Honey Honey... Don't Stop

Did I just do an Inspection?

2012-01-30T13:38:00.001-06:00

It seems the start of the beekeeping year gets earlier and earlier! The next couple of days here in St Louis are going to be a lot warmer than normal, so it's a great opportunity to go and take a look at the hives and check on signs of life!

I just got back from visiting my city hive . I wasn't sure whether this colony would survive as it was light on food going into the winter. I tried to feed it up in the Autumn but I wasn't sure if the bees has put enough stores away to get them through. If truth be told, I wasn't sure I wanted them to get though either, but that's another story!

So today I took advantage of near 60F weather to take a peek. Lots of bees flying in front of the hive. Although I didn't see any pollen or forage going in it was good to see them so active, most probably cleansing and cleaning. I was quite surprised to see the activity. Anyway, I quickly popped the cover to check inside and I could clearly discern a cluster in the middle of the hive. It was a bit spread out but I put that down to the warm weather. The hive still seemed pretty heavy, but I still took the opportunity to add a pollen patty under the inner cover - that can't do any harm!

I mustn't get complacent. There's still a long way to go before we can really say winter is over, so I can't be 100% sure this hive will make it, but the early indication is that it will and hopefully do well this summer.

My plans? To move the hive back to Kirkwood before the spring. However, I first need to build a hive stand in a friend's garden, then I'll wait for a cold day and move the hive. That won't be too difficult! Reckon I'll be doing this in February!

Creating a Green Holiday with the Fransiscan Sisters!

2011-11-30T06:53:00.001-06:00

I have to give out a big thank you to the Fransiscan Sisters in Kirkwood and to Diane Hippert in particular for inviting me to an evening on how to create a "Green Christmas". I was asked, along with Susan, to man a booth about bees; to answer any questions and to sell a little honey and other stuff if I wanted.

It was an extremely interesting evening! The Key Note speaker ran a single stream re-cycling facility that deals with Kirkwood's recycling as well as a whole lot more from other areas. If you ever wanted to know your recycling goes, how it gets recycled and why you should recycle, this was the evening meeting to go to!

Why a single stream and not separete ones? Well because the technology and automation now enables it to be done this way - optical sensors, electro magnets, eddy currents etc. etc.

And the honey sales were great too! Most of my stock sold and the massage bars sold like hot cakes! I just have to market and sell more! If anybody is interested, contact me through the blog and I will try and get some to you before Christmas!

Giving Thanks!

2011-11-24T10:28:00.001-06:00

It's been a while since I blogged last, and today is Thanksgiving! So what did I do to give thanks today? I Made some massage bars, that's what! Stunningly simple and whilst I haven't yet popped them out of their molds they feel lovely. So here's the receipe...

"Honey, rub me all over!" Massage Bars...
1 part beeswax
1 part Cocoa Butter (I used 100% organic, but I don't suppose it really makes a difference)
1 part fractionated coconut oil.

Basically you melt the beeswax, drop in the cocoa butter until it melts, add the oil, mix and make sure it's all melted then chuck it into some molds. Easy! Here's the link to the receipe.... Oh, I understand if you eat it it won't harm you!

A bit of good news for a change!

2011-10-12T08:23:00.001-05:00

It’s always nice to hear some good news. So here is some ofthe bee kind! An entomologist in the UK has recently found a species of bee thatwas been thought to be extinct in Britain. The bee, Halictus Eurygnathus, waslast seen in 1946. And it was found on chalk downland just down the road frommy stamping ground back home!

The downside to this story is that another bee (a miningbee, Andrena Hattorfiana) is suffering from habitat loss in the same area. But things can be done to help, like leavingwildflower margins in arable fields. Ihope this particular lesson is rolled out to the mid-west!

I think that’s it!

2011-09-13T13:28:00.001-05:00

On Saturday I extracted what is likely to be the last honeyfrom my hives. The final super came frommy city hive and it gave me another 8kg (18 lbs)! So the overall total for the honey Iharvested this year stacks up as…

Blue Queen Hive - 61 kg (135 lbs)
White Queen Hive - 31 kg (68 lbs)
Botanical Gardens - 14 kg (30 lbs)
City Bees - 30 kg (66 lbs)

Overall that’s 136 kg (300 lbs) of honey. Brilliant!

