Charlie's monthly beekeeping calendar

Your monthly guide of beekeeping tips for you and your hives

March 6, 2023

To all SBA members,

March weather can be so unpredictable, with temperatures fluctuating from fifty degrees or higher one day to the mid thirties with rain or even snow the next, so keep a close eye on your hives' food stores. Make sure that the bees are always in contact with frames of honey by moving them as close to the cluster as possible or by placing sugar or fondant on top of the frames above the bees.

I have been checking my hives since February 10 whenever it has been warm, adding fondant or sugar bricks and putting a small pollen patty in each hive on top of the frames where the brood is. The bees have been slowly consuming the pollen patties with no hive beetle problems. I was able to check a couple hives' brood frames and saw that the larvae had a good amount of jelly in each cell, which tells me that the hive is getting plenty of good nutrition.

Remember: March is the month that is notorious for your bees to starve to death.
Remember: Even with honey frames in the hive, bees will starve if they lose contact with honey stores, so make sure there is always food right above or next to the cluster!

What's New for this year's bee season!

This bee season, I am going to experiment with the George Demaree method of beekeeping that was first published in the American Bee Journal in 1892.

It is similar to the single brood chamber management technique. I will use two medium brood boxes for my brood chamber for the hive and then add a queen excluder before I put my medium honey super on, and then put a second medium brood chamber box on top. I then will move about half of the capped brood frames out of the bottom brood chamber to the single medium brood chamber on top of the hive stack and then move the empty brood frames back to the bottom brood boxes.

By doing this rotation I will reduce bee congestion and give the queen open frames to continue to lay eggs in the bottom brood boxes. This will reduce the swarm impulse while increasing honey production.

I am also going to continue using the single brood chamber management technique with my honey hives. I am going to use two medium brood boxes for my brood chamber for these hives and then add a queen excluder before I put my medium honey supers on.

As the brood population increases, I will remove about half of the capped brood frames out of the bottom brood chamber and place them in weaker hives that need a brood boost (equalizing the hives brood boxes). This will also reduce bee congestion and give the queen open frames to continue to lay eggs in the bottom brood boxes to reduce the swarm impulse and increase honey production.

The configuration of these hives will probably be done sometime at the end of March or early April as the nectar flow starts.

To better understand the mechanics of single brood chamber management technique, watch my video of this technique on my YouTube Channel Sawmill Charlie's Bee Farm at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8VsBA4WkXc&t=8s

On March 3, 2023, it will be one year since I started my Sawmill Charlie's Bee Farm YouTube Channel, I currently have 680 subscribers and over 4000 watch hours, 58 videos and hundreds of YouTube beekeeper friends across the United States, Canada, United Kingdom and New Zealand.

What are you going to do for March?
  • Keep a close eye on your hives' food stores.
  • Move frames of honey closer to the brood or place sugar or fondant on top of the frames above the brood so the cluster does not lose contact with food stores.
  • Check how many frames of food are left in the hive.
  • Continue emergency feeding with sugar bricks, fondant, or frames of saved honey, if needed.
  • If you have wrapped your hive for the winter, leave the insulation/ black roofing paper in place.
  • Clean up dead colonies, and look for evidence of what went wrong.
  • Set goals for what you want to accomplish with your bees this year and make plans to implement them.
  • Place your orders for nucs, packages, and queens. If you procrastinate, they will be sold out!
  • Take inventory of all your beekeeping equipment and determine what you will need for this year's beekeeping season.
  • Repair, assemble, and paint wooden ware over the next two months.

Happy Beekeeping!
Charlie Thomas
SBA President
My YouTube channel is Sawmill Charlie's Bee Farm