both sugar water and nectar on over wintered colonies. However, in newly installed packages you must continue feeding sugar water, 1:1 for as long as they still have comb to draw out. They turn sugar water into wax for the building of their comb. But on over wintered colonies, their comb is already built out from last year. This is why second year hives produce more honey. Incoming nectar can be stored, not converted to wax.
That's enough for today...In our next lesson I'll give you more tips on what to do with your over wintered hives as spring approaches.
A customer in Texas sent us photos of the hives he bought from us. They look great don't they! If you'd like to email us a photo of your hives in action, in your yard, we'd love to put them on our web site.
Please keep our contact information close at hand. If you have questions or would like to order hives, bees or beekeeping supplies, give us a call: 217-427-2678. If you'd like to order directly online, go to: www.honeybeesonline.com
Email us at: david@honeybeesonline.com
Remember, BEE-Have Yourself!
David & Sheri Burns
Long Lane Honey Bee Farms
Hi, I'm David Burns, and thank you for joining me today for lesson sixteen of our online beekeeping lessons. Our family loves the bee business. My wife, Sheri, handles some of the administration details, produces parts for our frames and hives and oversees our honey bottling process. Our children all work in various areas of the operation too. It's a blast! My father-in-law, Bill Henness is retired and helps keeps our operation going smoothly too, by volunteering his time working the bees, building hives, building our bee-vacs and selling honey.
I've had a busy beekeeping week. Saturday I attended the Illinois State Beekeepers Association in Springfield, Illinois. A few days prior to that, on Thursday, I visited with Gene Killion. Anyone who has been in beekeeping for a while knows the name of Carl and Gene Killion. He holds the world record for the most comb honey produced from a single hive. In the glory days of his work, he had over 1,000 hives with 8 supers on each hive! The Killion family was recently featured in the American Bee Journal. The Killion's have had remarkable success in beekeeping!
While visiting with Gene, he showed me around his place where they processed comb honey and prepared their supers for the next year. Not only that, but he gave me one of his famous 8 frame comb honey supers that he and his dad made and used.
Lots of our customers request comb honey. Some customers are convinced that comb honey helps their arthritis, citing the Bible verse that says, "Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones" (Proverbs 16:24). So this Spring, we are gearing up now to produce much more comb honey, which is almost a lost and dying art among beekeepers. It's not easy to do, and some have concluded it is not worth the bother. Liquid honey sells just fine, so many beekeepers no longer produce comb honey.
When I talk to other beekeepers, they too tell me that more and more people are turning to pure, raw honey including honey comb. We find it impossible to produce enough honey to keep up with the demand from our customers. Our comb honey sells out within a few weeks after we harvest it, and our honey sells out in the fall. So, we are constantly considering how to produce more honey.
It is a great joy to any beekeeper to place frames full of honey into the extractor and watch the honey start flowing out. Take a look at the video below and you'll hear our excitement!
Honey bees produce honey and in a good year, they produce lots of it, more than they will need, so the beekeeper can remove the excess. This is why most of us keep bees--for the honey. Although, truth be told, we just love keeping bees!
Let me share with you, two things: First, how to manage a new hive to produce the most honey, and secondly, how to manage established hives to produce the most honey. Also, let me say that sometimes, even after all the right management techniques are followed, bees are insects, and might disappoint you in doing something contrary to what you want them to do. However, bee management is effective for the most part.
HOW TO PRODUCE THE MOST HONEY FROM A NEW HIVE
If you are starting with a package of bees, then you should be happy if the bees only produce enough honey for themselves. This is good and par for the course. However, I always work my packages to produce honey for me my first year, and most do. My success comes from placing my packaged hives on drawn comb. In my opinion drawn comb is the beekeeper's third best friend! The hive tool is first, and a bee-vac is second.
Obviously, a new package or nuc will have to build up their hive. This means they will need to produce a huge amount of new comb on the frames. They need ample amounts of comb for the queen to lay eggs and for the workers to store nectar and pollen. Comb building requires a huge amount of consumed nectar. The bees need a large amount of incoming nectar for their glands to produce wax. In fact, it takes 8 pounds of nectar for the bees to produce 1 pound of wax.
Not only must they produce a significant amount of wax to build their new hive, they also need to increase their population. Typically a package contains 3 pounds of bees, which is roughly estimated to be about 10,000 bees. An established hive will usually have between 40,000-80,000 bees. The difficulty with packages and nucs is that before they develop a large number of foraging bees, some key nectar flows may have come and gone. This is why it can be difficult for a new hive to produce extra honey. They are using the incoming nectar to build comb and feed their growing population and they do not have enough bees of foraging age to get the job done.
To accelerate a package hive, drawn foundation is a huge push. Less wax production is needed and more nectar can be immediately stored. However, rarely does a beginning beekeeper have access to drawn comb. And special care must be taken to ensure that drawn comb is free of any disease, especially American Foul Brood. AFB spores can live in comb for more than 50 years. So, just because a retiring beekeeper gave you all of his equipment, including drawn comb, doesn't mean that you've got usable draw comb. If you have access to clean drawn comb, this is one way to help your package produce honey their first year.
Another way to produce honey from a new hive is to capture swarms and add the bees to the hive. Again, you must be sure that the bees you are adding are free of pests and disease. You will need to lay down newspaper between the two groups so that they can become familiar with one another and not fight. Many beekeepers capture swarms for the single purpose of using them to draw comb. Then, the drawn comb is placed into new hives. Swarms are geared to build comb.
