So now there's an empty spot in my backyard where the nuc used to be...
Thursday, July 15, 2010
I sold a nuc!
I have three nucs in my back yard, which is one too many than I can use (I can make a new hive with one, and the 2nd nuc is in reserve for requeening the Sutton hive). So I put an ad on Craigslist and within a day I had someone from Essex, CT come up to buy my gray nuc.
So now there's an empty spot in my backyard where the nuc used to be...
So now there's an empty spot in my backyard where the nuc used to be...
Inspection 6-11-2010
I had a chance to inspect the home hives on Sunday. Sorry for no pictures - I am in between cameras (the one I was using is being held together by a rubber band).
The Gray Nuc and the Brown Nuc both showed a lot of bearding. I think that was primarily due to the heat, because when I opened them up, there didn't appear to be a lack of space for bees. Also, there was plenty of room for the queen to lay.
In fact, in the brown nuc the queen was in the upper section and had laid some eggs, as I had planned for her to do. The upper super has medium frames, and the bees'll draw out the foundation like I want.
The White Nuc didn't show any bearding - that's primarily because I built that nuc with a screened bottom board. There was plenty of ventilation available for the bees.
When I took a look in the Green Hive, I saw some good patterns of laying eggs. But I also found some more swarm cells. The bees hadn't brought in any more honey than before, and still have just a frame or 2 of uncapped nectar in the super.
The Brown Hive continues to limp along, with no activity in the honey super, but some good laying in the hive bodies.
I was talking to my wife about what to do about the green hive's desire to swarm. She had a good suggestion: move some frames of brood and bees from the green hive to the brown hive; this will take some pressure off of the green hive, and give the brown hive a boost as well. I also thought to take the queen excluders off of the hives to see if the bees will start using the honey supers. I don't mind at this time if the queen gets up there or not - maybe it'll encourage the bees to do something.
This weekend is the WCBA bee club annual summer picnic. Maybe I'll pick the brains of some of the people there about my problem.
The Gray Nuc and the Brown Nuc both showed a lot of bearding. I think that was primarily due to the heat, because when I opened them up, there didn't appear to be a lack of space for bees. Also, there was plenty of room for the queen to lay.
In fact, in the brown nuc the queen was in the upper section and had laid some eggs, as I had planned for her to do. The upper super has medium frames, and the bees'll draw out the foundation like I want.
The White Nuc didn't show any bearding - that's primarily because I built that nuc with a screened bottom board. There was plenty of ventilation available for the bees.
When I took a look in the Green Hive, I saw some good patterns of laying eggs. But I also found some more swarm cells. The bees hadn't brought in any more honey than before, and still have just a frame or 2 of uncapped nectar in the super.
The Brown Hive continues to limp along, with no activity in the honey super, but some good laying in the hive bodies.
I was talking to my wife about what to do about the green hive's desire to swarm. She had a good suggestion: move some frames of brood and bees from the green hive to the brown hive; this will take some pressure off of the green hive, and give the brown hive a boost as well. I also thought to take the queen excluders off of the hives to see if the bees will start using the honey supers. I don't mind at this time if the queen gets up there or not - maybe it'll encourage the bees to do something.
This weekend is the WCBA bee club annual summer picnic. Maybe I'll pick the brains of some of the people there about my problem.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Bearding Nucs
I just got home from being away for a week of Boy Scout Summer Camp, and the temperatures got in the high 90's - low 100's most of the day (and what felt like the night too!). This is what I came home to:
The weather is so hot that the bees had to park outside the hive so they didn't add to the heat load in the hive. This activity is called "bearding."
I have a 3rd white nuc which wasn't bearding, because that one had a screened bottom board. These 2 nucs are solid boxes, with just a couple of vent holes.
I'll do an inspection tomorrow, and maybe put some Popsicle sticks under the top covers to provide more ventilation.
The weather is so hot that the bees had to park outside the hive so they didn't add to the heat load in the hive. This activity is called "bearding."
I have a 3rd white nuc which wasn't bearding, because that one had a screened bottom board. These 2 nucs are solid boxes, with just a couple of vent holes.
I'll do an inspection tomorrow, and maybe put some Popsicle sticks under the top covers to provide more ventilation.
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Recent Inspections -- sorta honey, queen marked, but 23???
The title will make sense later on :-)
I was out of town for the last week or so, and will be gone next week to a (90-degree-plus) Boy Scout summer camp, so I thought I'd give the hives an inspection.
Sutton Hive 2
I visited this hive late last week, and I knew I needed to bring more feed. Sure enough, the hive had emptied the jars (and propolised up the lids so that I had a hard time removing them!). The hive has a good amount of bees, as can be seen from this picture of the top brood box:
I had a difficult time lifting up the top box from the bottom box - almost as if it were glued together at the frames. Well, when I got it up, here's what I found:
What you are looking at is a ton of brace comb with drone brood in it. I'm not sure if the "bee space" is right or not, but apparently the bees felt the need to add comb between the upper and lower frames. They made it as drone comb, and unfortunately you can see there was a lot of damage. I scraped off everything and we'll see if this happens again. It may be that there is too much space, and I may need to trim down the box. That's a pain in the neck, because I would have to swap the frames into a different box while I do it. I'll keep an eye on things.
Sutton Hive 1
This hive is the one which has the best chance of giving me honey. But so far they haven't completed capping off any honey. Here's a picture of the "best" frame in the super:
You can see it's only about half capped. Other frames in that super are at a similar state. There are 2 shallow supers on the hive, which started out as already-drawn foundation. They are filling them nicely. Underneath those 2 supers is another super with foundation, and they have been very slow in drawing that out.
