Bessie's Bees

I'm a buzzin', Mon

2012-02-06T05:57:00.000-08:00

We just returned from a weeklong getaway to Grand Cayman. While gone, we missed some "almost" Caribbean-type weather here in Iowa, where temps reached over 60 degrees! Still, it was a bit warmer there (pretty much 81 degrees every day).

While sitting out on the patio of our nice apt. (that's Kathy in the hat), we noticed honeybees flying around the palms. Dumbly, though I had the camera with me on several occasions, I failed to take a picture. They were all over the little blossoms that eventually turn into coconuts. We saw them everywhere we went on the island, so I began to wonder if there are many beekeepers there. After just a little research on google, I found this link to a blog entry about Otto Watler, a native Caymanian beekeeper. I think you might find it interesting. He sounds like a busy, creative guy. Hopefully he is still tending his gardens, and I wish we had known about him earlier.
Aside from the coconut palms, we saw bees on a number of plants. Below is a sampling of some of the gorgeous blooming plants we found. I did not see any bumblebees though I think I did spot some smaller pollinators. It really seemed the honeybees were in the vast majority, though. It's a shame, given the relative poverty of the island, that more do not try to at least supplement income by keeping bees. It may be that more do than I'm aware of.

Whoops, I think this guy might eat honeybees--and fingers, toes...

Record High

2012-01-06T05:45:00.000-08:00

Just a quick note: sixty-one degrees (16 degrees C) on January 5th--shattering the old record of 54 degrees (12 C)! Of course, the bees were really flying from both hives. It is expected to be warm again today, though not quite as warm but above average temps for the next week. The "normal" average temperature for this time of year is about 11 degrees F (-12 C). Again, this probably means they will be consuming their stores even more than during colder winters, so I will really have to look at early spring feeding.

Finally getting to it

2011-12-26T17:39:00.000-08:00

I've been meaning to do a painting of our hives for some time now. So, here it is, my first go at it. This one is in pastels. I still need to tweak it a bit--the far hive doesn't look quite right.
I might try another in acrylics at some time. I just haven't taken the time to work at my paintings lately, but I hope to devote more time to them here during the winter months when there isn't a whole lot else going on I can do outdoors.
Maybe I'll do a winter one as well, once we get some snow out there. Not that I'm exactly asking for snow, mind you!

Not Only Reindeer Flying

2011-12-18T12:33:00.000-08:00

A year ago at this time, we were knee deep in snow. Today, almost 48 degrees and sunny, it feels almost like spring and the bees are out flying. With the sun so low in the sky, hive #2 gets some sunshine but #1 remains in the shade except for awhile in the morning. As a result, the bees were out having a great time from #2 but little activity from the other. This is always so fun to see, especially when I walk out and the only activity I can ascertain is a faint hum as I put my ear to the side of the hive.
Kathy and I hope everyone is looking forward to having a good winter break, great time with families and friends, and we wish everyone a very merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Stocking stuffer

2011-12-07T18:34:00.000-08:00

Still looking for those last little items to stuff in the stocking? This year, I'm giving the "kids" (they're both over 25) the beeswax. Literally. Mann Lake Bee Supplies sells a nice little mold that produces 1 oz. little cakes with the word BEESWAX embossed on the top. You can pour 5 of the little cakes at one time. Here is the result of my first pouring.

The mold is very nice. After pouring and letting them set and harden, all I had to do was to turn the whole thing upside down and they fell out very nicely. They really look great and I think they and other family members will enjoy having some pure beeswax for all those sticky drawers and many other uses.
The wax came almost 100% from the cappings when we harvested honey. I had some from the previous year, and combined I was able to get a bit over 7 ounces. Here's a quick rundown of my process.
1) After squeezing as much honey as I could out of the wax, I washed it thoroughly in the sink, breaking it up with my hands. Then I used a large slotted spoon to dip the wax out of the water. I placed it on paper towels on top of newspaper and pressed as much water out as I could. At this point, the wax is very crumbly and sticky. I left it to dry overnight, putting it on fresh paper towels before going to bed.
2) I gathered the wax together into a ball and placed it in a clean, large soup can. I put that into a metal coffee can filled about half way with water and put it on the stove with a low flame. Since the soup can was still a bit light, I used a metal clamp to hold it to the side of the coffee can. Of course, if you have an old double boiler that would work very well too. Be sure to secure the can with wax in some manner so it won't tip over into the water. You DO NOT want water to get into the wax, even a few drops. It will create pockets throughout your wax and it won't look good.
3) While the wax is melting, I prepare a second clean soup can by taking a piece of an old t-shirt and placing it over the top of the can, securing it with a rubber band. Press down on the cloth gently with your finger so there is a slight depression.
4) When the wax is fully melted, pour it slowly into the can so the cloth filters out the impurities. It will drain through quite quickly, though a little will harden on top of the cloth. I quickly remove the cloth, even if there is still a tiny bit of melted wax on it, and pour the wax into the mold. If you wait too long, not a problem--simply take the can with the filtered wax and put it in the hot water pan for a short while until it is fully remelted.
Next season, I plan to keep a coffee can with me so I can keep the scrapings when I remove burr comb from the frames. I've usually just scraped it off my hive tool onto the cement blocks that serve as the hive base, letting the bees clean up any honey that might be in the wax, but I've read that that can promote robbing and attract unwanted insects or other pests. Instead, I'll keep the area cleaner and gather even more wax for projects like this.

Walter Kelley Newsletter

2011-12-02T06:25:00.000-08:00

Walter T. Kelley Company is a beekeeping products business located in Kentucky. They turn out one of the best newsletters I've seen from any of the companies. They're always informative and entertaining as well. I particularly enjoyed two articles in this month's issue--I Wonder by Lady Spirit Moon and Dronings from a Queen Bee by Charlotte Hubbard. Both writers show the deep feelings they have for their bees, feelings shared by many beekeepers. You can check it out at their website under the Education tab on the page or you can subscribe.
https://kelleybees.com/Newsletter/

Think Like a Bee

2011-11-25T09:59:00.000-08:00

Listen to Marla Spivak, who developed the Minnesota Hygenic queen, with her latest thoughts about bees and how we as humans interact with them and can benefit from them. From NPR's "The Promised Land", the episode is called "Think Like a Bee".

Great Video--The Hidden Beauty of Pollination

2011-11-22T10:32:00.000-08:00

Bees, butterflies, bats--and throw in a few hummers. This is a great little video of insects and other flying creatures taken with a high speed camera. A little talk by filmaker Louie Schwartzberg introduces the film. Enjoy!
http://www.ted.com/talks/louie_schwartzberg_the_hidden_beauty_of_pollination.html

It''s from:

http://www.ted.com

It's a Wrap 2011

2011-11-02T13:59:00.000-07:00

Though I planned to do this last week, the weather turned quite warm and so I decided to hold off wrapping the hives. Finally, the cold front that threatens to linger is arriving as I write this and so I got out this morning, almost beating the rain, and got the job done. Not the prettiest, as you can see, and I don't know about the quality of this duct tape. They just don't make duct tape like they used to, I swear. If I need to get out and fix it, though, I will.

I still have empty supers on top of each one, that I will remove as soon as it gets too cold for them or I stop feeding the surplus honey. I have one quart jar left. I pour some into a shallow tray sitting on top of the inner cover. They've been finishing that off in a day's time, so it won't take much longer. I looked into buying a good spring scale to be able to assess the weight of the hives without too much manipulation. Kathy found one that should do the trick for only $20, so we might get that. The hives seem a bit light, and when I did the final inspection I noticed the bottom boxes are pretty empty. I think I'll continue to feed with some sugar once the honey runs out. I think there is enough food in the hives, but I want to make sure.
I also added a new link, The Bad Beekeeper's Blog. Ron Miksha, located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, writes a humorous but informative blog about his experiences with his Summit Gardens Honey Farm. In Ron's words, his site is "largely editorial and sometimes recklessly presented. If you strongly disagree with anything you find here, send Ron a note - or keep reading as you are likely to find he also advocates an opposite view-point elsewhere in his blog."
Update: I used a fish scale and a lever to get an estimate of the weight of each hive. #1 looks in pretty good shape at about 117 lbs. #2, though, is much lighter, coming in at about 88 lbs. At this point, with cold weather coming on, I think I'll discontinue feed now but will be looking to feed early in the spring, probably with some pollen patties of some sort.

Will I Ever Learn?

2011-10-26T14:03:00.000-07:00

Probably not. I knew walking out to the hives I should grab my headgear. All I'm going to do, I thought, was pull out the frames the bees have cleaned off that I put in the empty super on top of the hives and put a little tray of honey in on top of the inner cover. It won't take long, and with the temps hovering around 50 the bees won't even bother to come out. I was fine with the first hive, #2, and even pulled out the entrance reducer and turned it to the smallest opening. Just fine. Then in the other hive, I was fine with pulling empty frames and putting in the honey. I put the cover back on top, and went to rotate the entrance reducer. That set them off. Immediately, one flew inside the hood of my sweatshirt and nailed me right behind my right ear. Others were coming after me, so I took off as quickly as my gimpy knee would allow, using my cap to swat away the most aggressive ones. I got on the other side of our prairie and finally lost them. I took off my jacket and removed the bee who had stung me, still crawling around in the hood. It smarted a bit, but not bad actually. I didn't even flick the stinger off until I was up by the house. It really didn't swell too much.
I knew from the past two autumns that they get pretty testy around this time. Last year I was lucky and had gloves on and only had to remove 3 stingers from the glove. I told myself then that I would always wear protection this time of year, even if I don't bother with smoke. I guess my deafness applies to hearing myself as well. Next year, I'll always be sure to wear headgear. I promise.

We just got back from visiting Jessica, Matt and Zinabu in upstate NY. While there, Jess took us out to some of the fields that Cornell U. owns. Jess is doing research on pumpkin pollination from various pollinators. Part of the research involved pollination with honey bees and some with bumble bees, as well as pollination by native bees and hand pollination. She has been busy the past week removing the bumble bee hives from the fields, some of which you see stacked above. We did see one solitary bumble bee, looking a bit stunned though it was a warm day, crawling on the boxes, but she said most were pretty empty by this time. The queens apparently have left the hives to mate and will overwinter in the ground, while the workers will die off. Their life cycle is certainly different from the honey bee, which is extraordinary in its social structure and development. Though the bumble bees are great pollinators, it's hard to beat the honey bee for interest.

There's Always More to Learn

2011-10-08T05:37:00.000-07:00

This is a follow-up to my last post. Thanks to Barbara Beekeeper, whose blog I follow, I've now learned that the bad odor we experienced each of the past two autumns is not caused by the coincidental appearance of the wax worms but by one of the most abundant fall bloomers--goldenrod. When the goldenrod honey is curing in the hive, it gives off odors that can be quite strong and seemingly have a different effect on different people. After reading Barbara's account, I did a bit more research and found that a number of people mistake the odor for American Foul Brood, and tear their hives apart fearing to find the evidence that would indicate they needed to destroy their hives. Others liken the smell to smelly, wet socks (or feet), while others note the odor but don't find it unpleasant. In our experience, the odor is a sickly, sweet but sour smell, quite strong. Apparently, there are a number of varieties of goldenrod which could account for variance in the way people experience the odor. One thing most agree on, however, is the great taste of the honey once it has sufficiently cured and has been capped. Some actively seek out goldenrod honey and will pay up to $6 a pound for it. One other negative is that it has a tendency to crystallize rather quickly.

Not as stinky as I thought

So, this lead me to re-think what is going on in our hives. Not only are the wax worms not to blame for the odor, I think all that debris we're finding on the pull-out tray is coming from the bees chewing up the strips of Hopguard.
Again, the bees continue to amaze and instruct.

Deformed wings

2011-09-30T06:34:00.000-07:00

We were out back with our son a couple days ago, looking at the pumpkins and bees, when Marbles, our white cat, who is always tagging along outside, tore off suddenly and then stopped under the willow tree, biting at his paw. Grant said "I think he just got stung." Then he noticed there were a number of bees walking around on the ground. On closer examination, we could see that most had stunted, torn or missing wings. Bad news.

I had been planning to treat them this fall after the harvest, but due to some traveling, harvesting and wine making and just plain procrastination, I hadn't done it yet. Although it was threatening to rain soon, I suited up right away and did an application of the miticide Hopguard, which I purchased at the Mann Lake shop earlier this summer when we were in that area fishing. I put two strips on each of 3 brood boxes. I check my pull-out board in the back of the bottom board each time I examine the hives and it was my general feeling that mite populations were not excessive. I see I need to be much more precise in my measurement in the future. There clearly is a problem in at least one of the hives.

I also see that the wax moths are back and active. We found worms, moths and their messy trails on the pull-out tray. I cleaned them out of the bottom of the bottom board structure and plan to check that every few days to make sure they aren't in there building again. Last spring I did see evidence of some worm damage in a frame in the bottom super (a hole chewed all the way through the top of one frame). I may have to investigate some chemical treatment though I'd prefer to just try to physically remove any that I see and add some sticky paper to catch them.
Update: (Oct. 5) We opened the hives yesterday. The sickly sweet odor that the wax moths produce was so strong that we felt, like last year, we needed to go into the hives and take a look around. The odor yesterday was not as strong as it had been the previous several days, and we found no evidence of any moth activity within the hive. We found strong hives, with larva and capped brood. The bees had been working over the strips of Hopguard. I now feel all the detritus on the bottom tray is a result of the bees chewing up the chemical strips rather than wax worms chewing through the frames. I'll keep up monitoring the bottom trays but feel much better now about the worm situation.

