Jim's Bee Journal

2011 year in brief

2011-10-10T15:54:00.000-04:00

Due to a crazy year starting a farm and also finding a new job my beekeeping records and especially this blog have not been adequately updated. I thought I'd do a post now that things are settling down to summarize the year, especially the developments/differences from last year.

It was a super wet spring so the spring flow was late, but we had plenty of rain all summer so there was essentially no dearth. Brief review of this year:

- lost one of two colonies over the winter
- installed three packages into new equipment I assembled and painted (April)
- did two late spring splits into nucleus hives (nucs) (May-June)
- encouraged raising of three new queens (for the two splits and requeening the overwintered hive which had a 3 year old queen) (May-June)
- split a weak colony and divided the bees to be combined into two slightly weak hives. (Hive 4 was split and combined with hives N1 and N2) (yesterday)

I will hopefully be doing some fall extracting by the end of the month. I had one hive that just went crazy building comb in the spring and they have 4 supers on the hive even after doing a split! I also plan on feeding any colonies that are low on food going into Nov.

I need to find out a better way keep records. I may do a single post for each hive next year and just log each record with an update to each post. The way I did it in 2010 did not scale.

12/31/10: One last inspection (#14)!

2010-12-31T23:00:00.000-05:00

Conditions: Sunny, 55F
Present: Just me
Equipment: No changes.
Activities: Smoked hives about 2:30pm. Inspected representative frames.
Observations:

First of all, we had a phenomenally warm day, 55 on New Year's Eve. It was sunny, easily the nicest day since early November. Even more luck, I didn't have to work! With the bees flying so much, I had to check in on them. There were lots of bees near the hives on trees, snow, weeds, and anything else. They weren't flying far, maybe a dozen yards or less, then landing and just hanging around. Before I finished up, one must have landed on my leg and was just hanging out, too. I bumped my tray that I use to carry my hive tools, smoker fuel, frame lifter, etc. into her and she stung me on the inner thigh. I felt that one. Last sting of the year.

Newer hive:
Lots of food, about a half inch of dead bees on the screened bottom board, which I cleaned out for them. No pest damage, no mites seen. Some starved bees in the top-most super which was not full of honey to start with (I am overwintering with one deep and two shallow supers). They probably ventured from the cluster to eat higher up and got caught in a cold snap. Still plenty of bees there, not too concerned. I did not spot the queen, but there was a small patch of brood on the center frames in the lower deep and some newly emerged bees.

Older hive:
Not as much food as the newer hive, fewer dead bees, and maybe 50% more bees present. The upper super was not full to start with and the lower shallow super was pretty heavy. I spotted the queen on a center frame in that lower shallow super with a small patch of brood. She looked fat and happy. No way to be 100% sure because she wasn't marked, but this is most likely the original queen, 3 years old and overwintering for the second time. She's done well for me. Hard to decide to requeen when she's done so well or maybe try to rear some queens from her. I likely won't have too much free time this year to try my hand at queen rearing, but I'd like to someday. If I requeen, I'll likely get a Pioneer Queen from Long Lane Honey Bee Farms. David and Sheri Burns put out lots of great and FREE beekeeping information (with a sales pitch thrown in, but not in a pushy way). Anyway, I'll resume feeding in the spring after the thaw and likely put some pollen patties in around February and hopefully they'll all pull though!

The New Year:
What does the 2011 hold? Hopefully lots more hives, bees, honey, and some other hive products. Candles, anyone? We hope to produce enough to sell our surplus. People have been asking!

10/16/10: Honey Removal and First Extraction

2010-10-18T12:07:00.004-04:00

Conditions: Sunny, 58F
Present: Bud F. and I
Equipment: No changes.
Activities: Smoked hives about 11:30 am. Inspected super frames for capped honey.
Observations:

New Hive: Took about 5 more frames of capped honey. All dark honey.

Old Hive: Took an entire super of capped honey. Some of this is fall honey that was light in color, which is surprising. Vast majority was dark honey.

I did not observe any varroa in either hive, though we didn't go down lower than the supers. This is still surprising given the time of year and the fact I have not done any treatment this year (did powdered sugar last year).

A combination of 10 shallow frames were removed from a the hives on 9/30/10 and stored in a large rubbermaid tote. An additional 19 frames were removed the morning of 10/16/10 (frames that were full on 9/30/10, but drying and largely uncapped). All 29 frames were extracted in about 3.5 hours with two people working (though who did the work traded off a bit)

We set up the extractor on a raised platform of cinder blocks and a wood pallet. The extractor was placed on (and later anchored to) the pallet. We allowed the honey to freely drain from the extractor into an intermediate pail from which we dumped the honey into a nylon strainer (course filter). The filtered honey was stored in 8 gallon pails with lids, one each of light and dark honey.

We used a combination of electric uncapping knife and serrated bread knife stored in hot water to uncap on a baking tray, with capping wax/honey stored in a separate bucket for later separation.

It was a blast! The boys (3 and half) even took their turns spinning honey in the extractor.

Lessons Learned (and tips for next year):

1) There are lots of sticky jobs during extraction. A tip I read to keep a bucket of warm water around to rinse your hands or tools was VERY useful. Next year I think I'll do two, one for the majority of the honey and a "second" that just gets the sticky honey water from the first off.
2) The honey will spill and drip. Cover with newspaper all high traffic areas BEFORE starting. This includes around the extractor, uncapping area and work surfaces, and the pathways from uncapping to extractor and from extractor to filter bucket.
3) The extractor sometimes gets off balance and shakes or tips. Screw it down BEFORE you spin anything.
4) Lots of bees tried to get in. We placed a fan in the window on the edge of the building to blow the honey smell in one direction. The bees gathered outside of that window instead of all over the outside of the honey house, including the door where we occasionally needed to exit and enter through. This worked really well.
5) We killed any bees we found in the shed. Sorry ladies, but this was surplus honey and we weren't going to give it back. I was not concerned about a few bees in the honey house so much as a few scouts telling the whole hive the secret to how to slip in and out of the honey house where "the motherload" was hidden.
6) We extracted on a day that is not hot, but warm enough for bees to fly. This meant any bucket, tray, knife, frames, etc that we were no longer needing could just be placed outside for the bees to clean up, which they did eagerly.

Our yield was approximately 65 pounds of honey, 20 light "spring" honey (very fragrant) and 45 dark "fall" honey (mellow and rich). We let it rest 24 hours for bubbles to settle out. I began bottling last night with a ladel and funnel. Next year a bottling bucket with a honey gate valve would be a nice addition, especially if we do lots of little bottles for sale. This harvest will be enough to split with Bud and hopefully get us to the next harvest. I think we'll be increasing the number of hives and might try our hand at marketing some honey. There are a number of neighbors, co-workers, and farmers who have expressed interest in buying our honey.

9/30/10: Inspection and honey removal

2010-09-30T12:00:00.001-04:00

Conditions: Sunny, 65F
Present: Bud F. and I
Equipment: No changes.
Activities: Smoked hives about 5:30pm. Inspected super frames for capped honey.
Observations:

New Hive: Took about 5 frames of capped honey. More frames of uncapped honey present. Will return again before extracting for the fall. 2 more weeks?

