Hive Investigations | Beekeeping in Richmond, Virginia

Bee Slaughter

Once again, the bees pay a terrible price for my education! It wasn’t all that bad, but it wasn’t pretty.

James Kiser, a member of the East Richmond Beekeeper’s Association that lives just down the road from me, stopped by to watch me check my hives. As I did a full inspection of all three hives last week, I was only doing some quick checks this week (I currently do full inspections every two weeks during the flow, although a bud at work, Doug Ladd (a beekeeper with more experience then me who lives to the west of Richmond), recommends a full inspection every week – something I may try if I start losing hives to swarms), but James was interested in watching since he is getting his first Nuc from Tom this year.

At the last ERBA meeting, Kenny Andrews recommended simply turning the top Deep on its side to check for swarm cells. Since the only goals for the look at the Geronimo hive this week were to check for swarm cells and see if they were working the honey super (Illinois super in my case,) I turned the top Deep on its side and bees poured out of the side and several were squished on the top of the bottom deep (which I was using as the base, like an idiot). I ended up moving it over on top of the super (which was still untouched, although bees were all over it this time) to have a look. I think I should have made sure that the frames were perpendicular to the ground because all of the frames swung to one side, probably messing with the bees on the frames (one of which could have been my daggone queen!) I stuck with it, though, and smoked the bottom and could not see any evidence of swarm cells. All in all, a ton of bees died and I am only somewhat confident that no swarm cells exist. This hive is so chock full of bees that it really must be thinking about swarming. I will probably take some time from work during lunch this week and do a full inspection. The one plus to this is that they never got mad. I couldn’t believe it, with all of the squished bees. I guess they have come to the sad conclusion that the dopey animal that messes with them each week is simply going to kill a few of us and we might as well go on about our business until the fool leaves! I don’t know how Kenny does this trick, but I will not be trying it again until I get more advice.

As to the Albo hive, I was only checking the honey (Illinois) super. This hive had less activity at the landing board, but they had just started to draw out some of the honey super. It was definitely a positive sign. I might get some honey this year after all! Doug has planted the seed about splits in my brain and I want to get some honey before I do it.

Finally, the only goal with the Westover hive was to remove the top feeder. They were not using it when I checked last Wednesday and I wanted to get it off. The only reason I had it on was because of some fairly wise beekeeper online saying that he feeds them until they draw out the two supers (Deep’s in my case) that they will live in. These bees, as of last weekend, had drawn out the bottom deep and had just started the top deep. But, I didn’t want to keep that syrup on them if they weren’t using it (it will ferment eventually.) But, as it turned out, I had 20 to 30 bees in the well with about a third of them eating the syrup. So, I left that on and that was that (unlike the Geronimo hive, these bees do not put up with a lot of shenanigans, so I am more inclined to let them do their thing without my mucking about in there.)

James didn’t get much of a show, although he was definitely surprised that the bees didn’t make more of a fuss during the slaughter at the Geronimo hive (actually, I was surprised about this too.) I think it put his mind at ease a bit about working his bees in the future.

In closing, I received a flier on a Beekeeping Seminar being given by one of the contributors to my bee knowledge (some of which is on this blog), Doug Ladd. It’s going to be given in Buckingham County on June 19 of this year and will include a lot of good stuff for a new (and experienced) beekeeper, including working hives and other items.You need to RSVP by June 9th – I have included the official flier here : Buckingham County basic beekeeping II seminar .

She May Be Old, But She Isn’t Missing a Beat!

Today was my 2 week checkpoint for all three hives. I actually had hoped that I would be talking about my two new Nuc’s, but that will probably have to wait for another week or so. Some Nuc’s are ready, but I am 14th on the list, so I have a bit more to go. I sent several folks to Tom after I put my order in, so he must have a really long list (I was 14th and put my order in last Fall!) I didn’t put my Pop’s order in until early December, so I am not sure where that is on the list. I will probably give him one of my Nuc’s and hope Tom is able to get the third one done later.

As to my hives, things appear good, although not as good as I expected in some cases.

