The Honey Bee During Winter

Per my previous post, Ann Harmon of Flint Hill, Virginia, came down the the November East Richmond Beekeeper’s Association to talk to us about how the Honey Bee reacts to Winter. If you think about it, the Winter months are a time when the Bee really sets itself apart from many of the other insect of the world. Presumably, the Winter months are the one of the reasons that we get a great honey crop. The bees work all Spring, Summer and Fall, storing honey for the months when nothing is blooming (usually Winter, but really dry months are another good time to use your stores when you’re a bee!)

When the days start getting shorter and the temperature drops, the bees begin to stay home more. All of the nectar-producing blooms are on the way out, so the drive to go out at dawn and forage to dusk wanes. As you might imagine, when you change from a job that has you in 4th gear, most of the day, to one where your primary job is keeping warm and producing a bit of heat yourself, the stress on the old body lessens dramatically. In addition, when you’re not out presenting a tasty little meal to some wayward bird or hornet, your life span also increases. For this reason, bees live for 3,4,5 and (very rarely) 6 months during the Winter months (as opposed to 2 months during the nectar months!)

Obviously, with fewer bees dying off, the drive to lay a bunch of eggs decreases dramatically. Not only are you in a situation where resources are thin, but you need a temperature of 92 degrees for eggs and larva to grow ( and it becomes really hard to keep a large brood next warm when it is 10 degrees F). The goal of the hive is to keep enough bees to keep the hive warm, but not so much that  all of the stored honey is used up before the Maples and Hollies bloom in Spring. The decreasing day length and cooler temperatures begin to affect the Queen in October. By November, egg laying should be virtually stopped.

The bees form the cluster and hang on for the ride. As we all know, the days begin to lengthen around December 21 and this is the sign to the queen to start ramping up her egg laying. For the first couple of weeks, the rate barely creeps up (but it definitely should not be decreasing anymore at this point.)

Once the main cluster reaches 57 degrees F (or thereabouts), the bees form he cluster. They slowly begin to gravitate to one another, shaking their thoraxes violently to create heat (the thorax is where most of the bee muscle is, so this is effectively like doing ‘jumping jacks’ to increase their core temperature and give off some heat into the cluster. As more and more bees come together, a ball forms. The further you get from the center, the colder the bees become. By the time you get to the edge of the cluster, most of these bees are barely able to do much ‘shaking’. They begin to work their way back towards the middle of the cluster, taking in the heat of their warmer sisters, warming their bodies up to begin the cycle again, center-to-edge, edge-to-center. (And interesting side note about the ‘cluster’ is a term known as ‘balling’. Here, the bees form a small ball around a predator (like a hornet) and also begin to generate heat. They can actually cook the invader with this action and it is a defense mechanism used sometimes in non-Winter months.)

As mentioned before, the cluster  maintains a 90+ degree temperature in the center, when raising brood. When no brood is present, the temperature can drop to the low- to mid-80’s.

To close this out, Ann Harmon mentioned a couple of management techniques that she has learned over the last few decades. One involves shims for ventilation. She keeps her screened bottom boards open during the Winter and create a good gap at the top to create an air flow, providing a mechanism to move the damp air out of the hive. As I have seen where scientists demonstrated where a hive could be kept at minus 30 degrees for several months without perishing, this practice does not surprise me. But, I think this kind of practice assumes two very important things. One, the bees have plenty to eat. They are going to need do so a fair amount of work to keep the hive warm. Second, there are periods of ‘warm’ (40 degrees plus) during the Winter that allow them to move over to new honey and/or move honey from outside frames to the cells nearest the brood.

The second practice involved Mouse guards and it was not one that I recall hearing before. She takes half-inch hardware cloth and cuts it to be a bit longer and a bit deeper then the entrance to here hive. She then staples this across the entrance, allowing the bees to go but keeping the mice out. She is both North and West of me (closer to DC), but she strives to have these on by early October (according to Ann, the Mama mouse is out looking for a nesting spot at this time of year.) She uses no other entrance reducers for her hives.

That sums up the points that I noted from the talk. I have recorded them here for prosperity more so then for any other reason. I will try many of the tactics above and also try other methods that fly in the face of Ann’s thoughts. But, it’s always good to hear the experiences of a long time beekeeper and take note of them as you cut your own path in the beekeeping world!

