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.

MegaBee Killer!

Wow, you would think that I would learn.

In my recent feeding, I decided to try the MegaBee again to see if I could give my bees a bit of a leg up during the hot month of August. This time, I increased the Sugar:Water ratio and hoped that it would dissolve a bit better. Well, it definitely did dissolve a bit better. But, the bees are drowning in the stuff like nobody’s business!

Basically, this stuff is definitely not for a top feeder. I cannot say for sure if it is worth a daggone for any kind of feeder, but I do know that I will not use it again in my current feeder setup.

In my weaker hive, I am basically going to have to replace the feeder today. It’s terribly hot, but I have no other choice. It will be good to take a look and see how many frames are being worked on. I am hopeful that I can put my second deep on the weaker hive soon.

Positive Hive Investigations

Although I think the MegaBee set my girls back about a week, things are still positive. Found the queen in both hives and they are both looking good.

Weather: Very windy, in the 80’s, mostly sunny

Hive 2

Working on 5.5 Frames
4 frames of brood with definite honey and pollen around the edges
1.5 frames of solid honey storage, a little bit capped

Hive 1

Bottom Box
5 frames of brood
5 frames of honey and pollen

Top Box
Drawing out a good portion of 4 frames
3 frames have honey, some of it capped – a little bit of pollen

Filled both top feeders on both hives.

MegaBee Disaster Barely Averted

Well, another lesson learned…

As mentioned previously, one of my hives was performing very badly. After some online research, I decided to try MegaBee, a pollen substitute that has some additives which supposedly maximized a bee’s health. I ordered a 40# bag and waited.

As fate would have it, Hive 2’s health and vigor began to increase. By the time the MegaBee arrived, they had put on a lot of growth in a single week. No more Wax Moths and things appeared to be improving. But, now I had the MegaBee and wanted to put it to use (every bit helps…or so I thought…)

The MegaBee arrived with about 3 sentences of explanation. A little browsing online confirmed this was the only info I was going to get, so I followed it. I made up a batch of thick sugar syrup and added the MegaBee. What a mess. It created a sludge – the MegaBee did not wholely dissolve into the syrup. I kept working it, but it did not improve much. Figuring this was part of the solution, I put it in both of my hives and left them for a week.

Yesterday, it was like camp Auschwitz in my hives. Both feeders had about a dozen bees floating in the stuff, dead. In addition, instead of a bunch of bees eating the stuff, only a few were working at it. I do not think they liked that stuff. It may work great when crafted into patties, but I purchased it to add it to the syrup. In that, I would mark it as a major failure.

I will write the company and see if they have a response. I would not recommend this stuff to anyone at this point.

German Hornets

I have found a nest of german hornets in the yard and am wondering about what to do with them. I actually am not overly concerned for my own well-being, but do not want anything that is going to put more (undue) pressure on my bees.

These hornets are in a Maple tree just off of my bedroom. There is a hollar about 4 feet up that the little suckers have decided to use. I was eyeballing them yesterday afternoon and noticed a couple of ‘guards’ at the entrance. It amused me to see that they were working much like the bees do (only these guys are eating insects instead of looking for pollen and nectar.)

These things are natural predators of bees and I do not expect to wipe out this threat. But, will they attack a hive? I have put some feelers out into the bee community to get a feeling for this before I proceed.

Hive 1 Rolling!

Hive 1 is rolling now. I was worried because I had seen one of the Wax Moth worms out on the landing area of the bottom board a week or so ago. But, I have not been able to really look into it. This was not a full inspection, but I did break down the entire top Deep and was happy to see them drawing out foundation on 5 frames! A couple of the frames were about ready to get an egg or two.

But, I did not break down the Deep with most of the bees in it. It’s a bit late and it looked like they were all in there. In fact, unlike my recent look into Hive 2, there was very little activity outside of the hive. Thus, I will wait until next weekend when I will do a full inspection of this hive too, but with smoke. It will be a busy weekend, to be sure. I hope to not find any (or very little) Wax Moth damage and bees storing lots of honey and pollen, with healthy brood evidence.

This hive looks like it stands a very good chance to do very well over the Winter.

Hive 2 Revisit

Just got in from giving Hive 2 another inspection. It’s been 6 days since the Wax Moth incursion and I could find no evidence of the little critters this time. But, I must say that I did not make it all the way through the hive. Things were starting to get hot and I think that there might have been some robbers around that were taking advantage of the open top to get a little free honey. Regardless, they are fully on 5 frames now. I found capped honey and the start of some good pollen stores, in addition to larvae and eggs. The best news was seeing the queen, which had been bothering me. The only bad thing about the whole event was that I ended up not pushing the frames fully back together. I am sure that will prove a nightmare (I still only have 9 frames in this Deep, since I decided not to replace the one with the Wax Moths on them just yet.) When I get back from the beach, I might need to smoke them to get this straight.

