Adding a Super to the Beehive

My Honey Bee yard in Richmond, Virginia (well, in Varina) continues to hop! The Berkeley Hive has pretty much been without an inspection for a month. This was the strongest Nuc that I picked up from Tom Fifer this Spring (well, the only Nuc with at least 4 frames of bees). When I installed them, I started them on the smallest hole in the entrance reducer and up’d it to the medium-sized slot once they covered 6 frames.

Up until this inspection, they had not demonstrated a ton of progress, but they continued to dutifully post guards at the exit, eat syrup and otherwise appear healthy (from the outside.) I never had to put a robber screen on them and was reluctant to open them up, due to the robbing that kept happening with my other hives (starting in June.) But, things have calmed considerably in my yard (I am wondering if the Albo hive was the big robber, as it is now at the Mountcastle Apiary,) so looking seemed like a good idea. In truth, they are eating me out of house and home (I have started to feed them 10 lbs of sugar mixed with 2 gallons of water, which approximates to something like 1.25 Sugar to 2 Water,) so I wanted to see what was going on under the covers.

I opened her up and immediately noted that they had filled out 8.5 frames! My rule is to put the second super on once they fill out 7 frames. They were working their tails off on the final 1.5 frames and now I was wondering if there was a swarm cell in there (bees were all over the place.) I was not using smoke and everything was calm, but I never do a full inspection of a hive that has a full deep without smoke at this time of the year. Those little things can get ornery if you don’t watch out! Plus, I really didn’t have a prepared deep super ready for them.

So, I left them for a day while I put together a few more frames to complete a 10-frame deep super. I also mixed a lot more syrup, as they were going through a gallon in sometime under 2 days (it was always empty 2 days later.) I wanted to start increasing the volume given to them, especially if they would take it. Ideally, I’ll get this top super fully drawn by October (boorah!)

Now, with smoker in hand, I opened them up to have a look. Again, very gentle and easy to inspect. They had 4 solid frames of capped honey, 4 frames of brood/pollen/nectar and a couple of frames that they were nearly finished drawing. I took a frame of honey and put it in the new deep, replacing it in the bottom deep with a frame of foundation. I made sure to do this as far from the brood nest area as I could. But, I also left the outside frames intact, as my honey bees can sometimes be difficult about drawing them out. Since this hive had drawn both out, I didn’t want to move them. The reason for moving this one frame up was to simply encourage them to start drawing up top. I have had 100% success with this strategy. Drop a drawn/working frame into an otherwise empty super and they bees start working the foundation around it immediately.

During the full inspection (remember, they were packed full in this deep and I wanted to be sure that no swarm cells had been started), I discovered that they had already done away with the old queen (or they cleaned the mark off of her.) I now had an unmarked queen in the hive! This is somewhat surprising, as the queen always seemed to be doing a good job. Makes me wonder if the old mark simply fell off of her. I will probably mark her on my next inspection.

The moral of this little side story about the queen is that you definitely do get better at finding queens as time goes along. In my first year, I rarely ever found the little mischief-maker. This year, I probably find her 3-out-of-4 inspections.

At any rate, once I got the new deep on top of the hive, I put a gallon-and-a-half of syrup on them. We’ll see if they continue to suck it down. I also did not increase the entrance. Normally, I would open the entrance fully when I put on the top super. But, I have recently been reading where a lot of folks keep the entrance reducer on year round. Add that to my recent robbing issues and I think I will keep it restricted to the middle setting for now. I look forward to seeing what I find in August!

They Say a Queen Calms Them…

…and they’d be right! That nasty little group of bees that I picked up at Westover Plantation, in Charles City, Va, this year has always been a bit grumpy. I could put my face within 6 inches of the landing board of the parent hive (original Westover hive) without a problem. But, the minute that I opened them up to look at them, I would get two or three bees banging against my veil. Of course, I was not using smoke but I did not use smoke with my other hives either and never had the same amount of aggression that I would have with Westover. As a side note, I was stung a grand total of 1 time, but they still acted more grumpy, even if they didn’t always act on it.

Then, I split the hives in mid-June and this made it worse, especially with the William Byrd Hive (the Queenless split off of the Westover hive.) In fact, they were a bit more aggressive then the parent. I am now certain that this was due to the queenless situation. I have often read that this will make a hive become a bit aggressive and this proved true for me.

The good news is that they have become much more gentle now. At my last inspection, I had one trying to bump against my veil, but I consider that fairly gentle when you consider that I was breaking the entire hive apart looking for the queen and was not using smoke. The best news came today when I actually found the queen and did not receive a single aggressive move. They remained fairly calm, which is a huge development, considering it is mid-July when every hive that I own is a bit on edge due to the dearth and drought. I considered marking the queen and still will probably do so, but I want to practice on a few drones before I do that. I am thinking that I will get some practice next weekend on the Albo hive out at the Mountcastle out-yard, as they always have a ton of drones. Hopefully, I’ll get this queen marked in August.

