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.

Apiary Inspection & First Nuc Sale

If you’ve followed this blog over the last couple of months, you know that I have been blessed (or was it cursed?) with several very strong hives that tried to swarm throughout late March and early April. From these events, I created a multitude of Nuc’s, experimenting with each start. My goal was to really learn about Nuc Creation by doing what is recommended and many things that are not. I started some with lots of resources and some with next to no resources. I played with the amount of Nurse bees and the amount of capped brood. I knew that I wanted to sell Nuc’s in 2012 and I wanted to start to get a feel for it.

The problem with this plan is that I started more Nuc’s then I really wanted to increase my hive count by this  year. At the time, I figured that my success rate would not be that high, so it would work itself out in the end. But, my success rate was higher then I had thought. In the end, I started 14 Nuc’s. Of those 14, 10 made it (when I was expecting 5 or 6.) Of the survivors, 6 or 7 are showing the kind of strength that I would be confident to pass along. So, that left me with at least 1 or 2 extra Nuc’s, beyond my increase goal. Since several folks have contacted me about getting Nuc’s, I decided to sell 1 (and may sell a couple more over the next week or so.)

When you sell a Nuc, you have to get your apiary inspected by the state Apiarist. He came by this past week and went through a majority of the starters that I have in the backyard. This was no small task, as I have 17 starters (caught swarms, trap out Nuc’s, my Nuc’s and 1 cut out.) In the end, he passed my apiary and said things looked great. He did find small hive beetles, but I told him that they were pretty much in all of my hives, but not to any great degree. Interestingly enough, he conceded that they were in most folk’s hives, but they were more like a Wax Moth. As long as you have healthy bees in a space that they can maintain (i.e. you don’t super them too  soon), the bees keep them in check. All in all, it was an interesting experience.

A new beekeeper, by the name of Wade, showed up to get his bees and we moved the frames from my Nuc to his hive. I am glad that I could sell him a Nuc as he may have resorted to a package next year (as mentioned a lot on this blog, I am not a fan of packages at all, especially for new Beekeepers.) The Nuc was great. The queen was working on her 2nd batch of brood and two frames were wall-to-wall capped brood on both sides. One contained some capped brood along the edges and lots of eggs/larva in the center. The final two were resources. Basically, this Nuc is getting ready to explode (I had wanted to sell the Nuc last weekend, but the timing did not work out right for the purchaser – I was worried that I would find swarm cells!) I am confident that this Nuc will do very well for Wade and his family. It’s a queen off of Larry, so it’s some of my best stock.

Another Trap Out Nuc

This  year, I started a trap out in a nice neighborhood in Richmond called Windsor Farms. A couple were moving into a house last Fall and discovered a bee hive in a huge tree in their backyard. Although an avid gardener, I am not an expert on trees, so I do not know the name of it, but it has very deep, ridged bark. This is a very important point for trap outs, as I was to come to find out.

At any rate, I advised the home owner that a trap out last Fall wouldn’t work (might as well kill the bees.) It had been a horrible Summer with very little rain and I had my doubts that a hive could build up enough stores if you trapped them out at this time. He was very cool about it and said we could knock it out the following Spring (2011).

Trapouts basically utilize a rolled-up cone with wire that is about a quarter inch square. The whole idea is that the bees crawl from the tree (the wide end of the cone) to the exit (a narrow end, about the size of two drones) and leave the hive. When they return, they go back to the base (but on the outside) and cannot figure out how to get back into the hive (smell drives them to the base of the cone.) It’s like a crap trap, but in reverse.

The beekeeper then sets up a hive with the entrance right near the cone and the bees, after failing to get into the hive all day, go into the hive (or trap out.) Most beekeepers put a frame of capped brood into the hive with the bees to entice the ‘trapped out’ bees to stay in the trap hive body.

Last year, a fellow in Buckingham introduced me to a slightly modified version of this trick. Instead of running a cone out of the hive, you run a piece of PVC out of the hive (tapped up all around it so that this is the only way the bees can leave) into the bottom of the trapout Deep. The bees have to climb through your foundation/comb to get out and cannot get back in.

