Sanity

Another amazingly warm day in Richmond, Virginia afforded me the chance to have a look at another honey bee outyard. It proved extremely beneficial, as it brought me back to beekeeping reality. For the last couple of weeks, I have been seeing fairly good strength in all of the hives that I have been able to inspect. Then, over the past weekend, I found extremely strong hives in my backyard. Admittedly, a few were Nucs, but I was amazed at how quickly these bees were filling out their boxes (and, how soon!) I had gotten it into my dim-witted skull that all my hives were on the verge of swarming! It’s been a Winter like no other and who knows what to expect.

In this small outyard (I’ve yet to be extremely impressed with the results in this outyard, so I have yet to increase it beyond 3 hives), I found more what I would have expected. One hive was doing very well. Perhaps 5 Deep frames of capped bees. Several empty frames to expand into and not much nectar being stored. They actually had a deep full of honey above them (all in fairly new frames – 1 to 2 years old), so I simply did a bit of checkerboarding, placing empty, drawn frames every other slot (in 3 of them), pulling the frames full of honey for Nucs later on. I had expected to pull a Nuc out of this hive. Gentle bees, great brood pattern, second year queen. But, they were still in build-up mode (not big enough yet, to pull a Nuc.) ‘Oh well, I’ll be back in a couple of weeks.’, I thought as I moved to the next hive.

The next hive was nearly as strong, but they didn’t have extra stores at all. They had some capped honey and a lot of nectar, but nothing to spare. In addition, they were laying in the Medium and probably had 6 or 7 frames of brood. Again, still in build up mode. Plenty of space to build into. Still to early to yank a Nuc.

The final hive was a dissapointment, to be sure. Maybe 3 frames with brood, pattern spotty and brood area was small. This hive came from a swarm last year and ended the summer with an amazing brood pattern. I could see no sign of disease, but I also didn’t look for the queen. I can’t imagine that they swarmed, but I’ll give them another look on Sunday. The hive has a ton of stores (all Medium), so I need to do something if they don’t take care of this problem themselves. This is the second (seemingly) failing queen that I have found, out of 19 hives. I write the first off to my inability to find the old queen last year (so that I could whack her). This second one is a bit of a mystery.

Today’s events brought me back to reality, which is a good thing. Some hives are definitely ahead of schedule. Some very few are way ahead of schedule. But, I am no longer that concerned about swarming. I also can relax on the Nuc creation. I still hope to create some this weekend, but probably only one or two, like last weekend. It is more probable that the vast majority will be created in the 2nd and 3rd weekends of March after all. For whatever reason, that give me peace of mind…for the moment.

Swarm Prep

I was painting some hive equipment in the nice weather we have been getting in Richmond, Virginia today, which typically means there is a lot of ‘thinking’ going on as I tackle the fairly monotonous task. I kept going back to my beekeeping excursion this past week and how much some of my hives had progressed. Finally, although the temps were in the low 50’s (definitely beneath the temps that I normally pull frames in), I decided to look into the hives and overwintered nucs in my backyard. The big caveat to all of this is that I started open feeding in this yard last weekend, as part of a multi-year experiment on how it really affects already healthy hives.

In the first Nuc, I found that they had expanded into the full Deep. This was a bit of a surprise. They had nearly twice the brood from last weekend and had drawn out the 2 frames of foundation (yes, they are drawing wax.) This ‘nuc’ was already in a Deep, only because I never got to transfer them into one in the busy part of last Fall. So, I dropped a Medium on them. I normally feed a hive when they are drawing out a Medium, but I think this is still possible robbing time. I will wait for mid-March before I start feeding (hive feeding, I mean.)

The second look was a full hive. I found the beginnings of a daggone swarm cell. They had not drawn it out much, but I could see the mass of royal jelly in the thing. This is a pain – I wanted to be ahead of this. I whacked the queen cell and took a Nuc from them (my first Spring Nuc). I replaced the frames with some drawn but mostly foundation. I shook a bunch of nurse bees into the Nuc and also gave them a frame of foundation. I think those nurse bees need something to do (like draw wax) or they get antsy and kick off a swarm.

