Beginning Beekeeping | Beekeeping in Richmond, Virginia

Hot & Bearding

It’s hot as Hades today in Richmond, Virginia, reaching 95 degrees on my gauge. Beekeeping is only fun on days like today when you’re just watching from afar. Regardless, I had to do a couple of checks to see what was going on in the Albo and Geronimo hives. I built another medium (Illinois super) box of frames last night and put foundation in them this morning. I wanted to make sure they were not close to filling of their current supers up. If they were, they would be going into the ‘it is daggone crowded in here’ psychosis and might decide to swarm. Putting an extra, empty super on top would give them the feeling of lots o’ space and keep them happy.

I cracked the Geronimo Hive, which I had seen working the one super on top, hoping to see a bunch of capped frames. Unfortunately, my luck continues to hold and it really does not look like they have done much work beyond my last look. All of the frames have some drawn comb on them, but none of them are fully drawn out and (with my brief inspection) I did not see any capped comb. Oh well. It would appear that I will not get any honey off of these guys, but I am going to continue to let them work at it this year, just to see how it goes. I did not drop any super on them. Of note, these bees were all over the landing board and some were actually hanging off of it, latching on to one another and creating a ‘beard-like’ look on the front of the hive. This is a common occurrence, although most folks worry that the bees are getting ready to swarm and fly off. Instead, they are just cooling off. I’d go out on the porch for some lemonade too!

The Albo Hive had not even touched the super on top. In fact, I briefly removed the super and noticed that they had not yet drawn out the last frame on the top brood chamber. This is the hive that I am going to consider splitting. They are not my strongest hive, but they are still a solid hive. I think that most of my hives did not get a great start, due to how late I received them last year. I am hopeful that next Spring will be a different story. I am thinking about feeding these bees just to see if they will draw out this honey super for next year.

Finally, I replaced the feeder on the Blue Cottage Hive. This weak hive has shown a lot of progress over the past week to ten days. I now see bees on the landing area and coming and going with more frequency then my initial investigations. I am pretty sure that dropping that frame of brood from the Westover Hive was a big boon. It should be noted that I momentarily thought the Westover Hive was robbing this hive, as I could see the blacker bees coming and going (a color that I mainly have in the Westover Hive.) Then I remembered that I had taken brood from them…so, these are some of that brood already going to work.

Not an extremely eventful post, but good for the journal and future reference.

Nuc’s Installed & Honey Bee Hive Investigations

I received the call from Tom that the Nuc’s were ready and picked them up last night, moving two to my apiary at home and taking one to Pop (Alex and I gave him one for Christmas.) Today was a busy day, looking at hives and squaring away the new Nuc’s, so let’s get to the records.

Charles City Hive (Pop’s Hive)
One of three Nuc’s received from Tom, we placed it under a Walnut tree near Pop’s garden, right up to one of the cow pastures. I advised him that the chance of getting shocked every time you looked at the Bee’s made this an inappropriate spot. He mumbled some words that I cannot relay on this site, basically calling to question my intelligence. Heh. We’ll see….

This Nuc was weaker then the one that I picked up from Tom last year. The bees were basically on 2-and-a-half frames. I couldn’t do a full inspection, as Pop started to freak out thinking that I was messing with them too much. Oddly, one actually stung me (Pop said he would have stung me too). I don’t wear my gear, gloves or veils when working Nuc’s and, up until this day, have never been stung. It wasn’t a big deal, but Pop thought it was funny. I was sorry that one bee killed herself to get me, as the Nuc didn’t have a bunch of bees to begin with. Once we get back from the beach (for Memorial Day), I might drop a frame of brood/nurse bees and a frame of honey from one of my hives into this Nuc.

We put the top feeder on them and Pop decided he would go without an entrance reducer.

Albo Hive
It is pretty clear to me that I will not get honey this year off of the Albo hive. The top deep has 7.5 frames drawn out, all but one full of honey and most of it capped. The one exception was a frame that had one side with a round patch of capped brood towards the bottom of the side. Since I found eggs and larvae in the bottom deep, I am guessing that the old Lady came up top to lay a few eggs when things were tight (full of eggs, larvae, pupae) below. Now that those bees have hatched, She is apparently working that area again (down below).

