So, What Happened?

I haven't posted to the blog in a long time, over a month now. I just haven't had my heart in it. The new replacement queen I bought didn't make it. She never was freed from her cage - why? I will never know exactly - perhaps it's too late in the season, perhaps the other bees in the hive were distracted, perhaps there is something else that caused it. Whatever the reason, the end result is that she was never freed, and now there is no queen in this hive, and despite trying yet again to purchase another queen within 10 days of this last purchase, now it IS too late. The suppliers are not shipping this late into the season, it is too cold.

So what happens now? Well, without a queen in the hive, there are no new bees being born. As the hive bees die off naturally from old age, and without new bees being born daily to replace them, the hive slowly dies off. It may be a poor analogy; but, it becomes like an old age/nursing home, excepts that it lacks the attendants, and there are no new residents coming in. I suspect that by mid-December it will be a bee-less hive. A home without occupants.

The typical lifecycle of a worker bee is: egg (3 days), larva (6 days) and pupa (12 days) for a total of 21 days from egg (baby) to adult worker.

The average age for a worker bee (excluding the winter months) is 45 to 60 days ... longer during the winter months as they nominally cluster around the queen in the hive to maintain heat.

A week ago I went into the hive to see what was going on. There were still bees in there; but, not many. I'd guess probably 300-400. So if I work a timeline backwards, I would assume that those bees were born perhaps 30 days before, or around the beginning of October, those eggs would have been laid about the end of the first week or so in September. Looking back at my blog posts, I was writing about doing the sugar dustings back then, and I know I had a thriving bee population at that time. Conclusion? My guess is that somehow, perhaps as I was moving supers around, pulling a frame, and doing the sugar dusting, I must have inadvertently crushed and killed my original queen. I reason that had she swarmed off, there would have been a successor left in her place, and there wasn't. So somehow this queen perished, and without a queen, the hive is doomed.

So, lessons learned the hard way, I will start over again in the spring. This time around, I will get that second hive setup and maintain both hives. With a year's experience behind me (older and hopefully wiser), I can then check and compare the status of each hive. I will pay more attention to my dusting technique, and hopefully the outcome next year will be different.

Yes, I am disappointed with this year's outcome.


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She's Arrived ... Are we all ready?

It's Friday the 15th, and the queen has arrived via 2nd day UPS. There were 5 attendants with her - only 4 survived the trip/treatment to get here.


The weather here today is a nor'easter storm of wind and rain, with the temperature at a warmish 54. There have been a few breaks in the rain and sun rays would show up off and on for periods of time. I decided that the quicker I got the queen into the hive, the better the chances of survival for both she and the entire hive. I am following Bob's advice and removing all but one attendant and her queen in the cage. I poked a good sized hole in the candy plug, created a wire hanger for the cage so I can suspend it between some frames and plodded out to the hive.



I didn't waste any time in getting down to the bottom deep. It was good to see a fair amount of bees sitting on top of some frames. I didn't bother with a smoker today as I wanted to be in and out quickly. I noticed that as soon as I started to pull a frame, a few bees had other ideas about me being there and immediately began to buzz my face , arms, and hands. I pulled the end frame out, slid four others over a bit and made room for the queen cage. The coat hanger wire piece I fashion for the top worked perfectly as I suspend the cage in the center between frames. As soon as I moved the queen into place, it was obvious that quite a few of the bees in the area could smell the new bee (newbie?) and began to focus on her and not me. I closed up the hive, took that 10th frame with me to store inside for 3 or 4 days till the queen is hopefully freed, then after pulling the empty cage, there will be room again for it in the hive.


It's late in the year to be doing this (I believe) yet, it's about my only shot at trying to keep this hive going through the winter into spring - fingers crossed that it will work.


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Confirmation

On Monday 11 Oct, I went into the hive again, this time with Bob looking at each frame with me. We did not see the queen. Bob then uncapped one of the lone capped brood cells that were there on a frame, and it was dead. It would appear that there hasn't been a laying queen there in quite a while, and certainly not enough nurse bees to keep up. Without new bee eggs being laid daily, and without new bees being born daily, it's easy to see how the hive population can quickly dwindle down in size ... as the older bees naturally end their life cycle, there are no new ones to replace them, and the hive population shrinks.

I did have a number of full frames that had wax capped honey and liquid syrup on them (and a couple of wax moths we squished in place). We proceeded to condense the hive down to a single deep - picking the best and most developed frames that have honey on them and placed them in this one deep ... added a mite treatment (Apiguard) that Bob had some excess of for me (thanks), and reassembled in this order: bottom board, condensed deep, medication on top, 1" spacer frame, top feeder, inner cover, the other deep (giving the bees a chance to clean out cells that have honey or syrup in them), and finally the top cover.

