Canola Flow

[Ben Framed]

Mr HP, I was just watching a video by Ian Steppler. The Canola flow is an important part of his beekeeping operation. Is this true for most of Canada? Are most Canola fields attended by bees and their beekeepers in your Canada? I once commented that it was very clever of he and his family to reap two incomes off the same crop.

[TheHoneyPump]

One of a variety of crops.
Canola is definitely dominant in some areas as yellow horizon to horizon.

[Oldbeavo]

We are just starting our canola season in Oz. We miss the first 3-4 weeks as our bees are at almonds till 1st September.
Some will go straight to cherries but usually there is canola nearby.
The other hives will go to canola where the stronger hives will be split to control swarming
We have done seed pollination for canola breeders in September but we find that the parent plants don't seem to yield as much honey. Just as well they pay for the pollination.
There is some thoughts amongst BK's that the modern canola is not yielding honey as good as it use to be. Any comments from Canada?

[van from Arkansas]

We are just starting our canola season in Oz. We miss the first 3-4 weeks as our bees are at almonds till 1st September.
Some will go straight to cherries but usually there is canola nearby.
The other hives will go to canola where the stronger hives will be split to control swarming
We have done seed pollination for canola breeders in September but we find that the parent plants don't seem to yield as much honey. Just as well they pay for the pollination.
There is some thoughts amongst BK's that the modern canola is not yielding honey as good as it use to be. Any comments from Canada?

HoneyPump

HoneyPump, question for you by Mr. Beavo, my down under Buddy.

Just bumping so HP catches the question for canola.

[TheHoneyPump]

Nectar collection and honey yield is most dependent on the age demographics of the bees in the hive at the time of the flow of the target bloom(s). Timing of the peak of population, and right age of population, is the difference between boxes packed full of honey and a mediocre crop.  The boxes can be full of bees, and get no crop.  Or the boxes can have much fewer bees and get a huge crop.  Colonies that are in build-up mode, as in pre / post pollinating, will never collect as much nor impress.

With respect to canola, all I can say is that when a hive is primed, 2 boxes completely packed full of fat 9 frame deeps half capped in 4 days is the norm.  3 to 4 boxes (160-200lbs) crop per hive in one week.  Canola here is a very fast, very short crop window (7-10 days).  If the bees peak at the same time as the bloom, it is overwhelming, bumper crop.  If the bees peak before or after the bloom, it is underwhelming - and everyone goes to the coffee shop complaining about the weather.  It is rarely ever the weather.  It is nearly always if the beekeeper hit or missed on the timing of his/her hives.  How else would you explain different beekeepers operating in the same area, with hives visible from from each others bee yards, where one is complaining over a cup of java while the other is working so hard at capturing the bumper crop that he has no time for java or such nonsensical talk?

I have never been set in a canola field that didn't completely overwhelm us with the rapidity and the volume of the flow.  I have been to other's neighbouring bee yards that the hives were very underwhelming in their preparedness and performance - in pretty much the same field.

[Oldbeavo]

In Oz canola is the first honey flow of the season coming out of winter.
The bees come out of winter with 1-3 frames of brood
Our bees build up the brood on almonds and then go to canola.
Some of our bees are wintered as singles and go to almonds as singles. This is to allow less trips of carting bees to almonds, 600km round trip. We carry 100 singles or 50 doubles per trip.
These single come out of almond full of bees, go to canola and get an super of stickies.
Open to comments on our management?
HP please define primed?
The canola here will flower for 4-5 weeks but tends not to yield until the warmer days come.

