Tag: larry

One Hive Wears Me Down

It’s been a really wild week and the roller coaster ride continued through yesterday. Hopefully, I was able to get off this daggone thing. This will probably be a long post, but I want to get this stuff down (for future reference) before the old brain loses it.

Larry has been the focus of my ventures this past week, based on my assumption that it had cast two swarms. I finally was able to get into the hive yesterday, after work. After what I discovered, a bit of a history check is worthwhile.

Larry was a hive that I purchased from a fellow last year (along with the Moe and Curly hives). He was getting out of the business, didn’t treat and had hives for a good price. But (and this is key), he had a weird setup. He ran with Shallows over Deeps. I run Mediums over Deeps, so I dropped a Medium on the hives and put a feeder on them to help them out (it was July when I got them.) They never finished the Medium, although they did get some capped honey on 60% of the frames. I left them in a Deep-Shallow-Medium setup.

So, in late February, as I did my initial Spring chores, I swapped the Shallow and the Medium without looking at the frames (I could see capped honey from the top of the Shallow and was in a hurry, so I assumed it was all honey.) A week later, when I did actually pull the frames, I found a good bit of brood in 5 of the Shallow frames, with bees still tending them. So, I had a bunch of nurse bees in the Deep and fair number in the Shallow and a Medium super that was nearly full of honey separating them. At the time, I was annoyed that I broke up the brood nest, but the hive was so strong I let it be.

Well, I now think this has something to do with the strange occurrences in Larry. On March 19, I discovered swarm cells and took several frames from Larry, including several of the queen cells (that have hatched in Nucs already) and the old queen. Two weeks later, I hived two swarms from Larry, both of which are already building up nicely. I broke them apart yesterday and found 11 more queen cells (at this point, I would insert a very nasty word if I was not a God fearing man.) Very little brood is in this hive now and I could find no eggs or a queen. At this point, I became a bit frustrated (yes, I do become frustrated with these little wenches on occasion.) I took 6 more frames from this hive, each with at least 1 queen cell, and put them in my two new Queen castles (for raising queens later this year…assuming I ever get to that point.) I then took a Deep of honey off of the William Byrd Hive (they ended up with a Deep-Medium-Deep setup last Fall) and added the resources to these new setups. I am fine with losing some of these. It is more of an experiment then anything (I have one that is nothing but a shallow frame of bees – hardly any at all.)

Then, today, I go into my Nucs and the sections of the Queen castles and actually find TWO virgin queens on one of the Queen Castle sections (these are three frames wide, each). I took one and gave it to my weakest QC (Queen Castle) setup (the one with only a shallow of brood/honey/bees). I found two other queens that had hatched and even saw one in the midst of hatching! It looked to me like the daggone queen was face forward – the bees were tearing the cell off of her and I got a good shot of tail.

Being completely fed up with the daggone shallow (and now thinking that maybe I have two sets of bees working at odds with each other in the same hive), I took the daggone thing off the hive, made sure it had a queen cell and created a split with it (adding an empty Medium above it.)

The bottom line is that I now have 2 swarms, a shallow split, an old queen Nuc, 4 hatched queens (2 Nuc, 2 QC) and 3 setups with 1 or more queen cells from this hive – over a period of almost a month. And the original hive continues on! I’m not sure if I missed a swarm (or two), but I think that this last adjustment should set them back a bit. I am actually tired of this now. I just want them to go into build up (and provide a little honey maybe…Hello?)

I’m sure there would be many opinions on what is going on with Larry. At this point, I honestly believe that separating those nurse bees with a full Medium super of honey must have made them start acting like two different hives. They were all in swarm mode when I separated them and then continued on that path, separately, afterwards. Who knows. I have now removed the problem super (replacing with an empty Medium) and taken a ton of frames and bees from them. They have a lot of work to do. If they swarm again, so be it. That’s one for the wilds. My only focus on future checks for this hive is that they actually did end up with their own queen who is happy to stay around.

On another note, grabbing a queen is not a simple thing. It might be my fingers, but I couldn’t get a handle on the queen that was on a frame with another queen. Finally, she flew off. I saw her land on the frame again a few seconds later and ended up using one of those queen grabbers. I want to mark my queens this year. It is turning out to be much harder then I expected. But, the QC queens will give me plenty of practice.

Lesson 1 for 2011 – Swarm Prevention! Ha!