Harvest 2011

2011-09-08T07:55:00.000-07:00

We knew it was going to be a better harvest than last year. We bottled two gallons in 2010 from 7 frames. This year, we had just over 3 gallons from 10 frames. They were really gorgeous frames this year, very full and heavy.

Of the 10 frames, 4 were frames I had prepared with a starter strip, so the bees drew out the comb in the frame. We wanted to try some comb honey, and we ended up with a nice supply for our friends and relatives who would like to try honey is this form. Below, you see Kathy holding one of the frames of comb honey. It worked well, except these 4 frames had to be cut apart since the bees had built according to their blueprints, not ours. Still, we recovered some very nice comb honey to cut into squares. What didn't survive went into the mix with the regular honey.

Kathy used an electric knife this time to uncap the cells. She liked the way it worked, though she might try reversing the knife blades next year since it really does help the cappings fall off if you cut from bottom to top.

The old A.I. Root Co. extractor worked well again. Thanks again to our friends, the Petersons, Jim and Beth, for letting us use this. The JB Weld work I did on the pouring valve worked well and created a good seal, since a crack along the original weld had developed.
It has a 1:4 turn ratio, and will keep spinning fast for some time after you let go of the handle. I spin 50 cranks one direction, rotate the two baskets of frames, then crank again 50 spins.

It was a cool day, only about 70 degrees, so I had to use an electric heater to get the honey to flow down the sides of the extractor after we were finished and used a rubber scraper to get as much off the sides as possible.
We still may get some honey, though if last year is an indication there won't be much of an autumn honey flow. I will likely just save out the frames for feeding late fall and in the spring.


A square of our comb honey

One final note: this year, we left the bee escape I made last season on for 48 hours and it really made a difference. There was a grand total of 5 bees still in that honey super. I was happy to see that work better this year.

Buckwheat

2011-09-02T09:00:00.000-07:00

Kathy planted buckwheat in one area of her garden. She did this for two reasons: to provide a cover to keep weeds out of an area she currently wasn't planting and to till the buckwheat under before it went to seed to help replenish nutrients in the soil. She tilled it in once already, and this is a second growth.

It's really quite a lovely cover plant, full of blossoms. She had planned to till this in again until we noticed how many of our honey bees are on it. We have about 3 acres of land, with many plants growing and blossoming, including prairie plots, the vegetable garden, orchard--but never have we seen the bees take to any of our plants like they have to the buckwheat. There are hundreds on this little plot.

Buckwheat is known to produce a dark, almost black honey that has, according to World of Honey.com, a "pleasant hay-like, earthy smell, and an unforgettable malty, rich, molasses flavor which is not over-sweet." Additionally, there are a number of purported medicinal benefits of buckwheat honey, some of which are described on that web site.
At any rate, given the fact that the bees really seem to love it, we plan to put a section out by the back prairie into buckwheat next year. Since it is a low-growth plant, we probably will stick our pumpkin plants out in the middle of it and let them spread there. We had little late season honey flow last year and perhaps this will help boost that a bit. I don't think we can plant enough to make a big difference, but it's fun to see them working on it, anyway.

Queens are busy again

2011-08-10T11:35:00.000-07:00

The hot weather broke late last week, with Saturday still being pretty humid though only around 90. Today (Wednesday) is beautiful--dry, less humid, mid-70's. As I had assumed (make that "hoped"), the heat must have been preventing the queens from laying during the very hot spell. It was probably too hot for the eggs/larva to even survive. But today, we opened both hives and found plenty of larva in each.

As you can see above, still some capped cells on this frame but a lot of larva in the open cells. Looking good.

Honey in hive #1 looks very good. We could take the first super off already if we had the time now. It looks fully capped and ready to go. Maybe next week with it. They are working on the second one and we may get some honey from that as well. Work in hive #2 is much slower, and we may or may not get honey from that hive. We'll see what the fall goldenrod flow turns out to be like.

What's with the queens?

2011-07-25T12:14:00.000-07:00

I opened the hives to check for progress today after being gone for 9 days. No additional super needed in hive #2, though they are slowly working on it. So I decided to check to see how the queen was faring. I found a lot of capped worker cells but NO larva. Also no apparent queen. Now, I could have missed her since she isn't marked and I was mostly looking for frames with some young larva on them, suspecting she would be close by. Still, she is such a new queen and I doubt they would have swarmed in the past week. I decided to pull a frame out of the other hive with eggs just in case. I have two supers on that hive, and they are working on the top one but the first super is really full of honey and quite heavy. I can't imagine lifting down a 60 lb. super from the top of a stack of 6 boxes! Probably won't have to do that this season unless the fall goldenrod flow is strong.
So, I proceded to go down into that hive. I skipped the top brood box since it looked from above to be mostly honey. In the other two boxes, I found a lot of capped brood, generally good pattern, but only a few larva and again, though she is marked, no queen. Again, there were many, many bees and I could have easily overlooked her. Still, has the heat wave shut the queens down? Are we going to have to requeen again in the spring? Certainly, it's too late in the season right now.

The bees continue to work on cleaning out the several frames I have in the little nuc. They must have been working on this all week while we were gone.
Bees are also working the prairies. They're in full bloom right now. The bees don't seem to be on it as much as I'd think, though, with so many flowers blooming.

There were also little green bees and several others pollinating the plants. On the pumpkins, we found squash bees. They look much like honey bees, only a bit smaller. They seem to be a bit quicker on the wing as well. If you have any plants in the squash family, such as pumpkins, gourds, zucchini, squash, etc., you probably have squash bees outnumbering your honey bees.

So, getting back to the queen situation, I guess I'll just watch things for awhile. In several weeks, if we get into a little cooler spell, I'll check again to see if queens are laying. Otherwise, keep fingers crossed and hope they make it through the winter queenless.

Fully Queenright

2011-07-03T15:04:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note. We checked hive #1 into which we introduced the new queen about 10 days ago. In the top brood box, I first looked at a frame that had drone cells along the bottom edge, but no worker cells. I was worried we might have developed laying workers. On the next frame, though, we had a pretty decent pattern of capped worker cells and some larva several days old. I was satisfied, so we didn't dig deeper (humidity overpowered curiosity--we were dripping, though it was only 80 degrees).
They were starting to work on the second super and the first super was much heavier than a week ago. We'll definitely have some honey again this year. We peeked at hive #2 and they had made some progress there in the super as well, but not nearly as much, with only about 4 out of 9 frames fully drawn out.

Supers, new comb

2011-06-23T12:52:00.000-07:00

I checked both hives today to see if they needed to have more supers added. In hive #1, comb was drawn out and being filled on better than 80% of the frame space, so I did add a super there. I also checked the condition of some of the comb on the several frames we have in that super that have just a strip at the top rather than foundation. As you can see in the photo, there is some lovely white comb getting filled with honey.
Now, I was a bit surprised at the size of the cells. My understanding was that the bees would naturally produce cells that are smaller than the standard cell size one gets with foundation. I didn't measure these, but they certainly appear big to me. Do they make cells different size when they want to store honey rather than brood? At any rate, we'll look forward to having a bit of comb honey this year. One foundationless frame they had not begun to draw out at all yet.
Hive #2, which just last week had a new laying queen, has only drawn out about 3 1/2 frames, so I didn't add a super yet to that hive.
The weather continues to be quite strange. Cool, with the highs only in the upper 60's and intermittent drizzle. Definitely not "happy bee" weather, though the bees have been very well behaved. Hopefully, the big honey flow is yet to come.

Fingers crossed

2011-06-20T11:40:00.000-07:00

We did a very thorough search of hive #1 and found no queen, eggs, larva or any type of capped cell. There continues to be a huge number of bees in this hive, which remains pretty well-behaved in spite of being queenless. Two weeks ago, our inspection also showed no queen. So, we added the queen from our nuc and hope for the best. I debated using the newspaper separation method, but felt it was important to get her in and going ASAP. In checking the nuc, we found no eggs. We just released her from her cage two days ago, though, so I didn't really expect to find any.
We'll check again in a week or so. Meanwhile, they have been drawing out comb in the super and, I imagine, putting nectar in the cells though my concern today wasn't checking that out. I'll add a super to both hives later in the week.

Released

2011-06-18T05:11:00.000-07:00

We released the queen from her cage yesterday. There was still quite a plug of candy in the end of the tube, and the bees seemed to be around her cage though not attacking it. She wandered about a bit on top of the frames before crawling down into them. Hopefully now she'll be able to get to work and in a few days we'll check the hive to see if it indeed needs a queen or not. If not, then we'll just keep this little nuc going as a back-up. Or give it to a friend who lost both hives this past winter.

Click on photo to see video of queen piping

One interesting part of this experience was hearing the queen piping. I had seen it on videos, but had never heard it in person. This queen was pretty vocal, and we heard her loud and clear a number of times. Very cool.

Re-Queening

2011-06-17T06:29:00.000-07:00

Our queen arrived in the mail Wednesday (this is Friday). The post office called around 6:30 a.m. to tell us they had her and we could come pick her up. I opened the package in front of the curious postal worker, who was wondering how anything could be alive in the package. She knew it contained something living because of the air holes in the envelope. I pulled the container out and showed her the queen and her attending bees. She asked if we planned to release them in our garden or something, but I explained she was to go in a beehive.
It was a drizzly morning, but more rain was in the forecast and we had a lot of things on our agenda, so we decided to go ahead and start the nuc. We opened hive #1, first taking a look at the super which last week had shown little change. We were happy to see that it was really filling out with fresh, white new comb and the comb was being filled with nectar. I'll have to look at that again early next week and add a super if needed.
The top brood box was very heavy and completely full of honey. There was no larva to be seen in that box, and because of the time and wetness we didn't go any deeper in the hive. We pulled a couple of frames, replaced those with new frames which Kathy had to run and retrieve from the barn since I had forgotten we'd need those, and put the hive back together. We brought the nuc up near the barn, over 200 feet from the original hives and put the queen cage between some frames. We did not get a lot of bees, so I'm hoping we got enough. I saw no immediate reaction from the bees to the queen cage but they had probably not gotten her full scent, given the smoking they had just received. We closed it up and will check tomorrow (Saturday) to see if the queen has been released and, if not, will release her. Then I'll check next week to see if we have any larva in hive #1 and, if not, put the queen there. I'm still trying to decide exactly how to do that.

Queenright!

2011-06-13T14:00:00.000-07:00

It was time to check hive #2 for a queen and to see how well the super was being filled out. As you can see above, there was good, normal activity on the hive apron, bees coming and going with orange pollen and likely nectar. After the swarm, it took awhile for this hive to settle down but now has a good, busy normal look to it.

The super has been getting some attention, with several frames already at least half-filled with capped honey. I was surprised at the number of drones flying around, something I had noticed with this hive on the previous inspection. Things were going pretty well until I had a frame slip out of my hands, the first time this has happened. They seemed to settle down pretty quickly, though, and we proceeded to look deeper into the hive.

This was the third frame I pulled out of the top of our 3 brood-nest boxes. If you click on the photo and zoom, you will see very young larva and even a couple eggs. We were very happy to see this, and I had a pretty good notion the queen might be on this frame. I turned it over, and noticed a clump of bees in one corner--and there she was. See if you can find her in the photo below (look just left of center).

She has the long, yellow abdomen. Although we had only found the two supercedure cells last week when we looked, I was certainly hoping one would turn out to produce a queen. The brood are very young, and if we had looked even as early as yesterday we probably would have assumed there was still not a laying queen. We were certainly happy to see this. I thought the hive was looking and behaving like it was queenright, and it sure turned out the be that way.
Our new queen should arrive in the mail tomorrow, and we'll put her in a nuc. I'll check hive #1 next week, and if there is still no queen present there we'll eventually add her to that hive. I think it takes about 3 weeks before a hive will begin to make laying workers, so I don't want to delay too long. If we have a queen, we'll start hive #3.

Queenless!

2011-06-05T16:36:00.000-07:00

We just got back from a fishing trip to N. Minnesota. It has been just under a month since the first swarm on hive two. Before we left, we had placed a honey super on each hive and so decided to check to see how they were filling out and to make sure we had a queen in the hive that swarmed.
Bad news. We searched the entire hive and found no eggs, no larva, and not even any capped brood. Lots of bees, though, and they have been busy filling out the super I put on awhile back. I saw them this morning even bringing in pollen, which I have been told is a sign of brood in the hive that needs to be fed. We did find a couple supercedure cells that appeared to be occupied, so we are hoping that one queen at least will emerge. Since the hive is almost packed solid with honey, we removed some frames and replaced them with fresh, empty foundation hoping the queen will have a place to begin to lay once she emerges and returns from her mating flight.
In the meantime, or just in case, we thought we would put a frame of eggs/young larva from hive #1 and they could make a queen from that if they needed. So we left an empty frame slot, put the hive back together and opened hive #1. Worse news. Not a sign of any eggs or larva, though there were some spotty capped brood cells on several frames. Tons of bees, as you can see below on the hive after we had closed it back up.

We took out some honey frames and put in fresh foundation in this hive as well. I left them there this afternoon but will go out and get them this evening. I'll probably extract and save the honey to feed them in the fall if needed.