The hive at the botanical gardens seems to have an activelaying queen. We had some doubt as I didnot see any eggs or larvae at the weekend. However I checked today and I spied some larvae in a nice densepattern. Perhaps the queen was not activelylaying during the period that I was treating for mites. There has been observation that this might bethe case when using Mite Away Quick Strips. I’m not 100% happy with the behavior of this hive – it gets quitedefensive. But that may be down to the fact the hive was being sprayed by anirrigation hose today! Irrespective, I thinkI will leave her alone for now. Perhaps if she gets through the winter I willthink about requeening in the spring.

Brood!

2011-09-05T15:32:00.002-05:00

Phew, that's a relief!.

It was such a lovely day today that the lure of an inspection just couldn't be resisted! The very good news is that there is brood (larvae) in my "Blue" Hive; the one that lost it's queen. It was queenless for a while (probably since sometime in the middle or early July) and I only managed to introduce a new queen on 25 August, about 10 days ago. I had hoped that some queen cells would develop, but that didn't happen. Anyway, three days after introducing her I checked to see if things were going well. Yes, she had been released, but I saw no sign of her. But, rather than look for her I decided the best course of action would be to leave things alone and check again in a few more days. I have been here before and the last time I went looking for her I clearly disturbed things and the queen did not take!

So in I went today and saw some nice larvae, probably about 5 days old, nicely packed into a frame. I am quite relieved! The hive is nice and heavy with stores and the bees in the hive seem much more settled. They are working and walking over the frames in a much more settled way. While they were queenless they really didn't look like they had much "purpose". I know this is a bit of a cliche, but they definitely were not right!

My other "at home" hive (the "White" Hive") seems busy and full of bees too. I saw densly packed brood in a couple of frames in the top (of three) boxes and I removed the Mite Away Quick Strip residue. They also have a lot of stores to carry them through winter. I suspect this hive will need to be watched for swarming in early spring! So place your orders now for a split!

Creamed Honey and Mead

2011-09-04T11:05:00.001-05:00

I carried out an exercise in creamed (set) honey making yesterday. This is the stuff that doesn't run all over the place when you put it on your bread/muffins etc. It's actually dead easy to make, although I probably should be careful what I say as it will be another 5 days before I find if the receipe I used works!

All you do is heat the liquid honey to about 60C (140F) in order to remove any sugar crystals. Then you let it cool to about 35C (95F) before adding some seed honey i.e. a small proportion (1:9) of already set honey, leave it to stand for about 12 hours, pour it into jars and then keep at about 14C (57F) for five to seven days. I bottled my honey this morning and so will have wait until next weekend before I see if it will be OK. How to I manage to control the temperature at 14C? Well I found an unwanted wine fridge on Craigs List!

I also decanted my month-old mead into another demi-john (carboy to us US folks) this morning. I got a mouth full while I was syphoning the stuff into a clean container. It's a bit rough, but it certainly has promise!

New Kids on the Block!

2011-08-29T18:27:00.001-05:00

I got a call from a neighbour about a nest of bees in her yard! Makes you wonder how long they have been there and what size of hive it is. But, it's a bit to high in the tree, and the tree's a bit to big to cut down just to find out...

The Queen is out!

2011-08-29T18:17:00.004-05:00

I looked in the hive this evening to check if the Queen is OK. She was put in the hive last Thursday evening - 4 days ago. Well, she was not in her cage and so I hope she is in the hive somewhere preparing to lay! I will leave it a few more days to see if I can see any eggs and/or larvae.

The Queen is Dead! Long Live the Queen!

2011-08-26T12:22:00.003-05:00

I got a new queen from "Long Lane Honey Bee Farm" yesterdayand popped her in the hive yesterday evening. I really looked hard through the hive for the old queen – not a sign ofher, but I did observe a new bee emerging! Thetiming of this is really weird. I camehome from vacation on 22 July, went through my bees about a week later to findthere was no brood, just a few drone cells and isolated workers. I left some queen cells alone for three weeksand looked again, still no brood and no queen. By way of comparison the hive next to this had lots of brood and larvae so it wasn’t asthough the queen just shut down in the hot weather.