I went online and researched several sites to see if I could acquire another queen this late in the year. I found Rossman Apiaries in GA (1-800-333-7677) who will 2nd day a queen to me. I want to try it even if there is little chance of success in getting the queen fully mated this late in the season. So delivery is slated for Friday afternoon. Of course as timings go, we are due for heavy rain on Friday; so, I will install the queen on Saturday and sit back and hope for the best.

... and I thought it was going so well. ( It all adds to the education of this newbee beekeeper.)

What happened????

I went into the hive on Saturday Oct 9 to do a status check. I have been seeing far fewer bees flying in and out of the hive and I was beginning to get worried.

My worst fears were true ... No sign of the queen, only a few capped brood (for all intents and purposes, there were no brood), no eggs, no larvae, looks like plenty of pollen being packed, lots of honey waiting to be set, lots of wax capped honey, but very few bees - at least to what I had been experiencing all year to date. I don't believe they swarmed on me, otherwise I would expect to be seeing some sort of replacement queen, eggs, larvae, and plenty of worker bees. My guess is that somehow, the queen has died (could it have been my heavy hand when doing the sugar dusting?, particularly the first time when I separated the deeps and sugar dusted each one? I don't know, doubt I ever will. The immediate problem is that I see this hive dwindling down in resources, and no queen to keep laying to build up the hive. What to do? I'll try to reach Bob, my mentor and see what he thinks ... In the meantime, I will add the top feeder back in place, and put some sugar syrup on there along with some Honey Be Healthy medication.


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Another sugar dusting

Exactly one week later, here I am back again for another sugar dusting. I have removed the medium honey super till spring,am gently brushing those bees on the frames back into the deep and proceeded to give another sugar dusting, this time only the top deep. After 10 - 15 minutes, I looked at the bottom board and again saw quite a few mites! So glad I'm doing this treatment.

I have somehow misplaced my entrance reducer from earlier this year, so I made one up and reduced the entrance to 2 small openings.

All seems fine, and I'll return in a week or so for another treatment, probably preceded by a complete hive inspection.


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Ghosted Bees and the Varroa Mites - 9/4

I had been a bit concerned about the hive's susceptibility to varroa mites and wax moths ever since I saw a couple on the bottom board a while back. Here's what has recently happened ...

I had participated in a bee club hive dive last Sunday and we went into 3 hives over at Akin Back Farm in Franklin ... finding varroa mites on drone larvae in each of those hives, I knew I had better take a serious look at my own hive. My first opportunity to look came on Saturday, the day after the hurricane/tropical storm Earl came breezing through. Thankfully Earl had fizzled out before it arrived here and all we had was some rain and a bit of wind. Saturday had some left over wind but otherwise was bright, sunny, and about 80 degrees. Pulling the bottom board out from the hive, I could see that there were several varroa mites on the board (no moths) and decided then and there to treat the bees. Although bees may be able to manage the mite infestation a bit by themselves, if the mites get too much control, it apparently can result in wing deformation of new bees, slowly and ultimately ending in the demise of the hive as it loses it's bee force of foragers to bring in the pollen and nectar food sources to sustain the hive. I had been reading about a sugar dusting treatment and decided to give that a go - it uses confectioner's or powdered sugar as a method. Apparently by coating or dusting the bees with the confectionery sugar, it causes some of the mites to fall off the bees as the sugar gets in their suction cup feet, can no longer hold onto the bee, fall off and go through the screen bottom out of the hive, it also causes the bees to groom themselves and each other, also making the mites fall off. It obviously doesn't get at the mites that are attached to the larvae, so it requires several treatments over about a month's time to be effective and catch a lot of the mite life cycle. I built a small frame the same size as the hive L x W and stapled some screening across it. With confectionery sugar, screen, bee brush, hive tool, and smoker in hand, I suited up and approached the hive.

Removing the top cover, I also removed the honey super that I had on top - although there were bees crawling over all 10 of the frames in there, it's been on there for a good 8 weeks now and it's clear that this late in the year, the bees are not building any comb ... no honey for me this year, oh well; but, now is time to try to help the bees get ready to survive the winter. I pulled the queen excluder off and looked at the topmost deep, seeing that I had bees heavily loaded between each of the frames - a good sign. Lots of propolis made it difficult to just lift and pull a frame - fortunately that is where the hive tool helps. Looking at several of the frames, I can see capped brood, some pollen, some uncapped and some capped honey, and new larvae ... Didn't spot the queen; but also, didn't spend lots of time searching for her either. I aligned the screened fame that I built on top, and poured about 1 to 1 1/2 cups of confectionery sugar on top of the screen, using the bee brush, I evenly spread it across the screen to get sugar onto and into the 10 frames ... This stirred up lots of activity from below and from the entrance board area and because it was a bit breezy, some of the sugar got in the air, all of a sudden there were hundreds of bees all around me, confused I am sure by what was happening to them.

