I am a journalism student at the Univ.of South Florida and I would like to do my final class article on honey bees, so I would really appreciate it if I could get an interview from you. Here are my questions:

1. How do beekeepers catch a swarm?

2. Is there a great significance for honey bees in the agricultural community?

3. What is the danger of Africanized Honey Bees compared to normal ones?

4. Where is the best place for the beekeeper to put the colonies?

5. What does a “strong” bee hive look like?

6. Why do honey bees make honey?

7. What are some methods to keep from being stung? Why do they work?

8. Are honey bees more active some times of the year than others?

9. What should a person do if they discover a hive in or very near their home? Is this something somebody should attempt to deal with on their own?

1. A swarm is the asexual method of honey bee colony reproduction. The colony divides and part stays in the original location and the other part leaves to find a new home. The beekeeper simply looks for swarms or is alerted to swarms that have alighted on a limb or fence, etc. as they search for a cavity that meets their requirements. Since virtually all swarms are gentle, as they have no resources to defend, it is simply a matter of forcing the swarm into a previously prepared “hive” of some kind and then relocating the newly filled hive at some point.

2. Without honey bees approximately 1/3 of the food we eat would disappear because of the pollination benefits of honey bees. Honey bees are the foundational keystone species of agriculture. Honey is simply a by-product of pollination, that process of taking pollen from one flower part to another flower part on a different plant so that a seed can develop and the plant will devote the resources to produce the fruit, berry, nut or seed that feeds us and our livestock. Einstein said that if honey bees ceased to exist society would collapse in 4 weeks. That is how important honey bees are!

3. Africanized Honey Bees (AHB) are the most successful invasive species of anything ever accidentally or intentionally introduced. After the environmental blunder of releasing (AHB) in Brazil in the late 1950s, they have taken over and displaced the managed and feral population of the gentle honey bees in almost all of South America, Central America, Mexico, and the Southwestern US. They are a super bee. They are the defensive and aggressive cousin of the honey bee so important to Florida Agriculture. They will defend their nest vigorously against any perceived danger. We have lost livestock, pets and have had citizens seek medical attention in parts of Florida where we can now find some level of Africanization. They cannot be managed for pollination or honey production as the honey bees we still have now.

4. Honey bees can forage successfully in about a 2-2 1/2 mile radius of their colony. The beekeeper must find a location that has the flowering plants that will provide the nectar and pollen that honey bees use as food and one that is away from people and livestock. This is getting more difficult in Florida everyday as our population increases and fills up previously vacant areas.

5. A strong colony is one that is healthy and able to produce many bees. A strong colony in the peak of the year may have 50,000 individuals in it.

6. European Honey Bees, unlike tropical AHB, are a temperate honey bee. This means that this bee is always preparing for winter when it will be cold and snowy and there will be no plant-based nectar and pollen resources. These honey bees visit flowers and collect nectar (sugary solution that plants make to attract pollinators) and then process it into honey that is stored in the beeswax combs to be used in winter when no other food is available.

7. For the average citizen our recommendation from my office is that any bees not associated with a Registered Florida Beekeeper be considered for eradication by a trained and licensed Pest Control Operator because of AHB now in our feral environment. Awareness of one’s environment will keep the average citizen from many stinging incidents. Beekeepers, on the other hand, use a device called a “smoker” that produces smoke which disrupts the chemical language that a colony uses to talk amongst itself and calms the bees to some degree.

8. Honey bees are generally active during daylight hours when the temperature is consistently above 57 degrees F. They will be looking for nectar and pollen resources to collect under these conditions.

9. See #3 and #7.

Jerry, I sure enjoyed your article on your trip to Nepal. You do great things. My question, do you know of other beekeepers who have bees surviving without any chemicals, none? My bees have been alive now for 10 years and I have never used anything. But, 10 years ago I experimented a few times with grease patties. Bees didn’t take them, so I haven’t used anything else in all these years. This year I had eight of 10 survive through winter. I sold four hives and a nuc and they produced 454 pounds of honey. I have 11 hives and four nucs this fall. I would like to exchange queens with others who are doing the same with their bees

Wow! Sounds great Willard. Chemicals can certainly help and buy us some time if things get really bad. But, the ultimate answer is just what you are doing which is breeding from survivor colonies. Good luck this year. Any of you out there who are having success as good as Willard, send me an email and I’ll send his to you.

