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.

Man Dies of Bee Stings

An article popped up on my Google Alerts today about an Africanized Honey Bee Hive killing a man in California. It’s a real tragedy and my prayers go out to the man’s family. Hopefully they will find peace.

But, this event highlights the ongoing issue with the Africanized Honey Bee (AHB.) Several decades ago, a well-respected (internationally) beekeeper in South America began to observe the AHB and recognized several positive traits in that bee which he thought would be very desirable in his bees back home. The AHB is a fiesty creature. It has evolved in an environment that will go from a lush, wetland full of blooming plants to a desolate, dry land where everything is sleeping (waiting for the next downpour, which may be months away!) As a honey bee, one cannot live for months without nectar and pollen, so this bee developed a couple of traits to help it through this.

Primarily, the AHB can pick up shop and move at a moment’s notice. If this area is dry, it might be time to head many dozens of miles to a new spot where blooms still exist. To complement this, they build up comb very quickly. If you are moving around a lot, you need to be able to build up a place to hatch new bees and store honey quickly. Finally, since they move around a lot, they really do not put honey away to any great extent (if you might be moving next month, there is no need to store up a bunch of honey for the long haul.) These bees do not have our winters, so they simply never needed to store a lot of honey.

Finally, and most importantly, the AHB has a ton of predators that roam the landscape in Africa. Most of these predators are looking to get at the bee’s honey. Over time (thousands of years), the bees that were the nastiest/meanest were the bees that survived. If you could really put a good stinging on a possible honey theft – enough to get them to leave – your hive’s genes had a much greater chance to make it to the next generation. As time went out, the AHB became the meanest little bee in town.

But, there are a lot of Africans that are very successful beekeepers with this nasty bee. As you would imagine, they have worked to keep (and breed) those hives which absconded (picked up shop and left) less, stored more honey then normal and were not as mean. An insect evolves quickly (anyone doubting this has only to look at how quickly the varroa mite evolved to resist the treatments that came out only a decade ago.) It did not take the African beekeeper long to breed a very nice bee that built up much quicker then the European bee (honey-wise), but was missing many of the negative traits of the AHB.

This all sounds good, eh? But, why all the uproar about the AHB? Well, this researcher/beekeeper from South America went to many Apiaries and retrieved only the best queens. He sent them, by the hundreds, back to South America. This bee, when mixed with the European Bee, would be the answer to everyone’s prayers. But, things would not go as planned.

Of the hundreds of bees that were sent back to South America, only a handful (literally) survived. Instead of picking up a large gene pool, a very small sub-set arrived and survived in South America. In no time at all, a few (for all we know, only one – which would imply that all of North America’s AHB’s are descended from this one queen) absconded and intermixed with the local population. The bees spread and the rest is history, with the bees arriving in the southern part of the United States and causing all kinds of problems (and tragedies, born out by the headliner of this post.)

Now, these bees are killed on sight. Some beekeepers try to retrieve them, but requeen them immediately. Think about that. Someone actually catches an AHB (maybe this one has a gentle queen?), but they immediately kill the gene pool and replace it with a European queen. Now, if that hive had been really mean, making it impossible to catch before they absconded, that gene pool would remain in the wild. Thus, Natural Selection all but demands that the AHB remain mean (and get meaner) and abscond quickly here in North America. But, that’s the state of things today. I believe tomorrow will be a different beast.

Within my lifetime, I expect Africanized bees to be in Virginia. I believe they will continue to intermix with the European honey bee and that the Africanized strain will far outperform (and eventually overcome) the European strain in the wild (except, maybe, far up North – that will be my child’s lifetime.) But, am I worried? Not at all. I believe that this is a good thing. The AHB has a huge resistance to many of the problems that ail the European Bees of today. They also have good traits. The problem of today is the bad traits, but I honestly believe that we will one day learn to live with them (even embrace them) and be proud to have hives with that gene pool. We started out with the genetic trash of a handful of bees from Africa (or maybe just 1 queen.) Mother Nature has her way and we will, one day, end up with a superior bee. I believe that bee will have a good many genes from that 1 nasty queen that came out of South America.