So, today was a pretty positive day for me with the bees. It’s nice to have a positive outcome after so many battles with robbing of my smaller hives. It’s also a big deal as this is the first queen that I have forced my bees to raise on their own. In fact, it represents my first genetic move. I am hopeful that this new queen’s eggs have the strong work ethic of the Westover hive with the gentle nature of some of my other hives. She was a big gal. Hopefully, during the August inspection, we’ll find a really good brood pattern. That’s the next step. I will not really know the results of this new queen until next Spring, outside of the brood pattern.

Overwintering Nuc’s

There is a well respected beekeeper in New England (he is respected nationwide, but has his operation in New England) named Michael Palmer. He has been extremely successful raising bees and what follows is a recap of one of his methods from forum threads, articles and 3rd-party sources. I wanted to record it here, as I will definitely experiment with some of his ideas. I am a big fan.

Per the title of this post, the end goal of the following approach is to successfully overwinter Nuc’s. One might assume that this is aimed at the fellow who accidentally has a small hive that he has to place in a Nuc before Winter or maybe someone who has hived a small swarm late in the year. Although some of these concepts may work for those situations, the purpose of this information is not for use as a life saver. It is actually a strategy.

The first question should therefore be ‘Why do you want to have Nuc’s that even need to be overwintered?’

1. Improve the genetic quality of your apiary – you’ll always have a hive or two (or ten) that  under-performs. It produces less honey and or possibly suffers more from natural stresses. You really do not need this hive sending its drones out to mate with your new queens and continuing this poor gene pool.

2. Nuc’s are great resources for other hives or Nuc’s. They represent a ready pool of capped brood or eggs for those emergency situations.

3. It’s a great way to increase the number of hives in your apiary. Many Nuc’s will come out of Winter so strong that they will build up very quickly and may become your next top producer.

Again, the primary reason is culling  your genetic pool. So, the first step is to identify your weak hives. Take these hives and create Nuc’s from them. Each Nuc that you create from a single hive should include the following:

  1. At least 1.5 frames of capped brood
  2. 1 frame of pollen and honey
  3. 1 empty drawn frame or a frame of foundation

The timing for this should be after the main flow. Michael Palmer does it in mid-July. In the Central Virginia area, anytime in July would probably work, but I will need to experiment.

You should be able to get 3 to 6 Nuc’s out of a single, mature hive. Now that you have your Nuc’s, you add your new queens to the mix. The key here is new queens. You defeat the purpose if you let them raise their own, as you are only continuing the poor gene  pool. Michael Palmer goes on to say that you should be using your own queens. In a worst case scenario, you are using queens from a local supplier that is breeding from established, non-treated, strong stock. Michael Palmer is adamant that any given beekeeper with a 2 year old hive can raise better queens then he can purchase. Regardless of the truth of this statement or not, the underlying principle is logical from a biological perspective. (It should be noted that I am still purchasing queens/new hives as part of my build up strategy – I am trying to obtain a diverse gene pool before I begin the master plan!)

So, where do you put your Nuc’s? I have read where some folks in Northern Virginia use regular Nuc bodies just fine. Michael Palmer users what he calls a ‘4 frame double nuc‘ (he actually uses a lot of things, but this is his primary vehicle for overwintering Nuc’s.) This is simply a deep brood chamber with a divider down the middle. The bottom is similarly divided with a small, 3 inch wide entrance for each side, on opposite sides of the super. I am pretty sure he uses tight-fitting, migratory covers, but the point is that neither side should be able to touch the other side, period.

Once you have your Nuc prepared, it’s time to move it to a new bee yard. The reason for this is not clear to me at the moment, but it probably has something to do with keeping any foragers that ended up in the splits from returning to the original hive.

As to the original hive, you can actually still gain something from the old queen if you find her. Place her in the original bottom deep (from the weak hive), along with 4 to 6 frames of honey and the rest simply empty, drawn frames. She will receive the field force (foragers out in the wilds) and has a good chance to build up to a nice, single deep chamber before Winter, when you can either requeen (late Fall) or wait until the next Spring and requeen then.

Now that you have your Nuc’s setup, you need to do some management. You have new, young queens with a good set of bees. There is a very good chance that, as the Fall flow comes on, they will build up so quickly that they want to swarm. You have to watch them and remove brood frames on occasion (for the really strong queens, you may have to do this 2 or 3 times.) You can supply the weaker Nuc’s with these frames of brood, to make sure they have the best chance of getting through the Winter.

So, now we have our new, double Nuc’s in the new yard and they are building up. Fall comes to an end and we start to see the occasional drop into the low-30’s. Now it is time to take these Nuc’s and drop them onto a strong hive. You can stack them right on top of another strong hive’s inner cover. There are a couple of tricks involved with this approach. To begin with, it works best if you have a small entrance drilled into the side of the Nuc for each side. You should also have another entrance, about 3/4 of an inch wide, drilled on the opposite side, towards the top (ventilation.) Double tape the hole in the inner cover of the strong hive, as you do not want them to know about each other (and you do not want the Nuc to have to deal with all of the moisture from the larger hive.)

