Hive Updates

North hive:

Booming. They filled up the first eight frames with brood in 2 weeks. Added a second box May 9. Going today for an inspection - will likely add another box today.

South Hives:

Inspected the package hive on May 3 to find no queen, some very limited brood and what looked like queen cells:

I posted this on G+ and some helpful Frenchman remarked that he thought they looked like "false" queen cells, and we in fact drone cells. I decided to leave them alone and see if they make a queen. There were still lots of bees in the hive.

Yesterday (May 16) I inspected this hive again and found that those cells had been torn down. I could not find a queen and did not see eggs or larvae. It's possible there's a queen in there who has not started laying yet, but I decided to add two frames of mixed brood to this hive anyway to prop up the numbers and give them some eggs/young larvae to work with if they want to make a new queen.

The Survivor hive is coming along nicely. It has about 10 full frames of brood as of yesterday, which is 7 full frames more than it had on May 2. Third box has 7/10 frames full of brood but I don't know if there are bees in the bottom box at all. Next time I inspect I'll likely add another box and let the honey production begin!

Plans for today are to inspect the North hive again and assess the possibility of doing a split from it. Queen cells will be available June 1 from the club's queen rearing project. 

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.

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...

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.

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

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.

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.

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