The Small Hive Beetle

The Small Hive Beetle is another one of those lovely gifts that beekeepers received from across the seas. The critter originated in Africa. Oddly, one would expect that the Beekeeper’s of Europe would have encountered them as well, but maybe the beetle could never survive the trip through the Middle East…

At any rate, this Bug likes to eat sweet stuff. Fruit, honey, sugar water…you name it. As an adult, it will sneak into a beehive and lay eggs in an out of the way location. Once the eggs hatch, a nasty little larva crawls around and eats honey, comb and brood (that’s right…brood…) The honey bee fights it off, chasing the parents out of the hive and cleaning up the eggs. I am guessing that they will also kill the small larva if given the chance. Once the larva is full, it crawls out of the hive and digs into the ground, mutating back into the beetle (see my Small Hive Beetle page for thoughts on nemotodes that might fight this.) Then, it just flies back up and starts laying eggs again…

But, this all assumes a strong hive. A weak hive can fall behind the beetles and end up with a nest of larva climbing through everything. To make matters even worse, they defecate in the wax and this is one substance that the bees turn their noses up at. They will not clean it  out and can/will eventually abscond from a hive that is full of these little beasts.

Now, back to my beekeeping adventures near Richmond, Virginia. The Small Hive Beetle (aka SHB) has been slowly working its way up the coast over the past several years. Like the Varroa Mite, it can overwinter in the warmth of the hive’s cluster. But, it has had a hard time getting a toehold in the more temperate regions (it is a tropical bug, after all.) Still, the State Apiarist noted that central Virginia had its first SHB around 2005. He says that they will cover all of Virginia soon enough, so get ready for them.

Well, I have them. I had them last year, but only a few running here and there. This year, they seem to be everywhere. I think the early warm season gave them a bit of an advantage. Tomorrow, I will take a look at my small hives to see how they are faring, but the reason for this post centers on the Southside Hive.

About 6 days ago, I decided that I should give the Southside Hive some pollen substitute to help them get going. I had just sucked them out of a tree and they had no resources at all. I could see that they were storing nectar, but was unsure if they were getting enough pollen. Like an idiot, I tore off a small chunk (maybe the size of a silver dollar) and pushed it through the entrance (I could not lay it on top, as I have a hive top feeder on this hive right now.)

Well, I checked the pollen sub this morning, to see if they were  using it, and found that they were not. Instead, as I pulled it out and turned it over, about a dozen SHB larva were crawling all through it! Ugh! These things are nasty. I wish I had snapped a picture, but I was so pissed that I dropped them on a rock and smashed the living bejesus out of them. Hopefully, I caught this in time and did not endanger the hive any. But, it has me wondering what is going on under the feeder. In addition, I thought I noticed a weird smell from the Berkley Hive the other day (it also has a top feeder – another thing that attracts the cursed bug). At the time, I thought that maybe the syrup was getting ripe (you cannot leave the feed, which is basically water and sugar, out in this heat for too long before it begins to ferment.) But, they were almost finished and I just figured I would swap that feeder out for a clean one tomorrow.

At any rate, this post reflects a big lesson for me. Once SHB weather is here, do not feed Pollen Sub. In this case, the bees will have to make it on their own. Natural Selection. If I give them the sub, I am only stacking the deck against what might otherwise be a strong gene pool. At any rate, I hope that I do not have to cull frames tomorrow, to get rid of a SHB problem. I might be going to the store to get some materials for a homemade trap…

Hot & Bearding

It’s hot as Hades today in Richmond, Virginia, reaching 95 degrees on my gauge. Beekeeping is only fun on days like today when you’re just watching from afar. Regardless, I had to do a couple of checks to see what was going on in the Albo and Geronimo hives. I built another medium (Illinois super) box of frames last night and put foundation in them this morning. I wanted to make sure they were not close to filling of their current supers up. If they were, they would be going into the ‘it is daggone crowded in here’ psychosis and might decide to swarm. Putting an extra, empty super on top would give them the feeling of lots o’ space and keep them happy.

I cracked the Geronimo Hive, which I had seen working the one super on top, hoping to see a bunch of capped frames. Unfortunately, my luck continues to hold and it really does not look like they have done much work beyond my last look. All of the frames have some drawn comb on them, but none of them are fully drawn out and (with my brief inspection) I did not see any capped comb. Oh well. It would appear that I will not get any honey off of these guys, but I am going to continue to let them work at it this year, just to see how it goes. I did not drop any super on them. Of note, these bees were all over the landing board and some were actually hanging off of it, latching on to one another and creating a ‘beard-like’ look on the front of the hive. This is a common occurrence, although most folks worry that the bees are getting ready to swarm and fly off. Instead, they are just cooling off. I’d go out on the porch for some lemonade too!

