Ready to forage and another box

This is the nuc from Lloyd this morning. Just need a sunny day to work the beees.

Okay, managed to get out there yesterday morning (July 7) and give them another box. I was looking through a few frames to check for good brood pattern and actually saw the queen! It was the first time I've seen a queen in real life (honeybee anyway.)

I took one of their frames of capped brood to give a boost to the hive that had lost its queen earlier. I was hoping to see that the queen had started laying by now and she had. Yay again. It was the same feeling I got when I first started gardening and my seeds actually sprouted. Such a shock to see how nature works if you let it.

Now if we can figure out how to get rid of squash bugs easily.

Nature walk

Blackberries (dewberries?) are ripening. I picked about two pounds yesterday. For the thorns, I wore long pants, for the heat I wore a wet towel on my head. Blackberries don't all ripen at once.

Sand plums will be ready soon!

These are called sensitive mimosa or something.

Sumacs are starting to bloom. They are good nectar source for bees, then the berries make a yummy tea high in vitamin C.

And the cat tails that made it into our pond are blooming for the first time. These are one of the highest density edible foods ever!

Queens for everyone!

Click on the pictures to see them bigger. Checked the hives again today.

First: East hive

It's been one week since I added a frame of brood with eggs. That frame now had one queen cell with larva in it... sorry it's blurry. It's on the BOTTOM of the frame. This is looking at it upside down. So it looks like they are on their way to having a queen. They had some honey and still plenty of bees.

Second: Nucleus hive we got 3(?) weeks ago

They had brood, honey and had drawn out lots of the empty frames I'd put in last week.

Previous is capped honey :)

Third: The old big have that lost its foraging force in last weeks position swap:

They had so much honey and nectar, they have no need for foraging. There was a frame of drone brood and a frame of worker brood. Most the other cells were full of nectar.

Fourth: The split from the old have that got all the foragers:

The queen cell was no longer there, so I'm hoping she'll soon be laying. The second deep I added last week was getting packed with newly drawn comb and honey. They were so full of bees, I grabbed another deep and put it in the middle of the two they have. I alternated empty combs with combs from the bottom box.

Looking like a good season!

Picasa wouldn't upload the pictures properly so I had to copy/pasted the embed code from picasaweb. The pictures are cropped (haphazardly) here.. harumph. Changed them all to 400 and it's all better :)

Checked the other 2 hives.

First checked the nucleus hive we got last Saturday.  They had lots of brood and had drawn out most of the frames.  i went ahead and added another deep, so they should have plenty of room to grow.

Next checked the old hive on the east side of the yard.  They had a few frames of capped honey, some nectar and NO brood at all.  Still plenty of bees wandering around (enough to leave them with 2 deeps) but I worry about the lack of brood.  Goal: get them a frame of young brood from another hive and if they're queenless, they can raise another.

So, I went back into the "big hive" and found a frame with all stages of brood.  I wasn't looking close enough yesterday to be sure they had young brood, but I found it.  Shook off the bees and put it into the hive with no brood.  (The workers can take an worker egg and raise her into a queen by feedng her more royal jelly.)  This also means that the big hive has a queen that's laying those eggs. :)

Now all 4 hives have queens or the ability to make one.  hopefully I can check back within the next month to see their progress.

more bee work

Today I swapped positions of the large hive and the split that I made last Sunday.  The point of this is that all the foragers that are out at the time will come back to the same position that they came from.  This will increase the foraging force of the split and lessen the foragers in the big one. 


here's the bee math page from michael bush: http://www.bushfarms.com/beesmath.htm

Caste Hatch Cap Emerge


Queen 3½ days 8 days +-1 16 days +-1 Laying 28 days +-5

Worker 3½ days 9 days +-1 20 days +-1 Foraging 42 days +-7

Drone 3½ days 10 days +-1 24 days +-1 Flying to DCA 38 days +-5


In the split from last week, I saw a capped queen cell, lots and lots of capped brood, and even some open brood.   I guess the brood must have been from eggs laid while it was still in the old hive.  They had a good amount of bees taking care of everything.  I didn't see any eggs or young brood, but I may just be too blind for that :)

In the big hive, I also found some open brood, and capped brood.  The open brood had some youngish ones, so that makes me think they have a queen.  Plus they were pretty docile and ignored me till the very end...  I didn't look completely through the middle deep once I found some open brood since I didn't want to disturb them that much.  All the empty frames I put in last week were almost completely drawn with fresh white wax.  Amazing!!!  Sorry no pictures.  It was too hot to dilly dally.

So, if I really want to make sure they both have good queens after this, I should wait to make sure that they have brood that came from eggs after the split.  The eggs laid on the day of the split (last Sunday) will all emerge from their cells in about 20 days.  So, I'll check back on both in 2 more weeks, to see if there's any new brood.  Or, if I want to wait for the queen in that capped queen cell, i should check back in 3 weeks.  She should be laying by then. 

Bees!

Finally got around to getting into the big hive. It's 3 deeps and they seemed packed and on the verge of swarming. (I usually checkerboard hives much earlier to prevent this, but life happens.) Found some queen cells: 1 open 2 capped. Moved all into new hive, hope I left the queen in the old one. Hopefully, the old queen hadn't taken off yet, but seems like there wouldn't have been so many bees hanging out if she had. If the stars align, I'll get back in there in a few weeks to make sure all's good. Homer got a nuc last night. So if this all works we'll have 4 hives. Pic above is a frame that hasn't been fully drawn. I don't use foundation, so it's up do them to do what they will.

Before smoking them... what a great sight.

See how white the new wax is? Sorry for the lack of photography skills, but using the camera with thick gloves and all that buzzing is tricky. They were extremely gentle considering how strong the hive is. Makes me think they are still queenright. (Bees w/o a queen get surly.) Yesterday Homer was mowing a spot for the new nuc (nucleus hive) and I stupidly walked over there and a bee from this hive stung me right on the forehead. (Plaintain salve to the rescue.) So, I was glad to see it was only the mower that they don't like. They are fine with me taking their entire hive apart :) More details: Most the brood was in the middle deep. Bottom was mostly filled nectar (backfilling the broodnest?) I took about 9 frames for the new hive with the queen cells and attached bees. Lots of capped brood and honey. Replaced them with empty frames in the old hive. Still some messy comb in the top deep which I can deal with once it's full of capped honey. Told Homer to keep his eye out in case it swarms anyway.

Update: I was reading Michael Bush's website: http://bushfarms.com/beeslazy.htm "Stop cutting out swarm cells. I read the books and I tried to do this when I was young, inexperienced and foolish. The bees soon taught me what a waste of time and effort it was. If the bees have made up their mind to swarm, do a split or put each frame with some swarm cells in a nuc with a frame of honey and get some nice queens. Once they've gone this far, I've never seen them change their mind. Of course the solution was to keep it from getting this far. Keeping the brood nest open while keeping enough expansion room in the supers is the best swarm control I've found. If the brood nest is getting filled with honey, put a couple of empty frames in. Yes, empty. No foundation, nothing. Try it. The bees will build some drone comb, probably the first frame, but after that they'll draw some very nice worker brood and the queen will have it layed up before the whole comb is even drawn or even full depth. You'll be shocked how quickly they can do this and how it distracts them from swarming."

Fortunately, the frames I took from the broodnest, I replaced with empty frames.

Chicken of the woods

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Spring - March 27, 2010

Sand plums at the north end with honey bees.