So, what to do? Very disappointed to find no queen. Neither hive behaved aggressively, as queenless hives are sometimes known to do, though there were bees everywhere: in the air, all over the hive, and all over us. Through carelessness, I took a couple stings in my glove but they didn't penetrate. It was impossible to not be killing bees, there were so many and they wouldn't stay down in the frames.

I ordered one new Minnesota hygenic queen. I'm hoping hive #2 will produce a queen from one of the supercedure cells we saw. I'll put her in #1. If the bees begin to attack her in the cage, I would take that to mean they have a queen, in which case I'll put her in a nuc with some bees and honey and hopefully they will take to her there. If I still see no queen in #1, I'll try again to introduce her to that hive. Once she begins to lay, if there still is no queen in #2, I'll put some of her eggs there and see if they can make a queen.

I feel at this point like I have no clue what I'm doing. :(

Done Swarming?

2011-05-16T17:01:00.000-07:00

It has been 8 days since we had our first swarm. From what I've read, an afterswarm can follow about 8 days after the primary swarm. The bees have been pretty settled in with two days of cool, rainy 50 degree weather but were out flying well today. You can see them flying if you zoom in on the photo above. Hopefully, they are settling in and the threat of another swarm from #2 or a first swarm from #1 is over. Bees were busy but looking normally busy, bringing in quite a lot of pollen. Dandelions are turning to seed now. Oak, birch and ash are producing pollens as well as many blooming flowers. Keeping the fingers crossed on the swarming. Hopefully they are now thinking HONEY!

While the bees were busy, I made myself busy and did a spraying in our little vineyard (just over 30 vines), from which we make great juice and a drinkable wine, at least most years. I like this time of year with the vineyard, when the vines are just leafing out and the new grapes are just coming on. It's also bluebird time, and one of the houses attached to a vine post is currently occupied and did not like my presence too much.

Still swarm season

2011-05-10T12:11:00.000-07:00

The bees continue to be all over the hives. Our number 2 hive, which swarmed, still looks as though it hasn't lost a single bee. This morning they were even more abundant on hive #1, so we decided to go into it and remove swarms cells. I also wanted to make sure they had a good top opening.
There were certainly a lot of bees. They were completely covering the front of the entire hive, bearding off the outer cover and off the bottom board. Not so many in the honey super, which I noted they had begun to draw out some frames a bit.
There was plenty of larvae, and though I didn't look at all the frames, a couple I did look at certainly had some room in it for the queen to lay in. But it was hot (90 degrees--this will be a record for the 10th of May), the bees were definitely grumpy and telling us so. Kathy didn't think they were as bad as I thought they were. I did find a few swarm cells in the top two boxes, only one looking capped. We removed those. In the bottom box, however, there was a real mess hanging down off the frames. Big, unruly globs of comb with brood. We removed all of it. It probably gets that way because of my screened bottom board. The screen sags, which gives them way too much room down at the bottom. I need to come up with a solution for this.
We closed it up, making sure there was plenty of air coming in the top and space that they could enter through.
This morning, we put out a nuc with lemongrass oil and several frames. If there is a swarm from either, hopefully we can trap them.

Swarmed!!

2011-05-07T18:21:00.000-07:00

Well, what looks like bees getting ready to swarm sometimes is only bees getting ready to swarm.
Rats.
Last night, they did settle down and went back into the hive. There was normal, busy activity this morning on a day that has been the warmest in weeks. In the early afternoon I went out to check them again and immediately saw that things had notched up several degrees in intensity. There were thousands of bees in the air, moving about in a frenzied swirl. It wasn't long that they began to rest on the trunk and one limb of a recently dead scotch pine near the hive. (See the short video "First Swarm" at the bottom of the page.)

Kathy went in to get some honey and I got the 5 frame nuc box I had made last year. We put some honey on the frames in the nuc and I set it right under the swarm, with the lid slightly ajar. There were still many bees joining the swarm, so I didn't want to try to take it right then. Besides, we had to leave for a couple hours. My thoughts were they would remain in this location for awhile. Wrong again. When I checked right away after getting home, the swarm had already departed. I had really hoped they would opt to go into the box. Not so lucky.

So, now the question is this: what the heck do we do? After reviewing what information I have and checking out things on the web, as with almost every aspect of beekeeping there are way too many "expert" opinions on what to do. My impulse was to go in and scrape away all but one swarm cell in the hive. It seems most agree that, if there are multiple swarm cells, either the next new queen will sting and eliminate the others and take over as the ruling monarch, or we may face a succession of afterswarms, in which each new virgin queen takes off with a number of bees, continually diminishing the strength of the hive. Michael Bush, whose advice I listen carefully to, says, I think, it is best to leave the cells alone. You don't know which is the strongest or best. I might kill off all but one only to find that the remaining queen is weak or doesn't even survive. Then we are left queenless. He suggests letting the bees decide and the right queen will eventually take charge of the hive.

I thik I will follow that advice, though I find inaction hard to take. I will go in later in the week and see what is going on there at least.

Why did it happen? I had reversed hives, removed some old honey frames and replaced them with fresh, hoping there would be enough room for the queen to lay her eggs. This was a very vigorous queen, though, and for two years in a row we came through the winter with huge numbers in each hive and still a ton of honey left. I think she simply didn't have enough room for the brood. That I will have to watch more carefully in the future.

I know we'll feel sad for a bit, mostly with the thought we maybe could have better monitored the situation. We'll now likely not get as much honey as we had hoped. But, maybe we still will. At any rate, it was an interesting experience. Just hope it doesn't happen too often.

The Calm Before the Swarm?

2011-05-06T16:58:00.000-07:00

Or is it just the bees out enjoying a rare (for this season) time outdoors? I'm thinking (hoping) the latter. I have really never witnessed a swarm, so don't really know what to expect. If this were animated, you'd witness a steady march of bees up the hive to the cluster near the top. This was late afternoon, and many bees were in the air, but much pollen was being brought in and there also appeared to be a number of bees just seemingly taking orienteering flights. At least they were just circling around in front of the hive, as well as I could track them with so many bees about. We walked out back later, after supper, and the number was considerably smaller and I sure didn't detect a swarm anywhere nearby, so my guess is they were all just out enjoying the pleasant afternoon and are gradually making their way back into the hive as the evening coolness descends. The other hive was also very active, with a smaller group clustered on the front, but not like this one. I've seen some big bearding in the summer months, but never this early.
With this hive, you notice there are four boxes, with a queen excluder. I did put a honey super on 3 weeks ago, and when I checked last week there had been a little comb drawn out but not a significant amount. I think there is enough room in the hive, though this queen seems pretty vigorous. Maple, ash and birch are producing pollen at present, and the dandelion bloom is in full stride. There may be an early honey flow if the promised warmth of the coming week holds up.
I also added a super to hive #1, though the new frames I had put in the top box were only about half way full. With so much in bloom right now, I want to stay ahead of the game.

With so many bees in the air coming and going in this part of our property, you do have to kind of keep an eye out, since they seem to be everywhere. Note a few dandelions that have not been mowed under, and the large pasture with horses in the background. There are woods both to the left and right of this photo as well.

Quick inspection

2011-04-09T19:21:00.000-07:00

Today started pretty cool, in the low 40's, but warmed well into the 80's by afternoon. I decided to check both hives to see if I needed to add a super yet. As you can see, they were really flying. The bees were making a steady move up and under the outer cover, carrying huge loads of pollen, some light colored and some a bright yellow.

I started with the 2nd hive, which had the most activity and seems to be slightly stronger at this point, though it could just be the behavior of this hive is a bit different. I wanted to check the frames we added when we did the hive reversal to see how they were being filled out, if at all.

Bees were all over the inner cover and the top of the frames on the top hive body. The new frames seemed to be drawn out already, so I didn't hesitate to go ahead and add a honey super. Unfortunately, in my haste I had brought everything out except the queen excluders, and though there are those who prefer to call them "honey excluders", I so far haven't seen them to be a problem.

Hive #1 was not as far along, with some comb drawn out but they had a ways to go so I didn't add anything yet to that hive. If the weather holds, I'll look again later in the week. Since we may be gone for a couple weeks, I want to make sure things are in place for each hive before we leave.

One tactical error. Kirk, our neighbor (who is our resident snake catcher, by the way--bagging two today to add to his collection)--was helping supervise me. Also present was Lilly, his young golden lab, who, being less than a year old, is curious about everything and wanting to get her teeth into everything. Including the bees that were still all over the inner cover I had set aside. I chased her away once, but as soon as I quit watching she was right back trying to find out what all these little things crawling around there were about. She found out. I saw her get stung at least twice, and in quite a panic not knowing what to do about them. I did get Kirk to call her away from the bees as quick as possible. He put her in their garage, but when we saw her about an hour later we saw that poor Lilly's jaw was terribly swollen. Although she seemed in good spirits, I felt bad and can only hope she learned from the experience and will stay well away from the bees.

Thirsty!

2011-03-27T14:38:00.000-07:00

After watching a very exciting and satisfying NCAA basketball game (sorry, KU fans--go Rams!), I decided to walk out back and check on a few things, bees included. Only 39 degrees for a high today, but they were still flying. I walked over to the birdbath we had set out last week or so to see if there was any action, and found this:

I guess they were pretty thirsty. You can zoom in on this photo if you'd like. There were a few dead ones but most were being careful and not venturing in too far. I did pull one pair out and hopefully they'll survive the chill.
This morning, I finished off melting some beeswax. I took some of the cleaner, lighter comb from the frames I swapped out and ended up with a nice little cake of wax. I used the method of boiling the comb with a good quantity of water for about half an hour, then set it out to cool. I removed the wax once it hardened. It is lighter than water, so it floats. I broke it up and set it overnight on an old towel to dry, then put it in a double boiler made from a tin can (with the wax in it) set in an old pan with several inches of water. I gently boiled the water, then poured the melted wax out a bit at a time into my mold (cottage cheese container), straining it through an old t-shirt. The final product was a nice, clean hunk of wax I can use to help make some starter strips for some foundationless frames. I plan to ultimately have all of the frames in the brood boxes foundationless.

The wax chunk, next to a loon decoy for size comparison

I also checked out the osprey. We were more than a little concerned, since no sooner had they arrived last week than a crew went up on the tower to work and ended up being on the tower for 5 straight days. The birds were not happy and circled around, and we did not see them at all the last day the workmen were here but they did show up the following day and have been there since. Here one, the male, I think, is perched atop one of the uprights. I think she is down on the nest.
Since I'm talking about birds, if you do enjoy raptors you might want to look at this. North of where I live a couple hours, near the town of Decorah, Iowa, eagle lovers have been watching a live webcam of a bald eagle nest. She is sitting on eggs, which are due to hatch within the week I believe, around April 1. No foolin'. Here is the link: http://www.raptorresource.org/falcon_cams/ You do have to watch a short commercial before the live video kicks in.

While out back, I also checked on the vineyard. We have about 35 grape vines and make wine and juice from those. They are all trimmed and ready for my first dormant spraying, hopefully to be done this coming week. Keep thinking spring.

Return of other flying creatures

2011-03-21T07:52:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, as I have daily, I looked up at the cell phone tower we see out our back window to see if the ospreys have returned. Sure enough, one sat on the highest post atop the tower surveying its domain. There were workmen up on the tower last week, and we wondered if they would try to dismantle the nest but it seems like they were fine with it being there.

I shot this photo two years ago, through my telescope, when the osprey had their first pair of nestlings. They raised more last year and we will see what this year brings.
As for the bees, they continue to enjoy the comfortable temps, in the 40's and even up to 60 today. They have still been bringing in lots of light colored pollen. I found about a dozen bees in the mud down by the woods where I was dumping some tree trimmings. It looked like they were after moisture from the mud. I placed the birdbath out near the hives, so perhaps they can use that as well.

March Pollen!

2011-03-17T11:43:00.000-07:00

After opening the hives yesterday and with temps today reaching the mid-60's, I walked out back to check on the bees. I expected to see them flying, but did not expect to see them bringing in huge caches of pollen. Zoom on the photo to see full sacs of a light-colored, amber pollen.

They were working hard at both hives. If the temps keep up and the pollen supply continues, given how full the hives were of bees and honey, I'll need to throw on some supers here in a week or so. Last year our honey was put on early, in June. This is still mid-March, but I also did splits last year, so numbers in the individual hives were down. Still debating doing a split this year and adding a 3rd hive. Have to think about that some more.

On another note, having found no worms in the hive yesterday, I did pull out the trays today and found a very large cockroach. Perhaps the mystery of the poop is finally solved in favor of the cockroach. I'd much rather see that than a wax worm infestation any day.

Reversals

2011-03-16T18:20:00.000-07:00

We had a nice,60 degree day today, though a bit on the windy side. Our goal was to reverse the hive bodies, while looking for any possible intruders, wax worms in particular.
I made a little video which I will post below once I have it all edited.
To our surprise, we found many, many bees, in each hive, spread pretty evenly among the 3 hive bodies. There was still an incredible amount of honey, even in the lowest box though it clearly had the least amount. We found no evidence at all of wax moth intrusion, though strangely I found a live, adult moth on the foam insulation I had removed from the hives when I was putting it away in the barn. I made sure she would not have a chance to lay more eggs.
We did not see any larva in either hive, but it is early and we did not remove many frames from the top hive body, which is now on the bottom. I suspect that is where the queens were located, or in the middle box though in the first hive the middle box was almost totally full of honey.
We pulled 3 empty or near empty frames from each hive and replaced them with fresh, to begin to recycle old frames to help prevent AFB. Though our examination was not thorough with each frame, I saw no evidence of disease or invasion of mice, moths or other insects. With the number of bees as high as it was, I can't imagine how that we had any moth problem in the hive, though I will be more diligent about checking for their presence under and around the hive.
Bees were in full flight around us, but were not aggressive. I had one frantic moment when a bee made her way under my veil. Kathy had the same experience, but no stings today. Bees were very good.