After hiving two swarms yesterday (and splitting a Nuc), I was ready to get home and do another equipment check. I thought that I had more then enough for any possible increase this year, but am now beginning to wonder. I might be making a trip to Chatham (my nearest Dadant location) sooner then I thought. I might rig a few things together with some of my spare lumber for the time being. But, I think I am good…

A swarm of bees on a thuja branch
Larry casts another swarm

So, I get home to check on my swarms. Both were silent, but so were the rest of my hives. It was close to 6 PM and the temps were around 60 F. I really expected to see more activity, but I guess the bees were calling it early today. I checked the hive top feeders and saw plenty of bees from both swarms eating up the sugar water, so they were there — just calling it for the day. Finally, on a whim, I decided to check some of the many evergreens (thuja’s, hollies, magnolias, and cryptomeria to name a few) for another possible swarm. The first daggone one I checked (a Thuja Green Giant) had a swarm! This was also close to Larry, so I guess they swarmed again! I hived them quickly and saw another setup (Deep, 10 frames foundation, Bottom Board, Top and Inner cover) get used up! Man! Things are starting to get a bit squirrelly.

I was just telling James, a nearby beekeeping buddy, yesterday that I always like to have more then I need in case of crazy events. Now, when I expected to increase by maybe 5 or 6 (1 of my own overwintered Nucs, 2 Nucs of local bees that I plan to get in a trade for my other surviving overwintered Nucs and 3-4 Nuc experiments), I am already looking at 8 new hives (3 swarms and 5 nucs) before I have even traded for my two new Nucs! That’s 10 new hives and we really aren’t in swarm season yet! Wow! I know bad news has to be somewhere in my future – but let the good times roll while they can!

One thing that I have learned is that a hive really is going to swarm once it sets its mind to it. Larry was building up stronger then any of my other hives. Then, on March 19, I notice a bunch of swarm cells. Thinking that I knew what I was doing, I took the old queen on a frame of brood and a frame of brood for Nuc B, and then a frame of brood with two swarm cells and a frame of brood for Nuc C (my first Nuc to hatch a new queen) from the hive. I also shook two frames of brood from this hive. Just writing that out makes me shake my head in amazement. I took a bunch of bees AND the queen. In my mind, this would have signaled the hive that they swarmed and the remaining queens would fight it out to ‘rule’ Larry when hatch time came. Instead, it appears that Larry is casting one swarm after another. I now even wonder if I caught the main swarm, as none of them have been as big as the Westcastle swarm.

In retrospect, I now wonder if I should have split the hive and removed more of those swarm cells. Next time, I will try a different strategy just for the sake of experimenting. I can’t really complain this time, as I wanted genetics off of Larry and now I have 4 new queens (assuming a queen emerged in Larry and is still in there!) and the old queen. I had planned to use this queen to produce the eggs/queens for my Summer Nucs (for Overwintering). Now, I will probably look to the Mosely hive or maybe Geronimo (I wonder if they have swarmed…)

The main lesson here is that you need to be prepared to change your plan constantly as a beekeeper. Keep a goal in mind and have a plan, but pretty much expect the plan to change nearly every week. Just keep your eye on the ball!

A Swarm Here, A Swarm There, A Swarm Everywhere!

Swarm of Bees on a Branch
A Mid-sized Swarm of Bees on a Branch in my Backyard

Things have definitely kicked into 3rd gear in Richmond, Virginia. I had offered to show Greg, a fellow that lives to the south of me across the James River, some of my hives to demonstrate to him that beekeeping was not as dangerous as some might think. On my way to meet Greg, I get a call from a nice lady in the West End – ‘There are a nest of honey bees in a bush in my front yard. Can you do something about them?’ Of course I could! This was great news (although you can’t be sure on swarm calls if you really have honey bees, her husband seemed to be sure that they were honey bees, so I was excited.) I took her name and address and advised I would touch base in about an hour. Removing swarms of honey bees in Richmond, Virginia gives me more pleasure then just about anything!

I hooked up with Greg and began to give him a tour of my home apiary (or Nuc yard.) As we moved into the yard (which is all Nuc’s with one larger hive (Larry) that I stole a queen from a few weeks ago), I answered some of his questions about bees and beekeeping. In the process, ‘swarms‘ came up and I explained why they happened and mentioned, off hand, that I had never seen one in my backyard. Greg then said, ‘do you mean something like that?’ as he pointed to a huge pile of bees in a nearby cryptomeria! ‘Yes! Exactly like that’, I exclaimed as I ran to get a box and hived the first swarm of the day and season (for me). I think this swarm had to come from Larry, which is a lesson for me. I took the old queen from Larry two weeks ago, along with a couple of other frames with queen cells on them. I even shook some nurse bees out of that daggone hive. Since then, a queen (or more then one) should have emerged, gotten her legs under her and even made a mating flight or three. I honestly cannot figure out they could have swarmed today. If they had swarmed a week ago, I would have figured that they swarmed with a virgin. But today? Weird. Unfortunately, I did not have time to check them, so I may never really know.

