Author: Jones Tyler

An avid gardener and outdoorsman, I started beekeeping in 2009, give or take, and began using this journal as a way to document my trials and tribulations. Over the years, it has become a part of my hobby, recording events here.

No Brood! The Queen Isn’t Laying!

With the warm weather in Richmond, Va. this past weekend (it was 69 when I checked on the hive called Westover), I went around to pull some of the last remaining extra supers that I had on hives. I also took a peak at any hives that didn’t feel heavy. My goal was to simply go down to the brood nest and pull one or two frames in the center of the hives to check on the brood nest. To be honest, I had just gotten through doing a lot of reading on American Foulbrood (AFB)… For those who have not delved into it much, this disease has one really nasty effect – you can actually lose an entire apiary if it takes hold of just one hive.

Effectively, the spores spread into the honey. So, when the hive finally weakens to the point where it is robbed, the other bees in your yard take the tainted honey back to their hives and the infection starts all over again. To be fair, the State Apiarist has told me multiple times this year that AFB has been almost non-existent in Virginia this year. But, all I had to do was read up on it during a quiet moment one weekend and it’s been bugging me ever since (is that hive just light or is it really suffering from AFB? Will I end up losing the whole apiary if I don’t check now?!) At any rate, I went into a few hives for the last time (I have said this so many times that I’m probably the only one that really believes it at this point) until January.

The very first hive that I went into had next to no brood. Here we go, I figured. I found the queen and she looked great. The honey stores were fine and the colony was strong in numbers. No signs of deformed wings or anything weird. Basically, except for the lack of brood, everything looked great. At this point, I was actually irritated (what the heck?! these guys were fine 3 or 4 weeks ago! tons of brood! now, she just decides to fail on me?!) On to the next apiary with a weak hive, still cogitating on what I should do about this hive. New apiary, new hive – again, no brood!!!! Now I am starting to freak out. Then, I remember (I am getting old…hell, I am old) that it’s late November! We’ve had a couple of nights below freezing…the day length is shortening quickly…EQUALS the queen stops laying!

Heh. The weather was so warm that I really had pushed it from my mind that we were well into the Bee’s Winter. But, to squash any possible nagging doubts in the days/weeks ahead, I broke down all of the hives in that apiary (5 in total). Every one the same – always no eggs (well, if they were there, I missed them) along with either no capped brood or just a handful. My queens are taking their well-deserved vacation! They won’t start up again until the days start getting longer again, probably in January.

The real key to this is that I now realize that I do not think that I have ever been into the brood nest of one of my hives in late November, so I have never seen this before. Of course, I could be crying the blues come Jan/Feb if all of these hives do have a serious problem, but I am pretty comfortable that everything is good to go. Regardless, this little surprise has me determined to go into a brood nest in January. I sort of went into one last January, when I was trying to save the Albo hive (which did survive, but I whacked the queen in April) and slid the frames to the middle of the hive, pulling one of the outside frames before I did so. I look forward to seeing what they are doing.

IMPORTANT: I do NOT recommend that anyone reading this blog actually break open the brood nest at any time after October 15 and before March 1, especially not in January or February. When I do it, it will be on a strong hive that I can stand to lose if something goes wrong. But, I am confident (or is that foolish) that I can do it if I get a day in the 50’s (we always do) in Jan.

Oct Swarm Has a Queen!

As posted back on the 19th, I actually picked up a swarm of bees this month in Richmond, Virginia! October? Well, I’ve been through that before. A swarm caught in August requires work to get through our Winters. One caught in September requires a lot of work and you are still at high risk. I would have to say that the chance that an October swarm will make it is next to zilch. Fortunately for me, I love a challenge.

Once I got the swarm back to my house, I put 5 frames of drawn wax with 5 frames of foundation in a Deep and placed a top feeder on them. Most will ask ‘why didn’t you put them in a Nuc?!’ It’s a valid question. The main reason I put them into the Deep was because of their need for feed. I know you can feed a Nuc, but I have found that my Beemax top feeders (for full-sized hives only – they have something similar for Nucs, but I do not own any) are the absolute best mechanism for me to get syrup into hives. It was Oct 19! I had no time to mess with an entrance feeder (plus, I was worried about robbing). So, I gave them drawn wax to immediately start laying in and foundation (in case they were a swarm and were ready to build wax, like Spring swarms do.) I dropped the feeder on them and began feeding them.

