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What Does a Healthy Beehive Look Like?
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| Many new beekeepers jump in with both feet not know how to determine if their hives are healthy or in need of assistance. There is only so much that an article or a book can teach about honeybees. Neither of these will replace real world experience by getting out there and opening up your hives to take a look under the hood. However we will attempt to give you a head start. This article does not attempt to cover brood diseases and pests. |
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| Every honeybee in a colony has a role to fulfill, and a job, including Drones. There is no such thing as unemployment in a colony. For these reasons it is important to know the role of each bee, and what a healthy hive should have. |
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| Queen - It goes without saying that every beehive should have a young vigorous queen. The role of the queen is not really as a monarch, but more of a slave. She is controlled by the young nurse bees that take care of her. Her job is to lay eggs, and produce some of the pheromones that signal different things in the colony. |
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| Workers - No hive can survive without plenty of worker bees. The workers are responsible for every task besides laying eggs. They feed the larvae, keep the brood nest warm, feed and care for the queen, raise a new queen if needed, build comb, guard the hive, clean the hive, and forage for pollen and nectar. |
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| Drones - Drones are actually not the lazy unemployed deadbeats that they are portrayed to be. Sure they don't forage, clean, or care for anything. But they do serve two very important purposes. The role of the drone honeybee is mainly to mate with a queen. Not their own queen as some think, but any other queen that |
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is in need of a mate.
Besides mating Drones serve one other purpose. Because they don't serve the role of foraging, or feeding brood, they are the most expendable member of the colony. Drones act as a catch all for diseases. While this does not completely protect the colony from diseases or pests, it does help. A good example of this is Vorroa mites, which are more attracted to Drone larva than worker larva.
Drones will only be present in a colony during the spring and summer. In early fall the Drones are no longer needed to mate with queens, and only become a drain on the resources that a hive has to get them through winter. For this reason workers will drag drones out of the hive in the fall, and let them starve. |
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| Now that we know the Honeybees that make up a healthy hive, what does a healthy hive actually look like. This question is very dependant upon the seasons. So lets brake this down into the four seasons. |
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| A. Fall: |
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| The fall months is really when your bee season begins. Much of what determines a healthy hive in fall will not be utilized during the Fall or early winter. However the health of a colony in the Fall determines the health of a colony in the spring, and thus determines the crop that will be harvested in the spring and summer. |
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1. A young queen. The best queens are those that were mated in late summer, or early fall. This is stated here because a hive that over winters with a young well mated queen of that age will usually explode with bees in the early spring. We make it a point to requeen every hive during this time of year. |
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2. In fall the old worker bees will start to die off. They should be left with enough workers to form a cluster the size of a basket ball. If the hive goes into winter without a large enough cluster to keep the cluster warm, they may die from the cold weather. This doesn't happen by freezing, but the cold weather can pin a small cluster down and keep them from moving onto new stores, causing starvation. To help avoid having to small of a cluster, a hive should still have two boxes full of bees in the early fall. If both boxes are not full of bees, feed to stimulate brood rearing.
Keep in mind that the winter cluster will diminish in size over time. When brood rearing resumes in mid winter to early spring, the cluster must be large enough to keep the brood warm, or the colony may not be able to grow fast enough to be ready for the first nectar or pollen flows.
Some breads such as Russians, Carniolians will over winter with a smaller cluster. |
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3. A minimum of 70 lbs of winter stores. A colony must have provisioned enough honey to get them through the winter months. The farther north the colony is located the more stores they will need. In Indiana we normally use a two deep brood nest to over winter our hives.
A colony will need enough honey to not only feed them through the winter, but to also feed the brood during the period between the resumption of brood rearing, and the first nectar flows. This is the period when honey consumption is the greatest. This period before the nectar flows is in the early to mid spring, and it is the period when a hive is at the greatest risk of starvation.
