Bees at Night

Every so often I get asked, “So, what do bees do at night?”

The answer is simple they go home. Being that it has been much warmer the last few days, I have been finding a large number of bees hanging out at the front of the hive. I talked about the reasons for this in another post over here. One can really see the strength of a hive at this time of day because all the foragers are back from the field.

First up “B2”, it has been almost 4 weeks since the package was installed. That means that this hive could possibly be seeing the first of its new bees hatching. This could account for the small mass at the front entrance. The entrance reducer is still set for the small opening because you can see I am still feeding them. They aren't taking it very quickly, which suggests that there is plenty of better option around the neighborhood for them to feed on.
Next is “Club Fergie” in the link from above it shows what the entrance looked like a month ago at the start up of the Spring hatching season. Now a month later you see what a population explosion there has been. I was planning on moving the entrance reducer up to the next size, but the 10 day forecast shows it is going to be back in the 40sºF at night starting this weekend so I will probably wait another week for that. I am not worried about opening the entrance up because all they have in their feeder right now is plain water to help them with cooling the hive when it gets too hot. Plain Water, is not really the thing that encourages robbing.
This picture demonstrates that the perfect time to do a hive check is not at night. For one, bees don't fly at night very well because there is no sun to orientate them however, they are excellent crawlers which added to the complete hive population being home makes this an equation for a sting disaster to happen.

Cluster of Bees

For the last two days it has been around 90ºF with a low the mid 60sºF at night. I was up early this morning and I looked out the back window to see this large mass of bees on “Club Fergie.” I didn't think that it was particularly warm, so I went out to investigate.

Sure enough there was some fanning going on. Fanning occurs when the hive temperature is above 95ºF. Most likely these forager went outside to help alleviate some of the heat. However with the outside temperature being much lower, these bees probably began to cluster together for warmth. Clustering occurs when the temperature begins to drop close to 57ºF.

Recently I had changed the entrance reducer to make the entrance larger, it is still in the mid 40sºF at night and cooler so I didn't want to remove it completely. We are still 3 weeks away here from our average last frost date.

B2: is ready to go

On Saturday, my second trip to Brushy Mountain Bee Farm in Moravian Falls, NC will commence to pick up this year's package bees. Besides my every loving co-conspirator we are also traveling along with our friend Melissa who will also begin keeping bees this year.

This is the location of the new hive in relation to “Club Fergie”. Bees need less than a foot of space between hives, so there is plenty of room in my bee yard for them to peacefully coexist. One thing about location, You want your bees to have a good mix of sun and shade. Morning Sun is crucial in getting the hive woken up and the foragers out working the day. By mid-day you ideally want the hive sitting in a shady location to help alleviate some of the heat in the hive. A bee hive will maintain a constant temperature of about 90ºF and anything the keeper can do to assist with this is beneficial for all parties.

Here it is “B2” ready to go. On Saturday we are picking up a 3lb package which includes about 10,000 bees and a queen. This will become their new home in a short time.

Just a little about this set up. Beekeeping requires certain equipment, but it doesn't have to cost a fortune to buy everything.

The hive components were purchased at Brushy Mountain last year in their “scratch and dent” shop. Since the hive it sitting outside and subject to everything nature has tho throw at it, it was not important for me that it start out perfect. I saved about 50% doing this. Another angle to take is to build your own components. The internet is full of great DIY plans.

The hive stand was built with scrap wood from “The Big Orange Depot”. Once again less than perfect wood in odd sizes can easily be acquired for $1.00 or less a board. The design for the stand was my creation influenced by simple engineering principals.

The hive pad was built using found materials. The landscaping timbers were found in the trash, the bricks came out of a dumpster, and the rocks were shoveled out of the street gutter. It was put together over a thick layer of newspapers that came out of recycling. The newspapers prevents growth of plant material from poking through the rocks. It took me a few months to acquire everything, but once I knew that I was going to need a new hive location last year the planning began.