The Albo Hive had not even touched the super on top. In fact, I briefly removed the super and noticed that they had not yet drawn out the last frame on the top brood chamber. This is the hive that I am going to consider splitting. They are not my strongest hive, but they are still a solid hive. I think that most of my hives did not get a great start, due to how late I received them last year. I am hopeful that next Spring will be a different story. I am thinking about feeding these bees just to see if they will draw out this honey super for next year.

Finally, I replaced the feeder on the Blue Cottage Hive. This weak hive has shown a lot of progress over the past week to ten days. I now see bees on the landing area and coming and going with more frequency then my initial investigations. I am pretty sure that dropping that frame of brood from the Westover Hive was a big boon. It should be noted that I momentarily thought the Westover Hive was robbing this hive, as I could see the blacker bees coming and going (a color that I mainly have in the Westover Hive.) Then I remembered that I had taken brood from them…so, these are some of that brood already going to work.

Not an extremely eventful post, but good for the journal and future reference.

New Queen Cells Started

Today, in my continuing effort to spread out my hive inspections, I decided to focus on two items. The first focused on the Geronimo Hive, as I wanted to check on the progress of the honey super. I do not want them to swarm because they filled that thing up too quickly. A couple of frames were capped, but most simply held drawn or partially drawn comb with nectar and/or honey. They could probably use another honey (Illinois) super, but I do not have the frames available for them yet. I will build some tonight and get it on them tomorrow.

The second, and more important, task was to check on the Southside Hive. Although I was hopeful that I retrieved the queen from that hive, I was doubtful. So, I wanted to see if they had started a queen with the eggs that I dropped in there last Monday (4 days ago.) I also wanted to see what they were doing with the rubber banded comb that I had jimmied into frames for them. I would like to get rid of this comb for two reasons. One, it is dark and old. This just means that it has the greatest chance of having pesticides and other poisons that have slowly built up over the years. Comb like this can lead to American Foul Brood, or so I am told, as it weakens the bees resistances to ‘issues’. I would like to remove it once the bees have gotten a good footing.

The second reason for removing this comb is that there is a chance that some of it has a recent insecticide (from the spraying by the landscaping folks that felled the tree that they were in) right on it. The last thing you want is something that fresh in your hive.

Well, as to the queen cell or eggs (eggs would have been a boon, as it would have meant that I had caught the queen), I found one capped queen cell and one that they were still feeding (I could see the larvae in the pool of royal jelly.) I am sorry that I did not get the original queen, but it is still good news. I picked up a ton of bees in this hive and they had already stored 6 frames of nectar (not full, but lots of cells on each frame that were 75% full of nectar). Basically, they had not drawn out any of the foundation and were simply storing in the existing comb. So, I could not remove any yet, but it will be at the top  of the list once they get a queen laying. I will need to do the Bee Math to figure out when to check for the queen and then for the eggs. I have about a month or so before the plan hopefully comes together.

I should also note that the Southside Hive was eating the syrup at an average rate. I probably saw 10 or so bees drinking from it. I put a wooden dowel in the top feeder this time, so none could drown (and this played through true to form – none in the drink!) I will continue to monitor this hive, although I do not plan to remove the frame with the queen cells on it again until I think the old lady has hatched (probably next weekend – certainly by June 24.)

Another Myth Buster – Moving a Bee Hive

Well, the old saying that you can only move a hive 2 feet or 2 miles is hogwash. Beekeepers in Richmond, Virginia and nationwide always advise that you should not move a hive unless it is a really short distance (2 feet or so) or a really long distance (over 2 miles.) The short distance is obvious, as the bees should be able to get a whiff of their queen in the new location (not to mention the fact that the old home is right there beside where they are looking!) The long distance is based on the general belief that bees forage out to 2 miles and know the lay of the land in this area. If you move them a mile, for example, they’ll go out foraging, recognize the area and return to their old home.