You can stack the Nuc’s, if you like, but it makes it harder to inspect the gals and give them food, if needed.

Oddly, Michael Palmer will occasionally put a queen excluder on top of the double Nuc and then drop a full honey super over the entire group. He claims that the bees will work up into the super and be content to return to their brood chamber without a hitch. They appear to be content to work together (I look forward to testing this one out!)

Once Spring comes along (when the Cherry Blossoms start, or probably early to mid-March for me), it is time to take them off of the strong hive and let them fend for their own. At this point, you should be able to judge the good ones (for expansion) from the weak ones (to use to supplement the other hives). This can also be a good source of funds, as you can sell these Nuc’s for a premium (a queen that has overwintered and is starting to build up is about the best Nuc you can ask for.)

Failures and Successes : Moving Established Hives and a Rob-out

The weather in Richmond, Virginia continues to be miserable, although the temperatures dropped a bit today from the upper-90’s to the upper-80’s in eastern Henrico. The drought is really bad. I noticed some golden rod blooming, but most other things look like they are more interested in simply surviving as opposed to putting on blooms. A big front is headed our way and appears to be creeping to the east. We might actually get some rain tomorrow!

Today was a busy day in my bee world. The first story centers around a trip to Charles City and a rob-out. I have decided to reduce the number of established hives in my home yard (I suppose I should call it the Wilton Apiary, as I now have three locations with hives.) I had moved two of my most recent splits (Apache and Bob) to Charles City last weekend, to hopefully cease the robbing, to a small pond on my folk’s land. This is what I will call my Goose Pond Apiary, after the natural swimming hole that my grandfather built on the property. I had identified another spot, about a mile or so away, on a piece of land that my father and aunt own, which we call Mountcastle, so this will be my Mountcastle Apiary. It is here that I wanted to place two of my established hives, along a cut-over that is about 4 years old and about 400 yards from a beaver pond.

Although I have moved Nuc’s and single super (always Deeps) hives before, I had never moved an established hive. All of my established hives are working two deeps (full) at least. I cannot pick that weight up, so I needed to get them on a trolley. To do that, I would have to break them apart. Sealing them up for the move and then breaking them apart to move them would have defeated the purpose (bees would have surely been everywhere.) So, I took a different course of action.

Around 10 am, yesterday, I broke the Albo hive apart and placed them on the trolley, about 3 feet from the original location (and 1 foot down). The bees were pretty good about it, considering my normal adventures with opening hives this time of year, and everything went smoothly. I now had the hive setup, on the trolley, and the foragers were slowly finding their way back to it. The plan was to come back after dark, screen up the entrance and use a tie-down to ratchet the whole thing together and then ratchet it (again) to the trolley. Of course, it didn’t work out as expected.

Right at dark, I checked on the hive to discover that they were bearding all over the front of the bottom deep. A solid mass of bees – in the dark! I kept going back every 30 minutes and could see no change. I could not screen up the entrance without losing a ton of bees. Finally, I went to bed and set my alarm for 4 am to check again. I vaguely recall the alarm going off and being very annoyed with it, as I yanked the plug out of the wall and went back to sleep…

So, come morning, I went out to check on them. The beard was gone at 6:15. I was somewhat frustrated and didn’t even screen up the entrance. I toted the hive onto the trailer and off to the Mountcastle Apiary I went! I was able to get them on a decent spot on the ground and step back and watch. After a few moments, several bees came out and began to fly around. This hive has a ton of stores, brood and eggs. No matter what happened in this ride, they should be fine. One hive down, one to go.

Since I was in Charles City, I decided to swing by the Goose Pond Aviary while I was at it. I wanted to see how much syrup the hives had eaten. The Bob Hive was fine. It was still working on the syrup. I briefly looked in and there were a lot of bees covering the four frames. Things looked good. The Apache Hive, however, looked desolate. I opened her up and found about 50 bees and no honey, brood or anything (except a few small hive beetles…). Amazingly enough, I also found the daggone queen. Bees were piled up in the front of the deep and in the robber screen. The food was all gone. It appeared to me that I had a definite rob out. This hive was suffering to begin with. I guess moving it did not help out much.

I took the hive back home and decided to try to start one more split. It’s unlikely that I can get it to stick, but this time I will not be dropping a frame of honey into it. I actually took one frame of bees and capped brood, each, from Geronimo and the Queen-right Westover split (I am going to simply call this one Westover from now on, since they still have that huge, black queen that I picked up with my first swarm) and one partially drawn frame that had some bees on it from the Queen-less Westover Split. I now have them in a Nuc, completely sealed up (I sprinkled a few drops of water on the top of the frame and put them in the shade.) They are not really ‘sealed up’, as they have a robber screen (so they have access to air), but they cannot leave the hive, nor can anyone get in. My plans for this one will hopefully be to combine  it with the remains of the Apache Hive tomorrow (or I might just catch the queen and drop her into the queen cage that I picked up from Bobby, doing a normal queen introduction.)

