We have brood, dude!

Yeah, baby! All is right in the world of our bees! We've seen the queen in Hive 2 and Hive 1 has eggs and brood on 3 different frames. Ahhhh, life is good...

My mom and dad came from San Jose to visit us for a few days. They've enjoyed the blog so I knew they would both enjoy helping me work the bees. After getting Dad decked out in the bee suit we fired up the smoker and dove into Hive 2. Second frame in, there she was! A beautiful laying queen with half a frame of capped brood, young larvae and eggs (pic 2 Can you find the queen?). She has to have been raised by the hive. The queen cell on the frame we put in last week has not had time to hatch, breed and lay this much brood in a week. Now we have to feed, feed, feed to get more honey put away. I added another patty and put a gallon of 2:1 in the feeder.

Then it was on to Hive 1. Hive 1 has 2 deeps and a medium and is the hive in which we installed the nuc last week. We first looked at the medium and found zero brood and little honey. i added it to make sure they didn't swarm last weekend. On initial inspection of the 1st deep we found the first 3 frames loaded with honey. The 4th frame is from the nuc. There we found the first bit of brood. We struck pay dirt on the center side of the frame and continued for the next 2 frames. We never saw the queen but there was a lot of capped brood, larvae, and eggs. I'm amazed this queen made it withth e battles that were going on outside the hive. Compared to the light golden yellow capped brood the Italian queens have produced, this brood is much darker brown–telling me the Buckfast queen made it and is doing her thing. (pic 4) Again, a patty and 2:1 for all.

What a wonderful relief having both hives queen right heading into winter. Now they both have a chance to make it. I am not hedging my bets though as I have decided not to chemically treat for nosema or varroa. I sugared the bees, ran drone frames and closely visually inspected them all summer long. I've seen 1 mite and have had success with the drone frames. My initial plan was to raise the bees as holistically as possible and until I see signs of disease, I'm not going to treat. My only hesitance is not treating for nosema, however I've spoken with several local beeks who say they do not treat and have no problem. I've learned a lot of lessons this year the hard way. Time will tell if my bees will pay the price or reap the gains of this last, very major decision.

He's Ripping Our Roof Off, Again!

Let's see... I slept in until 6:45 this morning and while brushing my teeth I took at glance out at the hives. The entire bottom deep of hive 1 was covered with bees. So I think to myself, hmm....it's been raining all night, it's really warm and muggy out, the bees are never awake right now and I just added 5 frames of bees to a full hive and took a medium off as I was instructed. Me thinks these ladies are either cooling their keesters outside or they really don't like the neighborhood we live in and are about to head back to Winchester. Soooo, I don a full bee suit, grab a bottle of HBH spray, a hive top feeder and off I go a calling.

Sure enough, all the bees on the outside are Buckfast–not an Italian to be seen. Naturally, I left my smoker open next to the hives and it is soaked. I really sucked as a Boy Scout and used to leave my dad's rusty ol' tools wherever I last used them (I wonder if that's why they looked rusty and old) but now pride myself on usually not doing such a stupid thing. Without the benefit f smoke, I take off the telescoping cover and inner cover. The bees are fairly cool about it, tho' I've never seen more bees between the 2 covers before. I replace the medium I was told to take off when I installed the nuc and throw a feeder on top. I balance the inner cover against the front landing of the hive and an empty deep I keep nearby to put boxes on when working the hives and remove the mouse guard to open up the entrance so the "March of the Bees" can proceed unhindered (pic 1 shows final result). Just for good measure, I sprayed the Buckfast with HBH to make them happier.

As hoped, the 1500+ bees on the inner cover start marching right back into the hive. Even the Buckfast join the parade tho' there are a few skirmishes.

I'll go out and pick up the mess later. Trouble is, I KNEW I should have left that medium on the hive. Time to start believing in myself more. The life of an inexperienced beekeeper...

Now where's my morning coffee?

Queenless in Westmoreland

A very busy month at work has meant not enough time in the apiary.
Unfortunately at just the wrong time.

After adding our Russian queen in late August, all seemed to be going well. The 1st time I opened Hive 1, there were eggs and new brood. I thought had balanced the hive, again. Wrong-o, Johnny! A week later, I opened the hive just before heading to Germany. No eggs, 4-5 day old larvae and absolutely no sign of the Russian matriarch. Possibly my bees thought their ancestors were from the other Georgia and off-ed her. None-the-less, she was gone and I headed to a plane.

Ten days later I return home hoping to open the hives and see that they're making cells to replace the queens. I looked at every frame in Hive 1 and found no queen cells but instead 20 frames almost completely filled with mostly capped honey. Remember the medium I had on the bottom that had been partially filled with honey. It had been suggested by a beek on Beesource to put it on the bottom and let the bees bring the honey up into the deeps. Sure enough, absolutely cleaned out and empty. Nice call... As all the frames in the deeps are packed with honey, I moved the medium to the top and hoped that would stimulate them to make queen cells. Mouse guards were added to both hives to help keep critters from finding a winter home.

