That's a good sign. I'll let the nuc be for a while, then check for eggs.
Here are the main hives:
I still have to deal with the Green hive's wonky comb. I just put a super of drawn out comb underneath it to give them somewhere to put the nectar.
Sunday, June 10, 2012
Inspection 05-18-2012 - quick check
I took a quick peek in the Grey Nuc and saw that the queen cell had been opened. You can see it just to the right of the center see-through gap in this frame:
That's a good sign. I'll let the nuc be for a while, then check for eggs.
Here are the main hives:
I still have to deal with the Green hive's wonky comb. I just put a super of drawn out comb underneath it to give them somewhere to put the nectar.
That's a good sign. I'll let the nuc be for a while, then check for eggs.
Here are the main hives:
I still have to deal with the Green hive's wonky comb. I just put a super of drawn out comb underneath it to give them somewhere to put the nectar.
Inspection 5-12-2012 - Wonky Comb!!
Today (again, I am speaking as if this is the date of the inspection) I did another inspection of the backyard hives.
Brown Hive
I checked out the Brown Hive, and yet again found more queen cells. This hive is determined to swarm. I took another few frames out to make another nuc, but I made sure to leave some queen cells in the brown hive (otherwise it may swarm and have no replacement queen). Here are a couple of swarm cells on the side of the comb:
And another (fuzzy) shot of a queen cell along the bottom:
Pink Hive
Slow and steady - that's the pink hive. Nothing going wrong, just good looking brood:
Green Hive
Earlier I put a super of undrawn medium frames on the Green hive so that they can draw it out and put honey in there. I left off the queen excluder because some have said the bees will draw out comb better without the excluder on. They were right, but boy the bees had other ideas! Here's what I found when I opened up the top of the hive:
What you see is comb, but the bees decided to build it perpendicular to the frames! What, don't they read the beekeeping books! They are supposed to build on the frames themselves!
There queen got up there and laid eggs for drone brood, which made things even worse!
In addition to brood, they are filling up the comb with nectar.
I really wasn't up to dealing with this right now, so I put the queen excluder back on, and next week I'll make sure the queen is in the lower part (by making sure there are now new eggs in the top part) and then I'll clean things up. What I plan on doing is waiting for the drone brood to hatch, then pull out the frames and letting the bees rob out the nectar/honey. Then I'll scrape off the wonky comb and re-coat the frames with wax.
I have a theory that there isn't enough wax on the frame to start with, and the bees aren't inclined to build up the frame. But they want to make comb, so they do it wonky.
As I mentioned earlier, I found more swarm cells in the brown hive. I pulled off a few frames, including the queen cells, and made up another nuc.
You may ask, why do I make nucs? It seems a shame to me to let the bees do all the work to create queen cells, only to have only one of them survive. This way I have some extra resources for queens if I need it.
Also, since this is swarm season, I decided to put a nuc up high to see if any swarms want to move in. This is what I have on my house:
My neighbor asked what it was so I explained to her that I am just a crazy beekeeper!
Last week I made up a mating nuc for one of the queen cells. This is what I found this week - not looking good!
I opened it up and found every bee dead!
I remembered that during the week there was a cold snap (temps in the 30's I think). What I think happened is that there weren't enough bees to keep themselves warm and they died. Generally mating nucs should be used only when the temperature is warm enough that they don't have heat issues. I guess it was too early...
Brown Hive
I checked out the Brown Hive, and yet again found more queen cells. This hive is determined to swarm. I took another few frames out to make another nuc, but I made sure to leave some queen cells in the brown hive (otherwise it may swarm and have no replacement queen). Here are a couple of swarm cells on the side of the comb:
And another (fuzzy) shot of a queen cell along the bottom:
Pink Hive
Slow and steady - that's the pink hive. Nothing going wrong, just good looking brood:
Green Hive
Earlier I put a super of undrawn medium frames on the Green hive so that they can draw it out and put honey in there. I left off the queen excluder because some have said the bees will draw out comb better without the excluder on. They were right, but boy the bees had other ideas! Here's what I found when I opened up the top of the hive:
What you see is comb, but the bees decided to build it perpendicular to the frames! What, don't they read the beekeeping books! They are supposed to build on the frames themselves!