Droppings?

2011-03-02T09:32:00.000-08:00

We went out yesterday to take a look at the hives since it was edging above 40 degrees. I wanted to see how many were flying and pull out the tray on each to check them. Bees were flying, more from the newer hive. In hive #1, though, when I pulled out the tray I noticed right away some small black particles. They appeared to be a couple millimeters long and segmented. They were located in the same part of the board as the cappings that have dropped through between several frames. Each time I examine the boards, the cappings are confined to a couple long strips from between several frames. The particles weren't located generally around on the board, and this is the first time I've seen this. My first thought was mouse droppings, but they appeared to be segmented in 3 or 4 segments. Then I considered eggs of some kind. Unfortunately, I cleaned off the boards and I didn't save them yesterday but did go out and take some photos and collect some today.
In the first photo, you see the dark specks on the tray. The rows are not clearly defined since I had just cleaned it.

This photo shows the size, between 2 and 3 mm. The object is sitting at the 5 cm mark.

This photo shows a view through our microscope at about 80 X power.

In this, you can see 3 segments, but it does not look as smooth and rounded on the ends as it looked with my unaided eye. I'm thinking droppings of some kind, probably roaches. If you look at this website page, you can scroll down and see some roach droppings. Seems very similar:

http://www.biokids.umich.edu/guides/tracks_and_sign/leavebehind/scat/

Mystery solved??

Post-note--A member of the Beesource.com forum suggested perhaps they are droppings from wax moth larvae. It might be possible, if the larvae emerged reicently from eggs, there are some occupying the lowest hive body, since most bees will be in the upper boxes. Unfortunately, the weather is not expected to get much above 40 degrees in the next 10 days so all I can really do is monitor the pullout tray and use a flashlight to look up into the hive for any signs of the larvae or webbing. Ironically, I'm hoping we have cockroaches!

Catalogs! And a story...

2011-02-24T07:14:00.000-08:00

Occasional spring-like weather, longer days, grass showing through the snow (though 3-5" forecast for tonight and snow likely over the next 5 days), and now the arrival of the catalogs in the mail, Dadant, Mann Lake, etc., all serve to increase our anticipation of spring's arrival and "real" bee season.
Looking at the Mann Lake catalog, I remembered a funny story from last summer when we visited the facility, located in Hackensack, Minnesota. We were staying as guests of our friends, James and Dana, who had invited us to spend a week with them at their family cabin, named Point House (call it a gorgeous resort!) on nearby Big Sand Lake. We had taken a short drive to check out the little Scamp camping trailers, which are also constructed in that area. On our way back, we pulled up to a stop sign near a large building, looked up and saw the name Mann Lake on the side. We hadn't even been thinking about the fact that this company was located in Hackensack, but we immediately pulled into the drive and went in to see what they had in their showroom.
We were shown around the showroom by an employee who is also a beekeeper. Of course, we talked about bees and the trials and tribulations of keeping them. In northern Minnesota, there are some concerns we normally wouldn't have here in eastern Iowa--namely black bears. She had been having difficulties with a bear recently and was anxiously awaiting bear hunting season, which was not far off as I recall, as her brother had guaranteed he would eliminate her problem. A couple days before we were there, she had gone out to the bee yard to find her hive bodies and frames scattered all over the yard, torn completely apart by the bear. The bees, of course, were in a highly agitated state, and it took quite a lot of work and, I imagine, nerves, to reassemble everything with angry bees buzzing all over the place. She finally got everything put together, but several bees just kept after her all the way to the house. She was able to get inside after awhile without having them follow her in. An hour or so later, someone came to the door with a delivery. No sooner did she open the door than two of the bees, who must have been lingering about outside, immediately attacked her and stung her on the hand. She showed us her fingers, which were still very swollen. Strangely, they did not attack the person at the door but must have felt she was the one they wanted to get, though she had done all the work putting things back together for them!
I wonder if her brother ever got that bear.

Kathy and Dana in the dining room of Point House

Sixty degrees +

2011-02-17T15:03:00.000-08:00

Hive #1

Hive #2

Beautiful day today, high near 65. I had to go out and check the bees. Wow, were they flying. I took a video but unfortunately it turned out fuzzy, and the photos don't capture the feel at all really. They were all over the place. For many of these bees, this was their first time out into the world. They were having a blast.
I looked in hive #2 first. There were some bees near the top of the frames after I removed the inner cover but not a huge number. I did not pull any frames but clearly saw there was still an ample honey supply. I decided not to feed this hive at this time.
I pulled the top cover off hive #1, and bees began immediately to pour through the oval slot in the inner cover. Hundreds were immediately on top of it, so I decided not to remove it. I had decided not to use smoke just to avoid stressing them and to avoid forcing them to start gorging themselves on precious honey. Instead, I added a medium super on top of the inner cover and put in 4 frames of left-over honey, some of which had been capped though not all. Sitting in the barn over winter, the honey I could see had pretty much crystallized. The bees should consume that just fine though.

Looking between the added honey frames. .

They started climbing up on the frames right away, so I just closed it up and watched them. I'll check again in a couple weeks.

Spoke too soon...

2011-02-02T15:43:00.000-08:00

Last week I talked about the January thaw we experienced. Well, February decided differently. Here is what our Groundhog Day looked like:

Real nice, huh. Kathy did work up the energy somehow, after the two plus hours of snow removal we both worked at (we have a long lane), to wade through the drifts to check out the bees. She said there were no drifts by the hives, which sit just to the east of a double row of pine trees. It has proven to be a good location, providing snow break and wind break from the west. Where we live, on top of a pretty decent hill, wind breaks are essential. She cleared away the landing pad and listened to the hives but heard nothing. It's interesting that I am the one who has no difficulty hearing the bees even though I am almost totally deaf in one ear and do not hear so well out of the other. I do seem to do well with low frequencies though, so the congregate hum of the bees I pick up quite well.

Let's hope the month goes out like a lamb. Wait, that's next month...

39 degrees in January

2011-01-29T12:46:00.000-08:00

Nice thaw we're having right now. It won't prove to be enough to clear more than my driveway of snow but still much appreciated. I went out two days ago to look at the bees when it was about 34 degrees and did not see anybody out flying, just dead bees, bee parts (legs, wings, etc.) and wax cappings. Today there were a number in the air.

The hives, looking south

Some were flying quite nicely. We saw several return from some distance out. A few, of course, had difficulty and were lying on their backs. We helped a couple get back up onto the landing pad (hopefully the correct hive). There were quite a few more dead in front of the hives, along with some brown spots from their cleansing flights.

A few of the dead. Note the brown stains.

I saw one come buzzing noisily out of the hive and tumbled to the ground with the body of a dead bee firmly in its grasp. She said a few words over the body then returned promptly to the hive with no problems.

A couple of the bees buzzed me, checking me out. I think my large, dark coat perhaps was not the best attire to be wearing but, well, it is winter after all. We peeked under the hood and saw a number of bees through the inner cover slot in hive #1 but Kathy saw none in hive #2, though she heard a fairly loud, solid hum coming from the hive. The cluster must be lower in that hive.

Click for a larger view.

I did tip each hive from the back and found that both are still quite heavy, which was reassuring.

Hopefully we'll start getting a few more days like this (or even better??) in the weeks to come.

Blog Upgrade

2011-01-20T16:51:00.000-08:00

I decided to freshen up the blog a bit. Although it looks basically the same, I have added more of the blogs I follow, both devoted to beekeeping as well as some personal ones. I also put videos we have made at the bottom of the main blog page so they can be easily viewed, either here on or YouTube. Hope you enjoy the changes.

Good News!

2011-01-19T12:28:00.000-08:00


Jess helping with a feeding

Our daughter, Jessica, completed the work for her PhD in entomology last summer. She and her husband, Matt, who is also an entomologist, live in upstate New York where Matt works on his research with crane flies for Cornell University. Well, Jessica has now gotten a post-doctorate position, also with Cornell, that will allow her to research the importance of bumblebees in pollination of the pumpkin crop in upstate NY, which is a major crop in the area. One of the variables she will be exploring is how the bumblebees compare with honeybees in their ability to pollinate the crops. I will be very interested in following her work to see what she discovers. Here in eastern Iowa, I clearly see bumblebees as being very important in the pollination of so many things. I think they cover much more territory, as far as kinds of plants, than my honeybees. The honeybees really seem to me to be much more selective (translate "picky"). So, we're excited for her in getting the position and also excited because of the nature of the study, a subject we're quite interested in as well. Good luck Jess!

Winter thoughts

2011-01-16T17:34:00.000-08:00

I've been making the short trek out back to check on the bees every few days. So far, things seem to be pretty normal. A few dead bees are typically found on the landing pad each time and, when I listen to the side of the hive, I hear a nice, solid hum from within. I've also been checking the slide-out tray I have in each hive bottom. I built them so the tray slides out from the rear of the hive. I use it to check on varroa mites (yes, they are certainly present). It also helps to monitor the activity in the hive in the winter. I keep a sheet of sticky paper on each, or sometimes just a sheet of paper perhaps sprayed with cooking oil. I look for the rows of wax cappings that accumulate on the floor between the frames. This tells me the bees are actively feeding. This is a good sign, since I often seem to read someone's account of their bees starving to death within inches of good, capped honey. Feeding bees, in my mind, are healthy bees. I always worry if there is enough food, especially since our winters lately seem pretty harsh, but so far so good.
I am thinking about slipping in some hard sugar candy, perhaps later in February. I've never tried the candy before. Some suggest just putting in some sugar on top of paper on the top of the hive frames, but I might try the candy this year. Last year, I put on sugar water feeders in the spring and the bees really never consumed any of it. They still had a generous supply of honey left in the hive, and hopefully this year will be the same. Can't help but worry, though.

Season's Greetings

2010-12-24T09:47:00.000-08:00

I wish everyone a very happy holiday and a happy new year. This has been a very good year to our family. Sitting here watching a very lovely snowfall on Christmas eve, hoping our "kids" can make the trip safely here this evening, I'm thinking of the great year past. It has been a very good one for our family and we look forward to another great year to come. The bees have done a great job as well and we look to have another great year with them.
Here is a little Christmas gift I made--a 3D stereogram--see if you can spot the hidden object (I'm sure you have no clue what it might "bee" !)
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year all.

Meeting of Eastern Iowa Beekeepers

2010-12-15T17:10:00.000-08:00

We attended our second session of the Eastern Iowa Beekeepers Association Monday night. The first meeting we attended seemed poorly organized with little to take from it, though one member brought in an observation hive he had constructed that he takes to various area schools. I found that interesting to see. Otherwise, it seemed more like "let's get together and just see what happens."
This time, however, there was a lot of content, things moved right along and Kathy and I left with wanting more. Maybe it was just the cold, December night and not being able to do anything with the bees lately other than go out and see how many dead had been drug out, but it truly was an entertaining and informative meeting and we took some things away from it that I plan to pursue this coming season.
We arrived a bit late, and missed most of the first speaker who appeared to be talking about dangers associated with allergic reactions to bee stings. It took awhile to find chairs as all the seats were taken. Andy Joseph, a state apiarist, next gave a talk, with a power point presentation, on AFB. He had some great slides which showed what to look for when inspecting for American Foul Brood, including black scaling on the sides of the cells in the brood chamber which are the remnants of bee larva which decomposed, leaving a black, shiny deposit on the sides of the cell. These would be full of the spores of the bacteria that develops AFB. He also showed how to take a toothpick or small twig and open up a sunken cap on the pupa and if you see a stringy, "snotty" substance when you withdraw the stick then you have evidence of AFB. He confirmed my thinking in discontinuing the use of antibiotics as a preventative measure for AFB. However, I will need to really step up my inspections of the brood chambers both in frequency and thoroughness. Only if caught early enough can some effective measures be taken to prevent the loss of the entire hive and to reduce the possibility of the disease spreading to other hives. The other thing I plan to do is to begin to recycle old frames from the brood chambers annually. When I switch hive bodies in the spring, I will remove several frames from each hive and replace them with fresh frames for the bees to draw out. Since I use 3 medium supers, I will remove 9-10 frames each year. This is because the bacteria is almost always present in each hive, even if the hive looks healthy. By removing the old frames, which are most likely to be holding bacterial spores, I can reduce the possibility of the disease taking hold if there is stress on the hive.
I also learned about the importance of orienting the frames within the hive body. This is somewhat controversial, since there seems to be some disagreement in the beekeeping community over the necessity to do this in the first place and, if one chooses to follow this practice, the proper way to go about it. The process is called "housel orientation", based on observations by a Michael Housel in which he studied the ways bees orient the hexagonal cells they create in feral hives. Use "housel" as a search term in the Beesource.com website for more information. I have only begun to read about it but it is intriguing. One woman at the meeting said that if you follow the housel method, bridging between frames is almost eliminated as you create a much more natural environment for the bees.
There was other interesting discussion, but I must say we both felt very excited after the meeting and ready to read more and try some things out.

