Spring, Season Of Dread

It’s spring, or what I now think of as the season of dread. Oh sure, snowdrops, crocuses and narcissus dot the backyard, and they are lovely. But ask any beekeeper how things are going on the cusp of spring, and you’ll hear a note of caution.The arrival of spring just means it’s time for the chickens of winter to come home to roost. Or something like that. From the time the temperature slips down through the 40s in the late fall until it climbs back up in the spring, it’s hard to tell what, if anything, is going on in a beehive.

Don’t think I didn’t try. I held a glass up against the side of the hive a couple of times to listen for a reassuring buzzing sound that would let me know the girls were in there, holding their own. Didn’t work, heard nothing. Contemplated buying a stethoscope; decided I really needed to seek therapy.

When things go as planned, this is what happens in a beehive in the winter: The bees finish out the blooming season with enough pollen and honey stored to see them through winter. Once the temperature is below 50 degrees or so, honeybees won’t venture out of the hive. The queen stops laying eggs as the days get short and the weather gets cold, but the hive population stays fairly strong, because instead of working themselves to death in six weeks, worker bees hatched in the fall live a relative life of leisure, and can survive four to six months. When spring comes, the queen ramps up the egg-laying, and the surviving workers head out to load up the pantry.

Of course, the key phrase in that scenario is, “when things go as planned.” Beekeepers make plans. Bees laugh. Or, more often, they die. In our area, it’s common for beekeepers to lose 30 percent of their hives.

You may remember that last year both of our hives made it through the winter. Then I killed one when I opened it on a warmish early spring day, fearing the girls were running out of food. My intentions were great—I dropped a nice juicy patty of bee chow into the hive for them. My timing was not good. It was a little too cold, the girls got a chill, and when spring arrived for real a couple of weeks later, we had a box full of dead bees. It was depressing.

This year, I restrained myself and stayed out of the hives, even though we were pretty sure one of them had no chance to make it. That hive, a swarm we captured last summer, was hanging by its tiny little honeybee fingernails going into winter. Set upon by small hive beetles and varroa mites, it was weak and underpopulated. The queen didn’t seem all that committed to the whole egg-laying thing, although that could be a result of the hive beetle/mite situation. We were tempted to merge the weak hive into the stronger one, but were afraid we’d be introducing mites and beetles into that population, which seemed to be keeping things under control. So we left those girls in an insulated hive Patrick built, sent them into winter with a little extra food, and offered it up to the fates.

Last week, weather warm and flowers blooming, my girls poured out of both hives, delighted to get out of the house. Their first order of business was to poop all over my car, which I imagine they do while giggling madly, then they were off to check out the flowers.

Our original hive came through winter in great shape. Every warm day finds a cloud of bees, pollen pockets full, coming and going at the hive door. Unwilling to disrupt them by moving them into an insulated hive last fall, we wrapped that hive in tar paper to give them some protection, then hoped for the best. It was a warm winter, and we got lucky.

The swarm hive isn’t as robust, but a steady stream of workers comes and goes, and my peek inside—on a 60-degree day—found they have plenty of honey stores left over, probably because their insulated home meant they expended less energy to stay warm, so they consumed less food.

A couple of months ago, sure we would be down to one hive by now, we reserved two nucs (a nuc is a mated queen and a few thousand workers) from a beekeeper upstate. And our strong hive is most definitely going to swarm; if we can catch that swarm we’ll have five hives this summer. So now we’re scrambling to put together enough boxes and frames and all the rest of it to house three new colonies, plus the one that wintered over in the insulated hive.

We aren’t sold on the insulated hive as a year-round home. For some reason, the colonies we’ve housed in them don’t seem as productive as their neighbors. Maybe the living is just too easy with the temperature nice and stable, and they don’t feel compelled to stock up.

In any case, those girls are moving into a standard Langstroth. And I’ll be writing a big check to Agway in Riverhead for all the various hive parts we need—and that’s on top of the hundreds we spent on an intriguing new gadget called the Flow Hive™ that we’ll be trying out later in the spring.

If you decide to keep bees because it’s good for the environment, or because they’re such cool and fascinating little bugs, or for some other high-minded reason, go forth with my blessing. It is, and they are. But if you’re doing it for the “free” honey, save yourself a lot of aggravation and just set fire to a big pile of money instead.