As I hinted at before, how much honey a colony needs will depend upon the climate that you live in. In Indiana we normally use a two deep system for wintering. However in warmer climates they may use a deep and a medium, or a deep and a shallow. This may change the actual weight of stores that a hive needs to get through winter. However no matter what size boxes are used to over winter, a rule that I go by is to make sure that each colony has 14 frames of honey after the fall flow. |
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4. In addition to honey, a hive will need plenty of pollen to feed brood after the resumption of brood rearing in the spring. While this pollen is not really utilized in the late fall or early winter months, a lack of stored pollen can also kill a hive in the spring.
Unfortunately pollen is a requirement that is often overlooked by most new beekeepers. In late |
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| fall a colony will need a minimum of two frames of stored pollen. Even at this level, I error on the side of feeding a pollen patty or some kind of pollen substitute. |
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| Fortunately if a colony is short on pollen supplies, they can be fed pollen at any time of the year. Additionally there are a vast amount of pollen and pollen substitutes that can be purchased from beekeeping suppliers. |
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| 5. A low mite count. This article does not deal with diseases and pests. However this topic is important enough to give mention. Late summer and throughout fall is the time when the colony is raising the brood that will provide the winter cluster. It is detrimental to the health of the winter cluster to have health strong bees. If these winter cluster bees had a high mite count when they were brood, they will be weak, and unable to bring the colony through winter. For this reason the beekeeper must make sure that the mite population is under control before, and throughout fall. |
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| B. Winter: |
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1. When winter hit the colony must now be in good shape to survive the next three months. They should still have a cluster covering at least six frames. Note that this is the beginning of winter. The cluster will still diminish as older bees continue to die off.
If a cluster gets smaller than a dinner plate before early spring, it may be wise to combine them with another weak hive to boost the cluster size and save at least one of the hives. As stated before, a Russian, or Carniolian hive may over winter with a smaller cluster.
Another option may be to over winter one hive on top of the other to share warmth. |
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2. In addition to having a large enough cluster, at the beginning of winter, the colony must still have the majority of their stores remaining. At this point it is crucial that they have enough stores fuel them while they keep the cluster warm, and to feed larva when brood rearing commences.
Then when late winter hits, brood rearing is still picking up at a steady pace. At this point the colony will need enough stores to carry them through March and April. In some warmer climates the bees may have enough warm weather to get out and forage for some nectar. However in colder climates such as Indiana, there will be few days warm enough for the colony to fly, however there will be no nectar. |
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3. Pollen stores at the beginning of winter should be mostly untouched. If the colony had enough pollen in the late fall, they should still have enough pollen to fuel brood rearing at this point.
In the late winter after brood rearing kicks in, pollen consumption can come at a fast rate. If you plan to feed pollen substitute, now is the time. We make it a habit to give our hives pollen sub in mid February. By placing pollen sub on the top bars of hives who's cluster is in the top deep, it allows them easy access to pollen even in the cold weather when they may not be able to reach the pollen in the bottom box. |
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| Spring: |
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1. In early spring we should see a cluster of bees that fill at least a deep brood box. If the colony has enough stores, brood rearing should have commenced in mid winter. The colony is in preparation to take advantage of the first nectar flows of the year. |
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| In late spring a healthy hive will be in swarm preparation. While we do want the hive to be healthy enough to swarm, it is our job to prevent this by splitting, giving space, or other measures long before they make a decision to swarm. By mid to late spring, a healthy hive will have enough bees to cover all the frames in a two deep hive, and at least 8 - 14 frames of brood in various stages. |
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| 2. During this time of year, and throughout spring and summer, it is important to monitor the queen's brood pattern. To the right is pictured a good wall to wall brood pattern of a young well mated queen. The occasional empty cell is OK, however the majority of the frames closer to the center of the brood nest should be almost solid brood, with a little honey and pollen above the brood. |
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3. Spring is a time of renewal; we've all heard that saying. However spring is also a time of starvation for honeybees. What we have to worry about is the colony starving. During this time of year, brood rearing is at a fever pitch, but so is honey consumption. This rate of consumption coupled with the fact that in most cold climates there is no nectar in early spring, has caused the death of many hives.