At the last moment, I dropped another deep frame that I had which was mostly honey but had been ravaged by SHB back in July. I had frozen the frame for 3 days and kept it in my basement since then. Although I knew some of the honey was shot, I figured some would be fine for them (I had already seen the bees clean out 2 similar frames when I placed them out in the open in my Nuc yard earlier in the year, so I knew there was value in what the frame had in it.)

The problem is that these frames have a different scent to them. It seems to really draw bees quickly, which I really didn’t think about when I dropped it into the October swarm. The next day, it looked like I had a robbing situation. As always (and usually to my detriment – and the bees!), I try to get into the heads of my bees – I figured that we have a new swarm of bees, moved about while being captured and now in a new location (trying to get oriented) and I have created a robbing scenario! Before they could even get their feet under them! Now, it’s going to be hard to follow my twisted logic, but hang in there…

Seeing what I thought was robbing, I looked closer and could see bees fanning OUT of the hive. At that exact time, I thought that this was the bees trying to get the scent of the SHB frame out of the hive, which (again, enjoy the roller coaster ride of my weird logic) was only inviting more robbers! I did my quick trick of dropping a wet towel over the hive and waited until nightfall to remove it and seriously reduce the entrance.

So, all kinds of things are going through my head now. On day 3, I finally figured out that it wasn’t robbing. It was merely flight orientation of a ton of bees (remember, the whole hive (experienced foragers included) had to reorient.) I know full well that you need to see a lot of fighting to know that there is robbing going on (which I hadn’t seen), but I figured (here I go again…) that the problem was that the swarm had never really made the hive their home – so they weren’t defending it yet. Oh well.

So, the weekend arrives and I go in to have a look. These bees were making really good use of the feeder and had basically put cured syrup (most of it was already honey) in ALL of the frames. What the?! Is the queen going to lay anywhere. Again, cursed with my brain, I began to think back on the fanning bees and dropping the wet towel on them. Did I have  virgin queen in this swarm that had gone out only to be thwarted from returning by my towel?!?! I checked again – no queen and no place to lay. I could also see a few gals still fanning, as if to say ‘The grand lady will be coming home any moment now – keep sending our scent out there to guide her home!’

At this point, I was pretty sure that I had lost the swarm and would need to combine. But, I know full well to let the bees alone for as long as possible before enacting my own will upon them. So, I decided to give it another week.

Today, as the temps rose into the upper 50’s, I opened up the Deep to have a look. I actually had a Nuc setup nearby, as I expected that I would not find a queen and wanted to combine them with another Nuc that I have from an Irene cut-out. Much of the syrup in the frames had been moved, but no eggs. The problem was that it was still somewhat cold and there were a lot of bees in this swarm – they were very good at fully covering all 5 drawn frames. I find that lightly blowing on bees makes them disperse, so I was able to check a few cells to no avail. I did find where they were drawing wax (before today, if anyone told me a bee would  draw wax in October, I’d think they were smoking crack), but nothing…until frame 4! The queen! There she was, inspecting a cell and inserting her abdomen into it! Bonzai! Patience, when it comes to bees, always pays off for me.

These bees have a tough road in front of them. I did not notice any pollen, but the bees were covering nearly every cell. They have about 20% of the honey that they will need for the Winter. They also are only now building up brood. I have no idea how hardy the current set of bees are (are they made up of Winter bees? how many are Winter bees that can make it to February?!) If I had more experience with October swarms, I’d know what to do. The wise man would probably kill the queen and combine with one of my hardy Nuc’s. But, I have never been called a wise man! So, we’re going to see how it goes.

What’s up next? Over the next week, we’ll have good beekeeping weather (temps closing on or even eclipsing 70). I plan to go out to the Albo hive and pull at least two Deep frames of honey. I also plan to grab a shallow or a medium off of one of the hives at Shirley Plantation (they have extra supers on them). This super will not be full of capped honey, but it will be at least 50% full, based on my last inspection. Finally, I will add a spacer on this hive and put a few pollen patties on them (I have the mix, but have never made them, so be ready for another adventure posted here in the next month or so.) I think that will give them the best chance at making it.

