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SC Spring Beekeeping
Spring Management Activities begin as soon as we have warm days. The Queen begins laying worker
bees and drones. Be Ready!
Nectar Flow Starts in April
Adding Supers
Monitor honey frames
Checking for Varroa Mites
Arranging for Honey Extraction
What are you going to with your honey?
Each week during the
nectar flow, which lasts
from April thru the first
part of June in most of the
state, you should be
checking the colony
weekly and adding empty
supers as necessary.
Adding a lot of supers at
one time may be necessary
if you have an out yard of
some distance. However,
the bees will tend to store
the nectar/honey up the
middle of the supers. You
will have to rotate the
center frames to the
outside to get a full super.
If you are producing comb
honey, you need to be
rotating the comb honey
super so they will store
honey throughout the
comb honey super. The
comb honey super should
be watched carefully to
avoid travel stains on the
caps and pulled prior to
travel stains occurring.
When adding empty supers, I typically top
super, or just place the empty super with
frames on top of the hive stack. It is
quicker and easier than removing all the full
supers and placing the empty super on top
of the feed chamber/super, or bottom
supering. You get almost as much honey
yield with top supering compared to bottom
supering and it is a lot easier and quicker.
Copyright David E. MacFawn 2014; SCBA and SC local associations have permission to use.
adding supers
2015 April May June
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During Package
Installation
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The nectar flow usually stops in Lexington around the second
week of June. The queen tapers off her egg lying at this time.
This is a good time to check for varroa and treat if necessary in
most parts of the state. You should also check for Varroa in
August / beginning of September and treat if necessary. You
should also be checking for other diseases such as American
Foulbrood (AFB).
Copied from Hive Tool
Pull a sampling of Drone and Worker brood
to detect for Varroa Mites.
Tools Needed:
Tweezers
You can use a refractometer to determine honey moisture content prior to
removing the supers (it should be 18.6% or lower) or, you can use the old
rule of thumb that the frame should be about 7/8 capped or higher to extract.
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In June, after the nectar flow and when the queen minimizes laying, is an excellent time to rotate two center
brood combs to the outside of the brood chamber in positions one and ten. The other frames are pushed to-
ward the center. When any remaining brood hatches, the old combs in position one and ten can then be re-
placed with fresh frames with foundation. One fall
back of the timing of this procedure is it is difficult to
get the bees to draw out the outside frames in June.
An alternative is to move two
inside frames to positions one and
ten in the late August / early
September time frame, replace
with frames with foundation in the
February / March time frame. This
will result in the frames with
foundation being drawn out during
the nectar flow.
Toward the end of June the Sourwood flow starts in the mountains. Hence,
supers full from the spring flow should be removed and extracted (quickly
to avoid Small Hive Beetle –SHB issues) and the empty supers or additional
supers placed on the hives. This way if the sourwood produces you will
have totally sourwood honey which you can
sell for a premium.
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Toward the end of the spring
flow in May, you should
examine the hive to determine
how many supers of honey you
have. A deep frame is about
six pounds of honey, a medium
frame is about four pounds of
honey and a shallow frame is
about 2 ½ - three pounds of
honey. This is based on ten
frames in your super and will
vary more if you use spacers in
your supers. You can then
ensure that you have enough
jars or buckets on hand to store
the honey.
I typically pull my ripe honey
supers and extract mid-June.
If you wait longer your spring
honey may get mixed with the
autumn honey. If you only
have a couple to a few hives, it
is typically cheaper, to pay a
friend to extract your honey
rather than invest in a lot of
extracting equipment. This is
especially true if you are a
new beekeeper and are “just
trying out the waters.” An
extractor and extracting
equipment will cost you $500
to $800 range.
In Lexington there is a dearth after the spring flow ends around the second week of June
through August. Hence, you should typically leave enough honey on your colony to get the bees
thru this dearth period and thru the winter if you plan on feeding the bees the honey they
produced rather than robbing them down and feeding syrup. You should make sure that at
least the feed super, immediately on top of the brood chamber, is left on the hive and is full.
You need to be determining what you will do with your honey. You can certainly keep it for
yourself and family or you can sell it. A honey exemption can be obtained if no more than four
hundred gallons (4800 pounds) of honey are produced annually and said honey is only sold
directly to end consumers. Furthermore, labels are required on all containers of honey that are
sold in South Carolina and must be in compliance with the Fair Packaging and Labeling Act.
Send application and label (s) to:
Angie Culler, 123 Ballard Court, Columbia, SC 29172
Email: [email protected],
Phone: (803) 737-734-7321 West
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David MacFawn Biography
David Elgie MacFawn:
He is a North Carolina Master Craftsman Beekeeper, Co-Founded the South
Carolina Master Beekeeping Program, awarded South Carolina Beekeeper of
the Year, assisted Dr. Fell at Virginia Tech in the Virginia Master Beekeeping Program, Incorporated
the South Carolina Beekeepers Association as a 501 C 3 Non Profit Corporation, and published sev-
eral (over five) articles in the American Bee Journal. David has kept bees in Maryland (Dark German
bees), Virginia (Italian), North Carolina (Italian), Colorado (Russian), and South Carolina (Italian
and Russian Hybrid).
David’s Work History:
David has a BS in Electrical Engineering and a Masters in Business Administration with concentra-
tions in Finance and Operations Research. David was in the computer business for over 30 years
and was a Customer Service director responsible for worldwide support planning, training/education,
logistics, call center support, and professional services at Sun Microsystems and a subset of this at
NCR. David was also a Federal Systems Product Manager responsible for new DOD system defini-
tion and development at Data General.
David’s Beekeeping Business Endeavors:
David is a beekeeping author and has co-authored a practical guide to beekeeping book, "Getting the
Best From Your Bees".
He also developed, marketed, and supported spreadsheets analyzing financial aspects of the honey
and pollination businesses, and beeswax candle production and sales.
David and his wife reside in the Columbia, South Carolina, and is an active sideline beekeeper.
Cynthia Robinson Bio
The Winter Management was edited and graphic layout created by Cynthia Robinson. Known as the
Beekeeper On Duty. Cynthia lives in Clover, SC with her husband. She has two grown married sons with
three grand children. Cynthia began beekeeping in 2005 with Sally Adams/Mamabeehive as her mentor.
Cynthia is a Journeyman Beekeeper and is now holding a SC State office as Secretary and acts as media
tech at all SC Conferences. Cynthia also serves as the Web Administrator for SC State Beekeepers
Association. Cynthia has published many beekeeping newsletters for local and currently produces the
State Association Newsletter.
Copyright David E. MacFawn 2014; SCBA and SC local associations have permission to use. All artwork & graphics was taken with permission from the web or was the personal property of Cynthia Robinson.
If you are interested in reprints of this document, please contact [email protected] or [email protected]