So I took the decision to re-queen and the new queen is now in the hive. Time will tell if she is the only queen thereand is accepted by the workers. I guess in a week Iwill know one way or the other!

Later today I plan to look through my city hive – the onethat is really defensive. I have a superto remove and some mite treatment to perform (Mite Away Quick Strips). We’ll see how they behave. It isa lovely dry day today so I hope the bees will be out of the hive and notinside waiting for me….

My Local Honey!

2011-08-24T14:11:00.000-05:00

This is fun! The “St. Louis Post Dispatch” did a piece on us, well Elspeth and her honey recipes. Kathleen (who looks after the Tower Grove bees) has a journalist friend who expressed an interest in my mead making. It turned out that mead making wasn’t quite what the Post Dispatch was after, however they were interested in other recipes where Elspeth used honey.

So a journalist, and photographer, came to see us a couple of weeks ago, asked us lots of questions about what we did in St. Louis and what we liked to do and what influenced our cooking etc. etc. and low and behold today in the paper there is a feature containing a photo of Elspeth and a dish of her honey ice cream and honeyed figs. Lots of people have noticed and it’s been a lot of fun!

Mead making!

2011-08-13T17:25:00.000-05:00

So my latest venture is to make some mead. I found a receipe published by Gary Reuter who works at the Department of Entomology at the University of Minnesota. He gave a really good series of talks at a conference arranged by the Easterm Missouri Beekeepers Association in 2010 so I thought if he knew about bees (and he does) he must know about mead!

Anyway the receipe is dead easy to follow. I have made two one gallon batches so far. Each gallon has used honey from a different hive; my white queen hive and my blue queen hive. I have used the same yeast and followed the instructions as closely as I can. This means the only difference between them is the source of the honey! Both batches are currently bubbling away in the basement!

I hope I will be able to discern a difference between the two brews once they have matured - I'm targetting Christmas for the tasting!

Gone!

2011-08-01T20:55:00.001-05:00

Well I'm a bit shell shocked! My fantastic, highly productive "Blue" Queen has gone! Not a sign of her in the hive! I went in to the hive on Sunday morning; admittedly it's the first time in about a month, and got a bit of an unpleasant surprise.

I saw no brood, other than some spotty drone brood, and rather tellingly, several queen cells! Doom! she must have swarmed I thought! But the queen cells were not just in the classic supersedure location (at the bottom of the frames), some were also on the body of the frames. So I'm not really sure if she left, or died and is now being replaced. I counted about 6 capped and therefore vital queen cells. I reckon with all the absence of brood the hive must have been queenless for about 3 weeks, as it takes 21 days for an egg to be transformed into a hatched bee. So something happened just after we went on vacation. But what?

Anyhow where does this leave me? Well I think it's actually quite interesting. I was already thinking about re-queening this hive, albeit in the spring, but re-queening nevertheless. All this means is that the process I was going to induce has been brought forward a bit. A lot of people swear by re-queening in the late summer as a good young queen can give a hive a healthy start to the next year.

So, I think the capped cells that I left in the hive will hatch in the next few days. Subsequently an emerging queen will take about a week to get ready for her maiden flight (but it could be less than this) and with luck she will return mated and will start laying soon after. So in about 2 weeks I may be able to observe some new brood! I'm pretty confident that with all the bee hives in the neighbourhood the drone stock out there will be from selected 'hygenic' stock and I could have another good laying queen on my hands for little fuss and bother.

Oh, and there's another major bonus! The absence of a queen for about 3 weeks means that any mites that were in the hive should be killed off! The lack of brood will have disrupted their life cycle. No brood means no cells containing pupae in which the female mite can lay her young! All in all it could be doubly good news. You have to remain positive! Perhaps every could does have a silver lining?

Wax!