Hive 2 as you may recall swarmed 2x in 3 days in early September (see pic 1 for 2nd swarm). Many of the bees left and the numbers in this hive make me think that it's toast unless I combine it with Hive 1. Upon opening it, I found a couple of poorly formed queen cells but they didn't look like the bees were serious about raising a queen. I started feeding them 2:1 syrup and a patty.

After seeing the lack luster efforts by the bees, I decided to try and find a queen. I finally purchased a nuc (pic 2) from Black Cat Honey in Winchester, NH and was assured by Rich that the queen was prolific and laying like crazy. I was concerned that putting 5 frames of Buckfast bees (pic 3) and a queen in the middle of the Italians would start a war. Rich assured me it wouldn't as long as the 5 frames were together. So off I went to install the nuc.

I removed the 5 best frames of honey from the upper deep of Hive 1 to make room for the new bees and queen(pic 4). Upon looking at the nuc, I found very little brood, some larvae and a few eggs. The rest of the frames were sporadically empty or had some honey. Two of the frames had supercedure cells ready to hatch. Gayla thought we should put one of the frames with a queen cell into Hive 2 and see if we could save the hive. After brushing the bees off of the frame, I did replace a frame of honey with the new frame, added a patty and closed it up, hoping the cell would hatch and just maybe we could get a queen fertilized prior to winter. Let's just say the odds are rather long...

After spraying a sugar and Honey Bee Healthy (HBH) mix all over the remaining frames in Hive 1, I placed the remaining 4 frames into the deep. I never saw a queen, though I did look hard. The bees seemed OK with each other so I fed them a pollen patty, sprayed some more HBH on the bees and dumped the rest of the bees from the nuc into the hive. it was after closing the hive that I noticed the fun going on at the main entrance of the hive. Numerous battles were ongoing between the old and new bees trying to get in the entrance. So much for détente! I sprayed them down with HBH, which helped, but battles went on for a while. As it was getting dark I'm hoping they all finally gathered around the queen singing "Give Peace a Chance" and that the queen was not a casualty...

Varroa

There are a lot of theories as to the cause of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). Is it pesticides, over medication, increased stress from transporting bees, mites, all of the above or something else? There isn't a definitive answer but we do know each spell trouble for Apis mellifera or the honey bee. This is why I choose to raise my bees as holistically as possible and why I chose to end the use of chemicals on my yard 5 years ago. My lawn is still nice and green, it just has more clover and crabgrass mixed in.

Of all of the possibilities for CCD, the one topic that seems to get the most airplay is the Varroa destructor mite (pic 1, red dot on back of bee). Introduced in 1987, this mite has essentially wiped out 98% of the feral or wild honey bee population across the US and has the largest econimic impact on the beekeeping industry of any parasite. Known as an external parasite, V. destructor can only breed in a honey bee colony. The female mite lays eggs in drone or worker brood which attach to the larva and emerge with the bee when it hatches. The mite sucks the hemolymph of the bee resulting in Deformed Wing Disease, weakens the bee and can finally kill it.

There are chemical, mechanical and biological treatments to keep the mite population in check. I'd like to discuss what I am doing to try to minimize Varroa in my hives.

I've mentioned numerous times in the blog that I "sugar" the bees (pic 2). This is the practice of dusting the bees with confectionary sugar. The theory is it causes the mite to loose its grip on the bee and fall off. Since I use a screened bottom board (the board the hive rests on has a large screen mesh for its center), the mite falls out of the hive onto the ground. Unless the mite can attach itself to another bee, it will remain there and die.

Hive 2 uses a "small cell" plastic frame made by Mann Lake. The diameter of the cell imprinted on the frame is 4.9mm as compared to most frames which are 5.4mm. When bees are allowed to make whatever size comb they want they usually make a smaller size 4.6 - 5.2mm cell. Michael Bush calls this "Natural Cell Size". Years ago, foundation manufacturers thought it would be a good idea to make larger honey bees so they would make more honey. By increasing the cell size the egg is laid in, they reasoned a larger bee would result–which it did. Now introduce Varroa which only replicates in honey bee cells. Larger cells means more room for more mites. More mites, more problems. Regress the bees to their natural cell size and you limit the amount of mites that can grow in the cell. The truth be told, this hive has had problems all season and I wonder if it is the cell size. Package bees and queens are not raised on small cell and it takes them quite a while to regress to that size.

