TIME TO FEED 10/5/2013

Being in a new climate I really don't know the best timing to begin supplemental feeding of the bees.  Given the fact that the hive is light, and the fall season is fast approaching, I decided that now would be a great time to feed.  I added a quart jar of sugar syrup and EOs to the hive today.  The girls weren't too glad to see me, but we managed to get along well enough.  I really wish I would have given them syrup when I hived them, as they would probably be much higher in numbers now, but at least they managed to do well enough to stay alive.  I'll be treating for varroa in the next week or so.  I simply want to get them in as best shape as possible going into winter, and then next spring I'll hopefully be able to split the hive.  I really don't like having only one hive, but I am thankful for the one I do have.  Two is always better - just in case.

HIVE CHECK 6/15/2013

Peeked into the hive today and found the bees busy and generally looking good.  They were calm with no smoke necessary.  I was hoping to see them working more of the top box, but they have barely looked at it.  The second box however is more full than before, so I supposed that is a good sign.  Eggs, larvae, and capped brood noted. I would also like to see more honey and pollen, but figure with smaller numbers, it will take some time.  Will see how they look in a few more weeks.

HIVE CHECK 5/9/2013

Just took a peek at the new swarm hive.  This is the first real check I've done with this hive.  On the last check, I had to remove three beautiful combs from the inner cover and install them into a frame and add more frames to fill the top box.  Other than that I didn't do much checking.
So today I find the bees buzzing and generally calm.  As long as I moved slowly, they did too.  I did not need any smoke.  The hive consists of three medium 8 frame boxes, with mostly drawn comb.  The bees are all in the top box which is what I was expecting.  At least 4-5 frames are full of open and mostly sealed brood.  Laying pattern is OK with a few spotty areas.  I am generally pleased with the queen's egg laying.  I moved the full box to the bottom of the stack and took one frame of brood and moved it to the next box.  That should be enough to encourage them to start moving around more.  I anticipate that we will see a noticeable increase in numbers in the next two weeks or so at which time the hive will hopefully start building up honey and pollen stores.  I did see a small amount of pollen and honey but nothing noteworthy.  They could probably benefit from some syrup but I am holding off for now.  Although they don't need the third box, I left it on for the sake of anticipated expansion.  We'll see what they do with it if anything.
Overall, I am pleased with the progress and disposition of this colony.

HIVE CHECK 4/25/2013

I finally found my gloves and hood and just checked my new bees - I am very pleased that they are exceptionally calm and very industrious.  They already built an astounding amount of new comb (not where I wanted- not their fault) with eggs in just under a week.  I did have to remove the comb and attach it to a frame, and now have the hive set up the way it should be.  I will leave them alone for the next two weeks before I peek in on them again.  Was even able to taste test a few teaspoons of the most scrumptious honey.  I am VERY happy about this swarm and their queen. I only wish I could have taken a photo.

Swarm Season and a New Hive 4/19/2013

A lot has happened over the past several months.  4 out of 5 of my hives survived and are looking strong and ready for a springtime explosion.  Exciting news right?  Well, I had to sell the hives.  We moved to California, and it was looking just a little bit too complicated to get the hives across state line. So here I am in beautiful sunny Cali with flowers blooming everywhere, but with no little nectar collecting insects to call my own.  A bee-less beekeeper is a pitiful sight.  At least I think so.
But behold!  Within the week of our arrival, a swarm landed in the neighbors yard!  Except it was about 35 feet high, right next to the power lines.  Sigh.  Well I scrambled to put a hive or two together, to hopefully entice the cluster to move in, but they did not find my offerings appealing enough. Sigh again.  Now we have been here about a month.  My friend from down the street knocked on the door and told me about another swarm right around the corner.  There was already a beekeeper there, but I went to investigate anyway and offer my assistance.  It didn't take long and she offered the bees to me, since she didn't have enough equipment.  YES!!!  I am a happy beekeeper with bees once again!

