Meteorological spring ended June 1st and temperatures have begun to regularly touch the 90s. With the change in seasons comes the end of the main nectar flow in Northern Virginia. In the apiaries, we are seeing the field bees bringing back white clover, “ditch” lily (Hemerocallis fulva) and Tree of Heaven (Ailanthus altissima) pollen in abundance. Soon, these nectar and pollen sources will taper off, and our colonies will begin to experience a period when they are unable to gather enough nectar and pollen to meet their needs. This time, which will run until we see cooler weather in September is known as the dearth. During the dearth, our bees will reduce their population to conserve resources, and forage greater distances in search of nectar and pollen. The strong impulse our colonies had to reproduce by swarming will largely stop because of the lack of forage this month.
June is a good month for harvesting honey. A June harvest gives us plenty of time to let our honey settle out small wax bits that remain after the extracting process, and for us to package our crop in time for our annual Honey Harvest Festival. We will again be entering our honey in judged competitions which usually occur in August.
Towards the end of the month, we will begin to feed our colonies a light sugar syrup to ensure that they have sufficient resources to survive the winter, and to reduce colony stress during the dearth. We will also measure varroa mite levels and treat our bees based on the results. Lastly, we will start making some more new queens this month, to ensure all our colonies have strong queens going into the fall.