Old Hive: Same as new hive. Also removed a super that was nearly empty with no real new comb to speak of.

The weather has been good with enough rain and plenty of warm, sunny days. We're going to have a fall harvest after all!

9/9/10: Twelveth Inspection and Geagua County Fair

2010-09-14T07:06:00.004-04:00

Conditions: Cloudy, 62F
Present: Just me
Equipment: No changes.
Activities: Smoked hives about 6:00pm. Inspected a few frames.
Observations:

New Hive:

Two frames of capped spring honey left. About 3 frames of fall uncapped honey drying. The hive was quite defensive. Not sure if it was the weather, the season, or what, but they came boiling out several times. I cut the inspection short after watching a worker intentionally sting my glove. Sufficient bees, spotted larva 5-6 days old.

Old Hive:

As reported at last inspection, no remaining spring honey, though fall nectar is coming in nicely. I observed approximately one super full of uncapped honey drying. The queen is still laying in every open cell she can find, though now that the workers are bringing in nectar they can fill it into newly opened up cells in the supers after the brood has emerged. This is no good for cut-comb as the comb where brood was laid is darker, but hopefully will be great tasting honey once extracted. The super I placed on top did have lots of bees in it, but they have not built out comb on any of the foundation or foundationless frames (I put in three empty frames to see if they’d build those out. There must not be a shortage of open cells, then. Spotted larvae 5-6 days old.

General:

We went to the Geauga County Fair and tasted honey on Labor Day (9/6/10). I talked with a Geauga County Beekeepers Association (GBCA) member who said the fall flow will be disappointing and he’s already feeding his bees, expecting no honey crop. He said a botanist came out to the GCBA to talk nectar and he said goldenrod would produce pollen, but no nectar due to early maturity of the nectar-producing organ in the plant. This natrually made me nervous about potentially ending my second year as a beekeeper without a substantial harvest. I don’t know about all that business with goldenrod nectar-producing organs, but I was relieved to see my bees are finding fall nectar from somewhere. A couple more weeks of fall flow before beginning a winter feeding should leave us with a good honey crop. There have been a few occasional rains which probably helps boost the current nectar flow. August was really dry. The forecast is all days in the 60s with partial clouds, lows in the 50s.

9/1/10: Eleventh Inspection

2010-09-03T08:46:00.001-04:00

Conditions: Sunny, 88F
Present: Just me
Equipment: Added Super to old hive.
Activities: Smoked hives about 4:00pm. Inspected representative frames.
Observations:

New Hive: Still a couple of frames of capped honey, some additional comb built, sufficient bees, brood, larvae. Nothing much of note moving into the fall flow.

Old Hive: All the capped honey (previously some 11 frames) is gone. The bees ate it in the past month during the dearth. The queen has filled all the opened up cells with eggs, larvae and brood. The deep and three supers, two of which were supposed to be honey supers. This is amazing to me. This hive has twice as many bees and more than twice as much brood as it’s neighbor. We are either going to get a huge amount of all fall honey from this colony, or nothing but a bunch of bees. There were some very small amounts of dark fall nectar drying, but they appear to be consuming it all faster than they can bring it in. Time will tell. I saw about a half dozen queen cups, which appears to be more than usual. I spotted the queen, but since she is not a marked queen I do not know if she’s the original or superceded. I did not spot any full-sized queen cells sealed or already hatched. I spotted LOTS of 1-3 day old eggs in pristine wax cells that were previously all full of capped honey.

8/17/10: Tenth Inspection

2010-08-25T22:32:00.004-04:00

Conditions: Sunny, 77F
Present: Just me
Equipment: Provided additional ventilation by propping the top and off-setting the lower deep from the other hive bodies. This effectively creates another entrance.
Activities: Smoked hives about 5:30pm. Inspected representative frames.
Observations:

New hive: No changes. No observable change in the number of bees or amount of honey. No mites seen.

Old hive: No changes. Observed eggs in top super, which I placed on the top after the previous inspection as it had some brood in it. This means the queen was there laying 1-3 days ago, if she wasn't still up there. I was hoping she'd stay away, down in the lower since there is a super full of honey between the main brood area (deep) and this top super. No luck. I observed 5-7 day old larvae in the lower brood area, so the queen is basically laying all over. Also observed no mites on bees. Planning the next inspection for at least 2 weeks.

General: Goldenrod will bloom soon.

8/10/10: Met a Local Beekeeper, Alan T.

2010-08-11T08:04:00.000-04:00

Since I’ve only harvested a single frame of honey and we split that with Bud, we are still buying honey. I stopped in to meet a local beekeeper advertising “Local Honey” a couple of miles from my house. The guy running the show is Alan, a firefighter who also grows plants and keeps bees. He was kind enough to show me around his home apiary and tell me of his projects. In addition to the honey, he gave me spider flowers (which the bees love), plans for a top bar hive, and a lot of useful information including:

- where to get equipment without paying shipping
- what the most helpful and entertaining information sources he’s found on the web
- how he’s done “cut outs”, or harvesting bees and honey from hives that have established themselves in peoples homes or sheds
- how his bee vac works
- info about the Summit County Beekeepers Association
- how to use and even extract from foundationless fames

Thanks, Alan! Nice to meet you!

7/31/10: Ninth Inspection

2010-08-01T12:00:00.002-04:00

Conditions: Sunny, 85F
Present: Just me
Equipment: No changes.
Activities: Smoked hives about 2:30pm. Inspected representative frames.
Observations:
New hive (pictured on the right): Plenty of brood, still a nice laying pattern. Observed young larvae. No new capped honey, still at approximately 5 frames. As there is no nectar flow so they are not building out more comb either. It’s a summer lull. Very calm bees.

Old hive (pictured on the left): I can’t get over how many bees are in this colony. All the boxes are full of bees. Observed young larvae in the lower deep, the lower medium, and the lower of the two honey supers. Just brood and bees everywhere. I put the honey super in which the queen had laid on top so there is now a honey-filled super between the lower medium and the honey super she was laying in (super reversal). Hopefully she was in the lower part of the hive during this process and if she goes up again to lay, will find capped honey in the lower honey super and will turn around and head back down. And hopefully the brood in the top honey super will hatch and the foragers will fill those newly opened cells with nectar. This hive is not out of open cells yet, so no need to super or swap full frames for empties. There are still several frames that were not built out. I estimate 11 frames of capped honey available to harvest, probably 40 pounds!

7/10/10: Eighth Inspection and Honey Harvest

2010-07-14T06:35:00.003-04:00

Conditions: Sunny, 79F
Present: Bud F. and I
Equipment: No changes in the new hive. Went down to 9 frames in the newest honey super in the old hive.
Activities: Smoked hives about noon. Inspected various frames. Removed one frame of capped honey.
Observations:

Old hive:

Several frames of fully capped or nearly fully capped honey were observed in the top super. One was harvested for a sample of spring honey, our first harvest! The queen had made a short trip all the way up to the top super and laid a bit of brood (5-7 cells) along the bottom of three or four frames. She must have found no room to lay up there with all the nectar and honey and headed back down. Lots of capped brood and larvae were observed in the bottom deep and adjacent super. The lower honey super (added 6/29/10) had several frames with fully drawn comb. We removed a frame to get this down to a 9 frame super, though the wall frames were not fully drawn yet. Very good progress. The bees look very happy and healthy. No mites were observed on workers or drones when closely examining bees on 2 deep frames.

