Management of Honey Production and Pollination

Chapter 5 of Keith Delaplane’s First Lessons in Beekeeping

PPT by Dr. Steve Payne, retired professor & Member, LA Master Beekeepers

Advisory Group

Topic: Early Season Build-up

• During late winter and early spring, supplemental feeding (sugar syrup and a pollen substitute) might well be needed for some hives. Various types of liquid feeders exist and commercially produced pollen substitute are available for purchase, so that bees can be nourished until natural floral resources bloom.

Topic: Requeening

• It is vital to replace poor-performing queens. Caged queens should be introduced carefully so that existing bees grow to accept this new queen. Cutting out any existing supersedure queen cells is recommended as well as checking that the new queen is actually laying eggs a few days after she has been accepted by the hive.

Topic: Swarm management

• Swarms deprive existing hives of much of their workforce and can ruin the making of a decent honey crop. Swarm impulses exist particularly in the spring and can be tied to hive congestion and the presence of queen cells. Relieving congestion can be accomplished by making splits/nucs, equalizing colonies, reversing hive bodies/boxes, and supering.

Swarm management (2)

• Culling queen cells is another way to reduce swarming tendencies, but checking hives every ten days or so to cut out every queen cell (and even finding some of these in inconspicuous and odd locations in the hive) can be demanding work for a beekeeper.

Topic: Supering for the nectar flow

• Tip: The beekeeper should be liberal with adding supers early in the season (when lots of flowers are in bloom) and frugal with supers near the end of the nectar flows. Depending on the presence of new white wax combs filled with raw honey in top supers over time, the beekeeper might add as many as eight or so supers over a very good season.

Supering for the nectar flow (2)

• Beekeepers can simply add supers to the top of the existing boxes or add to the bottom (above the brood boxes). While bottom supering can make sense especially for comb honey production, research has shown this doesn’t significantly increase honey yield. Bottom supering obviously means more lifting and work!

Other honey production concerns

The over-riding objective in spring and summer management is to have large bee populations in time and place for major plant nectar flows. Other tips include placing hives in direct sunlight and providing a wind break for the hives, as well as replacing black and old brood combs. Research has shown that such old combs decrease honey production.

Topic: Working with Africanized bees

• Some beekeepers in the US, and especially in foreign countries, must work with Africanized bee hives. Some tips in such cases include: good and isolated apiary locations, use of single hive stands (instead of pallets or rails), adequate protective clothing (use of white color in veils, etc.), and heavy smoking.

Topic: Honey plants

A variety of flowers offer good nectar and pollen sources for honey bees. Among those commonly found in the South are ones shown

below: Red maple and orange blossom

Honey plants (2)

Dandelion and white clover

Honey plants (3)

Blackberry and soybean

Honey plants (4)

Tulip poplar and goldenrod

Honey plants (5)• There are many other honey bee foraging

sources in the South. Different honey plants bloom at different periods and for different lengths of time. Goldenrod, for example, offers a good fall forage to help hives survive the winter. The largest plant forage for bees in the USA comes from yellow, white and Dutch clover. For honey production, hive location near good foraging sources is essential.

Topic: Pollination

• For crop pollination purposes, the key concerns are the presence of a vigorously laying queen and plenty of brood to create a protein demand for pollen foraging. One strategy for successfully pollinating crops is to delay having the hives in place until when the bloom is about ten percent achieved.

Pollination (2)

Although a common target density for crops is one hive per acre, the type of crop and other factors can significantly raise suggested target density (more hives per acre). Pollination fees can be attractive, but hives can suffer honey producing and health consequences from frequent moves to different pollination locations and crops.