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.
Since last year, my bees have endured one issue or another and I have tried to learn lessons from each situation. The problem with any ‘bee lesson’ is that you cannot be absolutely sure of the cause of any given effect. Regardless, I use this blog to record my observations so that I can continue to track these issues and narrow down on the causes.
Over the past two weeks, I have had some major issues with robbing of the Apache Hive, the small split that I started to accept one of my new queens. This is not minor robbing, but a full onslaught (I have to believe it is from several invading hives or feral bee nests.) Even my robbing screens, that have always reduced or eliminated the robbing in the past, are not working for this hive. I actually closed it up completely (3 days ago), giving them some syrup and some shade, to let them get their feet under them. Today, I opened a small hole, enough for a bee or two to get through, around noon, and once again the onslaught was on.
Now, the immediate conclusion is that the frame of honey that I gave them is the primary issue. I do agree that this is a ‘sub-lesson’. Never give a small, starter hive a full frame of honey. It is nearly impossible for them to defend it from robbers (or other pests, like the Small Hive Beetle) and it simply draws robbers with its smell. That’s a lesson that I will not forget.
But, I am coming to the conclusion that the primary error was trying to start a small hive so late. I effectively started two small hives in the middle of June, Apache and Bob, and both are under some kind of onslaught (although Apache is taking the real beating.) One of the most disappointing effects of this issue is that I simply cannot check on them without drawing bees out of the woodwork. I cannot even do a quick inspection, without catching the attention of a flight of attackers. This is really frustrating, as I like to keep a close eye on the smaller hives (primarily for educational purposes, but also to be able to react to any issues that they may encounter.)
So, tonight I start my first Out Yard, down in Charles City to hopefully remedy this situation. I will be moving both the Apache Hive and the Bob Hive down to Charles City to start this small yard.It is my hope that I will be able to open both tomorrow, for the first time since introducing the new queens, and confirm that I have a laying queen and a bee or two. I will be happy if just one of them is doing well.
There is another lesson that might be on the table here. It could be that having so many hives in my home apiary (and my area in eastern Henrico, Va) is simply pushing it. I may even move the Berkeley Hive down to the new Out Yard tomorrow night. I am seriously considering dropping back to one established hive in the yard for the time being, perhaps creating yet another Out Yard. Trying to play with small hives is very difficult in my yard at the moment and it is something that I really enjoy doing.
Regardless, it is highly unlikely that I will try to start a hive this late in the year again.
Another sad note was the discovery of the demise of the Southside Hive. They were never able to get a queen started. They also dealt with some robbing issues and I am fairly certain they were the first to be robbed out completely. They seemed strong, so I did not get a Robber Screen on them until it was probably too late, unfortunately.
Things seemed to be turning positive with our first (and only) rainfall for June coming last night and providing a whopping 7 tenths of an inch in eastern Henrico! I have no idea if it was just coincidence or not, but all of the hives were incredibly gentle this morning and seemingly glad to leave the desert conditions.
I have a bunch of things going on in the apiary, but there were two critical tasks that needed to be accomplished today. On Saturday, I released two new queens into two new hives! I have never ‘released‘ a queen into a hive before. All of my hives have raised their own queens (I had no marked queens in my bee yard, up until this point.) I was a bit nervous, but I was resigned to the real possibility that both would fail. It would be a learning experience and I would move on from there.
So, I started with the Bob hive. A bee had seemingly flown up out of the hive and fed the queen before I even put the cage into the hive. I was somewhat hopeful here. I opened up the hive and quickly (but calmly) pulled the frame with the attached queen cage. Again, the bees had completely covered the wire that covered the side open to the air. I had been somewhat concerned with the heat that the queen would die if they didn’t give her water, but I could see her walking about, directly on the wire, opposite to the bees. Clearly, they were not biting her, or you’d think she would be at the other side of the cage. So, I pulled the plug (opposite the candy end, as they had not done a bit of damage to the candy) and held the cage to the top of a frame for her to walk out. Two minutes later, and I became a bit concerned that my new queen was a bit mentally challenged. She clamored about, but never exited the cage.
Upon closer inspection, I could see a staple holing the wire caging onto the wooden container, so I used my pliers and pulled it out, pulling out the wiring. She was now open to the air. I held the open in next to a frame and down she went, into the hive! Of course, I had pictures in my mind of a bunch of bees jumping her, so I put the caging aside and began to look for her. I also wanted to destroy any queen cells. I found her in shortly thereafter (actually, it took a bit as she must have shot over to another frame real quickly.) Bees were all about her, feeding her and then I actually saw her seemingly lay an egg! I lost the cell in the masses, but I am about 90% sure she put an egg in there. Regardless, things looked good. I removed the rest of the frames and ended up finding 3 queen cells, all of which I destroyed. I’ll check back again tomorrow, just to be sure that no queen cells exist. You can’t be too careful with this.