I had difficulty separating the 2 deeps even using the hive tool; but, with effort I lifted the topmost deep and set it aside so I could treat the bottom deep. Surprisingly, although each frame was covered in bees, the frames in the bottom deep were mostly pollen stores, I don't recall seeing young larvae down there ... I'll have to look up what this means, I would have thought the bottom would mirror what I saw in the top. I then proceeded to sugar dust the bottom deep in the same manor as I did the top. Now there were bees flying everywhere!

Reassembling everything, I could see why the sugar dusting was also referred to as ghosting the bees, because with a coating of confectionery sugar on them, they looked like they had donned white ghost costumes.

The treatment approach I read was that you return to the hive some 10 minutes or more after you complete the dusting, remove the bottom board and do an inspection to see how many mites have fallen ... this count gives you an indication of the infestation level. So I pulled the bottom board out, and sure enough, sprinkled on top of the sugar that had fallen through the hive were I would guess hundreds of varroa mites - these little red/orange colored parasites that suck the bee blood. So the treatment seemed to work nicely. I scraped off the board into the compost heap, and proceeded to try another item I had read about - that of using a cooking spray (e.g. - Pam) as an adhesive coating on the bottom board. I sprayed up the bottom board, reinstalled it. The mites will continue to fall and be trapped for my count in the "adhesive" spray.

Looking now at the front of the hive, the ghosted bees were all over the front. Fortunately as the day went on, they had completed their grooming and returned to their normal tasks. By the end of the day, the hive appeared as normal again.

I should do another sugar dusting in about 10 days time.

I found her

July 11

Still not much happening with the honey super, although there were more bees up there than last Monday when I last checked. I looked at most of the frames on the upper deep and this time I definitely saw lots of standing eggs, and I found the queen! I am relieved. I buttoned things up and will let them do their own thing for probably at least 10-14 days before I go in again. Nice job ladies. Can you spot the queen? [ hint; she is only in 1 of the 3 pictures on this post]

1st Inspection of the honey super

July 5.

On June 22, 13 days ago, I shifted a couple of outside frames around inside the uppermost deep in the hope of getting some additional comb development. Also knowing that I'd be on vacation and not be around for the week of June 28, I added the queen excluder and a honey (medium) super to the hive, hoping to see them begin to move into the honey super for me while I was gone. I 've been anxious to check to see if much was happening with those changes. The weather had turned to become very hot 95 degrees on a couple of days, and we'd not had rain in well over 10 days. Today was also one of those days - 94 degrees, and the girls certainly were active ... buzzing in and out of the hive entrance, with many sitting on the entrance board fanning the hive. I was glad that I had incorporated Bob's tip of raising the top cover with small stones. I hope that helped them more easily regulate the hive temperature in the heat. I'd also occasionally drizzle some water over the top of the hive allowing it to drip down to the entrance board ... combination of cooling and drinking.

So I removed the top cover and the inside cover to look at the honey super. Several hundred bees were on probably half of the frames; but, I couldn't easily see any comb development. I had inadvertently made the task of looking at the comb development easier on the deep frames because I had purchased the dark black Pierco frames and the white/yellowish comb was easy to pick up on. The frames I have for the honey super were the yellowish Pierco frames - there may have been some comb development but I couldn't see much there. Regardless, it was good to see the bees on the frames, I assume that means they are paying attention to them and in good time they will beging honey storage.

I removed the honey super, the queen excluder and began looking only at a few of the frames in the top deep. I think they have nicely developed the comb now in all of those frames. Several of them seemed really full of capped honey. I could see lots of capped brood, several "C" shaped larvae, and I think I could see some eggs, it was hard to see by then because of the sweat pouring off my face into my eyes/glasses under the veil. I will do a more thorough inspection hopefully on this next weekend coming up. I didn't spot the queen; but, in fairness, I only looked at 3 or 4 of the 20 frames in the deeps.

After the dogs (Baker and Chuisle) got stung by playing with a ball too close to the hive entrance, I decided to add some chicken wire fencing as a bit of a barrier to the hive.

Adding a honey super (medium)

Bob R. offered to walk through a hive inspection with me today (we got rained out at a first attempt over a week ago). I wanted the opportunity to get his seasoned eyes and ears on my hive to be sure I hadn't been overlooking anything here in my first year. It was an interesting contrast in the two of us ... here I am the novice, in long pants, long sleeved shirt, bee jacket, mid arm length gloves, hat and veil ... Bob is in a tee shirt ... carrying a half jacket with a hooded veil "in case they get ornery". He never got stung.