The next hive was from the Aug 1 cut out that I did near Lewis Ginter. They were only starting to work into their upper Medium and had plenty of space. They looked good, but are not near causing me problems (i.e. swarming.)

I then checked several Nucs. Two were ramping up nicely and will probably either be split (if they are doubles) or simply moved to a Deep (if they are singles) next weekend. But, the final Nuc (the cut out from post-Irene off of River Road) had a nearly capped swarm cell! Nurse bees were everywhere. They were in a double, so I moved the queen and 6 frames into a Deep and moved them off of the Nucs original location (a few feet.) I left the Nuc with the swarm cell and some 24 hour (or less) larva (and eggs) on three frames from the double nuc, 1 drawn frame and (of course) 1 frame of foundation to give the nurse bees something to do.

I am not sure if this activity is due to the open feeding or if all of my hives are on the verge of swarming. There are 15 or so hives that I haven’t seen since January… I may need to take a day off from work this week. I will definitely be starting a group of Nucs next weekend. I have decided to postpone my queen rearing program until March 10 (that’s my current plan, at any rate!)

All I can say is beekeepers in this area should be watching their hives. Swarms are not a bad thing, but if you are thinking about increasing or creating Nucs, it’s better to catch them before they swarm for sure.

Raising a Queen in the Snow!

Overwintered Nucs in Snow
A Single and a Double Overwintered Nuc in snow

Beekeeping in Richmond, Virginia continues to be an adventure full of surprises. Last week, we  rose into the lower 60’s – the weekend comes and we get 3 inches of snow! Ha! Although the snow was fun (I really didn’t think we had a chance of snow at this point, its been so warm), it was interesting to see that not a single hive or nuc had chill brood. They must be doing something right!

To add to the craziness, 3 days later it rose into the 70’s!! This was a real boon, as it afforded me the opportunity to open up a bunch of  hives to see what was going on.

I started off at the Westover hives. I am constantly interested in the hive that was knocked over in Hurricane Irene last year. I found it, about noon on Sunday after the full brunch of the hurricane had hit us on Saturday. The bottom board (screened) was laying across the yard. The bottom hive body was literally on its side and the top hive body (and one honey super) were laying flat on the ground nearby. Bees were thick in the lower hive body (where I figured the queen must be) and had been able to escape robbing because of all of the leaves and tree limbs that sheltered them. I put them back together, leveled the hive and let ’em roll, not sure what would happen. After checking today, it didn’t set them back a bit.

Supercedure Cell
Honey Bees Dealing with a Failing Queen

Most hives averaged around 5.5 frames of brood. Nearly all patterns ranked from 8 to 10, with one 2 (this one looked like a failing queen) and one 5. I found one hive with 9 frames of brood – they will be the parent to my first Nucs next wekeend, if things hold out. Honey stores were great in all of the hives (I checked 9 full hives) but one. I did find a hive that was laying brood in the upper Medium, although the bottom Deep was full of honey (except for an empty area about the size of a baseball (maybe bigger) where they had laid brood at one time or another. Most folks would reverse this hive, but I purposefully let them alone just to see. I have my doubts about ‘reversing’, based on some readings of Brother Adam, so I thought I would run my first primitive experiment.

I also found where a couple of hives were drawing was and/or storing some nectar in the brood nest. For some, the latter is a sign of swarm prep. I marked those hives for another check this weekend (and probably next weekend.) I was surprised to see the wax draw – it was more then just a little. I do not recall how warm it has to be to draw wax, but I definitely didn’t think it had gotten that warm. I am clearly wrong, so probably need to read up on those stats again.

All in all, a good inspection day. For the most part, it was ‘good’ because I am no longer wondering what’s going on in those hives. But, that is a perfect opportunity for me to get on my soap box and espouse about my thoughts on early inspections!!! Depending on their goals, beekeepers have different reasons for going into the hives at this time of year. Most beekeepers (the newer ones) should have the simple goal of ‘what’s going on in there’ as a learning experience. As a basic ‘to do’ list, you go in to check the brood pattern, find drones, check honey stores (probably most important) and look for any signs of problems. I typically dissuade any of the 2nd year beekeepers that I mentor from going into the hives too early, as I would hate for them to accidentally kill their queen when no drones were about. I found one hive with so many drones this past week that I am confident that killing a queen right now is no longer a death sentence.