I also had to do some maintenance on that hive. The hive owner painted the hive body pieces that were unpainted, and I needed to swap them into this hive so he can paint more pieces. I had to move frame by frame the lower hive body to the new body, and I put it on the new base. Here's a picture of the activity in progress:
The bees were seriously not happy with me for doing this! There were hundreds in the air, and I am honestly surprised I didn't get at least one sting out of the experience. But now I have some more hive pieces for the owner to paint (you can see the right hive body in the picture above shows bare wood in spots). Painted beehives last longer.
Home Nucs
This afternoon I gave the home nucs an inspection. The bees have been really flying this week due to the warm weather!
I started with the Grey Nuc, because I wanted to see and mark the queen. Here are a couple of pictures of the nice brood pattern of the queen in this nuc:
My apologies that the second picture is fuzzy - we got a new compact camera and it is definitely going back to the store - I don't like the focus ability (or lack thereof).
I was able to find and grab the queen, and I tried out my new queen marking tube. Here she is after I marked her:
The tube makes it really easy to mark the queen. Basically you catch her, put her in the clear tube, and push up the plunger (which has a piece of foam rubber). You gently trap her against the plastic screen on the top, and touch her with the marking pen. Then you lower the plunger and let the paint dry for a minute. The only problem I had is getting her out of the tube - she was holding on to the screen, and wouldn't go down. I had to give her a shake, and down she went. Now all of my nuc queens are marked.
I moved on to the Brown Nuc, with the fancy painted medium super on top. The bees had been busy in the super, drawing out some of the foundation. You can see so here:
Interesting to note in the picture above is the piece of vertical perpendicular comb the bees built. This comb bridged two of the frames. I suspect they did this because the frame may have had a patch of unwaxed plastic on it.
But in the lower portion of the nuc the queen is laying up a storm. Here's a frame showing a good pattern, with honey along the top:
I had not looked at the White Nuc since I put in the new queen's cage two and a half weeks ago. I left for a week+ of vacation and didn't take out the cage, so I was worried they would fill up the spaces with burr comb, but other than a few bridges, they didn't do to bad. I was able to scrape off the comb and add the empty frame I previously removed to put in the queen cage.
I got some pictures of this queen. I bought her from George O'Neil of the bee club, and like the other queen I bought from him, she is a dark queen. You can see how dark her body is (in the 2nd picture, she has her head in a cell - you can barely see the blue spot). I'll have to ask him about the genetics of his bees next time I see him.
Green Hive
Like I said above, the hives were very busy this past week. So I had my hopes up a little. But it was not to be - I didn't see any changes in the honey collection from past weeks. There is one frame which is pretty full of nectar, but as you can see, they aren't even starting to cap it:
When I got into the upper hive body (below this super), I did find a couple of heavy frames full of nectar/honey:
So maybe they are putting things here in stead of up top. You can't tell bees what to do so I will have to put up with it.
I found a frame with some new eggs on it, so I know the queen is doing her job:
(again, sorry for the bad picture). The eggs are in the center of the picture in the sun-lit area. Her brood pattern looks real good too:
So I think things are doing well with this hive. Imagine my shock when I take out the next frame and find this!!!
Look along the bottom - those are swarm cells. On this frame, there were ten swarm cells (a couple of them capped). On the next frame over were an additional thirteen, making 23 swarm cells in this hive!
Back in May I had removed a couple of frames due to the presence of swarm cells (that's where I have 2 new nucs). I certainly don't want nor need 23 more nucs, so I decided to remove these swarm cells. It could be that the hive thinks there is not enough space to lay, since those frames of honey are in the middle of the brood area. I moved the honey frames outward, and moved in some of the empty comb. Hopefully the hive will like that and not swarm. I'll check next week and see what is happening.
Brown Hive
This hive is doing well, but is not very populous. The queen is laying well, as can be seen by this frame:
Based on when I put in the queen, in another week or so we should have a lot more foragers. But what was interesting when I checked the bottom brood box, the comb there was absolutely empty - just one frame had a little pollen in it. There was no honey, no brood, nothing. Some bees were down there, but it looks like the bees are ignoring the bottom chamber and working only in the top. There is still plenty of space up there, so I am not inclined to do anything unless I have a good reason.
And finally, I took this picture. You can see all the little worker bees lined up in a row, sticking up their heads along the top of the frame, looking out at what I am doing. I thought it was cute! :-)
I was out of town for the last week or so, and will be gone next week to a (90-degree-plus) Boy Scout summer camp, so I thought I'd give the hives an inspection.
Sutton Hive 2
I visited this hive late last week, and I knew I needed to bring more feed. Sure enough, the hive had emptied the jars (and propolised up the lids so that I had a hard time removing them!). The hive has a good amount of bees, as can be seen from this picture of the top brood box:
I had a difficult time lifting up the top box from the bottom box - almost as if it were glued together at the frames. Well, when I got it up, here's what I found:
What you are looking at is a ton of brace comb with drone brood in it. I'm not sure if the "bee space" is right or not, but apparently the bees felt the need to add comb between the upper and lower frames. They made it as drone comb, and unfortunately you can see there was a lot of damage. I scraped off everything and we'll see if this happens again. It may be that there is too much space, and I may need to trim down the box. That's a pain in the neck, because I would have to swap the frames into a different box while I do it. I'll keep an eye on things.
Sutton Hive 1
This hive is the one which has the best chance of giving me honey. But so far they haven't completed capping off any honey. Here's a picture of the "best" frame in the super:
You can see it's only about half capped. Other frames in that super are at a similar state. There are 2 shallow supers on the hive, which started out as already-drawn foundation. They are filling them nicely. Underneath those 2 supers is another super with foundation, and they have been very slow in drawing that out.