I took an old Medium and drilled a hole for the PVC into it. I then placed my ‘cone’ so that bees leaving the PVC pipe would have to go through the cone and would not be able to return in this fashion, being trapped in my hive. The real benefit of this method (or so it is said) is that the queen will eventually leave through the pipe and remain in your hive (you get bees as well as  the great genetics of a wild hive.)

Well, I set this up in late March and started to watch. This is where the ‘ridged’ tree comment comes in from before. It was extremely difficult to block up the ridges and the bees continued to get back into the tree hive (a bad thing, as the hive in the  tree is only going to leave once their resources dwindle.) After about a month, I figured I had it blocked off. I took four frames of bees from them 10 days ago and another 4 frames last weekend. The first 4 I gave a frame of eggs and they raised it  nicely (some of the foragers must have converted back to Nurse bees! The second set I actually gave a frame while they were in the trapout and they raised their own queen.

The crazy thing about all of this (and it was a bunch of bees that  I took each time) is that the owners pointed out a new hole in the tree (some 5′ below the original hole (now taped up and funneling bees into my hive) and on the backside of the tree. The hive was doing just fine, based on the bee traffic. I have glued this up now, but it probably needs another round of silicone, wire, tape and staples.

It’s been a fun experience and I hope to get a couple of more Nucs off of them before I get (cross your fingers) the original hive and (maybe) the queen. I will do a lot of things differently next time, especially if it is a deeply ridged tree.

2011 : Banner Year for the Ladies

It feels like I start every post with this but : everything continues to hit on all cylinders for honey bees in central Virginia. A long time beekeeper in our bee club (the East Richmond Beekeeper’s Club) mentioned that this was the best flow since 1993 for our area! The ‘flow’ simply refers to the time of the year when the most nectar is available in the flowers. For us, it is really the Spring. The state apiarist indicated that we used to get a Fall flow, but haven’t had one since the 90’s. The bottom line is that your bees have the best opportunity to build up some honey for the beekeeper at this time of year.

I’m not sure about how good it is compared to previous years (this is the first time that I have really collected honey off of my hives), but the hives appear to be doing well. As mentioned previously, those hives that successfully lived through the Winter, but had no other outstanding quality, were targeted for honey production (those with other qualities were used for Nucs and increase.) All of these hives have finished a Shallow, a few have finished a Medium and one is finishing its second Shallow. The fellow near Hopewell (old-timer who indicated it was the best flow in many years) mentioned something about 150# honey on his hives. I can pretty much guarantee that I do not have that much honey on my hives. Regardless, I should definitely have enough honey for personal consumption and for gifts, which is my main goal.

I am really interested in seeing how long ‘the flow’ lasts this year. I have heard folks say that it pretty much dribbles out by early to mid-June. July 1 is the target day for removing honey (I purchased my first extractor a few weeks back – hope I didn’t jinx myself!)

This coming week, I will have my first ‘inspection of the apiary’. Due to the extra increase, I have decided to sell at least one Nuc this year (I am thinking I will sell 5 before it is all over). You have to have the state apiarist come check out your gig when you sell bees, so I contacted Keith Tignor on Thursday and he tentatively agreed to come out during the coming week. It should be interesting to see how this goes.

Nuc building, Patience with Queens & Laughable Errors

It’s been one heck of a Spring. My beekeeping pretty much consumes 80% of my spare time, although I have managed to get my garden in the ground. The weather in Richmond, Virginia has been super, in my area. We could use a bit more rain, but we’ve definitely had enough to keep the flowers blooming and full of nectar. Holly started blooming nicely in my area and the Tulip Poplar has been putting on a real nice bloom the last week. My supers are filling up quickly.