The honey super was just touched a tad, a bit of wax on two frames drawn out. Not much of a difference from the last inspection. Given this progress (or lack-thereof), I might split this hive in a week or two. The real question is ‘what does June hold?’ If I listen to the common word, the flow winds down over the next 4 weeks and it seems unlikely that the bees can draw out a full Illinois super and fill it with honey. I’ll have to think on it. I have 5 hives now. Do I want to increase this year?

Blue Cottage Hive (new Nuc)
This is one of the Nuc’s that I picked up last night. It is definitely the weakest Nuc that I have heard of. I almost wonder if Tom made a mistake. One frame of brood and one-and-a-half frames of pollen/nectar. This frame is actually so weak that I initially thought they had absconded when I was setting up, as not a bee came or left in about 30 seconds while I was preparing to do the investigation. Although I found capped brood and eggs, I did not see the queen (this absolutely shocked me, as there really were very few bees in this box.)

I put the entrance reducer on this one (and I might follow up with a robber screen). It would not take much to ‘do this hive in’. I also put the top feeder on and put a little syrup in (I doubt they can eat much, as there are not many to eat!) This pretty much confirmed my thoughts about moving some brood/nurse bees and a frame of honey to the Nuc’s to help them along. This will probably be the task for next weekend.

Westover Hive
The queen in this hive is a laying fool. To recap, they had been sucking down syrup over the past few weeks and I expected to find a lot of capped honey. Instead, I found about 7 fully drawn frames in the top Deep and all but one had brood in one stage or another (although mostly it was capped brood.) This was good, but it had me concerned that maybe the queen had moved up and wasn’t moving down. But, once I got to the bottom deep, I did find larvae in earlier stages then what was up top.

These bees have really exploded as far as population is concerned. I put on a honey super, just to give them room, but they are another candidate for splitting. It really depends on what June is going to hold for me. This hive is the ‘meanest’ of my hives. They always get antsy and send out a few bombers. I was very gentle with them this time and they still had a few that would have loved to stung me. These are my hottest bees, but they are also my hardest working bees. I will not get rid of this queen while this is the situation. I am thinking that letting them raise their own queen gives me the opportunity to get the hard working gene (that they have) with a more gentle gene (that my other hives have.) We’ll see.

Since I have only 3 top feeders (and have not made an inverted jar feeder yet), I only had two at home, having given one to Pop for his Nuc. So, I removed the top feeder from this hive to give it to my other Nuc’s. Once I decide whether to get more top feeders or use inverted jars, I might feed them some more (the top deep is not really fully drawn out yet.)

Geronimo Hive
As always, this hive had so many bees that it was impossible to find the queen. Several frames were two and three bees deep. They were literally crawling on one another. No sign of swarm cells and the honey super was hardly touched, so I am feeling good about this one. I will probably wait two more weeks to see if there is any chance of getting honey this year. If the outlook remains bleak, I will use this hive to fortify my weaker Nuc (the Blue Cottage Hive.)

Berkeley Hive (new Nuc)
I placed this new Nuc next to the Westover Hive (well, about 5 feet from it, but on the same foundation), so I called it the ‘Berkeley Hive’, after the plantation on the James that is just up from Westover Plantation is Charles City County. Of the three Nuc’s that I picked up from Tom, this one fit the bill as being a strong Nuc. There were 2-and-a-half frames of brood/bees and one-and-a-half frames of capped honey, nectar and pollen. Lot’s more bees here and what I sort of expected in the other Nuc’s. In fact, an orientation flight was taking place during the inspection which had me concerned (for a second) that the Westover Hive was on a raid. This Nuc is probably going to do very well. I did not find the queen, but really didn’t look hard (I was tired from looking at the other hives!), but did find eggs.

I put on the entrance reducer and also the feeder, giving them a good dose of syrup. Some of the bees from the Westover Hive were still in the feeding section, but I am hopeful that they will just join the current workforce.

Fortification (create a Nuc or not?)