(I may initiate another plan, moving them to a 2 Nuc high setup – depends on how many deep frames I feel comfortable taking from Albo – plus, I do not have a Nuc spacer, so I’ll have to build one – another reason why this option is the least likely one….)

Winter Arrives – Removing Supers

We have snow hitting some of the western areas of Virginia tonight and it looks like the temps around Richmond, Virginia will drop into the lower 30’s over the next couple of days. This marks the beginning of Winter for this year. I feel pretty good because I have confirmed the following on all hives (with one exception – a hive at Pop’s, which is another story):

  • Good or Great weight (honey stores)
  • Strong brood patterns through last weekend
  • Evidence of a Queen (I am satisfied with finding larva)
  • Entrance reducer (both to keep the draft out and the mice out)
  • Ventilation chuck (more on this one in a future post)
  • Leveled and with a brick on the top
  • at least 8 inches off of the ground

What have I not done?

  • About half of my hives are on screened bottom boards (I am still not sure whether SBB’s are worth it or not). I have not put the plastic board on any of these hives (beneath the screen) to fully seal them
  • I have not reduced all of my hives to just the brood chamber (1 Deep and 1 Medium)

The last point is what prompted this post, as I continue to get emails/newsletters from various Honey Bee resources recommending to remove all extra supers before Winter. I think the primary reason to remove the extra supers is the space. You are making the bees patrol/cover an area that is too large for them. I suppose this makes it possible that they will need more resources to stay warm or that you are increasing the risk pests will get to the sections that the bees cannot adequately cover.

But, for the time being, I am not going to remove my extra supers that still have honey (capped or otherwise). Effectively, I harvested honey in September (after letting the bees clean these, I have removed them from the hives). Everything that was left was consolidated into a super or two above the brood nest. For example, I have one hive with 2 Deeps, 1 Medium and 1 Shallow. If all goes well, I will not have to mess with them. But, if I have a hive that needs a boost, I’ll take it from these guys (and a couple of other hives that I have with more resources then that need.) I might regret this, but for now I am not taking the general advice on extra supers.

October Swarm?

It’s October 19. For a Beekeeper in Central Virginia, that typically means we have had our first frost. Most blooming things are dead or dying, nectar has stopped and only old, dried pollen remains for the next few months. So, if you are a honey bee in Central Virginia, swarming today would really be a bad idea. Typically, no resources to build a new nest with and no resources to (then) store in the nest for the Winter.

Be that as it may, I received a swarm call last night. A nice fellow in the parts Department at Royal Chevrolet on Broad Street called to say that they had a ‘basketball size clump’ of bees on the fence in the back lot. Being a bit of a skeptic (this is October, after all…), I was pretty sure this was not honey bees. But, the fellow was adamant. Said they had been flying all over the place in a bit whirlwind earlier in the day and then settled on the back fence. I have to say that this had me wondering – that DOES sound like a swarm. But, in October?

Today, I left work about 11:45 and rushed over there to check (Brian had called at 9 am to say that they were still there, although a bit lethargic from the rain we received last night). Box in hand, I hived an above average sized swarm. It probably was the size of a basketball and maybe a bit bigger! Very docile bees (I think because of the temperature and the fact that they were a bit damp), but healthy nonetheless.

The odds of this thing making it over the Winter are pretty slim. I can augment them with honey tomorrow, but I do not have any spare frames of pollen. It looks like I will need to feed them pollen substitute over the Winter – although I have to wait until a frost comes to reduce the chance of a SHB infestation. On the plus side, I had a bunch (6 or so) of empty, drawn deep frames that I was fretting about (wax moth over the Winter) and now they are part of a new hive. I do not have high expectations and they will probably be more work then they are ‘monetarily’ worth, but I will enjoy the challenge. If they live, I’ll get another shot in the gene pool. But, to be honest, I think I picked up 3 other swarms from that area this year anyway. The bee population to the west of the Powhite out a bit past U of R is pretty healthy it seems.