If drawn comb isn't an option, and no one calls you to remove a swarm, what else can be done on a first year hive to produce excess honey to be taken off? Crowd! This is the opposite of what most people will tell you, because crowded and congested hives are more likely to swarm. And, if you are not an experienced beekeeper, purposely crowding a hive can backfire. In the Spring of 2006 I took a brand new 3 pound package of bees and installed them into a 10 frame deep hive body. Accidentally, I failed to monitor the hive as often as I should have--about every two weeks. A month later, I noticed some unusual signs that the hive was crowded, so I inspected. When I did, I noticed that all 10 frames were completely pulled out and excess comb was being built on the top of the inner cover, which is always a sign that you've waited too long. However, in my case, this seemed to work to my advantage. I placed a second deep with foundation on at this time, and it too was drawn out in record time, as if the bees were desperate for the extra space. I waited until the second deep was as packed as the first, then I started placing on supers. They began filling up supers.
Traditionally, and rightfully so, we are told to place the second deep on when about 5-7 frames are drawn out on the first deep. This does prevent overcrowding and swarming. Yet, I have found that if I can keep the hive VERY TIGHT, the bees seem to expand faster and work more productively. I'm not sure why. I suspect that since bees are social, that they are more efficient in tighter quarters. Perhaps the queen's presence and pheromone is more saturable. This was not just a one hive deal. As I practiced it this Spring again, I had the same results. Always better production by keeping the first deep hive packed before adding the second.
In doing this, I did have one package swarm on me, so again, there is a thin line between running at full capacity and for the congestion to produce a swarm.
PRODUCING THE MOST HONEY FROM OVERWINTERED HIVES
TIMING! HEALTHY BEES! A GOOD QUEEN! SUPERS!
It takes 40 days from when an egg is laid for that bee to emerge from her cell, serve in her housekeeping role and finally be old enough to fly out and forage for nectar. Just because you have lots of bees does not mean you have lots of foragers. To gather nectar you need to have a full squadron of foraging age bees PRIOR to the nectar flow. Therefore, beekeepers could produce more honey if they simply counted 40 days backward from when the nectar flow starts, and begin to prepare ahead of time for that flow. Most beekeepers do very little to prepare for the flow other than make sure their bees are alive.
Here in Central Illinois, weather permitting, I usually have a nectar flow as early as May 10th. This means that for me to take advantage of this early flow, I must have a huge number of foragers, 19 days or older, ready to fly out and bring in that flow. Therefore, I need lots of eggs to be laid before April 1st. This means that I need my queens to lay heavily in March. My challenge is that March is still a cold month for me, and my bees are still mostly clustering over very little brood that is being laid. The older workers decide how much the queen should be fed to stimulate her to lay eggs. If these older workers do not see enough nectar or pollen in the hive they hold the queen back from laying.
During the month of February, I will do two things. First, I place pollen patties just above the cluster, usually on the inner cover since the cluster is up high coming out of winter. And I place sugar water just above the cluster as well, one part water, one part sugar. These two food sources are just enough to prove to the older workers that a steady flow of nectar and pollen are available, so that they will stimulate the queen into laying more than she normally would at this time of the year. This helps the hive overall as well, because most hives that starve do so in February and March. The idea is to expand the population of nurse bees so that more eggs can be laid and cared for than what is normally found this time of the year, thus increasing the amount of foragers prior to May 10th.
This is a "common sense" technique. Farmers know when their crops will need harvested, and they prepare in advance to have all of their equipment and workers ready. Beekeepers do this very poorly. Beekeepers must prepare their workers (the foragers) to bring in the harvest! A terrible mistake beekeepers make is that they do not monitor the various ages of their bees. They view all of their bees as foragers. But they are not. Only one fifth of the bees in an entire hive are at foraging age.
You must also make sure your bees are healthy. They need nutrition. They need fattened up so they can remain strong and fight off various diseases. Mite control is essential in keeping healthy bees. The healthier the hive, the better the honey production.
Having a good queen is important as well. It is optimal to replace your queen every couple of years. You certainly don't have to, and often the hive will replace a faltering queen. However, for maximum honey production, you should replace your queen in September. Then, by the time you start stimulating the hive in February with sugar water and pollen patties, this new, young queen can really begin laying. You must see your honey production season as starting in September!
Finally, you need lots of supers! Research has shown that bees with plenty of supers on the hive at one time do better than supering a hive as needed. I always have at least 3 medium supers on all my hives prior to the nectar flow. If some of those supers have been saved from the previous year and have drawn comb, then you're that much closer to an excellent honey producing year.
One final note on honey production. Monitor the location of the queen. Keep the queen down. She moves up as she lays. Therefore, you may have to reverse your brood bodies many times in the Spring. However, be careful while it is still cold in the Spring not to divide the brood nest when rotating the bottom two deeps. But, they will need rotated. Get her down, so that she will see plenty of open cells to lay in. This will help prevent swarming as well.
In our next lesson, my wife Sheri will be sharing about selling honey. I can't wait for her to share her ideas with you. I'll see if I can have her share about the other products she makes from the hive too, such as soaps, candles, lip balm and more.
Be sure to get all of your equipment ready before Spring, and check out our website and our ebay store and auctions for great pricing on beekeeping equipment. You'll see links to our sites on the right hand side of this blog.
See you next time and BEE-Have yourself!
David & Sheri Burns