As mentioned above, it is clear to me that I am going to need to fortify my Pop’s Nuc and the Blue Cottage Nuc. They are very weak. Starting a Nuc in late May is rough. Starting a weak one in late May seems like a one-way road to failure. So, I want to put one frame of honey and one frame of brood (with Nurse bees) in both of these hives. The problem boils down to my existing queens. I still have not developed the skill to be able to consistently find my queens. So, if I grab a frame of capped brood, I might accidentally grab my daggone queen! The queen is normally working the frames where she is laying eggs, but I can guarantee you that my queen will be hanging out on the capped brood frame.

So, how to deal with that? The first option is to take a lot of time and actually find the queen in the donor hive. I only do a spot check (maybe 30 seconds), but I have seen where some folks take 10 minutes. I am not a big fan of that option. The second option is to actually create another Nuc. If I take two frames of honey, two frames of capped brood and one frame of eggs and drop them into a Nuc, something is going to happen. Either queen cells show up in the Nuc (that’s what I would expect) or queen cells show up in the donor hive (whoops! I took my queen by accident and moved her to the Nuc!) In either case, I should be able to fortify the two existing Nuc’s without worrying about ‘fortifying with a wayward queen’.

At any rate, I have the weekend to think about this down at Nags Head.

Final Thoughts on the Hives (too much time!)

The full inspections that I did today took entirely too long. Working three established hives takes more time then I have (not to mention the coming baby, which is going to suck up even more time next year!) So, I need to develop a new plan. The first stage will be to break the hives out into two groups, so that I do an inspection every week, on one group or the other. The second step will be to reduce the number of hives that I fully break down during a given inspection. I am going to have to build an app for this blog that will schedule these things out so that I can track them accurately. More to think about….

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

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

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

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

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

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

Albo Hive
No queen found.
Found larva.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Slow Build Up and More Swarm Paranoia

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Westover Hive Enjoys a Drink

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

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

Monster Drones & Preparing for a Rainy Day

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Spotty Brood and Lots of Grumpiness

Yesterday, I attacked the ‘weak’ hive (I think I will start calling it the Albo Hive, after my brother=) to clean up the mess that I allowed to invade the hive last year. Upon opening up the hive, I was surprised to see that these bees were actually eating the pollen substitute. The Geronimo Bees (Hive 1) had given up eating on that stuff and I assumed that it was due to good pollen available in the wilds. Who knows. These gals are eating on it at a decent pace, so I left it on the hive.

I lit the smoker and suited up, as I figured things might get nasty when I delved into the lower brood chamber. But, I did not smoke them upon the breakdown of the upper Deep and all seemed ok. They only had a couple of frames of honey, but I believe this will be enough at this point (we are expecting 80’s for the next week or so). The weather could be a real boon for beekeeping in Richmond, Virginia. We’ve had a lot of rain and now we seem to be getting some good, warm temperatures.

Another thing to remember on the upper deep for the Albo Hive is that one of the frames is starting to come apart from the top bar on one side. This is one of the frames that is full of honey (so it is heavy) and probably is an accident waiting to happen. My goal will be to remove this frame and hopefully repair it once we get into mid-April or so (when I do not think they will need the honey.)

There was a lot of burr comb between the upper and lower Deep’s. I am not sure why this was the case, as they have plenty of room in the upper deep to build out more comb. Regardless, I turned on the smoker and began to remove all of this. Things got a little hairy during this episode, as every frame on the lower deep was covered with bees and the smoker only sent them scurrying for a second or two. But, I was able to get the burr comb off and begin removing and inspecting each frame.

During this adventure, the bees really got grumpy. I tried to remain calm and am sure that, without my gear, I would have gotten stung multiple times. On two or three occasions, I had to walk away from the hive and let them settle down a bit (once they get mad, smoke is only partially effective for these bees.) I had to remove a lot of propolis – a ton of it. I will be aware of this going forward. This stuff should be cleaned off each time you remove a frame.

Two other items of note (of great importance, actually) were the brood and a possible queen cell. Having just looked at (I am guessing) 7 or 8 frames full of brood in the Geronimo Hive last week, the spotty nature of this brood was definitely noticeable. The Geronimo hive had several frames that were literally full of capped brood – not one single miss. But, the Albo hive didn’t have a single frame that was chock full. Plenty were 95% full, but there were always a dozen or so empty cells scattered around. It gives the appearance of my queen being on drugs and missing here and there as she walks about the comb in a random (stumbling) pattern. This only confirmed to me that this queen needs to go.