In The Dead Of Winter - 1/20/2013

It has been a very cold winter thus far.  Not as much snow on the ground as is usual for this time of year, but very very cold.  With the temps finally nearing 40 degrees, I was finally able to peek into the hives today.  4 out of five hives are alive and well.  The hive that didn't make it had a full block of sugar directly above the cluster, but I am guessing that the sub freezing temps made it impossible for them to move to it.  I am disappointed, but at the same time happy that I still have 4 hives.  It appears that the hive which was aggressive last year, is even more aggressive this year.  I didn't even lift the inner cover and the girls were on high alert.  Needless to say, I put the roof back on and didn't bother to see how much sugar they had left.  Judging by their enthusiastic response, they are probably just fine.  They should have enough sugar to get them through the next month or so after which we will be moving to warm and sunny California.  This should prove to be an exciting adventure.

Sugar installed - 11/23/2012

I have been worried lately that the bees may not have enough food stores to get through winter.  We have had a very mild winter so far, which equates to faster food consumption.  Two of my hives are of particular concern since they went into winter on the light side, and one of those two has been the repeated victim of robbing as well.  Although it feels rather early to be installing sugar patties, I decided I would do so just for some peace of mind, especially since we have a very long way to go before spring (which doesn't happen until mid June here in the mountains).  I would hate to find out (like I did last year) that I waited too long before offering them some survival rations.  So today, although it is chilly, I made quick business of installing a king sized lump of sugar in each hive.  I am very happy to see all hives are alive and well, although they are enjoying life in the penthouse.  I have not been able to remove the quail feeders I put in some time ago.  The weather has been too cold, and the bees are at least in part clustered on the jars.  At least they are all still buzzing.

I am excited about cyber Monday when I will be ordering a bunch of bee stuff from Brushy Mountain Bee Farm (free shipping!).  I signed up with them as a distributor, but the cost of shipping quickly dissolved any hope of my business plans.  So, as a consumer, when their annual free shipping sale comes along, I am jumping for joy.  It will be a hefty bill, but I will be set for the entire next year.  I love free shipping.

Happy Beekeeping!

Last minute feeding 10/28/2012

Well we survived our first cold snap.  The temp went down to 15 degrees night before last, and 25 degrees last night, but now we have a warm spell.  Since I didn't do so well with feeding the past month, I am jumping on this last minute opportunity to get some syrup in the hives.  Each hive got a quail feeder full of 2:1 sugar syrup.  I'll be adding more in a few days.  I am thankful for the warm weather we are being blessed with!

The problem with feeding though is robbing.  I highly suspect that at least one hive is getting robbed.  I have all entrances reduced down to a one-bee-at-a-time hole, but still there is chaos at the front of the hive.  I think it is time to shut all hives down for a few days.  Robbing is one of those things which causes me the most displeasure as it relates to beekeeping.  It is (in my humble opinion) one of the most difficult scenarios to deal with in beekeeping.

First snow - 10/23/2012

The first snow of the season has arrived tonight.  I didn't get into the hives the way I wanted to the past few weeks, so I am hoping that the girls are in good enough shape to manage through the winter.  I really wanted to get lots of syrup into the hives before snow fell, but life got in the way.  I hate it when that happens.  It is supposed to snow the next few days, and then the weather is supposed to warm up again.  I will add some more syrup into the feeders then, and hope it will be warm enough for them to take it.  I'll definitely be adding some sugar blocks on top of the hive for emergency feed as well.

Apiguard #2 + feeding - 10/2/2012

Today I installed the 2nd dose of Apiguard and inserted a quail feeder of sugar syrup in each hive.  I also reduced the hive entrances as much as possible, but it appears one of the hives is getting robbed nonetheless.  It wasn't the hive I anticipated (which is good), but I am surprised that it is one of the stronger (or so I thought) hives.  I have the entrance narrowed down to a single hole which only one bee at a time can pass through.  It is creating quite a log jam however as the foragers are coming in faster than they can enter through the hole, but it does appear the robbers are being deterred.  Let's hope that things calm down quickly.

