As I feared last month, the dry summer did indeed result in a very limited honey flow in many locations. While there was plenty of goldenrod about, it didn’t produce much nectar, which usually forms the bulk of late summer and fall honey. The bees have still been out in force, but they’ve been searching high and low for nectar and visiting flowers that normally would be second or third choice after goldenrod.
The honey that bees make varies greatly from one flower to the next. It’s sometimes very light colored and sometimes very dark, and the flavor can be strong tasting or mild — it all depends on the flower. That is making for an interesting honey harvest this fall.
The size of the fall crop is obviously much reduced, and the harvest that is usually dominated by goldenrod is being made up by a larger variety of plants. We shall see what that looks and tastes like over the coming weeks as we get busy extracting. So get out and buy some of this fall’s honey from your local beekeepers. It will be different from most years, and you will be helping local beekeepers to maintain a population of essential pollinators.
Some income from my reduced honey crop this year will come in very handy as having started almost 30 new small hives this summer that all need feeding! Young hives, particularly those started late in the summer, as I did, need a lot of help. It seems every few days I’m at Wal-Mart filling my cart with eight to 10 25-pound bags of sugar! The sugar is mixed with hot water (two parts sugar to one part water) and fed to the hives in need of extra food.
Along with feeding, it also is time to be preparing the hives for a long winter. Hives may need a second treatment to rid them of varroa mites, which are the root cause of most colony mortalities in the fall and winter. Mites parasitize the bee larvae damaging them as they suck out their juices. But the worst danger comes from the viruses the mites infect the bees with. During the summer months these viruses rarely cause major problems. However, as soon as we get cold nights and the bees have to huddle together to keep warm, the viruses spread from bee to bee, and quickly the bees become sick and die, killing off a colony in weeks. So control of mite levels is hugely important.
As the fall progresses, colonies may start to rob honey from each other. To avoid this, the beekeeper needs to reduce the size of the hive’s entrance. This is especially important after the first frost, which kills off the majority of the nectar producing plants. At this time of reducing the entrance, I usually also put on a mouse guard (quarter-inch wire mesh), which is put over the hive entrance to keep mice from entering the hive and building a nest when the bees are clustered together to keep warm.
Now that the school year has started again, the Hampden Academy Beekeeping club is up and running. Its first meeting last week boasted a staggering 21 students. We are going to need more bee suits! This week we have been preparing to remove the surplus honey from the hives. Soon we will be extracting, bottling and selling. Compared with the 14 pounds harvested from last year’s brand new hives, this year’s 70-80 pounds will be a bumper crop!
Peter Cowin, aka The Bee Whisperer, is president of the Penobscot County Beekeepers Association. His activities include honey production, pollination services, beekeeping lessons, sales of bees and bee equipment, and the removal of feral bee hives from homes and other structures. Check out “The Bee Whisperer” on Facebook, petercowin@tds.net, 299-6948.