I did also find what appeared to be a supercedure cell. It may have been what was left of the supercedure cell from last Fall, but who knows. I am hoping that this was a sign that they are going to raise another queen. The cell was in the upper half of the frame, so I left it alone and went about my business. I am certain that these gals would have died this last Winter if I had not intervened with feeding in the Summer, Fall and Winter. I will not intervene this year, so they better start getting it right.

What really got the girls mad was when I had to cut off the top part of some capped honey on one-half of one side of a frame that had ended up too far from its neighbor last Summer. Instead of light buzzing, they amped up to a high tenor and really started cursing at me, buzzing in my face and trying to sting my netting. But, I was able to get the frame trimmed down a bit and the frames fit very nicely together once I was finished.

All in all, this was a success. I did not find the queen, but did find eggs and larvae. I also located where they were storing nectar and pollen, near the brood nest. They should get to a decent start and, if they get a good queen, have time to collect a nice harvest during the flow in May. I did find some drone brood, so things are getting close.

Honey Bee’s Bringing in Pollen

Over the last couple of days, I have noticed a lot of pollen coming in. The usual gray, but mostly yellow with some a fairly deep red. The red could be the Maples, while the yellow could be the dandelions that have started to pop up here and there. I still have no idea what the gray is. Both hives seem to be active in bringing this in at a good pace. There is also a fair amount of activity on the landing board, possibly young bees doing some training flights.

As noted previously, the weak hive (which I fed syrup all Winter) has a Top Deep that is nearly full of honey (about 7.5 frames full of capped honey.) My reading online indicates that this could be a problem known as ‘honey bound’, where the queen has no place to lay because of all of the honey. This can trigger swarming activity. Kenny at the ERBA and a few folks online advised me to put a couple of empty frames of drawn wax (or simply foundation, if this is all I have – which it is, being a new beekeeper) in the center of the Deep’s, placing the ones currently there (which are full of capped honey) into the freezer for use later.

So, I ventured out over this past weekend to do just that. But, once I was able to get the top off, I noticed that I had some empty frames on the side. So, I swapped the empty frames for the full ones, right in the center of the Deep. I also stopped feeding them a few weeks ago, so the thought is that they will draw this wax out and start to move up. We’ll see…

Now, on to Hive 1, the strong hive. Up until this past weekend, I had thought that it was also honey bound (although I had stopped feeding them last November or December. But, when I went to swap out some empty frames this past weekend, I found that most of the frames in the upper Deep were actually empty! I now believe that my casual observations of the frames (without breaking them out of the Deep) was faulty. I even found two bees that were head first in the cells, as if they had starved (I didn’t poke them to see if they were alive, but doubt they were.) They still had a little capped honey, but not a ton (maybe 3 frames worth.) This was a pretty good lesson, as these guys could have starved. I should have been looking more carefully.

Since this hive, what I have been calling the Strong Hive, had so many empty, drawn frames that I only did a little re-arranging. Last night, I made up a batch of syrup and added 1 Teaspoon of Honey-Bee Healthy per quart. I put two gallons on this hive, thinking that they might need some assurances with the possibility of low food. I went back later this afternoon and didn’t find anyone on the syrup. This is odd. Either it was a little too chilly or they simply didn’t want it (maybe that lemon smell of the Honey-Bee Healthy freaked them out?!) Only time will tell. A couple of days in the high-60’s and low-70’s are coming up soon, so I hope to see some feasting then.

A Warm Day Arrives in Central Virginia!

Beekeeping in the Winter is clearly going to be just like the Summer – I look at the bees and wonder what the heck they are doing, if they are struggling and, finally, is the mere act of me ‘messing’ with them setting them back further!?! All of these questions ran through my mind over the Summer and it’s deja vu all over again.

Regardless, Richmond, Va had a day of fairly good weather. They were calling for the mid-50’s, but the only time that I could check the gals was over my lunch break at 1 pm, when it was 58 degrees (that’s in Richmond, as my thermometer says 55 degrees.) Regardless, Tom Fifer always said that ‘if the bees are flying, you can check on them’ and my bees were definitely flying today.

