# Western Canada Honey Production Progress



## jean-marc (Jan 13, 2005)

We have some honey on. The flow is just starting. Canola is starting to bloom. Conditions are dry to drier. Some hay fields have half the alfalfa burnt off. So things are kinda bleak but with some rain we could have a very extended canola bloom. As you know Ian some canola was seeded but did not germinate evenly because of drought. Some was reseeded on account of frost. So with any luck moisture would set us up for a monster crop. Currently we are far from that.

Jean-Marc


----------



## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

where are your hives sitting JeanMarc?


----------



## jean-marc (Jan 13, 2005)

Hives are sitting in Elk Point area. We are between Vermillion and St Paul along Hwy 41. We are fairly close to the Saskatchewan border. Very very dry country this year.

Jean-Marc


----------



## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Yes particularly that area, we know cattle producers around there. Last week anyway, they were desperate for rain just to get the grass greened up...


----------



## jean-marc (Jan 13, 2005)

Yes, otherwise I could see a lot of cattle going to the auction. Hay apparently had doubled in price 2 weeks ago. Likely so more by now. Definitely not good for the area. Apparently some rain fell Saturday night. I was not there but some of the crew told me. By the end of next week, early next week, I should have my extracting plant ready to go.

Jean-Marc


----------



## dgl1948 (Oct 5, 2005)

We did a small pull last weekend. We are in the Southeast corner with moisture to spare. There is a lot of honey but it needs a couple of weeks to get on with the capping. Canola is just started flowering in the last week or so. Things look good.


----------



## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

The season ended up being average or a bit below average crop. Far off my earlier projections. Variable weather, heat humidity and swarming cut into this years production numbers. A bit tough on the hive count this fall also but that is why we continually build nucs 

Casually feeding now, the hives look in good shape for winter.


----------



## zhiv9 (Aug 3, 2012)

What was the primary cause of fall losses?


----------



## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

All stemmed from my swarmed hives.


----------



## mgolden (Oct 26, 2011)

Read your swarm number on your blog and it seems to me significant lost production. Are you evaluating your strategy for next year?

Wonder if it would be better to run with two broods until end of Julyish and then shake queen down to one brood? 

I ran with no excluder and installed it Aug 18 to clean brood out of honey supers. Will winter with two deeps.

Since I installed the excluder, the bees have really packed the top brood with honey. They appear to move some down to top brood as well as store any incoming nectar in top brood.


----------



## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

Ian said:


> All stemmed from my swarmed hives.


Perhaps it's because the initial flow was so heavy? Was it mostly the older queens?


----------



## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Sheets of brood, heat humidity, heavy initial flow. Some Beekeepers experienced 50% plus here. Just one of those exaggerated problems. 
New queens old queens... I had an abundance of space up top too this year. 
Pulled 200,000lbs, making an average crop. Not too shabby


----------



## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

mgolden said:


> Wonder if it would be better to run with two broods until end of Julyish and then shake queen down to one brood?


In July, watch how the queen uses the nest between confining her in a single and allowing her to use a double. Count the frames of brood, and the utilization of the space, equils pretty much the same. The single is full of brood where as the double has the same amount uptop scattered into the bottom, with more honey around the nest. Swarming is swarming, if its going to happen a double does not stop it. The efficiency with singles proves so many production advantages. July/Aug the focus is only on the crop, gotta get that revenue. Hive work is done before and after. 

I am however going to re direct my focus more so on in house queen production, and lean away from imports. More production nucs and we are not going to stop making nucs all season.


----------



## mgolden (Oct 26, 2011)

Operating with two deep broods gives me the option of harvesting frames of brood and nurse bees, frames of pollen or frames of honey in outside positions of top brood. Doing a couple of frames every 10-14 days and replacing with blank frames deters swarming.

Queen excluders seemed problematic this year, as I know one fellow who swarmed 75% of his hives and another fellow who decided to remove his as the brood nest was being back filled.

I know these are not preferred options for your operation.

Other options
Have first year queens
Top/upper entrances - know one fellow who slides honey super a half inch forward.
More ventilation via screened bottom boards or vent boxes.

Would be interested in any other strategies others use to deter swarming.