Hello Jerry, I have a few pounds of fermented honey from my 2005 harvest. Are there any health risks for me to eat this? I was thinking of pouring off the alcoholic portion and liquefying the crystallized part to put on my cereal. If that is not an issue, what about using it to feed back to the bees in the spring. I am confident it does not contain AFB spores. Any suggestions for further research for me to better store it to prevent future fermentation? I may have pulled it off before it was ripe. This year I was more patient and waited for it all to be capped and ran a dehumidifier before extracting. Thanks for your time.

Chris, honey has many yeasts in it that are picked up from the nectar it is made from and other environmental sources. Yeast are used in the alcoholic beverage industry to convert sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide. Alcohol is the waste product of yeasts as they feed on sugar. Honey that is less than 18% water is an unsuitable environment for yeast to grow in or any other bacteria. That is why honey does not need any added preservatives, but is a shelf-stable food that has been found in Egyptian tombs from thousands of years ago. Honey with moisture above 18% will support the growth of fermentation yeasts.

Sounds like you may have harvested this honey before it was all fully capped or perhaps stored it in a moist environment in a container that the moisture could get into. You could heat it and as alcohol evaporates at very low temps, drive it off. The resulting product probably won’t taste like good honey. You could do the same thing and wait until spring and feed it back to the bees. Your choice.

Wait until 99% of the honey is fully capped before harvesting. Then, after extraction, store it in tightly sealed containers at room temperature or to assure preservation put it in your freezer until ready to consume.

As for the health ramifications, as much as people don’t like to hear it, alcohol is a very potent poison. I definitely wouldn’t feed it to my bees. You have to decide whether or not you wish to take it into your own body. Take care and good luck this year.

Jerry, we really love your Classroom. It’s the first thing I read every month. I hope you can help us with this question. Is it possible to get a honey flow from blooming lentils and field peas? We are growing winter lentils which bloom in early spring.

Elaine, thank you for the Classroom compliment. If you mean field peas like black-eyed peas like we have in the South, they at times can produce heavy nectar. You would probably need 500 acres of them to get a crop, but being a legume, it could certainly be possible. Don’t expect much nectar from a backyard crop. However, they need cross pollination so honey bees definitely help. Lentils, on the other hand, are self-pollinating and interestingly enough the pollination takes place just before the flower opens. So, honey bees or any other pollinators are not necessary and not any nectar is offered. Take care.

Good morning! I have a question and hope you have the answer. Richard Petty of NASCAR fame is advertising for Sue Bee Honey and claims it is 100% American. I have heard from different corners that Sue Bee has a significant percentage of Canadian honey in their product. If this is true, Mr. Petty should not be making these claims. I enjoy your column in the ABJ and look forward to it each month. Thanks for watching out for the American honey producer.

Herb, why couldn’t you have asked me a simple question like how many legs does a queen have or what happens when I use a pump up garden sprayer and spray Maverick directly into a colony because I heard it controls varroa from another beekeeper? This question is at an end of a road lined with IED’s and potential political quicksand. But, you knew that didn’t you?

I must say I am not afraid of anyone except my 76 year old mother, so I’ll tell you what I found out in researching an accurate answer to your question. I was of the opinion also that all packers were blenders as well. Taking .50/# honey from some country that is dumping the product here in the US because our food import laws for honey are so lax and weak that everything comes in that the EU won’t take.

The first thing I did was call SKAR Advertising and talked to Mr. Todd Scanning who manages the Sioux Honey account for the NASCAR, Richard Petty promotion. Mr. Scanning told me that Sioux Honey only packs US Honey for this campaign. I was still skeptical, so I did what every good investigative reporter would do and I went to our regional major grocery store chain. And, by golly, the Sioux Honey/NASCAR/Richard Petty Honey was labeled as product of U.S.A. From this information it looks to me as though everything is OK. Thanks for staying vigilant and asking the question. Never Stop. Take Care.