But, there have been quite a few lessons along the way. I learned a good lesson with raising queens from swarm cells. I cannot simply put a frame with bees and a queen cell into a small (3 frame) Queen Castle section and expect good results. In most of the sections, I only included that frame and a frame of honey and one with pollen. The problem, I believe, was not including a full frame of capped brood with each one. Of the 6 that I started, only two had a decent amount of brood (the rest where queen cells on the bottom of honey frames). Those two ended up with laying queens. The other four ended up with nothing that I could find. In all cases, I saw the queen the first couple of weeks after she hatched, but somewhere along the way, she vanished. Without the capped brood, I suppose there were not enough bees in the cell to tend to her needs. I may have monkeyed with them too much too, as I was enthralled with watching the progress (and those 6 starters were just experiments anyway – I wanted to learn.) On a positive note, all of the queens that I started normally (in Nucs with 1 brood, 1 pollen, 1 honey, 1 partially drawn empty and 1 foundation) have done very well. In fact, one of them is literally building up almost as fast as a swarm! That queen is on steroids. I only had one queen that I was not happy with (poor brood build up) and I killed her, letting them raise another one as we speak. The bottom line is that I am very comfortable making Nucs now and will definitely make a few to sell next year (I will probably sell a few this year, since I have more then I want at this point.)

Another lesson that I learned was to have patience with the queens. Most of my queens do not start laying on Day 25 and one waited until Day 41! I do think that I ended up losing a couple of viable queens due to my impatience this year (there were TONS of dead bees after two of my combines) and, looking back, I only gave the queens 31 and 34 days to show signs of laying. I really need to have patience with everything related to bees. I have been told that I have the patience of Job, due to the projects that I start related to growing trees and shrubs, but that is clearly not the case with the bees. When you know that the flow is on, you want all of your bees to be kicking at 200%. I am constantly worried that I need to do something with a hive or queen to make sure they are hitting on all cylinders. I need to remember my lessons from last year – let the bees do their own thing and stop messin’ with ’em!

I will close with a dumb error. The Westcastle swarm was building up strong. It was definitely the original, old queen (as opposed to a secondary swarm with a virgin queen) and she pretty much started laying on Day 1. Those bees were taking down the syrup nicely, as they build up all of the fresh wax. After about 10 days, they were 90% done with the deep and I dropped a medium on them. I put 2 gallons of syrup on them, thinking it would tide them to the next weekend. Once the week was up, I went to check the feeder and expected it to be empty so that I could give a peak inside (this hive was going to get moved to an outyard back on the 22nd.) But, only about half of the syrup had been taken… This was a drastic slowdown, but I figured it was because the main flow was on. Finally, I checked yesterday and there was still about a gallon left! Frustrated, I gingerly removed the feeder and attempted to pour it into a nearby pitcher. Finally, I could check on the hive. What the heck!?

To my dismay (cheered on by a couple of foul words out of my mouth), I had put a super full of empty, foundationless frames on them! Good lord. They had drawn wax all over the center of the frames, exactly perpendicular to how the frames sit (across several frames.) I had to pull it all out and put it in a tray in front of the hive. They began to work on it (getting the honey out to take back into the hive), while some tried to work on me (for messing up all of their hard work.) I marked the queen (Blue, for last year) and put a super of foundation on them. I’ll check the feeder in a couple of days to see what we have.  Hopefully, they will go back to consuming a lot of it and drawing out the Medium. I want to get a frame of eggs from them to secure the bloodline and then move them to one of my Varina outyards (aka my honey and drone yards for the Nucs that I raise in my backyard.)

I guess that was not my last point, as it occurred to me that I have one other big lesson for this year. Four times, I have noticed swarm prep (either actual swarm cells or back-filling of the brood nest.) In all four times, I took the old queen and (in some cases) half of the queen cells. In all cases the bees swarmed anyway. Although I will take old queens with solid history in the future, it will not be because of a swarm management strategy. I will try something else on that. I can say that the one time that I did prevent a swarm (and who really knows if they were going to swarm or not) was when I took the old queen at the first sign of massive drone laying (something I had learned, this year, was a precursor to other swarm prep), it did stop the swarm and the bees appear to have built up nicely even without a queen through late March and early April.

But, who knows. I might be learning the exact wrong things. Regardless, I will continue to use my experiences to drive my adventures and mishaps!

One Hive Wears Me Down

It’s been a really wild week and the roller coaster ride continued through yesterday. Hopefully, I was able to get off this daggone thing. This will probably be a long post, but I want to get this stuff down (for future reference) before the old brain loses it.

Larry has been the focus of my ventures this past week, based on my assumption that it had cast two swarms. I finally was able to get into the hive yesterday, after work. After what I discovered, a bit of a history check is worthwhile.