There queen got up there and laid eggs for drone brood, which made things even worse!
In addition to brood, they are filling up the comb with nectar.
I really wasn't up to dealing with this right now, so I put the queen excluder back on, and next week I'll make sure the queen is in the lower part (by making sure there are now new eggs in the top part) and then I'll clean things up. What I plan on doing is waiting for the drone brood to hatch, then pull out the frames and letting the bees rob out the nectar/honey. Then I'll scrape off the wonky comb and re-coat the frames with wax.
I have a theory that there isn't enough wax on the frame to start with, and the bees aren't inclined to build up the frame. But they want to make comb, so they do it wonky.
As I mentioned earlier, I found more swarm cells in the brown hive. I pulled off a few frames, including the queen cells, and made up another nuc.
You may ask, why do I make nucs? It seems a shame to me to let the bees do all the work to create queen cells, only to have only one of them survive. This way I have some extra resources for queens if I need it.
Also, since this is swarm season, I decided to put a nuc up high to see if any swarms want to move in. This is what I have on my house:
My neighbor asked what it was so I explained to her that I am just a crazy beekeeper!
Last week I made up a mating nuc for one of the queen cells. This is what I found this week - not looking good!
I opened it up and found every bee dead!
I remembered that during the week there was a cold snap (temps in the 30's I think). What I think happened is that there weren't enough bees to keep themselves warm and they died. Generally mating nucs should be used only when the temperature is warm enough that they don't have heat issues. I guess it was too early...
Inspection 5-05-2012 - Swarm cells...
Sometimes life gets into the way of beekeeping. I manage to get time to inspect the bees regularly, but sometimes get behind in updating the blog. I did an inspection over a month ago (May 5) but am just now updating things. I am about 6 or 7 blog posts behind. Since I use my blog as a record keeping tool, I should at least document what I've found.
Brown Hive
In general, all of the hives are active - the brown one especially. So I wasn't to surprised to see what I saw in the brown hive: swarm cells, and quite a few of them:
This is an indication that the hive is doing well, and wants to reproduce. I also found a frame full of drone brood:
Again, hives make lots of drones when there are plenty of resources. That's a good thing.
There were enough frames with swarm cells that I was able to make a nuc. See later in this post for that.
Green Hive
Next to the Brown Hive, the Green Hive is the most populous. Here's a frame full of brood - what I like to see!
The vertical row of empty cells is where the embedded wires are - the bees can't put brood in there because the wire is in the way.
I also saw this in the lower brood chamber:
What you see here is the lower semi-circle of brood, indicating that the bees are spanning both boxes for brood rearing. Again, a good thing. No signs of swarm cells.
Pink Hive
The Pink Hive continues to move along. She is still rocking the original queen which came out of winter (dotted orange in the photo below)
The population continues to increase. Here's a nice frame of brood from the pink hive:
It's interesting to note that the pink hive continues to insist on using the upper entrance (the gap in the inner cover). So I have to keep a shim on top of that so the outer cover doesn't block it. It's not a problem - just interesting. Every once in a while bees go in and out the bottom, but the main entrance is the top one.
As mentioned above, I had some swarm cells in the Brown Hive. I wanted to make up some nucs, especially to try out my mating nuc. Some of the queen cells were on frames where I couldn't safely remove them, so I put them frame and all into a full size nuc:
There was one in the middle of the wax that I was able to cut around, so I removed it and made up a mating nuc. I shook off about 1 - 1 1/2 cups of bees into the mating nuc, put in some sugar syrup for food, and put in the single queen cell. Here's how it looks:
I've never done this before, so we'll see how it turns out.
Brown Hive
In general, all of the hives are active - the brown one especially. So I wasn't to surprised to see what I saw in the brown hive: swarm cells, and quite a few of them:
This is an indication that the hive is doing well, and wants to reproduce. I also found a frame full of drone brood:
Again, hives make lots of drones when there are plenty of resources. That's a good thing.