Geronimo Hive
Found larvae and pupa
Did not find queen
The bottom deep was wall to wall capped brood (the outside frames were nectar/honey)
Top deep had three frames of capped brood.
Nothing in the honey super (not even working the foundation yet)
Three queen cups found on the northernmost frame of the bottom deep

I was surprised to find the queen laying in the top Deep here. At first, I wondered if I was going to be doing a reversal after all, but found a ton of capped brood in the bottom, so I left it be. I am also surprised to see that no work has been done on the honey super. It is all foundation. I am going to research this a bit. They have drawn out all of the top deep, so they have no where else to go. I hope to see some work in that Super at my next check.

Since this queen is laying in the top Deep now, I will still probably do a full inspection two weeks from now, just to see what is going on.

Albo Hive
No queen found.
Found larva.

The Albo hive is coming along, although not as strong as the Geronimo hive. They still have 2 and a half frames of foundation (one of them was because I took one of their honey frames for the swarm) in the top deep. The queen was laying in the bottom deep and there appears to be a ton of bees on the way.

The main problem with this hive is that they (once again) built up a ton of burr comb between the top and bottom deeps. Tons of it, full of honey or nectar. This is the second time that I have had to scrape off the stuff. I wish they would spend their efforts building out the final comb in the upper deep and the comb in the honey super.

Westover Hive
No queen found.
Found larva and tons of capped brood.

This hive is really something else. To begin with, the bees are blacker then my established hive. All of them. I had a friend come over and look at all of the hives yesterday and he even commented on it. They are really black. But, they are also hard workers. The entire bottom deep was either fully drawn out or 75% drawn out. One frame still had some work that needed to be done on it. I would guess that 6 or 7 frames had the typical brood pattern with honey above it. One frame was solid capped brood. She may be an old gal, but she is really going to town on the egg laying.

As to the upper deep, they had only done a bit of work on two of the frames. It was really not much at all. I wonder if they slowed down the wax build up because I did not fill the feeder for the past few days (I like it to be empty when I do an inspection)? Well, we shall see as I filled her up again this time.

One final cool item was that I believe that I saw the first orientation flight that I have noticed at this hive today. A bunch of the bees were certainly flying around in front of the hive and no fighting was going on. Due to the strength of this hive, I removed the entrance reducer and let them go. They are a strong bunch. I might do a split off of this crew if things work out right.

Slow Build Up and More Swarm Paranoia

Although the Richmond, Virginia area forecast called for rain most of the weekend, there were a couple of moments that allowed for a quick hive investigation. It was very windy, but at least the Sun was out. I actually opened both the Geronimo hive and the Albo hive, removed all frames but used no smoke. There were a couple of irritated bees, but most went back to work after cursing me out pretty good and buzzing in my face a bit.

Both hives had evidence of larvae, but I could see no eggs. I now see that waiting for a mid-afternoon inspection decreases the chance of seeing any eggs substantially for me. At this time, I do not have any direct Sun to look into the cells (the deciduous trees have leafed out, providing late afternoon shade, and do not give me a clear view into the cells. There seemed to be a million bees, but only a moderate amount of capped brood, compared to earlier.

This has me wondering if the Geronimo hive did swarm. The queen cell was clearly built up at this point and the end appeared to be torn off. After freaking out early on, I let them sit for 12 days or so. Maybe there was a small larvae in that cell when I looked back on the 12th. This is discouraging on two fronts: I may have lost a bunch of bees (reducing my honey gathers and wax builders) and I may have missed an opportunity to do a split.

Finally, and maybe a consequence of the above, neither hive has even touched my honey supers yet. They have not even started to draw out wax. I am a bit worried, because the top deeps are fully drawn out, but only about 50% full of capped honey. By the textbook, I should not have put the honey supers on until these were at least 70% full. Everyone was so hyped up about the flow this year that I may have jumped the gun on these supers. I am still on the fence about whether I will pull them or not.

The only bright side of this mess is that a colleague at work, who is also a beekeeper, recently contacted me. When I expressed my concerns to him, he did not seem too concerned (work was so busy that I only glanced at the email and will study it more carefully tomorrow). He said that he knew of other beekeepers that had slow build up until the end of April because they did not do any early feeding. I definitely did not feed my hives early on, as recommended by some, because I was worried they were honey bound (also the reason that I probably didn’t do a split and maybe the reason why the Geronimo hive swarmed.) But, hopefully this will mean that I will start to see real progress at my next check in a couple of weeks.

