TIMELY TOPICS
Beekeeping is a centuries-old pursuit that today plays a critical role in food production. Around a third of the food we consume has a direct dependence on pollinator insects at some point in its production with honey bees being the most common pollinator insect by far.
On Friday, April 4, Virginia Cooperative Extension will hold a beekeeping seminar for people interested in learning how to get started keeping bees, as well as a portion of the program devoted to experienced beekeepers to hear from Virginia Tech’s Dr. James Wilson on the latest advances and research in hive management.
Managed bees are kept in hives where a single hive typically consists of a stack of three or four interconnected wooden box frames. The topmost wooden frame is typically the “honey super” and between it and the box frames below it lies a thin “queen excluder” screen. This screen restricts the reproducing queen to the lower box frames where young bees develop and grow.
The smaller worker bees bring nectar back to the hive and deposit honey throughout all the box frames in the hive, since they are small enough to pass freely through the queen excluder. The queen excluder screen ensures the queen does not lay eggs in the upper box and this honey can be harvested for human consumption.
A worker bee has a life span of about 60 days, which is why the queen bee is constantly laying eggs and young larval stage bees are continually fed nectar spring, summer, and early fall.
Honeybee colonies reproduce by a process called swarming. During mid-winter, the queen begins laying eggs and the colony population grows. By spring, the hive may be congested with many new bees. The colony raises a new queen and the old queen flies away accompanied by more than half the bees.
This flying swarm temporarily clusters on an object, such as a tree branch, while scout bees search for a permanent nest site. A hanging swarm may assume any shape, depending on the surface on which it is clustered. Most hanging swarms are round or oval, about the size of a basketball, and dark brown.
Swarms in the clustered stage are relatively gentle, and the risk of stings is low. Nevertheless, treat swarms with caution. A swarm usually relocates to a permanent nest — a hollow tree, abandoned beekeeper’s hive, or inside a hollow wall —within 24 hours. The Shenandoah Valley Beekeepers Association maintains a list of beekeepers prepared to come collect swarms. Please do not spray or otherwise destroy a swarm of bees.
Honey bees are generally benign insects and are unlikely to sting unless swatted or the hive is disturbed. Modest numbers of hives can be safely kept even in heavily populated neighborhoods.
To learn more about the upcoming beekeeping workshop in Rockbridge on Friday, April 4, go online to rockbridge.ext. vt.edu or contact me, Tom Stanley, through the Rockbridge Extension Office at (540) 463-4734 or by email to [email protected].
A portion of this column was taken directly from the University of Georgia’s excellent Extension article “Honey Bee Swarms, circular 824.”
