BEWARE THE IDES OF MARCH February 1, 2014
Caesar: What say'st thou to me now? Speak
once again.
Soothsayer: Beware the ides of March.
--- Bill Shakespeare, “Julius Caesar”
I think there is a good chance the Soothsayer in
“Julius Caesar” was a Master Beekeeper. He
certainly had great advice for beekeepers in the
North Carolina Piedmont.
“Ides” is Latin for “half division”; the “Ides of
March” is the middle of the month, March 15.
This was when Caesar met his maker, and it is
when our bees can easily starve to death if we
don’t keep a sharp eye on their honey stores.
The reason for this is that a well-behaved queen
will resume laying sometime in January. Red
maple trees explode with blooms during late
January and February, and our bees work them
aggressively when the weather warms up
enough for them to fly. This influx of pollen and
nectar stimulates brood-rearing even further.
The queen and workers turn pollen and nectar
into baby bees as quickly as the foragers bring it
in, leaving little or nothing in the cupboard as a
reserve. By the first part of March, it isn’t
uncommon to find hives that have grown so
much that they swarm.
Then the maple trees stop blooming. A few
plants, like henbit, come in to take up a little of
the load, but in relation to the now-booming
hive population, there is a severe food
shortage. The gravy train doesn’t take off again
until the massive April nectar flow, dominated
by tulip poplar. The result can be starvation of
the colony during the interim period, and it can
happen quickly. In fact I had this happen to an
extremely strong colony this past spring in the
manner I’ve described. Other colonies had
enough reserves, so I didn’t pay close attention
to every single one. If I had noticed the
problem, I would have fed the hive as much
sugar syrup as it would take and would have
averted tragedy. They say we learn from our
mistakes, not our successes, and that’s certainly
true for me! The trick is to not repeat those
mistakes.
The figure at the bottom of the article
illustrates pollen count data interpolated to
create an estimated average profile for
Hillsborough, NC. The maple bloom is quite
obvious in February, followed by a sharp drop in
flowering activity. Then a few weeks later there
is a tremendous increase which lasts until late
spring. Note the small bump from late August to
early October; this coincides with the fall nectar
flow from goldenrod and asters that hopefully
will sustain our bees over the winter.
The lesson here is to maintain vigilance with
respect to your bees’ stores even as spring
appears to be underway. It is incredibly
disappointing to successfully bring a strong,
healthy hive through winter only to have it die
moments before spring truly arrives.
A few quick notes
1. The NC State Beekeepers Association‘s
Spring Meeting is in Wilmington this year,
Wednesday, March 6th to Saturday, March
8th. This year’s conference has been
expanded an extra day to hold all of the
workshops and presentations that will be
offered. Of particular interest for those
seeking to advance in the Master
Beekeeper Program is a short course taught
by NCSU’s Dr. John Ambrose, who has
recently reassumed overall responsibility
for the program. Dr. Ambrose started the
program in 1982, modeling it after the one
at his alma mater, Cornell. The short course
requires an additional fee. Full information
can be found at ncbeekeepers.org.
BEWARE THE IDES OF MARCH February 1, 2014
2. For folks a little farther south, the South
Carolina State Beekeepers Association
Spring Meeting is a one-day event, to be
held in Columbia, SC on Saturday, March 1st.
Information is at scstatebeekeepers.org.
3. Why does this article talk about March
instead of February? There are two reasons:
a. A good beekeeper stays ahead of his
bees. Planning for March should
happen in February, at the very latest.
Similarly, I want to provide “news you
can use”, not “news you could have
used if you’d known about it in time.”
b. I hate February. The only thing
good about it is that it is short.
With respect to bee management,
it isn’t much different than
January. So for tips on February
bee management, see my January
article.
Estimated Relative Pollen Counts, Hillsborough NC
100
90
80
Pollen Grains % of Max
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
1-Jan
8-Jan
15-Jan
22-Jan
29-Jan
5-Feb
12-Feb
19-Feb
26-Feb
4-Mar
11-Mar
18-Mar
25-Mar
1-Apr
8-Apr
15-Apr
22-Apr
29-Apr
6-May
13-May
20-May
27-May
3-Jun
10-Jun
17-Jun
24-Jun
1-Jul
8-Jul
15-Jul
22-Jul
29-Jul
5-Aug
12-Aug
19-Aug
26-Aug
2-Sep
9-Sep
16-Sep
23-Sep
30-Sep
7-Oct
14-Oct
21-Oct
28-Oct
4-Nov
11-Nov
18-Nov
25-Nov
2-Dec
9-Dec
16-Dec
23-Dec
30-Dec
0
Date
Randall Austin is a NC Master Beekeeper who keeps a few honey bee hives in northern Orange County.
He can be reached at [email protected].
Copyright 2013
No reproduction in whole or in part without permission of the author.