As to the Apache Hive, I was a bit more concerned about them, mainly because they seemed to ‘ball’ the cage when I introduced it. But, I found them in the exact same position as before (it clearly was not balling, but feeding) and released her in the same manner as the Bob Hive. As before, things went smoothly and I found her being groomed or fed. But, here is where things went wrong…
To begin with, I forgot to look for queen cells. This is not a big deal, as none can hatch before I check them tomorrow, but it now reduces my ‘queen cell check’ to one inspection, instead of two. More importantly, I did not get the top of the hive down securely, but had no idea of this fact when I left.
When I returned home from work, there were probably 10,000 bees around the Apache Hive. They were literally pouring out of the hive and a small swarm worth of bees were hanging off of the front. No other hives were experiencing this, plus it had one of my newer (and better constructed) robber screens. This couldn’t be robbing! Were my bees leaving? Had someone happened within the hive that made them leave.
Well, I went to open the top and that’s when I realized that the top was not put on securely. Bees were scrambling in through the gaps that I had left! Damn it! For a good 4 hours, masses of bees had been hitting this hive. In retrospect, I made it worse by giving them a whole frame of honey during the initial split. I have been told to never give a new split that much honey (unless you are giving them 10 frames of bees). I basically gave them 4 frames, 1 of which was solid honey and a beacon to the lazy bums of my other hives. It was heartbreaking, as I was really under a lot of pressure from life issues today and these two queen releases were the only bright spots.
Well, there’s nothing for it except to chalk it up for experience. I will always double-check my tops on the smaller hives going forward. I will never give a small hive a full frame of honey in the hot summer (it not only contributes to robbing, but can also create an issue with the Small Hive Beetle, as the bees do not have enough number to adequately protect it.
I can only hope and pray that the queen is ok. I am sure that a very large number of my bees in the Apache Hive perished in fighting the foes. Hopefully, this will not doom them. I will get that frame of honey out of the hive tomorrow, assuming that the mass robbing has stopped. If it hasn’t, I will have to figure out other methods.
Yesterday, around 6:30 PM, I received a call of a swarm of bees (thousands of them everywhere) in a nearby tree. My first question was ‘how long have they been there?’ The nice lady said they arrived on Thursday and had stayed through to Saturday. I am having a hard time picturing how a hive would cast a swarm now. It is miserably dry and we are in a dearth. Maybe someone cut down their tree? At any rate, according to the lady, they were on a branch about 10′ off of the ground! This sounded like a good situation. If they were 10′ off the ground, I could easily get them with my 8′ step-ladder. I packed my gear and headed over!
The swarm turned out to be more like 12′ high, which created a bit of an issue. In addition, instead of being massed at the end, they were spread over several small Pine limbs, about 2′ wide. It was a bunch of bees, but they were all massed in the needles. I had taken a frame of brood from the Albo hive (I am going to have to throw a feeder on that hive after all, as I have taken 5 frames from them in the last few days) and placed it into the hive as an anchor. I took a big box and held it under the limb while I shook very hard. A bunch of bees flopped into the box, but a bunch also went into the air. I came down the ladder and poured the bunch in the box into my hive and stepped back.
Several bees on the ground and around the hive began to enter, but when I looked back up into the tree, I could immediately see a small ball forming again. It gained mass quickly, so I was pretty sure that it was the queen. It was probably between the size of a baseball and a softball. I went back up the ladder and, this time, just snipped that section off, carrying it back down the ladder and holding it in the hive while I gave a shake.
More bees started coming into the hive at this point, so I stepped back and watched for 10 minutes or so. A very small clump was trying to form on the tree again, but it was meager. Most of the bees in the air seemed unsure what to do. I looked to the ground and saw a bunch going into the hive this time. I was pretty sure that I had the grand, old lady, so I closed everything down and left.
Around dark, I came back to a full box of bees and started yet another hive on the property (I now have more then I want in one place – and definitely more ‘single deep’ hives then I wanted to feed through the dry Summer. Regardless, it is great fun and a learning experience.
The hive was on Apple Orchard road, so I think I will call this the Apple Orchard hive. I checked her this morning and gave them some feed, which they took to quickly. Robbing immediately started, so I dropped an entrance reducer on (I need to build some more robber screens, it would seem). These bees seemed to have enough to fend the buggers off and setup guard posts very much like the Berkeley Hive does.
It will be very interesting to see if these bees build up as fast as the Westover Hive did. I really do not know how they could build up but so quickly, given the fact that we are in a real dry spell. I will keep my syrup on them and see if they can get on a roll like my first swarm.
In closing, robbing continues to be a problem in the yard. The weaker hives (by that, I really mean any hive that has not filled up 7 frames in the bottom Deep yet) seem to draw the other bees in. I have seen good results with the robber screens, so I hope to get one on the Apple Orchard hive shortly.
My love of beekeeping is becoming an obsession, according to my wife. Regardless, I truly love it for the educational experience that it is. Everyday is a new experience.
Today, I created another new split, introduced queens to two new splits (one of them being the one that I created today), checked on the Geronimo hive after a long time letting them alone, received a swarm call and collected the swarm. That’s a lot for a day! As I want to record my experiences as a reference, I will focus primarily on the inspection and the splits.