Finally, I used my new Bee Brush for the first time. I can tell you right now that my bees do NOT like that daggone thing. Everything it touched them, they’d hop on the bristles and start stinging the heck out of it. This was whenever I tried to use it to get them off the top of the frames. When I cleaned them off of the bottom of the feeder, they just took to the air, cursing at me in their bee language and threatening all kinds of dire consequences!

At any rate, I am mostly happy about the outcome. I put the first MegaBee mixture into the feeder to see how it would work. I am not totally happy with this stuff, as it did not fully dissolve into the syrup. Maybe I did not have enough sugar in the syrup. Who knows. I guess next week I will find the results of this adventure.

Hive 2 Has First Training Flight!

Good times in Varina! Wow. I actually noticed a Training Flight (Orientation Flight, really) at Hive 2 today! I have probably seen it several dozen times at the stronger hive, Hive 1, but not a single time at Hive 2. Today marks a first! They are still weak and need tending, but this is a good sign. They were all over the front of the hive, buzzing around and doing figure 8’s in the air in front of it. Things were good.

Of course, I initially thought something was wrong (it doesn’t matter how many times I see this event, I immediately think that disaster is pending for some reason…) Regardless, I sat in front of the hive and watched intently. No fighting was going on (although sometimes they clean one another off with such vigor that you wonder if there isn’t a little malice between sisters!) and everyone seemed happy. As always, I worry that I killed the queen the last time that I opened the Hive. I cannot shake that worry, even though it has never come true so far. It’s a constant process for me. I open the hive, find the queen, am happy about that for an hour and then worry that I might have squashed her for the rest of the week until I open the dang hive again! It’s about two hours of feeling good and the rest of the week worrying… Such is the life of a new beekeeper!

Master Beekeeper Provides Solace

Well, I finally broke down and called one of the three guys in this industry that I really believe have so much knowledge on bees in central Virginia that you cannot go wrong with them – Tom Fifer. He provided my bees but is really busy, so I hate to bother him (plus, I am certain that most of my questions would only irritate him, being novice ‘worry wort’ questions.) But, with this Wax Moth issue, I decided that I cannot let this one go by without confirming my tactics.

He called last night and confirmed everything that I am doing. Feed these gals and keep a close eye on him. I am not sure that he’s on board with the Robber Screen (he gave me one of his neutral remarks about them, like ‘I’ve heard of them’.) My wife and I laugh about that now, as that seems to be Tom’s way of saying ‘They probably neither hurt nor help, but you can waste your time with that if it makes you feel better!’ Heh. Well, at least he didn’t say they were hurting. And, they do make me feel better, which doesn’t make a daggone difference to the bees!

One comment that he did make was to feed them pollen substitute (‘just a small piece’) to see if they eat some. I was not doing that and I think it is primarily because of the issues that I have with getting the stuff into the daggone hive. I’ll figure out something and get a small piece in there tonight.

He also made the assertion that they would not get into the foundation, which turned out to be incorrect for my Wax Moths. I  hope that is not a bad sign. The Wax Moths that I had exclusively ate the daggone foundation (as far as I could tell.) I will have to watch these things.

At any rate, a 15 minute conversation with him has me in good spirits. I am not out of the woods by a far shot, but I have a plan and it seems to be the best one I can implement. I really can’t wait for that MegaBee supplement to show up.

Pollen Bonanza

Only a simple observation this evening. The weather was in the high 80’s with a bit of cloud cover and not much wind here in Varina, Virginia.

Hive 1

As expected, this hive is really active. They are eating up the sugar water like there is no tomorrow and the little girls are coming in, left and right, loaded down with pollen. I hope to see some definite evidence of pollen storage this weekend. There were a couple of interesting points, including the fact that a few bees continued to buz around towards the bottom of the hive now. The screened bottom board must make the robbers think that there’s a quick entrance to a bit of honey down there. Either that, or some of my learning-impaired bees are trying to get back in the hive through this egress. Regardless, no one can get in and the hive continues work hard. The other oddity were the several bees that were just standing on the outside of the screen, not moving at all. I’ve seen them do this before, after I put the robber screen up, and have no idea what they are doing. Maybe just taking a breather, which I don’t hold against them.

Either way, I continue to believe that the sugar syrup and robber screen have made a huge difference with this hive. My main concern is the Wax Moth, which I know are in there. I will be doing a pretty thorough inspection this weekend to see if the bees are keeping them in check, which they surely must be.

Hive 2

Again, as expected, some activity but not as much as I have in Hive 1. Regardless, these bees are taking the syrup and I do see a lot of the workers coming in, laden down with pollen. It is clearly good pollen times in East Richmond, Virginia or at least in my yard here in Varina. There are not as many bees coming and going and they are taking much longer to eat the syrup. I hope to get some MegaBee in the mail shortly and will use that to give them a boost.

Hive 1 : Filled Feeder

This morning I filled Hive 1 up with sugar syrup. I put about a container and a half in their feeder. This is not a good measure, as a container is a kitchen pitcher that I have. The next feeding I will use something that I know what the volume of it is.

The goal is for them to eat all of this up (this hive eats like the devil) by this weekend when I hope to get MegaBee supplement into the hive.