Which brings us to drone frames (pic 3). Drone cells are naturally larger, up to 6.4mm, as the drone bees are larger than workers. V.destructor prefers to lay her eggs in drone cells because there is so much room. Today you can buy drone frames which are green plastic for easy identification. The are imprinted with a 6.4mm cell size and after the bees draw out the comb, the queen lays mainly drones in the cells. Now you have a frame of bees that you really don't need that the mites will love. Once you find capped drone cells on the frame you have 21 days (incubation time of a drone bee) to remove the frame and freeze it, thereby killing the drones and the mites before they hatch. You need 2 drone frames per hive to rotate frames between freezer and hive. Picture 4 shows three V.destructor mites that were on larvae when I froze this frame. I opened about 40-50 cells this evening and found 5 mites. I'm going to do a roll test soon to determne the mite population in the hives–but more on that later. Suffice it to say there are holistic ways to control this predator and I plan to try all of them before I use chemical intervention in my hives.

"John, I think we have a swarm!"

Now these are not the words I thought I would
hear today. I'm minding my own business staining the barn when I hear Gayla's alert. My first thought was it must be from someone else's hive but Hive 2 was a bit frentic early this morning. It's just that I requeened Hive 1 earlier this week and Hive 2 is making new queens. Both hives have plenty of space, are getting pollen patties and 2:1 syrup. What's up?

Sure enough, there is a swarm 25 - 30' up in a hemlock on the edge of the woods (pic 1). Not having been a very good Boy Scout, I do not own a nuc box. With the condition of both hives being marginal for honey stores, there is no way I can capture this hive and make a nuc using existing stores anyway. These bees never should have swarmed and are doomed...













After unsuccessfully emailing one beek and calling another, I decide this is a job for Super Dolt (pic 2).


Using a pole saw and a big cardboard box, I plan to cut off the limb, let it fall and then put the swarm in the box (pic 3). This all went according to plan, tho' as one is climbing a ladder to saw off a branch full of bees while dressed like a technician on an Apollo moon launch, one does
pause to wonder just when was the moment that you passed over to certifiably insane.













Once the bees were on the ground (pic 4) I found the queen and put her in a cage (pic 5). I sprayed her with syrup and added a couple of attendants while Gayla ran into the house to make a sugar plug. Once plugged, I put the cage and about 5 more attendants into a paper bag and put the bag in a warm spot inside. I then shook the bees into the box and placed the box back in front of Hive 2. The march of the bees began and in about a hour the box was empty and the bees were back in the hive. Several hundred bees remained on the ground where the branch fell. I think these may be nurse bees who have never been out of the hive and can't find their way
home. I put the now empty box upside down over the mass of bees. I think they will move into the top of the box and I will be able to shake them in front of the hive tomorrow.

Now what to do with the queen...

Приветствуйте российскую Королеву

or
Welcome the Russian Queen!

Keeping the string alive of never meeting a beekeeper I didn't like, on Wednesday I visited Warm Colors Apiary (see website list) and met a wonderful beekeeper, Dan Conlon. Dan has been keeping bees for 40 years and, with his wife, Bonita, has a very nice apiary and store at their home in South Deerfield, MA. I emailed Dan about purchasing a queen to replace the one I just lost in Hive 1. Even tho' he did not have any raised queens for sale, he offered to sell me a queen out of one of his nucs since I was in a jam. Getting a new queen was worth the ride but the best part was the education I received while speaking with Dan. Our conversation covered everything from Russian vs Italian bees, treating the 2 strains of nosema, the efficacy of sugaring bees to prevent mites (do it only on days over 90º), the importance of knowing the environment in which you are raising your bees, how to place the new queen in the hive and, well, you get my drift. I was very grateful for the queen but the conversation will be what I remember–which is one of the things I like best about beekeeping. The experienced beeks never hesitate to help the newbies. It's a great community...

The new queen is a locally raised Russian. The Russian strain tends to winter better, build up faster in the spring, be more tolerant of verroa but will be less docile than the Italians and will tend to swarm. Nowhere in nature does a community (like a beehive) that is so related have such a dramatic change in genetics as when a new queen is introduced to an existing hive. Often, the bees that are getting the queen will reject her and attack her in her cage, especially if there are attendant bees in the cage with her. To help prevent this, Dan caught the queen, marked her and put her in a single hole cage with a sugar plug (pic 1). To keep her happy, he put her in a paper bag and added a few bees to attend to her until I put her in her new home.

Prior to introducing her, I did a final check for eggs. Though I didn't see any, I did see they had started several supersedure cells and had actually capped one already. This really makes me wonder if the queen had become trapped in the queen excluder prior to Sunday and maybe I didn't accidentally kill her but simply found her. Who knows...In order to help her be accepted by my bees, I placed her cage in the top deep between 2 frames of capped brood. The nurse bees are young and tend to be more willing to accept the queen more than the older field bees. It was amazing to watch! As soon as I put her in position bees immediately came to her–not aggressively–but in a care taking fashion (pic 2-3).
After placing a pollen patty, I closed up the hive. I'll open it on Saturday to see if the bees have released her. If they have, I'll leave everything alone for a couple of weeks and then check for eggs and capped brood. If that's what I see, the hive is happy. If not, I'll have to combine the hives...