I also had to do some maintenance on that hive. The hive owner painted the hive body pieces that were unpainted, and I needed to swap them into this hive so he can paint more pieces. I had to move frame by frame the lower hive body to the new body, and I put it on the new base. Here's a picture of the activity in progress:
The bees were seriously not happy with me for doing this! There were hundreds in the air, and I am honestly surprised I didn't get at least one sting out of the experience. But now I have some more hive pieces for the owner to paint (you can see the right hive body in the picture above shows bare wood in spots). Painted beehives last longer.
Home Nucs
This afternoon I gave the home nucs an inspection. The bees have been really flying this week due to the warm weather!
I started with the Grey Nuc, because I wanted to see and mark the queen. Here are a couple of pictures of the nice brood pattern of the queen in this nuc:
My apologies that the second picture is fuzzy - we got a new compact camera and it is definitely going back to the store - I don't like the focus ability (or lack thereof).
I was able to find and grab the queen, and I tried out my new queen marking tube. Here she is after I marked her:
The tube makes it really easy to mark the queen. Basically you catch her, put her in the clear tube, and push up the plunger (which has a piece of foam rubber). You gently trap her against the plastic screen on the top, and touch her with the marking pen. Then you lower the plunger and let the paint dry for a minute. The only problem I had is getting her out of the tube - she was holding on to the screen, and wouldn't go down. I had to give her a shake, and down she went. Now all of my nuc queens are marked.
I moved on to the Brown Nuc, with the fancy painted medium super on top. The bees had been busy in the super, drawing out some of the foundation. You can see so here:
Interesting to note in the picture above is the piece of vertical perpendicular comb the bees built. This comb bridged two of the frames. I suspect they did this because the frame may have had a patch of unwaxed plastic on it.
But in the lower portion of the nuc the queen is laying up a storm. Here's a frame showing a good pattern, with honey along the top:
I had not looked at the White Nuc since I put in the new queen's cage two and a half weeks ago. I left for a week+ of vacation and didn't take out the cage, so I was worried they would fill up the spaces with burr comb, but other than a few bridges, they didn't do to bad. I was able to scrape off the comb and add the empty frame I previously removed to put in the queen cage.
I got some pictures of this queen. I bought her from George O'Neil of the bee club, and like the other queen I bought from him, she is a dark queen. You can see how dark her body is (in the 2nd picture, she has her head in a cell - you can barely see the blue spot). I'll have to ask him about the genetics of his bees next time I see him.
Green Hive
Like I said above, the hives were very busy this past week. So I had my hopes up a little. But it was not to be - I didn't see any changes in the honey collection from past weeks. There is one frame which is pretty full of nectar, but as you can see, they aren't even starting to cap it:
When I got into the upper hive body (below this super), I did find a couple of heavy frames full of nectar/honey:
So maybe they are putting things here in stead of up top. You can't tell bees what to do so I will have to put up with it.
I found a frame with some new eggs on it, so I know the queen is doing her job:
(again, sorry for the bad picture). The eggs are in the center of the picture in the sun-lit area. Her brood pattern looks real good too:
So I think things are doing well with this hive. Imagine my shock when I take out the next frame and find this!!!
Look along the bottom - those are swarm cells. On this frame, there were ten swarm cells (a couple of them capped). On the next frame over were an additional thirteen, making 23 swarm cells in this hive!
Back in May I had removed a couple of frames due to the presence of swarm cells (that's where I have 2 new nucs). I certainly don't want nor need 23 more nucs, so I decided to remove these swarm cells. It could be that the hive thinks there is not enough space to lay, since those frames of honey are in the middle of the brood area. I moved the honey frames outward, and moved in some of the empty comb. Hopefully the hive will like that and not swarm. I'll check next week and see what is happening.
Brown Hive
This hive is doing well, but is not very populous. The queen is laying well, as can be seen by this frame:
Based on when I put in the queen, in another week or so we should have a lot more foragers. But what was interesting when I checked the bottom brood box, the comb there was absolutely empty - just one frame had a little pollen in it. There was no honey, no brood, nothing. Some bees were down there, but it looks like the bees are ignoring the bottom chamber and working only in the top. There is still plenty of space up there, so I am not inclined to do anything unless I have a good reason.
And finally, I took this picture. You can see all the little worker bees lined up in a row, sticking up their heads along the top of the frame, looking out at what I am doing. I thought it was cute! :-)
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Road Trip!
Earlier this month our family made a 2250-mile (ugh!) road trip to Ohio and back. It was a lot of driving! As I was planning the driving route, I noticed that we passed along I-80 right by Brushy Mountain Bee Farm, a beekeeping supply place from which I have ordered in the past. One of the difficulties in getting beekeeping equipment is paying for the shipping charges. A lot of the equipment is heavy (as in solid wood), so that accounts for a lot of the cost.
I figured as we were passing so close, I'd stop in and pick up some supplies. So about a week before the trip, I called in an order and told them when I'd be by to pick it up. I calculated I would save around $60 in shipping charges, so it was definitely worth it. So I planned to leave some space in the van to pick up the items.
Well, it turned out that we ended up bringing back from Ohio some extra items (including a big dresser which we strapped to the top of the van). The space planned for the beekeeping equipment was used up fast. But I did end up fitting in pieces in the nooks and crannies where I could. Here's what it looked like when we arrived at home:
We made it back just fine, and now I have some more wood to assemble!
On a nature note, on the way home we stopped to get gas in NY and on the concrete I found this interesting bug. It was about 3 inches across (wingspan). Here's a picture of it on my 9-year-old's hand (with a comb, so you can see the size comparison):
Tracy looked up on the internet, and found out it was a Pandorus Sphynx Moth. It is common in New England, and the boys were just fascinated by it. The detailed coloring was amazing.