Honey Harvest and Winter Prep - 9/17/2012

The time of year for honey harvest as well as beehive winter preparations has arrived.  Varroa mite counts and treatments are at the top of the list.  The weather is still nice, but I really should have done this at least two weeks ago.  Ah well, better late than never.  I hope...
Before harvesting and digging through the hives I debated over which winter treatments I wanted, or needed to do.  I am leaning toward the idea that a hive should be strong enough to survive without medications, but I really feel that anything I can do to help the hive survive, I should do.  So I chose a middle path.  I elected to not treat for Nosema since I really saw no signs of it, but I did treat for Varroa.  I have been reading about how some beekeepers are having success with using only 25g rather than 50g of Apiguard, so thought I would follow suit.  I know that last year I used the full 50g and it seemed a little overpowering and lingered for quite a long time, so the half strength idea just makes sense to me. We'll see how it goes.
So I pulled what honey I reasonably could from the hives, and installed 25g of Apiguard in each hive.  The bees took the process quite well.  I was pleased that they all seemed to be quite calm, especially compared to their disposition last spring.  The Apiguard did set off a lot of immediate fanning, but by evening everyone was back inside safe and sound.  I think that the hives might a little light, so I will be feeding them when I install the 2nd round of Apiguard.  I am waiting to feed since I would like to avoid the potential for robbing for as long as possible.  I hope the weather holds out long enough for them to get enough stored.  Let's hope that I'm not making a mistake by waiting.
I didn't get as much honey as I had hoped for, but I did get enough to make the effort worthwhile.  I know that my late start in spring had much to do with a smaller harvest, but it was a lesson well learned.  The incredibly dry season we had didn't help much either.
Off to the extractor we go!  Will be installing round 2 of Apiguard on October 1.

Keeping notes - worth gold

I really need to be sure to post my inspections here - EVERY TIME I do one.  That will be my goal from here on out.  I have learned a valuable lesson about record keeping.

I am finding that the records I kept last year are a HUGE help for this year.  I see that at this time last year my hives were only three medium boxes high, and that I began mite and nosema treatments mid September as well. So now I know, I better get my butt in gear and get busy with the final honey harvest and treatments.  I am also glad to know that the hives were only 3 boxes high, and not 4.  That means I can take a little more honey for us humans!

So here is the update for the past few months;

I learned A LOT after splitting the hives.

I found out that early June was WAY TOO LATE to split a hive (in this area) to effectively avoid swarming.  At least one of the hives ended up swarming within two weeks of the split anyway.  Luckily I was home and witnessed the ordeal, and recaptured the swarm in my own backyard (My first official swarm!).  The other hive may have swarmed, but I really can't tell.  After all was said and done, I had 6 hives.

Note to self:  Do hive splits BEFORE you see swarm cells.  Early May is probably a better time to do swarm prevention.

I also learned more about queens and re-queening.

Out of three new queens, only one of them was readily accepted by the hive.  The second one swarmed, and the third one just vanished.  I had the pleasure of letting one hive raise their own queen, but the last hive needed to be re-combined with the parent hive.  So in the end I now have 5 queen right hives. Whew!  I learned that it takes a lot of patience to see the results of the bees own work in queen rearing.  Just when I was beginning to panic and was ready to combine the hive, the new queen magically appeared.  One extra week is all they needed.

I think the most valuable advise I got was that if I was in doubt about the queen status of a hive, simply steal a frame of fresh eggs from another hive and insert into the hive in question.  If they need a queen, they will make one.  This is the simplest and least disruptive way to ensure you have a queen.

Note to self:  Let new splits make their own queen.  It may take a while, but they know what they are doing, not to mention it will save you from paying $20 for an insect.

