Raising a Queen in the Snow!

Overwintered Nucs in Snow
A Single and a Double Overwintered Nuc in snow

Beekeeping in Richmond, Virginia continues to be an adventure full of surprises. Last week, we  rose into the lower 60’s – the weekend comes and we get 3 inches of snow! Ha! Although the snow was fun (I really didn’t think we had a chance of snow at this point, its been so warm), it was interesting to see that not a single hive or nuc had chill brood. They must be doing something right!

To add to the craziness, 3 days later it rose into the 70’s!! This was a real boon, as it afforded me the opportunity to open up a bunch of  hives to see what was going on.

I started off at the Westover hives. I am constantly interested in the hive that was knocked over in Hurricane Irene last year. I found it, about noon on Sunday after the full brunch of the hurricane had hit us on Saturday. The bottom board (screened) was laying across the yard. The bottom hive body was literally on its side and the top hive body (and one honey super) were laying flat on the ground nearby. Bees were thick in the lower hive body (where I figured the queen must be) and had been able to escape robbing because of all of the leaves and tree limbs that sheltered them. I put them back together, leveled the hive and let ’em roll, not sure what would happen. After checking today, it didn’t set them back a bit.

Supercedure Cell
Honey Bees Dealing with a Failing Queen

Most hives averaged around 5.5 frames of brood. Nearly all patterns ranked from 8 to 10, with one 2 (this one looked like a failing queen) and one 5. I found one hive with 9 frames of brood – they will be the parent to my first Nucs next wekeend, if things hold out. Honey stores were great in all of the hives (I checked 9 full hives) but one. I did find a hive that was laying brood in the upper Medium, although the bottom Deep was full of honey (except for an empty area about the size of a baseball (maybe bigger) where they had laid brood at one time or another. Most folks would reverse this hive, but I purposefully let them alone just to see. I have my doubts about ‘reversing’, based on some readings of Brother Adam, so I thought I would run my first primitive experiment.

I also found where a couple of hives were drawing was and/or storing some nectar in the brood nest. For some, the latter is a sign of swarm prep. I marked those hives for another check this weekend (and probably next weekend.) I was surprised to see the wax draw – it was more then just a little. I do not recall how warm it has to be to draw wax, but I definitely didn’t think it had gotten that warm. I am clearly wrong, so probably need to read up on those stats again.

All in all, a good inspection day. For the most part, it was ‘good’ because I am no longer wondering what’s going on in those hives. But, that is a perfect opportunity for me to get on my soap box and espouse about my thoughts on early inspections!!! Depending on their goals, beekeepers have different reasons for going into the hives at this time of year. Most beekeepers (the newer ones) should have the simple goal of ‘what’s going on in there’ as a learning experience. As a basic ‘to do’ list, you go in to check the brood pattern, find drones, check honey stores (probably most important) and look for any signs of problems. I typically dissuade any of the 2nd year beekeepers that I mentor from going into the hives too early, as I would hate for them to accidentally kill their queen when no drones were about. I found one hive with so many drones this past week that I am confident that killing a queen right now is no longer a death sentence.

Royal Jelly in Queen Cell
Royal Jelly in Queen Cell

Case in point, one thing that everyone should be doing right now is checking brood pattern. It is particularly hard to do as a new beekeeper with one hive. But, you need to do it. ‘Pattern’ typically refers to two things. 1 (and both easy to assess and least important), how much of the frame does it take up. 2, how ‘spotty’ is the pattern. This one is more difficult, but very important. A queen should start laying in the center of a frame and work outwards, in a concentric circle. In the end, every single cell should receive an egg (until she stops building the circle – which might be small or large – not a sign of queen health, but a sign of how many nurse bees are about.) When they cap the eggs, you have a smooth, flawless circle of capped brood. Sometimes, the bees notice something wrong with a capped pupae and extract it, expelling it from the hive (many yards away.) This creates a small  hole in the ‘brood pattern’. For me, a few holes is fine – I view it as good genes – they found pupae with varroa and removed the pupae, preventing or reducing the varroa cycle. But, if you find a lot of holes, it can mean that the queen is laying dud eggs. It’s definitely a problem, as these are all potential population for your hive and it probably means the queen was either poorly mated or is failing.