I returned home for some serious work. I needed the frames for the new split and this was the perfect reason to go ahead and do some inspections. I have started to track my inspections in a notebook, since I have too many hives to track them well in this blog, so the highlights include:

The Westover split is strong. They are working on the top Illinois Super (they are running a Deep and a Medium super) with lots of honey and pollen stored.The William Byrd hive (the queen-less Westover split) is slam full of bees, although I know that they are fairly old. I did notice where one of the queen cells was torn apart, although I could see no evidence of the other two that I noticed 19 days ago. After some hard looking, I found a frame of eggs. I never did see the queen and did not see any capped brood or larva, but I am thinking that is normal. This will be my first successful queen rearing in my own yard, so I am very hopeful. The William Byrd hive has so much nectar and honey stored that I was tempted to take some, but I didn’t. When I split them, I gave them a few of the frames from the Medium Super that was on top of the parent hive. The next day, I dropped a deep between the bottom deep (with all of the bees) and the Illinois super. They have so far only done very minor work on the middle deep. I took two frames of honey and moved them up into the top deep and replaced those with the barely drawn frames from above. I hope this will encourage them to begin work on these frames.

As expected, the Geronimo Hive was very strong. They had nearly finished drawing out the two frames of foundation that I snagged from them for the original Apache split. They had several frames that were solid pollen (and I noticed several bees laden down with pollen on the frames.)

The final note regards the Blue Cottage hive. They have grown respectably to a 4.5 frame Nuc. I moved them to a full deep today and took the Nuc’s for my new split experiment. Unfortunately, I did find wax moth larva on the bottom and killed them all. I will have to watch that hive a bit closer. I am thinking about moving it, along with the Westover Hive, out to my two new apiaries this evening. We shall see!

Lesson : Starting Splits Late

Since last year, my bees have endured one issue or another and I have tried to learn lessons from each situation. The problem with any ‘bee lesson’ is that you cannot be absolutely sure of the cause of any given effect. Regardless, I use this blog to record my observations so that I can continue to track these issues and narrow down on the causes.

Over the past two weeks, I have had some major issues with robbing of the Apache Hive, the small split that I started to accept one of my new queens. This is not minor robbing, but a full onslaught (I have to believe it is from several invading hives or feral bee nests.) Even my robbing screens, that have always reduced or eliminated the robbing in the past, are not working for this hive. I actually closed it up completely (3 days ago), giving them some syrup and some shade, to let them get their feet under them. Today, I opened a small hole, enough for a bee or two to get through, around noon, and once again the onslaught was on.

Now, the immediate conclusion is that the frame of honey that I gave them is the primary issue. I do agree that this is a ‘sub-lesson’. Never give a small, starter hive a full frame of honey. It is nearly impossible for them to defend it from robbers (or other pests, like the Small Hive Beetle) and it simply draws robbers with its smell. That’s a lesson that I will not forget.

But, I am coming to the conclusion that the primary error was trying to start a small hive so late. I effectively started two small hives in the middle of June, Apache and Bob, and both are under some kind of onslaught (although Apache is taking the real beating.) One of the most disappointing effects of this issue is that I simply cannot check on them without drawing bees out of the woodwork. I cannot even do a quick inspection, without catching the attention of a flight of attackers. This is really frustrating, as I like to keep a close eye on the smaller hives (primarily for educational purposes, but also to be able to react to any issues that they may encounter.)

So, tonight I start my first Out Yard, down in Charles City to hopefully remedy this situation. I will be moving both the Apache Hive and the Bob Hive down to Charles City to start this small yard.It is my hope that I will be able to open both tomorrow, for the first time since introducing the new queens, and confirm that I have a laying queen and a bee or two. I will be happy if just one of them is doing well.

There is another lesson that might be on the table here. It could be that having so many hives in my home apiary (and my area in eastern Henrico, Va) is simply pushing it. I may even move the Berkeley Hive down to the new Out Yard tomorrow night. I am seriously considering dropping back to one established hive in the yard for the time being, perhaps creating yet another Out Yard. Trying to play with small hives is very difficult in my yard at the moment and it is something that I really enjoy doing.

Regardless, it is highly unlikely that I will try to start a hive this late in the year again.

Another sad note was the discovery of the demise of the Southside Hive. They were never able to get a queen started. They also dealt with some robbing issues and I am fairly certain they were the first to be robbed out completely. They seemed strong, so I did not get a Robber Screen on them until it was probably too late, unfortunately.

Two Queens Released and Rob Out!