This hive will, of course, be called ‘The Ole Chevy’. My best guess is that this is not a swarm, but an example of absconding. The hive’s original home must have been disturbed somehow, so they up and left. We’ll see. More updates to follow as the Winter passes (hopefully.)

Wild Times in September

Been really busy (bee-stuff and non-bee-stuff), so I have a bunch of updates regarding my Richmond, Virginia beekeeping adventures. To reduce boredom, I have tried to title each one separately below, so no one is forced to go through all of my dribble for the topic that really interests them!

Successful Swarm Trap!

This is hot on my mind and I couldn’t wait to post about it later. Anyone that has had the patience to actually read through my adventures for awhile knows that I put out swarm traps in the Spring. These are effectively homemade boxes the size of a Nuc that are screwed together tight and hang on a tree (some 8′ off of the ground.) In them, I put 1 frame of drawn wax (I use my old wax) and 4 or 5 frames of foundation (they were supposed to only hold a max of 5 frames, but my carpentry skills are nothing to write home about…)

In late March, I try to get my traps out within a quarter mile of my biggest outyards or known bee trees. The drawn wax is supposed to entice them and I put a drop of queen juice (simply a film canister with rubbing alcohol and the dead queens that I cull out of weak hives during the year.) By the end of June, I try to pull them to save any drawn wax that I can (sometimes the wax moths get in it and sometimes they don’t.) It’s not a loss, as the frames are my oldest frames that I culled from my hives, but I want to save the for the next year if I can.

Of the 6 that I put out this past April, I couldn’t get one of them (or, I wouldn’t) because it was covered in a thick patch of poison ivy that had grown up the tree (didn’t see that bit of nastiness when I put the thing up, because the leaves hadn’t come out!) I figured I’d either wait until Winter or get my pop to get it for me sometime (he’s immune to the ivy’s). With so little success, I had decided to start Nuc’s in each of my traps in the Spring of 2012 to get some good bee scent in them (and thus be more enticing to swarms.)

Well, the real point of this is that I went by that loner today (while doing some last minute checks  on the hives) and found it FULL of bees! Ha! Success at last! I have no idea when the swarm came into the trap (well, I know it was after late June, when I last looked at it), so it will be interesting to see what they look like when I put them in a Nuc on Sunday. As long as the queen is laying well (and I’ll probably let them live even if she isn’t, as an experiment), they are golden. I have a ton of deep frames of honey to give them for the Winter (pollen is another subject – I do not  have a lot of that to spare, so I hope they at least have that stored in the trap.)

Catching this one swarm has me pumped to build more of my traps this Winter!

July Nuc’s

Once July came around, I stopped selling Nuc’s (with the exception of one to an ERBA member who was interested in trying out a late Nuc – they are experienced beekeepers, so I sold it to them for a slight discount, even though I typically refuse to do so.) Most folks have always said that a July Nuc has next to no chance of growing to a full hive (and I have tended to believe them, because July and August are nightmares in central Virginia.)

This year, I purposefully tried to build up five early July Nuc’s using my simple techniques. One year does not a pattern make, but I was encourages. Each Nuc was fed with boardman feeders until they filled out their five frames fully. I then moved them to full deeps and dropped Maxant top feeders on them (I think this is the real key.) These feeders were easy to check and fill (pop the top, pour in the syrup) and I kept meticulous records of how much they got and how long it took them to eat it up – no hive went more then a day without syrup. These feeders can take nearly 3 gallons of feed, which makes it real easy.

Once they had drawn out at least 8 frames, they received a Medium of foundation, again with the feeder on top. Once they filled  out 70% of the Medium, I moved them to an outyard. Of the 5 hives, 4 became full hives and were moved out before September 1. I would argue that the one that didn’t make it suffered from some bee problem (it may have been one of the paralysis viruses – the bees would flop out on the ground and not fly, or fly erratically at times.) They did not act right from nearly the start.

In conclusion, I think you can definitely build up a hive from a July Nuc (of course, I can only REALLY say this with confidence once I see them make it through the Winter.) I think the key is moving the big hives out of your Nuc yard once they fill out and using the top feeders (keeping them on syrup 24/7).

