PBG General Meeting - 5-20-2010
Approximately 42 people in attendance

Vince Aloyo is a long time beekeeper, Phd in chemistry and currently a PA State Bee Inspector. The Pennsylvania State Apiary Registration form is here. Fill this bad boy out, send it in, and Vince or someone like him will come look at your bees (assuming you live in PA).

He spoke to an overflow audience at the Philadelphia Beekeeper's Guild meeting at 7pm the evening of May 20, 2010. Vince took questions during the talk, which was well received and universally appreciated.

After Vince spoke Matt Feldman the Guild treasurer conducted a raffle for Guild members and awarded a Mann Lake bee brush to a lucky guild member. (If anyone knows the name of the member please send it to info at phillybeekeepers dot org.

A good time was had by all.

Vince Aloyo Talk - Spring Management and Swarm Prevention

Vince Aloyo is a long time beekeeper, Phd in chemistry and currently a PA State Bee Inspector. He spoke to an overflow audience at the Philadelphia Beekeeper's Guild meeting at 7pm the evening of May 20, 2010. Vince took questions during the talk, which was well received and universally appreciated.

Feeding -
Spring feeding to stimulate growth of colony and prevent spring starvation
Feed for at least 4 weeks in spring
Feed new colony to help support metabolic requirements of building comb - it's a lot of work!
Feed overwintered colonies to allow for population build up when nectar flow starts.

Nectar Flow -
Spring nectar flow in the Southeastern PA region starts when you see widespread dandelion bloom.
Every year is slightly different. We had heat early this year so we have had a VERY strong and early spring nectar flow.
Lots of beekeepers are collecting lots of honey.

Swarming -
Think of the hive as a "super-organism" and not just a group of individual organisms
Keep in mind that you will lose your honey crop if the bees swarm
In terms of catching swarms, the earlier you get them (in May hopefully) the more valuable they are in terms of honey production and overwintering
What causes swarming? overcrowding, decline of queen pheromone as queen ages

Prevention of Swarming
Requeen in July or August
Reverse supers - move empty supers up on top of broodnest in Spring
Keep broodnest open - give queen plenty of room to lay
Add your supers BEFORE it is too late (i.e. before you see signs of imminent swarming) - should add supers at dandelion and/or fruit tree bloom
HOWEVER, reproductive swarms are can not be prevented by adding supers. You have to keep the brood nest open. What is open? Open means comb that doesn't have brood, honey or pollen in it so the queen can lay. If you see the bees storing nectar or pollen between capped brood then your brood nest is getting crowded.

Equalizing Colonies
Can donate frames of sealed brood with adhering bees from strong colonies to weak colonies
Can swap locations in order to redistribute the field forces of the hives - place the weak hive in the location of the strong hive and the field force from the strong hive will now call the weaker hive home

Queen Cells
It is important to be able to recognize the different types of queen cells
Supersedure or emergency cells - typically built on the face of the comb
Swarm cells - typically built on the bottoms of frames - you can flip up an entire box in order to quickly and easily look at the bottoms of all frames
Watch for queen cups - their presence is normal in all hives, just watch for the cups to be filled

Swarm Preparation
Watch for presence of swarm cells
Watch the behavior of the workers - less foraging, more "resting" (slackers!), gorging on honey (up to one week before they leave), the queen is fed less (she needs to slim down for her flight) and she lays fewer eggs

Swarm Timetable
Day 1 - eggs in queen cups
Day 8 - queen cell is sealed
Day 8+ - primary swarm issues (before new queen emerges)
Day 16 - virgin queen emerges and may destroy other queen cells or workers may prevent her from destroying other cells if they know they want to issue multiple swarms.
Day 16+ - virgin queen mates and begins laying eggs
It usually takes the queen about 5 days to get ready, make her mating flight and start laying eggs

Swarm Prevention
Destroying swarm cells will only delay (not prevent) swarming
The idea with swarm prevention is trying to mimic the effects of a natural swarm - make the hive think they swarmed
Methods -
Split strong colonies - make nucs - try to do this before you see swarm cells
Move to a new location and/or keep the entrance reduced to 1"x3/8" until the new colony builds up its population
Other swarm prevention methods are Pagden method, Snelgrove Method, Demaree, Shook swarm
An aside - two good books for comb honey production - The Comb Honey Book - by Taylor and Honey in the Comb - by Killion

Bait Hives
Used to try to catch swarms
The following is based on research by Tom Seeley, et.al
Bait hives should be elevated off of the ground - 10 feet is best
Use a small box with a small entrance (volume of box is ideally 40 liters - can use one deep or two mediums)
Place some old comb or foundation in the bait hive to attract the bees
Can use commercial swarm lures (or lemongrass oil - Adam's addition)

Requeening - Aloyo Method
Young bees will more easily accept a new queen - use this to your advantage
Vince uses a double screen board for requeening
Take 3-5 frames of sealed brood with adhering nurse bees and place in a new box, above the original colony, with the double screen board in between the two colonies. You may want to face the entrance to the new box in the opposite direction to the entrance of the original hive
Place new queen in top box (new hive) and colony will grow from the sealed brood that was placed in the new box. New bees will accept new queen as their own.
Field bees will return to the bottom box (the original colony)
You can keep the new colony over the original colony for the winter. In the spring you can combine the two colonies with the newspaper method (remove double screen board and place a sheet of newspaper between the two colonies to join them).
When the two colonies recombine, typically the new queen will win out over the old queen by killing her.
This method creates a nice backup plan - if new queen does not work out, you still have the old queen.

Summary of Talk -
1) Early spring feed colonies
2) Give queen plenty of room to lay in the spring
3) Be alert for swarm preparations
4) Be prepared to perform some type of swarm control