Fall Hive Management

The roadsides are bright yellow with bitterweed; pink-flowered smartweed covers any damp ground; and field margins bloom with goldenrod and various colors of fall asters. It is time to start preparing the hives for winter. The queens have gradually reduced their egg laying through the end of summer. Now, we would like to extend their egg production throughout October so that the colonies will have plenty of longer-lived worker bees going into winter. Unlike the bees that emerge in spring and summer which have a short lifespan, late season bees can survive the winter. These workers will be the ones that produce the food for the first brood reared early next year. We can stimulate the queen to continue to lay eggs by feeding protein to the hives. An easy way to do this is to place pollen substitute inside a weather-protected container outside the hives.

Our bees must have plenty of honey in the hives to eat over winter. If the hives are short on honey stores now, reduce hive entrances and feed sugar syrup to help the bees build up adequate food stores. It is important that the honey is positioned in the hives so that the bees can access it during cold weather. There should be some honey on the sides of the brood nest and plenty of honey above the brood. If one hive has more frames of capped honey than will be needed, the beekeeper may move some of these frames to hives that are short on honey stores. If queen excluders were used, we must remove them from the hives in the fall. Since bee clusters move upward in the hive during the winter, it is possible for a queen to be left trapped below a queen excluder accidentally left in a hive. A final issue in fall hive preparation regards ventilation. We must make sure that there is adequate air flow, especially at the top of the hive. Today’s photo: fall asters.

--Richard

The Meadow Buzzes

A year ago we planted the plowed ground in hardwood trees spaced in 10-foot rows. The area, slightly over an acre, has become a meadow of wildflowers. It will be several years before the trees shade the ground and change the nature of the understory. For now, wildflowers grow in the full sun on the gentle slope of the natural bank of a Mississippi River tributary. A visit to the field on a warm and sunny fall day finds numerous species of insects feeding on fall asters. The remote meadow actually buzzes from the number of bees in flight. There are many honey bees collecting nectar and pollen from white heath asters as well as several species of bumblebees and numerous species of solitary bees. Many sweat bees and other extremely small bees are present in the bright composite flowers. Flies that mimic the appearance of a bee or wasp are common in the meadow. They are protected from many predators by their yellow and brown stripes and transparent wings. Only their bulging fly eyes give away their true identity. The wildflowers, mostly fall asters, attract many species of butterflies. Songbirds dart through the three-foot-tall tangle of wildflowers.

The one-acre plot, providing food and habitat, is obviously an oasis for honey bees and many species of native pollinators. In the years that the ground is exposed to the sun, it will provide a sequence of blooming flowers as well as protective cover and nesting material for pollinators. Such pollinator meadows, or pastures, are seen as important spaces providing for a diverse population of pollinator species in agricultural areas. The large fields planted in modern industrial agriculture are often too wide for the smaller bees to fly across. To increase crop yield, some farms are incorporating pollinator meadows along field margins or between plantings to accommodate important native pollinators. Click on today’s photo of a honey bee collecting nectar from white heath asters, important plants for winter survival honey stores.

--Richard

Fall Asters in Bloom

Asters are late-season composite flowers that are abundant in the Mid-South. There are over 100 species of asters, with most occurring east of the Mississippi River. The plants range in size from six inches to three feet in height. Very common is the three-foot-tall white heath aster, which has white rays and yellow to reddish centers. This plant blooms from August through December and often attracts great numbers of honeybees as well as other insects. A low-growing, light blue-flowered aster is also common in lawns in the late summer and fall. Both species are found along dry roadsides, open woods, and idle land. While many asters bloom in the spring and early summer, only the late-season flowers seem to be attractive to honey bees. Asters are foraged for both nectar and pollen at a time when there is often a scarcity of other flowers in bloom. Aster plants are used as deer browse in the spring and summer months. A number of asters, such as the purple-colored asters in one of our pollinator gardens, have been developed for ornamental plantings.

Aster honey is as light in color as white clover honey. It is, however, usually colored amber or yellow by honey from goldenrod or other late-blooming autumn plants. All honey granulates over time, and aster honey has a tendency to granulate quite quickly. Sometimes granulated aster honey can be found in the comb when the first brief hive inspection is made on a warm day in January. When first gathered, aster honey has a strong odor; but this disappears when it has ripened. As one of the few abundant late-season sources of nectar and pollen, the asters are truly important bee plants. Click on today’s photo to see a honey bee foraging for pollen from a purple aster. When the beekeeper sees aster pollen being brought into the hive, it usually means that the queen is still laying eggs for worker bees that will support the colony in the spring.

--Richard