Follow-up to Wax Moths

2010-10-07T19:40:00.000-07:00

We decided to open the hives again, thinking there must be a mass on the bottom screen and it should be cleaned out before winter. We opened up hive #2, first setting the top feeder down to the side. There were TONS of bees in the hive, though many were out foraging. Several were not real happy about today's intrusion, either, and kept buzzing rather insistently in my face. No stings, though--whoops, except for Kathy, who had her pant legs secured with rubber bands but wore short socks and took one on the ankle--ouch!
Surprisingly, the bottom screen was completely clean and no other sign of wax worms. The odor must be coming from either some honey that has begun to ferment or the odor of the pollen currently being brought in.
Another mistake was setting the top feeder aside uncovered, and Kathy diligently scooped out several dozen "swimmers" before we could re-assemble. With all the bees all over the hive bodies, we hoped the queen was not crushed. When I checked this evening, the bees were quietly going about their business, still bringing in plenty of orange pollen.

Wax Moths

2010-10-06T15:49:00.000-07:00

We opened the hives today to check on winter supplies, put a new top hive feeder on hive #2 and do the fall treatment for AFB. We both noticed an odor coming from the hives, and decided we needed to investigate a bit.

Kathy took out the removable tray from the back of each bottom feeder. Wax moths and larva were definitely present. She scraped out all webbing and junk she could, actually using the brush we use below the refrigerator to clean the coils. It worked well.

You can clearly see the wax moth trails on here. Since we use a screened bottom board, with this slide-out tray, a lot of junk collects down here--pollen, dead bee parts, bits of wax, etc.

Here you can see one of the larva from the wax moths. They are quite large, and you can imagine the damage they can do within the hive. Our concern was they might be in the upper chamber, where some of the frames are not drawn out fully or, if they are drawn out, are not filled with honey. These would be susceptible to wax worm attack.

We went in and did a bit of research. Since both hives are quite strong, it seems unlikely that the wax worms threaten to invade much of the hive. My feeling is they are only down on this bottom tray, along with the ants and a few cockroaches, feasting on the droppings. We did not perform a thorough hive search, though there was no evidence of anything in the top of 3 hive bodies that make up our hives. We decided we will do a regular cleaning of the bottom tray and monitor the situation. Hopefully this will eliminate the bad odor.
I did mix up a batch of antibiotic with powdered sugar and sprinkled that on each hive to treat for AFB.

We purchased a polystyrene top feeder. Looking at message boards about them, I decided to add some screen mesh to the end so the bees would have something to climb on and hopefully reduce drowning.
This variety uses a plexiglass cover at the end to limit the bee exposure to the liquid. I only put an inch or so in the bottom and will see how that goes. We were quite happy with the honey they have now stored in hive #2 and feel good about winter survival. I will feed the next several weeks, though, just in case. The super in hive #1 is also being drawn out and a couple frames are getting filled with honey. We will feed this back to them in a couple weeks then remove that super.
If anyone feels we need to be more aggressive about the moths, please let us know. Otherwise, loving the 70 degree October days and good, orange pollen coming in heavily to each hive as the bees are very active during the warm afternoons.

Feed Me!!!

2010-09-21T12:08:00.000-07:00

Well, the bees in hive #2 are certainly gobbling up the sugar syrup. I started a week ago and they are well into their second full coffee can of 2:1 sugar water. Hopefully, this will help them fill up the frames in the top hive body and they will be set for winter. With this brief stint of warmer weather, the bees have been very active. Today I noticed lots of orange pollen being brought into the hives. Still many things in bloom, from our red raspberries to the goldenrod, sunflowers, and many flowering plants in the prairie. I reversed my decision for hive #1 and replaced the super, though did not bother with the queen excluder since the bees will get any honey they put in there. I was afraid, as active as they have been, that they will put too much honey lower in the hive and not leave enough room for brood.
On another note, Kathy ran into one of our former "colleagues" from our bee class last year. He came up to her in the grocery store and asked "Did you harvest any?" She told him we had gotten one super's worth of honey, which amounted to about 2 gallons. He sadly responded he had not gotten any honey yet, though he started with two hives and we only had one. This spring he started several others, and of course will not harvest from them. He did have a swarm, which he was able to capture. He seemed pretty down, unsure as to why his bees are not producing. After some thought, I began to wonder if he just does not have enough good forage area for the bees. They live within two miles of our place, but we have some forest but also large pasture areas, prairie areas, and farmland within sight. His place is basically on a peninsula, with a reservoir on three sides. The land around him is all residential or forest. Bees would have to go 2 miles through forest or across the expanse of water to get to any other type of forage area. Is there enough for them to forage in an area mostly wooded, with maples, elms, oaks and walnuts the predominate trees in the area? I plan to go on the Bee Source site to see if any there have some answers. He may just have a bad location. I'll let you know what I find out.

Started feeding

2010-09-12T18:54:00.000-07:00

I began a 2:1 sugar water feeding today with hive #2. I planned to replace empty, undrawn frames with frames from the extraction, which have fully drawn comb, but in only a few days they have begun to draw out comb on most frames in the top hive body and have filled some with honey, so I ended up only replacing two frames. They've been busy! I think the supplemental feed will help, though. I have no concerns about hive #1, which has great winter stores in place.
We plan to go to the East Central Beekeeper Association meeting tomorrow night. Should be interesting.

First fall check--ready for winter?

2010-09-08T17:00:00.000-07:00

We've been pretty busy, plus the weather has been now rainy, now windy, and so on, so I've put off an inspection for awhile. We needed to remove the box of frames we had extracted from hive #2, where I had put to have the bees clean them off. I debated putting them there, but thought the hive was strong enough to fend off any robbing. I didn't see any fighting, so I hope the decision was a good one. Also, we wanted to determine how well they are prepared with food for the winter.
Hive #2, the newer hive, did nothing with the super we put on, so we pulled that off. They only have honey in about two other frames. The older hive has a very heavy, full 3rd box so it should be in great shape. We did take two frames partially filled out with honey from the super on that hive and put them in the newer hive. I'll start feeding in a week or so, only the new hive. I meant to put the frames they had cleaned out in the top super to replace frames that were not drawn out and I didn't do that, so may do that tomorrow or the next day.
As far as brood, it looked kind of spotty at first but then we found several frames really full of capped brood, so she has been busy and doing well. I have noticed more bees doing orientation flights near the hive lately, so I felt things were looking good in that regard.
And that's about it for now. Bees were good, and very busy flying to and from the hive. They like a warm, dry day like this.

First Honey Extraction

2010-08-28T19:29:00.000-07:00

Success! We completed our first honey harvest today. The process went fairly smoothly. There were a few wrinkles and we learned some things, but overall I'd have to say it went well. Here is a video on YouTube that tells the basics.
We did use the bee escape yesterday, but that proved less successful than I had hoped. There were fewer bees, but since I was hoping for NO bees in the honey super, I was disappointed. Maybe next year I will leave it on for two days. We brushed off the remaining bees. I did leave two of the frames in the 9 frame super that were not filled out, but the other 7 were beautiful, nicely capped. There were few cells that contained honey that were not capped. We put them in a big container, with lid, after removing the bees and took them to the barn for processing.
We used a big plastic bin with a homemade board attached and a long bread knife for the uncapping. It worked very well, and we wondered why the need to buy expensive, heated knives. We also used an antique ice pick for the capping scratcher, and it worked pretty well though I'd like to have a genuine one.

Kathy is beginning to remove the white cappings off a perfectly drawn out , honey-filled frame. She will do both sides of the frame.

Kathy did the uncapping and I did the spinning in the nice, old two frame hand cranker that our friends, Jim and Beth, loaned to us. It worked very well, though a weld is failing at the bottom of the spigot and we will need to do something about that since it creates a small leak. Other than that, it worked perfectly, fully pulling the honey from the comb. We worked in about 80 degree temperatures, and the honey flowed just fine.
Once finished extracting, we put the honey through filters into a white bucket with a spigot, then Kathy filled jars. The cappings were also put into the filter and are sitting overnight to finish draining, though we won't get more than several ounces from that at this point.

Here is a photo of the finished product. In all, we probably harvested about two gallons of very sweet, clear, delicious honey. We were pretty happy with this and excited about prospects for next year. I set the equipment out for the bees and at dusk there was still a cloud of excited bees cleaning up everything, including little spills in the barn since I neglected to pull the big door down again. Very fun.

Switched frames

2010-07-26T10:37:00.000-07:00

Well, we switched the frames this morning. I couldn't believe how many bees were in hive #2. They certainly seemed a bit more upset at our interventions than the bees in hive #1, but though the air was filled with bees, no stings. The comb drawn out in hive #2 was a mess--all over the place. We tried cleaning up things a bit as we went, but since our main objective was to take frames with larva into hive #1, we didn't want to linger too long. We were about an hour from start to finish as it was. Fortunately, it was warm but not as hot today as some days have been recently. My only concern is not seeing eggs on the 2 frames we moved, though there was some very young larva, so I think they will do for making a new queen, if indeed a new one is needed. Keeping fingers crossed.

Your majesty.....Your Majesty???

2010-07-25T16:51:00.000-07:00

Hmmmm, not good. We have observed our first hive (hive #1), has not looked as vigorous in recent days as the newer hive (#2), so we decided to open up today and take a look. We didn't like what we saw. Well, some of it was ok I guess. There was honey--lots and lots of honey--in fact the super we plan to extract in a couple weeks probably weighs well over 50 pounds--but no eggs, no larva, no capped brood. And, for all we could tell, and we looked at every frame, no queen. We did find several swarm cells, all empty, and one supercedure cell, also empty. I couldn't tell, and not sure if I know how to tell, if the supercedure cell has been occupied.
There were also bees, thousands of them, and they are well-stocked for winter already. We examined everything, switched out some frames so we could give them more space in the brood chamber in case a queen is lurking around somewhere and we just could not find her, and closed it up.
I got on the internet and started looking for queens and ideas. I knew buying a queen at this time of year was going to be difficult. I did find one supplier who put me on a waiting list, about 3 weeks. It would take almost all that time to make a new queen if we were to choose that route. I decided I did want to try to make our own queen, so went to the message boards and did some hunting. I didn't know if it would be best to take some eggs and larva from hive #2 and make a nuc or to put some frames from #2 with eggs/larva into #1 directly. After listening to folks on Beesource.com and talking with our instructor, Bob, from the beekeeping course we took, we decided we will switch out frames and perhaps also rotate the bottom several hive bodies, to make sure there is plenty of room for the queen to lay.
So, that is the job for tomorrow. I wasn't going to go in and totally disrupt them again today, though perhaps that decision is more based on my mental well-being than that of the bees. I did sustain my first sting today, as did Kathy, but both were not based on aggressiveness from the bees but just by accident. In fact, the bees were very cooperative and well-mannered. I took one on the belly, bending down to pick up a frame on the ground. There must have been a bee on my shirt and when I bent, the folds of the shirt compressed it and she stung. It is now a big red welt on my stomach but didn't really hurt much at all, even when it happened--a slight burning sensation mostly for a short while. We left some frames and a box that had gotten honey on them near the hive so the bees could clean them off and I brought them back up to the barn later in the afternoon. As Kathy was picking up the frames to put them away, there was still one bee on them and she tried to shoosh her away with her finger. Bad decision. So, we've both been initiated.
It was suggested that perhaps we do have a queen, possibly still a virgin, who has just not begun to lay yet. That would be the ideal, so I'm not panicking yet. If that is the case, we will check in about a week's time (probably longer than that since we will be on the go for a bit) to see if any laying is taking place or if a queen cell has been made from the new eggs/larva and we will have a queen in about 20 days. Only time will tell.

Getting ready for extraction

2010-07-21T05:56:00.000-07:00

The day will soon be approaching when we do our first honey extraction. I mentioned we had borrowed an extractor from some friends, Jim and Beth Peterson. It is an old extractor and although we cleaned up the flaky rust and gave it a good scrubbing, I still was a bit concerned about the screens in the device being galvanized. Although use of galvanized metal, which is a zinc coating on iron to prevent rust, was used fairly commonly in the past on cooking utensils and other food preparation tools, today we know the potential hazards of using such items. The U.S. army used to line up soldiers to watch atom bomb blasts, too. Not a good idea.
Fortunately, Kathy found a product which may help us out a lot. It is a clear-coat epoxy called Camcoat, available through many beekeeping supply places. It is a very hard, clear epoxy coating, applied with brush or spray, that is food-safe and can be used to coat metal surfaces, including those with a galvanized finish. In the message boards, some suggest using a vinegar/water solution to prepare the galvanized metal for painting, so I did that. I will give at least two coats, and also in the message boards people suggest waiting about a week before using the equipment after applying the coatings, which I think is a good idea especially considering the humidity and slowness of drying. We will wait probably until mid-August anyway but I sure feel better about using the equipment now. Jim and Beth were happy with the decision as well.