My first task this morning was to introduce one of my new queens. Two days ago, Doug Ladd alerted me to a gentleman by the name of Bobby, outside of Rice, Virginia, that had some queens with some very good genetic history. I believe they are F1 hybrids off of a pure strain that is very hygienic (which means that they clean the varroa mite off of themselves or maybe remove larva with varroa in the cell with them.) I was interested in some new blood, so I made the trip yesterday and picked up two new queens. I now needed to have some hives to put them in!
I took the queen cage and wiped a tad of water along the edge, since I had made her wait over night on top of my aquarium. I then removed the plug that protected the candy and carefully pushed a small nail through the candy. Bobby advised me to do this, but I was very careful here, as I have read of other folks accidentally impaling their queen during this trick! I think you want to do it to give the bees an idea that they can eat through the candy to get to the queen.
So, I go out to the new hive, which I am going to call the Bob Hive, after my brother’s dog (since these bees came from the Albo hive.) The robber screen had worked and the hive entrance was working as expected now. I knew that I had to be quick. When Bobby showed me how he put the queen cells in, the little cage actually dropped into the bottom of the brood chamber (by accident, of course)! Bobby probably has decades of experience, but I decided to take a frame of foundation and wedge the cage between the wire (I do not embed) and the foundation.
I popped the top of the Bob Hive and removed the inner cover. As I grabbed a frame of foundation, a bee flew up out of the hive, landing on the queen cage and stuck its little tongue down into the cage!!! Ha! It’s supposedly a good sign when you see this, as it means that they are feeding her. But, who would have thought some gal would fly up a few feet above the hive and feed her! At any rate, I wedged the box into placed and lowered it into the hive. The bees pretty much swarmed onto the wire caging. I am not so sure that this was a good sign. They use the term ‘balling’ to mean an aggressive stance. They were so thick on the wiring that I couldn’t tell if they all had their tongues out or were biting at the cage. I had already decided that I would probably lose one of these queens, but it would be a great learning experience, so I pushed it into place, replaced the top and put a mason jar of MegaBee syrup on top. I’ll check back on them in a few days.
On to the inspection and new split creation. Cracking the Geronimo Hive, my absolutely strongest hive, made me once again realize the difference in my gentle hives and the Westover Hive(s). I broke that whole thing apart and do not believe one bee banged into my veil (vs. always a dozen or more when I go this deep on Westover). I will probably requeen the original queen from that swarm next Spring. At any rate, like the Albo hive, they had 5 or 6 Deep frames (both sides) of capped honey. They actually were storing a bit of honey in the Illinois super, so they are doing very well. The brood pattern is insane. If that queen decides to use the whole frame, she literally uses the whole frame. She doesn’t miss. Wall-to-wall, ceiling-to-floor. I picked 4 frames out of this hive, including one that was all honey, one that had a bit of pollen and some capped brood, one that was capped brood and larva and one that was sort of misformed (it was on the outside of the Geronimo Hive, and was partially drawn.) I replaced all of these with drawn foundation.
Finally, I moved all of Tom Fifer’s original frames to the outside of the brood chamber, for removal next Spring.
It should be noted that I was prepared with this split, having learned my lesson over the past few weeks. I set the new box up with a robber screen installed. I also created a cover that was easy to remove and replace, as I dropped the necessary frames into it. There was tons of fighting going on in the Geronimo hive as other bees came to steal their honey, but nothing on the new split (a marked difference from my past adventures of late!) A late season split needs careful attention.
Some 10 hours later, I put my second queen into this split, which I will now call the Apache hive. Unlike the Bob Hive, these bees didn’t even act like they noticed her. Not one of them got onto the cage. In fact, the majority of them were face down into the honey cells. I am sure this means something (besides simply that they were hungry), but I will have to wait until tomorrow or Monday to really know what it meant. I put a mason jar of MegaBee syrup on them and that was that.
Well, that was not that, as I was to find out when I received a swarm call around 6:30, but that story will have to wait until tomorrow!
I picked up a couple of new queens today (more on that tomorrow) to replace the queens in the Blue Cottage Hive and Pop’s hive. Basically, these hives have been under performing in my opinion. But, once I got home and mentioned it to Pop, he was incredulous that I had already given up on the grand ladies we picked up less then a month ago. He hasn’t kept bees in a couple of decades, but he has a bit more patience then I do! In the end, his comments were good as it caused me to give the Blue Cottage Hive another thorough inspection today.
This time, I took the time to note exactly where and how much she had been laying. After a good look, it is clear to me that she has pretty much laid in every available cell to her. The pattern is great. The problem is that she did not start off with enough bees to really get a good growth curve going. I have to go back to the old lesson that I have to relearn every month – leave the daggone bees be! I decided not to kill the old girl, but I did move the three frames they were working (really 2.5) along with one frame of foundation that they had started to draw out (about a quarter size,) into a Nuc.A Nuc only holds 5 frames and is a much more defensible position. I have run across several moths hanging under the lid of the cover or on a frame far away from the bees. These are probably wax moths looking to lay eggs (or maybe they already laid eggs.) I wanted to get the bees in a box where they consumed most of the space, hopefully giving them more of a chance to deal with these predators. Unlike the Southside hive, I rarely notice more then one or two small hive beetles here.