Finally, I only did a cursory check of the new Westover hive. The swarm seemed to have drawn out 5 frames, but I didn’t dig too deeply because they were a bit defensive. I can stand in front of the hive and watch them from a foot away, without causing any problems. But, opening them on a windy, partially cloudy, cool day seemed to be a bad idea. I decided to wait until a good warm day this week and take my lunch break to inspect for eggs. Regardless, the more that I read about a swarm, the more that I believe that I will replace that queen. The problem is that I want to keep the genetics going, if at all possible. Feral swarms receive no TLC and are, in my novice opinion, the best way to work towards an apiary that can make it on its own without my constant tinkering. I am leaning towards waiting for the flow to be over (letting them use all of the resources to the best of their ability) and then pinching the queen (assuming I can find the wiley little thing), allowing them to raise their own, young queen. The second choice would be to get a queen from a guy that advertised on Craig’s List from the Chesterfield or Powatan area earlier this year, claiming to have some local queens that had not been treated.

I am likely to have my hands full soon, when the two new Nuc’s arrive. So, who knows what will happen when things amp up around here.

Westover Hive Enjoys a Drink

I couldn’t stand it at work and had to run home to check the new Westover Hive during lunch. They were busy bringing in lots of pollen and I found a ton of them up in the feeder, drinking the sugar water down. I am dying to take a look inside, but have committed to leaving them alone until this weekend. I’ll probably check the feeder every day, to make sure it does not run dry. Things appear to be working great here, but I am worried since I cannot see what they are doing. Presumably, they have started some comb and the queen has already laid in it. It will be amusing to see if they have already laid in the honey frame that I dropped in there to entice them into the hive.

I also did a quick spot check of the Albo hive to see if they had started to draw out the honey super. Nothing yet. Didn’t even see a bee on any of the frames (I just removed the inner cover and did a spot check.)

Monster Drones & Preparing for a Rainy Day

If I had a dime for each time I went into a hive and found what I expected to find, I would not have a single dime. As my Pop likes to say, if you do the same thing again and again, expecting different results, it is a definition of insanity. Per my post this past weekend, today was the day to go in and find the capped queen cell and create my first ‘split’. As I should have expected, that did not happen.

Hive 1 – Geronimo Hive
Queen: No sign of the little wench
Brood: 6 to 7 frames of brood, although a lot has hatched out
Eggs or Larvae: Lots of Larvae
Population: Monster drones!
Misc: Found 3 Queen cups. Changed entrance reducer to the larger entrance.

There is no activity in the new honey super, but I am not too surprised. It did get a bit chilly the last few days, so the bees are probably not getting too crazy yet. The top deep continues to fill up with honey and nectar (curing).There really were not a ton of bees on these frames, but it could be that most were out and about today.

Now, the business end of this thing was in the bottom deep, or so I figured.The first thing that I noticed were some monstrous drones! I have seen drones before (both earlier this month and last year), but these things looked HUGE. I actually thought one was a bumble bee for a moment. It was probably my state of mind, but I swear these things were bigger then I had seen before. I should have grabbed one to practice for grabbing the queen, but my mind was on ‘split making’.

After checking the first couple of frames, I came to the one with the queen cell that I found last weekend. The way I figured it, this thing would be capped by now (and emerging within the week.) But, nothing. The cell (really a cup, see later) was in the exact same state that it was before. This time, I had some sunlight and was able to look into it. Nada. It was bone dry. One of my warriors sort of mocked me by crawling by and looking into it as well, as if to say ‘what are you looking at? nothing in there, bub.’