New hive:

Simliar to the Old hive inspection above with the following exceptions:- less comb drawn in lower honey supper (added 6/29/10), only 1-2 frames. For this reason we left this super at 10 frames for now.
- Queen spotted in the deep
- While doing well for a package, they can’t compete with the quantity of bees and rapid comb drawing and prolific nectar gathering of the overwintered hive

6/29/10: Seventh Inspection

2010-06-29T20:00:00.001-04:00

Conditions: Sunny, 70F
Present: Bud F. and I
Equipment: Added a second honey super to each hive
Activities: Smoked hives about 6:15pm. Inspected honey supers in both hives. Inspected deep super for brood in the new hive.
Observations:

New Hive:
Lots of bees and the honey super was full, but not fully capped. Changed number of frames in super from 10 to 9 and used 9 frame spacer. After the initial inspection we made up more frames and added a new honey super beneath the full one. Really want to stay ahead of them providing space to not have a late swarm. Finally spotted the queen, who is marked. She’s a fat one and laying happy. I’m thrilled she’s almost keeping up with the overwintered hive.

Old Hive:
Lots of bees and the honey super was full, but not fully capped. Changed number of frames in super from 10 to 9 and used 9 frame spacer. This colony is working faster as they had a 5 frame setback during the last inspection and still caught up to the new hive. (The 5 frames were destroyed due to excessive drone comb)

We should be able to remove a frame of capped honey from each hive to go down to 9 frames in the new supers at the next inspection, 1.5 to 2 weeks from now.

6/17/2001: Sixth Inspection and Honey Super

2010-06-21T11:20:00.003-04:00

Conditions: Sunny, 78F
Present: Just me
Equipment: Old hive: Removed pail top feeder, added honey super
New hive: No changes
Activities: Smoked hives about 5:30pm. Inspected many frames.
Observations:

Old Hive: New frames in the medium super were all built out since the last inspection, which is great progress. Lots of bees, removed the top feeder and added a honey super. Got a sting on the finger when turning around the lower deep to have the shortcut hole (upper entrance on deep) moved to the front side. Bud installed this backwards when reversing during the last inspection.

New Hive: Lots of bees, plenty calm. Not much progress building comb in the honey super added during the last inspection. Really looked for the queen this time but still did not spot her. She continues to lay well, so no concerns.

If there is still not much comb building progress in the honey supers at the time of the next inspection I'll consider moving up two or three frames of capped honey from the other super to get bees trafficking there. Since these are older frames and may contain sugar-syrup feed instead of nectar-made honey, I would return them to the bees and only extract from the new frames once everything is built out.

I'm interested in using 9 frames in the honey supers which enables deeper cells containing more honey, so I'll have to watch the comb building process closely. I have to remove the 10th frame only after 9 frames have fully-built comb. Not sure how this works if some of the cells are capped. Do they uncap it and build it out to add more honey and recap? Hmmmm...

6/10/2010: Fifth Inspection

2010-06-15T16:04:00.003-04:00

Conditions: Sunny, 76F
Present: Bud F. and I
Equipment: Removed 5 frames from shallow super on old hive and replaced with new frames of blank foundation due to excessive drone. Removed pail top feeder from new hive and added a honey super.
Activities: Smoked hives about 2:00pm. Inspected many frames.
Observations:

Old hive:

Notice a bunch of drone cells and little food in the lower (shallow) chamber since reversal. The bees have not been storing food here, and all brood is drone. We removed 5 frames of comb with high numbers of drones or empty drone comb and left 5 frames in that had honey, brood, or nothing, but were of normal cell size (not drone comb). 5 frames of foundation were added to allow drawing of comb and storage of food. This is a minor setback which did not allow for supering this hive with a honey super. I mixed up one more batch of sugar syrup to continue feeding until the new frames are fully drawn out.

In the deep, which was on top, we saw tons of bees, brood, and quite a bit of capped honey. The queen was spotted on a frame with lots of open cells, moving to a part of the hive to keep the laying going. She’s doing great laying in her second year and I don’t know whether or not to requeen in the fall. Some people (certainly queen breeders) recommend re-queening every year. The population was larger here than the new hive, which is to be expected. We reversed the chambers again to have the shallow super on top and encourage the building of comb by having those frames close to the pail top feeder. Hopefully the queen will stay down in the deep chamber now that there is lots of food and brood on the deep frames. Perhaps in a week or two we can super?

With all the reversing and pulling and re-pulling frames to decide whether or not to keep them we had this hive open a long time, maybe 20 minutes. The bees were good, but you could tell they were growing impatient with us the longer we were in there. No stings, but I changed from bare-handing it to wearing gloves as we went. I was pretty sure I would have gotten a sting (or several) if I kept at it without gloves.

New hive:

The upper (shallow) super was full of bees and capped honey. The lower (deep) had plenty of brood in a good pattern. So we removed the feeder and added a honey super! We did not pull every frame just to see the queen, so she went unspotted. Based on the young larvae and capped brood, she’s laying just fine. I hope to see this queen soon, though. Funny that I keep spotting the unmarked queen but haven’t found the marked queen yet. No reversals for this hive this season as they started in just a deep and I added the shallow from the other hive after that. The pollen patty was nearly fully consumed.

I think it’s been a good spring with early warm temperatures, sufficient rain to keep nectar flowing, yet enough dry days to allow for long days of foraging.

Now if I could just keep up with planting the garden…

5/29/2010: County Bee Inspector and Fourth Inspection

2010-06-01T12:33:00.003-04:00

Conditions: Sunny, 76F
Present: Summit County Bee Inspector and I
Equipment: No changes.
Activities: Smoked hives about 12:30pm. Inspected numerous frames.

The summit county bee inspector dropped by on Saturday 5/29 and we checked out the hives together. I was particularly interested in talking about my decision to reverse the upper and lower chamers on the overwintered colony and if that was working outwell. He said the old queen is laying all over the frames in the deep now (which is now on top) and he said everything looks great, very normal. So I guess it was a good move. No diseases noted in either hive and very low levels of mites. Lots more bees in the old colony compared to the new, but the new has more food stored up (from the previous colony), so they have a bit less work to do. Not quite time to super either hive yet, so I continue to feed sugar syrup. I will go ahead and ready some additional frames to super, maybe as soon as next week in the old colony. They'll have to build out comb in those supers, but they should produce some surplus honey, at least from the overwintered colony. I'm excited to super!

Spring 2010 update summary and third inspection

2010-05-24T12:36:00.010-04:00

I'm behind in my bee journal. Moving and family and work and projects have led to less time for updates. To sum up the spring:

Last year's Italian colony overwintered fine, ran low on food. Spring feeding has gone well and the colony seemed to have plenty of bees. No issues.

The Russian colony failed in early spring, sometime in March. I was initially thrilled that both hives survived in when I first got into them sometime in February, but was concerned about the Russian population level. There proved to be too few bees and, while they had lots of food, one cold snap in March led to them starving to death. They formed a tight cluster on an empty section of comb and froze/starved to death. There was evidence of lots of moisture in the hive in the form of mold. There was a bit of a sour smell, though I don't suspect it was foulbrood.