Things seemed to be turning positive with our first (and only) rainfall for June coming last night and providing a whopping 7 tenths of an inch in eastern Henrico! I have no idea if it was just coincidence or not, but all of the hives were incredibly gentle this morning and seemingly glad to leave the desert conditions.

I have a bunch of things going on in the apiary, but there were two critical tasks that needed to be accomplished today. On Saturday, I released two new queens into two new hives! I have never ‘released‘ a queen into a hive before. All of my hives have raised their own queens (I had no marked queens in my bee yard, up until this point.) I was a bit nervous, but I was resigned to the real possibility that both would fail. It would be a learning experience and I would move on from there.

So, I started with the Bob hive. A bee had seemingly flown up out of the hive and fed the queen before I even put the cage into the hive. I was somewhat hopeful here. I opened up the hive and quickly (but calmly) pulled the frame with the attached queen cage. Again, the bees had completely covered the wire that covered the side open to the air. I had been somewhat concerned with the heat that the queen would die if they didn’t give her water, but I could see her walking about, directly on the wire, opposite to the bees. Clearly, they were not biting her, or you’d think she would be at the other side of the cage. So, I pulled the plug (opposite the candy end, as they had not done a bit of damage to the candy) and held the cage to the top of a frame for her to walk out. Two minutes later, and I became a bit concerned that my new queen was a bit mentally challenged. She clamored about, but never exited the cage.

Upon closer inspection, I could see a staple holing the wire caging onto the wooden container, so I used my pliers and pulled it out, pulling out the wiring. She was now open to the air. I held the open in next to a frame and down she went, into the hive! Of course, I had pictures in my mind of a bunch of bees jumping her, so I put the caging aside and began to look for her. I also wanted to destroy any queen cells. I found her in shortly thereafter (actually, it took a bit as she must have shot over to another frame real quickly.) Bees were all about her, feeding her and then I actually saw her seemingly lay an egg! I lost the cell in the masses, but I am about 90% sure she put an egg in there. Regardless, things looked good. I removed the rest of the frames and ended up finding 3 queen cells, all of which I destroyed. I’ll check back again tomorrow, just to be sure that no queen cells exist. You can’t be too careful with this.

As to the Apache Hive, I was a bit more concerned about them, mainly because they seemed to ‘ball’ the cage when I introduced it. But, I found them in the exact same position as before (it clearly was not balling, but feeding) and released her in the same manner as the Bob Hive. As before, things went smoothly and I found her being groomed or fed. But, here is where things went wrong…

To begin with, I forgot to look for queen cells. This is not a big deal, as none can hatch before I check them tomorrow, but it now reduces my ‘queen cell check’ to one inspection, instead of two. More importantly, I did not get the top of the hive down securely, but had no idea of this fact when I left.

When I returned home from work, there were probably 10,000 bees around the Apache Hive. They were literally pouring out of the hive and a small swarm worth of bees were hanging off of the front. No other hives were experiencing this, plus it had one of my newer (and better constructed) robber screens. This couldn’t be robbing! Were my bees leaving? Had someone happened within the hive that made them leave.

Well, I went to open the top and that’s when I realized that the top was not put on securely. Bees were scrambling in through the gaps that I had left! Damn it! For a good 4 hours, masses of bees had been hitting this hive. In retrospect, I made it worse by giving them a whole frame of honey during the initial split. I have been told to never give a new split that much honey (unless you are giving them 10 frames of bees). I basically gave them 4 frames, 1 of which was solid honey and a beacon to the lazy bums of my other hives. It was heartbreaking, as I was really under a lot of pressure from life issues today and these two queen releases were the only bright spots.

Well, there’s nothing for it except to chalk it up for experience. I will always double-check my tops on the smaller hives going forward. I will never give a small hive a full frame of honey in the hot summer (it not only contributes to robbing, but can also create an issue with the Small Hive Beetle, as the bees do not have enough number to adequately protect it.

I can only hope and pray that the queen is ok. I am sure that a very large number of my bees in the Apache Hive perished in fighting the foes. Hopefully, this will not doom them. I will get that frame of honey out of the hive tomorrow, assuming that the mass robbing has stopped. If it hasn’t, I will have to figure out other methods.

Another one for the story books.

Chesterfield Swarm!

Yesterday, around 6:30 PM, I received a call of a swarm of bees (thousands of them everywhere) in a nearby tree. My first question was ‘how long have they been there?’ The nice lady said they arrived on Thursday and had stayed through to Saturday. I am having a hard time picturing how a hive would cast a swarm now. It is miserably dry and we are in a dearth. Maybe someone cut down their tree? At any rate, according to the lady, they were on a branch about 10′  off of the ground! This sounded like a good situation. If they were 10′ off the ground, I could easily get them with my 8′ step-ladder. I packed my gear and headed over!