----------



## Vance G (Jan 6, 2011)

If I was set up for indoor wintering I would winter in one deep and take the whole extra box of honey myself. They are not pets and feeding the bees sugar to get the colony thru the winter will cause no disturbance in the force. I think I need to get to three deeps to winter in myself and if one is full of sugar syrup that would be fine, or two! but I am a hobbyist and will never be anything else in my dotage. What we hobbyists can do, and what a commercial guy has to do, are not the same thing.


----------



## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Not many beekeeps around here are forth coming with their production numbers either. Not the tidy year it seemed earlier this spring.


----------



## yousowise (Apr 14, 2011)

Ian when you pull your honey and are left with a single deep, is that single packed with bees? And do you ever have a problem with fall swarming?


----------



## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Yes they are packed, most bearding. Never have had a fall swarm issue


----------



## jean-marc (Jan 13, 2005)

No bumper crop here. We got a half crop. Basically the area I am in was very dry. The bulk of the flow lasted 1 week. After that we got cool windy weather. Bees foraged 3 hours a day or so. Further south going towards Vermillion was much better but I only had a few yards there. Bees are in very good shape with a huge population, lots of pollen stores. Guys weighed 5 pallets on Saturday before they got fed... 680-700 pounds per pallet. Basically doubles weighing in around 150 pounds each. I think I may have to try running some singles next year.

Jean-Marc


----------



## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

No kidding, that should be in a barrel. Sorry to hear about your honey crop. That lucrative crop again waits til next year.


----------



## grozzie2 (Jun 3, 2011)

Ian said:


> That lucrative crop again waits til next year.


Everybody I've talked to here on the island was really pleased earlier in the season, we had a bumper spring flow. But, drought for the summer changed things, and by the time the dust settled, most folks are calling this a poor year overall.


----------



## pleasantvalley (May 22, 2014)

Ian said:


> Not many beekeeps around here are forth coming with their production numbers either. Not the tidy year it seemed earlier this spring.


I'm sure that everyone staying quiet is the secret that the packers have already figured out. There's a glut of white honey out there. Plenty of 200lb. crops in central Alberta and much of it is "pending sale" or unsold.


----------



## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Being quiet goes as far as when the crop is put up for tender.


----------



## irwin harlton (Jan 7, 2005)

I find it amazing that in one year we can go from a world wide shortage of white and coloured honey to a glut of white honey, am thinking that the US economy is not quite as healthy as it appears to some to be.....honey is actually a luxury food not a necessity of life.


----------



## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Being a grain farmer I do not understand why Beekeepers are so secretive when it comes to their hive performance. Production is the first thing farmers talk about and the circumstances behind IT. Beekeepers... its like sharing with the enemy lol


----------



## Brian Suchan (Apr 6, 2005)

Ian said:


> Being a grain farmer I do not understand why Beekeepers are so secretive when it comes to their hive performance. Production is the first thing farmers talk about and the circumstances behind IT. Beekeepers... its like sharing with the enemy lol[/QUOTE
> 
> Farmers and beeks are so diffirent. Most beeks are afraid of someone moving in on top them when times are good. When times are bad they dont wanna talk about it.


----------



## Vance G (Jan 6, 2011)

Ian said:


> Being a grain farmer I do not understand why Beekeepers are so secretive when it comes to their hive performance. Production is the first thing farmers talk about and the circumstances behind IT. Beekeepers... its like sharing with the enemy lol


My farmer father had a stock answer: It varies. If pressed for more details, he would say there was a little pile in the bin. Works for me.


----------



## JodieToadie (Dec 26, 2013)

I'll be honest up in the Peace Region it wasn't good. 125lbs was the number in this area. I had a great spring but the mite counts jumped hard and supercedure was all but impossible to stop. The queen turnover this year was unreal. New queens, old queens it made no difference. I surveyed 4 others and they are all around 125lbs per hive. 
I just started to treat and feed and the hives look really good now. A month ago I was sick to my stomach but the hives made it though and I think I can save most of them. There are some claims of 200lbs per hive around here but I have heard of none first hand. Anecdotally there was a shortage of barrels at BeeMaid and it was all but impossible to obtain them. There was also a two + week waiting list to deliver honey to BeeMaid. (Spruce Grove) So I would say there must have been some stellar crops somewhere.