On 4/26/10 I installed a new package of bees with fanfare (Mohammad and Bud were there). The new bees went into the old Russian hive equipment, though the new bees are Italians. I guess this season they will be called the "old" (overwintered colony) and the "new" (package colony) instead of the Russian and Italian. The new package has a headstart over last year's package bees as there is lots of comb and some capped honey left over from the Russians. The installation went fine. The bees got fresh sugar syrup and a pollen patty in each hive.

Also on 4/26/10 we inspected the old Italian colony. The queen was there but had not started laying.

Some weeks after installation we had to move the hives to cut down a large ash tree that was too close to the house. The move lasted a day and a half where the bees were not allowed to venture from their hives. When they were released they were thirsty and happy to be flying, but fine otherwise.

Which brings us to 5/22/10 and the third inspection of the 2010 season:

Conditions: Sunny, 75F
Present: Just me
Equipment: Removed entrance reducers and added super to new colony. Removed queen cage from new colony.
Activities: Smoked hives about 4:30pm. Inspected a few frames.
Observations:

"New" hive:

In the "new" hive there were some new bees present, though I did not observe any emerging. All the bees were concentrated in a single deep as I did not have a super on after installing the package. They seem very happy in there. The queen is laying a lot with a good brood pattern. There is food and brood on both sides of the 3 or 4 frames I inspected. There was also new comb being built on frames that were not completely built out. I didn't spot the queen, but I didn't keep pulling frames just to find her. I was happy with the quantity and quality of laying.

I did damage some of the comb on one side of the frame when removing the queen cage. I forgot to pull the two frames that were sandwiching it at the same time, then split them apart once they were both out. I pulled one of the two frames and dragged the queen cage straight down cutting through comb all the way. The aftermath was a strip of bare foundation on one side the exact width of the queen cage, the empty queen cage at the bottom of the hive, and a mass of wax and smushed brood. Oops. I hope I don't make that mistake again...

"Old" hive:

In the "old" hive I found the queen right away on the first shallow frame I pulled. She was laying only in the upper shallow super and all frames in the lower deep were empty with the exception of a few bees. I didn't know if she was not laying down there since there was no food on many of those frames or because she was preferring to be up high in hive. Because I use a shallow upper super, there is not much room for both brood and food on the small frames and I'm concerned about sufficient population build if she's not laying on the deep frmaes. I decided that either way it might be a good idea to switch the upper and lower. So I have shallows on the bottom, deeps up above that, and then a pail topfeeder. The hope is that the bees working the feeder put some food on the deep frames since they are now adjacent to the feeder, and that the queen starts laying there. I'll be happy to switch the deep back down to the bottom position in a week or two. Hopefully this is more helpful than confusing to the bees. I won't leave it this way for too long as I don't want them to pack all the deep frames with food so there is no room for brood. I might be meddling too much. The bees know what they are doing. I like to think I can help, though I'm not sure I actually do.

There was also a LOT of very large ants and ant larvae between the inner and outer cover. I still had a sheet of foam insulation on this hive and they had started burrowing in it to make a cozy home. I don't think the bees could get to the them to chase them out. I removed the insulation and all the ants I could. I trust the bees will do the rest.

11/30/09: Insulating

2009-11-30T00:00:00.000-05:00

Conditions: Cloudy, Dark (night) 40F
Present: Just me
Equipment: Adding insulation.
Activities: Removed pail feeders, added insulation at about 7:30pm.
Observations: Observed nothing. I was in and out as fast as I could be so as not to chill the bees. The insulation is roof-top only, between the inner cover and outer cover. It's 1" of green foam board, about R = 5.0. The pail feeders came off empty. With those gone the hives should be able to stay warmer. If I can find some relatively cheap local hay bales I'll build them a windbreak...

11/7/09: Another feeding (last of season?)

2009-11-07T00:00:00.002-05:00

Conditions: Sunny, 61F
Present: Just me
Equipment: No changes.
Activities: Refilled sugar syrup with Pro Health and Fumagillin B additives.
Observations: The Italian hive had taken all of the syrup from their feeder, the Russian hive had left about 12 oz. The sugar syrup did not have as much mold or fuzzies growing. It is probably primarily due to the Fumagillin B, though the cooler temperatures probably help, too. This may be the last feeding as it will soon be regularly freezing. It's a beautifully warm and sunny weekend and the girls were flying most of the day. They like their sunny spot.

10/25/2009: Hives re-opened for business!

2009-10-25T00:00:00.001-04:00

Conditions: Sunny, 65F
Present: Just me
Equipment: Entrance Reducers
Activities: Re-opened the hives after relocating yesterday. Added hive-top feeders with sugar syrup containing Pro-Health (essential oil feeding supplement) and Fumagillin B (for Nosema treatment).
Observations: We lucked out that the weekend turned out to be so nice and warm. Observed happy bees flying!

Next check in will likely be in the spring. Good luck little ladies! Stay warm and healthy all winter and I'll see you in the spring!

10/24/09: Relocating the Bees!

2009-10-24T00:00:00.002-04:00

Conditions: Overcast, ~60F
Present: Bud F. and I
Equipment: Entrance blocks (for moving)
Activities: Relocated Hives from Strongsville, OH to Richfield, OH

Friday we sealed up the hives as it got dark. We removed the pail top feeders, blocked the entrances with wood and polyester fiber fill (pillow stuffing), and applied two ratchet straps to each hive. We bound the bottom board, but not the hive stand to keep things tighter. Bud kept the sealed hives in his truck overnight and drove them to the new apiary, my new house, on Saturday morning. Here's a sealed up hive:

Buckled down, loaded and moved. The taped upper entrance is coming undone and a few bees escaped right before unloading, but it was no big deal. Here we are unloading from Bud's truck.

Here we are unbuckling and removing the scrap wood we used as handles.

Here we are all settled. We left the hives sealed up another night due to all the jostling.

Welcome to your new foraging grounds, bees! This is the view to the new house.

10/1/09: 11th Inspection and Sugar-Dusting

2009-10-01T00:00:00.003-04:00

Conditions: Sunny, 61F
Present: Bud F. and I
Equipment: Removed honey supers (empty). Installed screened bottom board on Russian hive.
Activities: Smoked hives about 4:45pm. Inspected all frames in honey and food supers (directly above the deeps where the brood nests are). Sugar-dusted for varroa control.
Observations: We finally had a break in the cold weather to make some needed equipment changes and check on the bees. It's been cold and wet for many days, and today was a window of 60s and sun, with rain forecast for the next week or so.

The Russian colony had not stored anything or built any comb in the honey super we put on it. It was overly optimistic to get some honey from them in this first year. We removed it and replaced the old plastic bottom board with a screened bottom board for varroa control. We used the bellows to sugar-dust them for the second time (first dusting 8/29/09) to encourage mite-drop through the bottom board. I did spot a live varroa which dropped through the screen bottom board once grooming had started after the dusting. The food super directly above the deep was packed with capped honey, wall to wall. They are taking sugar syrup from the pail top feeder, but not very aggressively. We saw a few drones on the old bottom board when we swapped it out, but much fewer than earlier in the year. They appear to be getting the boot from the ladies, which is typical with the onset of cold weather. Looks like all is well.