While in Cincinnati, I visited with a former middle-school classmate who I haven't seen in literally *30* years! But with the technology of Facebook, we reconnected and paid her a visit. Her 9-year old son likes to read this blog, and said "I really like your videos - you need to post another one!" So, Will, I made a new video just for you! It is my bee yard, focusing on the busy bees in the evening:
With this warm weather, the hives were very busy. I haven't inspected them for about 2 weeks now; I think tomorrow I'll take a peek and see how they are doing. I'll be sure to report here!
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
It's All Right (Queenright, that is...)
Had a chance to do a complete inspection of all hives (Sutton and Home). This is a longer post than normal, but with some good information (and questions) and pictures. So let's dive right in...
Sutton Hive 1
I fully expected this hive to be queenless, based on past inspections. I hadn't seen any new brood in a few weeks, even after pulling over a frame of eggs from the other hive. So I purchased a new queen yesterday, expecting to install her today.
When I started going through the hive, I was surprised to see very young brood - it looks like this hive had a queen! Now I was very confused. The only thing I can think is that either the queen stopped laying and resumed, or they made a new queen and she is laying. I still haven't seen a queen in this hive, but see definite evidence. There were lots of bees, and they weren't as jumpy this time. You can see the bees in the top box before I smoked it:
Lots of bees - that's a good thing!
I looked in the honey supers, and it looks like no further activity has occurred in the last month! :-( The two shallow supers have nectar but it is not capped yet, so it isn't ready to be called "honey." The medium super doesn't have any more progress on drawing out the frames.
But back to the queen issue. Now I have a problem - a queen without a home! (I couldn't put her in a hive with an existing queen). Luckily, I took with me my first nuc I built a year ago, so I pulled over some frames from this hive and brought the nuc home, along with the queen in the cage. More on that nuc later.
Sutton Hive 2
I remembered to bring the extra hive body so I could put on the sugar jars. I did a quick check and they seem to be doing well. So I fed the hive - here's what it looks like (the top deep simply encloses the feeding jars):
Green Hive
Back on the home front the green hive is doing well. I saw eggs in one of the frames, which was enough to tell me the queen is there (I didn't see the queen this time).
I had a chance to visit another beekeeper when I was picking up the queen yesterday, and he has a hive which was made from a package in April of this year. I compared the amount of bees coming and going in his hive with my green hive (which was an overwintered hive), and while the green hive has by far the most activity of all of my home hives, it didn't look as busy as this other person's hive. I think it may do with the fact that I did a split earlier (to prevent swarming), which reduces the number of bees. But the queen should have had a chance to raise the population since then. I don't know if it is location (this person's hives were more out in the open, in the sun, while mine are shaded part of the time) or what.
This afternoon I saw the typical flurry of activity in front of the hive for the orienting of new bees, plus there is a pretty steady stream of incoming and outgoing bees. But they aren't putting up honey to any degree - the center couple of frames (which were already drawn out) have some honey, but the rest of the foundation is basically untouched.
Brown Hive
This hive still has significantly less traffic than the green hive. Given I installed a new queen back on May 22nd, the first bees are just being born from the new queen. It takes another 3 weeks before those new bees "graduate" to be foragers, so I guess I am jumping the gun a little.
What does surprise me is that the lower deep hive body is almost 100% empty comb - just a little pollen in the frames on the edge. I would have thought the queen would like to use that to lay, but she hasn't gone down there. I thought about doing a reversal, but I heard the voice of my "just don't mess with it!" friend from work, so I didn't mess with it. Besides, I don't want them all of a sudden filling the brood frames with nectar.
I was worried that the queen wasn't there, but I looked specifically for her and found her:
(the blue dot is hard to see here - it's kind of faded out in this shot). Seeing the queen tells me she is there - I'll let her do her thing and decide when/where to lay. I don't know if you can see it in this picture (enlarge it), but this queen's body is almost black - she might be a different race than Italian. I didn't notice that before.
Gray Nuc
I wanted to see if this nuc has a laying queen - it's about the time it could have one. When I pulled out one of the frames, this is what I found:
Those milky white cells contain bee larvae! The larvae are anywhere from 4 days old to almost ready to cap. So this nuc has a laying queen - I'm 2 for 2 this year - yea!!
Here's the foundationless frame I put in the nuc when I made it. You can see that they have almost completed building out the frame:
At this stage of the comb creation, you have to be very careful in handling the frame. The wax is held only at the top, and with the bees on it (and starting to use it), the weight of the comb means that any tilting side-to-side can cause the wax to break. So I didn't manhandle this frame too much.
I really wanted to find this queen in order to mark her, but even looking through the nuc twice I didn't spot her. You'd think with only 5 frames it wouldn't be to hard, but they are crafty. But that's OK - I'm happy to know she is there. I'll mark her another time.
Brown Nuc
I pulled out the first frame of the brown nuc, and look what I saw right away:
That blue dot sure makes things easier! This nuc is doing fine, and had almost completed drawing out the foundationless frame. So I thought I'd give them a little more to work with.
I mentioned last week that I made a medium "super" for my nuc. I asked my 9-year-old son to draw me a bee on the face of the super, and I went over it with black paint. Here's the finished item installed on the nuc:
Zoom in - it's super cute!! One thing you may notice is that the corner of the top cover has come up - the wood warped! I didn't expect that, but I made this cover a little different than normal. Other covers have a horizontal piece of wood fastened to the front and back edge of top cover (as shown in this post). But here I put some rims of wood underneath, and there wasn't anything to keep it from warping. So I'll put together a more normal cover and replace it.
White Nuc
Ah, the white nuc. This is the new one which contains bees from the Sutton Hive 1, but without a queen. Hey, what a coincidence - I happen to have an extra queen with no home! What are the odds...