This hive will be an experiment for me. If they do not make it or build up enough, lesson learned. If they do, another lesson learned. Hopefully, they’ll get a full five frames drawn out over the next month and I can try to spend August to October getting them to fill out a full brood chamber. Like Doug said in a recent comment, it takes a worker bee 21 days from egg to emerging. The key now is to get them to draw out the remaining frames quickly so that they will get a good population going and I can move them to a brood chamber. Of note, they did have a nice dome of honey and a half frame of pollen. I will switch them to a MegaBee mixture shortly.
Now, I have two queens that need homes. These queens are supposed to be rocking queens, so I do not want to shirk them. I had checked the Southside Hive today, expecting to see a queen laying (although today is the earliest I would see that, according to the Bee Math). Instead, I found two more queen cells (that is really odd to me, as I cannot figure how they could have had any eggs in that hive that would still be in capped cells right now), in addition to a very old queen cell, in the horizontal position, from the original cut out! You’re supposed to put comb in at the same position (up-down) that you find it in the tree. I did not know this when I did my first cut out and just put it in however I could squeeze it. Apparently, they were in the midst of making a new queen when I did the cut-out. Sadly, I did not see that cell and put it in at the wrong direction. I imagine it has a dead queen in it now, although who knows. This might be the target for one of my new queens.
Finally, I had to get at least one small hive started for one of my queens. So, I did a full inspection of the Albo hive. Good lord. These bees are doing everything right but giving me honey. They had a ton of honey in the upper brood chamber and the queen was laying like a mad woman. The pattern was incredible in the bottom chamber. Bar-to-bar eggs. As a side note, I did notice what they call ‘backfilling’, a term Doug introduced me to. The workers have started to fill some of the cells that held brood with honey in the upper deep. As it stands right now, they have more then enough to make it through the Winter. But, they’ll surely eat into it over the next couple of months, so we’re not out of the woods yet. Regardless, this hive has received no feed (except what it probably stole from another hive) or other treatment. I will do a couple of dustings for mites in July/August, but that’s it. This hive has lots of promise.
My final task for this hive was also completed, as I moved all of the old frames that I started with last Spring to the outside of the hive. I will probably remove one or two this Fall, but will definitely remove all 4 next Spring.
I am really glad that I did not split the Albo hive now. Things have turned drastically dry in my area of Virginia (just to the east of Richmond, in Henrico County – aka Varina) and, I believe, the bees have really been driven into a survival mode. Yesterday, I noticed a bit of fighting at the Blue Cottage Hive. For me, the signs always look like a training flight from afar, but with more bees then normal (for the Blue Cottage Hive, anything more then a dozen or so bees in orientation mode is abnormal.) Once you get up close, you watch the landing board and the bees are more agitated then normal. Watching a strong hive, like Geronimo, a bunch of bees (well, a ton) will be on the landing board and hanging all above it and below it (they call it bearding), but they are not very agitated. They just move back and forth (a rhythmic motion), like they are scrubbing the place or something. But, when bees are hauling all over the place and you occasionally see one or two jump on another one and actually tumble to the ground in front of the hive, you typically have robbing going on (it should be noted that a bee will sometimes rake one another to get the pollen off of their sister’s bodies, which might appear to be fighting – but it is not – rest assured, when robbing is going on, you will not doubt it or question it.)
As mentioned previously, I do not baby my established hives (unless an emergency, like something that I accidentally do to them). They are on their own. No food, no protection from robbing. I like to think that any established hive in my apiary is a proven gene pool. But, the Blue Cottage Hive is in its infancy (year 1) and small to boot! They receive my full attention. I do not tolerate any fighting on their landing board, so I immediately put up one of my homemade robber screens. Within moments, it became pretty clear who the robbers were and who were the hometown girls. I checked today and fewer robbers were about, although they were still about looking for a free meal.
I think that a dry period like this, matched with the normal end of the Spring nectar flow, is going to provoke robbing (my guess is that the culprits include the Albo hive, the Geronimo Hive, the queenless split (tons of bees there) and some feral bees.) But, I am definitely asking for it with the feeding that I am currently doing. They say that feeding syrup increases the likelihood of robbing and I can believe it.
While watching the Queenright split, I did not see any robbing, but there really are very few bees on the landing board. Just a few feet away, the QueenLESS hive sits and it is thick with bees. I do not believe a robber screen hurts, so I went ahead and put one on the Queenright hive too.