The Italian colony had built some small areas of comb in the top honey super on maybe 4 or 5 frames and began to fill it with sugar syrup. Nothing was capped yet. We removed this as another "empty" super and, since it was not cured and not honey from nectar, will allow the bees to clean it up outside the hive and bring it back if they see fit. If they are still flying once the rain stops, that is. This colony also had filled the food super directly above the deep with capped honey. There was some brood up in the center frames of this super, one larvae still being capped, so if the queen has stopped laying, it was within the past week. We thoroughly sugar dusted these gals, too. They previously received a screened bottom board during the first sugar dusting on 8/29/09.

We did not delve into the deeps (brood chambers) of either hive in order to be minimally disruptive on this cool day and therefore not chill any brood. With the food supers filled, we suspect whatever is not currently filled with brood is also capped honey. Both hives are ready to be relocated about 10 miles away to our new home. We have less than 2 weeks to move them, so the next post will be our hive moving adventure. Glad we got in today to take off empty supers and swap out that bottom board!

9/23/09: Resumed feeding for remaining hive

2009-09-29T00:00:00.001-04:00

Just a note to say I resumed feeding the other hive on 9/23/09.

Also made a stop at the beekeeper shop on 9/29/09 to pick up:
1) Fumagillin B (for Nosema treatment)
2) Pro-Health (similar to Honey Bee Healthy, recommended by many experienced beekeepers and touted as "vitamins for your bees")
3) another screened-bottom board
4) more foundation pins
5) a replacement veil for Bud

Hoping to do at least one more thorough inspection on a warm fall day where we:
1) Replace the existing solid bottom board
2) Remove any empty frames and reduce hive size for overwintering and relocation
3) Powdered sugar dust for varroa control?
4) Feed sugar with Pro-Health and Fumagillin B

9/16/09: County Bee Inspection!

2009-09-16T00:00:00.003-04:00

Conditions: Sunny, 76F
Present: Cuyahoga County Bee Inspector
Equipment: No changes.
Activities: Smoked hives about 11am? Inspected all frames.
Background: So I get a call at work from Annie, my wife, saying someone is here and they are opening up the beehives. Someone official. They said they could not call ahead as I did not provide a phone number. I have heard some horror stories about county bee inspectors transmitting all kinds of diseases from other apiaries due to infected hive tools and protective equipment. My poor wife, I freaked out on her and told her to tell the inspector not to inspect my hives until I was able to speak to them. Except when Annie called me, the inspector was already in the Russian hive inspecting... Annie was upset because I had never told her not to allow an inspector to inspect without my permission, and reasonably so. It all worked out. I got to speak to Lisa Wright, the Geauga and Cuyahoga county bee inspector, and she was able to reassure me that she is just as concerned about the biosecurity of my bees as I am. When I spoke to her she had completed the first inspection and was about to move on to the next hive. We're planning on moving in October and she issued me a Transfer Permit and wished me luck. When I got home, I had report #49 waiting for me.

Observations: From the report I can discern that Lisa observed varroa in both colonies, and both colonies have twisted wing virus, which is a disease transmitted by varroa. The Russian hive has sacbrood, a seasonal malady they should be able to recover from. She recommended replacing the old comb (that we put in there to give them a head start) next spring, which we were planning to do. The Italian hive had dysentary and "k"-wing, which is a possible sign of Nosema, which is more serious. She recommended treating them with Fumagellin during fall and spring feeding. Despite that list of maladies, her general comments to me (verbal) were that things looked good and smelled wonderful. I think she just likes the smell of beehives. She commented that in general I should adopt the practice of keeping all frames pressed tightly together and centered in the hive body, and that I should "adpot practice to prevent leaving dead bees between where hive bodies come together." I'm not sure what practice this is, since the bees are pretty comfortable placing themselves between hive bodies before I can stack the next super on there... When there are 60,000 in a hive, a few get squished. All in all, it was nice to get a mostly healthy report on the bees. I would have liked to be there to observe her inspection practice and see the twisted wing, "k"wing, signs of dysentary, etc. Maybe next year. I guess I'll provide a phone number next time I register.

9/5/09: Fall feeding update

2009-09-05T00:00:00.000-04:00

Decided to resume feeding the Italian colony. Gave them a little over a quart of sugar syrup on Monday 8/31/09 and it was gone by Wednesday 9/2/09. Gave them 2.5 quarts this morning before the sun was up and we'll see how long it takes them to take it all.

8/29/09: 10th Inspection and Sugar-Dusting

2009-08-29T00:00:00.003-04:00

Conditions: Sunny, 68F
Present: Bud, Mohammad, and I
Equipment: Added screened bottom board to the Italian hive only. (Just had one)
Activities: Smoked hives about 1:45pm. Inspected assorted frames. Sugar-dusted both hives for the first time ever with a sugar-dusting bellows.
Observations: In the Italian hive there was not a lot of honey stored up. This could be due to a population interruption as the queen had stopped laying for a few weeks. The brood was up higher in the frames of the deep and the queen had been laying the the first super. The honey supers we had added almost a month ago had no additional comb built in them. Just bare foundation. I don't think there's been enough nectar available in August to support making that much more wax, and "they aren't going to build it if they don't have anything to store in it" (Bud). We decided to resume feeding the Italians due to the lack of nectar available. We'll check again in three or four weeks to see what's what. A fall flow may allow them to build out something in those honey supers.

When changing out the solid bottom board and installing the screen bottom board we had ample opportunity to inspect Italian workers and drones for varroa. None were noted. Still, with only one screened bottom board, it went to the weaker colony of Italians (since the Russian are supposedly more resistant to varroa).

In the Russian hive we observed more capped honey and nectar than in the Italian. This colony did not have a population interruption. They had build some brace comb between the deep and the first super and laid drone in it, so taking out frames and removing the first super to inspect the deep was a gooey larval-paste mess. We did not have the opportunity to inspect workers closely for mites as they were not very happy. Overall they seem healthy and we are not planning to resume feeding them yet.

Sugar-dusting was interesting. Bud had purchased a bellows at a local beekeeper shop. Dusting the bees with powdered sugar increases grooming activity which results in mite drop, right through the screen bottom board. The bees are not treated with harmful chemicals and they end up with a bonus food source. We figured out how to use the bellows properly at the very end, so the Russians and the Italians did not get a thorough dusting. We'll know the trick for next time. You have to pump it violently and erratically to get enough sugar to drop into the airway path to be blown out the tip. We'll likely pick up another screen bottom board for the Russians and do one more dusting before the winter sets in. "Take care of the bees that will be taking care of the bees that will overwinter." Those future nurse bees are emerging now.

No honey harvest this year, as expected (though we hoped for a really productive year and a little honey for ourselves). Hopefully they will have stored up enough to keep them over the winter.

The apiary may be relocating as I may be moving to a house 15 minutes away. If we sell our house, there will be a future post regarding our adventures in moving bees.

