Dave's Blog

Found a nice 6 by 6 piece of locust so I cut some blanks for mason bee nest blocks.  So for a limited time I’ll have some available at http://www.davesbees.com/nestblock.html .  I have enough to make at least 6 of them but that is about it.

The plum blossoms are showing a little white on the ends.  This is a clue that your mason bees homes should be ready.  We stuffed our tubes and put them up yesterday.  We added a screen tube to the release box this year in order to prevent the females going back in and using the old tubes over again.  You want the bees to abandon these old tubes and nest in the new, clean tubes to prevent pests and diseases.  Another problem with the bees reusing the old loose tubes is the availability to wasps and without the surrounding wood the tubes are vulnerable.  Any of the tubes that got reused last season got destroyed by parasites.   Now we have to make a release box for my large 40 hole solid wood blocks.  Last season we put the block in an air conditioner box and left a handle hole open for the bees to escape.  They escaped and found the nice cozy air conditioner box attractive so back in they went and reused the old holes.  We will use a screen tube here as well.  If the screen tubes work out I’ll blog the results; for now we’ll watch and wait.

For the last week the bees have been really working hard in some delightfully warm weather.  The pollen stores are coming in with no less than seven colors and with great regularity.  Here is a link to a video of the bees bringing in the bacon…ok, maybe not bacon.

 These are the same videos at two locations                        http://www.vimeo.com/21422702         http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdacDlByV94

Some of the pollen over the last week came from snowdrops, coltsfoot, crocus, maple, hazelnut, elm, and Japanese Yew that I know of and who knows where else.  The bees can definitely find the pollen easier than we can so it is hard to tell where there are getting it unless you catch them.  Now if the weather guessers are correct we are in for a week of cold weather that will keep the bees in the hives but I think they have plenty to do with the bounty they have gathered.  We have one hive that is a little light so we will be watching it to see if they need a little extra honey over the next week or so.  We took our mouse guards off so as not to rack off any pollen and those will go back on for a week just to keep the little furies out.

Saturday 12 March was a very busy day for the bees here in Ohio zone 6.  This was pretty much the spring kick-off, even though it is still late winter.  The temps went above 50 degrees and at noon I was sitting in front of the hives.  The bees started peeking out of the hive right at noon, just a few at first and then slowly increasing for the next ten minutes.  At 12:15 I walked over to my snowdrops patch about 200 feet from the hives and there were a couple of bees working on the blossoms.  I went to house for the camera and stopped back by the hives at 12:30 to find the bright orange pollen going in.  Foraging really slowed by about 3:30pm but I found a few stragglers coming in as late as 5:00pm.  I shot some video but it was windy and the video is a little annoying.  I’ll try to get some more footage and post it later.  I did however get some brief footage of the bees on coltsfoot at around 2:00pm and they were really all over it.  Here is a quick video of the bees on coltsfoot.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wR66J0N_ub4  As we transition from winter to spring this weekend the bees will be really getting a great start.  The weather looks good for the next week and we can’t overlook the availability of vast forage on maples this year.  There is no question that the bees in our area are going to get a great start this year.  Some years the bees can’t get out to forage on the maples when they are in bloom but that will not be the case this year.  If you are a natural beekeeper and do not feed this is very good news and is reason to celebrate.

After 2 good days of house cleaning on February 16 and 17  I actually caught a bee gathering water from a warm protected area on February 18.  She came back to the same spot so many times that I got video of her collecting.   Honeybee Gathering Water  

Then on February 27 I found pollen going in and I’m pretty sure that it was from maple trees.  It is sap season and I’m sure that somewhere nearby there are a few early buds available.

On March 2^nd in Moundsville WV the Silver Maples in particular had plentiful pollen available to the bees.  I merely touched the blossoms and had pollen on my finger.

I have a short HD video of my bees that I took for practice.  The video will play at lower rates but if you have HD capability then that is the way to view it.  Go to this link and hover on the left side of the screen to pop out our play list and click on the bee video.   http://www.coastalmainetv.com

We are in but not yet settled in the house in Maine.  The bees seem happy and they are very busy.  We will have to take extra precautions for bears as a neighbor had bear damage to hives last spring.  Bears have been roaming around in the yard!  I may even build a small bee house to put the hives in.  Too busy to think about it right now and have ratchet straps holding the hives together just in case.  Thanks to all who helped us move; we would not have made it without you.  I’ll post again when things level off a bit.