December update

We are having a nice warm early December in northeast Ohio. Today I checked on the bees and found that the Ohio queen hive and the swarm hive at my house and the swarm hive at my dad's house are still alive. The package hive at my house is dead and the one at Cora's house is small but alive.

I noticed that the Ohio queen hive is already in the top of the box, which is not good. Since the weather is going to be warm tomorrow again I put a quart of 2:1 syrup on there for them to take down.

A few recent pics

Bees between the frames after being smoked. This is in the top box on South Hive 1.

I had the new top feeder on Hive 1 with a gallon of syrup in it and lemongrass oil. I suspected robbing so I made a new entrance reducer to limit the entrance area they had to defend. 

I crushed and strained one frame of honey from the North hive. I stuck the wax in this jar and gave it to the bees to clean. They very efficiently took all the honey and left the wax.

This is why I added the entrance reducer to Hive 1. I don't think those are this hive's bees. They are clustered around the vent holes, where they are smelling sugar syrup and lemongrass oil.

Hive statuses

North hive: Boxes 1-3 are full of brood. Box 4 is full of capped honey. Box 5 was added two weeks ago and as of last Friday (August 17th) they had not started building comb in it yet.

South Hive 1 (from package): Boxes 1 and 2 are full of brood. Box 3 has 6 of 10 frames drawn and queen is laying in the new wax. There are some stores on the tops and edges of frames but nothing significant. I will monitor for the next couple weeks and start feeding heavy syrup if the fall flow doesn't have them putting on the pounds.

South Hive 2 (from swarm): almost identical to South Hive 1 but with slightly fewer bees and more stores.

South Hive 3 (OQP Queen in 6 frame Medium Nuc): 4 of 6 frames are partially drawn and queen is laying. They take syrup very slowly. I will try and make a top feeder for them this weekend if I have time. I am concerned that they will not build up enough stores for the winter.

East Hive (from swarm): First box is finally full. Added second box. Hoping they can build up some stores for winter.

North Hive Inspection

As usual the North hive is doing awesome. The upper (fourth) box of 8-frame mediums was completely packed with honey. I didn't see a single egg or larva, though I didn't take all the frames out. This hive is clearly doing great. Four mediums is what I hoped to over winter in, so I put on a queen excluder and another box. I need to find out if I can take a few frames of honey off and extract to have something for Christmas presents, and if they should get enough for winter out of the fall flow.

East Hive Inspection

I popped over to dad's house Sunday to take a look at the little swarm hive. Dad has been complaining of bald-faced hornets around the hive, so I had to get the different cover on the hive that will allow him to switch out the sugar jar without having to monkey around with too much equipment.

Overall the hive is weak. They have drawn out about 6 frames, which is about what they had two weeks ago, and two weeks before that. The county bee inspector stopped by last week and came to the same conclusion. Therefore, we must feed.

There is still a nice brood pattern, and about 4 solid frames of brood, but just not a lot of volume. Hopefully those four frames of brood will hatch in the next week or so and give the hive a good chance to take advantage of the fall flow and build up before winter.

South Hive Inspection 08-04-2012

Things are looking good at home in Canton. Here's a rundown:

Hive 1 (package) - in upper (3rd) Medium, 6 frames drawn: 4 brood and 2 mostly honey.
Hive 2 (swarm) - in 2nd Medium, all frames drawn: about half and half. Added third box of foundationless frames and new ventilated inner cover.
Nuc - The OQI nuc is looking great, with six medium frames (all) drawn down in the bottom and starting on two in the top box. Hopefully these will get drawn out with the fall flow, which should be starting soon.

We have been getting rain over the last week and things seem to be blooming. I saw some goldenrod in our neighborhood the other day.

Still a good solid pattern in the nuc box

Another frame from the nuc, with most of these emerged

One of the foundationless frames in the package bee hive, just getting started

A foundationless frame from box 2 in the package hive. This is the outside frame in box 2.

East Hive Inspection

Yesterday I was over at my dad's for some dinner and to inspect the East hive, started from a swarm in June. As an added bonus, we had a special guest! A friend of mine from work's wife is thinking about keeping bees, so I had her come over and get her hands in a hive. I think she enjoyed herself enough to maybe give it a try next spring.