We went through both deeps, pulling each of the 20 frames and never spotted the queen. We saw lots of examples that she has been around ... lots of eggs in many many frames at both levels of deeps, lots of brood too. She must have moved faster than we were able to spot her. The hive looked great to me, and Bob concurred. Many frames had lots of capped honey on them. We removed one cell - was it a drone cell or was it a queen cell? Better not take chances of a swarm, so Bob suggested that we just remove it by cutting it out (which we did). Bob gave me lots of little tips as we went along ... like leave the top cover flat on the ground so you have a nice surface to place the deep on ... and leave the smoker on the ground in a direction that the wind is coming from so that the smoke will continue to drift over the hive during your inspection

In the end, we ended up moving a few of the outside frames that weren't fully comb developed into the middle of the deeps so that the bees would draw out the comb for either honey /pollen storage or brood development. We ended up putting all back together, placing the queen extruder on, adding a medium honey super, and removing the syrup feeder. He also showed me a trick of propping up the top cover by 1/4 to 1/2 of an inch by placing 4 or 5 stones on the inner cover/under the top cover. Placing slightly larger stones in the back allows for a sloping arrangment of space and air circulation.

Some other observations:

• I found a very large black beetle dead on the floor of the hive ... amazingly large - obviously the bees took care in being sure this one did no damage to the hive.


• We watched in amazement on many of the frames - particularly the lower deep - where a bee was communicating with her bee dance. It was quite amusing.


• We removed the bottom board and Bob pointed out a single mite there ... something I will continue to keep my eyes open for
  
• We did find a few obvious drone cells at the bottom of a few frames.

I am thankful for Bob being here today. His tips and tricks will help me in the future. His vote of confidence in the hive reassures me that my observations are spot on. His calmness and control without hat/veil/jacket/gloves is encouraging - although I am not yet sure I am ready to forego my safety equipment. I did remove my hat and veil after I had the hive all buttoned up. I was still standing next to the hive. It was hot and my head/face had been sweating - all of a sudden I first heard and then felt bees landing on my head ... they were just capturing and taking the moisture off my head. No worries.

It was a rewarding early evening hive inspection - thank you Bob!

Although I go out and check on the bees at least once on a daily basis, I usually just observe them from a distance of 5 or 6 feet to the front of the hive entrance as they fly in and out. As long as I see lots of movement, and as long as I see forager/worker bees returning with pollen bags full, I know that things are "OK" inside the hive. The bees would not be bringing food into the hive for storage unless there were good signs of egg laying and bee development going on. The hive population must really be exploding about now given that I added the second deep on May 20th.I did remove the entrance reducer altogether on the 13th of June to give them more feedom to go in and out.

So it's been a while since I have been inside the hive. I decided last night about 7:30 to take a look. And although my smoker died out again on me midway through the quick inspection (I was in the hive for less than 10 min total) I was able to look at the top brood chamber and see lots of eggs, lots of larvae, and I found the queen again. There are a lot of bees inside, all actively working frames. As I pulled a frame or two, I'd peer inside down to the first level, and those are also full of bees. Life appears to be going good for this group of bees in this hive. I plan on purchasing a third deep this weekend, and adding it as soon as I have it painted up. I'm lead to believe by a local friend Bob, who has been beekeeping for more than 20 years, that this hive appears strong enough to get to a third deep before I worry about a queen excluder and a honey super for my reaping of honey. He also recommends going into the winter with 3 deeps ... his advice I will follow.

I tried to take a video of my actions yesterday, and although I might impove the angle/perspective better in the future by mounting the camera on a tripod, this seems to work OK by setting it down on my spare hive. I like this little Flip camera - seems to work well.

[difficulties in getting this video attached]

A warm muggy Sunday (6/6/10) T storms and rain off and on all day.

One week with the second deep

It's Thursday the 27th of May, and it's been a week since I've added the second deep. I've been itching to see how they are doing - have they expanded upward?

Well the outer most frames each have more than a few bees on them, and as I get closer to the center, as you can see, there comb is being built out nicely. They all seem really focused. almost as if I am not there (which is nice).
As I removed the top deep to take a better look at the 1st level deep, the bees were not as happy with me. Several were pinging off my veil, and I was glad I had it on. The fact that I had to separate several frames that had burr comb built on it, probably was the key factor - they seemed fine until I disturbed the comb. My smoker while initally lit and working fine had begun to peter out on me - turns out I burned all the pinecone and needles in the smoker :( ... so I took a deep breath and just persevered. I escaped again without being stung. It's interesting that the bottom deep still has little comb built on frames 1 and 2 ... perhaps the orientation of the entrance facing more S, SW has to do with it? Many frames were heavy to lift, and seemed packed with capped honey. I once again found the queen, and seeing lots of eggs and larvae stages, I felt secure that the hive seemed in order. I put the second deep back on top, along with the top frame feeder, freshly topped off with 1:1 sugar syrup.

Size comparison - drone vs worker bee

Here is a fairly good photo showing a side by side comparison of a (female) worker bee on the left and a (male) drone bee on the right.  Note that the drone is much larger and also appears to have no space between the eyes.