Hi Jerry, thank you for your kindness, patience and dedication to all of us. I don’t know what we beekeepers would do without your expert advice. (And your quirky humor too) :) Jerry, I closed up my 11 colonies for the winter and forgot to remove the bags of menthol crystals. Can they be left on all winter or should I be a good ‘keeper and remove them? I’m sure there will be some warm, sunny, winter days when the temps will be high enough to release the medication. It concerns me that a little medication over a long period may not be a good thing. Hope to hear from you before the next big snow!

QUIRKY HUMOR! It has taken approximately 20 years for someone to call my humor QUIRKY. Thank you. You are absolutely right. As you know, I am a big proponent of following label directions. And, if it was anything except menthol, I would encourage you to remove it at the next most opportune time between snow storms. Menthol’s cooling, vapor action is only effective on tracheal mites and seems to kill them by desiccation (drying out). Tracheal mites have not been found to have developed resistance to menthol because it would require major body modification. In the dosage in the “bags” it is an irritant to the bees but not a major, significant one. So, all that said, if you have your colonies all wrapped up and snugged up for winter with a certain low amount of the menthol crystals to still sublimate off, I would just leave them. Depending on where the cluster is and what the outside temps get to be, you may find the same amount of menthol in the bags in spring when you open the colonies back up. Have a good winter.

Could you please tell me why my beeswax candles turn dark in a short period of time? Is there something I could add to the wax? Thank you.

Bill, I have never heard of “pure” beeswax candles turning dark on their own over a short period. Beeswax can certainly be darkened in the heating, melting process. Beeswax melted at high temperatures can be turned dark and beeswax melted from old comb can pick up a dark coloration from the larval skins and other residues left in the comb. Once the melting process is over and the beeswax is molded, it should stay the color the processor finished with. After the first melting and straining, some beekeepers leave the beeswax in the sun to bleach it and there is a method to use hydrogen peroxide as a bleaching agent, but it is somewhat involved. If you start with pure, clean beeswax such as in cappings, the end product will be color stable for a long time.

Dear Jerry, I must say your Classroom is great. It’s the first thing I look for every month. I purchased a book called The Hive and the Honey Bee. I would love to keep bees as a hobby for my retirement years (I’m 56) and to show the grandkids and maybe get one or more of them interested in bees as well. But, I’m confused. The book says to have a frame of brood? A frame of drawn comb? And a frame of honey? Ready to make installation of a new package of bees easy. Can you explain to me how do I get all those items if I’m just ordering a new bee set up? Just starting on the “bee highway’. Thanks for helping this “newbee” out.

Dear Juan, I am glad that you are reading as much as you can to prepare for the unique hobby of beekeeping. And, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t honored by your compliment. Thank you. Terminology, especially new and unfamiliar terminology, is definitely confusing and can be mis-leading. Let’s look at some definitions so we are talking the same language.

Package Bees – This is a shoe box size wood and screen box that is used to contain 2 to 3 pounds of worker bees, a queen in her own separate little cage and usually a small inverted can that holds sugar syrup for food. This “Package (of) Bees” can then be sent to you by the US Mail or UPS. The Postal Service and UPS are not crazy about this, but life is not perfect and they charge quite a bit for shipping, so it all works.

Nuc – Same bees as above, but already installed on 3 to 5 drawn combs with an active laying queen, brood and some food reserves. This is a faster and easier way to get started, but nucs often cost more, as could be expected.

Drawn Comb – Foundation (usually) that has been pulled, massaged and stretched by the bees themselves into the actual cells that are the backbone of the colony’s survival as the hexagonal cells allow for new generations of bees to be reared from eggs laid by the queen into them, and bee bread and honey to feed the colony.

Brood – Baby bees in various stages of development in drawn comb.

Having drawn comb available for the queen to immediately lay in is a good thing. Since it takes three weeks for a newly laid egg to develop into a new bee, having brood available from another colony to put in a new colony allows new bees to emerge before the new queen’s new eggs can. This helps the colony stabilize sooner. A frame of honey for immediate natural food obviously helps the new colony.

