By ROBERT RIGGS
Kentucky Correspondent

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Honey is created by bees and stored as a future food source. In cold weather or whenever other food is scarce, bees consume it as their only source of energy.

“A beekeeper is always scrutinizing the calendar, speculating about rainfall, awaiting the arrival of warm weather or preparing for the winter,” said Dr. Thomas C. Webster, apiculture extension specialist for the Atwood Research Facility at Kentucky State University in Frankfort. Webster has researched honeybee maladies for more than 20 years.

Domesticated bees live in manmade beehives. Wild bees use caves, cavities in rocks and hollow trees as nesting sites.

Managed bee colonies serve two primary purposes in the production of food: the manufacture of honey and the pollination of nearby crops. Hive management is the use of various interventions and techniques by a beekeeper to ensure the survival of the hive and to maximize hive production.

Disease, parasites and improper management are problems that can damage or kill off a bee colony. Cold weather presents a problem for beekeepers when it comes to treating their hives for disease and parasites.

Webster said the apiarist must stay tuned to the weather. Right now time is running out for the wintering of beehives in Kentucky. It may be too late to treat maladies that fester in the lethargic hive.
He is the author of a document published by the KSU cooperative extension program in cooperation with the USDA titled The Kentucky Beekeeper’s Calendar. It is available for reading or download at www.kysu.edu/landGrant/coopextensionprogram/agricultureNaturalResources/apiculture.htm
 
“The honeybee hive is as closely tuned to the seasons and the weather as any living plant or animal,” Webster writes.

What is going on inside the hive and the different beekeeper chores are described on a bimonthly basis in this informative document. For instance, during the months of November and December, bees change into a wintertime mode and by that time there is little for the keeper to do for the bees. The queen stops laying eggs and there are few days warm enough for bees to fly.
As the days get colder, the bees form a tight cluster in order to keep warm. During the colder months the cluster moves throughout the hive, consuming stored honey and generating heat.

Jerry Howard of Louisville grew up on a farm in Union County, Ky. Now a retired human resources manager, he has become a hobby apiarist with hive boxes in his backyard. But Howard remembers his father’s farm in Union County where he first tended bees. In fact, he still uses a bee smoker he bought in 1954.

To prepare the hive for winter, Howard sets up a windbreaker around his boxes in the coldest months of January and February and he modifies the inner cover of each hive to improve ventilation. He said adequate ventilation is necessary to eliminate condensation caused by the close clustering of the individual hive.
“There is a possibility of condensation freezing, stopping the air flow in the hive and suffocating the bees,” he explained.

Howard is a member of the Kentuckiana Beekeeper Assoc. and the Kentucky State Beekeepers Assoc. To learn more about them, visit, respectively, www.kyanabees.com and www.ksbabeekeeping.org