This Month in the Bee Yard
July
Whether your bees stayed here or you moved them to the mountains for the sourwood honey flow, you should still be able to remove the surplus honey this month.
Before any honey supers are removed, check the last supers that were added to determine if most of the frames are capped. Some beekeepers recommend that a super not be removed until 80 – 90% of the frames in that super are capped. Others use a guide of 60%. Another check that is used by some beekeepers is to hold the frame horizontally and give it a shake. If nectar or unripe honey falls from the cells during the shake, the moisture content is too high and that honey should not be extracted as it will most likely ferment. Ripe honey (capped honey) will normally have 18.6 (or less) percent moisture. Honey that is extracted with moisture content of more than 18.6% will most likely ferment while in storage.
If the honey flow is still on in your area, you may not want to remove any surplus honey at this time.
As you make plans to remove the surplus honey, check and make sure that you have an extractor, some form of uncapping tank, strainers, a means of filtering the honey, uncapping knife, buckets and maybe even a settling tank. The extracting room and all of the equipment should be ready and clean prior to actually removing the honey. This is because the wax moth larvae will appear on the honeycombs in a few hours after the adult bees have been removed from the supers. So until you are actually ready to start extracting, leave the supers on the hives and let the bees care for the honey.
Once you have started extracting and finished for the day, it is a good idea to return all of the wet-extracting supers to your stronger colonies. A strong colony can be given as many as five supers and, if there is no further nectar coming in, they can clean those supers up in two or three days.
After you have finished extracting and the bees have cleaned the supers, all supers should be protected from the wax moth. One method to kill the wax moths is to seal each super in a garbage bag and place it in a deep freeze for approximately two days. Another method is to stack the supers and treat with PDB – Para dichlorobenzene (Para-Moth crystals). Recent literature, however, is recommending against using PDB because it is causing contamination of the wax in the supers being stored.
All of the equipment should be washed, dried and stored for another year. The best way to clean the bigger items is to take them outside and spray generously with water. If you select a good sunny day, they can be wiped with a damp towel and then dried in the sun in a matter of minutes. They can then be stored, ideally in a plastic bag.
After the cappings have drained for a couple of days they should be washed and again drained. The cappings can then be melted in a solar wax melter, if you have one, or they can be melted in a large pan on an electric stove. If the wax is to be used for candles, Dr. Robert Berthold (1981, Gleanings in Bee Culture) had the following recommendations: "In order to produce a top quality candle that burns cleanly with a minimum of dripping, sputtering, and smoking, it is necessary to make sure the wax is completely free of contaminants such as honey and propolis. A number of things can be done to help achieve this. By using wax rendered from cappings, the propolis problem is reduced. If the cappings are then washed repeatedly with cool water to remove the residual honey, a light colored beeswax will result. After then fine filtering . . . the wax should be boiled in water for 10 to 15 minutes . . . . We have found that no matter how clean the wax appears, only the boiling in water will completely free it of unwanted contaminants."
Four or five years ago it was common practice to treat for mites, according to the calendar, with no regard for the number of mites in a colony. But in recent years it is recommended that you first check the colony to determine if the mite level justifies treatment. Late July or early August is an ideal time, after the honey supers have been removed, to check for these mites.
Check for varroa mites - it is recommended that one or more colonies be checked to determine if you have varroa mites. One simple and easy way, at this time of the year, is to check any brood that is exposed when burr comb is broken as a super or a second hive body is removed. Lift out the pupae and check to see if any varroa mites are present. If no burr comb is broken, locate a patch of drone brood and lift out the pupae and check to see if any varroa mites are present. If any mature varroa mites are present on the white pupae they will stand out because the mites are reddish-brown in color and are about the size of a pinhead. As the frames are being moved in search of drone brood, one may also check for any adult bees that have damaged wings. The severely damaged wings (or those with stubs for wings) were damaged by the varroa mites while the honey bee was a developing larva and pupa.
Though the above two checks may show that a particular colony has varroa mites, neither method can be used to determine if the mite count is sufficiently high to justify treatment. A check that can be used to determine if a colony should be treated is the Sugar Roll Test and that method is given below.
