Spring Breakout at Killer Bees Honey
With the exception of several single digit cold days in January, WNC experienced a relatively mild winter. This is the set-up for a great spring story that we are sharing from Killer Bees Honey. Keep on reading!
Out of 42 colonies, we had seven winter dead-outs. The remaining 35 hives not only survived, but came out thriving and ready for the spring nectar flow. We were fortunate in that we had an even milder spring with no deep freezes. This created a perfect opportunity for the hives to rapidly strengthen their numbers. Overachieving queen bees began laying eggs at a manic pace. The only downside to this is that rapid hive growth with an early nectar flow creates overcrowding in the hives. Overcrowded colonies overheat and struggle to find sufficient space for storing honey whilst raising brood. Overpopulated hives lose the ability to communicate through pheromones, leading to stress and confusion. The resultant chaos agitates the bees.
I think we can all agree there’s nothing more difficult than dealing with tens of thousands of disquieted females who, by their very nature are born with an attitude and stingers. Their answer to all this is to swarm. Swarming is a process in which the bountiful hive splits in two. It’s nature’s way of ensuring the organisms survival and species expansion. It’s also a total pain in the ass for the beekeeper. When a colony swarms, the beekeeper loses a proven, overwintered queen along with a majority of her older, foraging daughters. Typically, it takes four weeks for a virgin queen from the originating hive to emerge from her cell, kill her rivals (again with the attitude) and mate. Hopefully, she won’t get eaten by a bird or hit by car as she gets her freak on while breeding with around 60 drones over a four or five day period. During all this, the population of the hive dramatically declines. Practically all foraging has stopped while the remaining house bees consume the hives honey stores. I’ve essentially lost honey production from the hive for the year.
A beekeeper mitigates swarming behavior by giving the bees more room with empty honey supers (boxes) and venting the heat out with screened inner covers. We also utilize “hive splitting.” I remove the older queen from the original hive and place her and some brood in a separate hive box. Her replacement is a locally purchased, six week old bred queen. Think of it as a false swarm. It ensures hive continuity with no loss of bees or productivity. Bonus points: I now have two hives. I did this several weeks ago to five of my most populous and likely-to-swarm hives. I recently checked on the new queens. Three were accepted and had a strong laying pattern. The other two were immediately killed by their respective minions who constructed queen cells to make their own queens. Fine. Be that way. Just deal with it and walk away. They know what they are doing and it’s hard to argue with thousands of bees hardwired by millions of years of evolution. Between the splits, captured swarms, and several purchased nucs, we are back up to 45 hives in three apiaries.
Without the usual spring freeze, foraging bees have begun rapidly filling honey supers. They are collecting nectar at an incredibly frenzied pace. For the first time in the twelve years we’ve lived here, I double supered hives the first week of May to give them more room. Historically, I’ve double supered in June when necessary. If nature cooperates, we expect a late June harvest.
Unfortunately, the rest of the nation’s commercial beekeepers had far worse luck. America is going through another Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). Maybe worse than in 2005 with reported losses this year in the tens of thousands of hives. There is one well-known commercial pollinator who had 10,000 hives in the fall of 2024. He came out of the winter in 2025 with less than 1,000 hives. He is filing for bankruptcy and selling his business. Other commercial operations are reporting 50% to 60% losses. On top of the CCD challenges, there were approximately 65,000 hives in the Southeast that were destroyed or swept away by Hurricane Helene. These kinds of losses are unsustainable. If the trend continues, it will have an impact on food security. Scientists are racing to find the cause of the colony collapse, but currently have no answers. In the meantime, we continue to try our best to maintain our mountaintop apiaries and keep the bees happy and healthy.