Larry was a hive that I purchased from a fellow last year (along with the Moe and Curly hives). He was getting out of the business, didn’t treat and had hives for a good price. But (and this is key), he had a weird setup. He ran with Shallows over Deeps. I run Mediums over Deeps, so I dropped a Medium on the hives and put a feeder on them to help them out (it was July when I got them.) They never finished the Medium, although they did get some capped honey on 60% of the frames. I left them in a Deep-Shallow-Medium setup.

So, in late February, as I did my initial Spring chores, I swapped the Shallow and the Medium without looking at the frames (I could see capped honey from the top of the Shallow and was in a hurry, so I assumed it was all honey.) A week later, when I did actually pull the frames, I found a good bit of brood in 5 of the Shallow frames, with bees still tending them. So, I had a bunch of nurse bees in the Deep and fair number in the Shallow and a Medium super that was nearly full of honey separating them. At the time, I was annoyed that I broke up the brood nest, but the hive was so strong I let it be.

Well, I now think this has something to do with the strange occurrences in Larry. On March 19, I discovered swarm cells and took several frames from Larry, including several of the queen cells (that have hatched in Nucs already) and the old queen. Two weeks later, I hived two swarms from Larry, both of which are already building up nicely. I broke them apart yesterday and found 11 more queen cells (at this point, I would insert a very nasty word if I was not a God fearing man.) Very little brood is in this hive now and I could find no eggs or a queen. At this point, I became a bit frustrated (yes, I do become frustrated with these little wenches on occasion.) I took 6 more frames from this hive, each with at least 1 queen cell, and put them in my two new Queen castles (for raising queens later this year…assuming I ever get to that point.) I then took a Deep of honey off of the William Byrd Hive (they ended up with a Deep-Medium-Deep setup last Fall) and added the resources to these new setups. I am fine with losing some of these. It is more of an experiment then anything (I have one that is nothing but a shallow frame of bees – hardly any at all.)

Then, today, I go into my Nucs and the sections of the Queen castles and actually find TWO virgin queens on one of the Queen Castle sections (these are three frames wide, each). I took one and gave it to my weakest QC (Queen Castle) setup (the one with only a shallow of brood/honey/bees). I found two other queens that had hatched and even saw one in the midst of hatching! It looked to me like the daggone queen was face forward – the bees were tearing the cell off of her and I got a good shot of tail.

Being completely fed up with the daggone shallow (and now thinking that maybe I have two sets of bees working at odds with each other in the same hive), I took the daggone thing off the hive, made sure it had a queen cell and created a split with it (adding an empty Medium above it.)

The bottom line is that I now have 2 swarms, a shallow split, an old queen Nuc, 4 hatched queens (2 Nuc, 2 QC) and 3 setups with 1 or more queen cells from this hive – over a period of almost a month. And the original hive continues on! I’m not sure if I missed a swarm (or two), but I think that this last adjustment should set them back a bit. I am actually tired of this now. I just want them to go into build up (and provide a little honey maybe…Hello?)

I’m sure there would be many opinions on what is going on with Larry. At this point, I honestly believe that separating those nurse bees with a full Medium super of honey must have made them start acting like two different hives. They were all in swarm mode when I separated them and then continued on that path, separately, afterwards. Who knows. I have now removed the problem super (replacing with an empty Medium) and taken a ton of frames and bees from them. They have a lot of work to do. If they swarm again, so be it. That’s one for the wilds. My only focus on future checks for this hive is that they actually did end up with their own queen who is happy to stay around.

On another note, grabbing a queen is not a simple thing. It might be my fingers, but I couldn’t get a handle on the queen that was on a frame with another queen. Finally, she flew off. I saw her land on the frame again a few seconds later and ended up using one of those queen grabbers. I want to mark my queens this year. It is turning out to be much harder then I expected. But, the QC queens will give me plenty of practice.

Lesson 1 for 2011 – Swarm Prevention! Ha!