----------



## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

"The queen turnover this year was unreal. New queens, old queens it made no difference. I surveyed 4 others and they are all around 125lbs per hive. 
I just started to treat and feed and the hives look really good now. A month ago I was sick to my stomach but the hives made it though and I think I can save most of them. "

I hear ya!

Got off the phone with a beekeeper extremely discouraged for exactly what you said and having his optimistic crop fall flat. There is a common theme to many conversations amongst local beekeepers

Good to hear BeeMaid got in a good crop


----------



## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

I am beginning to suspect sub lethal pesticide levels are to blame for most of the queen issues. Rather than pinch a faltering queen, I brought her home(suburb) from the hay fields and low and behold she cleaned up her act. The converse was also true.

Crazy Roland


----------



## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Roland said:


> I am beginning to suspect sub lethal pesticide levels are to blame for most of the queen issues. Rather than pinch a faltering queen, I brought her home(suburb) from the hay fields and low and behold she cleaned up her act. The converse was also true.
> 
> Crazy Roland


Now that's study material. Bees are so hard to assess because of all the variables involved, but a queens performance is predictable and obvious.


----------



## Eduardo Gomes (Nov 10, 2014)

It's amazing the similarity between the scene of Ian and Jean-Marc, and others in Canada and my scene in Portugal .

The end of march and april are very favorable and promoted a quick and explosive development of the nests. About 25 % of my hives swarming .

The months of May, june and July are very hot and dry and involved very short flows. Personally I had the same production as last year but with over 30% of hives to produce. A result that falls short of my initial expectations. The other side of the coin is the fact that there is a good chance to sell the bulk honey for a value higher than last year.


----------



## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Eduardo, thx for the post.

I just talked to another producer, same theme. His closing thoughts to me were appreciative that I had honestly shared my production challenges this year. He mentioned he felt lost as things were happening that he could not explain, but knowing others were experiencing the same kind of challenges reassured he was not alone with the battle. 
Sounds silly, I think we all know what he means.


----------



## JodieToadie (Dec 26, 2013)

Some additions to my observation for people to comment on. Take the with a grain of salt as they were anecdotal. 

1.) Apivar this spring used as per instructions to the letter. Was ineffective. It did not work period. I contacted both BeeMaid and my provincial inspector and was met with denial.
2.) I am in an area where I am 100% certain I have zero exposure to pesticides. I mean zero. I go nowhere near canola not within miles and miles. So in my opinion it is not pesticides from and external source.
3.) Hives did not appear to swarm as much as the chewed down queen cells would indicate. It was extremely strange, queens were or must have been killed off or died but I am sure that some hives went through more than 5 queens in 6 months. June and July had premium mating weather. August not so much. So I would rule out poorly mated queens. 

I don't or haven't treated for tracheal mites in a few years. I am beginning to wonder if I am getting hit by that. I did a formic knockdown last week just because I cannot explain what I am seeing. I will follow up with the oxalic in another week or two. 

These are my anecdotal no evidence observations.


----------



## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Why do you say the Apivsr was infective? What were your spring counts ? What are your fall counts now?


----------



## JodieToadie (Dec 26, 2013)

As I said it was anecdotal. After treatment period of 4 weeks, 6% but only 3 tests. (took strips off at 42 day precisely). During flow I knew I had a problem still (obviously) and every time I cracked a box I could observe lots of varroa crawling out of the drone cells between boxes. Supercedure then took over and I was extremely nervous to do formic. I did two yards. One with a single flash, one with a split of a flash on half and MAQs on the other half. It kicked the hell out of the bees and it kicked the hell out of the mites but I lost a lot of honey in those yards as a result and didn't do the other 8 yards. 
My assumption, again ASSUMICIDE is that mite counts are still high although I can no longer observe them like I could during the flow. So since I ordered MAQs already I put one on each hive to flash them. 

Also anecdotally. You might find it silly but I kept entrance reducers on my hives in spring. I put them on in fall. When I do an oxalic trickle in fall, the mites drop and the bees actually pack them out the hive but if you remove the reducer you can see varroa under the reducer. This spring with Apivar, not the case.