Irene Survivors

Irene gave me several hives, thanks to all of the trees that went down with bees in them in the Richmond area. I’m not happy that the trees went down, but (glass is half full) I am glad folks called me to cut them out. My last cut out was about 10 days after the hurricane. The tree had landed on its side and the comb had smooshed together. By the time that I got to them, most of the comb (literally 90% of it) was full of SHB and wax moth. I was surprised the bees had not absconded (the two hives I went to get the day before had both absconded because of the smashed wax.) I cut them out and hived them in less then 30 minutes, leaving about 4 lbs of bees with no resources (I mean NONE). The comb that I did get was empty – no brood, no honey, no pollen – they had been mostly robbed out after the tree crashed.

I took the poor lot home with me and gave them 3 frames of resources from my stash and left them alone for a week. I wasn’t sure if I had the queen (and figured she had died in the storm, which is why the bees had not absconded.) Amazingly enough, I spotted the little wench on the first inspection. She had actually laid eggs in every single open cell (I honestly do not know how the bees will be able to cover all of that brood, but will see how they did on Sunday.) I have given them two more frames of resources (deep frames partially full of nectar/honey with some pollen) and will be interested to see if they make it through the Winter.

Winterizing

I have Winterized all hives in Charles City County now, which comes to 23 hives. All have entrance reducers, a shim for ventilation and confirmed queens. I did not have to reverse any of them (all queens either were laying in the bottom deep or had just started to move down over the last month). I leveled several (some had definitely gotten off-kilter during the year) and checked stores one last time (well, I’m sure I’ll be back in each of them, to some degree, in October). That leaves 6 more hives in Henrico to do over the weekend and it’s Winter, here I come! My backyard is a mix of Nucs for overwintering, Nucs from swarms, Nucs from cut-outs and one full hive that I kept for fun (I’ll move her out next Spring, but I like to see what the bees are doing during the Winter when I go out into the yard.) It really comes down to 1 full hive, 1 partial hive (from the August cut-out) and 3 Nuc’s. I am only counting the 1 full hive for my Winter metrics (so, how many of 30 will I lose?)

Fall Honey Crop

I took a little under 10 gallons of honey off of the hives earlier this month! I’m sure this isn’t much to most beekeepers, but I am excited! For the first year that I actually took honey, I took between 20 and 25 gallons of honey! Wow! There still a fair amount left on the hives, but I won’t extract that. I have each of the ‘bank’ hives noted so that I can steal their resources come Jan/Feb in case my home yard experiments are struggling. All in all, I am feeling pretty good about the future…

Nuc List

My Nuc list is filling up, which is very cool. Folks are starting to see the value in local bees that are not medicated. My primary goal now is to make sure that I have enough Nuc’s built to produce the numbers that I need. I do not foresee a problem, but I like to be over-prepared. There is still a good bit of prime painting weather left in the season!

Master Beekeeper?

I took the Certified Level test last weekend. I must say that I am not confident about it, but am hopeful. The test wasn’t extremely hard, but some of the virus/disease questions were nothing more then educated guesses for me. Plus, they had an entire part  based on chemicals, which I do not use. Fortunately, I had studied up on it. I am confident that I DID pass the field test, but will not know about the written test for some  time.

So, that’s it. Another month gone and another month closer to Winter. Many more adventures to be had.

September Swarm?

As often mentioned here, I do not do a lot of hive management after June. Usually, I’m in a hive once a month at most after the busy season (at least that’s how I currently do it.) There are risks to this approach, as with any approach. I wonder if I experienced one today!

Last weekend, I went to inspect the one weak hive that I should have whacked and converted into a couple of Nuc’s. This is actually one of the three Nuc’s that I purchased from another beekeeper in Varina last year (3 Nuc’s that were very inferior in my opinion, now that I have some experience in this stuff.) I overwintered the thing and let her start to build up. Unfortunately, by July, she had not done that well at all. I had wanted to requeen this hive in 2010, but the owner (my father – he ‘owns’ the hives but I manage them 100%) did not want to kill the existing queen. I think he felt sorry for her. Come this Spring, the Nuc appeared to be building up pretty nicely and I promoted her to a Deep and let her roll, eventually putting a Medium on her. In the end, that hive did very little after the initial build up. I let my father over rule me last year and this year (he still wanted to let the hive try to make it), but I will not do it in 2012.

