On another thread about feeding packages installed in a TBH in April, it brought up a point and discussion I had the other day with another beekeeper.
Several years back, I brought packages up from down south. And although I do not do this anymore for selling, I would always pick them up around the third week of April, when the dandelion bloom started. Then over the past few years, these package providers kept moving the dates sooner, and sooner. As if, not for being the earliest to have packages, they would miss out on a selling opportunity. This year, one package provider here in Pennsylvania, is advertising his packages to be in Pennsylvania for pickup on 28 March.
I've told my wife in the past, that one of these years, someone is going to get caught with their pants down. I remember one year about five years ago, I picked up packages and arrived in Pennsylvania on the 17th of April. It snowed 4 inched that night and it did not get above 40 degrees for the next week. And although installing packages in cold weather is doable, it's just not something you encourage.
I hear all kind of things about queen acceptance, queen quality, and stories of late cold snaps and even dead colonies that new beekeepers put on foundation, then they starve and die from not keeping on the feed.
I tell many people who want bees early to get a package. That northern nucs are not ready at these times. That there will be a shortage of local nucs for many years as the northern nuc industry grows. So don't get the wrong idea about my comments about packages, coming from a nuc producer.
It's not the idea of the package I think is NUTS! It's this idea thinking that the best start with bees is getting packages so early in the spring, many times even prior to the point when bees can actually go out and forage.
Just a few thoughts....
Good points Bjorn. I also think it's because many beekeeps have been sitting around allllll winter making frames, boxes, lids. Reading books, making up their sugar solutions, and then just have to sit and wait, and wait. All they want are bee's!!! Plus in the past if you didn't get them ordered early most suppliers are sold out. If there was a way to harness alll that enthusiasm into energy we could all be rich, or rich enough to buy more bee's!!
ABJ had an article about installing bees in snow in maine one year.
My neighbors celebrated Thanksgiving this year with their Christmas tree up and their outside Christmas lights already on. Seems like everything's starting earlier. Any chance spring will start earlier this year? :roll:
Bjorn, My first packages were purchased from Craig Cella a few years ago, and brought up from down south. I hived them before Easter, then after they were hived, we got snow and cold weather. I wasn't installing them in snowy conditions, but you're right - still not optimal.
Quote from: 1of6 on January 14, 2009, 01:23:54 PM
My neighbors celebrated Thanksgiving this year with their Christmas tree up and their outside Christmas lights already on. Seems like everything's starting earlier. Any chance spring will start earlier this year? :roll:
Bjorn, My first packages were purchased from Craig Cella a few years ago, and brought up from down south. I hived them before Easter, then after they were hived, we got snow and cold weather. I wasn't installing them in snowy conditions, but you're right - still not optimal.
Ah Yes....the part about hearing of package loss, may of, just possibly, been some of those other beekeepers who got packages just like you... :roll:
I had a number of beekeepers call me about nucs later in the spring after losing their packages and telling me their stories...Not that I'm complaining. Just trying to help... :-D
Well, I guess I'm one of those you're referring to about jumping the gun. December was unusually warm, with temps regularly hitting the 80'sF, this year. Had a strong hive of Italians start a half dozen swarm cells. Took several swarm cells, two frames of mixed caped and open brood with their nurse bees and workers, and three frames of honey with some pollen to start a Nuc. Put a top feeder of syrup and a bout a 1/2 cup of dry pollen substitute in with them on Jan 2nd. Now temps have droped to last nights low of 28F with 18F predicted for Friday night. So far they are coping well. Currently at 12:00 noon its 49F, according to Weather Bug on my computer, and I just watched a half dozen Bees bringing in light yellow pollen to the Nuc.
The original Italian hive is even buzzier with more pollen coming in. While moving my other three hives of unknown type are not doing much.
I take it all back. When looking through photos from this fall, I noticed that spring was already here even back then.
(http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z219/dug_6238/Bees%202008/100_2773.jpg)
(http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z219/dug_6238/Bees%202008/100_2776.jpg)
Note the fall leaves in the background...
Oh and Bjorn, I intended to buy from you that year but you were already sold out/all nucs and packages spoken for. Apparently I wasn't the only one getting an early start that year... :)
Quote from: KONASDAD on January 14, 2009, 12:09:41 PM
ABJ had an article about installing bees in snow in maine one year.
Wow, I would be a little skeptical about doing that one. :-\
I order my packages in January, and yes the wait is terrible. I try to time arrival when the dandelions are popping.
David
ahh yes, everyone seems to want to be so early getting bees. I'm in California and everyone here wants bees early in March and hates waiting until the end of march or first of April. Me? I'd rather wait until the first of May. May and June queens do very well here.
Mine packages are scheduled to arrive the third week in April. Interestingly the guy who owns a blueberry farm we pollinate wants bees there in March, which we are moving some of our second year hives there in February. Not really sure when blueberries bloom, depends on the variety I suppose.
David
I don't know when they bloom but we go blueberry picking every year and July is their big month for picking.
The thoughts about early packages is interesting and has a lot to due with the various micro-climates throughout the USA. A person living in the southern tier states can probably packages and swarms as soon as early March, if they don't experience weather like we've had this year. (This year I think the severe winters that reached into Texas and Arkansas will force may package suppliers to delay their delivery dates)
I think April and May are optimal months for packages as, most usually, the weather is warm enough, flower bloom is advanced enough, and any freakish quirks in weather patterns have passed. Still there is the unexpected like We experienced last spring here in the PNW. Since most people are going to feed their bees until they have 1 box of drawn comb and the goal is to develop a package to the point of successful overwintering, packages prior to mid-April really aren't necessary. For the Commercial operators who want to build hive numbers for pollenation contracts, it might be different (which is why, I think, California Almonds create a demand for Australian bees)
The only thing I would like to see available earlier is queens. Most queen raisers don't have queens available until mid-May at the earliest and more often then not, mid-June and later. Earlier queens would allow requeening hives identified in the fall as weak to be requeen in time to make use of the 1st big flow instead of waiting for the later, smaller, flows that occur and not always relieable.
Since it is relevant to this discussion I will repeat that regardless of the time of year the bees can find a pollen source, or often as not a nectar source, anywhere you find bees. The critical thing with packages is the lack of pollen stores. Packages are without nectar or pollen and the beekeeper usually feeds sugar syrup but not pollen when first getting the bees. I would suggest that since bees use so much of the pollen they collect in brood production that more thought should be given to feeding pollen or pollen substitutes starting a week after a package has been hived as the foragers can not keep up with the demand the brood production requires. So a package could actually build up quicker with the addition of the pollen feeding for a few weeks until the 1st or 2nd brood cycle is complete.
Care should be taken to not overfeed pollen or substitutes as it is a SHB lure that prolonged feeding can undo all the advances made from the initial feedings. Feed a small bit then refeed when that is totally used up. The smaller amounts are less likely to be around long enough to attract the SHB and the beekeeper is best able to keep the hive at optimum nutritional levels that way.
I agree, later packages are better, especially for those of us in the North. Here, in Alaska, I haven't seen dandelion until mid-May, but packages routinely arrive April wk 3. That's three weeks I need to feed even if the weather's relatively good! At three-to-five gallons syrup per hive/week (in warm spring), that's an awfully long time to be the primary feed provider!!!
Granted, the spruce seem to bloom in late April regardless of weather, but that's pollen only (and not very much) where dandelions provide nectar _and_ pollen.
Are any package providers planning to make theirs available later? And willing to ship?