The Evolution of a Holistic Beekeeper

ho·lis·tic

/hōˈlistik/

adjective

adjective: holistic

1. Philosophy

   characterized by comprehension of the parts of something as intimately interconnected and explicable only by reference to the whole.

   • Medicine

     characterized by the treatment of the whole person, taking into account mental and social factors, rather than just the symptoms of a disease.

In the Beginning

   Every successful beekeeper eventually decides what management protocol is right for their apiary. It is never ending. What we first believe as newbies naturally evolves over years as we gain experience. When I started this blog as a 1st year beekeeper in 2008, I added the byline, “Raising bees holistically in New Hampshire”. At the time, I believed “holistically” meant “treatment-free”. My goal was to develop better honey bee genetics by developing queens raised without the intervention of harsh chemicals – or for that matter, ANY chemicals.

   As an organic gardener for 20+ years, this was a philosophical choice,  tho’ also a response to the beginning beekeeper class I was taking that followed a popular book that basically was all about prophylactic use of hard chemical treatments regardless if the bees showed any symptoms of disease. Back then, it was what was taught as the standard.  To me tho’, it seemed  I was being taught the equivalent of using chemo when the patient might only have a cold. My thought was there had to be a better way, so I quit attending the class and sought out other like-minded beekeepers who were reporting success raising bees without chemical intervention. I drank the kool-aid and soon became convinced using small-cell foundation, dusting with powdered sugar, and never placing any chemical into my hives was the answer. It was almost cult-like and I taught several classes and attended several conferences on how to raise bees sans chemical treatment.

   At first, I had good results overwintering hives and believed it was my management techniques that were making it happen. After a couple of years tho’, my losses started to mount. 50-75% winter losses became the norm and finally, during one winter, I lost 25 of 26 hives. I was devastated and called in the NH State Apiary Inspector. The verdict was one word…mites. In retrospect, I think my early successes were really the results of buying packages and nucs that had already been treated prior to delivery with Amitraz, fluvalinate and/or coumpahos that had so depleted the mite population, the bees were able to survive the 1st year without any additional treatment required. It wasn’t until the 2nd or 3rd year that the viruses transmitted to the bees via v. Destructor caused my colonies to die. I realized I actually had very little to do with the success of the colonies but certainly had everything to do with their demise. I was not a beekeeper but a bee-haver, buying new bees every year to replace losses. To this day, I know beekeepers that have great success being treatment-free. They are willing to accept losses in the hope long term change will happen. I was – and still am – a small backyard beekeeper and I simply could not tolerate the losses.

Evaluation and Change

   Unfortunately, this also proved to me that using hard chemicals can work. Still, their use went against my desire to tread softly on the planet and holistically raise bees. I refused to believe one had to use hard chemicals to beat mite infestations, nosema, etc., in order to create a sustainable apiary. So I stopped buying packages and only purchased northern-raised, overwintered nucs and queens. I started monitoring for mites more often, performing splits, yearly re-queening, and becoming more interested about moisture control during winter. Finally, I read about a mite reduction technique having great success in Europe called oxalic acid vaporization (OAV). So 2 years prior to OAV being approved in the US, I started using it on a couple of my hives. By adding brood breaks at the end of May to reduce the spring mite load, better timing my splits and nucs, routinely monitoring for mites, treating with OAV in August and November and wrapping all hives and nucs with tar paper, my loss rate dropped to 15%. Eureka! This was a major improvement!

   My queens now survived multiple years yet I still felt there were more ways to improve overwinter survival. Many beekeepers were using a device called a quilt box to control winter moisture build up so I decided that would be my 2017 (maybe 2016) improvement. After looking at a number of designs, I modified one that allows me to go into a hive on a 0ºƒ day, take a look and add food, if needed, in less than 15 seconds. Better fed than dead…I think I lost 1 nuc in 2017 and that I believe was due to a -20º spell that kept the cluster stationary and they starved several inches away from honey.

So THAT worked…Now fine tune

   Spring, 2018 brought the latest change to my management plan. As soon as the temps were over 50º for several days, I did a single OAV treatment to every hive, allowing every colony to start the year off with a mite load of what I believe was under 1%. Monitoring showed this kept the mite load so low during the summer that I did not treat again until early August just because I wanted to again get back to under 1%.  This addition to the plan resulted in no losses in 2018. Let me state here that when I treat hives with OAV during the summer, I remove all of the honey supers. Though OAV is considered an organic treatment, my honey customers expect me to provide them the purest, most natural honey possible. The ONLY time I leave supers on is in November when doing the final treatment before winter. Any honey remaining in the spring is removed and added back the following fall ( I have a “bee freezer” in the barn and keep the frames frozen during the summer).

My Current Technique:

   So history is nice but what is my current plan? Well, it may not jive with yours but here is what I find works for me. Since it’s almost spring, I’ll start here.

