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The sun has shown it’s face a few times, the weather is warming and we can feel spring in the air. Spring is a busy time for farmers of all sorts, including beekeepers. Kelly Knapp from Miss Bee Haven stopped by the farm last week with a delivery of her delicious honey. We got a chance to hear what she’s up to now that the weather is warming and she’s had a few days of dry weather.
Right now Kelly is working fast and furious splitting her hives. Since the days are lengthening and warming, the queens in each of her hives will begin to lay a lot of eggs. When beehives get too crowded the bees will fly out of their hives in great numbers in search of a new home and more spacious quarters. This is called swarming. By splitting hives, Kelly will at the same time prevent swarming and utilize her established colonies to increase the overall number of hives that she manages.
The process of splitting is fascinating. In the “mother” hive, she leaves the queen in place but she will take several frames from the hive. The frames must include every stage of bee, minus the queen. This includes the drones who mate with the queen, worker bees who forage for pollen and nectar, nurser bees that cater to the eggs and the babies, and very importantly, at least one, one-day old egg.
When all of these bees are taken away from their queen and deposited into a queenless hive, they will go into the mode to make a new one. The bees make a queen out of the day old egg by feeding the larvae royal jelly. The bees will also pack the cell holding the larvae with royal jelly. When the larvae emerges as the queen bee from the cell, she eats her way out and consumes all the royal jelly deposited there. Royal jelly is all she will eat for her lifetime. She is the only bee fed exclusively royal jelly. Worker bees of the hive get a small amount of royal jelly for the first few days of their lives but then they eat the pollen, nectar and honey.
Once Kelly has split a hive she will do nothing to it for 27 days so the bees have a chance to make their queen. After 27 days, she’ll check on the hive to be sure they’ve made their queen. With new queens successfully established, she’ll find good homes, like Frog Hollow Farm, for her new hives and place the frames into larger boxes ensuring that each new hive has plenty of room to grow their colony and make lots of sweet and delicious honey!
If you’d like to see the inside of a beehive first hand and learn more about the fascinating lives of honeybees, we’d love for you to join us at our Spring Stroll on Sunday, March 12th. Kelly will be on site opening a hive and taking all your questions. We’ll also have some of her delicious honey available for sample and sale. An invite to the event is coming this week, so check your emails!
