10-18-2021 Planning Commission Packet

Home Browse Search

EARLY SPRING MANAGEMENT • Perform a full inspection of each colony in mid-April when temperatures are at least 50°F. Clean the 111 bottom board by scraping off debris with your hive tool. • If there are no bees in the bottom box, do the "ick" test and replace unwanted frames and combs. • Check to see if there are frames of brood (combs containing eggs, larvae, and pupae). If so, conduct a "partial reversal" (Figure 35). A partial reversal involves switching the position of the top and middle hive box to encourage the bees to expand. If there are brood frames in both the top and middle box, move the empty bottom box to the top position above the brood, following the "modified reversal" (Figure 35). Always avoid splitting the brood nest. If the temperatures drop, the bees need to cluster around the brood to keep it warm; if you separate the brood some will die of cold exposure. • Replenish the pollen patty if the bees have consumed most of the previous one. • When temperatures are consistently above 55°F, monitor the level of varroa mites. See the latest version of the Honey Bee Diseases and Pests manual (Z.umn.edu/BeeManual) and our web site on varroa management (Z.umn.eduNarroa) for the most current information. Spring management of mite levels can save heartache and problems in the middle of summer when the supers are on and the mite levels are hard to control. Managing to keep mite levels below threshold in the spring increases the colony's chance of surviving the season. • Inspect each colony ten days after the mid-April inspection. When there are 6-10 frames of brood, conduct a full reversal (see "Full-Reversal, early season" in Figure 35) and replenish the pollen patty if necessary. 0 The Whys and Wherefores of Reversals Over the winter, the cluster of bees will naturally move toward the top box, where honey is stored. Sometime in late winter, the queen will start laying eggs in the top box(es) and that is where the colony will settle itself to feed and incubate the Words of developing brood. During the fickle temperature swings of spring, it is important to keep the brood area with surrounding honey intact. Wisdom Reversals are simply a system of rotating the position of boxes, while keeping the bees and brood as they are within the boxes. Reversals ensure the bees have mostly empty combs above the cluster, into which they can expand as temperatures increase and early pollen and nectar become available. Here's an analogy: the bees are like an elevator that only moves up. Eventually you'll need to move the lower floors of the building on top, so the elevator will have somewhere to go. When do you do reversals? Reversals should be done when the bottom box(es), below the cluster of bees, are not being used (bees typically don't move down). The timing depends solely on the placement and population of bees in the nest, which will vary colony by colony, and year by year. Welcome to the vagaries of beekeeping! Beekeeping in Northern Climates 54