The bees are only occupying about six of ten frames. I sure would like to see them build up more than this, but we've been under a drought for almost two months now, so that might have something to do with it.

Our friend Amy was very curious, and was able to spot the eggs right away. The queen is definitely healthy and laying, but she might not have a lot of room to lay with not a lot of wax drawn on the extra frames. Hopefully with the rain we've been getting now, some stuff will start blooming and they can make more wax. My dad doesn't want to feed them anymore because he's already dumped about $50 of sugar water in there. I can't say I blame him.

South apiary inspection

96 degrees and sunny

Things are good these days in the South apiary despite the dearth. The package hive started in April still has 16 frames drawn in two boxes. The third box has about two frames drawn. Not much progress there.

The swarm hive is looking good, with two boxes fully drawn. I have to build a box and frames to add to it.

The Ohio Queen Project nuc has eggs laid in a very nice pattern. I guess the queen took her time mating. Maybe the heat.

The Dearth is here

Inspected South hives today. The package hive looks exactly like it did a week ago - second box has sever frames drawn and full of brood. Very little honey. They have not touched the third Medium I gave them last week. I know last week when I inspected I saw a couple frames of honey, but it looks now like they have consumed it. I think that means the summer dearth is here so I mixed up some sugar water for them and put it on last night.

The swarm hive from Essie's has drawn out six of the ten frames and will probably have to get another box next week, especially if I start feeding it. I saw eggs and brood in the top box of that hive, so the queen that they raised seems to be working effectively.

I did a split on June 21st from Essie's hive and added an open queen cell from the Ohio Queen Program. It is supposed to emerge sometime next week. I opened up that 6-frame medium nuc box to see if the bees had started drawing out the comb on the two empty frames. They hadn't. I would put a jar feeder on top of this hive but the feeder hole is right over where I stuck the queen cup between the frames. I really don't want to drown the queen cell in sugar water! I'll figure something out...

Queenless swarm hive has a laying queen

The swarm hive started from the trap at Essie's house had a rough first month. There were lots of emergency queen cells in it after the first week. I added a frame of capped brood to keep the population up and a frame of eggs each week in case they still needed to make a new queen. Yesterday I opened up the hive to check on things and found fresh eggs on the two center frames of the top box. I'm very excited that they have successfully made their own queen and she is laying eggs!

I have also inspected the South package hive. This colony is fairly small compared to the North package hive. They have filled out six of the ten frames in the upper box now, whereas the North hive has completely filled 24 frames total, and I haven't seen it in a week, so I'll bet it's into the fourth box pretty good already.

Swarm Trap occupied!

I got an email from my dad on May 30th with a picture of one of my swarm traps; the one at his cousin's house.

This trap had been in the tree for a couple weeks. It was only about 6 feet off the ground and is baited with a piece of old comb from a house cutout. 

Over the next couple days, I had my dad go over and take a look at the trap and see if it was actually occupied, or if he was seeing scout activity. A couple days later he confirmed they were bringing in pollen, so that confirmed there were bees living inside. How exciting!

On Monday, June 4th at dusk, I went over to Salem, screwed a board over the entrance hole, put the trap in the back of the Jeep and went back to Canton with it. I set the trap up on the hive stand where the hive would be permanently located and took the cover off the entrance. 

On Wednesday the 6th, I moved them into their hive. The bees occupied about three frames and had already drawn a nice amount of comb. There were only two or three dead bees in the bottom of the box, so the move from Salem to Canton must not have been too jarring.

This is how it looked inside the swarm trap

 They had built up two frames about like this.

The stragglers made it inside once the frames were transferred.

One of my favorite bee pics to date - workers fanning Nasonov pheromone inviting their sisters inside.

East Hive still queenless

Visited the East hive on June 3rd and found it to still be queenless. There is a laying worker in the hive and all the brood are drones. This hive will eventually collapse as the bees die. There are only about two frames of bees in there. Sad - my dad is bummed out about it but he will have more bees soon!

South Swarm Hive Update

Things are still very strange with the South hive from the swarm. At least two of the queen cells are open but there are no eggs or larvae. The bees have plenty of room but they have not moved any of the honey out and into the top box yet. Only a couple of the frames in the upper box have started to be drawn.