So now, with the summer months rapidly drawing to a close, we begin our Autumn and Winter preparations...

The goal for this week - finish honey harvest, medicate hives for varroa and nosema,  and begin aggressive feeding for final winter build up.

Splits

After three long and hot hours, my nasty beehive has been split 3 ways. Thanks to my charming friend Victor, who was kind and brave enough to come help, the girls managed to stay on their best beehavior. No stings, no drama. Here is a photo of the foraging bees coming home to a new queen. It doesn't appear they are too pleased with the new living arrangements.

Hive #2 and #3

Finally got into hive #2 today and it is looking great. Both hives 1 and 2 look like they might be candidates for a split in a few weeks. Hopefully it will discourage them from any ideas of swarming and we got lots of honey this year.

Sadly hive #3 did not make it through winter.  Unfortunately they never made it to the sugar patty (either because I put it in too late or it was was too cold) and ended up starving.  Sad.  I had such high hopes for them.  

Hive #1 and First Pollen 3/30/2012

First pollen of the season coming in to the beehives today! YAY! Hive #1 checked, and happy to see babies. One hive off to a good spring start. ;-)

It's February - and still winter

WOW - It has been a very long time since I posted my inspections.  Here is a quick re-cap of what we have been up to:

I finished the Fumagillin-B treatments for all three hives. I also treated for varroa using ApiGuard.  Winter was steadily on it's way, so I continued feeding syrup at a 2:1 ratio to help build up more stores.  When the weather got cold enough, and the bees stopped taking the syrup, I pulled the feeders, added some pollen patties on top, and tucked the bees in for winter.  I decided not to do anything special for the winter.  I did not wrap the hives, nor build any surround for them since they are in a relativiely protected location.  I simply made sure the IPM board was in place, the entrance reducers were on, and that the inner cover vent was clear.   Soon enough the snow and cold arrived and the bees were on their own.
I did check on them on a semi warm day sometime around Xmas and found they were doing fine.  Stores seemed okay, but there were some bees near the top of hive one.  I did not weigh the hive, I just went by what I could see from the top.
In late January/early February, we had another warm spell and I was able to check the hives again.  Bees from all three hives were actively taking their cleansing flights.  All hives looked strong and active, but the bees in hive #1 were at the top and the pollen patty was gone, so I presumed they were low or out of food.  I quickly built a small spacer frame out of 3" wood pieces and installed some sugar patties (sugar with a small amount of water and some essential oil mixed into a paste) on top, which was eagerly accepted by Hive #1.  Hive #2 showed no bees near the top, but I added some sugar just in case.  Schoolhouse Hive #3 was keeping mostly clustered, and showed no interest in the sugar.  I installed it anyway, since I didn't know when I'de be able to open the hive again.
So now, today, we had another warm day with bees flying, so I was able to quickly check inside each hive to see the status of sugar patties.  Hive #1 still has plenty left, and the bees are definitely using the sugar.  Hive #2 still has sugar, but I did not open the inner cover to see how many bees were on it.  Schoolhouse Hive #3, is still clustered, still not on the sugar, but still looking alive.
I am happy that I took the time to build those extra spacer frames so I could fit the sugar patties on top.  If anything, it gives me some peace of mind knowing that they have something to consume in case of emergency.
We still have a long way to go before we see the end of winter, but so far, I am quite optimistic that all three hives will make it through.  (And to think that everyone was suggesting I combine the Schoolhouse hive).

Schoolhouse robbing and commercial bee sales

This morning I watched as bees from hive #1 went over to Schoolhouse hive #3 and helped themselves to "their" frame which was donated yesterday.  Hive #3 has no defenses whatsoever, so on went the entrance reducer set to the smallest opening.  Hopefully they don't get too hot in there.  I did peek inside and saw that they are eagerly drinking from the feeder.  No one hanging off the inner cover this time.  I refuse to give up on this little hive.  I think it can be saved... Hopefully.  Which reminds me -

It really bothers me that I had a commercial bee supplier tell me to just combine this hive with another and forget about the queen (I happen to seriously value my queens).  They said it isn't worth the effort and expense to try and build up the small hive - that we can just buy a new one in spring for the same amount.