To Feed or Not To Feed

We had a really great talk on the winter cluster of the honey bee at the East Richmond Beekeeper’s Association meeting last night. Ann Harman of the Virginia State Beekeepers Association came down from the western part of the state to give us an overview of what the bees do from November and onward through the colder months of the year.

Before Ms Harman started her talk, several folks asked about feeding their bees. Should you keep feeding your bees if they are still taking it? When do you stop? Like anything with bees, the answer largely depends on the goals of the beekeeper, with environment taking a close second.

My primary goal is to raise a bee that can survive (well, I should say thrive) in my apiaries despite my intervention. By intervention, I refer to all things that I do as a beekeeper (like opening the hives to look at them, taking their honey, stealing their brood to catch a swarm or whatever.) So, my bees need to be able to handle the mites and other diseases that come along (‘me’ being one of them) and they need to be able to make it through the Winter without my help.

Without any defects (a term from my job that basically means unexpected results/consequences, like a drought, me killing a queen by accident, me taking too much honey, the hive falling apart or some other bee experiment gone awry), I expect any hive that is more then 1 year old to make it through the Summer and Fall without any chemical treatments and through the Winter without any feed.

Some might read the previous paragraph and say ‘that fool won’t have bees for long’, and they may very well be right (well, I will always have bees, but I may lose all of the ones that I currently have, I suppose.) But, I think it is more probable that I will lose a few. I might even lose half of my hives. For me, it is a loss that I am willing to bear. I believe that the ones that do survive are my proven lines. Each year (past year 1) that a hive makes it without help is further proof to me that this line is a valuable one.

By feeding the bees, I am simply helping an otherwise weak gene pool to make it to the next year. I would rather let them sort it out themselves and end up with a few strong hives then a mix of weak and strong. So, I am not feeding any hives that are older then 1 year old. In fact, of all of my hives, I am actually only feeding my Nucs that I am overwintering at this point.

But, as mentioned at the start, everyone does it differently and I have no beef with anyone who does feed. The point of this post is just to point out that your goals really drive that, not the bees. It should also be noted that I do manage my hives in other ways that do not include chemical treatment (cycling out old comb, swarm management in Spring, splits, nuc creation, etc…) I simply rely on strong stock to fight off the mites and build up their own honey stores. In closing, the observant will note that I did not mention anything about honey output. The vast majority of folks manage their bees primarily for honey output. It is likely that my bees will not necessarily be the highest honey producers (I do not select for that trait at the moment.) They will give me all of the honey that I want and might give me record crops, but I doubt that my current strategy will result in all of my bees being super producers. Maybe in a decade or so I will have the base survival stock that I want and can then start to manage for that!

Getting Hives Ready for Winter!

Anyone who has followed my travails since last October will remember that I learned a valuable lesson about the meaning of ‘Winter’ to beekeepers. Last year, several folks had given me advice of things to do in advance of Winter. Now, being a farmer and a hunter, Winter for me starts right around Christmas. The shortest day of the year usually hits around then sometime and is considered, by most people at least, to be the start of Winter. Here in Richmond, Virginia, we rarely get any significant snow (well, rarely get it period) or any real stretch of freezing weather before that day comes.

But, this is not what a beekeeper means when he says ‘be sure to get your hives ready before Winter’. Winter to the beekeeper is really what we refer to as the first hard frost. In my area, this averages around October 15, well in advance of the previously mentioned day in December! Needless to say, I was behind the eight ball last year (I didn’t start Winterizing until November, when I discovered this misunderstanding!) Well, this year I am a bit wiser (not much, but a bit), so my Bee Hive Winterzations started this weekend.

Yesterday, I was able to Winterize 5 hives and hope to get another 5 or 6 done today. So far, so good. My goal in this process involves six major points (and one optional point):

