1. Bee Hive Manipulation and Maintenance Throughout the Year - Louisiana
Hive Maintenance
and
Upkeep

2. Agenda I. Seasonal Maintenance II. Maintaining healthy hives/apiary
III. What to look for regarding hive problems
and pests/diseases
IV. Additional diseases and complications
V. Differences between commercial and hobby
beekeepers
Approaches to beekeeping
Reasons for differences
VI. References

3. I. Seasonal Maintenance
Fall – September into October
Late Fall/Winter - October through February
Spring March through April
Summer May to/& incl. September

4. Fall Months – September through October Slide 1 of 2
Maintain weekly checking
Harvest honey (mid-September for CENLA)
Identify weak colonies: combine/ destroy/decide which to do based upon hive condition
Inventorying equipment: plan for rebuilding and/or replacement
Continue treatment of vegetation within bee yards
Rotate brood boxes

5. Fall Months – September through October Slide 2 of 2
Add supers as needed
Prepare hives for winter months:
Maintain sufficient honey stores in hive
Apply pesticides as needed
Disease Prevention/Treatment
(ex. Foulbrood & Nosemia)
Treat for varroa; tracheal mites
(ex Apistan / Cumaphos; (Mite-a-thol); Apivar ®(Amitraz)? - follow labels
Reduce entrances

6. Winter Months – October through February
Check hives (at least once a month) and check for:
Strength (health and vigor)
Honey reserves
Yard maintenance
Repair and/or replace equipment

7. Spring Months – March through April Slide 1 of 2
Begin weekly maintenance
Check colony strength and honey stores
Initiate feeding to build up hive strength (ex. BeePro patties)
Treat for varroa and tracheal mites if needed
Disease Prevention if needed
Rotate deep boxes and remove entrance reducer
Treat vegetation in yards
Repair and/or replace equipment if you haven’t done so already

8. Spring Months – March through April Slide 2 of 2
Make colony increases (splits); capture swarms
Continue feeding until honey flow is on
All equipment should have been repaired/replaced but if not, do so now
Check Queens: commercial beekeepers often replace her every year; hobbyist may choose to keep her (Note: a young queen is a better producer) – plan on replacing Queen before the honey flow in your area begins
Provide additional supers as needed

9. Summer Months – May through August/September
Maintain weekly checking
Treat vegetation within bee yards
Add supers as needed (When 7 out of 10 frames are full, add a super)
Harvest honey (June and September for CENLA)

10. II. Maintaining a Healthy Hive/Apiary
Placement: Location, location, location!
Manage vegetation around hives
Maintain hive bodies and frames
Maintain healthy bees
Practice IPM
Remember: an ounce
of maintenance is
worth a pound of
live bees.

11. Maintaining a Healthy Hive/Apiary (continued)
Location, Location, Location:
Best: morning sun – mid-day shade - afternoon sun; Worst: full shade or sun
Avoid flood zones
Inaccessibility in inclemental conditions
Areas prone to pesticide spraying
Highly visible to public or in close proximity to public/neighbor (esp. if they don’t want them there)
Close to clean water and year-round food

12. Maintaining a Healthy Hive/Apiary (continued)
Manage vegetation around hives
Spay, mow, but do something to keep the vegetation under control

13. Maintaining a Healthy Hive/Apiary (continued)
Maintain hive bodies and frames:
New hives should be dipped/painted inside and out – Note: some bee keepers choose to not paint inside
Everything wears out – decide when to repair or toss

14. Maintaining a Healthy Hive/Apiary (continued)
Maintain healthy bees
For best brood production, requeen yearly
Treat for varroa mites (spring and fall)
Treat for all other pests as needed (small hive beetles, nosemia, tracheal mites, American foulbrood, European foulbrood, chalk brood, wax moths, etc.)

