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.