The swarm turned out to be more like 12′ high, which created a bit of an issue. In addition, instead of being massed at the end, they were spread over several small Pine limbs, about 2′ wide. It was a bunch of bees, but they were all massed in the needles. I had taken a frame of brood from the Albo hive (I am going to have to throw a feeder on that hive after all, as I have taken 5 frames from them in the last few days) and placed it into the hive as an anchor. I took a big box and held it  under the limb while I shook very hard. A bunch of bees flopped into the box, but a bunch also went into the air. I came down the ladder and poured the bunch in the box into my hive and stepped back.

Several bees on the ground and around the hive began to enter, but when I looked back up into the tree, I could immediately see a small ball forming again. It gained mass quickly, so I was pretty sure that it was the queen. It was probably between the size of a baseball and a softball. I went back up the ladder and, this time, just snipped that section off, carrying it back down the ladder and holding it in the hive while I gave a shake.

More bees started coming into the hive at this point, so I stepped back and watched for 10 minutes or so. A very small clump was trying to form on the tree again, but it was meager. Most of the bees in the air seemed unsure what to do. I looked to the ground and saw a bunch going into the hive this time. I was pretty sure that I had the grand, old lady, so I closed everything down and left.

Around dark, I came back to a full box of bees and started yet another hive on the property (I now have more then I want in one place – and definitely more ‘single deep’ hives then I wanted to feed through the dry Summer. Regardless, it is great fun and a learning experience.

The hive was on Apple Orchard road, so I think I will call this the Apple Orchard hive. I checked her this morning and gave them some feed, which they took to quickly. Robbing immediately started, so I dropped an entrance reducer on (I need to build some more robber screens, it would seem). These bees seemed to have enough to fend the buggers off and setup guard posts very much like the Berkeley Hive does.

It will be very interesting to see if these bees build up as fast as the Westover Hive did. I really do not know how they could build up but so quickly, given the fact that we are in a real dry spell. I will keep my syrup on them and see if they can get on a roll like my first swarm.

In closing, robbing continues to be a problem in the yard. The weaker hives (by that, I really mean any hive that has not filled up 7 frames in the bottom Deep yet) seem to draw the other bees in. I have seen good results with the robber screens, so I hope to get one on the Apple Orchard hive shortly.

Where to begin…

My love of beekeeping is becoming an obsession, according to my wife. Regardless, I truly love it for the educational experience  that it is. Everyday is a new experience.

Today, I created another new split, introduced queens to two new splits (one of them being the one that I created today), checked on the Geronimo hive after a long time letting them alone, received a swarm call and collected the swarm. That’s a lot for a day! As I want to record my experiences as a reference, I will focus primarily on the inspection and the splits.

My first task this morning was to introduce one of my new queens. Two days ago, Doug Ladd alerted me to a gentleman by the name of Bobby, outside of Rice, Virginia, that had some queens with some very good genetic history. I believe they are F1 hybrids off of a pure strain that is very hygienic (which means that they clean the varroa mite off of themselves or maybe remove larva with varroa in the cell with them.) I was interested in some new blood, so I made the trip yesterday and picked up two new queens. I now needed to have some hives to put them in!

I took the queen cage and wiped a tad of water along the edge, since I had made her wait over night on top of my aquarium. I then removed the plug that protected the candy and carefully pushed a small nail through the candy. Bobby advised me to do this, but I was very careful here, as I have read of other folks accidentally impaling their queen during this trick! I think you want to do it to give the bees an idea that they can eat through the candy to get to the queen.

So, I go out to the new hive, which I am going to call the Bob Hive, after my brother’s dog (since these bees came from the Albo hive.) The robber screen had worked and the hive entrance was working as expected now. I knew that I had to be quick. When Bobby showed me how he put the queen cells in, the little cage actually dropped into the bottom of the brood chamber (by accident, of course)! Bobby probably has decades of experience, but I decided to take a frame of foundation and wedge the cage between the wire (I do not embed) and the foundation.

I popped the top of the Bob Hive and removed the inner cover. As I grabbed a frame of foundation, a bee flew up out of the hive, landing on the queen cage and stuck its little tongue down into the cage!!! Ha! It’s supposedly a good sign when you see this, as it means that they are feeding her. But, who would have thought some gal would fly up a few feet above the hive and feed her! At any rate, I wedged the box into placed and lowered it into the hive. The bees pretty much swarmed onto the wire caging. I am not so sure that this was a good sign. They use the term ‘balling’ to mean an aggressive stance. They were so thick on the wiring that I couldn’t tell if they all had their tongues out or were biting at the cage. I had already decided that I would probably lose one of these queens, but it would be a great learning experience, so I pushed it into place, replaced the top and put a mason jar of MegaBee syrup on top. I’ll check back on them in a few days.

