Live from the Hive: March 2014
As March begins, the cold continues unabated. Let’s feast our eyes on something other than more snow and ice. This photo shows a worker honey bee on a sumac flower. Sumac blooms in June and is a major food source for Vermont’s honey bees. This picture is a reminder of the coming of spring. The amber blob on the bee’s back leg is pollen.
In March, the beekeeper checks on the hives and feed the colony honey or some form of sugar if necessary — this is the month when colonies can starve. Believe it or not, if the temperatures warm up, we will begin to see the bees venturing out for the first pussy willow and alder pollen of later this month, at least in southern Vermont. The spring equinox arrives on March 20th, when the day and night are of equal length. Happy Spring!
Andrew Pinault, Caledonia Spirits Distiller, filling a barrel of Barr Hill Reserve Tom Cat
Even as we face the coldest days of the winter, the queen begins laying eggs for the young that will replace those lost over the winter. If her family collected a lot of pollen in the fall and has abundant honey stored, she will start earlier, and as the weather warms, there will be more new bees and the colony will go into spring stronger. In colonies with a lack of pollen, the queen delays her laying until fresh pollen is available in early spring. Those colonies emerge from winter with reduced populations.