Royal Jelly in Queen Cell
Royal Jelly in Queen Cell

Case in point, one thing that everyone should be doing right now is checking brood pattern. It is particularly hard to do as a new beekeeper with one hive. But, you need to do it. ‘Pattern’ typically refers to two things. 1 (and both easy to assess and least important), how much of the frame does it take up. 2, how ‘spotty’ is the pattern. This one is more difficult, but very important. A queen should start laying in the center of a frame and work outwards, in a concentric circle. In the end, every single cell should receive an egg (until she stops building the circle – which might be small or large – not a sign of queen health, but a sign of how many nurse bees are about.) When they cap the eggs, you have a smooth, flawless circle of capped brood. Sometimes, the bees notice something wrong with a capped pupae and extract it, expelling it from the hive (many yards away.) This creates a small  hole in the ‘brood pattern’. For me, a few holes is fine – I view it as good genes – they found pupae with varroa and removed the pupae, preventing or reducing the varroa cycle. But, if you find a lot of holes, it can mean that the queen is laying dud eggs. It’s definitely a problem, as these are all potential population for your hive and it probably means the queen was either poorly mated or is failing.

As it so happens, the very last hive that I inspected the other day had a very poor brood pattern and not nearly the amount of frames of brood that I consider healthy right now. I was debating on whether to kill my queen when I discovered that the bees were taking care of it! Right there on the comb was a queen cell! It hadn’t been capped yet, so I was actually able to see the mass of royal jelly they had put around the larva (hard to see in the pic)! Although I don’t mind killing a queen, I much prefer the natural process (my number one hive – 9 frames of brood and enough drones on the comb to fill  up a nuc!) came from a queen raised by the bees in March last year. I believe in the process, so I was glad to see the bees taking action. The wild thing is that this was my meanest (most defensive) hive last year – I went in to kill queen multiple times in July/August, but could never find her. But, these bees were by far the most gentle bees that I opened on this day. Hard to say why this was (the old queen was still there). Maybe the prospect of a new queen had everyone in a good mood=)

In conclusion, the bees are really ahead of schedule this year, as everyone thought they’d be. I still plan to start a few Nucs next weekend, so more on that later.

First Full Inspections of the Year

With the weather being what it is, I had decided to start my full inspections in the middle of February (instead of early March, per usual.) A full inspection means that I open the hive and pull every frame. What’s the big deal? There are two big reasons why doing this in February (in a normal Winter) is a risk. One involves the cluster. I will break whatever cluster they have, by pulling every frame. In a normal Winter, this might set them back severely. They are unlikely to be able to form the cluster quickly again and, assuming we hit a week where the highs were in the low 40’s, a bunch of baking brood would likely die as the colony would not be able to keep them warm enough. But the second reason why this is typically ill advised is much more important. Whenever you do a full inspection, you are necessarily pulling the frame with the queen on it. This means you may kill her by accident. Normally, in mid-February (in my experience), no drones are about. This means that a new queen cannot be mated. Therefore, killing your queen in mid-February is normally a death sentence for the hive. Thus, only the foolish or those with a high risk tolerance (they don’t mind losing a hive or two if it furthers their knowledge of honey bees) will break a hive up this time of year.

So, why would I go into 10 hives today (well, 6 hives and 4 overwintered nucs)? The weather has simply been very unusual for Richmond, Virginia beekeepers this year. Based on my calculations (which, as ludicrous as it may sound, are based on a hybrid Maple’s blooming date this year, vs previous years), I thought that Drones might be walking on the comb as of today (and I mean exactly today!) So, I took the risk. I figured that I would be unlikely to kill any of the queens, but worse case could only be one dead queen. I was willing to take the risk.