What are your thoughts?  Is this a valid argument? Am I being too sensitive?  Or is this just a way to build springtime package sales?

Encouraging July 16 Inspection

Today's inspections didn't take more than 30 minutes. It was really hot so I was inspired to go quickly, and perhaps now I have a better idea of what I am looking for as well. I was generally pleased with what I found this week. Hive #1 - As of now this is my strongest hive. What a population boom! Lots of activity at the entrance and plenty of new little faces to greet me. Box #1 (on the bottom) is full. Saw eggs and brood in varying stages. Box #2 is mostly full, with only frame #1 being empty. Frame 2 is 1/2 full and frame 8 is about 1/4 full. Mostly brood but honey and pollen stores look good too. Queenie has been doing an outstanding job! Saw some drone cells and a few drones wandering the hive, but not many. Box #3 is still empty. Hopefully it will fill up in the next few weeks. Since things looked so good in this hive I removed frame #5 from box 2 to give the Schoolhouse Hive a boost. I am raising the strength of this hive up from 50% to 75%. YAHOO!!! Swarm Hive #2 - This hive is moving along nicely. I accidentally inspected the boxes in reverse order, so Box #1 did not get a thorough inspection, but I could see it is mostly full. Box #2 is about 1/2 full with frames #1, 6-8 still unused, frames 4-5 are about 1/2 full and frames 2-3 about 1/2 to 3/4 full. Queen was sighted on frame #4. Box #3 is still unused. Considering how new this hive is, I am pleased with how well it is progressing. I am estimating this hive strength at about 70%. I am relieved at how quickly this hive has gotten up to speed and have high hopes that it will fill up before winter. Schoolhouse Hive #3 - This poor little hive is really struggling to get itself going. Yesterday I removed the largest piece of comb which came from the old hive. It was the piece which was too mangled to get into a frame. The bees were clinging to it (instead of working) even though there really wasn't much of anything to salvage. I figured it needed to be removed to motivate the bees to move to and start working on the frames. The other two combs which I put into a frame look okay, with a few capped cells, so I left them in. There wasn't much activity on them though. I will likely remove them next week as they don't look like they will be productive beyond what is currently in them. The queen was sighted walking on the bottom board. I removed a frame of brood from hive #1 to give this one a boost. The bees went to it quickly. Hopefully this will boost their morale and help build enough numbers to get them going before fall. Is it possible that a hive could be depressed? They do seem like they perked up after adding the new frame. I am estimating the hive strength at about 20%. It will be amazing if this one pulls through the winter. Perhaps I should put them in an observation hive(?). I also moved the entrance feeder to the top of the frames since the other hives were robbing the feeder. Today I learned something new: I can see why people would use escape screens or fume boards to empty out a super. It is a real pain using a bee brush to remove bees from full frames (especially when they are less than happy about you being there to begin with). - I did however have the pleasure of seeing two new bees hatching today. They were so cute. I also learned that they are quite helpless after hatching. One of them fell off the frame, so I had to pick it up and deliver it back home. Poor thing. So, this week's inspection went well, but I forgot to check for mites. I'll wash off and check the IPM board this week for sure!

Hive #3 installed - mostly

The schoolhouse bees were so well behaved.  They waited patiently in their styrofoam box through the night and this morning.  I got up early to install them in the hive, before it warmed up enough for them to begin their day.  After a light sugar water misting, I managed to secure two of their combs in a frame with rubber bands.  The third comb was too damaged to wrangle into a frame, so I just put it in the hive with bees attached.  I figure I will remove it in a day or two -  I just wanted to get most of the bees inside the new hive.  Comb #4 was too damaged and too small to deal with.  Happily, I did see the queen on the second comb, so I know she survived yesterday's bombing and she is well inside the new hive.  Hopefully this hive can get enough of a start before going into winter. I know I will be feeding them a lot, and will likely pull a frame of brood from hive #2 to help them increase their numbers.
I never imagined that beekeeping would be this fun and exciting!