Queens...kill all you want, we'll make more

What a weekend! I inspected Hive 1 on Friday. It looked pretty good with 2 almost complete frames of capped honey, some stored pollen, various stages of capped brood, larvae and eggs in the upper deep, no eggs but more pollen and honey in the lower (pics 1-3). Seemed like the queen wasn't laying enough for the time of year, tho'. Every frame in the medium super was half built out and filled with uncapped honey. Ive been feeding 1:1 syrup trying to get them to build more comb and I'm sure most of the honey was from the syrup. I ended up reversing the order of the deeps to try to get some more brood started. I put the hive back together, forgot to sugar the deeps, did sugar the super and called it a day.

Saturday was just as beautiful as Friday so I decided to check on the supersedure cells in Hive 2 and, since the hive had become so mellow, fully expected to find a new queen happily filling cells. Wrong! There were 15 supersedure cells, 6 of which were already capped and 2 possible swarm cells (I'll post again soon on the difference)! Yikes! Absolutely no eggs, some mid-stage larvae and a fair amount of honey in the super but hardly any in the deeps. After closing everything back up, I decided I needed to take off the medium super, start feeding 2:1 syrup (helps make the bees want to build comb and store honey) and feed them a pollen patty to build up stores. When a hive goes queenless it tends to keep the brood nest open so the new queen will have a lot of available room to lay her eggs. In this case, that means no bees and no food in the deeps. With winter coming soon this hive is in serious trouble.

To confirm I had a solid plan, I emailed the good folks at Beesource.com and my fellow beek, Keith, and asked them what they thought of my plan. They approved it with one gent suggesting I put the super on the bottom of the stack and let the bees bring the honey up into the deeps. My plan included moving the frames of honey to the other side of the yard and let the bees go there to get it. This would also keep other bees and insects away from the hive rather than just leaving the frames adjacent to to it as an attractant. This became my mission for Sunday...

Continuing the phenomenal late August weather, Sunday dawned with gorgeous blue skies and a high of 81. The ladies in both hives were back to normal after my excursions through their homes the previous 2 days. The first setback was finding my pollen patties infested with moths. An entire case of Global patties looked like the hallowed breeding grounds of several hundred pantry moths. Back to Beesource to see if I could still use them if I trimmed off the damaged area and froze the patties before using them. As I figured, no...(tho' Global later told me yes) so I made 3 gallons of 2:1 syrup (20 pounds granulated sugar in 10 pints of boiling water) added 1 tsp Honey-B-Healthy per quart of syrup to the mix (lemon grass oil and spearmint oil to help calm the bees and induce them to build comb) and out to the hives I went.

Hive 2 went very well. I smoked the entrance and under the inner cover, popped off the super, moved the 2 deeps off of the screened bottom board, put the super in place , pu the deeps n top of the super, removed the queen excluder, added a feeder and closed them up. Totally time was 10-15 minutes. The bees were not too pleased to be bothered 2 days in a row but no apitherapy injections so I was pleased. The joy was with Hive 1...

After waiting about 10 minutes for Hive 2 to settle down, I repeated the process. Let me state that picking up 2 hive bodies open at the bottom and top with 30,000-40,000 bees in them did make me wonder just what the heck I was doing. Bees were everywhere!

Everything started smoothly. I put the deeps on top of the super and smoked the top of the queen excluder to drive the bees down into the hive. Needing to be careful that I didn't drop the queen during all of the moving, I was extremely cognizant of my movements and making sure she didn't get left behind. After smoking the excluder I used a bee brush to gently remove a couple of bees still on the top of the excluder and removed it. Naturally there were 100 or so bees on the brood side so I brushed them off into the hive, laid it on the stand and replaced the inner cover and hive top. That's when I noticed a rather large bee stuck in the excluder. Sure enough, closer inspection showed me I had just wiped out the queen! Just lovely...

Not having 28 days for them to raise a queen, have her harden, mate and return to the hive, I ordered a locally raised queen from Warm Color Apiaries in South Deerfield, MA. Dan was very kind to promise me one of his Italian hybrid queens that I'll pick up on Wednesday and install in the hive. I still can't believe it. The queen should have run from the light and the smoke. I certainly didn't see her when I brushed off the other bees. Maybe she was already stuck in the excluder but I think I'm the assassin.

Hive notes:
Hive 1 will have just a slight setback until the new queen is released. I didn't think the hive had enough stores for winter which is why I reversed the super on this hive, too. In hind site, I'd still reverse the super. The number of bees seems good in this hive, no signs of verroa, good activity and it seems like they are putting away a good amount of pollen. I do not plan on any chemical intervention with either hive and think this hive has a good chance this winter. I will start feeding 2:1 this week and will add HBH to the mix.

Hive 2 should have a mated queen in residence within the next 14-18 days. I'm going to keep my grocer happy and keep feeding 2:1, as well as put a patty between the 2 deeps. Each hive needs about 80 pounds of honey to make it through the winter. This hive has to hurry. It may be I have to combine the 2 but I'm going to give this a shot. And try not to kill any more queens...