This scenario is the ultimate and certainly effective, but impractical many times for the novice beekeeper not yet connected to the beekeeping world in his/her area. Knowing other beekeepers would allow access (purchase) to these other frames of comb.

My guess is that 100’s of thousands perhaps millions of colonies have been started from packages simply installed in a new hive on foundation with continuous and copious sugar syrup available in a feeder for the new package bees. Honey bees produce beeswax to help build cells on foundation in response to carbohydrate (sugar).

Is it perhaps an advantage to have all the extra things that the “book” says you need to get package bees off to an ultimate start? Yes. Is it practical for all hobby, sideline and commercial beekeepers? No. It is quicker, faster and just slightly less effective to start your colonies from package bees using just foundation with sugar syrup in a feeder until all the frames are “drawn out”. Welcome to beekeeping!

Hello Jerry, greetings from the North. I have a few hives that are lighter in feed than I would like at this point. What choices do I have to get them the feed through the winter? I plan as long as possible to keep a hive-top feeder on. Any other option? I will be supplementing with Feed- Bee at the same time in patty form.

Greetings from the South :) My first suggestion is to lose the pollen sub patty. They won’t need this until day length starts increasing and brood rearing picks up in late February or so. Until then they may eat it, but without frequent good weather for cleansing flights, you have added too much roughage to their diet and it may encourage dysentery. They need carbs to allow muscle activity and heat production. Honey is the best for this, but if you don’t have enough, then the hive-top feeder is a good thing. Another thing is a sugar patty made from a little water and granulated sugar made into a moist patty to place on the top bars above the cluster. You can get fancy and pull out empty comb and fill it with a thick sugar syrup. There are other things, but these should help. Hang in there.


	The Classroom by Jerry Hayes Please send your questions to Jerry Hayes, 17505 NW Hwy 335, Williston, FL 32696 Email: gwhayes54@yahoo.com

