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SC Spring Beekeeping

Spring Management Activities begin as soon as we have warm days. The Queen begins laying worker

bees and drones. Be Ready!

Nectar Flow Starts in April

Adding Supers

Monitor honey frames

Checking for Varroa Mites

Arranging for Honey Extraction

What are you going to with your honey?

Each week during the

nectar flow, which lasts

from April thru the first

part of June in most of the

state, you should be

checking the colony

weekly and adding empty

supers as necessary.

Adding a lot of supers at

one time may be necessary

if you have an out yard of

some distance. However,

the bees will tend to store

the nectar/honey up the

middle of the supers. You

will have to rotate the

center frames to the

outside to get a full super.

If you are producing comb

honey, you need to be

rotating the comb honey

super so they will store

honey throughout the

comb honey super. The

comb honey super should

be watched carefully to

avoid travel stains on the

caps and pulled prior to

travel stains occurring.

When adding empty supers, I typically top

super, or just place the empty super with

frames on top of the hive stack. It is

quicker and easier than removing all the full

supers and placing the empty super on top

of the feed chamber/super, or bottom

supering. You get almost as much honey

yield with top supering compared to bottom

supering and it is a lot easier and quicker.

Copyright David E. MacFawn 2014; SCBA and SC local associations have permission to use.

adding supers

2015 April May June

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During Package

Installation

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The nectar flow usually stops in Lexington around the second

week of June. The queen tapers off her egg lying at this time.

This is a good time to check for varroa and treat if necessary in

most parts of the state. You should also check for Varroa in

August / beginning of September and treat if necessary. You

should also be checking for other diseases such as American

Foulbrood (AFB).

Copied from Hive Tool

Pull a sampling of Drone and Worker brood

to detect for Varroa Mites.

Tools Needed:

Tweezers

You can use a refractometer to determine honey moisture content prior to

removing the supers (it should be 18.6% or lower) or, you can use the old

rule of thumb that the frame should be about 7/8 capped or higher to extract.

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In June, after the nectar flow and when the queen minimizes laying, is an excellent time to rotate two center

brood combs to the outside of the brood chamber in positions one and ten. The other frames are pushed to-

ward the center. When any remaining brood hatches, the old combs in position one and ten can then be re-

placed with fresh frames with foundation. One fall

back of the timing of this procedure is it is difficult to

get the bees to draw out the outside frames in June.

An alternative is to move two

inside frames to positions one and

ten in the late August / early

September time frame, replace

with frames with foundation in the

February / March time frame. This

will result in the frames with

foundation being drawn out during

the nectar flow.

Toward the end of June the Sourwood flow starts in the mountains. Hence,

supers full from the spring flow should be removed and extracted (quickly

to avoid Small Hive Beetle –SHB issues) and the empty supers or additional

supers placed on the hives. This way if the sourwood produces you will

have totally sourwood honey which you can

sell for a premium.

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Toward the end of the spring

flow in May, you should

examine the hive to determine

how many supers of honey you

have. A deep frame is about

six pounds of honey, a medium

frame is about four pounds of

honey and a shallow frame is

about 2 ½ - three pounds of

honey. This is based on ten

frames in your super and will

vary more if you use spacers in

your supers. You can then

ensure that you have enough

jars or buckets on hand to store

the honey.

I typically pull my ripe honey

supers and extract mid-June.

If you wait longer your spring

honey may get mixed with the

autumn honey. If you only

have a couple to a few hives, it

is typically cheaper, to pay a

friend to extract your honey

rather than invest in a lot of

extracting equipment. This is

especially true if you are a

new beekeeper and are “just

trying out the waters.” An

extractor and extracting

equipment will cost you $500

to $800 range.

In Lexington there is a dearth after the spring flow ends around the second week of June

through August. Hence, you should typically leave enough honey on your colony to get the bees

thru this dearth period and thru the winter if you plan on feeding the bees the honey they

produced rather than robbing them down and feeding syrup. You should make sure that at

least the feed super, immediately on top of the brood chamber, is left on the hive and is full.

You need to be determining what you will do with your honey. You can certainly keep it for

yourself and family or you can sell it. A honey exemption can be obtained if no more than four

hundred gallons (4800 pounds) of honey are produced annually and said honey is only sold

directly to end consumers. Furthermore, labels are required on all containers of honey that are

sold in South Carolina and must be in compliance with the Fair Packaging and Labeling Act.

Send application and label (s) to:

Angie Culler, 123 Ballard Court, Columbia, SC 29172

Email: aculler@scda.sc.gov,

Phone: (803) 737-734-7321 West

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David MacFawn Biography

David Elgie MacFawn:

He is a North Carolina Master Craftsman Beekeeper, Co-Founded the South

Carolina Master Beekeeping Program, awarded South Carolina Beekeeper of

the Year, assisted Dr. Fell at Virginia Tech in the Virginia Master Beekeeping Program, Incorporated

the South Carolina Beekeepers Association as a 501 C 3 Non Profit Corporation, and published sev-

eral (over five) articles in the American Bee Journal. David has kept bees in Maryland (Dark German

bees), Virginia (Italian), North Carolina (Italian), Colorado (Russian), and South Carolina (Italian

and Russian Hybrid).

David’s Work History:

David has a BS in Electrical Engineering and a Masters in Business Administration with concentra-

tions in Finance and Operations Research. David was in the computer business for over 30 years

and was a Customer Service director responsible for worldwide support planning, training/education,

logistics, call center support, and professional services at Sun Microsystems and a subset of this at

NCR. David was also a Federal Systems Product Manager responsible for new DOD system defini-

tion and development at Data General.

David’s Beekeeping Business Endeavors:

David is a beekeeping author and has co-authored a practical guide to beekeeping book, "Getting the

Best From Your Bees".

He also developed, marketed, and supported spreadsheets analyzing financial aspects of the honey

and pollination businesses, and beeswax candle production and sales.

David and his wife reside in the Columbia, South Carolina, and is an active sideline beekeeper.

Cynthia Robinson Bio

The Winter Management was edited and graphic layout created by Cynthia Robinson. Known as the

Beekeeper On Duty. Cynthia lives in Clover, SC with her husband. She has two grown married sons with

three grand children. Cynthia began beekeeping in 2005 with Sally Adams/Mamabeehive as her mentor.

Cynthia is a Journeyman Beekeeper and is now holding a SC State office as Secretary and acts as media

tech at all SC Conferences. Cynthia also serves as the Web Administrator for SC State Beekeepers

Association. Cynthia has published many beekeeping newsletters for local and currently produces the

State Association Newsletter.

Copyright David E. MacFawn 2014; SCBA and SC local associations have permission to use. All artwork & graphics was taken with permission from the web or was the personal property of Cynthia Robinson.

If you are interested in reprints of this document, please contact dmacfawn@aol.com or rainbowcirclehoneyfarm@gmail.com