A year in the life of a colony is compacted into a few months of work all governed by the queen. Without her the hive would be empty within a few short months. She will spend almost all of her life inside the hive only leaving for a few days shortly after she hatches to mate. During her egg laying months she will lay a staggering total amount of eggs, in a single day she could lay up to about 2000 eggs. A queens life span is 2-3 years compared to a normal honey bee who may only live for about 3 months during the summer months when out working every day, but this increases over the winter time to 3-4 months when they stay in the hive to keep warm.
This is only a rough guide, as it depends on the climate, plants and the weather in your local area.
Month
Beekeeper
The Hive
January
Check the hive entrance is free of snow or other objects.
+4'C or below the colony will be in a ball shape cluster to keep warm.
February
Check equipment and the structure of the hive to see if any parts may need to be replaced for the up coming season.
The queen will start to lay a few eggs to raise as workers for the early part of the season. The colony will still be in a cluster.
March
Wait for a fine day (10'C +) to quickly check the colony has enough stores as the colony size increases. Feed Fondant or 1:1 if they are low.
The queen will increase her rate of laying, the colony size will increase quickly.
April
Be aware of the local flowers around, as they will begin to produce nectar. Replace any winter damaged hive parts. Full inspection and add a queen excluder and super if required. Monitor the colony strength if they are covering 7+ frames add a super. Watch for signs of swarming.
The queens rate of laying will be increasing expanding the colony size very quickly now.
May
Pollen and nectar collection will be up, check the super for space and add another super if required. If you are near Oil Seed Rape remove any capped frames and extract it. Check for queen cells, amount of stores and full inspections weekly.
The queens rate of laying will be at its maximum. Queen cells will be made and the colony will be building up getting ready to swarm.
June
Check the bee stores to make sure they have enough to keep them going, continue with weekly inspections for queen cells and either split the colony or take another swarm prevention action.
The queens rate of laying will still be at peak levels. Queen cell production is common and a good chance the colony may try and swarm.
July
This is generally a good month for nectar, so a beekeeper may need to add more supers, continue with weekly inspections for queen cells and either split the colony if they haven't already or take another swarm prevention action if required.
The colony will be at its peak size for the season and its still possible they could swarm.
August
Consider if the queen needs to be replaced ready for next season, reduce the entrance size. Prepare for Autumn feeding and treatment.
The queen rate of laying and the colony size will begin to decrease, as there is sharp fall in nectar amounts.
September
Remove the excess capped honey and start feeding towards the end of the month, followed by 2 rounds of treatments.
The drones will be kicked out and the colony size will begin to shrink quickly.
October
Put on the mouse guard and secure the hive for winter.
The colony should be preparing for the winter. Very little activity.
November
The beekeepers season is over.
The bees will cluster into a ball to keep warm.
December
Enjoy the festive season with a little honey mead at the winter meetings with your association.
The bees will cluster into a ball to keep warm.
Inspections Every month a beekeeper will visit his/her hive to check all is well, but from April to July/August the beekeeper will make weekly inspections to gauge the colonies health, colony numbers, bee stores and later on honey amounts. But most importantly one part of the weekly inspection is swarm prevention, although this is a natural event for the bees not all keepers want their colonies to split part way through the season as this will effect the rest of the year if they want a high yield of honey.
As swarming is a natural process for the bees the keeper can take measures to prevent or decide when to split the colony. A good time to split one colony is when a keeper finds queen cells being made on one or more frames during an inspection and hopefully this will give each new colony enough time to build up before the main flow of nectar starts.
A basic inspection
External
Read your previous hive inspection notes
Monitor the bees coming and going through the entrance - Checking to see if some are carrying pollen
Check the ground in front of the hive for dead bees or any crawling upwards looking ill
Check the hive and stand for any signs of damage or wear and tear - Various animals may damage the hive (Woodpeckers - Mice)
Check the varroa tray for varroa or any other signs of other problems
Once this is done the next part is critical to get right so it is worth taking a few extra moments to think before deciding what to do as many novice beekeepers (myself included this year) get this part wrong and will cause more harm than good to their colony.