2011-07-30T21:39:00.001-05:00

It's been a messy couple of days in the basement! I've been rendering my wax cappings and have been working towards making some candles and lip balm etc.

The problem is converting the wax cappings, left after the honey harvest, into beeswax that I can make good use of. I looked on the internet and it has all looked pretty straight forward. First off I put my cappings in a big aluminium saucepan I got from a garage sale - do not use a new one or one from the kitchen! To this I added about an equal volume of water and simply boiled up the water/wax mixture! I don't think the proportions were especially important and it didn't seem to matter that once the mix was boiling I thew in further handfuls of cappings. Anyway I let this boil for about 20 minutes.

Once I was happy everything was all mixed up I then had to filter the debris (bees, bugs and other detritus) out of the wax. I read different things on the internet and I was also given advise by some fellow beekeepers. Basically you pour the filtered water/wax mixture into a container and let the wax and water separate. Anyway, my first approach was to pass the mix through an aluminium insect screen; the type you put over a window. This worked reasonably well but a lot of scum was carried through the filter and when the wax had separated and hardened there was a thick brown scummy layer attached to the bottom of the wax. My second try was to pour the mixture through a paint strainer (a fine nylon cloth mesh). This proved very good at removing the scum, but some still managed to get through this. I was going to have to pass the molten wax through a finer screen to remove the final few bits of rubbish

So my last effort involved melting the wax in a jar that was sitting in a bath of boiling water, and then to pass this through a really fine screen. I found that a coffee filter was excellent; not a paper one, but one of the fine metal ones. The wax that passed though this is lovely! I will have to try to clean this sceen and reckon that I will have to clean it in boiling water.

I haven't tried it, but I do wonder if this coffee filter would be as effective on the boiling water/cappings wax mixture? I guess I'll have to wait until next year to find out, unless I get some fall honey!

All good fun and I now have some ingots of beeswax and some candles!

Finally, a practical use for my honey - a tasty cocktail!

2011-07-23T18:51:00.001-05:00

At Last I found a practical use for my honey - as an ingredient in a tasty cocktail...

"Lemon Balm Honeysuckle" - serves 8

6 Tbsp. honey
2 cups Bacardi
3/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1 cup (loosly packed) fresh lemon balm leaves
8 lemon slices (for garnish)

Add the honey to a large jug and dissolve it in 6 tablespoons of hot water. Stir in the Bacardi and lemon juice. Add 2 cups of ice cubes. Cover and refridgerate for 2 hours (if you can wait this long!). Squeeze the lemon balm leaves to bruise them; add these to the jug. Finally fill 8 "Old Fashioned" glasses with ice cubes, divide the cocktail and pass out, to your guests of course!

So, that deals with about 1 tablespoon of honey per glass. By my reckoning that means I can drink about 6,144 glasses before I run out of honey! Mind you that's also about 96 gallons of Bacardi!

Clearly I have some work to do..... better go and get a refill!!

Harvested! & knackered to boot!

2011-07-04T18:18:00.000-05:00

And relax, it's all done, for now......

Yep, everything is harvested and in buckets! I'm just about to pop out and have a few well earned beers - Happy 4th July everyone! Oh, the final tally...

Blue Queen Hive - 61 kg (135 lbs)
White Queen Hive - 31 kg (68 lbs)
Botanical Gardens - 14 kg (30 lbs)
City Bees - 22 kg (48 lbs)

So a total of about 128 kg (280 lbs) from my four hives. Add to that the 45 kg (100 lbs) from Susan's harvest and 61 kg (135 lbs) from Eugene's and I'd say it was a pretty successful day!

Now, where's that beer.....

All gathered in!

2011-07-03T11:22:00.001-05:00

I think (and hope) all the hard work is now done! Over the last two days I took off 6 more supers (more or less). I now have 8 supers awaiting extraction tomorrow, but I reckon I'll have to start tonight! Boy was it hard! Working in 35C temperatures (95F) was tough. How people do this for a living I don't begin to comprehend!

Anyway my guess is that I will have another 150 lbs. Some will go to others, but that still leaves me plenty not to know what to do with!!! A sweet problem nevertheless!