The Powdered Sugar Roll Test for varroa mites: Brush or shake 300 adult bees (approximately 1.5 inches of bees) from the center of the brood nest into a plastic 28 oz. peanut butter jar. The normal lid is partially cut out and a circular section of #8 hardware cloth is glued to the inside of the top. A teaspoon of powdered sugar is placed into the jar through the screened top. Roll the jar around for two or three minutes to distribute the sugar. Allow the jar to sit for a few minutes. Invert the jar and shake over a pan of water. Roll and shake again. The screen retains the bees but lets the sugar and any mites come out where the sugar is dissolved in the water and the mites float and can be easily counted. The advantages of the sugar roll test are that it is simple and the bees are not killed as they are in most of the other tests. If you see more than 10 varroa mites, then you should treat that colony.
Check for tracheal mites: The tracheal mites are too small to be seen with the naked eye but one can identify a colony with a high infestation of tracheal mites by checking on the ground for crawling bees. Crawling bees can be an indication of other diseases but also can be a sign of tracheal mites and/or varroa mites. Examine several of the crawling bees up closely. If the crawling bee has unhooked wings, tracheal mites damaged that bee. If the crawling bee has no wings or only stubs for wings, varroa mites damaged that bee.
For control of varroa mites: Apistan, the trade name for fluvalinate is sold in plastic strip form and is effective against varroa mites. One Apistan strip is recommended for each five or fewer combs of bees per deep brood chamber. Thus two Apistan strips would be required for each deep brood chamber. The Apistan strips should be left in from 42 days minimum to 56 days maximum. Remove all Apistan strips after eight weeks (56 days) or prior to adding supers that are to be used for food. It is a good idea to keep a log on each colony. Log the date the strips were placed in the hive and maybe even a reminder as to when the strips should be removed.
For control of varroa mites (and the small hive beetle): CheckMite is the trade name for coumaphos. Like Apistan, it is sold in plastic strips and is effective against varroa mites. This product should only be used as a last resort – when fluvalinate-resistant mites are present and identified by your local NCDA bee inspector. Coumaphos is a more dangerous chemical than fluvalinate. Coumaphos is a member of the organophosphate group of pesticides and its sale in NC is restricted to those individuals who have a Pest Control License since the product is a restricted use pesticide. CheckMite (coumaphos) is also effective against the small hive beetle but (again) you need to obtain confirmation from your local NCDA bee inspector before you use this pesticide.
For control of tracheal mites: Menthol is the only chemical registered and available for use in a bee colony to control tracheal mites. The normal method is to treat each colony with 50 grams (1.8 oz) of menthol crystals in a screened packet on the top-bars above the brood nest. An alternate method that produces better vaporization, is as follows: Items needed to treat 6 standard hives – 2 each 50 gram (1.8 oz) packets of menthol, 1 level cup of Crisco Vegetable Shortening and 6 to 8 blue shop towels (these are heavy duty shop towels and are available at Advance and Wal-Mart). Use 1 level cup of Crisco, heat the shortening and then add two packets of menthol. (The cup of Crisco weighs approximately 7 oz. and the menthol weighs 3.6 oz., thus the mixture is roughly 2 to 1, oil to menthol). Remove 6 of the blue towels and cut them in two. Roll these 12 half-towels together and place them in the heated oil/menthol mixture. (This combination of oil and menthol usually saturates between 13 and 16 half-towels.) After the towels are completely saturated, place them in a Ziploc heavy-duty freezer bag and seal it up. (A canning quart jar with a good lid can also be used.) They can be held for over a year if placed in a freezer. The treatment involves placing a half-shop towel saturated with oil and menthol directly on top of the brood frames. Menthol vapors can be detected almost immediately from the front of the hive. Ten days later repeat this treatment. It is not necessary to return to the hive and remove the spent towel as the bees chew the towel into small pieces and carry them outside the hive.
For control of tracheal mites: One non-chemical control of tracheal mites is to use a grease patty. A grease patty is made by mixing one part Crisco vegetable shortening with two parts granulated sugar. Use about 4 oz of the mixture and make a pancake size patty for each colony. The patties can be made up ahead of time and, with each patty on a sheet of wax paper, stored in the freezer until needed. To use, place one patty on the top bars directly over the cluster. The grease patty seems to help in tracheal mite control by interfering with the transfer (spread) of mated tracheal mites from their old bee host to a new bee host. kgp