8/2/09: Ninth Inspection and Honey Supers Added

2009-08-03T10:16:00.000-04:00

Conditions: Partly Cloudy, 72F (unseasonably cool for August!)
Present: Just me
Equipment: Added first honey super to each hive
Activities: Smoked hives about 5:30pm. Inspected one or two frames in the lower super of each colony. Inspected deep frames in the "Italian" hive.
Observations: Still plenty of bees in the "Italian" hive. If there will be a big population decline it has not occurred yet. Spent some extra time inspecting the brood frames. Lots of brood present on probably 6 frames. I was satisfied that whichever queen is in there laying (either new Russian or old Italian) she is doing very well. Wall frames still are not built out, but the lower super was pretty heavy with capped and uncapped honey. I added the first honey super.

The russian hive I did not disturb much. Checked the weight of the lower super, which was heavy with capped and uncapped honey. Added the first honey super here, too.

We'll see what progress is made in building out comb in the new honey supers throughout August. We may have a dearth affecting both colonies and population decline in the "Italian" colony before the fall nectar flow starts. Whatever honey is capped in the new supers will be for us!

Have seen lots of honey bees in the garden on squash, raspberries, buckwheat and cut-flowers.

7/25/09: Eighth Inspection

2009-07-25T00:00:00.001-04:00

Conditions: Don't know, wasn't there
Present: Just Bud
Equipment: Removed bucket feeders from both hives. Removed new queen cage from the re-queened (formerly Italian) hive
Activities: Smoked hives at unknown time (I wasn't there and forgot to ask). Inspected all deep frames.
Observations: In the "Italian" hive, the queen cage was empty. Observed in the brood chamber were eggs and young larvae (5 days old?) as well as CAPPED BROOD. Really? This means the Italian queen we were concerned about must have started laying before we moved the new Russian queen in! So, essentially we re-queened even though we didn't need to. See if you can follow the timeline here: There must have been eggs present during the 7/18/09 inspection (where we found none and decided to re-queen). We know the new Russian queen was not released until 7/21/09 when I "popped" the cork on the queen cage, and this inspection was only 4 days after that. Worker brood are capped on day 9, so those eggs (which became capped brood for this inspection) were there on 7/16/09 or earlier, 5 days before the Russian queen was ever released!

So we put a second queen into a hive with another fertile, laying queen. The question is, what happened? The hive is not big enough to support two brood chambers, so we are likely down to one queen again. Either the hive rejected the new Russian queen, killed her, and disposed of the body OR the two queens had a duel. Is the reigning queen Italian or Russian? We won't know until we spot her again. So the experiment with one Italian hive and one Russian may exist yet.

I'm convinced now that bees will always keep me guessing. It's what makes this an interesting hobby. Hopefully I get better at spotting eggs, though, and don't repeat this particular mistake!

But that is good news, that there are baby bees in that hive once again. There will soon be a dip in population, but they'll rebound for a fall nectar flow and have a shot at making it through the winter. The colony will be ok.

In the other hive (the original Russian) the first super (above the bottom deep) was pretty full and even had a small brood area surrounded by honey. So the queen had taken a brief trip up there to lay, <100 eggs or so, and then returned to her deep. They are going like gangbusters.

Time to add the first honey supers. I need to nail together 20 frames and insert the wax-with-wire foundation we bought (before we knew plastic fits just fine in split-bottom frames) and Bud is picking up the retaining clips. Should super before the weekend. If they build out the comb and fill it fast enough, we'll get a small honey harvest this year.

7/21/09: Re-queen step 2 - popping the cork

2009-07-21T00:00:00.000-04:00

Conditions: Overcast, Thunder, 80F and falling fast
Present: Just me
Equipment: No changes.
Activities: Smoked the hive with the new queen about 5:00pm. Tried to pop the cork on the queen cage.
Observations: Tried to remove two frames simultaneously to check on the queen, to make sure she was still alive. It was very awkward by myself and I gave up. The queen cage started to slip between the frames and I didn't want it to drop. I decided just to pop the cork and get out. While trying to pop the cork, it collapsed INTO the queen cage. If she survives all this, it will be a small miracle. I can't imagine it would crush her or obstruct her exit, but I still feel like I botched it. We'll check back, probably this weekend to remove the queen cage and hopefully spot some eggs.

Also noticed the Russians are out of sugar syrup again. We might be ready to put the first honey super on them soon. Time to get some shallow frames assembled for that.

7/18/09: Re-queening the Italians

2009-07-18T00:00:00.009-04:00

So based on inspections six and seven, we decided to re-queen the Italian hive. Immediately after finding no eggs or larvae, I put in a call to the closest bee guy. He's the one who sold me the packages and he had one queen available. A Russian he's had for a week. I guess the experiment of one Italian and one Russian hive is over before the first winter. Look out, Europe. The Russians are coming!

We don't even know what happened to the Italian. She was a strong layer who just stopped after we prevented a swarm.

Meet the new Queen and her lone attendant:

We experimented with a queen installation that does not involve removing a frame and installing the cage in it's place. This SHOULD allow for easy release of the queen without building lots of brace comb or the hassel of having to take out a frame that covered in bees and not put it back. Here's what we did:

We removed a bit of wax from two locations at the top of two adjacent frames.

We placed the queen cage in between the adjacent frames and nested them down in the lower hive body. Since there was not enough candy to sufficiently delay the removal of the new queen until the hive had accepted her, I left the cork in. In two or three days I'll sneak back in and remove it with tweezers. The next inspection will be in a week, looking for eggs from the new queen.

7/18/09: Seventh Inspection - Italian Hive only

2009-07-18T00:00:00.001-04:00

Conditions: Partly Cloudy, 68F
Present: Bud F. and I
Equipment: No changes.
Activities: Smoked hive about 3:15pm. Inspected all frames.
Observations: Observed no eggs, larvae, or capped brood. On a recommendation from an experienced beekeeper, we did this inspection after seeing the same thing about a week ago. We had hoped she was just a bit delayed in resuming laying after preparing to swarm. The workers had actually started back-filling the empty brood nest with nectar and pollen. We did not see the Italian queen this time, though she was present last time. This was judgement day for the Italian queen and she had not performed. Time to re-queen. The good thing is there were still a lot of bees left in the hive, so the population hasn't significantly declined yet. Even if we get a strong laying new queen, the population will drop. Hopefully it won't drop too much or during a nectar flow.

7/14/09: Refilled feeders

2009-07-14T00:00:00.000-04:00

Refilled bucket feeders after confirming the newer supers were far from full. They'll take all of this feeding before needing to put on any honey supers, and by then we may be in a dearth. I am hoping the bees will gather enough to get them through the winter. We'll be lucky if we even get a small taste of honey from the hives this year.

7/13/09: Sixth Inspection

2009-07-13T00:00:00.000-04:00

Conditions: Partly Sunny, 75F
Present: Bud F. and I
Equipment: No changes.
Activities: Smoked hives about 5:30pm. Inspected all frames.
Observations:
Italian hive: NO capped brood or larvae. At all. This was a complete shock. The beautiful crescents of capped honey over what had been the brood nest were still there, the hive population density was fine (lots of bees), but NO capped brood or larvae. We did see the queen and she was alive and well. 99% sure it's the same fertile queen we started the season with as the inspection was not 17 days or more from when we eliminated the swarm cells, so they could not have raised up a virgin queen in that amount of time. Otherwise things looked normal. Specifically looked for varroa and did not see any.