15. III. What to look for – Hive Problems/Pests/Diseases
Queenless hives
Presence of only drone brood and/or multiple eggs laid within individual cells

16. What to look for – Hive Problems/Pests/Diseases (continued)
Queenless Condition
Laying worker bees, in absence of queen begin laying eggs – problem: infertile bee laying eggs with haploid DNA produces drones
Unless treated, hive will die
Remedies:
Introduce new queen
Combine hive with queen-right hive
Destroy (due to additional problems seen)

17. Requeening
Options:
Purchase mated queens with known genetics/breeding stock from reputable dealer
Raise your own
Allow hive to requeen itself through supercedure (look for swarming queen cells)
If old queen isn’t producing she can be killed and replaced.

18. Indications of poor queen
Patchy brood pattern on combs

19. Requeen or “do something” when you see the following:
You can requeen or let the bees do it for you – sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t
Requeen or “do something” when you see the following:

20. Maintaining a Healthy Hive/Apiary Wax Moths (Lesser and Greater)
(Lesser: Achroid grisella;
Greater: Galleria mellonella L. )
HEALTHY HIVES WILL KEEP WAX MOTHS AT BAY!
Declining/stressed hives are prone to wax moths infestation
Hive might abscond if not die out altogether
Can degrade woodwork of hive and frames
Note: some people raise them for bait and food!

21. Maintaining a Healthy Apiary Wax Moths (continued)
Prevention
Proper storage of hives and frames
When building hives, provide for bee space (so bees can reach and remove wax moth eggs and larva)
Storage: fumigation should be considered whenever wax moths are present.
Misconceptions
WM’s do not kill honeybees
Cannot infest a healthy hive (more often than not, these hives have problems preceding the WM infestation)
Will not infest frames stored inside

22. Maintaining a Healthy Apiary Wax Moths (continued)

23. Maintaining a Healthy Apiary Small hive beetles (SHB) (Aethina tumida )
Exotics from S.Africa into U.S. in 1990’s
Feed on multiple nectar and pollen sources
In the hive they feed on brood, pollen, honey and defecate
The bees may abscond or succumb but in either case, the hive is lost

24. Maintaining a Healthy Apiary (SHB - continued)
They are omnipresent in Louisiana
Even healthy hives can succumb to unchecked/managed beetle problems
Answer: manage the beetle populations in your hives/apiary!

25. Maintaining a Healthy Apiary SHB Management options
IPM: predatory soil nematodes*, hygienic queens that kill/remove SHB, non-pesticidal traps
Soil nematodes infect the pupa with bacteria, which eats the tissue and causes septicemia in the SHB. The beetle dies, and the nematodes live inside the decaying carcass.
Traps, baiting, poisons, etc.
West Traps: black plastic trays with powdered lime or vegetable oil placed on bottom board.
Better Beetle Blaster with apple cider vinegar
Beetle Barn traps (GeorgiasBees.com) baited with attractant (CombatR (a.i.=FipronilR)), CriscoR with boric acid, etc.

26. Maintaining a Healthy Apiary SHB (continued)
Management options (continued)
Baited jars located outside the hives – apple cider vinegar; Crisco, etc.
SHB traps from cut up (3’x5”) advertising signs (Boric acid & Crisco) – FatBeeMan videos on YouTube.com
Roach traps placed around base and below hives
Guard Star drenching on ground around hives
Physically smashing the little buggers when seen
Praying, Crying, Cursing, etc.
Praying
Forget beekeeping and herd sheep instead

27. Maintaining a Healthy Apiary SHB (continued)
Pictorial of various SHB control techniques:

28. Maintaining a Healthy Apiary SHB (continued)
Pictorial of various SHB control techniques:

29. Tracheal mites (Acarapis woodi ) Slide 1 of 2
Mated females migrate from old bees to young bees; reproductive phase occurs inside the trachea
Colonies in the sun tend to have lower levels
Colony Symptoms: Bee population dwindles in fall and winter months resulting in colony death; heavily infested colonies do not build up in spring and usually don’t make a honey crop