[TheHoneyPump]

As described above. 
Nectar collection and honey yield is most dependent on the balance of ages of the bees in the hive at the time of the flow of the target bloom(s). Timing of the peak of population, and ages of the population, is the difference between boxes packed full of honey vs packed full of bess with mediocre crop.  A hive that has all those elements aligned at the time the bloom begins = Primed. 
Priming means:
The desired size of the hive is set by the beekeeper 6 to 8 weeks prior to the targeted flow start date. The colony size and power (bees and brood levels) are managed through that 6 week period to achieve the hive size and population to maximize the crop.  My target: one week before the blooms start I aim to be looking at a hive that is 4 deeps high, 3 deeps worth packed with bees of all ages, and 5 to 7 frames of mature capped emerging brood in the bottom.  I am doing that beekeeper work well over a month in advance.  When the bloom starts, another 2 to 3 boxes are plopped on top bringing the hive anywhere between 5 deeps and 7 deeps high to catch the start of it. Then I go fishing for a weekend.  Come back to full boxes and work our butts off for the rest of the summer. Usually get 3 harvest rounds, 5 days apart, sometimes 4 on the clovers.  Canola here only gives 2 rounds, as the bloom period is so short. Short but flows heavy.

You may consider these ideas and methods to change your hive management to adjust for population timing and target hive size to get better results. Ultimately, you may or may not be able to achieve these levels in Oz.  The bee season is quite different, yours long mine short, and I would expect the bee genetics to also have differences.  All other things being equal, some bees do make more honey than others.  Hence why buying local raised queens is advised as better, and raising your own is best as it allows you to select for the traits you want.

Hope that helps.

[Oldbeavo]

I am impressed that you can get hives to that strength through winter. Do you have a nectar flow prior to canola?
The canola here flowers only 40 days after the winter solstice.
Whether there is a genetic difference the your bees will produce bees over winter, where ours decline into winter and will go downs to very little brood and only start to open up in July. Our bees are Italian based and generally local queens.
 Almond flower is normally starting 1st August and canola is generally starting about August 7-10.
What month is your start of canola flowering?

[Oldbeavo]

Cracked the difference, Canada sows its canola in the same month as Australia. Canada grows its canola over summer while OZ canola grows over winter and is harvested about 2 months after Canada. harvest for OZ in Nov in our area.
I am unsure about the exact season but it would be like trying to have bees ready for canola in March.
Our Latitude is -36 approx. which is the US at about Tulsa, Durham, Oaklahoma city.

[Ben Framed]

Good Stuff Men

[van from Arkansas]

Yes, this is interesting about OZ and Canada.

With my comments: I feel like a copper penny in between to gold coins, but here is my 2 cents.  As a hobbyist crazy on queen rearing, I build up my bees in preparation for queen rearing.  The earlier the better.  I want nurse bees, as many as possible as early as possible.  This year the weather backfired on me.  In April, I lost two batches of queens to chill.  Last April: nights were in the 20F range, like every single night, normal is 30F-40F.

So, I am wondering if weather affects canola bee build up or primed with foragers as HP says.  Mr. Beavo, if I understood your cannoli time frames, after almonds, weather would not be such a worry to OZ as it would be to Canada?  Is this correct Mr. Beavo? 

Van

[Ben Framed]

Timing of the peak of population for maximum honey production is something I have heard from by only two other commercial keepers beside Mr HP. All three are successful. Ian Steppler and Bob Binnie. Both speak of this (art) as well. (I am sure there are others.) None of the three including Mr HP use this timing for traveling pollination that I am aware of?

That is part of the beauty of this forum. We have diversity here, (on this topic), with different goals from great beekeepers, each sharing what works for their individual needs for their individual goals and purposes.

As Mr Van said, very interesting. Thank you both for giving us a birds eye, or a fly one the wall view to your conversation gentlemen. Oldbeavo it is rare to hear the ideas and words of a true pollinator and his unique needs. At least I have not been very successful in finding such. Thanks all.

Phillip

[Oldbeavo]

Our weather after almonds in September is OK for bees, can be windy but temp will be in the low 20 C.
Bees come out of almonds with 5-6 frames of brood, some have hatched but our peak bee population does not occur till October, which is the start of our swarming season. So we are trying to collect canola with geriatrics and the first batch of new bees.
We will split some hives in mid Sept for swarm control, so we are working against our honey production. If we split late Sept-early Oct then the bees are already in swarm mode. It is good splitting as there are plenty of swarm cells.
In reading Mr Bush's info, swarm control is best done before the bees think about swarming.