I had been doing a lot of reading on the internet and had come across the term ‘Queen Cup’, referring to partial cups that the bees create to ‘prepare for a rainy day’. By that, I mean, ‘ready to make a queen at a moment’s notice if that moron that keeps opening our box every few days accidentally kills our current Lady!’ As I went through the hive, I actually found 2 more of these things. Empty little coffee mugs, hanging from the bottom of the comb, aimed straight down. I am now coming to believe that there was no cause for alarm. I lost my original queen last Fall, or sometime after July when I last saw the green-spotted Lady (I do wonder where she is today – in another beekeeper’s hive (caught the swarm that I cast) or in some tree out there…)

At any rate, I think the Geromino Hive is doing fine. They never went to the top deep, but there are tons of bees and lots more on the way. When I check in a couple of weeks (right before I get my 2 new Nuc’s from Tom Fifer!), I expect them to be up in the honey super (I might peak in, without breaking frames, between now and then to be sure.)

Hive 2 – Albo Hive
Queen: No sign. She is like a Ninja Queen. Hiding everywhere.
Brood: 6 frames of brood, although a lot has hatched out
Eggs or Larvae: Lots of Larvae
Population: Several drones
Misc: Found 2 Supercedure cells.

It’s been 11 days since I last checked this hive and I just wanted to see how they were doing. I did find two Supercedure Cells (or cups), but neither had been drawn out. I could only see into one of them and it was empty. As I said last Fall, I wanted them to overthrow this queen, so this is all good by me. No queen cups on the bottom of any of these frames, but the bees appear to be thriving.

I did swap out their bottom board for one of the nicer screened bottom boards. I have painted this one and it has a removable plastic tray that will let me do some mite counts this year.

The other irritating thing about this hive is that they had once again built up a ton of burr comb between the top and bottom deeps. I actually saved the stuff this time. Maybe I’ll make a candle or some chap stick. I put the honey super on this one and let her be.

One final note regards the honey super and Brushy Mountain. I purchased a ‘spacer’ from Dadant last year, under the assumption that I would go with 9 frames in my honey supers. Fortunately, my bees were never strong enough to draw out these supers. It turns out that you can end up with a real disaster using these spacers on foundation (something that Brushy Mountain makes clear in their catalog and Dadant fails to mention.)

It is not my intent to do another major investigation (breaking apart all frames in the hive) for at least another 2 to 4 weeks on either of these hives. I think I have bothered them enough for now. Plus, I have two new hives coming (and a third that Pop is going to start up) at the end of April, so my hands will be full at that point.

Inspecting a Friend’s Hive

My cousin, in Charles City County, picked up two bee hives right around when I did (Spring of 2009), except that he ordered packages from somewhere, whereas I picked up Nuc’s from Tom Fifer, a beekeeper in the Richmond, Virginia area. He received his packages in early April and I received my Nuc’s in mid-May. This gave his bees a distinct advantage (in Nectar Flow time), but I rationalized that I would be getting the stronger bees for the long haul (local bees that have not been overly treated in the last year or two and should have a superior chance of surviving our Winters and our pests.) Over the Winter, one of his hives died, whereas I still have both of mine. But, to be fair, I nursed my weaker hive along and I do not think it would have made it otherwise. He did not do much nursing.

But, he is not sure what is going on in his remaining hive and would like to find the Queen. I told him that I would be happy to lend a hand and have a look. After Easter Church Services, I dropped by his house and we got ready to do the investigation. He immediately suited up, from head-to-toe, in bee gear. He was armed for bear and made no bones about it. He said that one nailed him beneath the eye the other day and he was just walking by the hive! Needless to say, this tidbit had me a tad worried. I have never had them get angry by just hanging around the outside of the hive! So, I did put on my veil and lit the smoker (figured I should be prepared, just in case.)

We opened the hive and began the inspection with little ado. I did note that he was smoking them a bit differently then I did (more smoke, with a lot of little puffs, whereas I simply give it one or two long pulls and typically leave them be.) Regardless, we were able to get into the top deep and immediately discovered empty brood areas in several frames. This was odd to me until he advised that he had done a reversal about 10 days earlier. He simply did it because someone said it should be done in March. This was probably not a good idea (I’ve always been told to go by what your bees are telling you, not by someone else’s schedule.) Regardless, I do not think it did much harm, as this hive had more bees then either of my hives. They were everywhere. There were so many of them that I was sure we would find swarm prep in progress.

