Year 4 May - Yard History and a Plan 🖊️
May is here, and this bee season has come to an end.
Reflecting on the Past
Well, I find myself with no bees and a lot of empty equipment. It’s a first since I established a test yard in 1984.
That yard holds quite a fascinating history. I should have kept all those yard notes over the years. Yet, when I embraced natural beekeeping, most of them became irrelevant, so I let them go, along with the chemicals, and whatnot.
Here’s a glimpse into the history of the test yard:
1984: Established a conventional run Langstroth hive yard east of Casper, Wyoming, next to the North Platte river. No treatments were needed or used. Uncommon maladies like chalkbrood or sacbrood were handled by requeening.
1985: Moved the yard east of Glenrock, Wyoming. Encountered death camas for the first time. It was abundant when little else was available, causing sustained bee paralysis and death until all the pollen was consumed out of the combs.
1990: Moved the bees to Riverton, Wyoming. This was as good as it gets for beekeeping in Wyoming—maximum biodiversity, abundant irrigation, escaped weeds, moderate weather, and wind. Acquired some interesting queens. The bees were small, black, and runny. Bees would clump on a frame pulled from the hive and then fall to the ground. A few puffs of smoke into the top of a three-story hive caused the bees to quickly empty the hive as fast as they could run and form a clump on the ground.
1992: Moved the yard west of Casper. The best beekeeping area here, but not enough seasonal nutrition for permanent yards. Extreme winter winds. Wintered east of Casper along the river.
1993: Hives suffered from PMS. Saw the first varroa mites. Began treating with mite strips. Thought, like everyone else at that time, if we could kill all the mites, beekeeping would get back to normal.
1996: Experienced negative impacts from treating. Poor queen life/performance. Poor overwintering. The beginning of treatment-resistant mites. Started looking for alternatives. Talked with Erickson, Hines, and the Lusby’s. Decided to abandon mite strips and run this yard without them. Got every kind of queen I could buy. Started counting mites and selecting/breeding stock. Package bees were needed to keep equipment filled.
1999: Experienced some success with selection. Reduced average mite counts by a magnitude. Still not enough to keep treatment-free hives. Began experimenting with soft treatments like formic acid, mineral oil, essential oils.
2000: Bought Russian breeder queens from USDA. Another magnitude decrease in mite load, making Russian bees almost mite-tolerant. Began a small cell test.
2001: Phenomenal small cell results. Abandoned other efforts and focused on small cell.
2002: Started top bar hive and natural comb observations. End of package bees as hives are again full of bees and productive queens.
2003: Went natural. Left small cell behind.
2007: Hives moved into a conventional, treated, migratory commercial operation.
2009: Hives retrieved and set up in their beeyard. No mite or brood disease problems, even though the yard with commercial hives required continuous mite treatments, and antibiotic-resistant brood disease was evident. But hives failed to thrive. Erroneously attributed the problem to drought/forage and old queens.
2010: Hives split up and requeened. Bees fail to consume feed. Continue to decline.
2011: Hives die of slow-motion CCD.
So, that’s the end of that. No more special yard. No more special bees.
Soon, thousands of hives, booming with fat, corn-fed honeybees fresh from the almonds, will be unloaded nearby. It’s a tough transition for those bees, coming from California to an April Wyoming. And it’s even tougher on the beekeepers who must keep corn syrup and pollen patties flowing until the dandelions bloom in May.
A New Endeavor
A delicate balance, indeed. Too little feed, and the hives will cannibalize their own brood, crippling the hive for the summer. Too much, and the bees swarm with the first dandelions. And then there’s the weather and getting around. Better too much feed than too little. And I’m counting on it.
Swarms seldom overwinter and survive here. But with all those corn syrup-fed migratory bees and some strategically placed empty equipment, maybe a swarm will find a new home.
So, that’s my plan. I’ve never trapped swarms before. But it should be interesting and a chance to learn something new. ✨
-Cheers, D 🍂🐝
