April – Beekeepers What to Do – Brian Fackler (Cornell University Master Beekeeper)
- Do NOT unwrap your hives until the weather is consistently warm. It’s tempting to unwrap but your bees will thank you for
keeping their home warm. - Bee packages and NUC’S will begin arriving in Oregon in early April. Make sure you have everything ready to install your
bees. New beekeepers may want to check in with their mentors with any questions or for tips and encouragement. - Keep feeding!!!
a) Most hives that die from starvation perish just before the first nectar flow of the season.
b) Your bees were busy raising brood in February and March. This activity burns through food stores very quickly.
c) In April, the weather is often cold and wet and the bees will not be able to forage for food. Make sure you give your
bees the best chance to build up strong. Since there are no supers on your hive yet, their intake of sugar syrup will
not go into your honey product.
d) If you determine that the colony doesn’t have adequate food stores, feed 1:1 sugar syrup and pollen patties; the
presence of pollen will encourage the queen to lay. When it’s too cold for sugar syrup feed fondant. Lane County
Beekeepers web site has excellent recipes (www.lcbaor.org) for winter feed.
e) Once you start feeding, continue until the bees start bringing in nectar or the dandelions come out. Then, put on
your supers and stop feeding.
f) The bees will begin to collect nectar in the latter part of April from early flowering plants and trees like dandelion,
maple and willow. Once you put on honey supers, feeding must stop or you’ll have sugar syrup mixed in with your
honey. Not a good thing! - Hive openings should be clear so bees can get out for cleansing flights on warm days. Clear the entrance of dead bees.
Remove the mouse guard/entrance reducer and scrape the dead bees away from the entrance with a stick or your hive
tool. You don’t have to remove every single bee. Clearing the front entrance is good for hive ventilation. - On a warm day, inspect the hive for food stores and brood pattern. If you don’t see a solid brood pattern, consider
replacing the queen with local survivor stock. - If you need to order package bees or a queen, check in with your bee supplier as soon as possible.
- On a warm day, consider reversing the brood chambers but ONLY if doing so will not split the cluster. Splitting the cluster
at this time of year could chill the (now two) clusters and be deadly for the colony. The single reason to reverse the brood
boxes is to give the queen more room to lay – but again only if it will not split the cluster. To reverse the brood chambers,
take the top brood box and put it on top of the bottom board and put the one that was on the bottom on top. - Clean out any dead outs you may have and store the frames so other bees, mice or other pests cannot get inside and rob
it out. Frames from dead outs are a great boost for a package of bees. - Repair and paint woodenware before the season begins. Have honey supers ready to go before the hive needs it to
prevent hive crowding that could trigger a swarm. - Educate yourself on the different mite treatment options (cultural, non-chemical and chemical) and know when and how to
use them correctly. Order supplies to control mites ASAP. Don’t let mites get the best of you and your bees this year.
Check out the Honey Bee Coalition Tools for Varroa Management and videos on how to control Varroa mites
http://honeybeehealthcoalition.org/. - The PNW Honey Bee Survey is OPEN https://pnwhoneybeesurvey.com please take the survey. Survey is for
any and all pub members who have overwintered colonies. The survey covers questions on
survivorship/losses overwinter and managements for varroa mite control. It is electronic.