So I put this nuc in my back yard, took out one of the frames, and wedged in the queen cage in between two of the frames, with the candy plug accessible to the workers so they can release the queen in a few days.
Once I put the queen in the nuc, some bees at the front entrance started "scenting" - lifting up their tails and using their wings to spread the pheromones from the Nasonov gland. This tells the other bees of the hive that "this is where home is!" It is only done when there is a queen present, so they recognized the new queen cage I put in there. Here is a closeup picture of a couple of the bees scenting:
Now I have a White Nuc.
So here's where the craziness sets in. Counting all the nucs and the hives in Sutton, I am now taking care of 7 hives! Five of them are in my own back yard!!! Take a look:
What do you think? Should I make an appointment to see a psychologist? Any 12-step groups I can join? "Hi, my name is Steven, and I'm a beekeeper." [group] Hi Steven...
I'll probably put an ad on Craigslist to sell one or two of the nucs. But there's something comforting having those extra queens in reserve. Comments from my more experienced beekeeper friends?
Sutton Hive 1
I fully expected this hive to be queenless, based on past inspections. I hadn't seen any new brood in a few weeks, even after pulling over a frame of eggs from the other hive. So I purchased a new queen yesterday, expecting to install her today.
When I started going through the hive, I was surprised to see very young brood - it looks like this hive had a queen! Now I was very confused. The only thing I can think is that either the queen stopped laying and resumed, or they made a new queen and she is laying. I still haven't seen a queen in this hive, but see definite evidence. There were lots of bees, and they weren't as jumpy this time. You can see the bees in the top box before I smoked it:
Lots of bees - that's a good thing!
I looked in the honey supers, and it looks like no further activity has occurred in the last month! :-( The two shallow supers have nectar but it is not capped yet, so it isn't ready to be called "honey." The medium super doesn't have any more progress on drawing out the frames.
But back to the queen issue. Now I have a problem - a queen without a home! (I couldn't put her in a hive with an existing queen). Luckily, I took with me my first nuc I built a year ago, so I pulled over some frames from this hive and brought the nuc home, along with the queen in the cage. More on that nuc later.
Sutton Hive 2
I remembered to bring the extra hive body so I could put on the sugar jars. I did a quick check and they seem to be doing well. So I fed the hive - here's what it looks like (the top deep simply encloses the feeding jars):
Green Hive
Back on the home front the green hive is doing well. I saw eggs in one of the frames, which was enough to tell me the queen is there (I didn't see the queen this time).
I had a chance to visit another beekeeper when I was picking up the queen yesterday, and he has a hive which was made from a package in April of this year. I compared the amount of bees coming and going in his hive with my green hive (which was an overwintered hive), and while the green hive has by far the most activity of all of my home hives, it didn't look as busy as this other person's hive. I think it may do with the fact that I did a split earlier (to prevent swarming), which reduces the number of bees. But the queen should have had a chance to raise the population since then. I don't know if it is location (this person's hives were more out in the open, in the sun, while mine are shaded part of the time) or what.
This afternoon I saw the typical flurry of activity in front of the hive for the orienting of new bees, plus there is a pretty steady stream of incoming and outgoing bees. But they aren't putting up honey to any degree - the center couple of frames (which were already drawn out) have some honey, but the rest of the foundation is basically untouched.
Brown Hive
This hive still has significantly less traffic than the green hive. Given I installed a new queen back on May 22nd, the first bees are just being born from the new queen. It takes another 3 weeks before those new bees "graduate" to be foragers, so I guess I am jumping the gun a little.
What does surprise me is that the lower deep hive body is almost 100% empty comb - just a little pollen in the frames on the edge. I would have thought the queen would like to use that to lay, but she hasn't gone down there. I thought about doing a reversal, but I heard the voice of my "just don't mess with it!" friend from work, so I didn't mess with it. Besides, I don't want them all of a sudden filling the brood frames with nectar.
I was worried that the queen wasn't there, but I looked specifically for her and found her:
(the blue dot is hard to see here - it's kind of faded out in this shot). Seeing the queen tells me she is there - I'll let her do her thing and decide when/where to lay. I don't know if you can see it in this picture (enlarge it), but this queen's body is almost black - she might be a different race than Italian. I didn't notice that before.
Gray Nuc
I wanted to see if this nuc has a laying queen - it's about the time it could have one. When I pulled out one of the frames, this is what I found:
Those milky white cells contain bee larvae! The larvae are anywhere from 4 days old to almost ready to cap. So this nuc has a laying queen - I'm 2 for 2 this year - yea!!
Here's the foundationless frame I put in the nuc when I made it. You can see that they have almost completed building out the frame:
At this stage of the comb creation, you have to be very careful in handling the frame. The wax is held only at the top, and with the bees on it (and starting to use it), the weight of the comb means that any tilting side-to-side can cause the wax to break. So I didn't manhandle this frame too much.
I really wanted to find this queen in order to mark her, but even looking through the nuc twice I didn't spot her. You'd think with only 5 frames it wouldn't be to hard, but they are crafty. But that's OK - I'm happy to know she is there. I'll mark her another time.
Brown Nuc
I pulled out the first frame of the brown nuc, and look what I saw right away:
That blue dot sure makes things easier! This nuc is doing fine, and had almost completed drawing out the foundationless frame. So I thought I'd give them a little more to work with.
I mentioned last week that I made a medium "super" for my nuc. I asked my 9-year-old son to draw me a bee on the face of the super, and I went over it with black paint. Here's the finished item installed on the nuc:
Zoom in - it's super cute!! One thing you may notice is that the corner of the top cover has come up - the wood warped! I didn't expect that, but I made this cover a little different than normal. Other covers have a horizontal piece of wood fastened to the front and back edge of top cover (as shown in this post). But here I put some rims of wood underneath, and there wasn't anything to keep it from warping. So I'll put together a more normal cover and replace it.