There were enough frames with swarm cells that I was able to make a nuc. See later in this post for that.
Green Hive
Next to the Brown Hive, the Green Hive is the most populous. Here's a frame full of brood - what I like to see!
The vertical row of empty cells is where the embedded wires are - the bees can't put brood in there because the wire is in the way.
I also saw this in the lower brood chamber:
What you see here is the lower semi-circle of brood, indicating that the bees are spanning both boxes for brood rearing. Again, a good thing. No signs of swarm cells.
Pink Hive
The Pink Hive continues to move along. She is still rocking the original queen which came out of winter (dotted orange in the photo below)
The population continues to increase. Here's a nice frame of brood from the pink hive:
It's interesting to note that the pink hive continues to insist on using the upper entrance (the gap in the inner cover). So I have to keep a shim on top of that so the outer cover doesn't block it. It's not a problem - just interesting. Every once in a while bees go in and out the bottom, but the main entrance is the top one.
As mentioned above, I had some swarm cells in the Brown Hive. I wanted to make up some nucs, especially to try out my mating nuc. Some of the queen cells were on frames where I couldn't safely remove them, so I put them frame and all into a full size nuc:
There was one in the middle of the wax that I was able to cut around, so I removed it and made up a mating nuc. I shook off about 1 - 1 1/2 cups of bees into the mating nuc, put in some sugar syrup for food, and put in the single queen cell. Here's how it looks:
I've never done this before, so we'll see how it turns out.
Sunday, May 6, 2012
Inspection Weekend - 04-20/21-2012
Over spring break week we took a family trip to Washington, DC. We had never been there, and the boys had each done projects concerning one of the monuments there. We planned on being away for 3 days, but only spent 2 there. So we came back late Thursday evening. Having a Friday unexpectedly free gave me an opportunity to do a good inspection on all of the hives.
Pink Hive
I was worried about the Pink hive, since it lost about 1/2 of it's population due to starvation over the winter. The queen survived, and now it's her job to repopulate the hive. It's sort of like starting with a nuc, since that's about how many bees she started with.
Here's one of the frames showing her doing her job!
What's interesting about Pink is that the bees of that hive have decided to use the top entrance (the gap in the inner cover) instead of the bottom one. So I've got to make sure to leave the shim on so that the outer cover doesn't block the entrance. Maybe when there are more bees they'll start using the bottom one.
Green Hive
The Green Hive is my next most populous hive. There's a lot of activity coming and going with this hive.
Here's a view of a frame packed with pollen.
I was pleased to see this next frame. The white in each cell is a larva - this frame will be full of bees soon!
Here's another one already capped. Lots of bees!
The honey super of undrawn frames I put on the hive was untouched. I decided to see if I could get the bees to move up into it by taking off the queen excluder.
Brown Hive
Like the Green Hive, the Brown Hive is bringing in lots of pollen:
This frame has capped worker brood, but also some drone brood as well (the bullet shaped caps). Making drones is something each hive does to help with the furthering of the beehives in general.
A couple of weeks ago I put in a foundationless frame, and look what the bees have done - filled it out with wax completely! Amazing.
I took a cute picture of the bees lined up against the tops of the frames, looking up at me, all in a row!
This hive has the most bees of all 3 of my backyard hives. Here's a shot of the bottom chamber.
Sutton Hive 1
On Saturday I drove out to the 2 hives in Sutton. I still had the entrance reducers on these hives, which I took off that day.
This is the top of the bars on the top brood chamber. What is interesting here is that you can see a lot of wax that the bees had added in between frames, as well as on the top bars. The queen excluder was difficult to remove due to all the wax attached to it.
Ever since I installed this hive, they have been known to make "wonky" burr comb. By that I mean they add burr comb between the two boxes in whatever pattern they want - parallel to the frames, crosswise, curved, etc. It's actually hard to lift up the frames in the top chamber because they are "glued" to the bottom frames.