I started out going through a full hive. I found capped drone brood (= drone walking on the comb by March 1 for sure). Stores were great, population was great and brood pattern was at a 10 (I ran into several 8’s that day and one 5, but this one was a 10 – Grade A Queen and definite Nuc parent.) I then hit my 4 Nuc’s. All looked good except for 1, which was literally slam out of food. They had a small brood nest (but the pattern was a 9) and no food. This was the swarm that I found in one of my deeps in the shed last Fall. You can’t expect a Fall Nuc to build up much, but these guys were completely out (I had a Nov swarm that had more). This got them a 2 on the Winter Stores scale. We’ll see how they score out by March. But, the bottom line is that they will live to March because of my inspection today. When I found them without any honey, I dropped a fully frame of capped honey from the hive that I started the series with. That will get them by for 2 or 3 weeks (based on their population), when I’ll check ’em again.

At this point, with the exception of the one nearly starved Nuc, I had found Drone cells (capped) in the one hive and all Nucs. Opening the last Nuc, I figured to find the same. Wait? What was that? A Drone just starting to make his way out of the cell!! In truth, only his eyes were visible. Being the lazy male that he is, the workers have to cut him out of his cell. So, there he was, smiling at me. This means drones will be walking on the comb in a day or two!!!

Why do I care about walking drones? This is the number one flag for Nuc makers. If a Drone is walking on the comb, you know with near absolute certainty that Drones will be flying to Drone Congregation Areas in 14 days. You also know that it takes a Queen 16 days (give or take a day) to hatch and another week (at least) before she heads out to be mated. So, if you see walking Drones, you can start a Nuc on that very day and feel comfortable that Drones will be out to mate with your virgin queen when she is ready! So, walking drones are critical for Nuc makers and Queen rearers.

So, seeing one trying to poke out was encouraging. But, I was not that excited, as I had expected to see one walking…wait..what was that?! A big, fat beggar drone making his way among the workers looking for food! And this was just a Nuc! Ha! Drones are out in central Virginia! Booyah! (Man, I love this time of year.)

For me, I like to wait a week or so after the first Walking Drone so that I get more drones out there for my queens. I have no idea if it makes a difference or not (I will experiment one of these years, but not this year.) So, my target date for the first round of Nucs (March 3 to 5) is holding steady!

All in all, the inspections went well. I didn’t get deep into several of the larger hives, as it started to get a bit late. If you go into a hive and break her apart , they need some time to get back together even in this kind of weather. I don’t like to break them up inside of 2 hours before sunset when the temps are going down into the 40’s or lower that night. Regardless, all hives are alive and (with the exception of the one Nuc) with more then enough stores to make them to the holly bloom. Dandilions are blooming now (although I do not see my bees working them.)

We’ll see what March has in store, but I’m going on record saying that this will forever after be known as the Year of the Swarm. It is very clear to me, based on full hives and nucs, that the bees are ramping up very strong right now. I am confident saying that swarms will happen the first week of March around Richmond, Virginia. I’d bet big money on it.

 

Bee Rescue in February

Taking a bee log away from a site
Cutting Bee Logs the Old Fashioned Way

A fellow down on River Road (south of the James River in Richmond, Virginia) had some fellows removing trees from his yard earlier this week. On Tuesday, they cut a piece out of a big poplar and (when it hit the ground) bees erupted from it (according to the tree cutters, ten thousand of the things!) They quickly gave that tree a lot of room.

The home owner got on the net and found my name, giving me a call. Unfortunately, it was a work week (and this seemed a low probability of success, quite frankly – queen is likely a goner and who knows what happened to the honey stores) and my weekend is booked with a beekeeping course that I am teaching. So, I called one of the fellows from my back-up list (David Stover, also a member of ERBA) and he was able to go out with some friends and get that log cut and moved on.

If we’re lucky, that’s one more colony saved!

Maples in Bloom

Red Maple Bloom
Red Maple Blooms in January

I was amazed to see that my hybrid Red Maples were in bloom yesterday (1/29), to the east of Richmond, Virginia. Last year, these same maples bloomed a couple of weeks before the main Maple bloom, so I checked my records and found that they bloomed in mid-February in 2011 last year. You shouldn’t draw a major conclusion from this, at least in the beekeeping world. Of course, I will draw a few just for kicks!