I also want to get one on the Southside hive, as they also do not appear to have a lot of bees on the landing board. It’s been 15 days since I dropped the eggs (from the Westover Hive) into that queenless hive. It’s been 11 days since I noticed a capped queen cell. Basically, if things went smoothly, I have a new queen in that hive (they are very docile, which is a positive sign) right this second! She may have made her mating flight, but maybe not. It definitely has not been rainy, so the odds are in her favor (I have noticed lots of drones on all hives, another positive.) Although I really do not like opening hives in this mess (bees from other hive seem to take notice very quickly), I will be checking for some eggs this Friday (or maybe Saturday.) I also want to remove some of that old comb, so I am hopeful of a lot of things. But, if I see eggs, it means we have a laying queen (assuming it is not a laying worker!) and that will be enough for me.
The last new hive to mention is the Berkeley Hive. They had drawn out 7 frames at the last check and might be nearing an 8th (although that would really surprise me, given the dry spell and lack of nectar – it would be driven totally by the syrup feedings). At this point, they are still on the largest opening of an entrance reducer. I know some folks completely remove the entrance reducer on a hive this size, but I am definitely glad that I did not do that (smallest entrance reducer up to 6 frames, largest entrance reducer from 7 to 10 frames and no entrance reducer once the top Deep goes on). They are guarding that entrance perfectly (even fiercely!) About 8 sit along the edge, fanning wind back into the hive (ventilation.) They look like real guards. Every bee that comes by them (and all have to come by them to get into the hive) gets checked. I waited for a good 10 minutes and only saw one get the business (and boy did they gang rush her – two fanning guards and one who had been acting innocent on the landing board jumped some stray wanderer, took her to the ground and stung the daylights out of her!)
Results? No robber screen needed.
On a final note, I am still getting harassed a bit when I go around the Westover splits. I take Doug’s suggestion very seriously in his comment on a recent post. I cannot have a hive in the apiary that is too mean for a multitude of reasons. But, I will not pass judgment on them until they have a queen. I have not personally experienced it (up until now, maybe), but many folks say that a hive gets testy while it is queenless. It seems natural to me that they would be on hyper alert. They cannot afford to lose the queens that are current developing in the hive (there are no more eggs being laid to produce new ones.) One of these have to make it. So, if it were me, I would rush at anything that came within 30′ of the hive. I am hopeful that this is all that I am seeing. I definitely did not have a problem with them (outside of when I opened the hive) before the split.
I spoke to quickly about the war being over. It is really crazy and impossible for me to explain, but I was once again attacked by a bee around my shed, late yesterday. Per my last post, I had previously figured that a few bees has stung my pants or shirt and left their alarm pheremone on me. I assumed that this was sending out a ‘come fight this big galook’ smell to all nearby bees, so I was being attacked both Thursday afternoon and all day Friday, even though I was 80+ yards from the splits (where most of the angry bees) and maybe 60 yards from my other hives (which were not getting riled as I looked closely at their landing boards (periodically) during the same period.) In effect, I was a walking pheromone sponge.
Well, yesterday I threw all of the work clothes in the dirty clothes hamper and washed down thoroughly before making my way out to do some chores. About mid-day, I went to paint a few more Deeps and, low and behold, here she came again! This time, I was tired of it and decided that I would let her sting me. I needed to know if it really was only ONE bee. Finally, she nailed me as I stood there with paint in hand. I stepped back and she kept coming out me (without a stinger now) and went so far as to land on my paint brush, as if to say ‘I own this place, bub.’ Eventually, she went off to die and I was finally left at peace. Not a single attack since then.
I know it sounds insane. I am not really sure I believe it. But, it appears that I had one bee from that split that simply was not going to let it go. A real anger management issue=)
One Capped and One Nearly Capped Queen Cell
Well, on to better news. With all of the hassle around the split hives (specifically the queenless one), I was not looking forward to the inspection today. But, I needed to confirm that they had started some queens. For the past day or so, I had actually started to hope that they had not started any new queens. I could put a frame of eggs from the Geronimo Hive, my strongest gentle hive. But, with the scorching heat, I had changed my mind and hoped that I would find them after all (and thus not be forced to break two daggone hives apart!)
It was on frame 4 that I found the queen cells. That’s right cellS! I found two completed cells, one almost capped and another that was just starting to be drawn out. This last one indicates that I definitely put a frame of very new eggs in with these gals, as the egg in that one is three days old at least! This is all good news. My guess is that one of these queens will hatch in about 10 to 12 days (it takes 16 (give or take) total days, from the laying of the egg to the emergence of the queen), which puts us at Jul 1 to 3. She’ll then chill out with the hive, exerting her authority (killing the other queens that have not hatched yet or even doing battle with one if it does hatch at the same time), and otherwise being useless. Finally, after 4 or 5 days (putting us at July 8), she’ll go out to find the love of her life. Ideally (although it could be later), she’ll be laying by the weekend of July 11. I’ll check them then and, if things are going smoothly, I’ll take them to Charles City to Pop!