Here's a shot - you can see the all directions they built the comb:
I bought this hive without the queen marked. Last year I never did see her to snag her to mark her. But today I saw her, and now she sports the latest in fashion accessories - a dot (I used my orange pen because I didn't think to bring the correct color, which is white). At least now I'll have a good chance of finding her!
Sutton Hive 2
Hive 2 also is doing well, bringing in pollen:
A good frame full of capped brood!
Here's the bottom box - not much "wonky" burr comb - just a little between the frames. I've found the bees usually use the burr comb for drone brood, since they can select the size of the comb (the comb already in the frames is the worker size). Disassembling the hive destroys the in-between burr comb, so there are always a few drone casualties.
Here's one of the frames in the bottom box. You can see the half-circle pattern of brood. This is a good indication that the brood nest is spanning both boxes - that's what you want. The white is young larvae not yet capped.
Here's her majesty - with the white dot I added last year.
I left all of my hives (except the Pink Hive) with honey supers. We'll see if the bees will be kind to me or not this year...
Pink Hive
I was worried about the Pink hive, since it lost about 1/2 of it's population due to starvation over the winter. The queen survived, and now it's her job to repopulate the hive. It's sort of like starting with a nuc, since that's about how many bees she started with.
Here's one of the frames showing her doing her job!
What's interesting about Pink is that the bees of that hive have decided to use the top entrance (the gap in the inner cover) instead of the bottom one. So I've got to make sure to leave the shim on so that the outer cover doesn't block the entrance. Maybe when there are more bees they'll start using the bottom one.
Green Hive
The Green Hive is my next most populous hive. There's a lot of activity coming and going with this hive.
Here's a view of a frame packed with pollen.
I was pleased to see this next frame. The white in each cell is a larva - this frame will be full of bees soon!
Here's another one already capped. Lots of bees!
The honey super of undrawn frames I put on the hive was untouched. I decided to see if I could get the bees to move up into it by taking off the queen excluder.
Brown Hive
Like the Green Hive, the Brown Hive is bringing in lots of pollen:
This frame has capped worker brood, but also some drone brood as well (the bullet shaped caps). Making drones is something each hive does to help with the furthering of the beehives in general.
A couple of weeks ago I put in a foundationless frame, and look what the bees have done - filled it out with wax completely! Amazing.
I took a cute picture of the bees lined up against the tops of the frames, looking up at me, all in a row!
This hive has the most bees of all 3 of my backyard hives. Here's a shot of the bottom chamber.
Sutton Hive 1
On Saturday I drove out to the 2 hives in Sutton. I still had the entrance reducers on these hives, which I took off that day.
This is the top of the bars on the top brood chamber. What is interesting here is that you can see a lot of wax that the bees had added in between frames, as well as on the top bars. The queen excluder was difficult to remove due to all the wax attached to it.
Ever since I installed this hive, they have been known to make "wonky" burr comb. By that I mean they add burr comb between the two boxes in whatever pattern they want - parallel to the frames, crosswise, curved, etc. It's actually hard to lift up the frames in the top chamber because they are "glued" to the bottom frames.
Here's a shot - you can see the all directions they built the comb:
I bought this hive without the queen marked. Last year I never did see her to snag her to mark her. But today I saw her, and now she sports the latest in fashion accessories - a dot (I used my orange pen because I didn't think to bring the correct color, which is white). At least now I'll have a good chance of finding her!
Sutton Hive 2
Hive 2 also is doing well, bringing in pollen:
A good frame full of capped brood!
Here's the bottom box - not much "wonky" burr comb - just a little between the frames. I've found the bees usually use the burr comb for drone brood, since they can select the size of the comb (the comb already in the frames is the worker size). Disassembling the hive destroys the in-between burr comb, so there are always a few drone casualties.
Here's one of the frames in the bottom box. You can see the half-circle pattern of brood. This is a good indication that the brood nest is spanning both boxes - that's what you want. The white is young larvae not yet capped.
Here's her majesty - with the white dot I added last year.
I left all of my hives (except the Pink Hive) with honey supers. We'll see if the bees will be kind to me or not this year...