Well, I moved a hive about 80 feet (the Southside hive) the other evening and placed a cedar branch over the entrance. The next day, I had about 6 bees buzzing around the old spot. The day after that, I didn’t  see a single bee there. But, the hive in the new location has bees coming and going like mad.

It is true that this hive was only recently moved to my property. Regardless, the success of this move matches other experienced beekeepers (such as Michael Bush), so I will bank on it going forward. Of course, I hope to not do a lot of hive moving.

At any rate, it’s off to the wood shop now. I need to build some more brood chambers!

Bees on the Move

Today has been something else. We had a family crisis over the weekend and it has turned to the better as of this afternoon. With a few hours of time to relax, I decided to tackle some of my high priority items.

  1. The Blue Cottage Hive needs some capped brood to bolster its weak ranks
  2. The Southside Hive needs some eggs, in case I didn’t get the queen when I extracted the hive

So, I decided I would take both frames from the same hive. The first hive that I checked was the Geronimo Hive. Very gentle bees and (so far) the strongest of Tom Fifer’s strain that I have received. They didn’t give me honey this year, but they are the best hive I have. Interestingly enough, extracting that hive from the fallen tree over the weekend really relaxed me about the bees. I had bees all over me for hours and kept on working. So, when I went to the Geronimo Hive, I didn’t even think about the smoke. I also never wavered as they flew about. But, they gave me a big surprise.

I pulled up the t-cover and bees literally spilled out of the hole in the inner cover. It was like a small volcano! Only a few took flight – the rest just spilled out, rolling all over the top. This was odd. I had only expected to give a brief look at what had to be an empty honey (Illinois) super and then was going to look for my swap  frames in the top brood chamber. So, I popped the inner cover and gave her a better look. Low and behold, these rascals were drawing that thing out and storing nectar/honey! All Spring, I have fretted about not getting any honey and only recently resigned myself to this fact and decided that I would instead look forward to doing a couple of splits. So, what happens? The bees go ahead and start working on the daggone honey! Ha! I look forward to A for so long and finally become depressed that I will not get A. I look at the bright side and start to look forward to B, giving up on A. Once I get really excited about B, those women go ahead and give me A! Wow.

At any rate, regardless of my emotional trauma, I took the honey super off and gave a brief look at a couple of frames in the top Brood chamber. Typical brood pattern with honey and pollen storage. Five zillion bees wishing I would go away. Lots of good news. I was not going to take eggs and brood from a hive that might give me honey (at least no this year!) So, I put them back together and let ’em be.

Geronimo Hive
Queen : No sign
Eggs: Too dark to see. Did see larvae.
Only checked the Medium (drawing out all 10 frames, some nearly finished) and the top Brood chamber (lots of capped brood, honey and pollen.) Installed an Imri Shim to see how that might help them (the State Apiarist said studies show that it does increase the honey crop.)
Hive temperament was very relaxed (and possibly annoyed)

So, on to round 2. I pulled open the Albo Hive and bees also spilled out of it. I didn’t even take off the inner cover. I will inspect them later this week. The similar appearance (and the fact that the Imri Shim for these gals was installed a week or two ago) was all that I needed. No stealing brood/eggs from these gals either. I might get a bit of honey from them too!

At this point, I was torn. I couldn’t figure out which hive, Albo or Geronimo, to go for. Then it struck me – the Westover Hive! Very strong hive. Built up quickly. A tad cranky, but not that bad. I was thinking about splitting them anyway, to expand the bloodline. This was the perfect choice.

So, I opened these gals up and found just what I was looking for. They were working 8 of the 10 frames up top and had not touched (except with their legs, as they scurried over the foundation) the honey super. I would have been surprised if they had. They were at pretty much the same spot they were last time, so this pretty much proves to me the value of feeding a new swarm. I might feed them more when I receive a few more top feeders to help them fill out the remainder of that top brood chamber.

The second drawn frame had a ton of eggs and a good rim of honey. This was perfect for the Southside Hive, which I am going to get a feeder on tonight anyway. The third frame was a ton of capped brood, with the same honey stores. I took out the brush and irritated the badoodle out of them as I brushed them off, but was able to get every last bee off before putting into a transport Nuc and moving to either hive. I checked several more frames and found a good pattern with stores. No sign of swarming (at least in the upper brood chamber.) I was happy with the results and put them back together.

