Freezing the Bees

We are having the coldest Atlanta January.  It was 6 degrees F on Tuesday morning - so cold that they closed the public schools for fear that children waiting for early morning school buses might freeze to death!

The average low this week in Atlanta is typically around 32.  But yesterday the high was 28.  Tonight the low will be 28 after an afternoon in the 40s.

Why does this matter?  All of us beekeepers are worried about our bees.  At the bee club meeting tonight an old experienced beekeeper said he actually opened the tops of his hives yesterday (remember the 28 degree high???) to see if his bees were alive.

I'm settling for crossing my fingers and hoping that they live.  I keep think of beekeepers like Michael Bush in Nebraska or Kirk Webster in Vermont.  Temperatures there are so cold AND the beehives are covered with snow.

And yet if they have strong hives, they make it through the winter.

I don't want to open my hives to see if the bees are alive or dead.

What will I do in either case?  I cannot make a difference at this point.

But if I do open the hives, what have I done to serve my useless curiosity?

I've broken the propolis seal they have made to protect themselves - chinks and daubing were the processes used in the log cabins of old to keep out the weather.  The bees use that all important propolis.

If my hives die in this bitter cold, I'll replace them in the spring either with nucs that I have ordered or with swarms, but I don't want to increase their risk by opening them in this bitter cold.

For Want of a Nail.......

At Young Harris Beekeeping Institute this year, I heard some of the people who were taking the Certified Beekeeper exam comment that there was a question on the exam about how many nails do you need to put together a frame? One might think 8 - two at either end of the top bar (4) and two at either end of the bottom bar (4), but if you gave that answer, you would not be right.

The real answer is 10: two at either end of the top bar, two at either end of the bottom bar and one on each side of the end bar going from the end bar sideways into the top bar. If you have glued the frame together and used that 9th and 10th nail, your frame should stay together well.

Unfortunately yesterday while inspecting, I tried to free a frame built last year from the propolis glueing it to the hive box. The picture below was the result. The top bar pried from the propolis, pulled up on its own and separated from the end bar. This is a good object lesson for me - last year I didn't glue my frames and I only used 8 nails on most of them.


Much to the bees' displeasure, I pulled out my trusty hammer and nailed it back together but didn't add the 9th and 10th nail (didn't want to disturb the girls even more), but I have learned my lesson - never put together a frame without glue and with only 8 nails!



The old nursery rhyme says it best:

"For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail."

Benjamin Franklin even included a version of this rhyme in his Poor Richard's Almanac.

Note to Self: Wash Beesuit BY ITSELF

My beesuit is now two years and two months old, but the first month didn't count because then I didn't have bees. As it enters its third year of service, my suit has some permanent propolis stains. You can see them in the close-up.

Bees make propolis from sap and it is a sticky, gummy substance. It can be many colors, but mostly my bees make a rust-colored propolis. When it sticks to your suit, it doesn't wash out very well. The suit below has just come out of the dryer, having been washed in Chlorox, but you can still see the propolis stains.

I made the mistake this laundry round of washing my beesuit with my other white laundry. Now I have two white nightgowns as well as a couple of white t-shirts with obvious rust-colored propolis melted into their fabric.

Take it from me: Wash your beesuit by itself!

Propolis - the super glue of bees

When I inspected the hives today, there was lots of propolis . The propolis was sticking the frames to each other or sticking the honey supers to the hive body. It was under the inner cover, sticking the inner cover to the super below. I gathered this glob of propolis on the end of my hive tool.

The propolis in the picture is orange but it could be other colors. How it looks depends on what the bees are gathering. When bees use it to glue parts of the hive together or to fill empty space, beekeepers say that the bees "propolize" the space.

Was it sticky! I imagine getting this on the bottom of your shoe would be much worse than gum, for example. It felt resinous and it rolled into a ball with a smooth exterior.

Bees use propolis for many purposes, including cementing parts of the hive together. They also use it to keep the size of bee space
the same everywhere in the hive