Starting from one side of the hive, lift out one frame at a time from the brood chamber inspect it and replace it so not to chill any eggs or sealed brood on it.
Not listed in any set order but check for all the following:
Internal
Check the supers - (If any) to see if you need to add one - Beekeepers should always make sure their bees have enough space to store nectar
The queen - Some times you wont find her but thats fine, provided there are eggs and they are still stood upright
Eggs - If some eggs are still upright you know the queen was laying within the last couple of days
Larvae, unsealed and sealed across the frames
Drone brood cells - Although the male bee does very little they are important to every colony
Egg laying pattern - Is it patchy or is there excessive drone brood - Points to a problem with the queen
Pollen - This is food for the bees, and affects the queens egg laying rate
Honey/Nectar - The honey arc across the top of the middle frames and covering the outer frames
Queen cells or supersedure cells - Complete your inspection before removing them just in case you don't find the queen and or eggs
Frame and Comb condition - Age, colour or damage
Signs of diseases - Foul brood, chalk brood, deformed bees, nosema are few of the possible problems
Medications - If used, check what further course of action is required (not used during honey production)
Then take a few moments to consider what needs to be done and only then take the required action before closing the hive up again. At this point it is good practice to fill in a hive inspection sheet or make notes ready for the next time you need to visit your hive.
Below is a close up picture of part of a frame. Click the picture to see it in more detail.
Yellow - Sealed brood (when they emerge they will be workers - female) Green - Larvae (if you look very closely you will see they are different sizes) when they are the right age the cell will be capped over (sealed brood) until they are ready to emerge Blue - Eggs - All these eggs are at least 2 days old and they are laying flat on the bottom of the cell Red - Pollen - different colours from different flowers or trees
The Hive
There are a few types of hives of slightly different shapes and sizes but for the most part they all contain the same parts.
Starting from the bottom up
The Floor The floor is a vital piece of the hive, some beekeepers will have a solid floor to keep frost out others will have an open wire mesh floor to help remove the unwanted verroa from the hive and give good ventilation during the summer months, the wire mesh is large enough to allow the verroa parasite to fall through to the ground below, but too fine to allow bees or other unwanted creatures or insects in. An entrance block is fitted to reduce access to the hive during the winter time to help keep the warmth in and unwanted visitors out, during the spring and summer it is removed.
The Brood Box The brood box is the largest part of the hive, this is where the queen lives all year round and she will lay her eggs, the bees will also store pollen, nectar and honey for themselves. The beekeepers will never take the honey from this box as the frames are purely for the bees to feed themselves.
The Queen Excluder This is a thin sheet of steel or plastic with slots or holes in it. The holes are big enough to allow a bee through but too small to allow the slightly larger queen through. So the frames kept above the excluder and queen can be filled with honey which the beekeeper can remove when they are full with out any eggs in it.
The Super The super is the box of frames for the bees to store their excess honey which the beekeeper can remove when its capped over and ready to be extracted. If the weather has been good and there is a lot of nectar to be collected some beekeepers may stack 2,3 or even 4 supers full of frames on top of the brood box and queen excluder. Although as a general rule one or two is normal and these will be swapped out when full and replaced with another super with fresh frames. The queen excluder and supers are removed after the bees stop making honey to reduce the hive space to just the brood box to help the bees keep warm.
The Roof Some hives have plain felt covered roof others a steel sheet covered roof, but generally they are a good weight to stop them being blown off in strong winds and to trap the warmth in the brood box for winter time.
Frames & Foundation The frames are the wooden rectangles which hold the thin sheets of foundation which the bees pull outwards to create the tiny hexagon shaped cells made of bees wax. The cells are used to raise the eggs into larva and then finally bees, they are also used to store pollen, nectar and honey. The frame size depends on the over all size of the brood chamber and also the supers, the brood frames being x2, x3 or even x4 larger than the super frames. Supers are kept small due to the weight when full of honey and smaller frames are easier to spin to remove the honey once the cap over each cell is removed.
8 grams thymol crystals 12 grams of any type of oil - sunflower, rape, olive etc. Multiply these measurements to make more.