The hive inspection was interesting, in that he had made the same error that I did. Lots of propolis was built up between the frames and had to be removed. We also found where his bees had build drone brood comb between the hive bodies. We had to destroy this (to totally do our Spring cleaning.) When lots of drone pupae were exposed, I commented that you could sometimes see mites (or so I had been told) and, lo and behold, I saw one! There, right on one of the drone pupae, was a bit, nasty mite. Upon closer look, I could see the thing moving its legs! Truly a nasty little creature.

By the time it was done, I could see a ton more pollen in his then I had seen in mine. He had about the same honey left (2 frames of capped honey) and, maybe, the same capped brood. He only had one frame that was chock full of capped brood. I think that his reversal may have gotten the queen and the bees a bit out of whack. He asked if he should re-reverse them, but I advised to leave them be for now. We never saw the queen and I was not sure where she was. Regardless, the hives are good and clean now and it will be a breeze to investigate them next time. I figure two weeks and I will go out and have another look with him. This will keep us on top of any possible queen cells and hopefully enable us to find the queen to determine whether another reversal is needed or not.

He also advised that the bees didn’t seem to get riled up, like he was used to. I will say that they got a bit angry when we were destroying the comb between the brood chambers, but they did get over it. I would call these bees gentle. I am guessing our next inspection will be a bit easier.

The Royal Lady Eludes Me Again!

Two dead bees, head first in the comb — Dead bees that starved

Today (actually, 10 minutes ago), I took on the first major hive inspection of the year, focusing solely on Hive 1, the hive that I have started to call my Geronimo Hive. As per my last post, I had lots of expectations for this inspection. Given the fact that folks to the North of me are talking about reversing already, I went in prepared for Bear. Outside of my normal gear, I brought with me:

One of my new Nuc’s, in case I found queen cells
A brood chamber full of frames with foundation, to replace any frames that I removed from this hive, in case I had to
A top board, as I was definitely going to remove the feeder, which they were not using at all (two idiot bees had ventured into the mix and drowned, of course)
A capping knife, to cut out any major burr comb that I came across
A new, painted bottom board (the current screened bottom board is not painted and I want to paint it this year, plus it will be easier to clean it away from the hive.)

The goal of this inspection was to figure out what was going on, find the queen and clean up the bottom brood chamber. For the most part, it was a success.

When I opened up the hive, I removed the feeder and dumped it on the ground nearby. I then removed the Imrie shim and I found one bee eating on the pollen substitute. I think it was wise to drop this in here, although I probably should have done it early (like early February) instead of early March. They had eaten half of a full patty, but now were finished with it. As I found out later, they were bringing in more then enough pollen to feed themselves (and natural pollen surely tastes better then the stuff that I gave them.)

Honey Bee Comb Eaten Through — Wonder how this happened?

I removed the pollen (tossing it on the ground nearby), and started my inspection of the top brood chamber. There were a fair number of bees about the place, although all of the honey towards the south of the hive was gone (except for a couple of patches). In one frame, I found two bees that appeared to have died of starvation, with their tails sticking out of the comb (of course, I forgot to poke them, so I am only assuming they were dead.) On the north side of the hive, I found 3 to 4 full frames of capped honey. For the most part, this hive body was fairly clean. So, I put it aside and began to examine the motherload.

This time, I lit my smoker and hit them with a few puffs. There were tons of bees (I should have grabbed a picture of them.) I think they covered 6 or 7 frames on the top (and I mean tons – not just a few wandering about – head-to-tail, thick). The frames in this hive have no space on either end, due to my lack of experience last year. One of my goals was to remedy this.

Ball of Honey Bees — What the heck are they doing here?

I began to remove the frames, one-by-one. What I found was interesting. What I did not find was irritating. The hive had a couple of frames with lots of pollen and some nectar/honey-being-ripened (partially full cells). One frame, oddly enough, was eaten up a lot. It was like wax moths had gotten to it, but I found no evidence of them in the hive. As I moved through the hive, I came across 4 or more frames that were stock full of capped brood. There were probably one to two frames with eggs and larvae. Fortunately, there were no queen cells (that I found, anyway.) I also did not find that rascal Queen. But, I did not push it, as the frames with the eggs (where I assumed she’d be), had bees a couple of layers thick, all on top of one another. I figured she could easily be in there, out of my sight. I did find one frame with a few capped drone cells, but it couldn’t have been more then 30 or so cells. This was a positive sign, as I also did not see any drones, so we should not be very close to any swarming activity.