		Q Sara’s Top Nine Questions I am a journalism student at the Univ.of South Florida and I would like to do my final class article on honey bees, so I would really appreciate it if I could get an interview from you. Here are my questions: 1. How do beekeepers catch a swarm? 2. Is there a great significance for honey bees in the agricultural community? 3. What is the danger of Africanized Honey Bees compared to normal ones? 4. Where is the best place for the beekeeper to put the colonies? 5. What does a “strong” bee hive look like? 6. Why do honey bees make honey? 7. What are some methods to keep from being stung? Why do they work? 8. Are honey bees more active some times of the year than others? 9. What should a person do if they discover a hive in or very near their home? Is this something somebody should attempt to deal with on their own? Sara Oratowski A 1. A swarm is the asexual method of honey bee colony reproduction. The colony divides and part stays in the original location and the other part leaves to find a new home. The beekeeper simply looks for swarms or is alerted to swarms that have alighted on a limb or fence, etc. as they search for a cavity that meets their requirements. Since virtually all swarms are gentle, as they have no resources to defend, it is simply a matter of forcing the swarm into a previously prepared “hive” of some kind and then relocating the newly filled hive at some point. 2. Without honey bees approximately 1/3 of the food we eat would disappear because of the pollination benefits of honey bees. Honey bees are the foundational keystone species of agriculture. Honey is simply a by-product of pollination, that process of taking pollen from one flower part to another flower part on a different plant so that a seed can develop and the plant will devote the resources to produce the fruit, berry, nut or seed that feeds us and our livestock. Einstein said that if honey bees ceased to exist society would collapse in 4 weeks. That is how important honey bees are! 3. Africanized Honey Bees (AHB) are the most successful invasive species of anything ever accidentally or intentionally introduced. After the environmental blunder of releasing (AHB) in Brazil in the late 1950s, they have taken over and displaced the managed and feral population of the gentle honey bees in almost all of South America, Central America, Mexico, and the Southwestern US. They are a super bee. They are the defensive and aggressive cousin of the honey bee so important to Florida Agriculture. They will defend their nest vigorously against any perceived danger. We have lost livestock, pets and have had citizens seek medical attention in parts of Florida where we can now find some level of Africanization. They cannot be managed for pollination or honey production as the honey bees we still have now. 4. Honey bees can forage successfully in about a 2-2 1/2 mile radius of their colony. The beekeeper must find a location that has the flowering plants that will provide the nectar and pollen that honey bees use as food and one that is away from people and livestock. This is getting more difficult in Florida everyday as our population increases and fills up previously vacant areas. 5. A strong colony is one that is healthy and able to produce many bees. A strong colony in the peak of the year may have 50,000 individuals in it. 6. European Honey Bees, unlike tropical AHB, are a temperate honey bee. This means that this bee is always preparing for winter when it will be cold and snowy and there will be no plant-based nectar and pollen resources. These honey bees visit flowers and collect nectar (sugary solution that plants make to attract pollinators) and then process it into honey that is stored in the beeswax combs to be used in winter when no other food is available. 7. For the average citizen our recommendation from my office is that any bees not associated with a Registered Florida Beekeeper be considered for eradication by a trained and licensed Pest Control Operator because of AHB now in our feral environment. Awareness of one’s environment will keep the average citizen from many stinging incidents. Beekeepers, on the other hand, use a device called a “smoker” that produces smoke which disrupts the chemical language that a colony uses to talk amongst itself and calms the bees to some degree. 8. Honey bees are generally active during daylight hours when the temperature is consistently above 57 degrees F. They will be looking for nectar and pollen resources to collect under these conditions. 9. See #3 and #7. Q Breeding From Survivors Jerry, I sure enjoyed your article on your trip to Nepal. You do great things. My question, do you know of other beekeepers who have bees surviving without any chemicals, none? My bees have been alive now for 10 years and I have never used anything. But, 10 years ago I experimented a few times with grease patties. Bees didn’t take them, so I haven’t used anything else in all these years. This year I had eight of 10 survive through winter. I sold four hives and a nuc and they produced 454 pounds of honey. I have 11 hives and four nucs this fall. I would like to exchange queens with others who are doing the same with their bees Willard Phipps South Bend, Indiana A Wow! Sounds great Willard. Chemicals can certainly help and buy us some time if things get really bad. But, the ultimate answer is just what you are doing which is breeding from survivor colonies. Good luck this year. Any of you out there who are having success as good as Willard, send me an email and I’ll send his to you. Q Fermentation, Alcohol & CO₂ Hello Jerry, I have a few pounds of fermented honey from my 2005 harvest. Are there any health risks for me to eat this? I was thinking of pouring off the alcoholic portion and liquefying the crystallized part to put on my cereal. If that is not an issue, what about using it to feed back to the bees in the spring. I am confident it