On to the inspection and new split creation. Cracking the Geronimo Hive, my absolutely strongest hive, made me once again realize the difference in my gentle hives and the Westover Hive(s). I broke that whole thing apart and do not believe one bee banged into my veil (vs. always a dozen or more when I go this deep on Westover). I will probably requeen the original queen from that swarm next Spring. At any rate, like the Albo hive, they had 5 or 6 Deep frames (both sides) of capped honey. They actually were storing a bit of honey in the Illinois super, so they are doing very well. The brood pattern is insane. If that queen decides to use the whole frame, she literally uses the whole frame. She doesn’t miss. Wall-to-wall, ceiling-to-floor. I picked 4 frames out of this hive, including one that was all honey, one that had a bit of pollen and some capped brood, one that was capped brood and larva and one that was sort of misformed (it was on the outside of the Geronimo Hive, and was partially drawn.) I replaced all of these with drawn foundation.

Finally, I moved all of Tom Fifer’s original frames to the outside of the brood chamber, for removal next Spring.

It should be noted that I was prepared with this split, having learned my lesson over the past few weeks. I set the new box up with a robber screen installed. I also created a cover that was easy to remove and replace, as I dropped the necessary frames into it. There was tons of fighting going on in the Geronimo hive as other bees came to steal their honey, but nothing on the new split (a marked difference from my past adventures of late!) A late season split needs careful attention.

Some 10 hours later, I put my second queen into this split, which I will now call the Apache hive. Unlike the Bob Hive, these bees didn’t even act like they noticed her. Not one of them got onto the cage. In fact, the majority of them were face down into the honey cells. I am sure this means something (besides simply that they were hungry), but I will have to wait until tomorrow or Monday to really know what it meant. I put a mason jar of MegaBee syrup on them and that was that.

Well, that was not that, as I was to find out when I received a swarm call around 6:30, but that story will have to wait until tomorrow!

Albo Hive Inspection & Blue Cottage Downsizing

I picked up a couple of new queens today (more on that tomorrow) to replace the queens in the Blue Cottage Hive and Pop’s hive. Basically, these hives have been under performing in my opinion. But, once I got home and mentioned it to Pop, he was incredulous that I had already given up on the grand ladies we picked up less then a month ago. He hasn’t kept bees in a couple of decades, but he has a bit more patience then I do! In the end, his comments were good as it caused me to give the Blue Cottage Hive another thorough inspection today.

This time, I took the time to note exactly where and how much she had been laying. After a good look, it is clear to me that she has pretty much laid in every available cell to her. The pattern is great. The problem is that she did not start off with enough bees to really get a good growth curve going. I have to go back to the old lesson that I have to relearn every month – leave the daggone bees be! I decided not to kill the old girl, but I did move the three frames they were working (really 2.5) along with one frame of foundation that they had started to draw out (about a quarter size,) into a Nuc.A Nuc only holds 5 frames and is a much more defensible position. I have run across several moths hanging under the lid of the cover or on a frame far away from the bees. These are probably wax moths looking to lay eggs (or maybe they already laid eggs.) I wanted to get the bees in a box where they consumed most of the space, hopefully giving them more of a chance to deal with these predators. Unlike the Southside hive, I rarely notice more then one or two small hive beetles here.

This hive will be an experiment for me. If they do not make it or build up enough, lesson learned. If they do, another lesson learned. Hopefully, they’ll get a full five frames drawn out over the next month and I can try to spend August to October getting them to fill out a full brood chamber. Like Doug said in a recent comment, it takes a worker bee 21 days from egg to emerging. The key now is to get them to draw out the remaining frames quickly so that they will get a good population going and I can move them to a brood chamber. Of note, they did have a nice dome of honey and a half frame of pollen. I will switch them to a MegaBee mixture shortly.

Now, I have two queens that need homes. These queens are supposed to be rocking queens, so I do not want to shirk them. I had checked the Southside Hive today, expecting to see a queen laying (although today is the earliest I would see that, according to the Bee Math). Instead, I found two more queen cells (that is really odd to me, as I cannot figure how they could have had any eggs in that hive that would still be in capped cells right now), in addition to a very old queen cell, in the horizontal position, from the original cut out! You’re supposed to put comb in at the same position (up-down) that you find it in the tree. I did not know this when I did my first cut out and just put it in however I could squeeze it. Apparently, they were in the midst of making a new queen when I did the cut-out. Sadly, I did not see that cell and put it in at the wrong direction. I imagine it has a dead queen in it now, although who knows. This might be the target for one of my new queens.

Finally, I had to get at least one small hive started for one of my queens. So, I did a full inspection of the Albo hive. Good lord. These bees are doing everything right but giving me honey. They had a ton of honey in the upper brood chamber and the queen was laying like a mad woman. The pattern was incredible in the bottom chamber. Bar-to-bar eggs. As a side note, I did notice what they call ‘backfilling’, a term Doug introduced me to. The workers have started to fill some of the cells that held brood with honey in the upper deep. As it stands right now, they have more then enough to make it through the Winter. But, they’ll surely eat into it over the next couple of months, so we’re not out of the woods yet. Regardless, this hive has received no feed (except what it probably stole from another hive) or other treatment. I will do a couple of dustings for mites in July/August, but that’s it. This hive has lots of promise.