[Ben Framed]

"We will split some hives in mid Sept for swarm control, so we are working against our honey production."

Being a commercial migratory beekeeper that would be a wise decision being you have transportation needs of having single brood boxes for practical shipping measures. I may be mistaken, but here is where some of the commercial (stationary honey production) beekeepers differ by adding a second brood box before the flow and swarming season, thus for the (same goal) of swarm prevention by adding a second brood space for the hives, creating a lack of need to swarm? After swarming season and the full flow starts, it is not so important for keepers to run double boxes for the commercial keepers? At least that is the take that I have gotten by studying a group of commercial keepers. Is this analysis close to right?

[TheHoneyPump]

Just a note, wrt commercial. I doubt such a things stationary commercial exists, if there are they'd be the exceptions.  Where does that idea come from?  All I know of are migratory. Meaning hives get moved around a lot throughout the season from holding yards, pollination / buildup yards, and honey production yards as the various blooms across the operating area come and go the progression of the season.

The management of the brood nest, number of brood boxes, etc, is entirely dependent on the goals, objectives, targets of the operation. Swarm control as a stand alone has little (nothing) to do with it, as is integral to the overall management plan and established practices.

[Ben Framed]

Just a note, wrt commercial. I doubt such a things stationary commercial exists, if there are they'd be the exceptions.  Where does that idea come from?  All I know of are migratory. Meaning hives get moved around a lot throughout the season from holding yards, pollination / buildup yards, and honey production yards as the various blooms across the operating area come and go the progression of the season.

The management of the brood nest, number of brood boxes, etc, is entirely dependent on the goals, objectives, targets of the operation. Swarm control as a stand alone has little (nothing) to do with it, as is integral to the overall management plan and established practices.

What I mean is and was asking, is most commercial operations that I am aware of, have set yards or farms if you will, that are their basic yards. Meaning they do not travel all over the country as pollinators, chasing one crop after another for the income of pollination. (honey and wax producers if you will). You may have a pollinator in Florida that sends bees all the way to California to almonds, then too Washington for apples and on to some other place for blueberries etc. By stationary, I am talking about crops in a keepers general area and moving their bees accordingly to catch the flow of a particular crop that may or may not be on their same large farm. That is what I meant by stationary.

Sure any operation even as small as my little hobby operation has the need of moving boxes and hives from yard to yard. I move splits from one yard to another such as nucs and complete hives from time to time when necessary. I think that can be said of Richard Noel in France, Ian Steppler of Canada, My buddy form Turkey, and perhaps yourself? I know Bob Bennie use to be a pollinator, but now lives in Georgia, where he enjoys many yards stretched over his tri-state area where he is located. I hope that clears that up lol.

I would think if a beekeeper as described above did not add space for the build up before the flow, making room for timing the bees for the perfect amount of build up, timing of the correct balance of the upcoming flow, in order to obtain the correct balance of his or her apiarys, may very well have swarms running out the ears. Bob Binnie goes into detail on this subject and has it down to an art. In fact he calls it and art, while explaining how important balancing hives during the pre nectar flow really is if one wants to fully capitalize on that flow and not have the bees at half staff because of swarming. As my buddy in Canada might say, I hope that helps. 😬

[Oldbeavo]

Apart from almonds we stay within about 150km of home, but only have 2 sites that we use each year. Most of the eucalypts in our area are not annual yielders. So for a lot of the year we may be on different sites though we may have been there 2 years ago.
We have one group that is semi stationary as they do almonds, build up for a month on canola and then go to citrus for a month. After that they go to Lucerne, alfalfa, for the next 6 months.
Shifting to chase honey flows is not a big drama as it takes about an hour to load, drive what ever and an hour to unload.

[TheHoneyPump]

About the same here. Mainstream is scattered outward at 150 km radius in any direction from base. Do go up around 1250 km for specified pollination drops.