  1. Make sure the hive is not honey/nectar-bound. This basically means that I do not want to find honey/nectar stuffed in most of the brood cells. The queen is now laying the eggs for the workers that will see her through much of the Winter. I want those cells open. I have never had this problem, but have heard it is a real risk with hives that you are still feeding (I only feed young hives, so I do not have much risk here). You should move an empty frame of drawn foundation to the center of the brood nest if you discover a honey bound situation at this time.
  2. Find the queen or recent evidence of her (eggs) in the lower brood chamber. If you find them elsewhere, either move those frames to the lower deep or move the whole daggone box to the lower position (this latter strategy might be necessary if  a lot of capped brood is up with the frame of eggs.)
  3. Confirm that honey stores are stocked to either side and above the brood nest. Move capped frames to these positions if they are not.
  4. Put the entrance reducer in place, to help with defense and keeping the mice out.
  5. Record how much honey stores they have. I make a journal entry like this : 0/2/8 Medium, 0/2/3 Deep. This tells me that the hive has 2 partially capped Medium frames, 8 fully capped Medium frames, 2 partially capped Deep frames and 3 fully capped Deep frames. This way, I know which hives to look at first when January comes around (which is the next time that I will pop most of these hives open again.) It also tells me who is strong in stores (I have a couple of hives with two full Mediums, or a full Medium and two full shallows), in case I need to borrow some food for a struggling hive.
  6. Make sure I have a vent up top. I put a stick between the inner cover and outer cover, propping it up about a half inch or so.
  7. [optional] Cover the bottom of your screened bottom boards. I did this last year, but I know of a fellow to the north of me that keeps them open all year long. So, who knows what the best strategy is. This is one thing that I have not done yet, but may do in November, after the elections (when I can use election signs for the covers!)

I was very encouraged by all of my inspections. Lots of honey and lots of capped brood. Found either queens or eggs in all of them and saw a lot of activity at the landing boards (bringing in both pollen and nectar.) Things look good so far, but more hives are on the agenda for today. I now know to expect the unexpectable (is that even a word?)…

Last Cut Out of the Year

Yesterday, I performed my last cutout of the year. A nice couple along Westham Parkway had picked up a hive of been in the ceiling above their bedroom a couple of years ago. Neither were necessarily scared of bees, but both were disturbed about the constant buzzing all night long while they slept! It looked to be a fairly easy cut-out : a bit of crawlspace up above in the attic, the whole thing on the first floor and so forth. I was concerned that the bees might have moved down into the walls, but that was it.

I started a bit later then I wanted to, as I still have two hives that I am feeding and wanted to cap them off first thing in the morning. I was able to start a little after 1 pm and the job was on. In the initial assessment, I had already determined that the odds of getting them through the attic were very long and this was confirmed. The slope of the roof was so shallow that you could not squeeze up to the edge where the nest was.

So, out came the drill and sawzall. After taking a quick measurement, I needed to confirm where the ceiling joists were located. Using a drill, I pushed the bit through the plaster board gently and found open space where I had assumed it would be. The problem was finding the exact edge of the joist (so that I could run the sawzall down it without damaging the joist.) Since they had crown molding, it was hard to get the 8″/on center spot right, but I only had to make one pilot hole before I zero’d in on the right location.

As I began to plug in the sawzall, a couple of tricky bees made their way through the drill hole, confirming that I had the right spot and also causing me to rush to cover the hole with some duct tape (I was probably being paranoid, but it appeared to me that those few bees were ready to tangle. I did finally get the right size section of ceiling off and began to take the bees out.

As always, my adventures are always fraught with obstacles. The bees had gotten into a spot between the trusses and joists that you simply could not get to cleanly. Instead of being able to gently lower the comb into my hive, I had to pull it all through a 4″ by 4″ section. This caused the bees a lot of consternation and may have killed the queen, but I picked up about 15# of bees and maybe 30# of honey. I need to confirm the existence of the queen today, or I will combine them with one of my Nuc’s down in Charles City.

I am also going to feed the honey to the bees in my home apiary (Wilton). Some folks will caution you about feeding honey from unknown bees to your own bees. The honey might have diseases and/or pesticides that would damage your bees. My assessment of this hive was that it was in very good condition and I am not worried about the honey, but that’s me!

I never learn

Being a pop, a gardener, a beekeeper, a blogger and an employee of Dominion pretty much requires about 40 hours a day. These 24 hour days are not working for me. Regardless, I have been juggling it about and keeping on top of  my bees (I should probably say ‘abreast of my bees’, as I am rarely on top of everything that is going on with them.)

As to my last post, I did lose both the Apple Orchard Nuc and the Blue Cottage Nuc. The first Nuc came from a July swarm (and it was definitely not worth a fly). The second Nuc was one of the Nuc’s that I purchased this past Spring. It was a ‘Nuc purchasing’ lesson for me, as it came with 1.5 frames of bees/honey/pollen. I gave it some capped brood from my other hives, but it simply never could get a leg up. I am confident that the problem was with the queen. I have seen this time and time again. A weak hive simply never thrives as it has a weak queen. This may not be the holy grail (i.e. I am sure there are exceptions), but it has held true enough for me that I will not sweat a weak Nuc going forward.