I did not see any queens in the hive, but I'm not very good at finding the queen yet. They have constructed one very large queen cell toward the bottom of one of the frames.

Here are some pics:

Capped honey and some open honey cells

An open queen cell

Another open queen cell. Is that a queen inside? I didn't mess with her.

A huge queen cell toward the bottom of the frame

One crazy frame

Things are booming up North

4pm, 64 degrees, cloudy

I stopped at Essie's this afternoon to inspect the North hive. I was supposed to bring a friend from work, but the weather was cloudy and threatening rain, and I wanted her first experience around the bees to be positive, so I decided to check them on my own this time and bring her along next time.

The hive is doing great. Two weeks ago, on May 9th, I added the second 8-frame box. Today I had to add the third. The second box was set up as follows:

Frame 1: Undrawn
Frame 2: Half drawn, nectar
Frame 3: Full of nectar
Frame 4: Solid brood, mixture of capped and uncapped
Frame 5: Solid capped brood
Frame 6: Solid capped brood
Frame 7: Solid brood, mostly uncapped
Frame 8: Some brood, mostly nectar

As things looked pretty healthy in this box, I did not check the box below.

The bees were not very excited to see me. It was cloudy and breezy and cooler than it's been lately. At first they were fine - a little bit of smoke in the front and some under the lid, and they were peeking at me from the edges of the frames. About the time I got to Frame 7, they started flying more, bonking my veil and flying at my hands. I took a quick look at Frame 8, added the third box and got out of there.

South apiary update

Here at the house in Canton, both hives have interesting stuff to look at.

First, the hive started from a package on April 17th has finally built up to a point where it needs its second box. All the frames are at least partially drawn, and it has gone through one brood cycle, as there were lots of open cells where there was previously capped brood, and eggs in their places. The one foundationless frame I left in there is getting drawn out beautifully! I think I am definitely doing some of the honey frames up above foundationless.

Here is a frame from the center of the colony. This frame has gone through one brood cycle, and there are new eggs in all the cells. The comb hanging off the bottom of the frame is because when I built the screened bottom board, I put the screen on the bottom, violating bee space by at least 3/4" Oh well... it's not harming anything here. In fact, the queen has laid some beautiful brood here.

There are new eggs in these cells.

Nice, solid brood pattern

The foundationless frame. Look how beautiful this is! And the queen seems to like it too...

The hive started from the swarm at Essie's is building up its home quickly, but either something has happened to the queen, or the girls aren't satisfied with her laying. They really are comb building machines though! They have drawn out almost all the frames in the hive and have filled them with nectar. I have to build another hive box to add to the top so when the new queen emerges, she will not be immediately honeybound.

This is a beautifully drawn frame of honey and pollen and two queen cells.

More queen cells on this one...

...and this one.

Okay, so maybe it's all okay out East

Inspected East apiary today... Things seem to have worked out! Frames 3, 4, 5 and 6 all have good, very solid pattern of brood and eggs, so the queen has definitely worked things out!

Added a second box as all but one of the frames is drawn out.

Nice, solid pattern of eggs and larvae. No fear of queenlessness anymore!

Look at that nice brood pattern

This is an old frame

Sad news at the East apiary

We did some family camping this weekend down in Lisbon, so I stopped up at my dad's on Saturday to check on his bees. The bees at my dad's came from a swarm from a beekeeper friend's hive. It was moved about 30 miles before being put into place.

Opening up the hive, right away I knew something was wrong. The bees were humming loud and seemed agitated, though they were not flying more than other hives I have opened so far. When I opened it up, I noticed there weren't really many bees in there, though that would be the case on a swarm hived less than 2 weeks ago, as the new brood would not have hatched yet. Here's what the inside looked like:

OK so that looks pretty decent, but there was a big problem - no brood! No eggs, no larvae, no brood. That means no queen or at least no effective queen. What sad news! I did see something curious on one of the frames though:

I think that's a queen cell. All the pics of queen cells I've seen look something like this. Looking around, I didn't see much brood. When I got this picture onto my computer and blew it up a bit, I did see some eggs but I think I might have a laying worker because some of the cells look like they have two eggs in them:

I really regret not looking more closely when I had the hive open. I can't tell for sure if these are single or double eggs in cells. If I have a laying worker I am not sure what I should do - if it's even worth it to buy a mated queen and put her in there. I will consult the almighty Internets and see what they have to say.