30. Tracheal mites (Acarapis woodi ) Slide 2 of 2
Treatment Options:
Use of genetically selected mite-resistant stocks: Russians, Buckfast, ARS-Y-C1, etc.
Prolonged contact with vegetable oil (extender patties); use of “essential oils”
Mite-A-TholR (menthol):
Treatment Time Frames: One annual treatment –
late fall to early winter, November to December
Non-chemical Options: Use resistant stock; treat with vegetable oil extender patties; maintain young queens

31. Varroa mites (Varroa jacobsoni ) Slide 1 of 2
Feed on sealed brood and adult bees
Mated females move from brood cells to adults, then to reproduce, move to new brood before sealing of cells
Colony symptoms:
Bee population declines rapidly during winter or after honey flow, during the summer
Treatment Options:
Use of genetically selected mite-suppressant stocks: Russians, Hygienic queens, etc.
Mite fall traps (screened or sticky bottom boards
Trapping mites in drone brood (mites tend to infest drone brood 10X more than workers)

32. Varroa Mites (Varroa jacobsoni) Slide 2 of 2
Treatment Options (continued):
Heating of bees and brood (ex. placement of hives in sun vs. shaded conditions.
Use of essential oils; plant smokes (toxic knockdown methodology)
ApistanR, CheckMiteR and or Formic acid (this latter chemical is not recommended by USDA).
Apivar ® (Amitraz)
Treatment Times:
two annual treatments – early to mid-summer, mid-June thru July & early to mid-winter, mid-January to early February
Non-chemical Option:
Heat treatment and use of drone-brood frames/removal and reentry.

33. American foulbrood (Paenibacillus sp. ) Slide 1 of 3
Spore-forming bacteria; spores accumulate in the comb;
Symptoms
Capping of diseased cell becomes moist and darkens in color.
As larva shrink, the capping is drawn down into the mouth of the cell so the normal convex capping becomes concave.
Death of infected larva takes place after the cell has been sealed and the cocoon has been spun.

34. American foulbrood (Paenibacillus sp. ) Slide 2 of 3
Symptoms ( continued)
At death, diseased larva changes from a normal pearly white color to a creamy brown, and then gradually darkens.
Larval remains can be drwn out into a brown thread or rope.
As larva dries, it becomes dark brown.
Final state is very dark brown scale that lies uniformly on the lower side of the cell and extends from just below the mouth of the cell down to the base.

35. American foulbrood (Paenibacillus sp. ) Slide 3 of 3
Treatment Options:
Antibiotics prevent germination but don’t kill spores
Use of Oxytetracycline (TerramycinR) - an antibiotic used to PREVENT A.F.; [antibiotic resistant strains of A.F. exist]; do not use on a regular basis
Burning of combs/scorching hive bodies is only reliable way to eliminate A.F. once it has formed in a colony
Use of hygienic queens,
Eliminate old dark comb and rotate new combs into brood nest
Burn infected combs and scorch interior of hives

36. European foulbrood (Melissococcus pluton)
fungi; infection is seasonal
Treatment Options
Use of hygienic queens
Change queens
Clean bottom boards
Eliminate old dark comb and rotate new combs into brood nest
Burn infected combs and scorch interior of hives
Use of TerramycinR

37. Nosema (Nosema apis) Slide 1 of 4
Protozoan; widespread; may also be responsible for some supersedure of queens
Symptoms: no symptoms specifically indicative of Nosemia
inability of bees to fly
excreta on combs or lighting boards
Pile of dead or dying bees in front of hive
Failure of colony to build up in spring

38. Nosema (Nosema apis) Slide 2 of 4
Transmission:
spores enter body of adult bee through mouth and germinate in gut
Active phase of organism enters digestive cells that line the mid-gut where it multiplies
Contents of these cells are used as food supply until cell ruptures and sheds new spores which pass down through small intestine to rectum
Spores accumulate and are voided in the excreta of the bee
Cycle begins again
Spores can remain viable for months in dried excreta

39. Nosema (Nosema apis) Slide 3 of 4
Cyclic effect within hive(s):
Near end of winter, combs are often soiled with excreta
Other bees become infected as they clean soiled combs during spring expansion of the brood nest.
Thus, disease within the colony increases rapidly for a time leading to a dwindling of the colony in the spring because of premature death of the overwintered bees.
Usually, the colony survives and the proportion of infected bees begins to decline rapidly.
This decline occurs because the excreta are normally voided away from the hive when regular flights become possible in the spring.

