Spring Buildup
Spring is a time when new life begins to explode in our bee colonies. During the couple short months of winter we have here in Florida our queens slow down their laying and most of the Fall forager bees die out. The populations diminish and there is very little production going on in our hives. Then as if someone turns on a light switch, our queens once again begin picking up their laying and the colony begins expanding the brood nest in anticipation of Spring. We call this the Spring Buildup and it is one of our favorite times of the year to be beekeepers.
To be honest, inspecting bee colonies in December can be a bit depressing. When we see the signs of new life and the population of bees expanding it gets us excited for a new season of possibilities with these amazing little insects that we love so much.
Right now we are just beginning to see the first signs of the Spring Buildup. Queens are once again laying good brood patterns and we are even beginning to see some drone brood. When we see drone brood it is a sign that the bees are preparing for a new season of gathering nectar and pollen, expanding their colonies until they are ready to burst, raising new queens, and swarming as a natural way to reproduce bee colonies. The new queens will need a lot of drones to mate with.
It is at this time that we begin working towards our goals of producing honey, making new colonies, and raising new queens. We like to encourage this early Spring Buildup by supplemental feeding of our colonies. By feeding a simple sugar syrup our bees treat it as a nectar flow and they build more comb and raise more brood than they would with the limited nectar nature is providing right now. This helps ensure stronger, healthier colonies when the real nectar flows hit in April and May. By building up the forager force earlier it also helps to get the nectar flows when they arrive. Rather than the bees having to use all the nectar flow on building up their population, if they are already strong in numbers going into the nectar flow, they will use that strength to turn that nectar into honey stores.
Right now our aim is not honey production, but rather bee production. We are currently preparing 30 colonies to go to orange blossom next month and are preparing the rest of our colonies to make splits and raise new queens. We need to add about 50 colonies for our own winter losses and then we plan on raising another 50 for Spring nucleus colony sales. We also plan on producing queens to sell to the local backyard beekeepers in our area. It’s an exciting time of year and we hope you will follow along with us on this journey of urban beekeeping in the Tampa Bay area.