After hiving two swarms yesterday (and splitting a Nuc), I was ready to get home and do another equipment check. I thought that I had more then enough for any possible increase this year, but am now beginning to wonder. I might be making a trip to Chatham (my nearest Dadant location) sooner then I thought. I might rig a few things together with some of my spare lumber for the time being. But, I think I am good…

A swarm of bees on a thuja branch
Larry casts another swarm

So, I get home to check on my swarms. Both were silent, but so were the rest of my hives. It was close to 6 PM and the temps were around 60 F. I really expected to see more activity, but I guess the bees were calling it early today. I checked the hive top feeders and saw plenty of bees from both swarms eating up the sugar water, so they were there — just calling it for the day. Finally, on a whim, I decided to check some of the many evergreens (thuja’s, hollies, magnolias, and cryptomeria to name a few) for another possible swarm. The first daggone one I checked (a Thuja Green Giant) had a swarm! This was also close to Larry, so I guess they swarmed again! I hived them quickly and saw another setup (Deep, 10 frames foundation, Bottom Board, Top and Inner cover) get used up! Man! Things are starting to get a bit squirrelly.

I was just telling James, a nearby beekeeping buddy, yesterday that I always like to have more then I need in case of crazy events. Now, when I expected to increase by maybe 5 or 6 (1 of my own overwintered Nucs, 2 Nucs of local bees that I plan to get in a trade for my other surviving overwintered Nucs and 3-4 Nuc experiments), I am already looking at 8 new hives (3 swarms and 5 nucs) before I have even traded for my two new Nucs! That’s 10 new hives and we really aren’t in swarm season yet! Wow! I know bad news has to be somewhere in my future – but let the good times roll while they can!

One thing that I have learned is that a hive really is going to swarm once it sets its mind to it. Larry was building up stronger then any of my other hives. Then, on March 19, I notice a bunch of swarm cells. Thinking that I knew what I was doing, I took the old queen on a frame of brood and a frame of brood for Nuc B, and then a frame of brood with two swarm cells and a frame of brood for Nuc C (my first Nuc to hatch a new queen) from the hive. I also shook two frames of brood from this hive. Just writing that out makes me shake my head in amazement. I took a bunch of bees AND the queen. In my mind, this would have signaled the hive that they swarmed and the remaining queens would fight it out to ‘rule’ Larry when hatch time came. Instead, it appears that Larry is casting one swarm after another. I now even wonder if I caught the main swarm, as none of them have been as big as the Westcastle swarm.

In retrospect, I now wonder if I should have split the hive and removed more of those swarm cells. Next time, I will try a different strategy just for the sake of experimenting. I can’t really complain this time, as I wanted genetics off of Larry and now I have 4 new queens (assuming a queen emerged in Larry and is still in there!) and the old queen. I had planned to use this queen to produce the eggs/queens for my Summer Nucs (for Overwintering). Now, I will probably look to the Mosely hive or maybe Geronimo (I wonder if they have swarmed…)

The main lesson here is that you need to be prepared to change your plan constantly as a beekeeper. Keep a goal in mind and have a plan, but pretty much expect the plan to change nearly every week. Just keep your eye on the ball!

A Swarm Here, A Swarm There, A Swarm Everywhere!

Swarm of Bees on a Branch
A Mid-sized Swarm of Bees on a Branch in my Backyard

Things have definitely kicked into 3rd gear in Richmond, Virginia. I had offered to show Greg, a fellow that lives to the south of me across the James River, some of my hives to demonstrate to him that beekeeping was not as dangerous as some might think. On my way to meet Greg, I get a call from a nice lady in the West End – ‘There are a nest of honey bees in a bush in my front yard. Can you do something about them?’ Of course I could! This was great news (although you can’t be sure on swarm calls if you really have honey bees, her husband seemed to be sure that they were honey bees, so I was excited.) I took her name and address and advised I would touch base in about an hour. Removing swarms of honey bees in Richmond, Virginia gives me more pleasure then just about anything!

I hooked up with Greg and began to give him a tour of my home apiary (or Nuc yard.) As we moved into the yard (which is all Nuc’s with one larger hive (Larry) that I stole a queen from a few weeks ago), I answered some of his questions about bees and beekeeping. In the process, ‘swarms‘ came up and I explained why they happened and mentioned, off hand, that I had never seen one in my backyard. Greg then said, ‘do you mean something like that?’ as he pointed to a huge pile of bees in a nearby cryptomeria! ‘Yes! Exactly like that’, I exclaimed as I ran to get a box and hived the first swarm of the day and season (for me). I think this swarm had to come from Larry, which is a lesson for me. I took the old queen from Larry two weeks ago, along with a couple of other frames with queen cells on them. I even shook some nurse bees out of that daggone hive. Since then, a queen (or more then one) should have emerged, gotten her legs under her and even made a mating flight or three. I honestly cannot figure out they could have swarmed today. If they had swarmed a week ago, I would have figured that they swarmed with a virgin. But today? Weird. Unfortunately, I did not have time to check them, so I may never really know.