Sunday, April 8, 2012
Inspection 04-07-2012: First of the Season
I so believe weather forecasters are the biggest teases around. They'll predict a high of around 56 or so, and then when the day comes, it isn't past 45. I've been keeping an eye on the weather, waiting for a day in the mid to high 50's. We're just not there yet here in New England, apparently.
Today was another mid-50's promise, but the most it got to was around 47. So around 2:30PM this Saturday I decided to go into the hives in the backyard for the initial spring inspection.
Pink Hive
I started with that weird Pink hive - the one where I couldn't figure out if it was alive, or if it was just being robbed.
I opened it up, and saw some bees on top eating the sugar candy I never bothered to remove from this hive:
I pulled a couple of frames where I saw the most bees on the top, and saw a patch of brood.
Then I flipped over the frame, and look what I saw!
According to my Queen Bee Heritage spreadsheet, this is the queen from when the hive swarmed last year in June. So she did make it through the winter!
The interesting thing is that just a few frames over,there were a bunch of dead bees head-in to the cells; classic starvation.
What I surmise is this: some time during one of the warm winter days, it got warm enough that the hive cluster relaxed / spread out some. Then a cold snap occurred, and the cluster accidentally split into two groupings. One of those die (luckily not the one with the queen). Now what is left is a small group of bees.
What you see, repeated on 2 or 3 frames, is the extent of this cluster. If I would have been thinking, I would have moved over a frame or 2 from the brown hive to give this hive a jump-start. I still may do that tomorrow. This hive won't increase in numbers until more babies are born. And you can't have more eggs than you have enough nurse bees to care for them. A frame of bees and brood will help. I ended up adding more sugar syrup to this hive, and a pollen patty as well.
Brown Hive
Of all the three hives, the Brown Hive shows the most signs of activity. Whenever the weather is the slightest bit warm, those bees are out and about. Here's a frame with a lot of nectar and pollen:
And here is some brood:
The previous frame shows a second batch of brood being worked by the worker bees. Do you know how I know? Normally the queen starts in a center of a frame and lays eggs there, then moves to the edges. In this frame, the edges have capped brood, while the center has older uncapped brood and in between are either empty spaces or very young. The bees originally laid in the center of the frame have hatched, and the queen has laid replacement eggs there. I like this queen!
Speaking of the queen of the Brown hive, here she is:
Her white dot has worn off a lot, and there's just a ring left.
Here are more frames of good brood:
I also found about 4 frames along the edges looking like this:
This is capped honey/sugar syrup. I'm not sure which, but I suspect it is left over from last year. I will keep an eye on the hive because I don't want the queen to run out of space for laying because of frames like this. If I need to, I'll remove these frames and put in some empties.
I then moved down to the bottom chamber, and found this:
It's a frame with more brood. It's a semi-circle, the bottom "half" of the brood cluster. This is a good sign! Did I say how much I like this queen? If/when I do some grafting, it's going to be from her lineage.
I decided to put on a honey super of undrawn foundation, and add some jars of feed. My hope is that the bees will draw out the foundation so I can use it for honey collection later. If they do put up any of the sugar syrup in to that honey super I know it isn't honey, and if they do, I'll take the super off later and let the bees rob it out to get rid of the sugar; then I can put it back on (without feeding) to have them collect actual honey. I don't know any other way to get the bees to draw out foundation (unless there is a serious honey flow going on).
Green Hive
I then moved on to the Green Hive. It has a lot of activity, but not as much as the Brown Hive.
Here's the top of the frames in the top box:
She had some good brood patterns as well, plus nectar and pollen:
And I got a view of the queen herself:
All in all, I was pleased to see that all 3 hives survived. That makes me 5 for 5 (including the 2 hives in Sutton). In a few weeks once the weather is consistently warm, I'll look into making some queens by grafting.
In the past years I haven't had any luck catching any swarms around my house. I suppose it's because I don't have the swarm trap nucs in the correct place. I heard they need to be up high and facing south. Since I can't really get into my trees well, the only place I have that is high and facing south is my ... chimney!