Here is a blown up pic of that queen cell.

Hive Inspection at North

10:30am, 60 degrees, Sunny

I took an early lunch and went up to Essie's to inspect the hive at her place. It's doing awesome! All but one of the eight frames is fully drawn. They have not touched the last frame on the North side of the hive. There is capped brood on frames 2, 3, 4 and 5. Frame 6 has mostly uncapped nectar and a little uncapped brood. Frame 7 is all nectar, some of it capped. I emailed the SCBA list to find out if that means I should stop feeding now.

Since all but one of the frames was drawn, I added a super full of frames with the Rite Cell foundation that came yesterday. So far this hive is well ahead of the package hive at my house.

Swarm Trap Worked!

I stopped at Essie's after work on Friday to check on the swarm trap. Much to my amazement, as I pulled in, there was a swarm converging on it! I took a crappy video with Essie's camera:

Pretty awesome! I have never been around that many bees at a time. The roar of them was crazy, and it was so cool to be able to walk into the swarm and have them flying around me.

The plan was to give them a couple days to get established, and pick them up on Monday or Tuesday. When I talked to Essie on Saturday afternoon, though, she said there are "some bees" still clustered on the outside. That's odd... So the plan changed - I would go over to Essie's Saturday night, shake the clustering bees into a bucket, bring the trap and the extra bees home and put them in a hive. Easy peasy!

Well... not so easy. When I got to Essie's a found this:

That's a whole lot of bees! I climbed the ladder, brought down the trap and tried to shake the bees into a trashcan. When I tried, though, I found that they had started to build comb on the outside of the box! So I jammed the box down into the can, wrapped a sheet around it with a bungee cord, and put it in the car. I drove it home, parked the car with the windows cracked, and went to bed.

In the morning, I took a look at the car and saw bees flying in and out. Apparently there was a hole in the bottom of the trashcan and they got out! I put my suit on and drive the car to the back, by the beehives. A beekeeper friend with lots of swarm experience came over to help. He sprayed the inside of the can with sugar water, gave it a good bump, and most of the bees fell into the can. He then dumped this can into the new hive. We did this a couple more times with the can, the swarm trap and the sheet. Quickly, the bees in my car came out and went onto the hive.

Now the swarm from Essie's is snug at home in their new, natural wood colored hive, and I have my "final" number of hives at my home, the South apiary.

First Sting!

On Tuesday when I was hiving that swarm at my Dad's place, I received my first sting. Having never been stung by a honeybee (I have been stung by a bumblebee, a wasp, and some smaller critters before), I knew it would happen eventually but I didn't know what to expect.

I decided to not wear my full suit for this work. The suit is very hot and it limits my view of things. Instead, I used the modified cheap white jacket Corissa had fixed up for me, and my veil, with jeans and boots. The bee stung me in the shin, through the jeans. The initial sting really did not hurt. It was a little prick feeling, like a good mosquito bite. I pulled my jeans away from my leg, thinking that would dislodge the stinger. Nope! About 15 seconds later, the burn came, but it really didn't hurt that bad. I pulled the stinger out and showed it to Dad. I did get a little adrenaline rush when the burning hit. That was interesting.

Yesterday it didn't really hurt at all. I could feel it if I pressed on it. Today it's a little itchy, but not much. You can just barely see where it is on my leg:

The new East apiary

Tuesday on my way home from work, I got a call from Scott, a fellow beekeeper in my neighborhood. Scott's wife noticed that one of Scott's three hives was swarming and gave him a call. He retrieved the swarm and contained it in some equipment he had on hand: a deep box with six frames, sitting on an inverted telescoping cover, and a bee escape turned upside down on top so bees could come in but not go out. Since Scott is not looking to expand his apiaries this year, he very nicely gave me a call and said the bees were mine if I wanted them, or he would give them to someone else. Free bees? Sign me up!

Next came the panic over logistics. The bees were trapped in their box, with bellies full of honey and probably anxious to start building comb. I had to get them moved to a good location and get the equipment straightened out that night. So where should I put them?