The combine with Moe and Apache worked like a champ. I think that queen went into a laying frenzy after the combine, but I have no hard data to prove it. I definitely found a ton of eggs that had been recently laid and do not recall seeing that when she was in the Nuc. I put an entrance reducer on the hive anyway, as it definitely is on the border of having too much honey to protect at the moment. I’ve been back a few times and it is all looking good.

I also moved the Berkeley Hive down to my Apiary at Haupt Store. Here is the meaning of the title of this post. I moved a strong hive down to an apiary with nothing but Nuc’s. You’d think even my small brain would work sometimes. Well, needless to say, I came back 24 hours later and found that hive attacking all of my Nuc’s. I couldn’t  believe it. I blocked off the entrance and took them all down to my pop’s back fields and  left them. As of yesterday, they all looked good, but I was unable to find queen or eggs in the Albo Nuc. I did find pupae, but no queen. I am hopeful she was just being her normal wiley self. I’ll check again later.

What’s the big lesson? I have been whining all Summer about the problems of having your young Nuc’s in a yard with established hives (especially once June gets here – even more importantly when you live the the desert that we call Varina.) I was able to finally give my Nuc’s some peace by getting them to a new apiary at a general store down in Charles City. But, it only takes a few months for me to forget my lessons, apparently. Taking Berkeley down to that Apiary was a bad call. I now know that you (well, maybe not you, but definitely me) really need to have what some call a Nuc Yard if you want to play with Nuc’s. They are a dream when you only have to worry about how well the queen is doing and how fast they are building up. When you have to worry about invaders, it literally becomes something that is on your mind when you go to sleep and when you are at work. Starting in the Spring of ’11, I will always have a dedicated Nuc yard.

But, this whole ‘dedicated’ business also creates a bit of a quandary. I have strong hives that I would like to breed, so to speak. When a Virgin goes off to breed (in a new Nuc, for example), you have no way of knowing who she will choose when she is 50 to 100 feet up in the air with a bunch of drones. But, you can increase the chances of good breeding by having good stock around. So, you want your strongest hives nearby when the Nuc’s send out their virgins. But, you do not want them to rob the little Nuc’s. My current plan is to try the ‘1 Mile’ theory. Drones will definitely go out several miles to mate. But, can an established hive mount a strong attack force when their home base is a mile from the destination? My experience so far is that they cannot. I have had Nuc’s on my family farm that were a half mile or three-quarters of a mile from an established hive and they had no problems. But, when put near one of these established hives, it became a nightmare.

I think that the close proximity (within 100 or 200 yards) creates the opportunity for a gang of bees to hit a small Nuc all at once. The Nuc cannot handle a gang. It does just fine when one or two come nosing around, but send in 100 and the Nuc is immediately overwhelmed.

Well, we’ll see. I have a cut out to do this Friday and it should be interesting. The key will be to save enough of their honey to help them through the Winter. The other key will be to keep them away from my established hives while they get situated during this past month…

The Bee Adventure Continues

I have finally had a few moments to devote to my bees and there is much to record.

The easiest hives to check are obviously on the home front (the Wilton Apiary) and all were doing fine except the Little Big Horn hive which was on the verge of a major wax moth (and some SHB larvae) incursion. This hive was a  split off of Geronimo, done very late in the year. The single reason that I did it was because of finding nearly a dozen swarm cells in the hive in late July. I had been concerned about them from the start, as they never had many bees out front. I had thought this was primarily because they did not receive the foragers in the split. They have a queen, which I assume was from one of the swarm cells, but they simply never recovered. As of the latest check (within the last week), there were not enough bees to protect all of the honey and pollen (the wax mouths were not on the 3 frames that the bees occupied, but they had started on most of the rest of the frames.)

As with anything related to bees, you simply cannot draw a definitive conclusion off of one incident because of all of the variables involved (well, you can if you have a thousand hives that you can judge, which I don’t!) It does, however, reinforce my other experiences with July splits. They are not for the faint of heart, at least not when you have a drought going on. I did freeze all of the frames (except the ones that the bees protected) and still have them in the chest box now. It will be interesting to see if the bees (whatever hive I drop them on) will still use the honey. It still looked good to me, except for the webbing and moth/SHB eggs on it here and there.