Back to normal?

Eleven days ago I opened Hive 2 to try and see what was going on. More and more bees were bearding and the hive just appeared to be "off" when compared to the look and activity of Hive 1. Lots of activity but the bees were really hanging around the outside of the hive. What I found made me think it was a queenless hive. The drone comb that had been completely untouched about 3 weeks prior was now almost completely drawn out and lots of eggs were on it. There was still some capped brood in the rest of the hive but not what I would expect and there were not any other eggs. The supersedure cells I found last time were not there and 2 others were in their place. With the rain, I kept feeding them.

I came home Wednesday from a quick trip and what a difference in the hive! No bearding, tons of activity, lots of bees loaded with pollen coming home and a very peaceful sounding buzz coming from the hives. The apiary even smells great! Me thinks the ladies have a new leader of whom they are quite fond. I wish we did!

Pass the Royal Jelly Please!

Today was a picture perfect day for checking the hives only to find treachery is running amok in the hives. Both hives have built supercedure queen cells. I'm not surprised Hive 2 is not pleased with their royal highness (Pic 1). The hive has been behind since the beginning but recently seemed to catch up. Inspecting the hive today, we quickly found the queen. However, tho' there was capped brood, there didn't seem to be many larvae and I couldn't find any eggs, tho' it is often hard to see them against the white MannLake PF100 frames. Off with her head and let's get a queen who wants to build some brood! Unfortunately, this will mean a lull while the new queen goes on her mating flight and finally gets back to work. Not sure what happened but this queen is on her way out...Ciao, baby!

I am very surprised about Hive 1 developing a new queen. She has been a dependable layer and there are new eggs and larvae. This has always been the strong hive and I'm disappointed to see something is not pleasing the ladies. I almost crushed the cell but thought the bees know better than I and it would be best to let them decide. I hope there is enough time for the new queens to get established and build up some more numbers before it gets cold.

Hive Notes:
Now that the bees are not pleased with her, we FINALLY saw the queen in Hive 1. This is the first time I've seen her since May when I hung the cage and installed the package. There were lots of bees in the new super but hardly and comb was drawn. I inspected the upper deep and there was about a 50/50 mix of brood and honey on 7 frames. Having seen the queen, I decided to move the empty frames to the center, sugared the upper deep and put everything back as it was. I'll continue to feed them to try to stimulate building comb in the super.

Hive 2 was very similar to Hive 1–just a slight amount of comb in the super and about half of the upper deep was filled with honey (Pic 2). The problem was there is a lot of empty cells and not a lot of capped brood. The bottom deep still had 3 frames untouched with hardly any bees on them. The drone cell frame was as clean as when I 1st put it in in May. leaving the drone frame in place, I moved the other empty frames to the center and then reversed the deeps, putting the upper in the bottom position. My hope is the bees will draw out comb on the empty frames and the queen will move up and start laying in the older cells.

Lastly, I've noticed lot of bearding occurring on this hive (bees standing on the outside of the hive near the entrance).

Plan:
Keep feeding and check the hives in the next 5-7 days to see if the supercedure cells are sealed. I'll also do a better job checking for eggs.

Building an Ark...

Okay, enough already! We've had 6 straight days of hard rain, the corn is laying on it's side and I'm on vacation. The only good parts about this are I'm not at work, I've added new shelves, organized and cleaned the barn and shed and fertilized the lawn (organically, of course).

The bees cannot be pleased so this morning I fed them. They immediately started to take the syrup so it was worth getting soaked. I really need to inspect the hives but I didn't think they'd like me removing their roof in a rain storm. They have been congregating on the front of the hives the last 2 evenings during breaks in the storm and I'd like to see how they are doing with the super I added to each hive.

While I was sitting on the front porch this afternoon, we had a 20 minute lull in the rain. I noticed a couple of the ladies hanging out on one of the hostas. Watching them, I realized it wasn't just 2 bees but more like 20 coming to drink and then heading back to the hive while others came in to take their place. None of the other plants had a bee on them–just the hosta. Here are a couple of pics of the bees drinking...

Did I Say No Honey?

After a quick trip to Germany, I'm a week late posting the progress as of last weekend.

In the previous post I wondered about the lack of honey and pollen stores. There was lots of brood but nothing to keep 'em going. They must have heard me! They've gone into serious honey production and both hives have frames of just capped honey as well as frames mixed with brood. We added mediums with excluders to both hives as the top deeps had 7 frames mostly filled out. We have continued to feed and will do so until they are building comb in the new supers. We used a lot less smoke this time and I was stung 3 times on the left hand. Made for an itchy and puffy left hand for about 3 days.

The best part of the inspection was watching 2 bees hatch (pics 2 & 3). While watching the 1st one start to come out another started breaking through the cap. Based on the activity of each hive, LOTS of bees are hatching! I'd estimate 40-45,000 bees are now in residence in each hive. Busy queens!

