Robbing | Beekeeping in Richmond, Virginia

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lesson : Starting Splits Late

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Two Queens Released and Rob Out!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Another one for the story books.

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.

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!

The Fight is On

Hive 2

Well, it definitely appears that my weak hive has been taking a beating these last few weeks. After putting the entrance reducer on, things really heated up on the landing area. Bee’s were all over it, all day long yesterday, and it certainly appeared like some fighting was going on. I am guessing that the sugar syrup that I put in there probably increased the aggressor’s desire to get in there and feed.

I am now very worried about my queen. When I broke this hive apart on Sunday, I never found the queen on the frames (but I did not actively search – if she was not easily seen, I went on to the next frame, as (at that time) I was not worried about her, but worried about the general state of things.) But, when I went to brush the bees off of the top board, there were a ball of bees on them. I sort of figured that some stray bee had come along and they were working on him. But, I have seen this ‘balling’ term used a lot when talking about queens. Now I am wondering if they had a queen in there.

To be honest, I have no idea what is going on. Michael Bush wrote an article saying that one way to help a weak hive is to shut off the entrance completely (one night) and see if there are bees outside the next day. If so, those are the robbers. Leave the entrance shut off for a couple of days and the robbers will give up. It is nearly 10 PM and I have tried twice to close that thing off, but the bees on this hive are still on the landing board, milling about. This cannot be a good sign.

Hopefully, I can help them out and rectify this issue. Lesson? When you get a new Nuc, put a daggone entrance reducer on it right off the bat.

Interesting Research

The bees looked good this morning and I went ahead and put the entrance reducer on the weaker hive (Hive 2). I also checked the feeder and they were working on it pretty good. At last they are eating, which should mean some good results in a couple of weeks if it bears out like Hive 1. Of note, I was not able to get the entrance reducer in the hole, so I placed it flush with the opening. This afternoon, a bunch of the bees seemed to be busy propolizing the narrow crack between the reducer and the brood body. There was no apparent fighting, so I am hopeful.

On the ‘fighting’ note, I read an article by Michael Bush (http://www.bushfarms.com/beesrobbing.htm) that spoke about robbing (and how to not mistake it for an Orientation Flight). One of the comments by Mr. Bush was that you may not see any fighting if the robbers have already killed the guards. This is a bit concerning. Regardless, I will definitely keep the entrance reducer on these boys until the next Nectar flow begins.