The four established hives looked great, with at least 50 lbs of honey on all of them and no sign of problems with varroa. I did drop some 2:1 mix on Geronimo, as they had not finished drawing out two deep frames that I had stolen from them for a swarm in early July.

As to Mountcastle, both the Albo hive and the Westover hive looked very strong. Albo has enough honey (1.5 deeps and one medium) that I will probably be able to use some of it for emergency feeding of my Nuc’s.

The Haupt hives, all of which are Nuc’s, are a mixed bag and I am not certain whether they are strong or not. Apache is definitely strong (more on that one below), but the other three are a bit of a question mark for me. They only have five frames, so it’s not like they can have a lot of honey anyway. But, Bob and the Blue Cottage Hive both have a ton of capped brood (2.5 to 3 frames worth), so it appears that they are prepping for winter. I will probably have to feed them all winter. The Apple Orchard Hive is probably a wash and I will combine it soon.

As to combining, I have long been debating about whether to combine two weak hives or not. Many old timers tell you that combining two weak hives just creates one weak hive. It is better to pinch the queen on the weak hive and combine it with a strong hive (just to give the strong queen/hive an added boost for the Winter.) I can sort of see their point, but I will probably test it out every so often, just to see what happens.

But, when I checked the Westover Aviary yesterday, I found out that the Moe Hive was without a queen. I had not checked it since August 2, so I do not know when they went queenless. No capped brood. No eggs. Tons of honey and nectar. A medium amount of bees. Now, there is always a chance that they swarmed and the virgin queen was somewhere about. But, I never saw her and the Moe Queen was an unknown. This whole hive was a new genetic pool. On the other hand, I had a strong Nuc (Apache) with 5 full frames and a ton of bees. I decided to combine Moe with the Apache hive and hope that the Apache hive would prevail. I picked up the hive from the Haupt’s aviary and placed it on the bottom of the Moe Hive, with a single layer of newspaper between them. The Apache hive has one of the resistant queens that I picked up outside of Jetersville this past Summer, so I hope that this queen does prevail. If it does, the hive will basically be set (Moe had a deep and two shallows that were about 80% full of honey – I’d estimate a 100 lbs of honey altogether once you include what Apache had.)

I wasn’t able to check Curly, as a tree had fallen over it. The tree didn’t touch the hive, but it basically surrounded it with its limbs/leaves. Bees were all over the landing board, so I feel good about them. But, I have received permission from the Westover Plantation landowner to cut the tree up this week sometime, at which point  I’ll check on Curly.

My main plans right now, outside of the Westover tree, are to move an established hive (I am thinking Berkeley) to the Haupt’s apiary (I want a strong hive to put my double Nuc on) and to do something with the Little Big Horn bees and Apple Orchard bees (a combine of some sort)

At any rate, the beat goes on…

A New Beekeeper!

A Picture of my newborn daughter, Ann Katherine Tyler, with Mom and Pop
Ann Katherine, Mom and Pop

On August 14, at 11:53 am, Miss Ann Katherine Tyler entered this world! At 6 lbs 13 oz, she came into the world with a lot of squawling and a fairly emotional pop. Mum is recouperating and doing well, although our sleeping schedules are now completely out of whack. Ann Katherine is a dream all day long, pretty much eating and sleeping. Come around 11:45, she likes to squawl for an hour or two. Nothing quiets her down for more then a minute or two during this time. I’m not sure what she is trying to tell me, but she is very vocal and adamant about it.

As much as I love bees, I have honestly not given them much thought these past few weeks. I am sure that they are fine and will be back to more posts in September as the Winter approaches!

Swarm Management In July

As per the last post, it appears that the Geronimo hive either already swarmed or was preparing to swarm at the end of July. After making that post, I did a lot of online research and found that it is actually quite natural for bees to cast a swarm at this time, even though the odds of survival are low. It is very much as I wondered in the last post, ‘we will throw one simply because we can, and if they make it, we have performed our role in the grand scheme of Darwinism. If it does not make it, we are still strong enough to go into Winter with a good store and continue on next year, possibly even swarming again in the Spring.’