Bee Escape

2010-06-29T19:55:00.000-07:00

In trying to decide how to go about removing the bees from the frames when we go to harvest the honey, we looked at options such as the fume board, brushing, blowing or shaking bees off the frames, or using a bee escape. We've chosen to try the last option. The fume boards work quickly, but we didn't like the thought of "fumigating" our bees or the honey. My experience with brushing bees off the frames has been that it does not make them very happy. I like to keep them happy. So we decided to go with the bee escape method.
There are a number of bee escapes available commercially and there are also plans for building a variety of bee escapes. Most of the commercial bee equipment outlets sell a simple bee escape that is oblong in shape and fits in the opening of a standard inner cover. It allows the bees to move from the honey super to the hive body below. These are quite inexpensive, costing only a couple dollars. You can also buy, from Dadant, a board which incorporates several conical bee escapes for about $17.00. We opted to build our own, using a plan for a variation of a triangular escape known as a vortex. Dave Cushman has a great website explaining a variety of "clearer boards", including plans for building the vortex. We made ours from 1/2 inch plywood. We did add the variation that includes using 3 CD roms. The CD's, being slick, help prevent bees from clustering underneath the bee escape and blocking the exits. Here is a photo of one using the CD's:

This shows the underside of the bee escape. The bees come down from the honey super above through the central hole, then have to wind through a bit of a maze to exit through an opening under any of the corners of the triangle. A screen covers the escape so they have to go through the maze to exit.
I did a bit of searching for a video showing a bee escape. Andy's backyard is a series of 5 homemade videos showing how he harvests his honey. He removes the bees by using a triangular bee escape, which he shows. He places the bee escape below the two honey supers and returns the next day to collect the supers, sans bees. Seems to work pretty well. Since our hives are just out back on our property, it is not a big deal to put them in place one day and go out the next to collect the frames. Hopefully it will go as smoothly as it appeared for Andy.

Honey!

2010-06-26T14:17:00.000-07:00

As we get involved in the routine management of our bees, we almost forget one of the reasons for having them--honey. So when we opened the hive yesterday to check on the progress they were having in drawing out the comb in the super, we were very surprised, after having checked only last week, to find practically every frame drawn out and filled with white, capped honey. I put another super on, this time choosing to use the 10 frame initally as the newsletter from Dadant had suggested (done so the bees will draw out more regular comb, later to switch to a 9 frame box) and headed in to start looking at options for extracting. Should we try to use a centrifugal extractor, use heat, buy equipment, use the equipment at the nature center, etc. These are things we had only briefly talked about and considered and now we need to make some definite decisions. Not that it needs to be done immediately--the nice thing about early season honey is we have time. It will stay in the hive just fine, so no real rush.
So, we went to the catalogs and internet. Kathy found a vintage, classic crank extractor on ebay for $75 starting price, with no bids. The photo and description indicated it has a few dings, has some definite rust spots but apparently the crank works ok. We looked at newer, smaller models at some of the beekeeping supply houses. Dadant has a metal, 2 frame job for about $150. We also could use the equipment at Indian Creek Nature Center in Cedar Rapids, where we are members and where we took the year-long course in beekeeping. We also looked at uncapping equipment and thought about ways of getting the bees off the frames. I found plans for a bee escape I can make called the vortex escape. Put that under the super, the bees think they are cut off from the rest of the hive and go through the escape but it is very difficult to get back. In several hours or a day, you can take the super off with few or no bees in it. Right now we prefer this method to using a chemical.
Later, I remembered that a former colleague of mine, Beth, and her husband, Jim, had kept bees years ago. I called them and Jim has given most of his equipment to his son, who is also in his first year of beekeeping. They would be happy to let us borrow their old extractor, though Jim gave the caveat "it's a lot of work!" I think we figured that would be the case having seen the extraction demonstrated at Indian Creek.
So, we're pretty excited with the idea that we indeed will have honey this season, maybe quite a lot actually. I'll take a better look at the frames next week and we may be doing some extraction in the next several weeks.

Enlarged opening

2010-06-15T20:18:00.000-07:00

Rain and more rain, and, did I mention humidity? With quite a little gathering of fanners on the apron, I decided to go ahead and open the hives fully by removing the reducer, which had been placed in the larger opening. You can really smell the honey coming from the big hive, and I can imagine they are working hard to get things dry in there.
Bees are still all over the spiderwort, of which we have plenty, and are now seen on the white clover. There are still so many things in bloom that they should be getting plenty of pollen/nectar, provided they can get out. We have not had as much rain as folks in southern Iowa but still have had well over 4 inches and we're only mid-way through the month, with rain forecast 5 of the next 6 days.
I had an interesting experience the other day. My aunt, Paula, wrote saying that Kelli, her daughter, had a squirrel nest (actually a wood duck house) full of bees and wondered what to do. I'm not to the point yet where I want to do extractions, so I looked on the state apiary registry for someone nearby in that county. I chose the person with the most hives and called him, explaining the situation. He was a bit puzzled how I got his name and number, but I explained that and he was more than happy to oblige. It actually is his son's "hobby", which he began when he was in kindergarten. Dad has been his "assistant". His son is now 12. They did go to my cousin's where they confirmed the bees were indeed honeybees. I did not go, since this is over an hour and a half away so heard the story from my aunt. The nest was 12 feet up on a tree, secured with lag bolts. They brought an extension ladder and the son climbed up. Unfortunately, about the worst possible thing happened--the nest, heavy with bees, comb and honey, came loose much faster than anticipated and dropped to the ground before the boy could secure it. You can picture it--bees all over the place. They did manage to get the nest back up and on the tree, with the hope that most bees would return to it. They decided to leave it alone and did go back and retrieve it the next day, wrapping it in canvas. They hoped the queen survived but planned to order one if she didn't. The boy now has 8 hives, I believe, with plans to have 16 by the end of summer. Quite a project!

Bearding

2010-05-30T14:47:00.000-07:00

Here is a photo Kathy took today of the bearding that has been going on almost daily on the original hive. It is very full of bees. I have opened to the middle opening and have raised the outer cover fairly high, so they should be getting some ventilation and I have also added the super since they had drawn out most of the frames in the 3rd hive body. They should have enough space but there is a ton of honey and nectar in the hive and it must be very warm and humid in there. Don't blame them for hanging out on the porch.

First super in place

2010-05-28T20:01:00.000-07:00

We checked our old hive today. We had placed the third medium on and had checked it only a week ago. At that time, hardly anything had been drawn out. Today, there were 6 frames fully drawn with each frame drawn out some. Since the bees have been bearding every day in large clusters, we decided to go ahead and add the super. If they draw it out as quickly as they have the last box, we will have honey this year for sure. The new hive has done a little work but does not have the number of bees the old hive holds, so work there is a bit slower. We're in a great part of the season, with so many things in bloom. Hopefully this will continue. There is so much in fact that the bees are not even bothering with the white clover, which is in abundance. Last year they were all over it and I have yet so see a single bee on the clover in our yard or in the neighboring pasture. They're getting what they need somewhere!

Beekeeping Book--fun reading

2010-05-20T06:18:00.000-07:00

I wrote a post on the Beesource.com message boards about the drone being attacked by a worker bee. One respondent replied with a quote from Edward Bevan, M.D., from his 1843 book "The Honey Bee: Its Natural History, Physiology and Management". It is fascinating reading, in a light and often humorous manner. You can read it as an html or download a pdf since Google scanned it and is in the public domain. The link is:
http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=pusOAAAAYAAJ&dq=Edward+Bevan&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=21NHs9WAED&sig=M98pk_Isx5IeeNBzbrehIW1VYeQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=5&ct=result#v=onepage&q&f=false
Enjoy!

Inspection--mixed

2010-05-18T20:08:00.000-07:00

We did an inspection of the new hive, with some mixed results. We did not find the queen, though bees were pretty cooperative. We did locate the brood chamber in the lower hive body (2 mediums), with the upper still mostly honey and empty frames just beginning to be drawn out. It has been 16 days since the queen was released and there were capped brood cells as well as small larvae. I only noticed one drone cell, which tells me we don't have a laying worker, which is obviously good. So, though we didn't find the queen, given the easy temperament of the bees and the presence of capped cells and larvae, she seems to be well and doing her job.
We also found a who lot of dead bees, in fact littering the screened floor of the bottom board. We pulled the lower hive body off and dumped that out. There were also a number of dead bees that seemingly had been crushed when we did the split, though I felt we were being as careful as could be that day. We must have injured way more than we realized.
Another interesting thing was, as we were closing the hive up, we saw one worker going viciously after a drone. We only watched a short time but I will have to research this a bit to see if it was more than just some general male bashing!
We looked in the top of the 3 bodies on the old hive to see if they were drawing that out. Clearly more bees in that hive and they were busy in the top with the beginnings of the drawing process.
White clover is just coming into bloom, so we hope to see a lot more pollen coming into the hives with temps in the 70's and even some mid-80's on the horizon.

Who's Your Honey?

2010-05-02T11:36:00.000-07:00

Actually, the question is "From where is your honey?" Jessica sent me a link to an interesting story about attempts to determine the origin of honey imported into the U.S. http://tamunews.tamu.edu/2010/04/29/scientist-tracks-origins-of-bootleg-honey-from-china/
Apparently, China has been "dumping" honey into U.S. markets at prices well below what honey producers in this country can match. China is the world's largest producer of honey. To try to help our producers, a tariff was established to make local honey more competitive. However, it appears that honey that seemingly comes from other southeast Asian countries, according to the labels, actually has been routed from China. How do we know this? A scientist at Texas A&M studies the pollen in honey from around the world and therefore is able to make a good determination of the origin of a given quantity of honey.
This is something that should concern all honey producers in the United States. As we are working towards more accurate, valid and honest labeling of our food products, we need to add honey to the list of items that require "truth in labelling," according to the professor. He also advocates disallowing honey that has been filtered to remove identifiable pollen grains.

New Queen Freed

2010-05-01T19:05:00.000-07:00

It had been 3 days today, so we checked a bit after noon to see if the queen had been released. I removed the top hive body and we saw that there was still a small bit of candy in the tube. We debated leaving it there and figured she would be out probably by the end of the day, but decided to go ahead and release her. I opened the extra opening in the plastic tube and held it open down on top of the frames. A couple of her attendants exited first, then she scampered out and hussled right down into the frames. Looked like she was very anxious to get about her business. We added the extra frame we had left out to that box and closed it up.
Checking later, we were finally seeing some bees coming and going from that hive. They were very active in the old hive, so much so that I was a bit concerned they were maybe going to swarm even though we had done the split. They settled down later. I imagine they were just very busy out gathering pollen and nectar, after yesterday's heavy rain. They are gathering from the bushes along the edge of our property, which are loaded with blossoms right now.
So, we'll next check in about a week to see if there are worker larva in both hives. If so, we should be all right.

Split it!

2010-04-28T17:07:00.000-07:00

Hey, we've now doubled our number of beehives. It was nice day, upper 6o's and clear, little breeze--great day to do this. We had no advance warning, just knew the queen would arrive sometime after the third week in April. We got a call from the post office this morning saying they had a package with live queens in it and we could come pick it up before the post office opened if we wanted. I did wait until after it was open. The bees were in a thin white envelope, with holes in it clearly marked "LIVE QUEEN". It said to keep it out of the sun. She thought there could not possibly be a live queen bee in there and thought it had to be larva. I told her it would be in a cage in the package, too it out, checked and everything seemed fine. The queen and her attendants (about 4) were in a small plastic container with a tube on one end and a plug in a hole next to it. There was masking tape around the tube. I was not sure whether or not I was to open the small plug and replace it with a marshmallow, remove the tape, or what. So I called the company, B&B Honey Farm www.bbhoneyfarms.com. They were very helpful and told me the tube was filled with queen food and I needed to remove the masking tape and place the container between brood frames with the tube in an upright position, in case one of the bees died and blocked the exit for the queen.

We took everything out and set it up. Kathy's brother, Jon, took some video while we went through the frames. The bees were a bit upset at first but settled down very nicely and I had no trouble examining the frames. We went fully through the two top boxes without finding her, so we put the new queen in the new hive and made sure each had equal amounts of brood and honey and closed them up. Now we just have to keep our fingers crossed. We'll check in 3 days to see if she has left her cage and both hives for new larva in about 10 days. Pretty exciting.

Pollen gathering

2010-03-31T05:50:00.000-07:00

Two days ago we took Jessica out to see the hive. We wanted to check the sugar-water supply in the coffee can. It was still practically full, a week after the last check. Jess noted the huge, bright yellow pollen sacks on the incoming bees as well as some white pollen. There just are not many flowers blooming right now (crocuses, daffodils), at least in our immediate yard, but as Kathy pointed out the bees can fly beyond our property so they are getting the pollen somewhere. A few of the early trees are beginning to bud out. Jess said the silver maples are blooming, so my guess is they are getting much of this from trees.
We pulled the tray out from under the screened bottom board to check the mite situation. It had been over a week since I had cleaned it off and we found quite a few mites, along with many clumps of pollen that had fallen down. I would say there were probably 1-2 mites per square inch on the board, which is not a sticky board by the way. Several were crawling around. I will put some paper in there today and monitor that for the next two days.

The bees should be busy--temps are way above normal, approaching 80 today and tomorrow. Things will really start blooming if this keeps up. Sure glad we reversed hive bodies now.

Bees in funny places

2010-03-26T05:50:00.000-07:00

After seeing the bees in the bird feeder, we have now seen them elsewhere in seemingly strange places. We have two large, rolling-type composter bins. They have drainage holes all over and we put composting materials in them year-round. The bees have been going in them like crazy. I suppose fruit peelings and moisture are the attraction. Yesterday we saw several at a time on a brown canvas cover over a woodpile. It had rained the night before and there were small pools of water in the folds and that is where the bees were found, getting the water. Even though there is a pond just down the hill from the hive, I guess they will seek it where they can find it. It's fun seeing "our" bees all over the place. I know they are ours, too, since we used to never see honeybees around. I can't wait for the first good bloom.