The Nuc’s were all doing well, although I did discover that Nuc D was trying to swarm. It was really a learning lesson for me, as I shook too many nurse bees in with that queen (from the Westover hive). I had actually taken a frame of brood and bees from them to bolster Nuc E a week ago, but it apparently didn’t make a difference. I took the old queen and dropped her in a new Nuc and left Nuc D to make another new queen on their own (this really made them mad, by the way…) This time, I made sure to put a bit less brood and nurse bees with her, to reduce the crowding.

Open Hive with Newly Caught Swarm
West End Bees Find a New Home

Finally, I packed up my gear and headed out to get the West End swarm. This was definitely going to be new genetics for my yards and I was excited about getting (yet another) swarm. My experiences with swarms last year have taught me that no bee builds up like a bee from a swarm. When we arrived, I immediately noticed the bees in an azalea bush. A tremendous-sized swarm, to be sure. It had to be the size of a couple of footballs! The location was a bit tricky, but Linda and Gary (the nice folks who called about the swarm) said that I could cut the branches if I wanted. Fortunately, I was able to shake the swarm into the hive and pull it out safely. I did end up cutting one branch, only because the bees kept trying to congregate on the branch (even though I could see the bees fanning at my box and steadily entering the  hive – which meant  to me that the queen was onboard!)

Normally, I would have left the box there and come back after dark to get all of the bees (when all of the bees, including the scouts, should have returned to my new box with the queen). But, this was a 40 minute drive from my house, so we were talking about a lot of driving. In the end, I let them collect bees for another 20 minutes or so and then taped them up, returning them to my yard. I immediately put feed on them (and my other swarm), as my swarms of 2010 all greedily took up sugar water while they built out 2 deeps of frames. This is one of the few times that I really think it is important to feed your bees. Swarms are wax building machines. Feed those machines to keep them running and they will draw out comb like no one’s business.

Although this was a banner day for swarms (and two new Nucs), I must say that there are a couple of hives in Charles City that I have to wonder about. Have they swarmed? Who knows. I will know more this weekend.

Almost Too Late…

My four (maybe 5) day Honey Bee weekend continues to be the adventure that my first day of beekeeping was. My goal today had simply been to put up 4 swarm traps and check my hives at Goose Pond Lane. One of those hives was acting very weird (baseball-sized brood nest on 4 frames) a few weeks back. I fellow beekeeper, to the west of Richmond, Virginia, mentioned it might be a failing queen. I wanted to see if that ole gal was still putting out a few eggs or not (if not, I was going to give them a frame from the Amped Up Westover hive, across the road. Well, as they say, the best laid plans of mice and men…

Yesterday evening, I posted some more bee experiences and then checked on a couple of Richmond-area beekeeping blogs that I monitor. The fellow in Buckingham was making splits! I have been talking about making Nucs for weeks now – reading his post (matched with my experiences with the Westover Hive yesterday) had me thinking – I need to get on the ball! So, my first task today was to create at least one Nuc off of Larry.

As a reminder, Larry has a Deep, then a Medium and then a Shallow. I assumed that nothing but honey was in the Shallow and only a bit of brood was in the Medium. So, I went directly to the Deep. I had two Nuc boxes handy, but was only going to do one Nuc, unless I found a bunch of frames of eggs. Ha!

I started on the Deep and pulled one frame of pollen to match one of my frames of honey that I had pulled from a hive earlier this year. Three spaces left to find the queen and put her, with some brood and hopefully a bit of open comb (for laying) in. Made it through the whole Deep with a quick check and no Queen – is she in that Medium? There was nothing but honey in that Medium a ONE week ago, and capped to boot. But, maybe she was in there.

She wasn’t in there, but something of note was in there. The first frame that I pulled had the regular drone brood on the bottom of the frames. Most had been pulled apart when I separated the two supers. But, one looked odd. Looking back on it, I laugh at myself now. ‘Wow, I have never seen such a big drone – and hanging straight off the comb‘ was my first thought when I saw the exposed pupae. Then I looked closer. Daggone it! That’s a daggone capped queen cell! Sheesh. I had just read (maybe in Increase Essentials) the last night or two where, once in swarm mode, the old queen hits the road when the swarm cells are capped! So, now my mind is racing. Am I too late? Have they already swarmed? I found it hard to believe they had swarmed. Bees were 2 and 3 levels deep on some of those frames. Keep your eye on the ball, Jones.

Two more frames and now I am looking at 2 capped swarm cells and one they they are still feeding. Despair is setting in. Not sure what I am going to find, I go with the positive outlook and scan those frames real hard for the queen again. No queen. I place that frame in my spare Nuc (this one is now going to be a Nuc with swarm cells.) I keep at it.

Before I finish the Medium, I find two more frames with 2 or more swarm cells. I leave them in the primary box and keep looking for that damnable queen. Has she flown the coop? No queen, but she really went to town laying. They either ate that honey or moved it within the last week, as there was tons of capped brood.

