June Field Day 2024

 June Field Day Meeting

Joseph the president called the meeting to begin at 10:05 a.m.

Introductions 

18 people were present. 

The first discussion was about Different ideas to share about foulbrood, mites, and swarms. 

Will shared that he used a double screen board to split his hive. A few brood frames were put on the top box and a screen was put in between the two brood boxes. The design allows the field bees to leave and the nurse bees to stay. This allows the bees to accept the queen quickly and the heat from the bigger hive underneath keeps the smaller nuc warm. Bob Binny has a video on YouTube that does a good job of showing the process. 

James Miller did the demaree method. This method takes a queen from the brood box and puts her into a new bottom box with empty comb. This helped reduce swarms but he had some hives go queenless. He did try the Minnesota Hygienic queens that are the VSH genetics line to help with the varroa mites. These bees have the instinct to smell the varroa mites under the cappings and dig them out and throw them out. This helps decrease the mite load on the colony. Stevens Bee Company is where James Miller got his queens from.  

Joseph asked the newer beekeepers what questions they had. 

One member talked about her experience with a queenless hive. After reintroducing a new queen, the queen looked like she was laying. A week later, the queen was gone. Laying workers are notorious for killing their queens.  There are different sound frequencies that you can hear when you open the hive. Drones and workers have different buzzes which can indicate different things. 

Other beekeepers talked about putting in a frame or 2 frames of different stages of brood into the hive with a laying worker. Different members have said that it works but not always on the first try. The latest to try to requeen a hive is probably July but August is almost too late. One issue with a queenless hive is that they can become mite bombs. Varroa mites love drone cells to reproduce because the drone larvae takes longer to hatch and allows the varroa mites more time to reproduce.

Fall robbing can decimate the hive. Different ways to mitigate it is to use entrance reducers and screened bottom boards. Randy Oliver mentioned that open feeding can help with robbing. Drought can make it worse for the bees because they need to continue to make honey even if the fall flow is not going through. 

To transport a hive, one member made a rig with two 2 by 4s and it does not shift during transport. 

Overwintering is another issue. James Miller stated that he had the best overwintering success. Number 1, make sure that the hive has plenty of food. Number 2 he puts windbreakers from the north and west. He uses 3 inch foam to protect his hives. Joseph Klingelhutz uses insulated tops and roofing paper. 

Other members stated that they did not use upper entrances.  

One question that was asked was about flipping the entrance reducers, James Miller does that and he feels like it does work. Other members use entrance reducers all year round. 

One person mentioned using chloroplast sheets to make bee enclosures. 

One member utilizes bee barns. It helps keep the honeybees more warm and protects from the rain due to the design. One question that was asked was about mold, which was not really a problem but the member experienced issues with condensation with feeding on the underside of the plexiglass.  There were some novel designs with a dome shaped construction to help with the condensation. 

Condensation is a problem with overwintering. But there were two versions that people use to try to combat that, condensing or ventilating. With the ventilating you let the hive have an upper entrance. With the condensing this means that you have no upper entrance and insulate the top. 

One member has had good success with the Tim Wilbanks hives but have struggled with the Saskatraz hives. The Saskatraz queens are expensive and are not very hearty at all. Another member pointed out that the honeybees that the commercial honeybees are Italian. These honeybees have never overwintered in Iowa because they are sent to California for the almond pollination. This is why you should try to buy from a local beekeeper who overwinters his hives in Iowa. Carniolan bees have done a great job of overwintering and many members have echoed that. 

Then the members went outside to the bee yard. Thankfully the rain stopped for a bit. 

Shaun Webb gave a tour of the gardens and his bee yard. He has a 10 frame langstroth hive. Some of the members were reminded not walk in front of the hives unless they had a bee suit. He did show the members his horizontal hive. Shawn also explained his marking system to help remind him what he did. Note taking is valuable but is difficult at times because the hands get sticky. But utilizing waterproof paper can help and Joseph Klingelhutz uses this type of paper under the inner cover. But make sure that the bees do not have access to that paper otherwise they will chew it. 

Under the hives, corrugated metal, rocks, diatomaceous earth, and mulch are some of the ways members have put under the hive to prevent grass from growing underneath.. Diatomaceous earth helps kill the small hive beetles if they drop off from the frames. Shaun keeps his insulation under the inner cover all year round. Shaun opened one of his hives. The hive was thought to be queenless. He almost got rid of it but saw some worker bee cells. The hive was a nuc that had brood and queen cells in it. Smoking the hives helps to calm them down. Be careful when opening the hive, the queen might be on the inner cover. The hive had a lot of capped drone cells which look like popcorn all over. There were some queen cells on the frames. One of the queen cells did not seem like it hatched. There were some larvae on a couple of the frames but it looked like it was queenless and was doomed. 

There was a reminder to check for ticks.  

Then another hive was opened to look at a more healthy hive. A healthy brood pattern was noted with capped honey, nectar, and pollen. The pollen and honey is next to the brood so that the honeybees can easily feed their young. Overall the hive looked good and gave the newer beekeepers a good overview of the hive. 

You can tell if the bees are happy. If the bees come out of their hive with their wings spread, then there is probably no queen. But if they are bringing pollen, then there are larvae in the hive. When the new beekeepers start, they can check 1 time per week. Other beekeepers go about once every 2 weeks. 

 A few final reminders were given about the September meeting and checking out the oxalic acid vaporizer. The next meeting will be on September 9, 2024 at 6:30 p.m. at Urban Acres in Coralville. Shaun pointed out the honey stand that sits on the side of the road where he sells his honey.  

The meeting ended at 1204.  

Respectfully submitted by Rachel Vakulich