There's only one hive at the "North" apiary in Akron at Essie's house, but we're hoping to get a swarm from her bee tree, so I didn't want to put a new hive at her place. The South apiary, at my house, was too close to Scott's house. Dad has been wanting a hive on his property for a few weeks now. Ever since I got my bees, he's been fascinated with the little critters, with swarm traps, with stories I tell him about bee behavior.  I gave him a call. He agreed to host the hive at his house, under the agreement that I would manage them, since he "[doesn't] know what to do with those things." He said he would prepare a site with a nice level base.

Next was the logistical panic. Unfortunately, Tuesday was me bee club meeting and Corissa's night for her moms' meeting, and she was intent on leaving the kids with me if I wasn't going to Bee Meeting. So I needed to figure out a way to pick up the bees and take them to Salem, with kids in tow. I decided to attach the hitch mounted platform carrier to the Jeep, strap the bees to that, have the kids inside, and go for the drive. I had a plan. Good.

Next was the equipment panic. Scott had the bees in a deep, with six frames, on an inverted top cover, with a bee escape on top. The bees could not get out of the hive in that condition. I had a solid bottom board on hand that I had made before I decided to build screened bottom boards instead. I did not have an inner cover or a top cover. I went home and masterfully constructed an inner cover and top cover from scraps in the garage. I am getting damn good at building beekeeping equipment. Now I was ready to go get my bees!

I went to Scott's house and found the bees right where he said they would be. With curious neighbors looking on, I strapped the box to the car and drove off. Forty-five minutes later in Salem, I found the beautiful stone platform Dad had built for the bees. I suited up, lit the smoker and moved the bees to their new home. I opened up the box and found six frames and an empty space with a tree branch in it. I pulled out the tree branch and put the box on the bottom board. I added two frames of honey that Scott left for me, and two empty frames. I put on the inner and telescoping covers I had constructed, and watched the bees march into the entrance. It was an awesome sight. I forgot to bring my camera (drat!) but my mom took a few pictures with hers:

Smoking the bees, who were slightly annoyed about being bounced around on the 45 minute car ride.

Making room for the extra frames

Adding frames for a 10-frame hive. I had one undrawn plastic foundation frame and one foundationless frame with a starter strip. 

All hived up, with the original hive "bottom" and the bee escape leaned against the stand so the stragglers would go inside. By noon on Wednesday, they had all gone in.

Don't buy Duragilt

Inspected the South hive today. Weather was Sunny and 64 degrees. Frames 1 and 2 were empty. Three, 4 and 5 are fully drawn and they have started on 6. There is capped worker brood on 4.

Duragilt sucks. The bees have more or less ignored it, building comb down from the top bars in some cases and attaching it to the foundation in parts. Either way, the foundation is a failure. I pulled five frames and replaced them with wired foundationless frames. If they take to it, I will go that direction. If not, I will order new plastic and try again with that.

Pics:

Nice larvae and eggs on Frame 4

Frame 5

Some capped brood on Frame 5

First inspection of North hive

On Wednesday I inspected the North hive at Essie's house. The weather was in the mid 60s and sunny. This was the first inspection of that hive since it was installed a week earlier, on April 18th. Overall this hive has been drinking more syrup than the South hive - about a half gallon in a week. That's still not much compared to what some other people's hives are drinking.

On with the inspection...

Here's the hive as it stands at the edge of the woods. Essie added a brick to the top the other day when it was windy and apparently the top cover blew off!

Here's the view under the inner cover. It doesn't look like a lot is going on but...

It's pretty busy in there! The been let their queen out and are building comb. Unfortunately, they are not building it on the foundation, which is Duragilt and is apparently trash. Instead, they are building comb down from the top bars and sort of attaching it to the foundation in places. This is bound to become a mess, so I may end up ripping out foundation on the remaining undrawn frames and either putting in beeswax foundation or leaving it completely out. I'm going to order some wax foundation and go from there.

Overall, frames 3 and 4 are drawn and they have started on frames 5 and 6 a little.

Here's a look at one of the blobs of comb they have built over the foundation. They know what they are doing; there are fresh eggs in the cells.

The queen cage is all empied out. I removed it from the frame and took off the rubber band.