Regardless, my father had put a feeder on the hive (as I always say, if you have to feed them this time of year, they are either new hives (this one was not), you took too much honey in the Spring (this one never had supers to even put honey in) or the queen is inferior (that’s my vote.)  At any rate, I had looked at his feeder and decided that these bees couldn’t even take feed like a good hive. So, I was going to give the hive one of my ‘storage’ frames (a Deep that had a little honey and a little pollen on it). I wanted to get them storing honey from that feeder.

Well, when I got out to the hive last weekend, I found that they had finally figured out how to take the syrup and were working it hard. I decided not to bother them and took my deep frame back to my home yard. Having a ton of chores, I took the ‘storage frame’ and put it into one of my old Deep boxes and went to work on my yard (why do today what you can put off to tomorrow…ugh!)

Of course, I forgot about the frame until yesterday, when I noticed a ton of bees going into and out of that Deep. Well, it appears the starter hives in my backyard have found that daggone Deep – I FORGOT about that daggone thing! Last night (when robbers would be home and I could safely get the frame), I felt horribly (again, laziness seems to be the theme of this post) and put it off for tonight…

This morning, I was set to go out and put some entrance reducers on a few hives in Charles City (and I need to check on the queen of two more hives before I am satisfied) and decided to get that daggone frame now, using my bee brush to get the bees off of it and dropping it into the freezer for a few days in case the SHB or wax moth had gotten some eggs in it.

WHOA! I pulled the top off of that Deep and there were a few thousand bees all clumped on it. This wasn’t robbing! It was a daggone September swarm!

So, there you have it. For one, this is the first September swarm that I have been involved with (a fellow beekeeper in my area said he picked one up a few years ago, about the size of a baseball – this one was bigger then that, but only a little – a bit bigger then two softballs). Secondly, I assume this was from one of my starter hives (all of those queens were marked, so I will know in a week or two when I inspect them), but this goes back to the original risk – I wasn’t fully inspecting these starter hives and missed this swarm. I’ll have to check them all over the next week to make sure a new queen came out. It would really be cool if it turns out to be from a nearby feral hive (but I doubt it.)

At any rate, I moved the swarm into a Nuc and gave them 3 more frames of fully drawn wax (with some resources.) They only have one frame of foundation, which I gave them since most swarms like to draw out wax like monsters. Finally, I put both a boardman and a top feeder on them. The goal is for them to fill out this Nuc before the end of September and then I’ll drop another Nuc with resources on top of them. I normally do not overwinter Nuc’s like this, but I have the resources to do so and it should be good fun (I don’t think many September swarms make it – but I plan to give these guys a big shot!)

Pre-Winter Inspections Started

I went into a little over half of my hives this weekend, breaking them down (frame-by-frame) until I found a queen or eggs or larva. I have been hearing murmurings of starving bees (we have had a real drought in parts of central Virginia, near Richmond) and mite problems. I can’t speak to the latter (I do not treat for mites, so I rarely do a mite drop count – haven’t done a one this year), but I can say that none of my bees are starving (well, none of the 18 hives that I checked anyway). In fact, I am very pleased.

The bees that were bringing in nectar in late June ended up capping off another round of supers (well, one capped a Shallow and a Medium and another capped a Shallow), not including the substantial capped honey in the brood nest (Deep-Medium set-up). Unfortunately, that outyard was my first inspection, which gave me really high hopes for the rest of the yards. For the most part, nothing else came close to that first set of hives. Clearly, location makes a big difference (something about that location on the James – tons of blooming clover, I am guessing, with good rain (while the rest of us suffered!)) I am not sure if I will extract those supers or not at this point. I will wait until mid-September to make that call (and after I have checked all of my hives.)