Hive Notes:

Hive One has a lot of activity happening in the top deep. I put the 2nd deep on when the 1st had 5-6 frames filled out. I was leaving for Hong Kong for 10 days and I thought it would be smart to add it so they had room. As it worked out, it seems all they did was move upstairs. There are 4 empty frames (including the drone frame) in the bottom so I exchanged 2 frames of brood from the top with 2 empties from the bottom. We still have never seen the queen in this hive. She must be small and similarly colored as the workers but she is definitely a prolific layer. It appeared the bees were building a queen cell in this hive. I scraped it off since I moved 2 empty frames up and added the super. If they were building the cell because of space, I've hopefully solved the problem. If I see another this weekend, I'm going to leave it and assume they know something is up with the current queen and let them superceed her. Definitely makes me wonder what's up because she's laying. I sugared the bees for mites and filled the feeder. They've hardly touched it this week.

Hive 2 is definitely taking syrup. Now that the supers are on, Gayla made 1:1 syrup without Honey-Be-Healthy so not to contaminate the honey. Overall, this hive has come on strong and is now almost even with Hive One. The bees do seem more relaxed in this hive. sugared the bees in this hive, as well.

After not opening the hives for 2 weeks, it was very difficult to pull the frames out of the top deeps because the bees built burr comb between the bottom of the frames in the top deep and the top of the frames in the bottom deep. Using my hive tool, I was able to pry the frames loose. I scraped off the burr comb, leaving half of it for them and taking the other half for us to eventually use to make candles.

Lots of brood, no honey

What a beautiful day to be a beekeeper! High 70's, sunny with nice cloud breaks and no wind. Simply gorgeous!

It's been 3 weeks since we opened Hive 1 and 2 weeks since we opened Hive 2. Man, are there a lot of bees in there (pic 1)! Both hives have lots of capped brood but less than 1/2 frame of honey or pollen between them. Three weeks ago I took the top feeder off Hive 1, 2 weeks ago for Hive 2. Seems the queens have been busy laying eggs and the bees are doing a great job raising them but the field bees don't seem to be putting any stores away.

Off to Beesource.com; asking if this is
normal and should I put the feeders back on. Five minutes and I had an answer! What an incredible resource. Yes, put the feeders on as there aren't enough stores to feed the bees if there's a dearth but not to worry as at this point you want lots of brood, not honey. Soooooo, tomorrow on go the feeders.

I examined every frame today as a fellow new beek and email buddy, Keith, has a queen cell in one of his hives (pic 2 courtesy of Keith). We both bought our packages from BetterBee and installed them on the same day. Odd to already have a queen cell so I really wanted to check to see if I had the same. No problem, just LOTS of burr comb and many more bees.
In fact, almost all of our bees are now New Hampshire natives. Of course, unless your relatives came over on the Mayflower and immediately settled here, you'll never be a NH native!

Hive Notes
Hive 1: The bees did not draw out the outer 2 frames on either side of the lower deep but moved straight up to the 2nd deep I put on 3 weeks ago where they've drawn 3 1/2 frames. As mentioned, there are a LOT of bees in this hive! It was a bit unnerving when I looked in and knew I was going to pick up each frame. To help start getting the bees to draw out more frames, I moved 2 of the outer frames toward the center. Still haven't seen the queen but she's doing a great job (pic 1 and 3)!

Hive 2 now has drawn 6 frames with lots of capped brood, larvae and some eggs. Didn't see the queen today but the number of bees in this hive has increased dramatically (pic 4). As I will be unable to open them for a couple of weeks, I added a 2nd deep after spraying the frames with 1:1 syrup with Honey-B-Healthy added to the syrup. Didn't see the queen today.

For mite control, I sugared all of the bees. The ladies were very relaxed and let us work them without a problem. One of the girls stung me on the forefinger after I accidentally pinched her. Ten minutes after leaving the apiary they were out and about like we were never there.

Drifting, anyone?

I've been wondering why Hive 1 is so far ahead of Hive 2. The beeks at beesource.com (a must website for any aspiring beekeeper) have addressed this a couple of times and I believe Hive 2 may be a victim of drifting. Drifting is when you install 2 or more packages at the same time and the bees from one hive move into the other hive before everyone gets settled. This makes great sense to me as Hive 2 has been behind from the beginning.

Hive Notes:
I've left Hive 1 alone for the past 2 weeks and plan to visit it next week. I did open Hive 2 last weekend and found most of 4 frames built out (1st picture). I took the top feeder off and installed an inner cover. I opted to leave the hives alone this week, tho' I did raise the rear of the telescoping top on each hive to help with circulation.

Really looking forward to getting into the hives next weekend to see if I can add a super.

On a personal note, we lost our beautiful German Shepherd, Luke, to cancer last week. Very few things have brought us the joy this phenomenal dog did. We'll cherish our memories of him forever.

What a Mess!