I made the newspaper.

I was "interviewed" by staff writer Julie Cohen of the Norwood Transcript & Bulletin via a series of Q & A's. I think it's a great article - click on this link: This hobby is the bee's knees The article in the newspaper had 2 pictures in it - these do not appear on the web view.

Adding on a second story ... another deep

Thursday 20 May Unexpectantly being home at lunchtime today (a water main break on the street where the elementary school is, forced a cancellation of school mid-morning, so I am home with Colin) I was able to spend some time with the bees at lunch. The single deep has well developed comb on 6.5 of the 10 frames. The hive entrance faces due south and the 3 eastern most frames have bees on them, but little comb development at the moment. It's a beautiful sunny day with nary a cloud in the sky and a temperature of almost 75 degrees by 12:30 - the girls are very active today flying in and out of the hive. I decided that being away this weekend for the annual (35th this year) GEOGE golf tournament, I should consider adding another deep super rather than risk the thought of swarming while I am gone. So after an initial inspection of the hive, I have added a second deep to the top of the hive. Lots of room for expansion. The bees seemed to be in a good mood today - no one seemed really concerned that I was in there. My smoker once again didn't stay lit, so it's a good thing the girls seemed calm and collected. I pulled and looked over 5 frames - never did see the queen, although I saw lots of larvae and lots of eggs. I grabbed some photos as I went along, and in reviewing those photos, I found the queen! I need to be more observant! She's about in the middle of this picture with the blue dot.

I think the comb looks great. I can find lots of eggs, and lots of developed larvae, capped cells, and pollen cells.

A very interesting couple of things happened as I was putting the top frame feeder back on top of the now double high deeps ... first I saw 2 bees obviously battling each other, finally ending up with one fly away with the other in it's grasp ... could this have been robbing going on? I did have the feeder with sugar syrup exposed to the air for quite a lengthy period of time ... perhaps 10 min? The other thing was when I placed the feeder back on top of the supers, with a min or so, the sound coming from the feeder area increased in volume and pitch ... very noticeably. As I bent my ear closer to the area, and gazed in for a look, I couldn't believe what I was seeing ... the bees seemed to be just standing in place(s) and slowly beating their wings - as if they were trying to cool the area down. I took my little digital camera and attempted to capture some of what I was looking at - hopefully you can see it here . The comb you see here in the feeder is brace comb I scraped from the inner cover.

Adding syrup to the feeder

It's Thursday and it's been a great sunny warm day.  I checked on the bees when I got home tonight and there was a lot of hive activity.  It's going to get cooler and will rain tomorrow. I'm worried that there isn't enough syrup in the top frame feeder to keep them for the day, so I decided to add some.  It takes a while to make up the syrup - 5 lbs sugar to dissolve in 2.5 qts of boiling water.  It takes longer to let it cool enough to put in the feeder - even if you try to force cool it by placing it in the freezer.  By the time I was able to get out to the hive with the syrup, it was 7:35, and the sunset tonight was at 7:58.  The temperature had dropped to about 57 degrees F and the hive activity had really dropped off when I got there.  Hat, veil, gloves, no suit, no smoker.  I thought I'd just crack open the top cover a bit and pour in the syrup ... yeah, right ... curiousity is a powerful thing and I fully pulled the top cover off to see what was going on inside.  The bees were very VERY docile.  I might have gotten away with no protective gear; but, I realize that is a bad practice to get into.  Surprisingly I did resist the urge to pull the feeder off and then look at a few frames - I'll do that this weekend.  The bees that were in the feeder area hardly flexed a wing muscle or noticed I was there.  I poured the syrup in evenly on both sides, replaced the top cover and the task was done!

A half hour later while sitting in the "sun room" on the back of the house doing email I heard what is now a familiar "buzzzzzzzZZZZZZzzzzzzzz" ... apparently one of the girls came in on my clothing.  I tried to catch her to and give her a custom "limo" ride back to her abode; but by the time I came back in the room with a glass and index card to catch her, she flew in amongst the indoor plants and has apparently settled down given the temperature and lack of daylight.  I can't find her and I can't hear her - perhaps tomorrow in the morning light she will become active enough for me to find her.

Books about Bees or Beekeeping

I've done quite a bit of reading in preparation for this first year of beekeeping.  Here is a list or those books I own and read, or (from memory) those I have borrowed from the library and read. I love beeing married to the Director of a public library.  I also included a few books I hope to find to read.  I highly recommend the book The Queen Must Die and Other Affairs of Bees and Men - it is not a how to book, just a great read about the daily life or ethnography of bees.

Charlie

Saturday 8 May 2010.  I'm going to start this blog entry with a quick hello to a 6 year old young lady from England named Charlie, who I understand, likes to read about my bees.  I hope to one day meet her.  Maybe if the bees allow me some honey at the end of their year, I can find a way to send her some of my first year honey.  Who knows, perhaps one day she'll become a beekeeper herself and save the bees or the world ... or convince her Mom and Dad to begin keeping bees.