Honey Bee Propolis — Propolis Scraped from Frames

One of the big things that I learned during this inspection was that my problem with the Geronimo hive was not burr comb, but propolis. I see now that the whole ‘cleaning’ aspect of beekeeping escaped me (my wife would say that it escapes me in life). When I was inspecting the frames last year, I should have been using my hive tool to scrape the propolis off of the sides of the frames (where they come together). Since I did not do that, it had built up a lot between several frames, spreading them out substantially. But, I took care of it at this inspection, scraping the sticky stuff off of the side bars of each frame, so they could come together more flush. In the end, I did have a little space on the ends of the frames (although I will have to continue to clean through the warm months to fully defeat this issue.)

Junk on the front of my Honey Bee Hive — What is this junk at the entrance of my hive?

As I was leaving the hive, I took a quick picture of something that has started to bug me over the last month. It seems to me that they are generating a big mess at the front of the hive. Some of this might have been here all along, but I am certain that it was not this thick. I am assuming it is excrement, possibly due to the lemon feeder I had on top these past few weeks. Regardless, I am watching it (they do get problems with having some kind of bee diarrhea, but this doesn’t look at bad as the pictures that I have seen of this problem.)

Also, this last picture was just an oddity. For some reason, bees from the outside frames that I had put on my frame holder decided to show off and do some kind of bee acrobatics. I am not sure if this is normal or not, but my bees are always putting on this kind of show (they did it last year and the young ones from this year appear to have picked up the same trick. I typically have to hold them over the hive and push them off with my hand.

Lots of Activity

Hive 2 Starting Real Pollen Gathering Activities — We need a traffic cop...

Both hives showed strong activity this weekend. There were tons of bees on the landing board and all on the front faces of both hives. It’s fun to watch them coming and going when they are active. They are really bringing in the pollen now, yellow’s, red’s and a beige color. I decided not to open them, as I am hopeful that they are moving up into the upper deeps. And this gets to the heart of my worries.

Having checked a few other blogs out in cyberspace and monitoring some forums, there are lots of folks to the north of me that have already done their reversals. Although the weak hive definitely had a barrier (tons of sugar water honey, making them honey-bound, above them), the stronger hive should have moved up. They have lots of empty, drawn comb above them.

Regardless, I have come to learn that there is no correlation between seeing something that I did not expect and the well being of my hives. Said another way, I am typically concerned for naught (and this has frequently driven me to do things that probably annoyed the bee’s at best and set them back at worst!) Even so, I am certain that it is past time for me to actually break the bottom deep’s open. As of now, I have only viewed them from above, since there is so much burr comb in their loose formation (see my earlier post on why this happened, as I cannot bear the pain of repeating my idiocies again!) So, this coming weekend is going to be a big one. As a reminder to myself, my plan is as follows:

My Honey Bees finally start to eat the pollen substitute. — A few bees finally decide to eat on the pollen patty.

Open each hive and pray that there is some movement into the upper deep’s (by ‘movement’, I mean that I need to see queen activity up there). If I see it, I may wait another week or two before proceeding to the next step. For me, it is critical to locate both queens at this inspection. I have gone 6 months without seeing either of them.
Remove each frame in the bottom deep and do a thorough inspection. Record honey, pollen and brood estimates.
Check for any drone cells. It is my understanding that swarming begins when the drones first emerge. I do not expect to see any this early, but we all know how it goes with my expectations.
Clean all frames of propolis and burr comb. This could get messy, so I hope to bring a little container along with me. I am going to clean up these frames. I might even smoke them for the first time this year if things get hairy.
Clean the bottom deep of propolis and any stray wax.
Take two of more of the oldest frames (the ones that came as part of the Nuc) and move them to the outside of the deep, for removal/replacement next year.
Identify what frame the queen is on and make sure she is not on the bottom. Then, remove the bottom deep from the screened bottom board and replace with my painted, screened bottom board.
Put them all back together.