Update - unfortunately I set up a robbing situation.  I left the styrofoam box near the new hive so the rest of the bees would make their way into their new home.  But unfortunately the other hives caught wind of the spilled honey still inside it.  There are bees all over now... I guess I should go do something.

My 1st Beehive removal

There is at least one human on this earth that thinks I know what I am doing....  Here's the story.

Last week I saw a post on the Wasatch Bee Keeping Association's FB page about a school in need of a Bee Keeper's help.  They found that they had a beehive inside one of the vents at the school which was right next to a heavily used ramp, so the bees definitely had to go before school started.  I called and left a message, but I really didn't think anything would come of it.  On Monday, the principal of the school called and said no one else had offered to come out.  So today, the kids and I took a ride out, not knowing what to expect or really even knowing how to remove a hive.

It turns out the vent was positioned about 4 feet off the ground, and was about 1 foot high by 3-4 feet across, so plenty of room to work while planted firmly on the ground.

After applying some smoke, the custodian and I managed to get the cover and wire mesh off and reveal the hive right smack in the middle of the vent, and close to the front, so it was easily accessible.

It was a small hive, with 4 rows of comb, some brood and honey.  I figure it was about the size of a mini-basketball for kids.  The bees were calm while being uncovered.  The poor custodian was a bit jumpy, and once the cover was off, he stayed well away, watching from a safe distance.

I figured that this shouldn't be too difficult, so I suited up and got to work. 

First, I sprayed the bees and hive with sugar water to keep the bees from flying too much.  This worked wonderfully.  Most of the bees stayed put on the comb, and I was able to gently pull the first comb away without incident.

The rest of the combs had to be cut from the top, and to my surprise, this went smoothly as well.  I did get sticky from dripping honey, but more importantly the bees were very accommodating during the move.  I put the combs in a Styrofoam cooler (the one from the previous swarm),  with as many bees as I could keep on them, and put the lid on - keeping it cracked enough for the bees to gain access.  I did manage to find the queen wandering around in the vent (and what a fine looking queen she is), so I scooped her up and relocated her with the rest of the hive.  With the queen in the cooler, the rest of the bees should readily follow her.  I positioned the cooler on a chair next to the vent so the foraging bees would have a chance to rejoin the hive.  It was windy, so I placed several rocks on top to keep the lid in place until I returned at dusk.

At this point I am thinking this was too easy.  All was going according to plan.  No one got stung, No dramatic bee clouds.  Combs removed and the bees were going where they are supposed to.  A textbook case.

So away we went.  Off to visit some friends and have dinner while we waited for dusk.  All was right with the world.

When we came back, all the bees indeed were inside the cooler (YIPPEE!), but something had happened to the cooler.  The entire side of it was broken!  As in a big chunk GONE.  Either I loaded the top with too many rocks, or some clown came along and threw a big rock at it.  (My guess is that someone was throwing rocks at the bees by the way the pieces were inside the box.  The lid was not damaged).  I really hope the queen wasn't killed or injured.  What a shame it would be if something happened to her.  

So now I had a blown out cooler with a bunch of unhappy bees in it, that I was supposed to load into my car and drive home... and I forgot to bring a sheet to cover them with.

I ended up putting the gaping cooler (and bees) into the van and wrapped a sweater around the open end.  To my amazement, it worked!  The bees stayed nicely in their box, without complaint or fuss.  They are now parked in their new location, waiting for final installation into the new hive tomorrow.

And that's the way it was... My first hive removal.

Here are some photos of the blown out cooler.  I still think this is a really good idea.  I will have to pick up another one to have on hand.  It really does work well.