The day here started with thunderstorms, and near continuous rain till about 2:30.  When it stopped and warmed up a bit, I saw some bee flight activity.  Now was the opportunity to check on them.  I probably took a bit of a chance by wearing only the hat and veil netting and gloves; but, successfully did the hive inspection without getting stung (still). For the future, I must store some pine cones and pine needles inside someplace to keep them dry - this is the fuel I use for the smoker.  The rain made it nearly impossible to start, and sure enough by the time I had finished the inspection, it had gone out . Overall they have started to draw some level of comb out on 8 of the 10 frames.  The 2 outermost frames (#1 and #10) really don't have much happening to them yet.  The outermost of the 8  (#2 and #9)are really just beginning to store pollen. You can see the bright yellow pollen stores here on frame #2.

I found the queen without any problem.  She really does not like the light of day and was quickly scurrying to get to the other side - I did capture her here (blue dot).  Notice her size in comparison to the other bees - about 20 - 25% bigger than her female workers ... longer and fatter.  I don't think I see any drones here in this photo.

The top feeder is still being heavily used.  There is syrup still in it.  I probably should have topped it off; but, I didn't have any sugar syrup prepared because I thought it was going to rain all day and didn't really think I'd get inside the hive to check on them.  Tomorrow is supposed to be windy with gusts to 35 mph, certainly not a good day to be checking flying insects. Maybe I can quickly remove the top cover and pour some medicated feed in there.

I can really feel the weight difference now in the center most frames.  I can see that the 3 or 4 center most frames now have some capped cells.  I can also see that the queen is actively laying eggs - they look like tiny grains of white rice - very visible here in the photo below. 

I can also see where some have grown into quite large larvae - these are the ones that look like a large fat, white "C".  All these bees are nurse bees attending to the brood.

I think they are doing fine!

Some bee facts that might be interesting

There are three types of honey bees in the hive: the queen, the workers, and the drones.

The Queen:

• Will live normally between 1 and 4 years.
• Is fed royal jelly by the workers.
• Has a non-barbed stinger.
• Can lay in excess of 1,500 eggs per day.
• Without a queen, the colony will eventually die.
• Develops in 16 days.

The Workers:

• Can number between 40,000-60,000 in a strong colony.
• Are all females.
• Perform a multitude of tasks including: Tending to the queen, feeding larvae, feeding drones, ripening nectar, producing heat, collecting water for cooling, housecleaning, guard duty, and field collection of pollen, propolis, and nectar.
• Will die if she stings. Has a barbed stinger that is left behind.
• Will live 6-8 weeks in summer, working until her wings give out.
• Will live 4-6 months in winter when not actively working/foraging.
• Develop in 21 days

The Drones:

• Sole responsibility is fertilization.
• Leave the hive for 2-3 hours each day.
• Have no stingers.
• If the workers stopped feeding the drones, they would starve.
• Develop in 24 days.

 General Facts

• A single bee may collect 1/12 teaspoon of honey in a lifetime.
• To make one pound of honey, bees may need to fly 50,000 miles.
• Honey bees may forage up to 2-5 miles from the hive.
• Bees do not hibernate, but cluster for warmth and remain active in winter.
• Bees will maintain an internal cluster temp of 92 degrees in the coldest part of winter, while rearing brood.
• Bees will disconnect their wings allowing themselves to pump their wing muscle to provide heat.
• Bees will fly outside the hive when temps rise above 50 degrees.
• A beekeeper's main tools are a protective veil, smoker, and hive tool.
• Smoke inhibits alarm pheromones from alerting other bees. They also gorge themselves as their instinct tells them that a fire is approaching and if they need to flee, they want to take as much resources as possible.
• A beekeeper harvests the extra honey the bees provide beyond what they need to survive. The record harvested from one colony was 404 pounds from the Aebis family in 1974.
• Raw honey contains many beneficial minerals and vitamins. Honey also has antibacterial properties and anti-oxidant benefits. Many claim relief from allergy symptoms by using local raw honey containing pollen.
• There are many varieties of honey. From orange blossom produced in the South, award winning Tupelo, clover and alfalfa, to apple and blueberry.
• Honey comes as extracted or liquid, creamed, or in the comb.
• We only produce about 50% of the honey we consume in the U.S.
• Honey bees pollinate 1/3 of all fruits and vegetables.
• There are about 1/2 the number of beekeepers there were 25 years ago.
• We have lost about 1/3 of the colonies we had 25 years ago.
• For every 100 beekeepers, 95% are hobbyists, 4% sideliners, and less than 1% are fulltime or commercial beekeepers.
• Beekeeping can be a sustainable endeavor.
• Beekeeping produces the most "green" sweetener you can buy locally or produce yourself.
• Besides honey, you can harvest beeswax, propolis, and pollen.
• Renting bee hives to farmers in need of pollination generates a source of income for some beekeepers.
• Beekeeping is dated at least 4500 years.
• Beehives are kept on farms, in backyards, on balconies and high-rise rooftops, and all areas across the country.
• Honey Bees are kept or managed in all 50 states.
• There are local, county, state, and national bee associations.