40. Nosema (Nosema apis) Slide 4 of 4
Cyclic effect within hive(s) (continued):
Since the old bees now die off & are replaced by healthy bees emerging from the brood combs, the disease may not be detectable in the colony by the end of the season.
However, enough spores remain on the combs from the previous winter to infect a few bees in the cluster that form when winter sets in again thereby forming a nucleus for a repetition of the cycle.
Treatment:
FumidilR is the only chemical approved for the control of Nosema
Should be used in cell builders prior and during queen rearing schedules to protect queen honey bees from the disease.

41. IV. Additional Diseases/Complications Slide 1 of 3
Fungal Diseases:
Chalkbrood (Ascophaera apis)
Stonebrood (Sacbrood)
Viral Diseases:
Cripaviridae
Chronic paralysis - (CPV)
Dicistroviridae
Acute bee paralysis (ABPV or APV)
Israel acute paralysis virus (IAPV)

42. Additional Diseases/Complications Slide 2 of 3
Viral Diseases (continued):
Dicistroviridae (continued)
Kashmir bee virus (KBV)
Black Queen Cell virus (BQCV)
Cloudy Wing virus (CWV)
Sachwood virus (SWV)
Iflaviridae
Deformed Wing Virus (DWV)
Kakugo virus (KV),
Varroa destructor virus 1
Iridivividae
Invertebrate Iridescent virus type 6 (IIV-6)

43. Additional Diseases/Complications Slide 3 of 3
Dysentery
Chilled brood
Pesticide losses
Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD)

44. V. Differences in Hive Mgmt. /Mtnc
V. Differences in Hive Mgmt./Mtnc. between Commercial and Hobby Beekeepers Slide 1 of 2
Beekeeper’s objectives and goals for beekeeping:
Money (ex. Pollination vs. Honey production)
Enjoyment
Personal fulfillment
Job location and/or availability (beekeeping as a 2nd job position)
Incentive
Time
Ignorance – lack of knowledge

45. Differences in Hive Mgmt. /Mtnc. between Commercial vs
Differences in Hive Mgmt./Mtnc. between Commercial vs. Hobby Beekeepers Slide 2 of 2
Commercial beekeepers often feed their bees all winter and re-queen yearly – reason: Pollination requires well-stocked hives
Hobby beekeeper may or may not do this
Pest & disease monitoring & treatments
Making colony increases/splits
Elimination/replacement of weak queens/hives and replacement of damaged/contaminated equipment
Keeping informed of beekeeping knowledge, organizations, laws, regulations, etc.
Staying involved with other beekeepers, beekeeping organizations and the like.
Registration/Licensing of hives/yards with state

46. Similarities in Hive Mgmt. between Commercial & Hobby Beekeepers
Repair, maintenance & replacement of equipment
Inventorying and replacement of equipment
Checking colony strength and honey stores
Checking queen productivity
Vegetation management in bee yards
Assuring adequate space (supers) as needed
Managing of weak hives: replace/combine
Managing for and harvesting of honey

47. VI. Reference Sources Page 1 of 3
Images

48. Reference Sources (continued) Page 2 of 3
Documents and Fact Sheets

49. Reference Sources Page 3 of 3
Videos
Miscellaneous
Capital Area Beekeepers Association’s “An Annual Beekeeping Task & Mgmt. Calendar”

50. The End
Goodbye, au revoir, farvel, nakemin, auf wiedersehen, avrio, qualcuno, Auf wiedersehn, gudbai, do widzenia, adeus, adios, despedida, hej da, gule gule.
Hit the road Jack and don’t you come back no more no more, What’d you say?, I said, Hit the road Jack and don’t you come back no more.