Hitting the shallow, I am now committed to going through all of the boxes again. That queen can’t be gone! The shallow surprises me as it, too, is full of brood, although at a later stage then the Medium. Not a swarm cell on these (that I saw, anyway). Back to the Deep.

The bees in the Deep are pissed now. I am not smoking them, but a few come off and sting my glove. I am thinking this is because they have been without their queen (who must be in that worthless Medium). But, after going through 7 frames, I find her! Bonzai! Whoohoo! I put the grand ole lady into the original Nuc and then, feeling like the King of Bees, shook several frames of brood in both boxes. I double checked the honey/pollen stores in both Nucs and then fortified the original hive with several frames of foundation (they have some time to draw out the wax, waiting for their new queen(s) to come out.)

All in all, not what I planned for today, but I am feeling good about it. No matter what happens (unless I lose all three), it will be a learning experience. I might even go into Larry to steal one of the swarm cells (there are several capped and uncapped still in that box.) But, that’s a task for tomorrow.

Walking Drones and New Lessons

Wow, what a Spring in Richmond, Virginia! It is true that this is only my third Spring as a beekeeper, but I have been a gardener and son of a farmer for over 4 decades (which is my whole life…) This Spring is unusual, but it is really working out well for the bees (so far.) The forecast continues to be fairly mild and the only big risk at this point would be an extended cold period (by extended, I would say a solid week of temperatures not rising above 40.) Even a week of that would not necessarily be devastating. Two weeks would probably set all of my hives back though. I am paranoid by nature, but my experience with gardening tells me that such an occurrence is not realistic at this point. So, time to really get into managing my bees!

I’ve been really under the weather the last few days, but managed to get out and check one of the Varina hives this afternoon. My main goal was to grab a few frames of honey from one of my stronger hives and drop them in my winter Nuc’s. Since this is my first year with Winter Nuc’s, I continue to be a tad paranoid about them (I simply do not know what to expect.) So, I walked out to open the Larry hive to grab a few frames of honey off of them.

As a backdrop, Larry ended the season with a Deep, a Shallow and then a Medium (bottom-to-top). They were one of my reserve hives – a place to grab honey if I needed it somewhere. They also have proven to be frugal and early risers, two traits that I am really starting to like. They do not seem to eat a lot of honey over the Winter and they get to work at about 41 degrees – a good 8 to 9 degrees cooler then my other Varina hives. I have never medicated or even put powdered sugar on them and they seem to be thriving. I want to get some offspring off this hive. I may even raise queens from it.

At any rate, back to the point (I can go on endlessly about ole Larry…) Last weekend, I checked Larry and found 5 frames of pretty solid brood. Not wall to wall (a thin edge of honey/pollen along the edge), but pretty daggone good. They say a hive makes up its mind to swarm a month in advance and I am pretty sure that Larry’s mind is made up. This excites me, as I look forward to the challenge of preventing the swarm while harvesting some swarm cells for some Nucs (of course, a month from now I may be singing a different story.)

So, as fate would have it, I had pulled each frame of the top Medium and found nothing but full honey. I skipped the shallow super (big mistake here) and went to the deep, finding tons of  brood and a whole lot of capped drone cells. I wanted to get that Super off of them (why that super was in that spot is another story and another lesson for another day), so I swapped the shallow and the medium, moving the shallow from the middle to the top. Now, it was easy to get at and the bees should move up into the Medium.

Ha! Those bees had already moved into the daggone shallow, as I discovered when I peeled off 4 frames to give to my Winter nucs. Basically, I did the HUGE no-no : I separated the brood nest. It is only by the grace of god that the weather has been favorable, as the bees have had to cover brood in two supers, separated by a medium super! I may have inadvertantly messed up the swarm urge, which would be a shame. Tomorrow, when I hope to feel a little better, I will try to rectify my mistake and get them back together.

But, the one big bonus that I found was walking drones! On the two little shallow frames that I pulled with brood, both had a few drones on them, walking around! That’s huge news for my Nuc experiments. I am currently going with the rule of thumb (you’ll get differing opinions on this, as with everything) that it takes 14 days from hatching for a drone to become a romeo. My other rule of thumb is that it takes 20 days for a Nuc with eggs to send forth a good queen who is looking for a romeo. Basically, I could start a Nuc today and she would have some drones out there to mate her!

So, one of my goals for the season begins a new phase this weekend, as I will start two new Nucs as part of my experiment. It only seems logical to me that waiting another week or two will really give all bees a chance to get a bunch of drones out there (and thus increase the odds of getting a good mating), but I want to experiment. I will start a couple of Nucs each weekend into April and watch how they do. Let the experiments begin!