Russian hive: TONS of capped brood in this hive, more than I've ever seen in either hive. This is consistent with what I've heard about the Russians, that they start late and the population explodes in the summer. Population density of bees in the hive was approximately equal to the Italians, though this will likely change due to contrast in the brood nests.

Both hives have had empty feeders for days. I had not refilled in case they had already filled the supers recently added and we would be adding honey supers for us to harvest. (If that were the case, I'd suspend feeding as I honey from nectar, not sugar-water). Those supers were far from full, so I'll resume feeding.

Update 7/15/09: I spoke with an experienced beekeeper who suggested a hypothesis related to the swarm threat. Apparently the workers put the queen on a diet when they are going to swarm so she can fly. The "old" queen will fly with the swarm while the "new" queen takes up residence in the hive. Since we interrupted their swarm plans relatively late in the game, they may have already put her on a diet and she therefore had stopped laying. The verdict: decide whether or not to re-queen after another inspection in 4-5 days where we specifically look for eggs. If eggs or larvae are present, let it be, all will return to normal with just a slight population decline due to the brood interruption. If no eggs are present, requeen right away and hope the workers live long enough to help raise the new young. So Saturday 7/18/09 will be judgement day for our Italian queen. Time to put out or get out, little lady.

7/5/09: Special Feeding

2009-07-06T00:00:00.002-04:00

Special feeding of the bees. Took the deep frame that was previously removed from the Russian hive due to the number of drones, uncapped the honey cells above the now dead brood, got a few bees on it at the hive entrance, and stashed it 40 yards away in a cardboard box previously used for bannas (plenty of holes for bee traffic). In 15 minutes there was some light traffic. When I checked back 3 hours later, hundreds of bees were flying and in out. It looked like the entrance to a hive. They were still working it when I checked at 8pm, but traffic was dying down. Last night it was in the 50s. There was no activity at 6:15am and the sweets were not discovered by a skunk or coon in the night. I will check again when I get home at 5:00pm. I expect they will finish cleaning the honey out today, but will leave it for another night and day just in case.

Also took another pic of the varroa, this one under magnification. The drone had been removed from his capped cell two days prior, so he's a bit dessicated. The varroa was finally dead, though she did make it almost two days without a host. She had previously nestled in the ridge of skin alongside and on top of one of my fingernails, looking for a new cozy spot I presume. I did not oblige.

Update as of 7/6/09: The bees made short work of the honey in the extra frame from the special feeding. At 5pm there were maybe a dozen bees still on and around the frame, but it was already empty. That means about 24 hours of activity cleaned it out.

And just as I was watching the Russians come and go from their hive, trying to look for pollen load (very low) and varroa (none seen).... POW! One of the girls must not have seen me when she turned the corner quickly and smacked into my nose, which she promptly stung. That was painful. Quick stinger removal, Benedryl and ice kept the swelling down to a reasonable level. Mohammad, now I know how you felt. Next time I'll be wearing a veil. I'm learning I need to be more careful as the population builds, they more aggressively forage and are more protective of their honey.

Varroa!

2009-06-30T23:33:00.001-04:00

As I was examing drone larvae and pupae from the frame we removed from the Russian hive, I found the first varroa seen in either hive. 1 of 25 drone cells I uncapped had the mite. Inevitable, but still hate to see it.

6/30/09: More sugar syrup

2009-06-30T00:00:00.001-04:00

Decided to resume feeding based on recommendation from the local bee club. They instruct new beekeepers to keep feeding until honey harvest supers are added. It is only discontinued then to prevent you eventually harvesting sugar from the feeders instead of honey dried from nectar. It will also prevent them from consuming so much honey during a dearth.

The bucket feeders are working well and only require refilling every week or so, though frequency will increase with bee population and depending on nectar flow.

6/29/09: Fifth Inspection

2009-06-29T00:00:00.006-04:00

Three weeks since we were last in the hives.

Conditions: Cloudy, threatening rain, 78F
Present: Bud F. and I
Equipment: Added first supers on top of the lower deeps for both hives. Removed tape from additional entrance holes in the deeps. Removed one frame of "old comb" that had lots of drone larvae from the Russian colony.
Activities: Smoked hives about 5:30pm. Inspected all frames.
Observations: Both hives were doing very well.
Italian: Observed lots of comb in the Italian colony, all frames built out except the wall side of one of the wall frames. These bees had built a lot of comb since the last inspection and were running out of room! One supercedure queen cell and 7-8 swarm queen cells noted. These were removed to prevent swarming and the supers were added. Glad we did not delay inspection any further as they could have swarmed, and a swarm this late in the year would be bad news. Hopefully the increased space and loss of the existing queen cells will prevent an Italian swarm. My one concern is that we did not see the queen. If the queen is dead or gone and we destroyed the queen cells designed to replace her, that would be bad. This seems unlikely, though. As the inspection went on, the colony got more and more agitated. A small amount of royal jelly was collected from the torn down queen cups. It tastes sour and buttery. Not all that yummy, really.
Russian: Comparitively less comb than the Italian colony, but still only approximately 1 frame to fill and obviouly still building comb. Lots of textbook brood pattern seen on many of the center frames. Looks like a good queen who had a little bit of a late start, maybe due to her being Russian. The colony was quite docile throughout the inspection. Quite a few drones in this colony, probably due to the old comb, some of which had damage and was previously chewed out and replaced with the larger drone comb cells. One frame had an excessive amount of drone larvae and was removed and replaced with a frame with empty plastic foundation. This will help with mite control if varroa are now present, but mostly it's to keep the drone population down as the queen would just lay more drones in this frame in the future. We'll get a small amount of honey from this, enough for just a taste, before allowing the bees to clean it up a few hundred feet from the hive. Setting it at a distance will allow the bees to remove the honey and nectar via foraging and hopefully prevent any robbing.

6/6/09: Fourth Inspection

2009-06-06T00:00:00.005-04:00

Conditions: Sunny, 74F
Present: Bud F. and I
Equipment: Removed entrance reducers on the Russian hive (removed from the Italian hive last week).
Activities: Smoked hives about 3:30pm. Inspected all frames.
Observations: Observed additional drawn comb. Not much has changed since the last inspection. Did not spot the queens, though lots of capped brood was evident. We should be to the point where all the bees in the colonies are the offspring of the reigning queen and were born in the hive where they now live, not back at the bee farm. In order to let them work and not slow them down, the next inspection will be 2-3 weeks from now.

6/6/09: More syrup

2009-06-04T00:00:00.003-04:00

I replaced the sugar syrup in the pail feeders on top of the hives today. The one on top of the Russian queen colony was near empty. The one on top the Italian queen colony had quite a bit left in it. Neither colony has been taking nearly as much since there have been some nectar flows, most recently honey locust. I may discontinue feeding soon as they seem to be doing very well foraging.