I also placed a fresh deep chamber of foundation between the deep brood chamber (bottom) and the Illinois super (top). Finally, I filled up the feeder and let them be. This time, I used a lot of smoke and there was not nearly the same amount of aggravation. But, I did notice a ton of fighting on the landing board. Apparently, I let the cat out of the bag by exposing the hive and letting a bunch of other bees come in and try to steal from them. But, I have very little worries about them. They covered every frame in the bottom deep and several frames in the Illinois super. They are strong and will defend themselves (plus, they are really mean…)
Yesterday was an interesting experience, to be sure. Later in the day, after the Berkeley Hive check, I went out to check both the Southside Hive and the Blue Cottage Hive to see if they could use some more feed (more on this later.) After this check, I was pretty much harassed by a bee anytime I went out in my yard, no matter where I was. My house sits on a little over 3 acres of land. No matter where I was, a bee would eventually find me and begin to actively fly at me, in my face, hair and all of the rest.
Now, I know this wasn’t one bee. It sort of felt like it was one – perhaps from the Westover Hive looking to get even, but I knew that was nearly impossible. Something else was going on. I think, in retrospect, that I had alarm pheromone on me or in my hair from my adventures earlier in the day. When I would walk out into the yard, some nearby bee (who was simply out to get some nectar, pollen or water) would get a whiff of me and go into attack mode. It was more then a bit annoying and disconcerting.
At any rate, I took a good shower this morning and either the smell is gone or that lone enemy has gone back to its regular chores and decided to stop bothering me!
As to the late day hive checks yesterday, I was discouraged to find that the Blue Cottage Hive had not built up since the last check on June 7. Eleven days and not much to show for it. In addition, while pulling some of the empty (foundation only) frames to get to the center 3 frames, I found a moth. It was probably a wax moth. It was too wiley for me to smash, but it was a good reality check. I also saw the queen actually lay an egg on top of the comb! This could have been a reaction to my pulling the comb (perhaps she was in the middle of laying an egg when I pulled it), but I am becoming more and more convinced that this is a bum Nuc. The fact that I paid $75 for 2 frames of bees is a bit of an irritant. I seriously regret having recommended other folks to buy Nucs from the guy that I purchased them from. I can only hope that any of the new Beekeepers received a better deal then I did.
Regardless, we are definitely in a very dry period right now. I am fairly certain that build up will all but stop until the Fall (and will only pick up again at that time if we have some rain.) The bees are probably going to hunker down and slow down the egg laying and try to eke through the summer without eating into their stores so much.
I have a lot of things going through my mind after the last couple of days. To begin with, I am going to move the Blue Cottage Hive into a Nuc. They are too small to be in a 10 frame box and simply cannot defend against their many predators with so much space. I will move their 2 worked frames and the 1 drawn frame (that was full of brood) that I placed with them in week 1, into a Nuc. I will then add one new frame of foundation and one more frame of brood. The frames in their deep will be frozen in my deep freezer for a few days (and the brood chamber left out in the Sun, far away from my other hives), in case there are Wax Moth eggs in them (the freezing should kill them good). My goal for the Blue Cottage Hive is to get them strong enough to move to a deep brood chamber as soon as possible. But, I have heard of other folks over-wintering Nuc’s. So, I might be trying that trick. As to the queen, I would bet that she is simply a poor specimen. But, I cannot rule out that she is simply slowing down (from what? she never really got going!) due to the dry spell and end of the flow. I might re-queen these gals, if the opportunity presents itself.
In addition, this slowing of the build-up phase has me questioning the wisdom of splitting the Albo Hive. It must have really been bothering me, subconsciously, as the moment I came to the decision that I would not split them until we had a good rain (and maybe not, even then,) I felt much better about the whole ordeal. Splitting at this time of year is a risk. Given the dry and hot weather of late, that risk has really become too great for this stage of my bee career. For now, I will only deal with the Westover Splits. Next year, I will definitely play with doing some early Spring Splits.
Finally, this moth (which I am nearly certain was a wax moth – but it looked like any old moth to me) will be dealt with today. I will setup two traps along the back line, where most of my weaker/smaller hives are. We’ll see if we catch any.
This morning, I made my way over to the garden to see if any of the veggies were showing signs of stress due to the dry period that I’ve been in (Richmond, Va has received some rain, but I have literally been without any rain at all for several weeks – which is really tough on the plants when you have scorching days in the 90’s). Before I even got to within 30 feet of the splits, I had angry bees coming at me. This is a first for me. Every hive that I have, up until yesterday, would let me get within inches of the landing board and take pictures, without getting mad. I am fairly certain these two wenches would have stuck their little surprise into me had I not hit the road.
For most of the morning, I have been trying to figure out what to do next. I need to look at the Berkeley Hive, but I will have to get suited up to do so, primarily thanks to the queenless split off of the Westover Hive. Bees are still in the air, mainly buzzing around where their old landing board was, but also buzzing all over the Queenless split. The real concern (I can get suited up, that’s no big deal) is that these bees might start robbing the young Berkeley Hive when I do an inspection. For some time, I kept saying that I would do it tomorrow, but I finally threw in the towel and went to have a look.