After doing a little more research and I located my first observation of walking drones in 2011, 22 days later on March 11… The implied conclusion (that I might see walking drones 22 days from yesterday, or on February 20) is a bit of a stretch (I do not think the appearance of drones is based on hybrid Maple blooms….), but it still bears watching.

To some extent, this is becoming a trek down the proverbial (is Alice in Wonderland a proverb?! heh…) rabbit hole! What if we do find drones on our combs in late February? Can we actually start Nuc’s then? I have heard of some folks who started Nucs during the 1st week of March a few years back. But, what of the risk? The odds of a ‘cold snap’ increase the earlier you start your Nucs. Will they struggle to raise a new queen? What about the mating flight?

All interesting questions. I look forward to pushing the envelope to see how it goes. The way this weather is going, I feel confident that I’ll be starting Nucs the first week of March at the latest!

 

First Log Entries of the Year

This has surely been the weirdest January that I have lived through in Richmond, Va – it is certainly the warmest in my memory (which really isn’t saying much…) We are getting frequent high’s in the 50’s, with occasional high’s in the 60’s, while Alaska and areas to the Northwest are going through one of the more brutal Winters on record! Regardless, we’ve finally been getting a few days with high’s in the 40’s again and this provides an interesting entry for the beekeeping journal.

One of the best things that I did as an early beekeeper was to begin making journal entries on my hives. It started with simple notes, such as date, weather, hive temperament and any unusual observations. As time went on, I added items (and removed some), including # of frames of brood, # of frames of resources, pests, number of bees with deformed wing virus, and the list goes on. It’s amazing how valuable this resource has been. Occasionally reviewing the old entries of a particularly strong hive or even a weak hive has been very educational. You are able to step back and view the big picture, instead of focusing (and frequently fretting!) on the individual events of the day. This has proven particularly invaluable in identifying the best hives to breed new colonies from.

One of the things that you can observe in a normal January is ‘Russian’ behavior. The Russian strain of Apis mellifera is known to fly at lower temperatures than the other honey bee strains. I like this trait and make a note of which hives fly in the upper 30’s (something I rarely see, except on a really sunny day) and the 40’s. All honey bees should be out doing their business once we hit the 50’s, but the lower temperatures are always of interest. Flying early is a benefit, in my opinion. I view it as ‘good work-ethic’, as it usually means they are out the door earlier in the morning to collect nectar in the early Spring (when temps can be low on occasion) and may work a bit later. It’s just an opinion, but I’ll keep tracking it to see if I find trends down the road.

Beginning Beekeeping Class in Richmond, Va

Bees enjoying maple syrup in Winter
Winter Nectar Source

It’s been a wild Fall/Winter, to be sure. The weather has never really gotten into a good ‘winter groove’ and there are frequently times when it simply feels like Spring! Today, the temps are  currently approaching the mid-60’s…that’s about 25 degrees above the average High for this time of year in Richmond, Virginia. In truth, we always get a day that rises into the 50’s (at least) in January, but we really have yet to get any real Winter weather this year. We still have a few months to go, but it’s a far cry from last year. I really doubt that it’s going to be too bad.

What does this mean to the beekeeper? For one, folks call him about ‘swarms on the Maple trees’. As most beekeepers know, there is a zero percent chance that any hive is going to swarm in January. It may abscond because someone cut down the tree they were in or whatnot, but they are not going to be swarming. Add this bit of knowledge to the fact that I had already noticed the bees enjoying the sap coming out of my Maples and I was (hopefully) able to calm the fellow down. The woodpecker creates the holes and the sap (maple syrup) comes out when it warms up a bit. This draws the bees. Does this hurt the tree? As my Pop would say, ‘It didn’t help it any’, but I have never seen any long-term issue and my maples are huge (a good 4 to 6′ in width at the base.)