Frame explanation

Taking the time this morning to really look at one of the pictures I quickly took one-handed while the other hand was firmly grasping a brood frame, I was amazed at what I had captured. You can see the queen - she's the one with the blue dot painted on her back. You can purchase a marked queen so you can easily spot her in the hive. They use different color markings for each year so that you can also tell her age. Typically a good queen lives only 3 or 4 years. The color for 2010 is obviously blue.

The hive started with plain foundation for the bees to build their comb onto. In the corner of the photo, you can see this plain foundation. Looking elsewhere in the photo, you can see where the comb is being drawn out. You can also see the pollen stores (yellow) inside the comb cell. Additionally you can see the clear syrup stores - I assume that this is simply a transfer from the top frame feeder, I think stored nectar has more of a yellow hue to it.

She's free and the hive looks great!

Didn't get back to the hive here till ~2:00 pm. Sunny, temperature about 80 F, lots of activity at the hive. Anxious to see if the queen has been freed and what the inside of the hive looks like. Made up 2.5 qts of sugar syrup for the top frame feeder, started the smoker, protective gear on, and off I go. Charlotte is following me out, and staying at a safe distace she's taking some pictures of me with the hive. I am anxious to take a look inside and see the queen, but, not nervous all about being stung. Approaching the hive from the rear, I puffed the smoker at the front entrance on both sides. I lifted a corner of the top cover and smoked a few puffs there too. Completely pulling off the top cover, I can see where I squished 2 bees a week ago as I put the cover on - must be more careful this week.

Not much syrup left in the feeder. It's a good thing I prepared some fresh syrup for them.

I removed the feeder, pulled off the inner cover, I had the space side down which had left room for bees between the top of the frames and the inner cover, this is now totally covered in bees ... I'm smiling to see them all there!

Smoke the top of the frames ... great buzzing hum coming from the hive body!

I can see the queen cage, some burr comb is to either side of it ... a good sign! As I remove the cage, there is no queen ... she's freed! I carefully pull out a frame, and quickly catch a glimpse of the marked queen before she scoots out of the daylight. This frame is beginning to have the comb built out on it.

I hold the frame up and carefully look at it, I can see the pollen stores, at least 2 different shades of yellow. I can see what I assume is sugar water stored in numerous other cells. I didn't notice eggs; but, then again, I didn't look very hard ... just thrilled to see all looks OK. I carefully put that frame back in place and pulled out the one next to it. It looks nearly identical, comb being built out on both sides. I scrape off as best I can the excess burr comb before placing it back in the hive. All told it looks like 4 frames have comb being built out.

The feeling of holding the frames with multiple hundreds of bees on each side is hard to describe. There is an inner calm that comes over me as I am standing there. This is nature at it's rawest form. I am part of saving the bees ... feels pretty good too!

So I carefully put everything back together, fill the feeder with syrup. I am careful this time placing the top cover back on. Done. Now, let them alone for perhaps 2 weeks depending on the weather. I might open the entrance up a bit; but other than that I'll just sit there with my binocs or camera.

It's Saturday May 1 and 7 full days have gone by since I installed the bees in the hive. Although yesterday was plenty warm enough to do a hive check, I didn't get back home till after 7 which is really too late to start gathering things together. There was still plenty of bee activity in and out of the hive through all the way till sunset.

The morning was gorgeous here - bright and warm and as I sat opposite the entrance to the hive watching the bees go in and out, I thought I could see pollen sacs full. With my eyesight and the quickness to which the bees would land and go in the entrance, I needed to get my binoculars out to really see what was going on. A quick look, then off to get the camera. Nice to see them carrying in basket after basket of pollen.

Although Thursday early evening was warm enough to see some hive activity, it was too windy to consider opening the hive. Wind gusts to 45 mph. Today will reach the low 70's but I'm off to the golf club, so I'll have to wait now till Saturday to check them out.

Is the queen free yet?

This is day 5. It's been cold and dreary here the past few days and the bees (I hope) are all huddled up inside the hive. They won't fly if it's less than 55 F and yesterday morning we started with a frost, followed by cold rain all day and through the night. I did go out to give a quick look at the hive; but, no activity. I won't remove the top cover and let out valuable heat when it's this cold - so I wait, somewhat impatiently. This morning is bright and sunny but still cold at 42 F - no one is to be seen at the entrance reducer. Hopefully tonight when I come back it'll be warm enough to check on them. I need to know 2 things ... is the queen free yet and how much syrup is left in the top frame feeder? If the queen is free, then I need to remove her cage and rearrange the frames for even spacing. If she's not free - is she still alive or was there some other issue? If she is alive, 5 days should have been enough for her to be freed - guess I'll do the task for her by removing the candy plug. I'll then ever so quickly look to see if any comb is being drawn out, top off the feeder with syrup, close up the hive and leave them alone for a week.