Hopefully, this will all go well. The strong hive has had a big batch of sugar syrup and Honey-B-Healthy on them for a week now and they do not seem to have touched it. I think this is a positive sign, as they must be finding nectar out in the wilds (I noticed that my plum tree is blooming now.) This is little doubt that there are all kinds of surprises waiting for me, but here are some of the things that I might come across and my plans for dealing with them (I am trying to get these clear in my mind so that I have all of the necessary equipment on hand when I make this dive.)

Swarm Queen Cells: If I find these, I will do a split. I will move the old queen, a frame of brood and a frame or two of honey to a Nuc. If I have more then one frame with a queen cell on it, I might take one of the spare queen cells and also drop it into a Nuc. I purchased two Nuc’s this year for this exact reason. I honestly hope that I do not have to use them…
Supercedure Queen Cells: If the weak hive is getting ready to start a rebellion, I will let them do it. The hive looks strong right now, but they tried to get rid of her last Fall (but I stopped them – or I think I did!). If more then one frame has a queen cell on it, I will pull it and drop it into a Nuc with a couple of frames of honey.
Lots o’ Honey: If the weak hive still has 7+ frames of capped honey, I will take 3 frames of this and put it in the freezer. I will take a frame or two of drawn comb from the stronger hive (putting in foundation here) and drop it into the center of the weaker hive. The goal here is to create some brood-rearing space.

For my Nuc’s, I will use the honey frames from the weak hive. Unless things have changed, I will probably have a ton of them left over. But, who knows what I will find. If my course remains true to form, I will find none of the above and instead something totally odd.

Honey bees in the strong hive begin to venture out in Spring

Still Hanging Out in the Basement

I am now have serious reservations about my decision to feed the weaker hive so much and then put cane sugar (Mountain Camp Method) on the hives in late January/early February. I checked both hives on Friday and, while strong, neither of them had made hardly any progress up into the upper Deep. They both have around 8 frames full of honey (made mostly from sugar syrup, I’d guess) above them. This is somewhat annoying, as I had plans to clean up and fix the lower deeps on both hives with a reversal. The way things are now, this is looking less and less likely (of course, maybe this will be another nube concern and I’ll find them moving up quickly later this month – we’ll see…)

The Varina Beekeeper’s Association had a meeting about putting woodenware together this past Tuesday, although the conversation was seriously sidetracked and we did not spent a lot of time on that topic. It is unfortunate, as the main speaker (Kenny) has a ton of knowledge. To that effect, I asked him about my hives and the fact that the bees were still hanging out in the bottom deep. He advised to take two empty frames (just foundation) and drop them in the center of the upper deeps. This will encourage them to draw these out and the queen is likely to start laying in them (she should need space as she ramps up for the Nectar flow.) I decided to try this on the (previously) weaker hive, since it already had two empty frames in it (both on the far outside of the deep.) I move the frames full of honey to the outside and swapped them with the empty ones.

On another positive note, I noticed the bees bringing in yellow pollen, in addition to the vanilla/almost gray pollen they were bringing in during February and March. Both hives seem to have tapped into this trove a bit. I also found out that the weaker hive is now taking to the pollen substitute, instead of tossing it out of the hive as it used to. A couple of dozen bees were working it before I uprooted them to swap out the frames.

Most of my boxes and nuc’s are now constructed and partially painted. The wet weather is keeping the paint wet and sticky, so it’s been a bit of a pain trying to prevent them from sticking together when I stack them. I hope most of this goes away in the next month to month and a half, when I’ll be adding the two new kids to the block.

Next Sunday I will get my first look at my cousin, Rob’s, bees. He has a strong hive and has not looked at them yet. He invited me to do so with him, so it should be good fun.

The Bees are still Downstairs…

Picture of a bee cluster in late February — Is this a lot of bees?