Westover Hive
Queen: No sign, but found eggs, that I gave to the Southside Hive in case they need to start a Queen.
Working 8 of 10 frames in the upper brood chamber, but I took 2, so they are down to 6. I alternated empty foundation between drawn comb with the two new additions and closed them back up.

On opening the Blue Cottage Hive, I was sad to see several small hive beetles. I see them in the hives on occasion, but this small hive might not be able to handle them. I will make a few traps this week and get them on next weekend, to help them out a bit. I also spotted that wiley queen, with a big blue dot on her back. It’s not as noticeable as I had expected, as the ‘blue’ is a really dark blue. But, I spotted her and was happy. Also found a few eggs, but they need more bees (and comb.) I dropped the new comb with capped brood in to give them a new workforce over the coming couple of weeks. Once I get some honey off of one of the other hives, I will give them another dose (probably late June or early July) of capped brood. The primary goal now is to get a bottle feeder on them and give them something to fight the small hive beetle. More on that later.

Blue Cottage Hive
Queen: found her on the last frame. Spotted eggs too.
Frames : Now working 3 frames. 50% growth is not bad, but the third frame only had a bit on it. Gave them a full new frame that should help, if the small hive beetles don’t do too much damage first. So, now they have 4 frames.

Southside Hive
I did not do a good job of counting exactly what I have here yet. I think it is about 6 frames of brood comb from the tree and 4 drawn foundation. I replaced one of the drawn foundation frames with a frame of eggs (and a bit of capped brood and larvae). I’ll be working to get rid of the frames with their brood comb, as I am not sure what those fellows sprayed down in the hole and if it got on any of the stuff. But, first I want to see them get started (evidence of a queen is what I need.)

Tonight, when the sun goes down, I will move them and put a feeder on them (well, I might put a feeder on them tomorrow.) I put them under the shed in haste, due to the family emergency coming up right when I got home with them. They can’t stay there (or I can’t move my lawn mower!) I will disrupt them one last time tonight and put a limb in front of their entrance so that they will hopefully reorient tomorrow morning and start a good bit of growth.

Removing a Honey Bee Hive From a Tree!

Bee Tree
The Calm Before the Storm

Wow, what a busy weekend. Between Friday and Saturday, I received 3 calls about possible feral hive removal. One turned out to be a nest of bumble bees, but the second was quite a whopper. A gentleman a bit to the south of me had a tree in his front yard get hit by lightning. It cracked the tree and made it a bit of a hazard to his neighbors and him, so they had a tree removal service come out on Friday to deal with it. Once that big boy hit the ground, bees erupted everywhere!

Unfortunately, the tree service decided to spray the bees and pour gasoline on them. They then left and decided to wait for Monday, when they figured the bees might be gone. Having been sprayed, these bees were not ideal, but I am game for trying to help any bee along, so I took the job on. What a job it was.

On Day 1, I arrived with all of my gear and immediately realized that I needed a bigger saw (I needed Pop’s Bow Saw, but it was in Charles City, and I was not up for that trip.) So, here was a section of tree about 20 feet long with bees coming out of two holes, some 5 feet apart. This tree was every bit of 3′ in diameter and more when you included the occasional knot. Finally, the thing was living just a few weeks ago and not a bit of it was rotten.

Bee Exit in Tree
A New Bee Exit

At this point, I was still expecting a young hive. I sort of figured that no hive could survive a lightning strike and these bees must have taken up residence after the tree split. I expected to find a lot of white comb, but not a lot of bees. Of course, I was way wrong.

To begin with, these bees had comb running a good 6′ in the tree, in a center cavity about a foot to 14 inches wide. There was a TON of comb. But, I am getting ahead of myself. I had thought to slowly cut away sections of the tree until I got to the bees. But, this tree was too big. Cutting away one section was a serious nightmare. Just rolling a section was a back breaker. So, I decided to go right at them. I was putting the queen at risk, but I had no option. The tree removal service would be back on Monday and try to kill them again. I aimed the saw between the two exit holes (about 3′ to either side) and cut her in half.

Bees were flying everywhere. Somewhere along the line, some homeless guy showed up on a bike and proceeded to give me advice, claiming bees didn’t sting him. A few minutes after I cut the tree open and started getting comb, he hit the road, cursing about the stings….