Temps last night in mid-twenties but 70's for highs promised next week!

Reversed hive bodies

2010-03-23T14:52:00.000-07:00

Well, it was over 60 degrees and sunny today. I thought we would just switch out the sugar water feeder, but found it was still very heavy. So, since it was so nice, we fired up the smoker and decided to reverse #1 and #3 hive bodies. Bees were really flying, though about the only thing I am aware of that is blooming is some crocuses and a couple blossoming dandelions. There may be some early trees but I don't know what exactly.

We took the top super off, which houses the feeder, then removed the inner cover. There were a lot of bees. I removed one frame from the middle to examine. There were still capped honey cells, though there were many empty ones as well. We pulled the top hive body off and set it aside. It was still quite heavy. We saw some larvae, always a good sign. I pulled out the middle one, which was also pretty heavy, and more larvae. After pulling the bottom off the bottom board, we needed to clean that off since there were still matted bees over about 1/4th of it. We moved quickly but carefully, put everything back together and then left them alone.

Very impressed with these bees. There were thousands in the hive, remarkable. We will have to watch closely when there is a pollen run because they might want to swarm, but having switched the hive bodies I feel a lot better. The bottom one was very light, and now is on top so they will have some work to do filling that one out. Then we will need to split in late April, when our queen arrives. We have ordered a Minnesota hygenic queen. They are supposed to be very well behaved and mite resistant. We will keep our fingers crossed.

Feeding time

2010-03-15T15:14:00.001-07:00

After much reading and debate, I decided to begin feeding today. High was 60 degrees, sunny, and the bees were really out flying. This early, and with snow still in little patches in the ditches, there is nothing blooming but spring plants are sticking up through the soil now and it won't be long there will be some flowering plants. The temps are to stay above freezing all but one day early next week, so I decided to go ahead with a 2:1 sugar water feed. I also decided, with the warmth, to take a little deeper look into the hive. So far, I have only peeked under the outer cover.

Bees were really flying as I went out to the hive, as you can see in this image. I removed the insulation but kept the tape on the seams that I had under the insulation. There was still a pile of watery sugar under the outer cover that I had put a couple weeks ago and there were probably 100 bees on top of the inner cover. I smoked, then removed the inner cover. I saw a lot of bees, between each frame on my top of 3 medium hive bodies. I pulled one of the outer frames to examine and saw mostly empty comb, a little uncapped honey. I should have looked at more, but I wasn't wanting to keep things open too long. So I decided to put the inner cover back on, add a super above (which I insulated with styrofoam again, on the inside this time) and added a coffee can of sugar water right above the oblong opening of the inner cover. Then I closed things up.

I think things look good. If we continue to get warmth, we will get blooming plants and the bees will be very happy. Later, I was out walking past my birdfeeders and saw bees all over the seed, no birds! The bees, however, were literally rolling in the seed, I imagine gathering up corn pollen? I had recently heard (or read on one of the message boards about bees) that someone had worried about bees in their birdfeeder. Now I see it for myself. They were also all over the ground, where spilled seed and seed shells litter the ground. I guess they are desperate right now. The birdfeeder is almost 300 feet from the hive. So I know they are getting out and about!

Spring coming????

2010-03-04T13:57:00.000-08:00

Still a lot of snow on the ground, but with daytime temps near 40 and sunny, with the weekend to be above freezing day AND night, it feels like the end is drawing near.

I went out yesterday with the temp near 40 degrees, lifted the lid, saw a nice mass of LIVE bees around the oblong hole of the inner cover. I poured about a cup of sugar on the inner cover. Several bees were out making cleansing flights. I see no brown staining around on the snow or on the front of the hive, so nosema does not seem a problem right now at least. Fingers crossed. If this group of bees makes it through this winter with noob beekeeps working them, this is a group I want to see continue.

I did remove the fencing from around the hive. I don't know if that was wise since I smelled a skunk just yesterday evening but I will monitor it closely.

Still alive and kicking!

2010-02-05T16:35:00.000-08:00

Getting very nervous after reading about hive deaths on the Beesource.com forums, I decided to go out and take a peek at the hive. The thermometer read several tenths over 40 degrees F, so I decided I would at least lift the lid off and peek under the inner cover. I took the hive tool out. Though it was cloudy and a bit windy, the temperature was nonetheless the warmest we have had in weeks.
When I got to the hive, I noticed a couple new dead bees on the landing area. There had been a few bees on the way to the hive, on the fresh snow. I pulled back the fencing I had put around to discourage critters, removed the styrofoam and wood blocks from on top of the telescoping cover and lifted it. I was very surprised to see 50 to 70 bees crawling about on top of the inner cover! There was a small pool of water near the slotted opening of the inner cover. My guess is this is from water that has moved up through the hive, condensed in the cooler air on top of the inner cover and possible had been frozen in cooler temps. Bees were getting much needed liquid nourishment from this. Satisfied that I did not have a "dead" hive, I quickly closed things back up. I tried tipping the entire hive to try to determine weight but it wouldn't budge. I take this to mean it still has a lot of weight to it, which would be good news.
The temps are to plunge again mid-week next week, unfortunately. After that, I hope for warmer weather so I can again resume some feeding. I am feeling much better about things, especially since I read about a number of people losing their only hive. Keeping fingers crossed.

Intruders?

2010-01-25T06:40:00.000-08:00

I slogged out through the wet snow yesterday to check on the bees. I first looked at the number of bees around the hive and saw a few more than I had seen previously and also noted the distance some had flown, presumably on their cleansing flights. Bees don't like to poop in their own house so if it is warm enough (just above freezing for highs the past several days), they will fly out and relieve themselves. You can see the little brown spots easily in the snow. Some bees were perhaps 25 yards from the hive, dead in the snow. I saw one fly out of the hive, do a little circle and return safely. I listened with my ear to the side of the hive and heard a reassuring, solid hum from inside the hive.

It was then I noticed a chunk of styrofoam and some of the duct tape on the front left corner of the hive had been torn away.

For winterization, I wrapped the hive in 1 inch thick sheets of foam, secured with duct tape. Looking closer, I also noticed some of the bees seemed to have been eaten. Previously, I have almost always found whole, intact bees, but now I saw just some body parts. There also seemed to be some kind of debris in several spots near the entrance. Some critter has been trying to get in.
With the slight warming trend, temps just above freezing, some mammals have surely been out and about a bit. I looked for prints but only saw a number of deer tracks. It is possible a deer nibbled at the styrofoam to try it out, just as they strip bark and tender branches from our fruit trees. Other suspects would include skunks, which are known to raid hives and eat bees, oppossums, or raccoons, probably in that order. There could also be mice, though they would not have torn the styrofoam away like that.
At any rate, to discourage any further intrusions I brought back a roll of 6 foot fencing and encircled the hive. Hopefully that will do the trick.
Temps this week are to drop again, with more snow and lows at or near zero later in the week. We're getting a bit concerned about the bees with the length of the winter and the cold. February is when many hives start to have problems with food supply. I'm really hoping for one warm day to pop the lid and check things out or at least to tip the hive to check to see how heavy with honey it continues to be.

January deep freeze

2010-01-07T15:34:00.000-08:00

I go out regularly (about every other day) to check on the hive. We've had a lot of snow lately, and I've gone out to make sure the entry-ways are clear of snow. Each time I go out I find about 4 dead bees that have been pushed out onto the apron of the hive. This tells me the bees are still ok inside, regularly clearing out the dead bees. We have been experiencing some very cold January weather here in Iowa, with wind chills tomorrow morning in the minus 30 range (up to 15 below F actual temp). I have been following the bee listserv and there are some very interesting reports by some posters, including one who opened his hive to check the status even when the temps were in the single digits farenhiet. He is an an experienced beekeep and seems to know what he is doing but it seems to go against everything else I've read, most of which says to open a hive in those temps is a formula for disaster, but he seemed to take it in stride. Some posts are concerned even about the vibrations from nearby snowmobiles causing the hive cluster to break up, which would cause them to drop in temperature and suffer as a result. Others poo-poo those concerns, such as the person I described above. I know I certainly do not want to open the hive until spring, but am not concerned about my clearing away the bees on the hive entrance anyway.

December

2009-12-10T06:36:00.000-08:00

Well, it has been awhile since I've posted. I'm sitting here on the day after the season's first big snowstorm, 8 inches of heavy, wet snow following by 30-50 mph winds. I'm looking out towards the hive, which is a bit hard to see because I decided to wrap it with styrofoam for the winter, sealed with duct tape. I have the outer cover pushed forward and the inner cover notched to allow them access from the top of the hive, but I want to go out later and make sure drifts aren't covering the bottom board access. I'll wait until it warms up a bit, though with a high of about 7 degrees today the high won't do a whole lot.
We made it through the season with no stings! Kathy talked with Glen, a long-time beekeeper who taught where she did and he said that is a bit unusual. I think, though, that for the most part we tried to be calm, cautious and careful, not rushing things. I was probably the more cautious. We actually did get attacked the last time we opened to exchange feeding cans. We gave them about 3 coffee cans full of sugar water. A mass of bees was clinging to the bottom of the empty can and Kathy decided to brush them off. They didn't care for that too much and we were stung several times but none penetrated the gloves or clothing. It was late October, fairly cool and I knew they are more temperamental this time of year.
I debated about the feeding. With the price of sugar, it hardly seems cost effective, especially given that we had no honey this year. The hive bodies are very heavy, or were the last time I actually picked one up. The upper of the 3 was very heavy, full of sealed honey. After reading the forum at Beesource.com and checking through the several books we have, I was even more confused since some recommended no feeding to others saying they definitely feed the bees. So we gave them some. I just want to make sure they get through the winter ok. I will feed in the spring as well. Once they are fully into their second year, unless there is a very poor honey production, I probably will not feed as much.
I did modify the bottom board on both hives (only one active now, though, remember) so that I have a #10 screen (from Dadant) and space underneath the screen, with access at the back of the hive, to monitor for mites. After treatment, I did have a fairly large mite count, probably 1-3 per square inch. We used the apistan strips, which were a real pain to remove. We had a nice, warm October day but the strips were really stuck in propolis. I am going to examine alternative mite treatments for the future; also, not real keen on extensive use of chemicals.
So, aside from just monitoring things like keeping snowdrifts away and doing research, there isn't a lot to do now. I do follow fairly regularly the posts at Beesource and also now subscribe to the BEE-L listerv. You can follow that at this web site, which includes information on subscribing:(http://community.lsoft.com/SCRIPTS/WA-LSOFTDONATIONS.EXE?A0=bee-l).
I find the beesource a mixture of beginner information as well as technical information, personal experience, humor, etc., while the latter seems to be much more technical in nature and deals in much more depth on disease and information valuable to commercial beekeeping operations. You still find an occasional newbie post, however.
This spring, I plan to split the hive. After deliberation, although I plan to research this more this winter, I think I will order a new queen instead of risking having the bees make their own. I know the latter is a more natural method, but I think that is the way I will proceed. Until I learn more, I think that is a safer way for us to go.
We have regularly walked out and checked on the bees. Even just a couple weeks ago, Kathy observed some of our bees on very late broccili blossoms in the garden. We never did have a full killing frost until this last storm, so there were still a few flowering things around. If the temps got into the upper 50's or 60's, there were always some bees flying around near the hive. They do like to get out if they possibly can.
I'll continue this in the spring, and try to stay warm in the meantime.

Friday September 4

2009-09-04T05:36:00.000-07:00

Well, a lot of time has passed since our last entry. I'll summarize here a bit about what has gone on with the bees as the summer went by.
Overall, the bees have seemed to flourish. Weather has been very cool, a record in fact for the month of July. Rain continued throughout the summer, which the bees didn't particularly care for. Since it was cool and pretty damp, we tried to interfere with the bees' activities as little as possible. We did open the hive to check for progress, mostly to see if they were filling out frames and if they needed to be given more space as they continued to grow in population. We did place the third hive body and followed that up with the queen excluder and one super.
Bees had a haydey with the white clover. In late summer, we noticed them in large numbers around the cup plants. Even today, they continue to move in and out of the hive in large numbers.
As late August brought the first real spells of warmer, humid air, we found the bees congregating in large numbers around the opening of the hive. A check of the super found plenty of room. They eventually began to create comb. One thing that impressed me was the change in weight of the hive bodies, particularly the top of the three. It is chock full of capped honey and really quite heavy.
I built a new bottom which had a screen with a pull-out board in the back so we could check for mites. Unfortunately, I made it from screen that was too fine. I will ultimately replace it with the correct size 8 screen we purchased from Dadant. At first we could find no evidence of mites and I assumed it was due to the size of the screen. Last week, though, I pulled the board out from under the screen and did find several dozen mites on the board. We looked at one under the microscope. Definitely a varroa mite, with the legs on one side. We placed the strips in the hive and hopefully will get a warm day mid-October to pull them out.
We will have no honey from the hive this year. We have decided to add a second hive next season but will need to decide if we want to try to split this hive or order a second box of bees. We have the winter to decide.

Busy Bees

2009-05-31T16:54:00.000-07:00

The bees are very busy with warm, mild weather. Last week we opened the hive and moved an empty frame into the center of both hive bodies. The activity at the entrance to the hive would suggest their numbers have really increased. We will look at them again mid-week and see if we need to add the third hive body. We're using 3 since we are using mediumsized (6 6/8 inches) hive bodies rather than deeps. We may just have to rotate another frame in the middle. If it looks like there are 8 or more frames with comb, we will definitely add the third body. We also rotated the entrance opening to allow a bigger opening. It might have been a little premature since it dropped into the low 50's last night but I think that will not happen often.

