Month: June 2009

Week 3 : Training Flight!

Well, it’s a learning experience for sure. Today, a bit before 3 pm, on a mostly Sunny day in the low 80’s, I decided to cut my grass. As I neared Hive 1, I suddenly noticed a ton of bees buzzing all over the thing! I cut the mower and got off to take a closer look (maybe the mower had upset them.)  As I neared the hive, I was amazed at the number of bees buzzing around this thing!

To put it into perspective, I am used to seeing two to three bees coming and going from this hive every 5 seconds or so. Right now, there were probably a hundred bees buzzing all over the thing. I could see a bunch coming and going, but most seemed to be simply buzzing around the front of the hive, occasionally hitting the landing board and some even crawling around on the front of hive itself!

Needless to say, I thought we had problems. Looking at Hive 2, I could see a small number moving back and forth (maybe 1 bee every 5 seconds, which is par for the course here as this hive continues to show less progress from outside observations then Hive 1.) At first, I tried to call the fella that sold me the bees, but he was not in. I even  considered posting on the bee forums (http://www.beesource.com/forums/), but was not really sure that my description would give them enough to go on.

So, back to the hive I went, watching from a few feet away, to see what I could see. Robbing was one of my main concerns, but I could see no fighting at all. Occasionally, one bee would seemingly feel out another bee, but I really think this was typical inappropriate feeling by the bees (maybe transferring pollen or even nectar.) Mostly, bees were just coming, going and flying all around the front. As far as I can tell, they were all workers. I did notice that some appeared smaller then what I was used to seeing (or so I thought).

Unfortunately, I had a dog issue today and had to go to the emergency vet at 3:30, so I was unable to readdress the issue until around 6 PM. When I returned to the hive, everything was normal again. We were back to 2 to 4 bees coming and going every 5 seconds or so and no sign of my original issue. Regardless, it was time for the weekly check-up.

Hive 1
Still working primarily on 4 frames. The two frames outside of the 4 central frames were starting to get drawn out with some honey and pollen. I did not see the queen, but only went about 5 frames into the hive before I decided to stop. I found lots of brood and more bees coming.

Hive 2
These guys are working on 5 frames now. It’s hard to figure what to make of this, but these guys look stronger from the inside.  Again, lots of brood and more bees coming.

Conclusion: After looking in the hive and reading some posts on www.beesource.com/forums/, I am pretty sure that I have now witnessed my first training flight! It appears that bees, early on in their lives (before they take the role of forager) go out for a training flight on nice days between 3 and 5 (I think mine started around 2:15 to 2:30 this day.) I am confident that this is what I was seeing. These bees were taking one of their first orientation flights, and thus all of the hubub (and maybe I really did see smaller bees!)

All in all, learning about ‘Training Flights’ was a very good thing. I look forward to seeing more of them in the future. I may give them two weeks to get going this time, before my next check. I  hope to have both of my next Deep’s  built by then, so that we can look at adding some more room for the little gals.

Rain, Rain, Rain

We had a huge rain (3.5 inches in one hour) two nights ago and it has rained off and on since then. Yesterday, I noticed a few dead bees on the bottom board in Hive 2 and today I noticed a few more in Hive 1.

The most disturbing thing was the brood that I found out on the bottom board – partially formed brood. These had clearly died during their incubation. I am guessing this is due to the rain and hope this is only a minor setback.

Nervous Nelly

Wow. I would have never thought that those little bees would make me so nervous. Now I can see why they recommend that new beekeepers open the hive every week for a month, to get used to it!

I took another peek at my bees this past Sunday, around 6 PM or so. It was a nice day (perhaps in the 80’s) with a slight breeze. The sun was shining, although we (the Bees and I!) were in the shade at this time of the day (which is why I chose it.) The goal today was to locate the queens.

On Hive 1, which I had opened a lot last week, I immediately saw the queen through the top board. She was crawling around on one of the middle frames and then took a move to the inside. I decided not to bother these bees anymore (although, in retrospect, I think they were bothering me, which is the real reason I decided not to go further!) Regardless, since I had opened them last weekend and moved them about, I decided that this weekend’s goal was done.

On Hive 2, which I only glanced at last week (without removing any frames), I took her apart. Once, the bees appeared to be a bit agitated (they were eyeballing me from the top of one of the frames), so I hit them with my new smoker (which I lit for this examination.) They made a huge buzzing racket and then retreated back into the hive.

This gave me the time to begin taking the frames out. These bees were still mainly on the four frames that I had purchased. The outermost frame contained capped honey, nectar and pollen. The second one that I looked at had a TON of capped brood in it, but still no queen. Finally, on the next frame, I found the little beeotch. Of course, she immediately started crawling around on all of the most dangerous spots (where I could roll her when I put the frame back). There was a lot of capped brood here too, so all was good. I put the hive back together and we were done.

Mission accomplished in Week 2, although I need to give these hives a much better look next week. I want to know exactly what is on each and every frame so that I can start tracking it a bit better.