Another lesson learned. I should not have placed a spacer between the hive top feeder and the hive box. I did it to make room for the pollen patty I put on top of the frames in each hive when I installed the packages. Guess what...bees don't like empty space and fill it with comb (look under feeder in 1st pic). What a waste of the bees' time and what a major mess it made when I opened the hives today. They had drawn out a large area of comb and had been storing honey in it. Gayla scraped it off as I held the feeder and our friend Stephon took the pictures. We ended up scraping it onto the top of the frames, Mistake 1 as it coated numerous bees and trapped them in the honey. Mistake 2 was not leaving it in the hive box for them to clean up. We took it thinking we'd melt the wax. We were amazed at how much honey was in it. Very light in color and taste. I thought it might be from the syrup but I haven't seen bees drinking it this week. Both hives built the comb on the bottom of the feeders. Don't know...

Hive Notes:
Both hives are building comb corner to corner on the plastic frames.

Hive One has built out 4+ frames on the black Piercos (Pic 2). There are all stages of bee larvae (Pic 3, nice shot Stephon!) and many capped cells. There seems to be 2x the number of bees in Hive One when compared to Hive 2. No comb was drawn on the drone frame or any of the 4 outer most frames. I rotated one of the outer frames into the center. I left the last 1/3 of the pollen patty in the hive, did a sugar treatment, removed the hive top feeder and placed a 2nd hive body on top with an inner cover and the telescoping top. I want to leave them alone for 2 weeks and thought it best to add the 2nd hive body. We still haven't seen the queen, though it is obvious she's quite busy.

Hive Two still has a hive top feeder on it though I did remove the pollen patty and spacer. They didn't seem too interested in the patty. There are 3 frames well drawn out on the white small cell Mann Lake 100s, lots of various stages of larvae, the queen was easy to identify. Overall, there is less action in this hive. The comb attached to the feeder was much larger in this hive compared to Hive One. Nothing was on any of the outer 6 frames. Tho' there is not a spacer, I may open this one next week to see if they are still trying to build on the feeder.

They know what to do

Today was perfect for checking the hives. It was quite a well attended event with all of our NH family (except our white water loving son) here to see the bees. I went out early today and practiced the various steps to try and get it right. Overall, tho' rather nervous opening my first hive as the "beekeeper", it was a fantastic experience!

The bees proved they definitely know what they're doing. Both queens were released and laying eggs. The workers were drawing out comb and packing away pollen. Both hives were extremely relaxed with hardly any smoke needed for the 2nd hive. In the photos above, you can see 1 day old eggs in some of the cells centrally and some pollen and nectar being stored in the bottom right on the black Pierco frame. The 2nd picture is the queen in hive 2. Click on the photos to enlarge.

Hive notes:
The bees in Hive one are drawing significantly more comb and storing more pollen. The central 4 frames have bees drawing comb. Hive 1 has a greater numbers of bees and the pollen patty is approximately 1/2 eaten. I never found the queen but the eggs tell me she is there.

Hive 2 is active, the queen is laying eggs but the bees have drawn less comb and hardly touched the pollen patty. They have drawn a lot of comb on the bottom of the hive top feeder.

I used confectioner's sugar on hive one and forgot to apply it to hive 2. I placed the remains of both pollen patties in the respective hives and closed them up. They immediately went back to normal operation and seem quite relaxed and content. Just like me now that I know we're off and running.

Windy day

I wanted to open the hives today to check the queens and see if they're laying but the wind didn't cooperate. The bees were definitely busy, tho'. Lots of dark orange pollen and yellow pollen is being gathered which makes me think things must be going fairly well inside the hives. The oaks, pines and bleeding hearts are thick with pollen right now and the bees are always darting off for more.

As I mentioned, I am trying to raise these bees as holistically as possible. I cannot say organically for 2 basic reasons; polystyrene hives and plastic frames and foundation. Why did I choose these? Added insulation in winter and mite and hive beetle control. Last winter we had record snows–over 200" (60" is normal) and it stayed white from before Christmas until mid-March. I know of numerous local beeks that lost colonies last winter and I hope the extra insulation provided by the BeeMax polystyrene hive will help keep my bees sufficiently warm. The plastic frames and foundation was really recommended to me by Better Bee (www.betterbee.com). The plastic helps with hive beetles and mice damage versus wood and wax. The question is whether the bees like it. There are numerous posts on beesource.com about plastic, both good and bad. I decided to try it tho' it may be the first thing I decide to change for next year. I did paint all of the foundation with beeswax to help make the ladies want to draw out more comb. If the weather cooperates tomorrow, I'll get my first chance to see how I did.

Other differences between hives:
Hive one is large cell, black Pierco frames/foundation, painted with wax (see image above). I sprayed each frame with a 1:1 syrup mix with 4tsp of Honey-Bee-Healthy per quart to help entice the bees. As I closed each hive I added a Global pollen patty and a 4"x 5" piece of paper towel soaked in vegetable oil to help with Varroa mite control.