First full day

So much for the rain; but, I can't complain too much. I was out checking on the bees first thing this morning, and sure enough they were out and about. Buzzing here and there in the air, I couldn't see if they were all flying off in the same direction or not. I found some on the crab apple tree blossoms, and some on the pink phlox. They'd come in and settle for a while on the landing strip, mill around a bit, and either walk into the hive or buzz off again. I dared not get too close (10-12 feet) for fear of setting off an early alarm. I figured they had enough to worry about with a new house, new environment, new queen, and an urgent need to build up comb without worrying about this 210+ lb monster getting in their way.



One of the things I look forward to is just sitting and observing them as they go about their business. Fortunately a nice long lens allows me to get close without being right in their faces.

It's nice to get some photos early on.

The bees have arrived ... all 10,000 of them

In theory I should still be in Ireland with Charlotte, but due to the volcano eruption in Iceland, that trip was cancelled. We opted to take the week off anyway and spent a day in Princeton, 2 days in Philadelphia, 2 days in Baltimore, and ending with a day in Newport, RI. This meant we were home mid-day Saturday vs late Sunday night and I was able to get the bees earlier than expected from a friend who, in my absence, was kind enough to pick them up for me. I had some experienced help lined up to assist me with the installation; but, that was when the plan was to do them on Monday or Tuesday. Today (Saturday) was sunny and warm, and the forecast for the next 3 days was for rain, so I decided that now was best the time to install the bees. After 2 years of reading and preparing for bees, the day has finally arrived.

A 3 lb box of bees is amazing ... 2 sides are screened, the top has holes cut out to accept a can of sugar water to nourish them during transport, and another hole that houses the queen cage - both are covered with an added piece of wood to secure them in place. Peering in the sides, and looking at the shapes of the bees all tightly clustered in the center around the can of sugar water, I'd never picture that I have 10,000 bees in there. Interesting buzz sound from the bees ... and it gets louder as they are exposed to light.

So off I go ... I made up a fresh solution of 5 lbs sugar to 2.5 qts water, and allowed it to cool off to be ready to use. The hive is ready, top frame feeder is ready, all frames in place, tools together, protective equipment ready ... deep breath. It's 4:40 PM as I brought the bees into more light, the buzzing sound grew louder, yet as soon as I "painted" the sides with a brush saturated in the sugar solution, they quieted right down ... nice. Out into the back yard I go, hat, veil, gloves on ... pulled off the added piece of wood on the top, and carefully removed the queen's cage. quite a few more bees followed her out, so I placed the loose wood back on top. I bought a marked queen so I could easily distinguish her highness from the crowd of female workers and few male drones. She was shipped with a few attendants along side of her in the cage. Removing a staple from one side of the metal cap covering the candy plug, I bent the cap over for use in suspending the cage between a couple of frames. After carefully making a slight indentation in the candy with a nail, I placed the cage between 2 frames. So far, easy task. I had quite a few bees buzzing around me, yet surprisingly I was calm, not a hint of anxiety or panic. The next step was the big test

I prepared a well for the rest of the bees by pulling 2 frames out of the hive. Going back to the package, I removed the wood and carefully pried out the sugar water can. It was more full than I thought and it took a fair amount of effort and patience to get my fingers around it. As soon as that can was out, so came quite a few more bees. Remembering what I had read and what I had viewed on numerous YouTube videos, I quickly knocked the box on the ground to shake the bees to the bottom, then inverted the box over the well and proceeded to pour the bees into the hive. A few hand knocks on the wooded sides, and angling the box back and forth a bit, I felt like I had most of the bees out. I already had the hive opening reducer set to the smallest opening, so I leaned the bee box up against the opening and proceeded to go back to the frames. I carefully brushed most of the bees from the top of the frames into the well, then carefully added back both frames into the hive. I set the inner cover in place, put the top hive feeder on top and stood there in awe. I did it!!! Yes there were hundreds of bees buzzing all around me, but I felt very comfortable standing there. I went back to get the sugar water, poured it in place, then set the telescoping top cover in place. 5:10 PM

As the day wore on, I would periodically go out, look around, see that I had bees going in and out of the hive. I noticed that those flying about, and those hanging out at the hive entrance were fewer and fewer as the temperature dropped towards sunset. By twilight, there were only 3 or 4 at the hive entrance, all others presumably were in the hive, cozy and warm, checking over their new home.

Success!