A chart of average/typical hive population actually shows this situation by having a brief population increase going into July/August and then a bit of a drop thereafter. There are a lot of interesting things to consider with this theory. To begin with, this could be considered a form of Varroa mite control. In a swarm condition, you might have 1 to 4 weeks without a single egg being laid. The mite breeds and reproduces in the egg cells, so a lack of said cells (containing fresh eggs or larva) means there is no place to reproduce. This is what the experts call ‘interrupting the mite cycle’. Since July and August are big times for mite increase, it is the perfect time to cast a swarm (probably a small one) and set your mites back just before you have to amp up to go into Winter. The overall theme of my thoughts here is that this type of behavior might be a type of ‘resistant’ gene behavior. It is not illogical to theorize that those bees who were most prone to swarm, when the Varroa mite first appeared on the scene, were the ones to make it through that devastating time. They managed mites by ‘breaking the cycle’ automatically.

You also have to wonder if these bees are not simply prone to swarming. As per  my posts this past Spring, when I discovered that I did not have a marked queen, I had not really found that marked queen since July of last year. It was probable then (and even more probable now that I have seen this swarm activity in action) that they cast a swarm last July too. Perhaps these bees simply are prone to do this? In such a dire time (I have hardly had two inches of rain in both June and July, here in central Virginia – plus, June was the hottest June on record and we broke several ‘daily’ temperature records in July), why would bees swarm unless it was simply something they were going to do regardless? Do these bees ‘re-queen‘ themselves automatically?

Add these thoughts to the discovery over the weekend that the Albo Hive was not showing any inclination to swarm (although I will check them again in 10 days or so). They also had very strong stores (without any feeding whatsoever). Why were they choosing not to swarm (a logical decision in my mind, but still a question to ponder in light of Geronimo’s hell bent behavior to the opposite effect!) The real question was ‘what is different, outside of genetics’?

The primary difference is location. The Albo Hive was moved in late June or early July. Did this upset the balance of things? I am fairly certain that they also swarmed last Fall (although maybe it was later, so I have that to look forward to in the next 4 to 6 weeks.) The move could be it, but I am more inclined to believe that it was accidental swarm management on my part, while the hive was at the Wilton apiary. To begin with, I stole a frame of brood & honey from the Albo Hive in early April to catch my first swarm (which became the Westover Hive, and also the later split, the William Byrd Hive – I would call that a good investment). I took another frame from them for my first cut-out (a horrible investment for bees, but pretty good for lessons learned with the Southside Hive) and three more frames from them to do my late June split for the new queens (the jury is still out on whether this was a good investment or not – created the Bob Hive). Effectively, the Albo Hive lost a quarter of their brood frames (5 out of 20 frames in two deeps). When I looked into them this past weekend, they still had three frames to finish drawing out (although, to be fair, they were already storing resources in all frames – they simply were not fully drawn out.) Was this a swarm management tool? Only time will tell, but perhaps creating a late-June Nuc from a hive is a good way to do a bit of Fall swarm management.

At any rate, I have definitely learned one thing that I am taking to the bank (all previous comments are only theories at this time). You  should go into your established hives in mid-July and maybe late-July/early-August (in central Virginia) for full inspections, regardless of how brutal the weather is. I did not do this last year and, it would seem, the bees were able to swarm/supercede, raise a new queen and go on with production without me even noticing – until the following Spring! I will be a bit more watchful in the future.

Late July Split

Today, sort of on a whim, I went out to check the Geronimo hive. It has been and remained my strongest hive since starting beekeeping in the Spring of 2009. At the last check, everything appeared to be going smoothly : 4 to 5 frames of pollen, 4 to 5 frames of capped honey in the two bottom deep suppers, 10 frames of drawn comb in the top medium super (with a few that had patches of capped honey). Add to this a healthy dose of eggs, larva and capped brood and I figured things were great. With the dearth coming on in the midst of a drought here in Richmond, Virginia, my expectations for today’s inspection were to find mostly the same with perhaps a bit less stored honey (they should be eating into some of the Spring stores now.)

Queen Cells
My Bees Decide to Cast a Swarm

Of course, that’s not exactly what I found. They did have a good amount of pollen and  honey socked away, in addition to the fact that they were about half finished in drawing out a couple of frames of foundation that I had given them when I took some capped brood to start those Nuc’s for the new queens that I picked up last month. But, they also had about 10 swarm cells, 4 of which were torn open…

So, here we are in the worst time in the world for bees to go off and build a new hive and my bees have either already sent the original queen on her way (I did not find the little wench, but did find larva) or were about to. The fact that I found larva says that the queen has been here in the last week.  She may still be in the hive. As to the queen cells that were torn open, they could mean a million different things (of course!), each dictating a different strategy by me!