If a hive is light in the spring, we should be feeding. Although some beekeepers don't feed at all until the hive is in need, I personally believe that a hive should be fed before they are in need, but not so much that they can store the feed. The exception to this is a starving hive. A starving hive needs to be fed enough to build up their stores. |
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4. Pollen is always an issue in fall, winter, and spring. At this point in the game, the colony will be consuming pollen almost as fast as honey. In northern climates it's not always possible to inspect a hive to find out how much pollen they have available. For this reason I always feed pollen sub in mid winter, and early spring.
Note that some beekeepers actually give their hives one or two pollen patties in the fall. While this is not a bad practice, if the colony still has natural pollen forage available, they may ignore these pollen patties, and they may end up molding. |
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| 5. In order to take advantage of the nectar flows, a hive must be healthy and strong. Barriers to this are pests. While this article is not meant to cover pest management, a hive should have a low mite count. This is important during this time of year. Mites reproduce in brood cells. For this reason the mite populations are likely to explode along with the population of the hive. |
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| 6. Any healthy hive in the spring will have Drones. Some beekeepers try to get rid of as many Drone cells as possible. While it is important to make sure that the ratio of Drone to worker brood is good, Drones are a neccissary part of honeybee biology. A healthy hive should have around 10% Drone brood, and an equal part of the population should be drones. In early spring Drones will actually be in short supply, however this is the build up time for drones to allow queens to mate. |
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| Summer: |
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| Summer is a fairly easy time of year for the bees. Pollen and nectar are usually in abundance, and a healthy hive is a happy hive. However there are times when a hive isn't very healthy in the summer. |
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| 1. A summer hive should have a queen that was mated no earlier than the previous summer. Late summer is also a time to requeen a hive with a fresh queen to bring them through winter. Sometimes this happens naturally when the hive superceedes a queen in the summer. |
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| 2. As with spring a summer hive should have a high population of workers that cover all of the frames in the brood nest. However a summer hive should have actually grown beyond the population of a spring hive and stretch into the honey supers. |
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| 3. In early summer a healthy hive should have stored plenty of overhead honey to last them a few weeks if the honey flows suddenly stopped. As summer progresses the hive should have filled plenty of honey supers, and enough honey to fill the second brood box with wall to wall honey, plus honey on the outside frames of the bottom brood nest. However a healthy hive should not completely backfill both brood nests with honey. The queen will still need a space to lay and the bees a space to cluster in the brood nest. |
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| 4. In late summer I always look for a hive to fill a minimum of two or three frames of pollen. Note that this pollen may be spread out over the brood nest, and two or three frames is an approximation. |
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| 5. As with fall and spring, it is important to continue to monitor the mite populations and treat as needed. |
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| Other Indications of a Healthy Hive: |
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| 1. During the spring and summer as the hive is bringing in plenty of pollen and nectar, honeybees will often do something called washboarding. This is a behaviour that is not understood, but is generally associated with a happy colony. Washboarding is where the guard bees walk forward an inch or two, then backwards an inch or two repeated on the landing board. |
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| 2. During nectar flows a healthy hive is generally calm when the hive is opened. They are not easily excitable and do not run around on the frames as if they were in a panic. |
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| 3. Something that will take time for a new beekeeper to learn, is to judge the health of a hive by the incoming and outgoing bees. Is nectar and pollen coming in? Is there lots of calm orderly activity at the hive entrance, and in the flight path of the hive? This is a very important observation, however this is not a reliable enough indicator to replace a full inspection. |
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4. During brood rearing seasons, the presents of brood is not enough to determine that a hive is healthy. A healthy queen right hive will have brood in all stages of development, this includes eggs.
Good luck!
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