   March: I check my hives every 2-3 weeks depending upon weather and my Broodminder temperature sensors (see previous posts). I wait until mid -March before placing pollen patties on the hives. Why so late? As a backyard beekeeper (albeit, several backyards) , not a commercial beek,  I do not want to over stimulate my queens in February and create a lot of brood that the bees will have to cover during temperature swings. Additionally, I do not want to create a potential  swarm in April by having the hives build up too soon. Even though the hive will raise another queen, she will not be properly inseminated during flights in late April or early May as the drone population is too low. By starting in mid-March, those problems are avoided. If the temps warm up later in the month I will do a single OAV treatment to every hive.

   April: Still a tough month depending upon weather. I continue to feed if necessary and will possibly remove the tar paper near the end of the month if temps permit.

   Early May: Tear down the hives, remove all quit boxes and any tar paper wraps, clean out the dead bees, replace the Broodminder batteries, reassemble the hives balance out the honey frames and closely watch the nucs so they do not overpopulate and swarm. I feed only if  necessary.

   Late May: Prep nucs for sale or move them to full hives. Monitor for mites to make sure mite load is extremely low. I will do a brood break on several hives so they raise their own queens and become honey producers during the June through mid-July flow (since there is little brood during the break, the nurse bees become field bees which helps increase honey production). I move the displaced queens to nucs and use them for resources (frames of brood) until July when I let them start to build up for winter. Meanwhile, the hives having the brood break now have fresh queens raised by the bees.

   June-July: Get used to the word monitor…Now we are in the sweet part of summer and the bees are pretty much left on their own to enjoy being bees. Depending upon the flow, I usually harvest honey for selling at the CSA. I will make my splits at this point if I want to increase the apiary size and move the new hives to a different yard. As I overwinter each of my nucs as 4 mediums, I make all of the nucs I plan to take through winter by the end of June. Did I mention monitor? This is when I also rely on my Broodminder sensors to monitor hive weights, watch the temp sensors to make sure the queens are viable and sit by the hives enjoying the dance of summer.

   Early August: Now is the time the bees begin raising the bees, that will raise the bees, that will eventually overwinter. I want these to be absolutely healthy and will monitor and probably treat with OAV over a 2-week period. The health of the apiary at this minute decides its long term sustainability.

   Late August: Since I want all colonies to be at least 4 mediums tall come winter (I prefer full colonies to be 5 high) I will start feeding any colonies that appear to be underweight. This usually means nucs, as I have stolen frames of honey from other hives to feed them through the summer but now everyone needs as much honey as they can put away. Monitoring continues…

   September: Mouse guards go on. Monitoring and feeding continues, being careful not to back fill the brood chamber as the fall flow will also start. Now is the prime time for mites to overrun the hive as the number of bees begins to decrease but the mites keep rocking along. If you have not treated yet, DO IT! I check on the condition of the quilt boxes, making sure I have enough and that they are ready for winter. I also will try to equalize hives to make sure each has a similar amount of pollen, food, brood etc. as they get ready to end their year.

   October: I like to quit feeding by the end of the 1st or 2nd week in the month. This gives the bees time to cap any nectar which helps lower moisture in the hive. Hopefully, every hive has at least 3 mediums of honey, the bees are in the bottom 2 hive boxes and my mite load is under 2%. Quilt boxes go on mid-month and the hives are usually wrapped by the end of the month or early Nov. I should mention, I now keep my fences on and baited all year long after having an incident last October. I do a final apiary clean up, including trimming any grass very low, within the fencing. I also replace all Broodminder batteries at this time so they do not fail during the winter.

   November: Now comes my final single OAV treatment. This leaves the bees clean for the winter. I neglected to mention, I use screened bottom boards with both bottom and top entrances all year long. At this point I leave the sticky boards in place, reduce the bottom entrance and leave the top entrance built into the quilt box open. This allows some air to still enter the bottom of the hive and exit through the quilt box, keeping my humidity level in check all winter.

   December – February: Watching my Broodminder sensors, going out and listening to the hives (use a $12 stethoscope from CVS if need be) and occasionally raising the quilt box for a quick peek at the top frames to see if the bees have come up and need to be fed is about it for the winter. My change this year for going into 2020 will be to add sugar blocks when I close up the bees in November. Bern Snow mentioned he does that. It makes sense to me so I will try it.

Summary

   So there you have it. Every beekeeper has their way of doing things that hopefully works for their bees. This happens to be mine. As I stated in 2008 when starting this blog, right or wrong, I will tell you what I do and the results I achieve. On March 12, 2019, following the method of holistically managing the whole hive outlined above, I currently have 7 of 7 hives and 10 of 10 nucs alive and buzzin’. That does not mean that is how it will be in May but I’m thankful for the result so far. Honey bees die even when you think you are doing everything correctly. The very best of beekeepers loose bees. The key is figuring out what little thing you may have missed and trying to fix it. I believe every time you open a hive, the bees are trying to teach you something. Our job is to figure out the lesson.

   I hope your bees are warm, full and building for spring! Have a great 2019 and did I mention not to forget to monitor?