My final task for this hive was also completed, as I moved all of the old frames that I started with last Spring to the outside of the hive. I will probably remove one or two this Fall, but will definitely remove all 4 next Spring.

Fighting Bees Can Equal Robbing

I am really glad that I did not split the Albo hive now. Things have turned drastically dry in my area of Virginia (just to the east of Richmond, in Henrico County – aka Varina) and, I believe, the bees have really been driven into a survival mode. Yesterday, I noticed a bit of fighting at the Blue Cottage Hive. For me, the signs always look like a training flight from afar, but with more bees then normal (for the Blue Cottage Hive, anything more then a dozen or so bees in orientation mode is abnormal.) Once you get up close, you watch the landing board and the bees are more agitated then normal. Watching a strong hive, like Geronimo, a bunch of bees (well, a ton) will be on the landing board and hanging all above it and below it (they call it bearding), but they are not very agitated. They just move back and forth (a rhythmic motion), like they are scrubbing the place or something. But, when bees are hauling all over the place and you occasionally see one or two jump on another one and actually tumble to the ground in front of the hive, you typically have robbing going on (it should be noted that a bee will sometimes rake one another to get the pollen off of their sister’s bodies, which might appear to be fighting – but it is not – rest assured, when robbing is going on, you will not doubt it or question it.)

As mentioned previously, I do not baby my established hives (unless an emergency, like something that I accidentally do to them). They are on their own. No food, no protection from robbing. I like to think that any established hive in my apiary is a proven gene pool. But, the Blue Cottage Hive is in its infancy (year 1) and small to boot! They receive my full attention. I do not tolerate any fighting on their landing board, so I immediately put up one of my homemade robber screens. Within moments, it became pretty clear who the robbers were and who were the hometown girls. I checked today and fewer robbers were about, although they were still about looking for a free meal.

I think that a dry period like this, matched with the normal end of the Spring nectar flow, is going to provoke robbing (my guess is that the culprits include the Albo hive, the Geronimo Hive, the queenless split (tons of bees there) and some feral bees.) But, I am definitely asking for it with the feeding that I am currently doing. They say that feeding syrup increases the likelihood of robbing and I can believe it.

While watching the Queenright split, I did not see any robbing, but there really are very few bees on the landing board. Just a few feet away, the QueenLESS hive sits and it is thick with bees. I do not believe a robber screen hurts, so I went ahead and put one on the Queenright hive too.

I also want to get one on the Southside hive, as they also do not appear to have a lot of bees on the landing board. It’s been 15 days since I dropped the eggs (from the Westover Hive)  into that queenless hive. It’s been 11 days since I noticed a capped queen cell. Basically, if things went smoothly, I have a new queen in that hive (they are very docile, which is a positive sign) right this second! She may have made her mating flight, but maybe not. It definitely has not been rainy, so the odds are in her favor (I have noticed lots of drones on all hives, another positive.) Although I really do not like opening hives in this mess (bees from other hive seem to take notice very quickly), I will be checking for some eggs this Friday (or maybe Saturday.) I also want to remove some of that old comb, so I am hopeful of a lot of things. But, if I see eggs, it means we have a laying queen (assuming it is not a laying worker!) and that will be enough for me.

The last new hive to mention is the Berkeley Hive. They had drawn out 7 frames at the last check and might be nearing an 8th (although that would really surprise me, given the dry spell and lack of nectar – it would be driven totally by the syrup feedings). At this point, they are still on the largest opening of an entrance reducer. I know some folks completely remove the entrance reducer on a hive this size, but I am definitely glad that I did not do that (smallest entrance reducer up to 6 frames, largest entrance reducer from 7 to 10 frames and no entrance reducer once the top Deep goes on). They are guarding that entrance perfectly (even fiercely!) About 8 sit along the edge, fanning wind back into the hive (ventilation.) They look like real guards. Every bee that comes by them (and all have to come by them to get into the hive) gets checked. I waited for a good 10 minutes and only saw one get the business (and boy did they gang rush her – two fanning guards and one who had been acting innocent on the landing board jumped some stray wanderer, took her to the ground and stung the daylights out of her!)

Results? No robber screen needed.

On a final note, I am still getting harassed a bit when I go around the Westover splits. I take Doug’s suggestion very seriously in his comment on a recent post. I cannot have a hive in the apiary that is too mean for a multitude of reasons. But, I will not pass judgment on them until they have a queen. I have not personally experienced it (up until now, maybe), but many folks say that a hive gets testy while it is queenless. It seems natural to me that they would be on hyper alert. They cannot afford to lose the queens that are current developing in the hive (there are no more eggs being laid to produce new ones.) One of these have to make it. So, if it were me, I would rush at anything that came within 30′ of the hive. I am hopeful that this is all that I am seeing. I definitely did not have a problem with them (outside of when I opened the hive) before the split.