2014 Hive 2 (overwintered)

Hive status:  Overwintered from 2013 (2013 Hive 4 then)
Hive origin: Nuc that Alan made from a cut-out he did that had swarm cells present
Queen type: 2013 Unknown, hopefully survivor stock

Significant events/observations:
This hive overwintered in 2013 which was a brutally cold winter.  Fed pollen patty about March 10.

4/8/14: Changed hive body configuration around April 8.  Good size colony in upper deep, honey in shallow super above it.  Removed an empty deep hive body (down to a shallow and deep, shallow on top).  These bees are active on warm days.

4/16/14:  Bees are foraging, feeder added 4/17/14 using remaining sugar solution from 3 packages and spray bottle.

5/10/14:  Spotted queen and eggs.  Removed sugar syrup and entrance reducer.  Swapped shallow super full of brood (from middle to the top) with upper deep to encourage laying in upper deep.  Queen had stayed mostly in the shallow super laying and other bees built lots of comb between the bottom of the shallow and the top of the frames in the lower deep.  Was a mess to remove this goopy slop from everything.

5/19/14:  Eggs spotted, starting to fill in middle deep.  Lots of queen cups at lower edge of shallow super removed.  Needs a new super soon.

5/25/14:  Eggs spotted.  Added a second super.  Rearranged deep frames to encourage wider brood nest.  Removed propolis from upper deep.

5/31/14:  Ok on space with 2 honey supers.

6/10/14:  Eggs spotted.  Looks good.  Added 3rd honey super, could have gone a few more days, but I had one ready.

6/22/14:  OK on space, did not inspect deeps.

7/15/14:  Eggs.  Small bit of room in top (3rd) super.  Needs more room.  Oh my goodness, so many bees!!!  Huge colony.

8/2/14:  Eggs spotted.  Pulled capped honey frame by frame until down to 2 supers on hive + 3 frames above inner cover.

8/15/14:  Saw 6 day old larvae in bad light.  Added 7 frames to fill out super.

2014 Hive 1 (died out early april)

Hive status:  Overwintered from 2013 (2013 Hive 1 then)
Hive origin:  2012 Swarm from Alan
Queen type: 2013 Queen raised from eggs from swarm queen from 2012

Significant events/observations:
This hive overwintered in 2013 which was a brutally cold winter.  Fed pollen patty about March 10.

4/8/14: Reversed hive bodies around April 8.  Bees were all on 3 frames in the shallow, very small colony.  Put an empty deep hive body above it, and removed an empty deep hive body (down to a shallow and deep, shallow on bottom).

4/16/14:  This hive died out in early April.  Too small, I guess.

Late March snow 2014

Seven inches of heavy, wet snow fell on March 28, 2014.  We had to drive our new car in it and it was a mess.  Hoping the bees are safe and happy.

2013 Post Mortem

As of 3/17/14 I have two surviving hives.  It was a long winter, and very cold.  The lowest temps and most snow we've had in decades.  Lots of schools cancelled 10-15 days when they are allowed only 5 cancellations.

The nuc had no chance and the weakest colonies failed.  Surprisingly, so did the strongest colony I had as rated on Dec 1 2013.

I ordered 3 each 3lb packages from Waldo Apiaries.  This is my first time trying Waldo, I went with them because I could get a 4/16/14 pickup and they offered "Buckeye Belle" queens, supposedly from Ohio survivor stock.  This article from OSBA on 1/11/14:

Dana Stahlman is announcing the sale this year of OHIO BUCKEYE BELLE QUEENS. I will be going to Georgia in January to begin the process of building nuc’s for the production of Ohio queen stock that was described in the Walter T. Kelley Newsletter published in June, July and August of 2013. 

The queen stock has been further enhanced with Artificial Insemination with selected drone semen. The mother queen survived in an abandoned bee yard (a hive that had not been managed for a number of years) and upon examination, the hive during the period it was not managed did not have wax moth or a long interruption in bee population which would have been indicated by rebuilt comb in the hive. In July the bees were inspected by the Ohio Department of Agriculture with both bee and comb samples sent to USDA for inspection and report. The report from USDA found no disease or mites. 

If you are interested in purchasing queens or wanting to sell some of these queens, email me at: stahlmanapiaries@aol.com. Buckeye Belle and Buckeye Reb queens were produced by me during the 1990’s and early 2004. I am bringing them back into production.

I am hopeful that this queen stock will do well for me.  I have had repeated mass deaths of Italians and Carniolans.  The hives that overwintered for me in 2013 all came from swarms or cutouts and may be related to survivor stock.   Also hoping I don't get small hive beetles in my bee packages, which will come from Georgia.

UPDATE 4/16/14:
No Buckeye Belle queens were available from Waldo Apiaries.  Reportedly the breeder experienced bad weather when queens should have taken mating flights, so there were no mated queens available at the time of package production.  If I get small hive beetle from GA bees I will be PISSED since the reason I got GA bees was for the survivor stock queens.  Instead I got more Italian queens.

2014 nearing winter's end

2/20/14:  Had a warm spell the past two days that will change to cold soon.  I had a small amount of time to check in the hives quickly before dark.  It was 46 degrees F and cloudy, about 6pm, had rained earlier in the day.

Of the 5 hives alive on 12/22/13, 2 are still alive.

2013 Hives 1 and 4 had approximately soccer ball sized clusters near the top of the hives.  Hives 2, 3, and 5 had frozen.  I moved nearly full honey supers from hives 2 and 3 and placed them on hives 1 and 4 to give them more food for the coming cold spell.  Fingers crossed they will make it through.  Plan to order 3 packages.

Interesting that none of the surviving colonies were packages with either a known Italian or known Carniolan queen.  They were both from Alan Travers, one a nuc from a cutout that may have been survivor stock and one a swarm he captured.

12/22/13 : Warm winter day inspection

Unseasonably warm spell for the prior 2 days (both rainy and windy) and today (breezy but sunny).  This followed some unseasonably cold weather in November with several days that had highs in the teens or low 20s.
I went in to all my hives today to see:

1)  How many live bees are in there

2)  How many dead bees are on the bottom boards (and clean them off)

3)  How much honey they have
4)  How the remaining honey is distributed
The good news is I have live bees in every hive.   The bad news is I never did combine that nuc I raised as an insurance policy with another hive and it turns out that was a bad idea.  Almost all the honey was gone and the nuc was 5/6ths dead.  Queen and maybe 200 bees are left.  I'm sure they will die, very sad.  I'm tempted to try to move them inside the shed or something to give them a fighting chance, but don't really know what will help.  One other hive was light on bees with already 1 inch of dead bees on the bottom board.  They may or may not make it, long shot, I'd say.  The four remaining hives were relatively strong and had quite a bit more honey.  Best of luck to all of them.  I did move some frames of honey around so they'd be more available to the clusters later.  I will probably make some candy boards later, especially for the two hives that were already near the inner cover. 

Most hives actually die in March cold snaps, not Nov and Dec, so it is still too early to tell.

2013 Going into Winter

Nuc 2: Perfect Nuc
Hive 1: 2 deeps, about 5 empty frames in upper deep, light on bees and honey
Hive 2: 2 deeps and 1 shallow honey super, lots of bees and honey, but had lots of chalkbrood problems throughout year
Hive 3:  2 deeps and 1 shallow honey super, solid hive, lots of bees
Hive 4:  2 deeps, solid hive
Hive 5:  2 deeps and moderate amount of bees, solid hive


Hive rankings as of 12/26/13 (62 degree inspection day):

listed as STRONGEST > WEAKEST

H2 > H4 > H1 > H5 > H3 > N6