Is your brood area crowded? Have you heard the term “honey bound?” It means your hive has lots of stores there! When there is too much the queen can have very few places to lay. Sometimes we need to make space for the queen. What you want to see is at least 6 frames of brood and the rest full of resources. If there is no space for the queen to lay, you need to help by taking out honey frames to make room. If you have all mediums you can put them up in the next box. If you have deeps you can freeze the frame to give back later or give it to another hive that needs it. Replace with drawn comb. Honey bound is specifically when you have 2 brood boxes and the bottom one has a honey arch on all the frames. That can prevent the queen from laying. She will not usually cross the honey barrier to lay in the box above. The easiest way to correct that is to remove a resource frame at the side and move the frames over so you can put a drawn frame next to the brood nest.
Want to find your queen?? Why? If you see eggs, you don’t need to find her. She was there in the last 3 days. If you need to mark her, move her, etc., make sure you are looking at the brood nest. She is always running away from the light. I always separate the boxes. This keeps her from running from box to box. First scan one side of the frame and then the other. If you don’t see her, go back to the first side and look for her retinue. These are the attendant bees that feed, groom and protect the queen. They also carry away her poop. Such clean girls. They surround her and if you don’t use smoke, you will probably see this. Smoke causes the bees to run on the frame. If that doesn’t work, look for a larger bee with a bald thorax and short wings. She usually goes in a straight path and the workers part for her. Remember she runs from the light so she could run to the underside. Always hold the frame over the box, because the queen easily falls off. I start looking on the left side and scan up and down across to the right in small increments. If you want to mark her, have a paint tool ready. Using a queen catcher is best until you are comfortable catching her with your hands. HINT: practice catching and marking drones!
Blackberry flow is over. Now the normal occurrence of the yearly dearth is here. Time to keep a check on pollen and nectar stores. If your hive is lacking, feed pollen patties and syrup. 1:1 syrup will help store food for winter. The bees may bring in wildflower or knotweed, but they need supplementing. Ivy honey is their last forage, but it crystallizes right away and stinks. Pull it and freeze it to give back in the spring. The bees cannot reconstitute it in the fall, but they can when they can readily fly and get water.
This is the time of year when robbing is the worst. Close down all but the upper entrance on robbing screens. The shim opening at the top is ok. There are usually guard bees there to defend. FYI-Yellow jackets can kill your colony in less than 2 hours. Equalize your colonies to keep them from robbing each other.
Sometimes the bottom boxes are full of resources at the end of summer. If there is no brood you can just reverse boxes. And, since in the spring the bottom box is usually almost empty, don’t forget to reverse again. Reverse in Spring and Fall.
When the resources slow down, the queen takes a quick break and then starts laying Winter bees, who will live for four to six months. You want to make sure your mite treatments are done before this happens, so that the winter bees are healthy enough to get through the winter. That is a lot to keep your eye on. What you do now will keep your hives alive through winter.
Enjoy what is left of summer. Have honey on everything!
KATHY COX
MASTER BEEKEEPER U OF MONTANA
TEXT: 206-465-1464
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