Fruit trees are past bloom. White clover is becoming very abundant. So far, we have seen few bees on our clover. We really wonder where they are going when they pour out of the hive 5 or 6 at a time, flying off.

Nice days

2009-05-20T18:01:00.000-07:00

Eighty degree days, mid 50's nights. Bees are loving this. Today they were really active, ganging up at the entrance. I am tempted to open that up a bit more, even though it still gets a bit cool at night. Maybe next week.
Jessica sent a cool link about bees. Here it is:
http://www.news-gazette.com/special/soundslides/pollin.cfm
Kids getting an education about bees. Cool place. I'd like to visit that myself.

Swarm cell inspection

2009-05-18T05:41:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday, we had our bee class. We talked about swarming, how to recognize the types of swarm cells and what to do about them. Then we went out to the field and examined several hives. Since it was so cold, in the mid-50's, Bob showed us a method of examining them that did not require pulling frames out, thus exposing the bees and larvae to the cool air. He tilted the hive bodies, looking first at the top of the frames to see how many are filled with bees and then doing the same from the bottom. Also on the bottom, we could see if there were any swarm cells drooping down. He showed how to destroy the cells, which were empty, by just using the hive tool to slice them off. We also discussed this particular variety of bee which we all purchased and their tendency to draw comb out in some irregular manners, with a lot of burr comb.

We got home rather late since we had a graduation party to attend, so decided to check our bees on Sunday. It was warmer and less windy, much more conducive to doing this. We only found one bona fide swarm cell though there was additional comb drawn out on the bottoms of frames and between some frames. The bees seemed to be getting a little restless, so we added the rest of our antibiotic for American foul brood disease prevention and closed the hive. On a warm day later in the week, we will open and clean up some frames a bit better. It doesn't look like we will need to add a new hive body yet but probably soon, since the new bees should begin to hatch out this week.

Queen inspection

2009-05-12T18:17:00.000-07:00

Today we needed to go back in and complete what we started unsuccessfully last week. We were unable then to find the queen, so we gave it a week and looked again today. It was warm but windy. I'll have to remember to try to do this with less wind.

We first took a look at the bottom hive body. We found a lot of honey, open and capped, as well as some larvae. Some of the larvae appeared to be capped, which it should be at this point. We did not find the queen in the lower box, so moved to the upper again, which we examined last week. Much more comb had been built up. On the next to the last frame, we found the queen. She was very easy to spot. In the video, she is in the lower left corner of the frame, difficult to see on the film. We carefully put that frame back in and closed the hive. We never did see any eggs, though we could have been more thorough in our examination. Clearly, there was larva present and things looked fine, at least to our untrained eyes. We have class again this weekend and will need to add the rest of the chemical for AFB.

Bees have been very busy and active. There are many dandelions about and the fruit trees still have blossoms, though not as many as a week ago. Other flowers and bushes are beginning to bloom, though. The blueberries are just starting to blossom, and the grapes will be in full bloom in the next couple weeks. We're getting rain tonight and the coming week appears wet, which is great for the flowers but not so much for the bees. We are still feeding the sugar water, however, for those cooler, damp days.

First Inspection

2009-05-09T05:53:00.001-07:00

It was sunny and warm, about 75 degrees with little wind. We dressed up, fired up the smoker and went out to do our first inspection of the hive other than checking the feeding can. Our goal was to see if the bees were building up comb and to see if we could locate the queen. I had wanted to take pictures but we felt we needed to concentrate on the task this first time. I will get photos next time.
Although a number of bees were flying in and out of the hive, it was interesting how many were in the frames and on top of the frames in the top box. There were some up in the box housing the feeding can but only a dozen or so. Once we smoked, then removed, the inner cover, we saw hundreds of bees in the frames and many on top of them. I removed the frame farthest back, which had no bees or comb built up on it. We moved a couple frames over, then pulled a frame out to inspect. The whiteness of the new comb they had built up was surprising. It looked clean and fresh. Our previous experience had been older frames we passed around during the class session, which were dark in color and obviously older. In many of the cells we found yellow substance which we assumed was pollen. There were hundreds of bees on the frame and they simply proceeded on with their work, pretty much ignoring us. I don't think any bees even landed on us the whole time we did the inspection.
We examined several frames similarly. They were heavier than I had imagined and I found it a little difficult to hold them. I need to work out a method for keeping the hive tool handy while having both hands available to handle the frames.
We did not see any eggs or clearly identified larvae. The queen was also not obvious. We did not inspect any in the lower box, however, and most likely that is where we would probably find eggs and larvae. We didn't want to push the bees any further or press our luck, and since they clearly were busy building up on the foundation and appeared healthy and active, we decided to close the hive and wait for a day next week to examine the first hive box. One step at a time.
We also will need to apply the second application of the tetracycline for control of American foul brood at that time.

Feeder check

2009-05-06T05:34:00.000-07:00

It was time to check the feeding can yesterday and it was a good thing I didn't postpone that. We used a metal full-sized coffee can and it was down to about an inch remaining. It was full when we installed the bees less than a week and a half ago. We only had enough remaining sugar to refill half of the can so we will need to check it again next week. There were probably a dozen bees in the upper part around the feeder. It was a warm day so bees were busily coming and going. I didn't take smoke and didn't really need it since they paid me little attention. It is to be warm and not too rainy the next several days so they should remain pretty active. I'm getting anxious to get in and make a check of the frames. We may try that Friday.

Nice days

2009-05-03T18:46:00.000-07:00

We have been in a short spell of some terrific weather and the bees seem to be loving it. Dandelions are in full bloom and the bees are taking advantage.

This video was shot late afternoon, when activity for the day was winding down, at least outside the hive. Located next to some pine trees, the hive gets late afternoon shade. You can see some bees moving around the small entrance hole in the front. Sometime later in the week we will open the hive and check to see how things are going and try to find the queen. As busy as the bees have been, we think there are certainly some things happening in the hive.

Dandelions are not the only things popping around here. Grant has developed quite a keen eye for finding morels, which were late this spring but have been popping in some pretty big numbers the last couple days.

Free at last, free at last

2009-04-29T16:45:00.000-07:00

We went out right after breakfast to do a check to see if the queen had been freed from her cage. It was cool and damp with the forecast to only become wetter the next couple days, so we decided we would do this as quickly as possible. We didn't take smoke, since I figured the coolness would subdue them enough. The plan was simple--take off the lid, remove the feeding can, take off the box surrounding the feeding can and set that on the ground. Take off the top of the two hive bodies, with inner lid in place and set it on the empty box on the ground. Then lift up the bottom hive body from the base to have access at the queen cage. This would interfere much less than removing frames. We figured when we saw the cage it would either be covered with bees and we would have to try to remove the candy ourselves and free her or it would be empty.
Success--it was empty. We didn't risk bothering them any more with the cold to try to locate the queen--save that for a warm day a week or two from now. Otherwise, things looked good, and even with the cool weather a steady stream of bees was flying in and out, so they look like busy little bees. Which reminds me of an ad my mom saw on The Weather Channel about Billy Bee honey. I check out the Billy Bee web site, which is a Canadian company making honey. Funny little jingo, and watch what happens to your cursor when you go to their page. Cute. Check out the video ads. http://www.billybee.com/en/index.html

Waiting and watching

2009-04-28T14:51:00.000-07:00

Not much going on as the bees are just taking some time to get used to their new digs. I think they like it ok. The weather has been cool and rainy at times, but when it warms up a bit they are enjoying getting out and the entrance to the hive is a busy, buzzing place. We're giving them several days before we interrupt them again. The next thing that needs to be done is verify the queen has chewed through the marshmallow door to her cage and is being well tended by the nurse bees in the colony. We will need to remove the cage, jsut check that all is well and let them alone again. We will probably do this on Friday.

Installation Installment

2009-04-26T07:23:00.000-07:00

The weather for our bee installation was not quite ideal, or maybe it was. Cool and misty, with intermittent periods of light rain. We arrived at Indian Creek Nature center around noon. We met in one of the smaller buildings there. We were dressed in our white outfits--pants with long-sleeved, over-sized white t-shirts, and carried our gloves and hats with veils. There was a big stack of bee boxes in one corner of the room, giving off an easily discernible hum. At least a dozen bees were flying freely around the small room. Better get used to that, I thought. Bob, our teacher, went through some of the diseases bees experience, describing symptoms and suggesting treatments. He said we would need to get a small packet of medication before we left with our bees. This was to be applied in two parts, right after installation and the other half in 3 weeks. It was treatment for prevention of American foul brood, a nasty terminal disease that is easily recognizable by the odor produced as the larva die, hence the name.

We then went out to their hives. He pulled one apart to demonstrate queen recognition and to examine a healthy hive, with capped honey cells, eggs and capped larva. He smoked the bees prior to opening the hive, and they were very well behaved, though we right away had to get used to bees crawling on us, just being curious I hoped, and crapping. They crap a lot, leaving little brown smears all over the nice, clean white outfits.

After spending awhile examining the hive, he demonstrated the installation. The bees come in a rectangular box, about 18x8x8 inches, with screen on the two long sides. On the top is cut a hole about the size of an 28 oz. vegetable can, with a slit cut in the wood about two inches long going toward one end of the box. Sticking through this slit is a metal tab, attached to the queen cage which is inside the larger box. The can holds the sugar water that has been feeding the bees while it was shipped. Here the tab holding the queen box is being unfolded so you can grab onto it, remove the feeding can, slide the tab to the opening so you can pull the queen box out, then quickly replace the can so the bees do not fly out. The queen will need to remain in this little box, even in the hive, for a couple more days so the bees get used to her and accept her. In one end of her little cage is a hole with a cork. You need to remove the cork, place your finger quickly over the hole, take a marshmallow, then stuff the candy into the hole. This will be eaten through in a couple days, freeing the queen if all goes well. Then, the queen box is placed in the bottom of the hive, after removing about 5 frames, in a back corner away from the opening to the hive. At this point, you take the bee box, smack it down firmly to knock the bees down, remove the feeding can, and dump the bees into the hive. Now, all instructions say to spray the bees down with a sugar water solution before this step. Our instructors did not do that, since it was so cool and damp which really slows the bees down. More on this later.

After dumping the bees into the hive, they spread them out on the bottom, making sure a number were around the queen cage, and then replaced the frames and closed up the hive. They did this demonstration with four more hives. We felt pretty confident about things at this point, went back to the small building where the bees were kept, got our box of bees, chemical and marshmallows, and headed home.

Of course, it didn't go quite as planned. We decided to go right ahead and install them as soon as we were home. We suited up again, got a screw to remove the cork in the queen cage and headed out to the hive with our bees. It was still cool and misting. The queen cage part went flawlessly. We were worried about this since one queen temporarily got out while making the cork--marshmallow exchange but Bob was quick and grabbed her bare-handed and got her back in her cage. So we were ready to dump the bees in. I gave them a smart smack down to knock them down, Kathy pulled out the can and I began to dump them. However, unlike the demonstrations, ours did not just fall down into the hive. Many took flight, buzzing angrily as we tried to shake them out of the box. We didn't hear those sounds at Indian Creek, though there were about 20 people around and many bees flying. Needless to say, we got a bit frantic. We decided to quicly close the hive up, let them settle down and try to finish in awhile.

After about an hour, we went back out, this time with the smoker, and tried to get more bees in the hive. There were still about 1/3 of them in the box. No luck--they were still very aggressive. I got one up inside my veil, sounding very pissed. We retreated again. I called Bob. He said smoke will not work since there was no honey in the hive. Just let them chill down some more, then try again. We did but took the sugar water with us this time. We sprayed them down, which immediately made them manageable, and got almost all of them in the hive. We put in a fresh feeding can and closed it up. Success.

The difference between our experience and that of the ones at Indian Creek were that those had been kept outdoors in Bob's truck and were already quite cool and damp and much more easy to handle. Ours had been kept warm and dry in the building and in our car on the way home. Had we used the spray to begin with, I know we would have had much more luck getting them in and keeping our spirits high. Chalk it off to a lesson learned.

The "bee" girl

Hive location April 23, 2009

2009-04-23T13:41:00.001-07:00

Ok, here is a picture of our site for the hive. It gets a.m. sunlight and afternoon shade. Good drainage. We'll need to keep the weeds down. You can see it is tilted slightly forward, which keeps water from running into the hive. The bees will enter/exit from a small opening near the bottom, which I have blocked off now to keep unwelcome guests out. Things are beginning to bloom here in eastern Iowa, so hopefully the bees will find this a good locale.

We may try to get some video of the installation this Saturday--stay tuned.

The Beginnings April 22, 2009

2009-04-22T20:16:00.000-07:00

Hi. Jessica decided that since we are taking up beekeeping, we should keep a log about the experience. Probably not a bad idea. So, here goes.
Where are we now? Bees will arrive ready to be "installed" in 3 days. Hives are built and ready to go. We need to make the sugar water to feed them after they are put in the hive. They need this since they have no honey reserve yet and there are not many flowers around at this time, since it is a late spring. The sugar water is also used to spray on the bees as we install them into the hive. This helps keep them from flying.
The hive is in place (picture hopefully to come tomorrow). I'll try to take some pics of the installation process, too. Not sure about all this--we'll see what happens.