Fully suited, I was able to look at both splits again, both on the landing board and inside their feeders (I definitely did not want to open either right now.) Bees were all over me, definitely upset, before I came within 15 feet or so. But, none put a little stinger in me, primarily because of the bee suit and long pants. Both hives were eating, but the queenless hive had eaten the entire gallon in less then a day. I’m not sure what to make of this, but part of it is probably due to the dry weather. This is probably another ‘do not split your hives when’ rule that I have broken, but I am fine with feeding them copious amounts of sugar for several months, if no rain comes. I might even take Doug’s suggestion of mixing in some mega-bee, although (per my response to his comment) I have never been able to successfully do that before.
In fact, due to the amount of feeding that I might be doing this Summer, I am seriously considering taking Tom Fifer’s strategy of mixing .5 parts sugar to 1 part water. I am going to have to mix a ton of it and, according to Tom, that mixture is closer to nectar’s ratio then 1:1. We’ll see. For now, I am sticking to 1:1 with a tad of Honey Bee Healthy.
The other item of note (maybe of concern?) is that there is still next to no activity on the landing board of the queen-right hive. The queenless hive is covered with bees, but there is not a single one on the queenless hive. Since I could see them eating the syrup, I knew they were in there, but otherwise the hive looks dead. It isn’t, of course, but this is a good tidbit to remember for later splits.
But, onto the task at hand. The Berkeley Hive had nearly 7 frames of bees. 2 of them were only being worked on, but the rest were fully drawn and being used for one thing or another. I only looked at 1 of the frames that was being worked, as the bees from the Westover Hive were still harassing me. I saw one run into the frame that I was looking (she was mainly trying to find a way into my veil, but wasn’t watching to the aft and banged right into some bees on the frame of the Berkeley Hive. Man did they get angry. Up until that moment, not a single bee from that hive had acted upset. When that Westover Bee banged into their hard work, about 10 came off and went for that bee. They never seemed to go for me, but they didn’t have any time for that country trash messing with their stores.
At any rate, it was a good inspection. I removed the feeder that had smelled a bit a few days ago for cleaning and placed a brand new feeder with new syrup on them. I’ve been having a problem finding the right spacers to put on the back of the top feeder to provide a bit of ventilation. Yesterday, I picked up some washers for a trap out that I am going to start in July (or whenever we finally get a good rain) and used two of them on each corner. Stacked two high, it provides ventilation, but bees cannot come and go (and rob.) I’m sure the daggone Small Hive Beetle will use it to their heart’s content, but this hive is mostly clean of them.
That last bit does remind me of note that I want to make about the Westover Hive and forgot to yesterday. I did not see one single Small Hive Beetle when I did that split (and I was looking for them – especially the larva.) Again, it is a mean hive, but maybe that’s what it takes to deal with the problems of the world… On the other hand, stings really do not bother me. But, harassing me while I am in the garden is another thing. They better settle down once they get a queen cell started or I will take other measures. I cannot wait for a queen to hatch to get into my garden. Period.
We have passed the mid-point of June and two of my stronger hives are clearly not going to produce any honey this year (well, that’s my estimation – here in Richmond, Virginia (although I am in Henrico), the main flow typically ends in June.) This year, with everything starting so much earlier, it seems logical to me that things will peter out a bit sooner then normal. My June Bearing strawberries were finished by the time June came around this year. My strongest hive has done a great job working a medium super, but I am doubtful of getting honey from this one either.
So, how to I make this a positive season? I decided that I would do a couple of splits. I wanted to give my Pop one split and keep one for myself. Since this is my first year with established hives, I also wanted to let one hive play out for the Summer, just to see what it would do. I decided to let the Geronimo Hive play out. I do not intend to mess with it and want to see what it will do. But, I will split both the Albo Hive and the Westover Hive for my two splits this year. Today, I tackled the Westover Hive.
What is a split? It is simply taking one hive and making two out of it. The complex part comes in ‘how to split.’ The ‘how’ means different things to most folks. For my split, it meant dividing the hive in two. Both of my two target hives have two full deeps (for the brood chamber) and one medium that they are working on (my attempt at getting some honey.) I will divide the frames between the two hives, making sure both have at least one frame of eggs and an equal number of brood and other frame types (stored honey, capped brood, larva, pollen, etc…) Then, the hive with the queen will build up, while the hive that does not get the queen will raise their own. Simple. Heh.
When you read or hear about most splits, they are done in the early Spring, just before the main flow. This is the optimal time to do a split and possibly still get a respectable honey harvest. Obviously, I am doing it after the main flow, which probably puts my splits at risk. My plan is to offer them a lot of feed over the next few months and hope that they build up to two deeps again and stock up for the Winter. We’ll see how it goes.
Parent Hive Before the Split
When I arrived at the Westover Hive, all seemed well. Actually, it seemed calm compared to other days. There was no bearding, but a very active landing board, bees coming and going at a rate of 4 or 5 every second. Since I had seen bearding most of the previous week on all of the hives, I went to check out the others to make sure something wasn’t amiss (did they just swarm?!) As it so happens, all of the hives had fairly empty landing boards (the Geronimo Hive was just starting to do a tad of bearding.) So, it was time to do the split.