So I put together a nuc with some frames of old comb and strapped it to the top of my chimney. I attached it to the flue coming out of the chimney (it goes to our fireplace, which we don't use) so it will stay there.
Who knows - I may catch something!
Today was another mid-50's promise, but the most it got to was around 47. So around 2:30PM this Saturday I decided to go into the hives in the backyard for the initial spring inspection.
Pink Hive
I started with that weird Pink hive - the one where I couldn't figure out if it was alive, or if it was just being robbed.
I opened it up, and saw some bees on top eating the sugar candy I never bothered to remove from this hive:
I pulled a couple of frames where I saw the most bees on the top, and saw a patch of brood.
Then I flipped over the frame, and look what I saw!
According to my Queen Bee Heritage spreadsheet, this is the queen from when the hive swarmed last year in June. So she did make it through the winter!
The interesting thing is that just a few frames over,there were a bunch of dead bees head-in to the cells; classic starvation.
What I surmise is this: some time during one of the warm winter days, it got warm enough that the hive cluster relaxed / spread out some. Then a cold snap occurred, and the cluster accidentally split into two groupings. One of those die (luckily not the one with the queen). Now what is left is a small group of bees.
What you see, repeated on 2 or 3 frames, is the extent of this cluster. If I would have been thinking, I would have moved over a frame or 2 from the brown hive to give this hive a jump-start. I still may do that tomorrow. This hive won't increase in numbers until more babies are born. And you can't have more eggs than you have enough nurse bees to care for them. A frame of bees and brood will help. I ended up adding more sugar syrup to this hive, and a pollen patty as well.
Brown Hive
Of all the three hives, the Brown Hive shows the most signs of activity. Whenever the weather is the slightest bit warm, those bees are out and about. Here's a frame with a lot of nectar and pollen:
And here is some brood:
The previous frame shows a second batch of brood being worked by the worker bees. Do you know how I know? Normally the queen starts in a center of a frame and lays eggs there, then moves to the edges. In this frame, the edges have capped brood, while the center has older uncapped brood and in between are either empty spaces or very young. The bees originally laid in the center of the frame have hatched, and the queen has laid replacement eggs there. I like this queen!
Speaking of the queen of the Brown hive, here she is:
Her white dot has worn off a lot, and there's just a ring left.
Here are more frames of good brood:
I also found about 4 frames along the edges looking like this:
This is capped honey/sugar syrup. I'm not sure which, but I suspect it is left over from last year. I will keep an eye on the hive because I don't want the queen to run out of space for laying because of frames like this. If I need to, I'll remove these frames and put in some empties.
I then moved down to the bottom chamber, and found this:
It's a frame with more brood. It's a semi-circle, the bottom "half" of the brood cluster. This is a good sign! Did I say how much I like this queen? If/when I do some grafting, it's going to be from her lineage.
I decided to put on a honey super of undrawn foundation, and add some jars of feed. My hope is that the bees will draw out the foundation so I can use it for honey collection later. If they do put up any of the sugar syrup in to that honey super I know it isn't honey, and if they do, I'll take the super off later and let the bees rob it out to get rid of the sugar; then I can put it back on (without feeding) to have them collect actual honey. I don't know any other way to get the bees to draw out foundation (unless there is a serious honey flow going on).
Green Hive
I then moved on to the Green Hive. It has a lot of activity, but not as much as the Brown Hive.
Here's the top of the frames in the top box:
She had some good brood patterns as well, plus nectar and pollen:
And I got a view of the queen herself:
All in all, I was pleased to see that all 3 hives survived. That makes me 5 for 5 (including the 2 hives in Sutton). In a few weeks once the weather is consistently warm, I'll look into making some queens by grafting.
In the past years I haven't had any luck catching any swarms around my house. I suppose it's because I don't have the swarm trap nucs in the correct place. I heard they need to be up high and facing south. Since I can't really get into my trees well, the only place I have that is high and facing south is my ... chimney!
So I put together a nuc with some frames of old comb and strapped it to the top of my chimney. I attached it to the flue coming out of the chimney (it goes to our fireplace, which we don't use) so it will stay there.
Who knows - I may catch something!
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