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.