White Nuc
Ah, the white nuc. This is the new one which contains bees from the Sutton Hive 1, but without a queen. Hey, what a coincidence - I happen to have an extra queen with no home! What are the odds...
So I put this nuc in my back yard, took out one of the frames, and wedged in the queen cage in between two of the frames, with the candy plug accessible to the workers so they can release the queen in a few days.
Once I put the queen in the nuc, some bees at the front entrance started "scenting" - lifting up their tails and using their wings to spread the pheromones from the Nasonov gland. This tells the other bees of the hive that "this is where home is!" It is only done when there is a queen present, so they recognized the new queen cage I put in there. Here is a closeup picture of a couple of the bees scenting:
Now I have a White Nuc.
So here's where the craziness sets in. Counting all the nucs and the hives in Sutton, I am now taking care of 7 hives! Five of them are in my own back yard!!! Take a look:
What do you think? Should I make an appointment to see a psychologist? Any 12-step groups I can join? "Hi, my name is Steven, and I'm a beekeeper." [group] Hi Steven...
I'll probably put an ad on Craigslist to sell one or two of the nucs. But there's something comforting having those extra queens in reserve. Comments from my more experienced beekeeper friends?
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Amazing Queen Bee...
I made a comment on the BeeSource.com forum that I wanted to make here.
On May 20th I made a nuc from a frame with a swarm cell (to prevent swarming of one of the hives). I checked last Saturday and was amazed to find a laying queen in the hive. The thing that amazes me is when I think that a queen was born in the nuc, found her way to a DCA, mated, and made it back to my nuc all on her own. And now she's laying.
This nuc is nestled under a tree along the same tree line (I don't exactly have the best locations for my apiary). Not exactly visible from the air - you have to go up over my house (which looks like a lot of the houses in the neighborhood). This is the first time I successfully made a split and a new queen.
Here's an overhead picture of my house in my neighborhood:
and here's the nuc sitting under a tree (the brown one):
Bees are amazing critters!!
That is all...
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Woodworking
In the olden days, it was up to each individual beekeeper to build whatever beekeeping equipment he needed. Later, companies were started to provide woodenware to those beekeepers who were less inclined to make their own.
One nice thing about this hobby is that you can do as much or as little as you want. I know of beekeepers who make all of their equipment, including frames; others use salvaged wood for hive bodies. You can purchase unassembled wooden equipment from all of the major beekeeping supply houses, as well as completely assembled (and painted) hives.
I think every hobby beekeeper feels the need to do at least some amount of work for the hives. I know I do. In the past, I've done a bit of woodworking for the hives, but I am far from an expert (or even competent in some cases) in working with wood. I usually cut pieces wrong, and end up wasting wood, and take way too much time to do even the simple things. But it is fun at times.
Recently I felt like I wanted to do some woodworking for the hives in my "spare time," so I took on a couple of small projects.
I purchased some older used equipment from a fellow beekeeper, which included an inner cover. I used this inner cover at one of the Sutton hives, and found that the bees were attaching it to the tops of the upper frames, generally making a mess of things, and it was hard to lift up. Then I got to looking at it, and it looked like it didn't provide the correct bee space. Most inner covers have a rim on both sides which keeps the main part of the cover about 3/8" away from the top edge of the hive box. This one I have looked like only one side had a rim; the other was flat. I don't know if it was intentional, or if it had some missing pieces. So I decided to add a simple 3/8" rim around that side.
Here's a view of the finished modification. The light colored wood is the new part I added. You can see by the side view how the cover on that side would have been flat.
It was by far not a complicated modification (basically ripping strips of wood). But I think the bees will appreciate the modification.
The other mini project has to do with one of my nucs. I have that laying queen in the brown nuc, and I don't have any place for her to go immediately. I may keep her there for a while, and eventually she'll run out of room to lay eggs.
I decided to build a super for the nuc. Since I had a lot of extra plastic medium frames, I made it a medium size. I'll put it on the nuc in a few weeks and hopefully the bees will start using it. If nothing else, it'll get me more drawn comb for honey supers later.
Here is the nuc-sized super hanging up to dry:
The yellow paint comes from a can of paint we've had in the garage since we moved in here. It was left over from the previous owners, when they painted the pantry walls that color (yes, we have a pantry painted this garish yellow - ask my wife how much she loves that color!). Beekeepers are notorious for using whatever paint is available (the bees don't care). When the paint dries, I'll paint some kind of a bee diagram on it just for some variety.
I've got plans for some more simple pieces of bee woodworking that I can build later "for fun." If nothing else, these projects give me a chance to make a lot of sawdust...
One nice thing about this hobby is that you can do as much or as little as you want. I know of beekeepers who make all of their equipment, including frames; others use salvaged wood for hive bodies. You can purchase unassembled wooden equipment from all of the major beekeeping supply houses, as well as completely assembled (and painted) hives.
I think every hobby beekeeper feels the need to do at least some amount of work for the hives. I know I do. In the past, I've done a bit of woodworking for the hives, but I am far from an expert (or even competent in some cases) in working with wood. I usually cut pieces wrong, and end up wasting wood, and take way too much time to do even the simple things. But it is fun at times.
Recently I felt like I wanted to do some woodworking for the hives in my "spare time," so I took on a couple of small projects.