Hive 2

The weak hive was alive with activity. As always, I wondered if I was looking at some of my bees coming out for a breather (lots of wet and cold weather these past few weeks) or if I was looking at a battle to the death between my bees and some neighboring hives (feral or maybe my own!) I could see no fighting and, of greatest interest, I could see a TON of the workers coming in with pollen packed to the gills! I am terrible with colors, but it looked like a pale yellow to me. Maybe some grass pollen? Even my camellias have stopped blooming, so I have no idea what could be blooming out there now. It must be left over grass pollen. There were a few (maybe 3) bees dead or dying beneath the hive, but I am guessing these are the old gals that are going to the great big bee hive in the sky. At one point there were 60+ bees either flying about in front of the hive or climbing around the small entrance hole. By the time I opened them up, it was much less (more like 15 bees, with most on the landing board.)

One of my main tasks today was to remove the top feeder and then, on the next warm day, put down some fondant. This is a new substance to me that I recently read about in one of my bee magazines. Bees apparently have a hard time dealing with syrup in the Winter months. I probably should have executed my plan, but (as will be noted when I upload my pics) the bees were all over the syrup. A ton of them were taking it in. I simply decided to let it alone. There was not much syrup left and I might check with Tom Fifer on his thoughts about feeding syrup through the Winter before I remove this feeder.

Looking into the hive, it was not terrible news, but these gals do not have enough food to make it through the Winter. I probably have 5 frames full of honey in the top Deep super. The other frames are really mostly empty (or not even fully drawn out.) When I took a few frames out, I could see that the cluster was up towards the front of the hive (which would be the South side) in the center. There were a bunch of them and it made me wonder if part of the cluster was in the top super. I recently was advised not to break the cluster, so I stopped there. Of course, this made me wonder why the heck I opened it at all (to remove only two frames.) I need to check with some of the experienced beekeepers to see what they look for in Central Virginia (which may have different strategies then the ones I have heard from others.)

Hive 1

Hive 1 had much less bees about the front and I could not find a one with pollen loaded. I stayed for awhile (the sheer number of pollen bearers coming in at Hive 2 made me want to believe Hive 1 was at least doing a bit of this gathering.) But, I could not find one bee going into the hive with any pollen. Not really sure what this means.

Upon opening Hive 1 (which has no feeder), I found bees all the way to the top. Most of their frames are full, so I am guessing they are moving some honey around and otherwise moving up into the top super. This is the one that I will have to watch for swarming (or maybe doing a break to get another hive.) I am reluctant to do anything that would set them back, as I expect to get a big load of honey (or at least my first jar of honey) from this hive. I decided not to mess with any of the frames on this hive.

Next month, I will go a bit deeper and get some pollen patties on top of the brood next to give them a bit of food for the coming Spring.

Cool Weather Arrives

It is going to get down in the 40’s this week, so my bees are about to get their first taste of cold weather (even the queens have not been through a winter yet!) Both hives seem fairly active and I have actually seen them on both the buckwheat and some of the asters, which is a very positive sign (I rarely seen the wenches on any of my plants, despite the fact that I have tons of different plants blooming all Summer long…)

Hive 1, the Strong Gals, should do well this Winter, although I have not opened them up for a thorough inspection yet. They still have the honey super on them, but I’ve yet to see any honey getting stored. I will probably smoke them this weekend and take the super off, to let them get prepped for Winter. I also want to see if they are having any major problems with hive beetles or (more likely) wax moths. They are so grumpy this time of year that I really do not like poking into their home. They will try (and probably succeed) to sting me for sure, but I need to have a look.

Hive 2 is always a mystery. They look strong. The feeder has a ton of them eating the sugar water and I see a bunch of training flights even now. They definitely ‘look’ better then they did most of the Summer, but every time that I look into the hive, there is only very minor progress. I did not look last weekend, but will take a stronger look this weekend. Last weekend, I basically just eyeballed them and put a second deep on the hive, even though they had not fully filled out 8 frames in their bottom deep. I did find the queen this time, so she was not usurped after all. But, putting the second deep on may have been a mistake, effectively giving the wax moths a free place to breed and wreak havoc. So, we’ll see what it looks like this weekend.