Idaho Honey Bee

When it comes to dealing with light hives in late summer, that statement is what you always hear. “Take your losses early”. I was contemplating that statement this year, when after all these years, the Eagle yard did not get a fall flow, not a drop. No white burr comb in September like the past.

This yard has never let me down; in fact it made me look like I knew what I was doing on more then one occasion when I made poor choices.

But this time the weather was strange all year. Spring came early, and I got right on things, with syrup applied to the bees by the first part of March, and  with early maple and willow bloom abundant, they seemed to take off just fine. I had 2 year old queens mostly, but lay patterns were good, and mite counts were down.

Then just when the big spring nectar flow started, we got a hard, late frost. They still made plenty of honey this summer, but slowly.  I couldn’t help noticing that it was a low swarm year. None of my hives swarmed, and the local club members collected the smallest amount of swarms ever collected as near as I could tell. When the last honey extraction was finished the end of July, my hives were very light. No big deal I thought to myself. They always are, and then the late flow comes. I treated for mites, gave them pollen patties, and poured the sugar syrup to them as I always have, but the late flow never came. I fed and fed, and they never gained weight, in fact they became lighter in that yard. My other yards gained weigh, not a bunch, but enough to say “maybe they will be ok”, but not the Eagle yard. Last weekend (the end of September) I decided to combine and “take my loses early”. If someone were to ask me what that meant, I would have referred to “assets” as in honey and pollen stored by one hive moved into another stronger hive, excepting that the light one would likely perish anyway. Guess what? August 1st would have been early. In October the bees are testy about being shaken off the combs and testy about being messed with, after all, they want to defend what they have stored no matter how little they have.

I took the easy way out, and stacked the heaviest box from a weak hive onto another stronger one, and news papered them together to minimize fighting. The other box without reserves will indeed perish, but without giving me the stings I would have gotten had I pulled frames and shook off bees in a redistribution of assets like I would have done in August. But then I did not foresee this in August.

It just goes to show that there is always the opportunity to learn, observe, work smarter, and make better choices.

Yes, I will loose some hives this year in addition to the normal losses. That is why I sell some honey every summer, so I can buy more bees, and younger queens when needed, and keep on learning.