The Nuc’s were all doing well, although I did discover that Nuc D was trying to swarm. It was really a learning lesson for me, as I shook too many nurse bees in with that queen (from the Westover hive). I had actually taken a frame of brood and bees from them to bolster Nuc E a week ago, but it apparently didn’t make a difference. I took the old queen and dropped her in a new Nuc and left Nuc D to make another new queen on their own (this really made them mad, by the way…) This time, I made sure to put a bit less brood and nurse bees with her, to reduce the crowding.

Open Hive with Newly Caught Swarm
West End Bees Find a New Home

Finally, I packed up my gear and headed out to get the West End swarm. This was definitely going to be new genetics for my yards and I was excited about getting (yet another) swarm. My experiences with swarms last year have taught me that no bee builds up like a bee from a swarm. When we arrived, I immediately noticed the bees in an azalea bush. A tremendous-sized swarm, to be sure. It had to be the size of a couple of footballs! The location was a bit tricky, but Linda and Gary (the nice folks who called about the swarm) said that I could cut the branches if I wanted. Fortunately, I was able to shake the swarm into the hive and pull it out safely. I did end up cutting one branch, only because the bees kept trying to congregate on the branch (even though I could see the bees fanning at my box and steadily entering the  hive – which meant  to me that the queen was onboard!)

Normally, I would have left the box there and come back after dark to get all of the bees (when all of the bees, including the scouts, should have returned to my new box with the queen). But, this was a 40 minute drive from my house, so we were talking about a lot of driving. In the end, I let them collect bees for another 20 minutes or so and then taped them up, returning them to my yard. I immediately put feed on them (and my other swarm), as my swarms of 2010 all greedily took up sugar water while they built out 2 deeps of frames. This is one of the few times that I really think it is important to feed your bees. Swarms are wax building machines. Feed those machines to keep them running and they will draw out comb like no one’s business.

Although this was a banner day for swarms (and two new Nucs), I must say that there are a couple of hives in Charles City that I have to wonder about. Have they swarmed? Who knows. I will know more this weekend.

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.

Let ‘Em Do Their Thing

I once read where Michael Bush, a big time beekeeper up North, said that he never replaced the queen from a swarm. He didn’t want bees that couldn’t figure out when it was time to supersede their queen and needed him to help them along. I have a ton of respect for Michael Bush and agree with him for sure, but I am not 100% sure that I will never requeen (the Albo hive comes to mind.)

Two queen cells
Am I Going to Get A Siamese Twin?

At any rate, I went into my only hive that came through the Winter with an issue yesterday (the one with a baseball sized brood nest, apparently a failing queen) to see what they were up to. There were definitely very few bees and only a handful of capped brood (I did not see eggs or larvae or queen). Amazingly enough, they had a pair of queen cells, side-by-side! It seemed like the old gal must have had enough left in her to push out two decent eggs and move along.

My paranoid nature has me wondering if these eggs were any good or not. I absolutely believe that the bees will choose a better egg then I would and they will make the most of any situation, but I have to wonder if the failing queen’s best is really any good or not. The hive was in ok shape, with several frames of honey and a fair amount of pollen (they really haven’t had much brood to feed). There may have been 40 capped worker cells, spread all over the place, and an equal number of drone cells. The bottom line is that this hive’s last hope rests in these queen cells. I was hyper vigilant to put them back in the hive carefully so as not to damage them.

As of right now, I only know that I had a pair of capped cells on March 20. If I assume the worst case scenario, those queens might not emerge until March 29. I will probably have to wait until April 1 to check and see. The key is that I absolutely must be ready with either a frame of eggs (from one of my Nucs with proven queens) or another swarm cell or two. Otherwise, this hive could be in real trouble. I may go down this weekend to check on them and simply give them a frame of eggs anyway, just in case. I hate to risk jostling those queen cells, but it’s probably the best course of action. That way, if those queen cells are no good, these bees can go to work on March 26 (with the new eggs) and possibly have a mated queen by the middle of April.