Nearly every hive had capped 90% of the Medium of their brood chamber (again, I run a Deep and a Medium for the bee’s home, year round, so this is where they need to store what they will need for the Winter.) A few hives were sitting on uncapped Mediums (I’d guess 70% full), but these were all starter hives from this year (Nuc’s, swarms or cut-outs). I even found a few queens, although I wasn’t looking for them. The Berkeley Hive actually still has the old Blue Queen from last year. I’m sure they will look to swarm next year.

The goal of all of the work last weekend was to make a spot check on the bees. In some cases, these bees had capped Mediums in late June. Some folks had told me that bees will eat into these stores if they are left on the hive. I definitely did not find that. I ran this experiment in 4 different outyards, 3 of which I checked this past weekend. The bees did not eat into their stores. They didn’t add to the stores (in most cases), but neither did they eat into them. But, this is August and we still have the month of September to make it through. Regardless, I now know the 3 hives that I need to watch (late splits from this year that do not seem to have made a lot of progress in filling up their upper Medium’s), out of this initial run. I think it is good to go into the hives in late August to get a feel for what things look like. Verify that you have a queen and make a note of the stores. In my area, to the east of Richmond, I have never seen a lot of build up after August, so you pretty much need to have good stores now. It also helps you find queen problems (per my last post).

I am glad to be going into the Winter strong (so far.) I have a feeling that I am going to lose some hives this year (the law of averages – I haven’t lost a single one yet, except for a Nuc that I starved by not giving enough food…) More hives to check over the next couple of weeks and then (with the exception of my hive with the virgin queen) I doubt I will mess with them again before I do the Winter Prep in late September. Wish me luck!

SHB Follow-up: Per my July post, I ran into a bit of a SHB problem with one of my hives this year (thanks to my inept beekeeping!) I ended up combining the hive with one of my starter hives and using some SHB traps to try to keep them at bay. Of course I probably should be knocking on wood, but I inspected both hives in that outyard this weekend and things look really good. I probably noticed 2 or 3 SHB when I cracked the inner cover (this is NORMAL in my neck of the woods and not a problem if the hive is healthy) and found a ton in all of the traps. I think the bees kept them at bay and the traps probably helped out a bit. I removed the traps and let the bees continue on with their business.

No Queen!

This is not an uncommon exclamation in my neck of the woods (Henrico County, to the east of Richmond, Va) – I doubt it’s uncommon anywhere. A beekeeper goes into a (previously strong, in many cases) hive, only to find no eggs, no larva and no capped brood. It’s been a grueling summer (insert year) and there simply has not been enough time (or energy) to put on a bee suit, sweat 10 buckets of water and go through an irritable hive of bees (no bee likes to be inspected in July!) In many cases, the beekeeper suddenly noticed a decrease in activity and decides to have a check. In a few cases, it is simply a matter of a cool day (and a chance to finally have a peak without the risk of expiring!)

You open up the hive and things look good. We see some stored honey, although maybe the bee population is a bit low. You finally get into the lower brood box and alarm bells start to go off. Not only do you not see eggs, but you also do not see capped brood. Vast areas of the brood nest remain open! What the devil is going on!?!? The first response (typically – based on queries I get from the occasional new beekeeper) is that the queen is dead and all is lost!

In truth, if you do lose your queen in September (in our area – Central Virginia), you are in a pretty tough pickle. The queen should be ramping up production of the first few Winter bees in early September. These bees are fatter and meant to live a bit longer then the normal bee. They are not designed to forage so much as to provide warmth and go get a bit of water or maybe some old grass pollen in January. Few born in September make it to the next Spring, but they are the first wave that will eventually propel your October & November bees all the way to February and March. This is the beginning of Winter prep and its very tough to be without a queen at this time of the year.

But, I have found that many of my strong hives (even with space) go queenless in July-August. I actually believe it is good for them and for the lands around my hives. Today, I began my first Winter checks. I went to check a new outyard in Varina, Virginia. I had take two starter hives (one from the Larry super-Queen and one from a hived Swarm) to this spot in early July. I wanted to see how they were doing. Both hives had done really well with regard to pollen and honey. You want to be sure that your hives have a good store of both when going into the Winter. A late August check is not a guarantee in my neck of the woods, but I use it to identify clear danger hives. Last year, for example, I found one and combined it with the Apache hive. That hive ended up being a super strong hive this year. I doubt the weak hive (Moe) would have made it otherwise.