As it so happens, the very last hive that I inspected the other day had a very poor brood pattern and not nearly the amount of frames of brood that I consider healthy right now. I was debating on whether to kill my queen when I discovered that the bees were taking care of it! Right there on the comb was a queen cell! It hadn’t been capped yet, so I was actually able to see the mass of royal jelly they had put around the larva (hard to see in the pic)! Although I don’t mind killing a queen, I much prefer the natural process (my number one hive – 9 frames of brood and enough drones on the comb to fill  up a nuc!) came from a queen raised by the bees in March last year. I believe in the process, so I was glad to see the bees taking action. The wild thing is that this was my meanest (most defensive) hive last year – I went in to kill queen multiple times in July/August, but could never find her. But, these bees were by far the most gentle bees that I opened on this day. Hard to say why this was (the old queen was still there). Maybe the prospect of a new queen had everyone in a good mood=)

In conclusion, the bees are really ahead of schedule this year, as everyone thought they’d be. I still plan to start a few Nucs next weekend, so more on that later.

Time and Weather Wait for No Man

Ideally, your typical beekeeper tries to manage his hives at or above 50 degrees F. Once you drop below 50, the bees are forming into a cluster (once she hits the mid-30’s, the full cluster is tightly formed). Opening a hive at that point can disrupt the cluster and expose your brood to low temperatures (killing it.) This is all well and good for the fellow who can look into his hives on any day that is suitable, but I am not in that boat.

Today, we do not expect the weather to get above 38 to the east of Richmond, Virginia. I work during the week and will be heading to Florida on a small vacation next weekend. Basically, Saturday (yesterday) was my last chance to look into the hives for at least 10 days or so. But, the temperatures were not expected to go above 49 degrees…

Well, temperatures be damned. I had things to do (as in hives that might be going into swarm mode!) and we’ll see if it has any long lasting negative consequences. For the most part, I tried to make my inspections quick, but some took longer then hoped. My primary goal for yesterday was to inspect the new Mosely Hive (Mandy, the lady whose property it is on, indicated that they were looking very active – as if they might be prepping to swarm), the Geronimo Hive and the Curly Hive for possible swarm activity. Finally, I wanted to look in on the weak/failing queen hive (I had decided that I would collect brood/eggs from one of my strong inspections to put in with the weak hive that had the siamese twins queen cells).

I found one queen cell in Geronimo – in the supercedure position. One queen cell in the middle of a frame does not a swarm cell make, especially at this time of the year. Although I never laid eyes on the queen, I did find eggs (standing straight up, which means (to me) that she was in action in the last 18 hours). Being greedy, I stole the frame with the swarm cell on it. Here was the only problem of the day – I could not find the queen in this box. She did not appear to be on the frame that I took, but I cannot guarantee it. The problem was the temperatures and the wind. Geronimo pretty much sits on a hill that overlooks Downtown Richmond and countryside to its southeast of the city, literally. It was really gusty and I knew that I was putting a lot of brood at risk messing around looking for the queen. I found several frames of eggs and decided that was enough. If I accidentally took the queen, the old weak hive would benefit from it and Geronimo would do just fine building a new queen.

Looking at the rest of the hives, I found no further evidence of swarm behavior (except a lot of Queen Cups in Curly). Finding the queens in both of these hives, I took a frame of brood, eggs and nurse bees with confidence (from both.) So, off to my weak hive to fortify it. Per the previous post, this (as yet unnamed) hive had a baseball-sized brood nest in early March, which only dwindled as the weeks went on. This is apparently the sign of a failing queen. Fortunately, I found two queen cells last weekend. Regardless, to be safe, I was bringing them 3 frames of brood, two with eggs and one with a queen cell on it.

