Beekeeping How to — Home Sweet Bees

These yellow flying insects in the ground are yellow jacket wasps, not honey bees. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Bees or Wasps

The calls start coming in early August. There are bees flying out of a hole in the ground. They are repeatedly stinging people. Please come get the honey bees.

I even stopped someone at a local Pollinator Festival telling attendees that they had roped off an area because “bees were nesting in the ground.”

First, honey bees don’t nest in the ground.

Secondly, this time of year I can assure you if it’s in the ground these are honey bee cousins, yellow jacket wasps. Yellow jackets repeatedly sting; are usually defensive this time of year and no, they can’t be moved.

If the yellow jacket nest is not in a high traffic area, mark it off and wait for the first hard frost. The frost will kill the colony males except for the fertile females. The females will winter over to be come next year’s queens.

Even though many people don’t like wasps, they are pollinators and have a role in our ecosystems.

How to Remove Yellow Jackets

However, if they are in the way of a high traffic area that can’t be diverted, get a piece of old door screen. At dusk, place the screen over the hole and secure it with rocks or bricks. Pour hot water down the hole; the hot water will kill off the colony in the ground.

Wait until morning to remove the screen. If any wasps have survived, they will be at the screen waiting to get out.

No need to use pesticides.

Several friends have followed these instructions and told me later it worked better than any insecticide they had previously tried. I have also used this on several sites so I know it works.

Although I would rather not kill them, I understand there are times when they can be in inconvenient spots.

And yes, technically they may be related to bees but honey bees sting once, then die. And as I said in the beginning, they don’t nest in the ground.

Charlotte

Supplemental Bee Feeding

During my second winter of beekeeping, I lost a colony to starvation and vowed then and there if I could do anything to prevent that from happening again, I would.

Since then, leading beekeeping scientists like Jerry Hayes have insisted there is nothing wrong with feeding bees. After all, we would not let Fido die from lack of food so why would we do that to our honeybees?

The experience changed the way I manage my extra honey supplies. Instead of harvesting in fall, I pull frames during the year and use them in fall to make sure all of my colonies have at least one full honey super going into winter. My two largest colonies get two honey suppers.

When spring arrives and they are bringing in nectar and pollen, I remove those remaining supers and extract, that way I can ensure my bees have enough honey to get them through winter,

This year, a couple of my hives were short of honey stores so I supplemented with the saved honey. Then on a whim I checked one of my larger colonies without breaking the propolis seals and found there wasn’t one drop of honey left. Out came the totes with honey frames and an 8-frame honey super was added as the third box.

As insurance, I also added homemade sugar cakes and small 1x1 inch winter pollen patties which are mostly carbs and little protein. Our mid-Missouri weather is fickle, fluctuating from record lows to sunny, balmy days. The fluctuating weather conditions means my bees are consuming honey and out flying on the warm days, consuming more of their honey stores than if they were clustered inside their hives staying warm.

The homemade sugar cakes are easy to make. I use bread pans when they are available and recycled fruit clam shells when I am making extras. I knew I needed more sugar cakes for the honey-less colony so I used my bread pans and allowed the sugar cakes to dry for a day before putting them in the hive.

Charlotte’s Winter Sugar Cakes

5 lbs or 11 1/4 cups sugar
7 1/2 ounces of water (make sure it's exact)
1 teaspoon white distilled vinegar (don't use apple cider vinegar, attracts small hive beetles)
1 tsp Honey Bee Healthy
(no pollen needed going into winter)

For January-Feb, I will add
1/4 cup Bee Pro protein to each batch

Add Honey Bee Healthy and vinegar to measuring cup; then add water to 7 1/2 ounces. Mix well. Spread in bread pans and re-used fruit clam shells. (We have clam shells for free at club meetings)
One batch fills six rectangular fruit clam shells.

Leave overnight in cold oven to dry out. Once top is dry, remove and turn over on a cookie sheet to let the bottom dry out for a couple of days.

If you end up with still moist patties, re-mix and add a little more sugar, then dry again.

If you don't need to use immediately, store in sealed plastic container.

Sugar patties help absorb hive moisture during winter and can also provide supplemental food at the end of winter season when bees may be running out.

If sugar patties become dry and brittle in feeding shim, spray with water to soften the sugar mixture so bees can get to it.

No need to add lemongrass oil. Lemongrass oil will attract bees to the top when they should be in the cluster.

Homemade sugar cakes on a cookie sheet ready for installing. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Each hive is wrapped in a quilted black plastic to help insulate them from the winds out of the south.

It’s always interesting to see where the bees are when I remove the telescoping lid. Each hive now has a solid inner cover with a hole in the middle that gives a hint of what I will find when I lift the inner cover. Our temperature today was 50F so it was a good day to add the sugar cakes without getting my bees cold.

(Bee hive solid inner cover helps keep bees dry. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

In addition to supplemental feeding, sugar cakes serve a second function, absorbing hive moisture. Bees in a cluster generate a lot of heat which can turn into condensation that then gets them wet. Too much moisture in a hive kills bees faster than cold temperatures.

The warmer weather today meant more bees were hanging out in the top feeding shim where I place the sugar cakes and winter protein patties for a supplemental food source. It reminds me of a bee bar!

The inside of a bee hive where sugar cakes help keep it dry. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

This is another colony I checked today. They were given a smaller sugar cake more to provide moisture control.

This smaller colony has sugar cakes and winter pollen patty. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

This last hive was the original colony that consumed all of their honey earlier this fall. This is the top feeding shim before I added the sugar cakes for supplemental food on top of their brand new super full of honey stores.

The forecast for tomorrow is for snow and possibly ice so good thing we are all fed and tucked in!

Charlotte