I methodically removed comb, placing it (with rubber bands) in my empty frames and into a hive. I filled up about 6 frames with brood comb and pulled a lot of honey comb and left it off  to the side (I advised the home owner not to eat the stuff, as who knows what the tree service sprayed down there and what was contaminated.) I never saw the queen, but got a lot of it with nurse bees and left it beside one of the split logs.

A few hours later, I came back to find the bees still in the two sections of the log and also in my hive. The queen was not in my hive to be sure. So, I pulled out the bee vac. I was able to get 3 or 4 pounds of bees and left with my hive, setting them up at home when I returned.

The Hive Exposed
The Hive Exposed

The next day, the hive (I will start calling this one Southside) was pretty cranky. I cannot be sure, but I do not thing they had a queen. So, back to the site I went, sharpened saw in hand.

This time, I cut the two original sections in half again (much easier now that my slack rear end had finally sharpened the saw). One section had the most bees and they were clumped up a lot. Out come the bee vac and once again, I sucked up another few pounds of bees. This time, I got a ton of them and I may have even gotten the queen. Upon returning home, I dropped them in the Southside hive.

Nuc Check – Queen Cup and Cranky

Berkeley Hive
Found larvae, eggs & capped brood
Did not find queen
The bottom deep was wall to wall capped brood (the outside frames were nectar/honey)
Bees had finished Tom Fifer’s 4th frame and were working on two of my frames, effectively on 6 frames now.
Found 1 queen cup. Hive was a bit crankier then I am used to when it comes to a Nuc.
Pests: Spotted and squashed one large small hive beetle.

Since my last, multi-hour adventure with all of the hives, I have decided to break my inspections of the hives up a bit, giving me less hives to check per adventure. Today was the first in the rotation and I chose the Berkeley Hive, one of my new Nuc’s.

This hive has been showing good, eating a nice bit of syrup and having good activity at the entrance all week. Since I have them next to the cantankerous Westover Hive, I keep a close eye on them to make sure that no robbing is going on. Interestingly enough (or, I should say sadly enough), I did witness evidence of a bit of fighting right after I hived them, but that was not due to robbing. I have 3 top hive feeders (4 more were ordered a week ago, so more are on the way) and I had lent one to Pop for his Nuc. That left me with two for my Nuc’s but I was using one on the Westover Hive. I had let it go dry, but when I moved it from one hive to the other, about 8 bees from the Westover Hive were still in it. I went ahead and plopped it on top of the hive and hoped they would join the workforce of the Nuc. Well, instead (at least one of them) they went on a commando mission (or maybe my bees attacked them.) Regardless, the reason I know this is that I saw one bee leave the hive and jump around on the landing area with another bee attached to him. As I watched, I realized the other bee was a black bee from the Westover Hive, but it was attached to the Berkeley Hive bee (believe it or not, but it appeared to have its mouth securely fastened to the Nuc bee’s wing!) As the poor battle-worn veteran tried to deal with this nuissance, I used my hive tool to cut the dead bee in half (it was attached to her wing, remember?) Unfortunately, having the head of one’s enemy attached to your wing is not a good feeling, as she jumped to the ground and began hopping around, rolling over and doing all sorts of other things to get it off. I couldn’t help any further without damaging her, so I left her be. I hope she worked it out!

Regardless, the inspection was good. The bees had done a good job of finishing out the 4 frames they came in and were working on two more. One was really getting a good draw. I never saw that rascal of a queen, but found both larvae and eggs. The eggs were dead centered and solo, so no laying worker nonsense. I also found one queen cup and one worker was really doing something in there, sticking her head down a good way. There was nothing for it, at this stage, so I did not really investigate. I’ll be sure to locate that frame (second to last of the originals from Tom) a week from now to see what we have going. I have heard that supercedure is a common practice for packages and it happens with Nuc’s too. I have no idea what I’ll do if that cup becomes a cell…

Now that the investigation was over, I put a gallon of syrup in the feeder and let them be. I must say that they were flying about in an angry manner, although I saw none actually land and try to sting me. There was a lot of posturing, but I have learned to ignore that. A storm is brewing to the NW, so maybe that had them on edge.

Nuc’s Installed & Honey Bee Hive Investigations

I received the call from Tom that the Nuc’s were ready and picked them up last night, moving two to my apiary at home and taking one to Pop (Alex and I gave him one for Christmas.) Today was a busy day, looking at hives and squaring away the new Nuc’s, so let’s get to the records.