On a general, What’s going on note, we are ramping up the first Beginning Beekeeping class at the East Richmond Beekeepers Association. Over the past few years, I have received a lot of ‘come help me’ calls from folks in Richmond and the surrounding areas. When I get there, I have found that many of these folks (close to 75%) have actually attended another Beekeeping class held in our area. Sadly, their questions have always been very basic questions. This got me to thinking – I am willing to bet that these classes spend several days going over every single aspect of beekeeping. This is a worthy objective, but I believe that it causes some folks to miss the forest for the trees. In my opinion, there is a core bit of knowledge that a new beekeeper needs to know. This pretty much focuses on what to do with a hive from just before they get their Nuc/Package to about June or so. These early months are crucial. I postulated that maybe they were being taught too much at such an early stage. How about a class that really focuses on these early months with a follow up class (say in May) for some of the other information? So, I spearheaded a new class at ERBA.

December Dandilion Bloom
Who Says There is nothing blooming in December?

As a side benefit, I have really taken to a philosophy that merges Practical Beekeeping (as espoused by renown beekeepers such as Michael Bush) with Sustainable Beekeeping (heralded by Brother Adam, a beekeeper of yesteryear, but heavily promoted today about another esteemed beekeeper, Michael Palmer.) There are aspects to this philosophy that every beginning beekeeper should know. So, I decided to focus the class on this philosophy.

We start in February and I expect a great class! But, I plan to get a lot of anonymous feedback in case we miss the mark.

What’s going on in my hives? Well, many still have plenty of honey. I opened several hives today and actually pulled frames in the brood nest. Very little evidence of laying, actually, but tons of honey. All of this warm weather had me worried, but I guess the bees are holding their stores close to their vests. I also do not have any losses yet, but I am expecting them (if I get them) in the Feb/Mar timeframe. We have a fair number of dandilions blooming and they are bringing in some kind of red pollen (or were, in late December), so I am happy.

The cool thing is that the Big Fun Time in beekeeping is probably no more then 2 months away! Bonzai! I can hardly wait.

Rendering Wax for the First Time

I finally got around to rendering wax for the first time! It was an interesting adventure. Many folks write and commented on the fact that you shouldn’t do it in your kitchen. Of course, I ignored all of that (I can be careful – no big deal!) That was big mistake number 1…

I am not sure that I would follow this method again, but I basically took an old crab broiler that I had and put it on the stove (again, in my kitchen…). I then took an old boiler (for making things like creme brule) and cut my wax into it to melt it. It melted fine and then I poured it through a screen (like a window screen) into milk cartons that I had cut the tops off of. Effectively, I was pulling out any of the bee parts or bits of brood comb that were not wax and making it pure. All of the cartons look great (I hope to make a candle or two before Xmas), but I did have spillage…and fire…

Unfortunately, the boiler slipped into the water on one go… This meant wax and water mixed a bit, in BOTH the boiler (with melted wax) and the larger broiler (with boiling water.) No real big deal, except when I put more water in the broiler and some of it splashed off the side onto the stove!

Two bad things happen when this occurs. First, wax gets on the stove which is very hard to get up. My significant other was not pleased about that one. The second is that a fire starts. Wax, if you didn’t know it, burns a bit like fuel. Before it was over, I had a fire extinguisher out and dousing the flame (and covering the stove with fire extinguisher dust…) Unfortunately, my wife did not buy the argument that ‘at least the house didn’t burn down’ and this only added fuel to her flame. I had no fire extinguisher for that one…someone needs to invent that.

So, next year I will be doing it outside. I actually mentioned that a hot plate might be a good Christmas gift… On a bright note, I had purchase one of the wax-melters from Dadant last Spring. This turned out to be a huge boon, as I put everything in that thing and the wax dribbled down into a container, nearly 100% pure right there. It really helps with brood comb. That stuff doesn’t melt. You can put a whole frame of wax from old brood comb into a boiler and only get a few spoonfuls of wax. It’s very messy – it really isn’t worth it. But, if you let mother nature do the work during the Summer, it works like a champ.

At any rate, lessons learned all around. This time, I should have listened to everyone’s advice…