does not contain AFB spores. Any suggestions for further research for me to better store it to prevent future fermentation? I may have pulled it off before it was ripe. This year I was more patient and waited for it all to be capped and ran a dehumidifier before extracting. Thanks for your time. Chris Beck A Chris, honey has many yeasts in it that are picked up from the nectar it is made from and other environmental sources. Yeast are used in the alcoholic beverage industry to convert sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide. Alcohol is the waste product of yeasts as they feed on sugar. Honey that is less than 18% water is an unsuitable environment for yeast to grow in or any other bacteria. That is why honey does not need any added preservatives, but is a shelf-stable food that has been found in Egyptian tombs from thousands of years ago. Honey with moisture above 18% will support the growth of fermentation yeasts. Sounds like you may have harvested this honey before it was all fully capped or perhaps stored it in a moist environment in a container that the moisture could get into. You could heat it and as alcohol evaporates at very low temps, drive it off. The resulting product probably won’t taste like good honey. You could do the same thing and wait until spring and feed it back to the bees. Your choice. Wait until 99% of the honey is fully capped before harvesting. Then, after extraction, store it in tightly sealed containers at room temperature or to assure preservation put it in your freezer until ready to consume. As for the health ramifications, as much as people don’t like to hear it, alcohol is a very potent poison. I definitely wouldn’t feed it to my bees. You have to decide whether or not you wish to take it into your own body. Take care and good luck this year. Q Honey Crop From Lentils And Peas Jerry, we really love your Classroom. It’s the first thing I read every month. I hope you can help us with this question. Is it possible to get a honey flow from blooming lentils and field peas? We are growing winter lentils which bloom in early spring. Elaine Roghair A Elaine, thank you for the Classroom compliment. If you mean field peas like black-eyed peas like we have in the South, they at times can produce heavy nectar. You would probably need 500 acres of them to get a crop, but being a legume, it could certainly be possible. Don’t expect much nectar from a backyard crop. However, they need cross pollination so honey bees definitely help. Lentils, on the other hand, are self-pollinating and interestingly enough the pollination takes place just before the flower opens. So, honey bees or any other pollinators are not necessary and not any nectar is offered. Take care. Q Really 100% USA? Good morning! I have a question and hope you have the answer. Richard Petty of NASCAR fame is advertising for Sue Bee Honey and claims it is 100% American. I have heard from different corners that Sue Bee has a significant percentage of Canadian honey in their product. If this is true, Mr. Petty should not be making these claims. I enjoy your column in the ABJ and look forward to it each month. Thanks for watching out for the American honey producer. Herb Everhart A Herb, why couldn’t you have asked me a simple question like how many legs does a queen have or what happens when I use a pump up garden sprayer and spray Maverick directly into a colony because I heard it controls varroa from another beekeeper? This question is at an end of a road lined with IED’s and potential political quicksand. But, you knew that didn’t you? I must say I am not afraid of anyone except my 76 year old mother, so I’ll tell you what I found out in researching an accurate answer to your question. I was of the opinion also that all packers were blenders as well. Taking .50/# honey from some country that is dumping the product here in the US because our food import laws for honey are so lax and weak that everything comes in that the EU won’t take. The first thing I did was call SKAR Advertising and talked to Mr. Todd Scanning who manages the Sioux Honey account for the NASCAR, Richard Petty promotion. Mr. Scanning told me that Sioux Honey only packs US Honey for this campaign. I was still skeptical, so I did what every good investigative reporter would do and I went to our regional major grocery store chain. And, by golly, the Sioux Honey/NASCAR/Richard Petty Honey was labeled as product of U.S.A. From this information it looks to me as though everything is OK. Thanks for staying vigilant and asking the question. Never Stop. Take Care. Q Menthol Left In The Hive Hi Jerry, thank you for your kindness, patience and dedication to all of us. I don’t know what we beekeepers would do without your expert advice. (And your quirky humor too) :) Jerry, I closed up my 11 colonies for the winter and forgot to remove the bags of menthol crystals. Can they be left on all winter or should I be a good ‘keeper and remove them? I’m sure there will be some warm, sunny, winter days when the temps will be high enough to release the medication. It concerns me that a little medication over a long period may not be a good thing. Hope to hear from you before the next big snow! Jane Collins Naperville, Illinois A QUIRKY HUMOR! It has taken approximately 20 years for someone to call my humor QUIRKY. Thank you. You are absolutely right. As you know, I am a big proponent of following label directions. And, if it was anything except menthol, I would encourage you to remove it at the next most opportune time between snow storms. Menthol’s cooling, vapor action is only effective on tracheal mites and seems to kill them by desiccation (drying out). Tracheal mites have not been found to have developed resistance to menthol because it would require major body modification. In the dosage in the “bags” it is an irritant to the bees but not a major, significant one. So, all that said, if you have your colonies