Charles City Hive (Pop’s Hive)
One of three Nuc’s received from Tom, we placed it under a Walnut tree near Pop’s garden, right up to one of the cow pastures. I advised him that the chance of getting shocked every time you looked at the Bee’s made this an inappropriate spot. He mumbled some words that I cannot relay on this site, basically calling to question my intelligence. Heh. We’ll see….

This Nuc was weaker then the one that I picked up from Tom last year. The bees were basically on 2-and-a-half frames. I couldn’t do a full inspection, as Pop started to freak out thinking that I was messing with them too much. Oddly, one actually stung me (Pop said he would have stung me too). I don’t wear my gear, gloves or veils when working Nuc’s and, up until this day, have never been stung. It wasn’t a big deal, but Pop thought it was funny. I was sorry that one bee killed herself to get me, as the Nuc didn’t have a bunch of bees to begin with. Once we get back from the beach (for Memorial Day), I might drop a frame of brood/nurse bees and a frame of honey from one of my hives into this Nuc.

We put the top feeder on them and Pop decided he would go without an entrance reducer.

Albo Hive
It is pretty clear to me that I will not get honey this year off of the Albo hive. The top deep has 7.5 frames drawn out, all but one full of honey and most of it capped. The one exception was a frame that had one side with a round patch of capped brood towards the bottom of the side. Since I found eggs and larvae in the bottom deep, I am guessing that the old Lady came up top to lay a few eggs when things were tight (full of eggs, larvae, pupae) below. Now that those bees have hatched, She is apparently working that area again (down below).

The honey super was just touched a tad, a bit of wax on two frames drawn out. Not much of a difference from the last inspection. Given this progress (or lack-thereof), I might split this hive in a week or two. The real question is ‘what does June hold?’ If I listen to the common word, the flow winds down over the next 4 weeks and it seems unlikely that the bees can draw out a full Illinois super and fill it with honey. I’ll have to think on it. I have 5 hives now. Do I want to increase this year?

Blue Cottage Hive (new Nuc)
This is one of the Nuc’s that I picked up last night. It is definitely the weakest Nuc that I have heard of. I almost wonder if Tom made a mistake. One frame of brood and one-and-a-half frames of pollen/nectar. This frame is actually so weak that I initially thought they had absconded when I was setting up, as not a bee came or left in about 30 seconds while I was preparing to do the investigation. Although I found capped brood and eggs, I did not see the queen (this absolutely shocked me, as there really were very few bees in this box.)

I put the entrance reducer on this one (and I might follow up with a robber screen). It would not take much to ‘do this hive in’. I also put the top feeder on and put a little syrup in (I doubt they can eat much, as there are not many to eat!) This pretty much confirmed my thoughts about moving some brood/nurse bees and a frame of honey to the Nuc’s to help them along. This will probably be the task for next weekend.

Westover Hive
The queen in this hive is a laying fool. To recap, they had been sucking down syrup over the past few weeks and I expected to find a lot of capped honey. Instead, I found about 7 fully drawn frames in the top Deep and all but one had brood in one stage or another (although mostly it was capped brood.) This was good, but it had me concerned that maybe the queen had moved up and wasn’t moving down. But, once I got to the bottom deep, I did find larvae in earlier stages then what was up top.

These bees have really exploded as far as population is concerned. I put on a honey super, just to give them room, but they are another candidate for splitting. It really depends on what June is going to hold for me. This hive is the ‘meanest’ of my hives. They always get antsy and send out a few bombers. I was very gentle with them this time and they still had a few that would have loved to stung me. These are my hottest bees, but they are also my hardest working bees. I will not get rid of this queen while this is the situation. I am thinking that letting them raise their own queen gives me the opportunity to get the hard working gene (that they have) with a more gentle gene (that my other hives have.) We’ll see.

Since I have only 3 top feeders (and have not made an inverted jar feeder yet), I only had two at home, having given one to Pop for his Nuc. So, I removed the top feeder from this hive to give it to my other Nuc’s. Once I decide whether to get more top feeders or use inverted jars, I might feed them some more (the top deep is not really fully drawn out yet.)