The very first hive that I opened had a medium that was 90% full of capped honey. Interestingly enough, this was nearly exactly what they looked like in early July (I did a test this year and measured honey stores in early July to see how much my bees would eat in the awful weather of July and August). They had barely touched it. In addition, they had a couple of deep frames that were both 90% full of capped honey and 3 frames of pollen (not full frames, but mostly pollen.) From just those notes, I’d say these gals were ready to make a good go of it this Winter. But, the next ‘note’ was important. The entire brood nest (maybe 6 frames) was empty except for a handful of capped brood (and I do mean a handful – maybe 50, all told.) I must admit that I would probably have freaked were it not for what I found on the very first frame (Deep) that I pulled. A small, unmarked queen! I have my notes that I marked a large, brown queen in May (White), so I was certain this was a new queen. I knew something was up when I found her on the first frame – the old gals somehow always manage to get on the LAST frame during the inspection.

So, noticing a few capped brood, I decided that I had a real virgin on my hands. She probably had not even done a maiden flight. And that’s the kicker. Had I opened the hive a week from now, during (say) 3 pm or so, I probably wouldn’t have found her. But, I would have found no eggs and no brood. Without any other knowledge, I might have freaked and combined them with one of my Nucs for overwintering. But, I have seen this before. For whatever reason (either my area, my line of bees or bees in general), some of my hives will cast a swarm in July, regardless of the weather. I seriously doubt the swarm did very well (hot and dry with no blooms out there), but I do have a new queen. I am not so sure they did swarm, given the number of bees, the lack of any sign of a queen cell and the abundance of capped honey (they didn’t take much with them, if they did swarm). It could have been a supercedure. Regardless, I have a new queen and (big benefit) my bees just went through a dearth of eggs which should set the mites back substantially. A perfect time for a perfect storm.

But, the main reason that I’m glad that I checked is that I know to go back to this hive in 2 (3 at the most) weeks to check for eggs. This outyard is my most distant Varina outyard, so only 1 hive is within 3 miles. The owner had told me in June that they hadn’t seen a honey bee in years. So, I need to cross my fingers for a good mating.

Possible Use for a Queen Excluder?

I recently had a fellow stop by to get a queen excluder. Although I do have a few, I only purchased one of them (the rest were given to me, for one reason or another.) I readily gave him one of the older ones without much thought. Before I got into beekeeping (and many times since), the more experienced beekeepers have advised that they do not use ’em. One fellow here in the Richmond, Virginia area said that he calls them ‘honey excluders’! Add to all of this the report from a new beekeeper, just this past May, that he actually opened his hive and could see a bunch of workers unable to make it through his excluder! In my mind, I was pretty sure that I would only use them in a queen production strategy that effectively has a hive create queen cells in a super that the queen is unable to get to. I would never use them on one of my Producer hives.

Well, I have changed my mind. After my honey extraction efforts this Summer, I have decided to experiment with a few honey excluders next year, but not exactly the way most folks use them. Two of my (honey) Producer hives had adventuresome queens that made forays into my honey supers. In both cases, this happened after the bees had capped off at least two shallow supers. In both cases, they didn’t totally ravage the honey supers with eggs, but instead made a run up one side of the hive, using two to three frames per super and then expanding a bit at the top.

It occurred to me today, while doing spot checks on many of my hives, that I might have been able to prevent this by dropping a queen excluder beneath the capped honey supers. Since I let my bees fill up one super before I place the second (beneath the full, capped super), I could easily begin to exclude the queen once a super gets squared away. This way, I am not ‘excluding’ the bees with the nectar when they actually NEED to get up into the super to fill it up. It should already be filled up! I will definitely give that a shot next year to see how it works out.

Biggest Swarm of the Season

As mentioned in several earlier posts, I picked up a huge swarm from a buddy’s apiary just down the road from my house back in May. After finally getting around to processing the videos on my camcorder, I have been able to isolate a video of the catch. As always, the signature ‘underwear shot’ is included – my blog readers will be happy to know that I have purchased suspenders to prevent this from being a feature of future videos!