Only time will tell…

Almost Too Late…

My four (maybe 5) day Honey Bee weekend continues to be the adventure that my first day of beekeeping was. My goal today had simply been to put up 4 swarm traps and check my hives at Goose Pond Lane. One of those hives was acting very weird (baseball-sized brood nest on 4 frames) a few weeks back. I fellow beekeeper, to the west of Richmond, Virginia, mentioned it might be a failing queen. I wanted to see if that ole gal was still putting out a few eggs or not (if not, I was going to give them a frame from the Amped Up Westover hive, across the road. Well, as they say, the best laid plans of mice and men…

Yesterday evening, I posted some more bee experiences and then checked on a couple of Richmond-area beekeeping blogs that I monitor. The fellow in Buckingham was making splits! I have been talking about making Nucs for weeks now – reading his post (matched with my experiences with the Westover Hive yesterday) had me thinking – I need to get on the ball! So, my first task today was to create at least one Nuc off of Larry.

As a reminder, Larry has a Deep, then a Medium and then a Shallow. I assumed that nothing but honey was in the Shallow and only a bit of brood was in the Medium. So, I went directly to the Deep. I had two Nuc boxes handy, but was only going to do one Nuc, unless I found a bunch of frames of eggs. Ha!

I started on the Deep and pulled one frame of pollen to match one of my frames of honey that I had pulled from a hive earlier this year. Three spaces left to find the queen and put her, with some brood and hopefully a bit of open comb (for laying) in. Made it through the whole Deep with a quick check and no Queen – is she in that Medium? There was nothing but honey in that Medium a ONE week ago, and capped to boot. But, maybe she was in there.

She wasn’t in there, but something of note was in there. The first frame that I pulled had the regular drone brood on the bottom of the frames. Most had been pulled apart when I separated the two supers. But, one looked odd. Looking back on it, I laugh at myself now. ‘Wow, I have never seen such a big drone – and hanging straight off the comb‘ was my first thought when I saw the exposed pupae. Then I looked closer. Daggone it! That’s a daggone capped queen cell! Sheesh. I had just read (maybe in Increase Essentials) the last night or two where, once in swarm mode, the old queen hits the road when the swarm cells are capped! So, now my mind is racing. Am I too late? Have they already swarmed? I found it hard to believe they had swarmed. Bees were 2 and 3 levels deep on some of those frames. Keep your eye on the ball, Jones.

Two more frames and now I am looking at 2 capped swarm cells and one they they are still feeding. Despair is setting in. Not sure what I am going to find, I go with the positive outlook and scan those frames real hard for the queen again. No queen. I place that frame in my spare Nuc (this one is now going to be a Nuc with swarm cells.) I keep at it.

Before I finish the Medium, I find two more frames with 2 or more swarm cells. I leave them in the primary box and keep looking for that damnable queen. Has she flown the coop? No queen, but she really went to town laying. They either ate that honey or moved it within the last week, as there was tons of capped brood.

Hitting the shallow, I am now committed to going through all of the boxes again. That queen can’t be gone! The shallow surprises me as it, too, is full of brood, although at a later stage then the Medium. Not a swarm cell on these (that I saw, anyway). Back to the Deep.

The bees in the Deep are pissed now. I am not smoking them, but a few come off and sting my glove. I am thinking this is because they have been without their queen (who must be in that worthless Medium). But, after going through 7 frames, I find her! Bonzai! Whoohoo! I put the grand ole lady into the original Nuc and then, feeling like the King of Bees, shook several frames of brood in both boxes. I double checked the honey/pollen stores in both Nucs and then fortified the original hive with several frames of foundation (they have some time to draw out the wax, waiting for their new queen(s) to come out.)

All in all, not what I planned for today, but I am feeling good about it. No matter what happens (unless I lose all three), it will be a learning experience. I might even go into Larry to steal one of the swarm cells (there are several capped and uncapped still in that box.) But, that’s a task for tomorrow.