For example, it is possible that they made hatched queens (and my old queen already swarmed), but these queens have not gotten around to killing the inhabitants of the other cells (I spent a good many minutes examining three of my larger, unhatched queen cells for evidence of Queen regicide). It is also possible that the bees tore them apart because of some failure of the queen larva (maybe she had some mites in there with her…) In fact, I have include a picture in this post that has to be an example of that. The cell’s cap is still intact, whereas the side of the cell is torn open… When a queen emerges, she comes through the end (well, that’s how everyone else’s queens emerge – it wouldn’t surprise me one bit of my queens did it differently from all of the bees of the last several hundred thousand years…) There are a million possibilities, but knowing the answer really wouldn’t help me with my current situation. I still had 7 or so cells, on frames all over the hive, to deal with.

Queen Cell Just Before Being Capped
Still Feeding this Queen Wanna Bee

I  personally do not believe in destroying the queen cells unless you are so late in the season that the drone level may be too low to mate with the virgin. I had decided that I would try to find the queen and move her to a Nuc, where I could then take action later (my 4 Nuc’s for overwintering may need a queen at some point or maybe I would just overwinter 5 Nuc’s – but, judging from the issues with a couple of the Nuc’s, I was pretty sure that one would need a queen over the next month or so.) At that point, my hive would think they had swarmed already and the first queen to come out would just kill the others.

Unable to find my queen, it made more issues. If she swarmed, these other queen cells might be for after-swarms (what kind of insane bee swarms in this low nectar environment? I would bet big money that they would die out before Fall, if they landed in some tree hollow out there.)

Again, I had to focus. Deal with what you know. I had a bunch of viable queen cells and a probability that these bees might swarm again (or maybe were getting ready to swarm for the first time). So, I split the hive, giving equal parts brood, pollen and honey to both splits. I have come to grips with the fact that they are going to need feeding. I honestly was not looking to increase further this year, but now I am wondering about the Albo hive (my second strongest hive), out in Charles City at the Mountcastle Apiary.

At any rate, more to come on this developing situation tomorrow or Sunday. I do know that I will be a bit more active in looking at the strong hives in July going forward (when time allows.) I would have liked to have gotten ahead of this before the cells had even been capped. I  hope to go through the splits again tomorrow and finally locate the queen, assuming she is still in there.

More Thoughts on the Small Hive Beetle

Walter Kelley Bees recently sent out their July newsletter (I recommend it) with a brief snippet on the small hive beetle (SHB). Now that I have had more time dealing with this pest, I am a bit more relaxed about it. They are definitely something to watch out for, but a strong, healthy hive deals with them just fine. Even my smaller hives are (so far) dealing with them effectively. Regardless, as an owner of livestock (or ‘pets’, if you look at them that way), I believe it is good stewardship to ease their way in any fashion that you can, provided that it does not inhibit or alter the natural way of things to any great degree.

As an example, I am quite confident that my honey bees could go find water on their own, without my assistance. But, I ease their labor by providing fresh water in my home beeyard, which they gladly use a lot. It’s not a huge savings, but instead of needing to fly a quarter of a mile away to a nearby, large creek (or a neighbor’s pool…), they can make the trip in under a hundred yards.

So, I am passing on this fairly easy tip that was in the Walter Kelley newsletter, which seems like a great way to ease your bee’s journey in this world. I have not tried it yet, but probably will before the Summer is out.

From the July issue of Walter Kelley Newsletter:

A home-made trap that is somewhat effective consists of a piece of corrugated “plastic cardboard” that is placed in the top of the hive, between the inner cover and frame top-bars. Some beekeepers use off-label chemicals in these traps, but the traps are also effective with no chemicals in them. If the material is cut into 1-inch wide strips with the corrugated tubes running cross-wise to the strip, then placed on the top bars of the hive, SHB will seek refuge from the bees by crawling into the tubes, where they will be trapped by the bees using propolis.

The reason there are adult SHB running around the top bars of a hive is because they have been released from their propolis “prisons” by removing the inner cover. This puts these adults back into play, so to speak, whereas they had been removed from the equation before their release. The bees imprison the adult SHB by trapping them between the inner cover and the top and building a propolis enclosure around them. By giving the SHB corrugated plastic in which they may hide – and be trapped – the SHB will not be released by removing the hive top.

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Hopefully, this little tidbit is of use to other beekeeper’s out there.