I purchased some older used equipment from a fellow beekeeper, which included an inner cover. I used this inner cover at one of the Sutton hives, and found that the bees were attaching it to the tops of the upper frames, generally making a mess of things, and it was hard to lift up. Then I got to looking at it, and it looked like it didn't provide the correct bee space. Most inner covers have a rim on both sides which keeps the main part of the cover about 3/8" away from the top edge of the hive box. This one I have looked like only one side had a rim; the other was flat. I don't know if it was intentional, or if it had some missing pieces. So I decided to add a simple 3/8" rim around that side.
Here's a view of the finished modification. The light colored wood is the new part I added. You can see by the side view how the cover on that side would have been flat.
It was by far not a complicated modification (basically ripping strips of wood). But I think the bees will appreciate the modification.
The other mini project has to do with one of my nucs. I have that laying queen in the brown nuc, and I don't have any place for her to go immediately. I may keep her there for a while, and eventually she'll run out of room to lay eggs.
I decided to build a super for the nuc. Since I had a lot of extra plastic medium frames, I made it a medium size. I'll put it on the nuc in a few weeks and hopefully the bees will start using it. If nothing else, it'll get me more drawn comb for honey supers later.
Here is the nuc-sized super hanging up to dry:
The yellow paint comes from a can of paint we've had in the garage since we moved in here. It was left over from the previous owners, when they painted the pantry walls that color (yes, we have a pantry painted this garish yellow - ask my wife how much she loves that color!). Beekeepers are notorious for using whatever paint is available (the bees don't care). When the paint dries, I'll paint some kind of a bee diagram on it just for some variety.
I've got plans for some more simple pieces of bee woodworking that I can build later "for fun." If nothing else, these projects give me a chance to make a lot of sawdust...
Sutton Hive Inspections 5-7-2010
I stopped by the Sutton hives, as I know that Hive 2 (the new one) probably needed a refill of sugar syrup. So I went in the late afternoon and did an inspection.
Sutton Hive 1
Based on the last inspection, I suspect this hive is queenless. As I went through the hive, I still didn't see any eggs or new brood. The strange thing is that the frame I pulled over from the other hive (which had eggs on it) had no evidence of any queen cells. I'll do a thorough inspection next time, and if I'm probably going to have to get a queen for this hive.
I was excited to see how things are going in the honey supers as well. There are 2 shallows and one medium (the medium had undrawn foundation). The bees are starting to cap the honey in the shallow supers - maybe a few weeks it will be ready to harvest. They aren't doing much in the medium - they have drawn out some of the comb, but have more to go.
Sutton Hive 2
The new hive is doing very well. Last time I gave them some empty drawn comb, and I found that they have used it almost exclusively for nectar storage. They finished drawing out the rest of the frames, and that means it is time to add the second story.
I planned on adding some more undrawn plastic frames. But based on my experiences with plastic foundation, I decided to give them a little edge. So last night I melted some more of my beeswax and added a coating of wax on the plastic frame. When I did that on the plastic in my hives, the bees were more inclined to draw out. I think that's going to be my usual mode of operation on plastic - I'll add some more wax, and then stay away from plastic and use wired wax.
I did remember to bring a spray bottle of sugar syrup to spray each frame before adding it to the super. Plus, I brought up one of the frames with brood on it from the lower to the upper super. Both of these actions help the bees accept the foundation.
So here is the hive with the second story added (taken with my cell phone since I forgot the camera):
I forgot to bring along an extra hive body, so I couldn't add the sugar syrup feeders. I'll have to stop by sometime later to do that.
Sutton Hive 1
Based on the last inspection, I suspect this hive is queenless. As I went through the hive, I still didn't see any eggs or new brood. The strange thing is that the frame I pulled over from the other hive (which had eggs on it) had no evidence of any queen cells. I'll do a thorough inspection next time, and if I'm probably going to have to get a queen for this hive.
I was excited to see how things are going in the honey supers as well. There are 2 shallows and one medium (the medium had undrawn foundation). The bees are starting to cap the honey in the shallow supers - maybe a few weeks it will be ready to harvest. They aren't doing much in the medium - they have drawn out some of the comb, but have more to go.
Sutton Hive 2
The new hive is doing very well. Last time I gave them some empty drawn comb, and I found that they have used it almost exclusively for nectar storage. They finished drawing out the rest of the frames, and that means it is time to add the second story.
I planned on adding some more undrawn plastic frames. But based on my experiences with plastic foundation, I decided to give them a little edge. So last night I melted some more of my beeswax and added a coating of wax on the plastic frame. When I did that on the plastic in my hives, the bees were more inclined to draw out. I think that's going to be my usual mode of operation on plastic - I'll add some more wax, and then stay away from plastic and use wired wax.
I did remember to bring a spray bottle of sugar syrup to spray each frame before adding it to the super. Plus, I brought up one of the frames with brood on it from the lower to the upper super. Both of these actions help the bees accept the foundation.
So here is the hive with the second story added (taken with my cell phone since I forgot the camera):
I forgot to bring along an extra hive body, so I couldn't add the sugar syrup feeders. I'll have to stop by sometime later to do that.
Saturday, June 5, 2010
I Made A Queen!
Did an inspection today of the home hives, and I'll share the good news first.
Brown Nuc
I know I said I was going to leave them alone until June 12th, but I couldn't resist. I first looked at the frame with no foundation, and saw that the bees were building more comb. Here's a picture:
What is interesting about this picture is the fact that in the middle and along the bottom edge of the rightmost piece of comb is a solid clump of bees (you can see the grass through the clump of bees in the middle). This is called festooning, and is how bees make comb. Some bees hang together on each other while other bees take the wax from the wax glands (here is a blog post with great pictures of bees and wax glands - fascinating!). They also use the hanging bodies as a guide, as you will, on now to shape the comb.
