Beekeeping
(Past and Future)
It has been reported that there are many cases of severe colony losses so far this winter. Certainly the mites have some effect on colonies as far as survival is concerned. Much more can be said about colonies and the preparation for fall, winter and spring.
More and more colonies will perish during March and April. Most of this loss can be attributed to lack of food or to supplemental foods which are not the best for retaining colony health and strength.
For the moment let’s consider the value of the supplements that are supplied to the colonies and injected into the systems of the bees which can be compared to humans and drugs each having side-effects.
We have know for a long time that bees raised on sugar syrup, or any of the other substitutes have their lives shortened by 10 days. NOW, ten days may not seem like much but when considering the short life of the honeybee it amounts to quite a bit. SO, when it comes right down to the final conclusion there IS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR HONEY as far as bees and humans are concerned.
We are now looking into the month of February and it has been a bad, cold winter so far with only one brief period of reasonably warm days. Bees have had that day or two when they could have had a cleansing flight. It is only the winters that have no breaks over a six week period that really hurts colonies and causes dysentery.
We have weathered many severe winters and managed to winter our colonies successfully. I recall one winter when one of our apiaries was covered by two feet of snow over the tops of all colonies. We found the bees doing well under the cover of snow and they really wintered as well or better than those that had no snow cover.
SO, to sum it all up much or most of colony losses during the winter and spring are due to the lack of preparedness in the fall.
About forty plus years ago John Johnson, county extension director Clay county, hosted our beekeeping classes at Spencer. It was through those classes that John became interested and got involved in beekeeping.
John followed closely the colony management we had contrived over the years through trial and research. He followed very closely and in detail of the fall management for wintering colonies. Since that time only minor changes were made which may have improved the overall results only slightly. John is one instructor who has followed doing as best can be done and has done it quite successfully. All beekeepers should give it try rather than suffer such colony losses.
Glen L. Stanley
2615 Aspen Road Unit #1
Ames, Iowa 50014