Hive two is is the same except the frames are white Mann Lake 100 small cell foundation and I sprinkled powered sugar on the bees when I hived them for mite control. Tho' a good way to knock mites off of the bees, overall, this probably was a bad idea as I had also sprayed the bees just prior to hiving and they were wet. Hive one was considerably more active days 1 - 3 compared to hive 2. On day 8, they appear fairly equal and I attribute the early difference to sugar coated bees don't fly...Pretty stupid on my part. I'm sure it won't be the last dumb thing I do as a bee landlord.

Hungry bees

After being out of town for a couple of days I went out this morning to check on the hive top feeders. I purchased 2 polystyrene feeders with my BeeMax hives and had added 2 gal of 1:1 syrup when I hived them on Saturday. Hardly any syrup had been taken up on Monday but today showed the bees feeding and more than half the syrup consumed in each hive. I'll feed more syrup when I open them on Saturday to check on queen release and see if they're building out any frames.

Only problem was a fair amount of drowned bees. I had used some sandpaper to rough up the plastic bee guard to give the ladies better traction but still have more than 40 drowned bees in each feeder.

Overall, my wife and fellow beek, Gayla, says the hives have been active while I've been gone and the bleeding hearts have seen lots of activity. Hive 1 still seems more active than hive 2. I'll explain the differences in my next post.

The Ladies are in Residence!

I have been looking forward to this day as if it is Christmas! We drove 2 hours this morning to Better Bee and picked up 7 packages (2 are ours) of Italian bees with new queens. After dropping off 5 packages to other members of the Monadnock Beekeepers Association it was time to hit the books for a quick review.

After watching videos and reading about installing packages for 3 months, it's now time. Amazing how book knowledge is rarely as beneficial as practical experience. After assembling almost (an important word...) all of the tools, sprays and food, I practiced all of the steps I was going to do before donning a pullover jacket and veil. I sprayed the bees with a 1:1 syrup solution with 4tsp/qt of Honey-B-Good mixed in. It immediately calmed the bees (really made it so they weren't fanning) and I smacked the bottom of the first package on the hive frame to move the bees to the bottom. After prying the cover off the top, the queen cage and sugar can came right out of the package. Knowing I was supposed to pull the cork out of the cage, I proceeded to push the cork at the bottom of the cage in towards the queen. Okay, so I was nervous. No harm, no foul and luckily no injured queen! I think...

So now, I take off the metal disk covering the sugar plug (no book EVER mentioned a metal disk) and it dawns on me that the only thing I forgot was a way to hang the cage between the frames (see almost...). After a quick panic in the basement looking for nails (every size but the one I needed) I cut some wire from a spool I use to support the raspberries and placed it through the staples on the cage. Hopefully, I did a good job supporting it.

After, again, spraying the bees and knocking them to the bottom of the package, I poured 1/2 of the bees over the queen's cage and the rest into the empty space where I previously took out 5 frames to make room for the ladies. Though I had previously wondered what would make a relatively sane man do this, it was easier than I thought and the bees stayed calm through the entire adventure. After replacing 4 frames (the 5th goes in next week after the queen leaves her cage) I placed a 5" square paper towel soaked in vegetable oil (makes it harder for Varroa mites to stick to the bees) placed a pollen patty on the top of the frames, put on a top feeder and filled it with 2 gal of 1:1 sugar syrup with 1 tsp of HBH/qt mixed in. I positioned the telescoping outer cover and repeated everything again for the 2nd package (except I was prepared for placing the 2nd queen cage). I'm not sure about the bees but I was exhausted!

The bees in the 2nd package were VERY active during the entire process, much more so than the 1st package. Now that they are hived, the bees in hive 1 are out and active–fanning and starting orientation flights. Hive 2 seems much quieter. I did put entrance reducers on both hives, turned on the electric fence and was eaten by black flies while I sat back and enjoyed the show my bees put on as they get used to their new home. I'm actually now a beekeeper.

The Calm Before the Storm

Thirty years ago, I wanted to raise honey bees. Three months ago, I finally did something about it. This is very unlike me. Normally, if I want to do something I rush in and start it. Maybe it was because we were still moving around the country, establishing my career, starting a business, raising kids or any number of other excuses. Whatever the reason for the delay, the fun starts tomorrow. Actually, the fun started last February when my wife, Gayla, and I decided we wanted to add honey bees to our yard. Since then, it's been reading everything we can about bees –including countless hours on beesource.com– painting one polystyrene hive then deciding to add another, taking bee classes (an absolute must if you want to do this), deciding to try one hive small cell on Mann Lake PF100s and another on Pierco waxed deeps, building a platform to help the ladies defend themselves against critters, choosing a site that will work for the bees AND our yard, adding a solar electric fence to keep out our local 400lb bear and today, making 6 gallons of 1:1 syrup. I must admit, I have not enjoyed getting ready for anything as much as I have preparing for tomorrow. I just hope I don't let down the 25,000 bees we pick up in the morning. Tomorrow the fun really begins!