Last anecdotal (not evidence) based observation. I had a beekeeper winter 120 hives in my wintering shed. So precise exact conditions for both hives. In the shed slightly later than mine out 3-4 days early. He treated with Oxalic in fall just as I did, in spring he treated with Thymovar a week later than my Apivar application. Has zero mites after treatment and none observed during honey flow. 

I dunno. I will not use apivar this spring I can guarantee that is a fact. 

If I ever get my results back from the National Bee Diagnostics survey I can tell you exactly what they observed as well. They sampled 10 hives in one yard so?


----------



## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Thx Jodie. This kind of thing is common with all of us, we experience things that we don't understand, yet the next guy experiences a totally different thing.

It surprises me Apivar was so ineffective. My mite counts are zero, I have found 1 mite through my testing over 1200 colonies. 

Were you treating in a double box hive?


----------



## mgolden (Oct 26, 2011)

????????Were you aware that two strips of Apivar was not enough miticide on some hives last spring as population was larger than normal? Medhat issued an advisory that some bee keepers were still experiencing too high mite counts after applying two strips, so should do an after application mite count.


----------



## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

in a double hive though mgolden. two strips in a single is more than enough


----------



## mgolden (Oct 26, 2011)

Ian said:


> in a double hive though mgolden. two strips in a single is more than enough


I am aware of what you are saying and know the recommended rate is one strip per five frames of bees.

Where did excessive mite load come from?
??Resistance, ??Poor batch of strips, ????Populous single and not enough miticide, ???early treatment and lot of brood over summer


----------



## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

mgolden said:


> ????????Were you aware that two strips of Apivar was not enough miticide on some hives last spring as population was larger than normal? Medhat issued an advisory that some bee keepers were still experiencing too high mite counts after applying two strips, so should do an after application mite count.


He was referring to producers using 2 strips in doubles , right?
Soon as I started treating in singles my mite levels disappeared


----------



## mgolden (Oct 26, 2011)

Ian said:


> He was referring to producers using 2 strips in doubles , right?
> Soon as I started treating in singles my mite levels disappeared



Medhat was saying 1 strip per 5 frames of bees. In a double deep one needs to make an assessment of how many frames of bees does one have between the two deeps. I am familiar with wintering in singles indoors and outdoors but have no experience with it.

I applied two strips in early March to double deeps which was before there was much brood build up. Hives had a good sized population but didn't do a bee/frame count.

Was at a presentation about mid April, and he was saying that some guys had done two strips on a double deep and were finding high mite counts after. The key is doing an "after" test. Think he issued a bulletin to Alberta bee keepers to alert them of potential problems. I don't know how that translates for a single deep, but agree that two strips is a good starting point.

I didn't do an "after" treatment test, and haven't seen mite damage, but mite levels have been in the back of my mind all summer. Finally got the last honey off(18%) as waiting on rains and humid conditions and uncapped honey.

Hope to do first OA on Monday and insert a sticky board.


----------



## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

"
Where did excessive mite load come from?
??Resistance, ??Poor batch of strips, ????Populous single and not enough miticide, ???early treatment and lot of brood over summer"


It has been found amoung beekeepers that two strips in doubles does not work as effectively as confining them into a single during treatment. The mites can not get away from a two strip single box mite treatment . Especially as pointed out, when colonies in doubles use all the space even when brood is only present in one box. Apivar effectiveness is real dependant on the bees/mites exposure to the strips. Same as treating OA, the boxes need to be broken apart and both boxes treated for effectiveness
Poor kill off probably would be related to in adequate treatment exposure .


----------



## jean-marc (Jan 13, 2005)

Getting my first load back from mcy Alberta operation. Colonies are heavy and populous. Mite loads are a little high but we just got the last of the strips in early in the week. Could only get 92 pallets on a tri axle trailer because colonies were heavy. We sent them with 108 pallets. So it means an extra truck bill coming back but the feed bill was lower than anticipated.

Jean-Marc


----------



## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Why did they back fill so much?


----------



## jean-marc (Jan 13, 2005)

Caspian bees. They just do. 

Jean-Marc


----------