I'll blog tomorrow with the final score!

Honey Harvest - Phase 1

2011-06-25T19:09:00.001-05:00

Well we're off! Phase 1 of the Honey Harvest started today. I took off 4 supers from my favourite "Blue Quees" hive. Two mediums and one shallow super of "normal" honey and a shallow of cut comb honey. I've not weighed the cut comb honey super yet, but the other three gave me 41 kgs (90 pounds), which I'm really pleased with!!! The blue hive still has another super which is nearly capped so I may be dealing with about 70 kgs (150 lbs) in total from this single hive. Fantastic!!!

I still have another two supers on each of my city hives and three on my "white" hive to go!

I need more buckets!!!

Bee Madness!!

2011-06-10T15:33:00.000-05:00

It's all going bonkers here!!!

The bees at the botantical gardens have filled a super with honey and we are having to put a second box on. So there's at least 30 lbs on this hive. And there's still another month of honey flow to go...

My bees at home (just the blue hive) has four full supers - so probably 120+ lbs of honey already and I added a fifth super! I didn't even check my other hive at home, nor my second city hive yet! I better get some more boxes!!!

What does this mean? Well I could have upwards of 200lbs of honey this year. Bonkers! Anyone want to fill a bath?

Bring it on!

2011-06-09T20:39:00.000-05:00

The Botanical Garden bees have finally risen to the challenge, or have finally realised what a gold mine they are sitting on! They've now almost filled an entire medium super - in a little over a week. I need to ass another super as I reckon there will be another month or so of nectar flow to come yet! Can they fill this too? Wow these bees have really taken off.

I can't wait to see what my bees down the road have done! I estimated they were about a week in advance of the garden bees in their development and the stores they were packing away. With any luck I will probably need to go along armed with an empty super! I havn't even thought about the bees at home!

Bring it on!

Has the swarming season finished?

2011-06-01T22:23:00.000-05:00

It's been a while since I last blogged - and a while since I last looked in the hives. A lot has been going on and it's difficult to know where to start. So in date order...

Last Friday (yes 5 days ago!) I looked in my nice "Blue" hive at home to see what has been going on with respect to Queen Cells. I'm happy to report that no new cells have been made, and the ones I removed have not been rebuilt! So does this mean swarming season is over for me???? Famous Last Words I expect. This good news (?) means I didn't do any Demaree swarm control and have instead enjoyed seeing my girls pack away the honey! Two supers are full and the other one is now filling. Not enough for me to want to put another one on, but it's coming on nicely. Next week I may add something as the weather is supposed to be good!

On Saturday I looked in on my City Hives. The one down the road from the Botanical Gardens is beginning to build out the super I added last week and even some honey is being stored! I couldn't see much else in the hive as it started to rain as I began the inspection. But this hive is doing well in this neighbourhood!

Also on Saturday I looked in the Botanical Garden Hive. This has been about a week behind the other hive. And although still a bit behind I put a super on just to help get things moving if the weather and honey flow improve next week. It looks healthy and adding the super makes me feel good about it!!!

Finally my "White" hive at home. I managed to look at this today after helping Susan with her bees. If you remember I was executing swarm control measures on this hive (The Demaree method). Last week (20th May) I removed about 7 Queen cells from the top hive bodies where the nurse bees are/were. Today I saw no Queen Cells. Which is both predictable I suppose, but also a nice relief! Instead the deeps above the queen excluder are filling with food stores. The deep that is under the queen excluder has eggs, brood, larvae in it, but again no Queen Cells! So I have (perhaps a bit rashly) removed the queen excluder and put the deeps back on the hive, under the stack of supers. I'm hoping that this will encourage some more foraging and brood rearing as the queen (wherever she is) now has room to move up through the hive and lay, lay, lay! I guess I shouldn't rush to get back into this hive - perhaps in a week or 10 days time...

Maybe, just maybe my bees have passed the time that they will want to swarm this year? But having said that I fully expect to be proved wrong and have my theory torn up right in front of me!!!

It's Super - quite literally!