Geronimo Hive
As always, this hive had so many bees that it was impossible to find the queen. Several frames were two and three bees deep. They were literally crawling on one another. No sign of swarm cells and the honey super was hardly touched, so I am feeling good about this one. I will probably wait two more weeks to see if there is any chance of getting honey this year. If the outlook remains bleak, I will use this hive to fortify my weaker Nuc (the Blue Cottage Hive.)

Berkeley Hive (new Nuc)
I placed this new Nuc next to the Westover Hive (well, about 5 feet from it, but on the same foundation), so I called it the ‘Berkeley Hive’, after the plantation on the James that is just up from Westover Plantation is Charles City County. Of the three Nuc’s that I picked up from Tom, this one fit the bill as being a strong Nuc. There were 2-and-a-half frames of brood/bees and one-and-a-half frames of capped honey, nectar and pollen. Lot’s more bees here and what I sort of expected in the other Nuc’s. In fact, an orientation flight was taking place during the inspection which had me concerned (for a second) that the Westover Hive was on a raid. This Nuc is probably going to do very well. I did not find the queen, but really didn’t look hard (I was tired from looking at the other hives!), but did find eggs.

I put on the entrance reducer and also the feeder, giving them a good dose of syrup. Some of the bees from the Westover Hive were still in the feeding section, but I am hopeful that they will just join the current workforce.

Fortification (create a Nuc or not?)

As mentioned above, it is clear to me that I am going to need to fortify my Pop’s Nuc and the Blue Cottage Nuc. They are very weak. Starting a Nuc in late May is rough. Starting a weak one in late May seems like a one-way road to failure. So, I want to put one frame of honey and one frame of brood (with Nurse bees) in both of these hives. The problem boils down to my existing queens. I still have not developed the skill to be able to consistently find my queens. So, if I grab a frame of capped brood, I might accidentally grab my daggone queen! The queen is normally working the frames where she is laying eggs, but I can guarantee you that my queen will be hanging out on the capped brood frame.

So, how to deal with that? The first option is to take a lot of time and actually find the queen in the donor hive. I only do a spot check (maybe 30 seconds), but I have seen where some folks take 10 minutes. I am not a big fan of that option. The second option is to actually create another Nuc. If I take two frames of honey, two frames of capped brood and one frame of eggs and drop them into a Nuc, something is going to happen. Either queen cells show up in the Nuc (that’s what I would expect) or queen cells show up in the donor hive (whoops! I took my queen by accident and moved her to the Nuc!) In either case, I should be able to fortify the two existing Nuc’s without worrying about ‘fortifying with a wayward queen’.

At any rate, I have the weekend to think about this down at Nags Head.

Final Thoughts on the Hives (too much time!)

The full inspections that I did today took entirely too long. Working three established hives takes more time then I have (not to mention the coming baby, which is going to suck up even more time next year!) So, I need to develop a new plan. The first stage will be to break the hives out into two groups, so that I do an inspection every week, on one group or the other. The second step will be to reduce the number of hives that I fully break down during a given inspection. I am going to have to build an app for this blog that will schedule these things out so that I can track them accurately. More to think about….

Syrup out again!

The Westover Hive now has me wondering if they are pulling a prank on me. They are eating syrup like I have never seen a hive suck it down. The real proof will be in the next inspection, which I hope to do over the next few days and certainly on Friday at the latest. I will probably break the whole hive apart for the last time until July or something. Realistically, I just hope that they have drawn out a good portion of the top Deep and capped a bunch of honey. In a perfect world, they have drawn out 8 or 9 frames and are ready for a daggone honey super! I will put one on them, just to see what they do, but I will probably look to do a split of this hive.

This is my first swarm, so I have nothing to compare it against. I wonder if the very nature of a swarm is to build up this quickly. I can only compare it to the two Nuc’s that I picked up in May of last year and this hive is beating them hands down. This makes me wonder if this hive is a better ‘bee’. Or is it just the nature of a swarm? The other variable is the weather. Is the weather so much better this year that all bees are building up nicely? The proof will be in the pudding when I open up the two established hives this weekend. They should have done some serious work on the supers by now. If they haven’t, it will be more of an incentive for me to do the split on the swarm and try to increase my apiary with that gene pool.

Who knows. Come this weekend, I’m sure I will have some totally unexpected experiences and embarking on a course of action that I could not have foretold.