I opened up the weak hive to find enough bees to cover 4 frames in the top and bottom supers – but only a handful of brood cells. I did pull the frame (carefully) with the Siamese queen cells and noted that both had been opened. 3 seconds later, on the same frame, I spotted the young princess! She was definitely not as big as most of my mature queens (but, it is highly unlikely that she had mated yet, which will make her abdomen bigger), but there she was – hopping about the frame, raising and lowering her abdomen (I think this was mainly to warm herself up.) This was encouraging, to be sure. I decided to give them one frame of brood with nurse bees (not the frame that might have the Geronimo queen) and take the remainder back to my house to start a ‘walk-away’ Nuc.

It will be interesting to see how this Nuc fares. Under ordinary circumstances (is there such a thing in Beekeeping?!), I would not try to start a Nuc on a day that is cool to begin with (probably at 45 degrees F when I finally put it together in my Nuc yard) which is going to be followed up by a day that will not get above 35 or so with rain/sleet to boot! It seems to me that the bees (from 3 different hives) are not going to get much time to organize themselves. The good thing is that we only have 36 hours of this mess, so hopefully there will be minimal casualties before they are able to take inventory and move on as a single hive.

As to the queen cell in the Nuc, I am ambivalent about it for the most part. In truth, I would sort of like them to be queenless for about 8 days, when I can drop a frame of eggs from a really good hive into them and let them start some queen cells for me. But, we’ll see how it goes.

Rebellion Supressed…I think

The weather in Varina has been outstanding this Fall, with cool weather and occasional rain. The buckwheat that I planted in August has really shot up and is blooming right now. The other good thing about the cool weather is that I can put on the bee armor this week, without any discomfort. After the attack last weekend, I am definitely going in with some cover and smoke this time.

I started with taking a look at Hive 2, to see how the rebellion to overthrow the queen was coming along. Although I never found my queen, I did locate three queen cells. Two were in the center of frames, indicating supercedure, but one appeared to be on the bottom of the frame as well, making me wonder what was going on. A bottom cell is ‘supposed’ to mean that a swarm is forming, but this hive is barely working 8 frames. They have not touched either of the far frames on one side and have only partially covered the last two frames on the other side. It’s like they do not like that other side. Regardless, they definitely do not have enough honey to make it through the Winter. I will be feeding these monkeys all year long, assuming they live.

Or Did She Already Emerge?

It was about 12 days ago that I noticed the original queen cell. As I really have no idea what I am doing, I suppose there is a distinct chance that she was in egg form at 2 or 3 days of age at that time. This would mean that she might have emerged over the last couple of days and killed my main queen (I never saw the main queen during this inpsection.) Even seeing eggs in the cells would not tell me much.

The key will be my next inspection, when I absolutely need to find the Queen. I cannot say that I will be able to act on this knowledge, as it is so late in the year, but at least I will know. If my queen has been killed, the next question will be if the new queen successfully mated or not. The key will be in finding eggs next weekend, assuming that I cannot find the queen. I can say one thing for sure, I will be bringing the following equipment to make sure that I am ready for a thorough inspection.

  1. Make sure the sun is available to shine into the frames, so I can see eggs
  2. Wear a glove on my right hand, so I can use my tool to examine the frames without worrying about dropping them, and without worrying about the pain to my hand when I hold the thing
  3. Bring a camera to take some pictures

Hive 1

I did not really do a thorough investigation, but a brief look into the honey super indicated that not much was going on. I am not even sure if they have drawn out the comb yet. I guess they would have had to do some major work to actually draw out that comb in a week, but I was curious. I am now thinking that my best case scenario will simply be for them to draw out the comb (sans honey), which will save them some time next year when they go into Honey Storage work in the Spring.

Next week, I will continue the thorough check of Hive 2 and probably leave Hive 1 alone until the following week.