Beekeeping in Richmond, Virginia

Hive 2 Revisit

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

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

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

Hive 2 Has First Training Flight!

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

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

Master Beekeeper Provides Solace

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

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

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

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

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

Pollen Bonanza

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

Hive 1

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

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

Hive 2

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

Hive 1 : Filled Feeder

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

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

Hive 2 : Wax Moth Incursion…

With the problems going on with Hive 2, I had the president of the East Richmond Beekeeper’s Association, ERBA, come over and have a look to see what was going on. When we opened the hive, we immediately discovered about a dozen larvae of the Wax Moth. I killed each one and removed 4 or 5 cocoons. I also removed that frame to clean it and subsequently replace it. I need to get it in a cooler.

This was a good lesson, although it was not aimed at me. The key point to this discovery was that no larvae were found on or around any of the frames that had bees on them. The good thing was that the bees on this hive had moved out to 5 frames, which was a first. They have clearly been active. The one problem with all of this is that the bees really have next to no honey at this time. They are effectively eating just about everything that they bring in.

wax_moth_coccoons_on_frames — Wax Moth Coccoons

My goal is to get more frames with honey on this hive. I hope to get some Megabee soon and will begin a feeding program to supplement that. I really do feel good about everything else, however. The Robber Screen and feeding have increased this hive’s chances of making it through the Winter. I will be checking them every week, going forward, but not using any smoke. The moment it becomes too uncomfortable (due to stings) to do so, I will reduce my visits to every two weeks and use a tad of smoke.

On a side note, I did also see one small hive beetle in the hive. A bee was chasing him. Beekeeping in Central Virginia is no ‘Walk in the Park’….

Hive 1 Looking Good

Update: On the Wax Moth front, someone on a forum advised me to look for Hive Beetles. He seemed fairly certain that this was more likely my problem.

So, this afternoon, after a stint at the Henrico County Gardening Helpline, I went out to have a brief look. No smoke this time (smoke sets them back and I am not using it again until I am stung), but I did not look into the frames.

I was able to get the feeder and the top deep hive off and finally replaced the bottom board with a screened bottom board. Bees were all over the place, but no one got real cranky and stung me. The hive looked great, with lots of bees on 8 of the frames (I didn’t pull them out, but could see them milling about.) They have not moved to the second deep, which is fine by me, as they are still working on the bottom one.

I did kill a handful of bees, but I hope to reduce this when I get my bee brush in the mail shortly. The little suckers love to run over to the spots where they will get crushed. I am now confident that anyone starting a new hive should feed from the start and put up a robber screen too. This is how a hive can get the best chance of knocking the ball out of the park when it is just getting started.

Tomorrow, we look at Hive 2! David Stover of the ERBA is coming to have a look with me.

Wax Moth!

Alas, I have discovered a dang wax moth in my strongest hive. To be honest, I found the larvae on the landing board when I removed my robber screen to expand it a bit. There does not appear to be a control, so I will need to check with some of my colleagues to see what to do about this daggone development…

Looking up at last!

It’s been two weeks since the last inspection, so I had to have a look at Hive 2 today, to see how it was faring. I have no idea how much the Robber Screen and sugar syrup feeding played a role, but the hive was looking much better. I found the queen and the bees are clearly working on 5 frames now. They also have been looking much more active at the front of the hive as well, with bees coming and going on a regular basis.

I checked the hive around 2 pm on a sunny day around 85 degrees F. Although I definitely found capped honey, I was unable to be sure about brood because I did not go very far into the hive (once I saw the queen, I closed her back up.) I also realized that there is very little chance that I will be able to see eggs or larva in the cells while I have the cap on. I will have to brave a ‘no hood’ inspection soon, so that I can start to check this out.

I also briefly checked Hive 1 and there was little to say. No work on the new brood chamber yet, but they looked very healthy, still working on 7 frames. I might have jumped the gun with these guys. We shall see.

Robber Screen

Well, I was finally able to seal off the bees last night (around midnight – and a couple were STILL milling around the entrance!) This morning, I went out to check and about 6 bees were on the outside. I know that one of them could have been from the hive, as one did fall off the bottom board last night and meandered about without getting back in before I sealed her up. It probably was her, as I later noticed that one of the six was actually carrying pollen, which was probably her work this morning.

Regardless, I went to Lowes in Varina, Virginia and picked up the materials for a robber screen and put it in place around 10 am. It was a bit harry, as they were very peeved and I had to smoke them to get them back in before I could remove the blocker screen. Even smoking them only caused a few to go back in.

When I did remove the screen, they really got worked up and I moved off a bit before returning about 30 seconds later to put the screen in place. Amazingly enough, I was not stung (I was expecting multiple stings.)

I also moved the bees to a low table that I built last night and put up some ant guards on each of the legs. All of this had several bees going back to the old place (or maybe these were the robbers, who knows.) Regardless, they are a bit out of sorts, but I feel better (heh…that shouldn’t count, but it does!) I am hopefull that I will find them tomorrow, working the robber screen without a problem with some of the robbers being foiled. I created the second robber screen for the strong hive, which I think I will put in place on them too, just to be safe.

Finally, there’s lots of dead brood outside of Hive 2 again. I really do not know what to make of all of this. I hope (glass is half full) it is a sign of great hygenics and not a sign of something else wrong.

Regardless, one more beekeeping experience in Varina, Virginia to add to the ever-growing pile!