5/30/09: LBCA Field Day and 3rd inspection

2009-05-30T00:00:00.002-04:00

LBCA Field Day at Queen Right Colonies in Spencer, OH:
Conditions: Sunny, 70F
Present: About 80 experienced and novice beekeepers from the Lorain County Beekeepers Association and I
Equipment: QRC apiary
Activities: I showed up at around 1:15 pm.
1) Inspected lower deep (brood chamber) or a mature colony (not started, split, or swarmed this year).
2) Observed equipment from a colony that had collapsed from American Foul Brood (AFB).
3) Observed hives from an experiment to determine comb-building affinity for different types of foundation.
Observations:
1) The mature hive was interesting. All frames were completely built out. The wall frames were all capped honey with brood located in inner frames. We observed a good brood pattern and discussed signs of weak brood patterns that would require re-queening. Saw some supercedure cells that indicated the workers have some ideas regarding replacing their queen.
2) The AFB colony was supposed to be a live colony kept for educational purposes so new beekeepers could see (and smell) a diseased colony. Experienced beekeepers present questioned the wisdom of keeping this hive and equipment present in a working apiary with dozens of uninfected colonies. The owner has dealt with infected colonies and felt he had an adequate understanding of the disease and could prevent infection of other colonies. All the bees were dead and there was a musty, mildewy smell to the hive. A very spotty brood pattern was evident with sunken caps. The bacterial disease kills and multiplies in the larvae, producing spores which transfer by contact (especially on gloves and hive tools) and are very difficult to kill. Equipment from infected colonies must be burned or dipped in hot parafin (~350F).
3) The foundation comparison study was very interesting. Newly established colonies of packaged bees were set up this season (~5 weeks prior) with different foundations to determine if bees will build out comb faster on some foundations than others. Wired wax, yellow plastic, and black plastic in wooden frames were compared, as well as one-piece plastic frames and foundation. The preliminary results were the bees, all Italians, showed no preference and built all out to about the same extent! Each hive had about 6 full frames built out on both sides after 5 weeks. The LBCA members involved intend to publish a paper with the formal results.Based on this, I'm not sad I went with plastic foundation, but I would have preferred black to yellow to make the eggs easier to spot.

3rd Home Apiary Inspection:
Conditions: Sunny, 70F
Present: Mohammad D. and I
Equipment: Removed entrance reducers on the Italian hive.
Activities: Smoked hives about 5:00pm. Inspected all frames.
Observations: Observed the Italian queen. The Italian hive was docile, lots of bees and new comb. Removed the entrance reducer at the recommendation of a local beekeeper due to warm temperatures and current honey flow. Will probably add the first super during the next inspection. Running out of smoke when we got to the Russians. At one point they came boiling out of the hive and were aggressively bumping me and followed me while I backed off. My fault, next time I'll bring more smoker fuel with me. Mohammad declined the use of a spare veil and got a worker bee up his nose. He was stung on the underside of his nose when the she discovered she was not welcome to probe his left nostril. When I looked over, she was about halfway in and Mohammad was obviously dismayed. Next time he will be wearing a veil.

5/25/09: More Syrup

2009-05-25T00:00:00.000-04:00

Replenished syrup in both hives. Russians were nearly empty on last inspection and the feeder was totally empty at time of replacement.

5/22/09: Second checkup

2009-05-22T00:00:00.001-04:00

Conditions: Sunny, 72F
Present: Mohammad and I
Equipment: No changes.
Activities: Smoked hives about 5:30pm. Took a good look at each hive to see what they’ve done.
Observations: Spotted both queens who are alive and well. The Italian hive is quite vigorous during nice days, lots of flying. The Italians have lots of capped brood, a few honey cells with gleaming white caps and several frames with new comb on both sides. We saw baby bees, and watched one emerge! Bee birth! There are at least 4 frames that are still bare (no comb) and there is plenty of room in the hive for more bees without supering yet. The pollen patty was nearly consumed. The Russian hive is doing fair. The Russians have new comb on the one side of plastic foundation for the two frames facing the old comb, but no more. They seem to be slow to take to drawing out comb on the plastic foundations. They were almost out of sugar syrup. The pollen patty was maybe 25% consumed. There was capped brood, though less so and the pattern was not as consistently centered with food surrounding it. Baby bees were present, though. We did not spot any eggs, but they may have been there in the new comb. It was difficult to see with the light yellow background and the lighter colored new wax. There was a lot of waxy dark crud on the bottom board on the side of the hive with the entrance blocked by the reducer. I’m concerned about this as the Italians are keeping a very clean hive. I’m hoping they’ll clean this out when the entrance reducer is removed and the exit is more convenient. There were bees gathered on this material. It almost looked as though they had produced wax, but instead of fixing it to the foundation, it had sloughed off and fallen into the grit/gunk they cleaned out of the old comb. I’ll ask Bud about this when he gets back in town.

5/3/09: First checkup after installation

2009-05-03T00:00:00.001-04:00

Sugar syrup, pollen, and eggs in brace comb. cell indicated by finger contains twins! Click image to enlarge.

Conditions: Sunny, 68F
Present: Bud and I, Mohammad on the SLR camera (some great shots!)
Equipment: No major changes.
Activities: Smoked hives about 5:30pm. Removed Queen cages and replaced 10th frame in each deep. Brace comb removed from space between frames and queen cage. Added sugar syrup.
Observations: Queens were released and appear to be doing well, though neither was spotted. Saw eggs in brace comb removed from each hive! Small amounts of pollen and sugar syrup in the comb removed. The bees cleaned up the sugar syrup when the comb was left in front of the hive overnight. The Italians seemed to actually chew up a bit of the comb, hopefully taking the wax inside to build up the empty frames. The Italians had started building comb on the plastic foundation, the Russians had not. The Italians also took more sugar syrup and are visibly more actively foraging. Russian colony is definitely less vigorous this early in the season. Hopefully the queen is good and they’ll catch up.

4/27/09: Initial installation (Strongsville, OH)

2009-04-27T00:00:00.001-04:00

Conditions: Sunny 65F
Present: Bud F. and I, Annie on the videorecorder
Equipment: 2 plastic hives w/ plastic bottom boards on wooden hive stands, elevated on angle iron and cinderblocks. Bud had the equipment after storing for 12 years and cleaned it up for this season. Each colony got some old comb (2 frames for the Italians, 3 frames for the Russians) and all empty frames were new w/ plastic foundation. We loaded the comb as much as we could with sugar syrup and placed pail feeders on top the inner covers. Each colony got 1 pollen patty. Entrance reducers were used, limiting the entrance to about 4” and half of full height. Got to test my new bee jacket/hood unit, which worked great.
Activities: Picked up bees from T.B. Jeffries at 11am. Installed both queens in cages with candy and all bees at 2:30pm. This went very smoothly. We followed the instructions in “Beekeeping for Dummies” as Bud had never installed packaged bees before.
Observations: The colony with the Italian queen was much more active with many more bees flying and coming and going from the hive entrance. Noticed all the attendants (5 or 6) in the Russian queen cage were dead, but the queen was alive and active. The Russians were much more reserved, which may be due to extra sugar syrup spraying immediately before hiving. Great weather and a great first time handling bees. No stings until I was gathering up equipment and smashed a bee between a bee brush, a hive tool, and my ungloved hand.