all wrapped up and snugged up for winter with a certain low amount of the menthol crystals to still sublimate off, I would just leave them. Depending on where the cluster is and what the outside temps get to be, you may find the same amount of menthol in the bags in spring when you open the colonies back up. Have a good winter. Q Wrong Color? Could you please tell me why my beeswax candles turn dark in a short period of time? Is there something I could add to the wax? Thank you. Bill Gilbert A Bill, I have never heard of “pure” beeswax candles turning dark on their own over a short period. Beeswax can certainly be darkened in the heating, melting process. Beeswax melted at high temperatures can be turned dark and beeswax melted from old comb can pick up a dark coloration from the larval skins and other residues left in the comb. Once the melting process is over and the beeswax is molded, it should stay the color the processor finished with. After the first melting and straining, some beekeepers leave the beeswax in the sun to bleach it and there is a method to use hydrogen peroxide as a bleaching agent, but it is somewhat involved. If you start with pure, clean beeswax such as in cappings, the end product will be color stable for a long time. Q Which Came First? The Bees Or The Brood Dear Jerry, I must say your Classroom is great. It’s the first thing I look for every month. I purchased a book called The Hive and the Honey Bee. I would love to keep bees as a hobby for my retirement years (I’m 56) and to show the grandkids and maybe get one or more of them interested in bees as well. But, I’m confused. The book says to have a frame of brood? A frame of drawn comb? And a frame of honey? Ready to make installation of a new package of bees easy. Can you explain to me how do I get all those items if I’m just ordering a new bee set up? Just starting on the “bee highway’. Thanks for helping this “newbee” out. Juan Sierra A Dear Juan, I am glad that you are reading as much as you can to prepare for the unique hobby of beekeeping. And, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t honored by your compliment. Thank you. Terminology, especially new and unfamiliar terminology, is definitely confusing and can be mis-leading. Let’s look at some definitions so we are talking the same language. Package Bees – This is a shoe box size wood and screen box that is used to contain 2 to 3 pounds of worker bees, a queen in her own separate little cage and usually a small inverted can that holds sugar syrup for food. This “Package (of) Bees” can then be sent to you by the US Mail or UPS. The Postal Service and UPS are not crazy about this, but life is not perfect and they charge quite a bit for shipping, so it all works. Nuc – Same bees as above, but already installed on 3 to 5 drawn combs with an active laying queen, brood and some food reserves. This is a faster and easier way to get started, but nucs often cost more, as could be expected. Drawn Comb – Foundation (usually) that has been pulled, massaged and stretched by the bees themselves into the actual cells that are the backbone of the colony’s survival as the hexagonal cells allow for new generations of bees to be reared from eggs laid by the queen into them, and bee bread and honey to feed the colony. Brood – Baby bees in various stages of development in drawn comb. Having drawn comb available for the queen to immediately lay in is a good thing. Since it takes three weeks for a newly laid egg to develop into a new bee, having brood available from another colony to put in a new colony allows new bees to emerge before the new queen’s new eggs can. This helps the colony stabilize sooner. A frame of honey for immediate natural food obviously helps the new colony. This scenario is the ultimate and certainly effective, but impractical many times for the novice beekeeper not yet connected to the beekeeping world in his/her area. Knowing other beekeepers would allow access (purchase) to these other frames of comb. My guess is that 100’s of thousands perhaps millions of colonies have been started from packages simply installed in a new hive on foundation with continuous and copious sugar syrup available in a feeder for the new package bees. Honey bees produce beeswax to help build cells on foundation in response to carbohydrate (sugar). Is it perhaps an advantage to have all the extra things that the “book” says you need to get package bees off to an ultimate start? Yes. Is it practical for all hobby, sideline and commercial beekeepers? No. It is quicker, faster and just slightly less effective to start your colonies from package bees using just foundation with sugar syrup in a feeder until all the frames are “drawn out”. Welcome to beekeeping! Q Feeding Hello Jerry, greetings from the North. I have a few hives that are lighter in feed than I would like at this point. What choices do I have to get them the feed through the winter? I plan as long as possible to keep a hive-top feeder on. Any other option? I will be supplementing with Feed- Bee at the same time in patty form. Dave H. A Greetings from the South :) My first suggestion is to lose the pollen sub patty. They won’t need this until day length starts increasing and brood rearing picks up in late February or so. Until then they may eat it, but without frequent good weather for cleansing flights, you have added too much roughage to their diet and it may encourage dysentery. They need carbs to allow muscle activity and heat production. Honey is the best for this, but if you don’t have enough, then the hive-top feeder is a good thing. Another thing is a sugar patty made from a little water and granulated sugar made into a moist patty to place on the top bars above the cluster. You can get fancy and pull out empty comb and fill it with a thick sugar syrup. There are other things, but these should help. Hang in there.

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