Being my first Winter, I can only read about what to expect (and ask some of the experienced folks in my area.) One of the things that I keep reading about is swarm prevention in these early months before the main nectar flow. One strategy (that I am going to implement) is to ‘reverse your deeps’. Effectively, the bees work there way up into the top deep (eating honey as they go) as they prep for the coming Spring. Once they get to the top, they are more inclined to go into Swarm Prep mode, as it appears that they are out of space.

To combat this, you supposedly (I have not done it yet – this is my first Winter) swap the bottom and top deep’s (thus pushing the girls back to the bottom with a lot of empty, drawn comb above them.) They suddenly decide that they cannot waste energy going into Swarm Prep until they fill out that comb above (the number 1 driver for a bee is to live through the coming Winter – build stores, the number two driver is to propagate, or swarm.)

Well, I went into my hives yesterday (temps got into the upper-50’s) and both clusters were still in the lower deeps. I actually took the top deep off of the weaker hive (Hive 1), as I could see that they were not in the upper deep. The entire cluster was still in the same spot that they were congregating in November – up at the front of the hive. I have heard experienced beekeepers say that a good cluster is about the size of a basketball. I’m not sure these were that big, but they were dang close (see Pic : Is this a lot of bees?).

But, back to the original point, they had not taken a single step into the upper deep (in fact, neither hive had.) They were no where close to needing a ‘reversal’. I am guessing this is perfectly normal, but I had expected to see some movement up. It’s actually great news, as both hives have 8+ frames full of honey (all above them). This should get them through the Winter (assuming they have the occasional warm stretch to reach it), although I can only attest to honey storage. So, hopefully my pollen patties will take care of the rest.

Burr Comb Between Hive Frames — The Tip of the Burr Comb

On a side note, this second picture shows the problems with having frames that are not pushed together. As mentioned in a previous post last Summer, I made a rookie error when I got my bees. Basically, I brought a Deep, full of foundation, to Tom Fifer to pick up my Nuc. He gave me 5 of his frames (full of bees, honey, brood and pollen – and of course the grand lady of a queen) for 5 of my empty frames. We closed the hive back up and left it for several hours before I came back that evening to put some hardware cloth over the entrance and transport them back to my home. Once at my home, I took the hardware cloth off.

This all worked great, but I missed the next step, which was crucial. I left them alone for two weeks before I started weekly check-ins (Hive Investigations), where I would pull the frames out and look at the busy ladies doing their stuff. The problem was that, during the transportation, the frames had become a bit disoriented and unevenly spaced. Although I only waited two weeks to open them up, that was enough time for them to build partial comb (I think they call it burr comb) all over the place, between the frames. It was a mess and I did not want to mess with these new bees by cutting it all out. Needless to say, this situation needs resolution, which I plan to do when I do the reversal! So, the reversal is both for the bees (anti-swarm) and the beekeeper (clean up a mess he is responsible for)!

Bees enjoying pollen and sugar with the Mountain Camp method

This next picture shows the bees from my strong hive (Hive 2), gorging on the pollen patty that I dropped in here last week. Of note, the weak hive did not appear to have touched the pollen patty that I left for them, but I am not sure that they have ever taken to the pollen substitute (they seem to like to throw it out of the hive, actually…) These gals, however, are going to town on this pollen substitute. There were a lot more bees in the upper deep as well, although most of the honey remains untouched (a good sign, I hope.) This hive was the most active today (in fact, this is the first time that they have been the most active.) Bees were all over the place and I actually saw some of them bringing in pollen (usually, Hive 1 is the only one that I actually see this activity in.) It’s good to see this life, although I wasn’t overly worried. It should be noted that these gals came out of the inner cover like a whirlwind when I took the top off. One of them did get a bit grumpy and would have stung me if she could have found purchase. But, I can’t blame her. It’s cold, no nectar is available and here is some joker in white poking around in my honey stores!

All in all, this was a good inspection. The Bees are alive. Honey stores appear to be good. The beekeeper was not stung=) In truth, it is an interesting lesson when reviewing all of the hand wringing I have been doing in previous journal entries. It’s been a tough Winter (or so I think). It will be interesting to see what other Beekeepers are seeing as a comparison. Hopefully, all are fairing as well or better.