Process Gently warm the oil with the crystals in it using an old pan outdoors until all the thymol crystals have dissolved then add 20 ml of this mixture to a block of the green absorbent garden oasis. (not the grey one) The oasis block size should be approximately 50mm wide, 90mm long, and 8 mm thick. Place the oasis in a container and pour the mixture in, leave overnight to soak in. To treat a colony cut the block in half and place the two parts on top of the brood frames over the brood area. Reduce the hive entrance to about 50 mm and block off any holes in the crown board and insert a clean varroa tray under the mesh floor. Give a second treatment after two weeks and repeat again after another 2 weeks to ensure every varroa is exposed to the vapour. At the time of the second and third treatments move any remaining blocks of oasis to the outside of the brood nest area. However some colonies may remove the oasis themselves, others don't touch it or just nibble the corners. It makes no difference as it still works really well. Inspect the varroa floor the next day for dead mites. The treatment should be applied during warmish weather, some bee's may gather outside near the entrance for a couple of days others take no notice.
This treatment will not have any ill effects to your bee's or queens additionally it will help to prevent chalk-brood and is much more effective than most other forms of treatment. This was tested on around 5000 hives over a period of time in Spain. An increasing number of bee keepers use this method as their only form of treatment against varroa each year as it is very effective. For Nuc's use half this dose. Do not use when supers are on or during a nectar flow. It can be used on a swarm as soon as queen starts to lay but for best results before brood is sealed. It is recommend when shook swarming to new frames or artificially swarming and times when the colony is brood less Alternative method of application is to fold a tissue into 4 and add a single dose and place it into into a seal-able plastic container add a sheet of grease proof paper and repeat the process until you have as many as you need to treat your colonies.
Thymol Treatment in Syrup
The original recipe is simply 30g of thymol crystals dissolved in 150 of surgical spirit or isopropyl alcohol which will keep indefinitely and you add up to five ml of this per gallon of syrup feed, or if to simply stop fermentation 5ml per 3 gallons. The problem with the above mixture is the oil tends to float on top of the syrup, obviously some of it is in the entire mix, but not in an equal suspension so therefore not being stored in the combs as I would like it and I believe is more effective if emulsified.
Emulsified Thymol pre mix.
30g thymol crystals placed in honey jar, add 5ml of surgical spirit or isopropyl alcohol to the crystals, place jar into a water bath of boiling water to speed up the dissolving process. In another jar pour in 140 ml of boiling water and add 1 teaspoon of lecithin granules and stir well and place this jar into a water bath of boiling water stirring often for about ten minutes or until most of the lecithin granules have dissolved. Strain the mixture through a tea strainer or fine cloth to remove any granules that have not fully dissolved, then simply add the dissolved thymol to this mix and shake well. It will look just like a jar of milk. To use add 5ml to each gallon of syrup and stir well. The syrup will go milky unlike when using the old original mix. Do this outdoors - If the mixture forms any crystals at a later date tip into old small pan and reheat gently and stir until they dissolve. In the past I have on occasion added two teaspoons of the old original mix 10ml per gallon with no ill effects on the bee's at all but 5ml is plenty.
From the author of the article. Last Spring I tested every colony for nosema, I had 20+ colonies with a heavy nosema infection. I started to treat them in the very mild weather in Feb and they all responded really well to treatment. Some of the colonies were later given complete comb changes, but not all. Later in Spring a few more colonies also got nosema that previously tested clear, obviously drinking from the same contaminated water supply that had been crapped over by some of the infected colonies, so every hive in the affected apiary’s were treated.
Last Autumn every full size colony and nuc was fed with thymolated syrup and this Spring I have yet to find any signs of nosema in any colony even the weaker one's and even in the one's that previously had very heavy nosema and had no comb changes. These colonies are in fact boiling over with bee's at the moment and many have had second brood chambers added, some were over wintered on double broods and are incredibly strong, some will be having two nuc's taken from each one very soon. Also as a slight side note I have detected no varroa mites in the vast majority of hives, very very few in some,and no oxalic used at all.