I looked at the other frames, and I saw something that made me do a double take - on one of the frames, I thought I saw a bunch of young larvae. I looked closer in the sun, and sure enough! That means the brown nuc has a new laying queen!! To the old time beekeepers, this may not be a big deal, but to me it is. It is the first time I did a split and made a queen successfully (last year I had a swarm and a new queen, but that was without my involvement).
I looked on that frame more, and actually saw her majesty scampering across the frame. I was very elated!! I wanted to mark her with a blue dot, but didn't have my bee tool box (with the paint pen in it) near the nuc. I put the frame back, and went and got the pen. Then when I pulled the frame out again, I couldn't find her!
I looked at the next frame, and no queen. Then I looked at the frame on the other side, and there she was. I was able to gently grab her and now she is sporting a nice pretty blue dot on her thorax (I hear it's all the rage in Paris!).
Gray Nuc
After my success at seeing a queen in the brown nuc, I was excited to make it a two-for-two day. Unfortunately, the gray nuc doesn't show any sign of eggs or larvae. You'll remember last week I saw those unexpected queen cells in this nuc, and as such, it is too early to see any eggs. So I'll give that box some more time. If a couple more weeks pass without any eggs, I'll probably combine those bees with the brown nuc. My wife suggested I make a new full size hive - we'll see.
Green Hive
The green hive still hasn't done much with the honey super on top. There is a drawn frame with nectar, but it isn't close to being capped. The other undrawn frames are basically untouched. But inside the hive there are a couple of deep frames in the upper super which are full of nectar - when I split the hive a few weeks ago, the bees decided to use the upper brood chamber to store nectar. That's OK - if they cap it, I can always spin it out and get the honey.
But in this hive I saw a lot of eggs and larvae. Look at this wonderful brood pattern:
If you zoom into the second picture above you should be able to see eggs and young larvae.
This queen is from last year (green dot) and is still going strong. It's a good thing to see. I thought about replacing her, but since she is still doing so well, I'm going to let her be.
Brown Hive
The brown hive is doing absolutely nothing in the super - no nectar whatsoever. That is understandable, since the bee population is so small. But I did see the queen down below, and saw some eggs. Look here:
There are a few frames in the upper deep which have honey, but I am not inclined to extract those, since they were there when I was doing some feeding of sugar syrup. So I can't guarantee the honey isn't just my processed sugar. If I do any extraction (to free up space for laying) I'll keep the "honey" to feed back to the bees later.
All in all things are going fine. These hives may not yield much if any honey, but that's OK. I'm happy to have healthy and thriving hives. And who knows, later in the year they may surprise me.
Brown Nuc
I know I said I was going to leave them alone until June 12th, but I couldn't resist. I first looked at the frame with no foundation, and saw that the bees were building more comb. Here's a picture:
What is interesting about this picture is the fact that in the middle and along the bottom edge of the rightmost piece of comb is a solid clump of bees (you can see the grass through the clump of bees in the middle). This is called festooning, and is how bees make comb. Some bees hang together on each other while other bees take the wax from the wax glands (here is a blog post with great pictures of bees and wax glands - fascinating!). They also use the hanging bodies as a guide, as you will, on now to shape the comb.
I looked at the other frames, and I saw something that made me do a double take - on one of the frames, I thought I saw a bunch of young larvae. I looked closer in the sun, and sure enough! That means the brown nuc has a new laying queen!! To the old time beekeepers, this may not be a big deal, but to me it is. It is the first time I did a split and made a queen successfully (last year I had a swarm and a new queen, but that was without my involvement).
I looked on that frame more, and actually saw her majesty scampering across the frame. I was very elated!! I wanted to mark her with a blue dot, but didn't have my bee tool box (with the paint pen in it) near the nuc. I put the frame back, and went and got the pen. Then when I pulled the frame out again, I couldn't find her!
I looked at the next frame, and no queen. Then I looked at the frame on the other side, and there she was. I was able to gently grab her and now she is sporting a nice pretty blue dot on her thorax (I hear it's all the rage in Paris!).
Gray Nuc
After my success at seeing a queen in the brown nuc, I was excited to make it a two-for-two day. Unfortunately, the gray nuc doesn't show any sign of eggs or larvae. You'll remember last week I saw those unexpected queen cells in this nuc, and as such, it is too early to see any eggs. So I'll give that box some more time. If a couple more weeks pass without any eggs, I'll probably combine those bees with the brown nuc. My wife suggested I make a new full size hive - we'll see.
Green Hive
The green hive still hasn't done much with the honey super on top. There is a drawn frame with nectar, but it isn't close to being capped. The other undrawn frames are basically untouched. But inside the hive there are a couple of deep frames in the upper super which are full of nectar - when I split the hive a few weeks ago, the bees decided to use the upper brood chamber to store nectar. That's OK - if they cap it, I can always spin it out and get the honey.
But in this hive I saw a lot of eggs and larvae. Look at this wonderful brood pattern:
If you zoom into the second picture above you should be able to see eggs and young larvae.
This queen is from last year (green dot) and is still going strong. It's a good thing to see. I thought about replacing her, but since she is still doing so well, I'm going to let her be.
Brown Hive
The brown hive is doing absolutely nothing in the super - no nectar whatsoever. That is understandable, since the bee population is so small. But I did see the queen down below, and saw some eggs. Look here:
There are a few frames in the upper deep which have honey, but I am not inclined to extract those, since they were there when I was doing some feeding of sugar syrup. So I can't guarantee the honey isn't just my processed sugar. If I do any extraction (to free up space for laying) I'll keep the "honey" to feed back to the bees later.
All in all things are going fine. These hives may not yield much if any honey, but that's OK. I'm happy to have healthy and thriving hives. And who knows, later in the year they may surprise me.
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