The tools that I brought with me were my hive tool, a spray bottle of syrup, my frame clamp (for getting the frames out easier), a camera, and a brood chamber (to hold frames while I divided them up with two frames of foundation (in case I had a problem with Small Hive Beetles or otherwise needed to swap out a damaged frame). I placed four cinder blocks behind the parent hive, facing it, to place my two splits on. The scouts would want to come back to the original location. I decided to place both splits a few feet from this location to hopefully keep the populations fairly even.
Post Bee Hive Split
I then pulled off the top of the parent hive and cracked the inner cover. Immediatly, about a dozen bee fighter jets came up out of the hive to give me the what’s for. This was more aggressive then I was used to and am definitely coming to the conclusion that this hive is my most aggressive hive. No more excuses. Regardless, I went to work.
I have become fairly oblivious to the regular flight of bees, wearing some shorts my veil and some gloves. But, by the time that I had dealt out 5 frames, I regretted that decision. Two bees landed on my knees and gave me a good stinging. In addition, I now had around a hundred bees buzzing me in the air (a hundred is a lot – when they are butting up against your veil to such a degree that you have a hard time seeing if their are eggs in the comb of a frame, you know you have some irritated bees!) After the stings, I retreated to the house for a drink of water and some long pants…
At this point, I may have made a mistake, but I am thinking that it will work out ok. On frame 6, I finally spotted the queen of this hive. I tried to get a picture, but she melded back into masses before I could get the camera focused on her. She was a big one, to be sure, and her wings looked just fine. But, this is where I learned a good lesson. I had already counted out 2 frames of brood and 1 frame of nectar/honey for both hives. On one, I had confirmed eggs. When I found the queen, I should have placed her on the other one. But, I placed her on the brood chamber that already had eggs. In my mind, I figured that I would find another frame of eggs for sure, but such was not the case.
Queen-right Post-split Hive
As I went through the frames, I found several that were probably in the 4 to 6 day range, but did not confirm eggs again (I am sure there were eggs on some of these frames, but I did not spot them.) A 4 day old bee has just emerged from the eggs stage but is still viable for a queen (she is still getting royal jelly.) But, there is no guarantee that I placed such a frame in the queenless hive. I could have gone back to find the frame with the eggs, but the bees were really going crazy at this point. When I would remove a frame, a good 50 or so would leap into the air (joining the rest) and start the attack. The cloud of bees around me became thicker then when I did the tree extraction (I really wish I had gotten that queen now…) I have come to the definite conclusion that these bees are almost more aggressive then I would like (notice the word ‘almost’.) I would like to see how they do when they start the year with a full complement of bees (I am wondering if they will out produce the more gentle bees – they sure work hard.) The bottom line is that I am torn between wanting to breed their work ethic with not wanting to breed their aggressiveness. I would hope to get the former, but with my luck, would only get the latter!
Once I got the hives separated, I put a top feeder on both and put a full gallon on each. Up until today, the parent hive had been drinking about a gallon a day (I was feeding them in preparation for this split.) We’ll see how they do as two hives. It should be noted (for humor’s sake) that I received my second sting when putting on the feeders. When I bent down to grab one of the feeders, it must have opened a small hole in the suit, as I suddenly and eye-to-eye with a pissed off bee. An observer would have gotten a chuckle, as I ran across the field, disrobing as I went. This was a mistake, as a good 50 or so bees followed me and one snagged me on the shoulder as I rounded the corner. The one in the suit never did get me and I was able to set her free once back at the house.
Some other things to note:
I used the bottom board, cover and main brood chamber from the parent hive for the queenless hive
I put the queen right hive in the top brood chamber of the parent hive
I divided the partially (hardly) drawn super in half, effectively putting a medium on top of both hives.
Queenless Post-split Hive
At the end of the event, both hives faced one another with an empty deep between them. I placed a small twig in the entrance to both and stepped back to watch (through a mass of angry bees…) The queenless hive had a ton of bees come out on the landing board, but I did not see any of them fanning. Since this was the landing board from the parent hive, maybe it was to be expected. The queen-right hive had 1 bee come out of it while I watched. Otherwise, no activity. I actually had to check to see if I put the bottom board on wrong. But, it was true – no activity there. Finally, I filled up the feeders and got out of dodge. These bees were not happy. I think I smelled to high heaven of alarm pheremone (from my body, but primarily from my suit and gloves – I had seen a dozen sting the suit/gloves). I probably need to wash the thing now.
As to the egg situation with the queenless hive, I am not concerned. If I do not see a queen cell by next Monday, I will drop a frame of eggs from one of my other (more gentle) hives. I am now a bit worried about the frame of eggs that I took from the Westover Hive to queen up the Southside Hive. We’ll see how that queen does (assuming she hatches and mates successfully.)