2011-05-20T15:07:00.000-05:00

Super is definitely the word. My hive near (not in) the Botanical Garden is thriving. There's lots of lovely brood and plenty of nectar coming in. So much so that today I removed the feeders, did a reverse and I added my first super! Brilliant!

The hive I tend in the Gardens is also doing well, but it's not quite like the one down the road. No need to super here, but I did remove the feeder and there is plenty of pollen - which given it's location isn't too surprising I suppose! I think in a week we may well be reversing and adding a super here as well! Can't wait!

My home hives are also pushing ahead. The "white" hive that is undergoing a Demaree swarm control procedure right now has supers that are (at a guess) about 40% full. Today I removed about 7 queen cells from the top two hives - It's 10 days since I played with the hive. There appear to be no further eggs in the top of the hive, which is just what I want. In the bottom, although I didn't see the queen, I saw eggs and significantly no queen cells. I think the swarm control measures are working!

My "blue" hive is bursting! All three of the supers are practically full already! I therefore "bottom supered" with a fourth. So that's it, I'm out of supers now! I have one more medium super box, but no more frames! I feel an order for some more coming on very soon! The queen is brilliant - but perhaps a bit too good as I found a couple of Queen Cells on a couple of frames - viable ones at that. This is a bit gloomy as I may have to do some Demaree measures on this hive as well! For this I'll need another deep box and some frames. I'm out of all my essentials!

I suppose beekeeping has it's good and it's not so good days. Overall today has been very, very, good.

I slept on it... and then had second thoughts...

2011-05-13T12:03:00.000-05:00

I inspected both my home hives on Wednesday (after dealing with Susan’s bees, for which there is a whole other story!) and was very happy with what I saw; well up to a point anyway.

My “Blue”, nice and calm, hive has practically filled a super with light coloured nectar/honey - it’s not yet capped, but could this be linden tree honey? Wow! That would be great! There is lots of nicely packed brood in the hive too and although I didn’t see the queen I’m sure from the larvae I saw she is there. There is a lot of pollen too. I allowed myself to bask in a warm glow, just for a bit! I didn’t even see any Queen Cells - very happy about that!

My “White” hive is also strong, but these bees are less calm. They fly about a lot around and in front of you as you work the hive, but as yet they don’t get aggressive and sting. They follow you for a bit as well, but are not too persistent. These bees are filling supers too and the deeps are full of brood and stores as well. So this is good. I saw larvae and the queen - also great. And I saw Queen Cells! Not so good! There were Supersedure cells; three grouped together on the bottom of a frame and a fourth still open on another. I cut them all out and thought that would be sufficient.

Later on yesterday I went to the bee club and was convinced that I need to do something more than cut out the Queen cells. So I went back this afternoon and used the Demaree method of swarm control on the bees. The reasoning is that if the bees have already capped Queen Cells, their swarm urge is strong and it is unlikely that cutting out queen cells will stop them from swarming. The Demaree method separates the queen from her brood and this simulates swarming. Hopefully the nurse bees have been fooled into thinking the hive has swarmed!

I isolated the queen in the bottom deep (under a Queen Excluder) with two frames of capped brood and some frames of foundation. On top of the excluder I put two of my supers, then two deeps that contained the remains of the brood, and finally the last of my supers. The hive stack now has an unconventional look about it and is now taller than me (but only if you include the height of the stand!). I need to wait about nine or ten days before I go back in to cut out any more queen cells in the top deeps and separate more the brood from the queen in the bottom of the hive.

At least this gives me time to ask a few more questions about what I’m doing!!!

Bee Lucky!!

Progress in the City...

2011-05-09T23:06:00.000-05:00

It's been a couple of weeks since the hives were installed in the city (and in the case of one, moved). I spent some time checking on them yesterday. Just a quick look inside to feed the bees and check on their development.

Both hives are doing very nicely. Strangely I think the hive that is not in the Botanical Gardens (MOBOT) is doing ever so slighly better. This hive has more drawn comb in the top hive box, but really there's not much in it.

I fed about a gallon of 1:1 syrup to each hive. The MOBOT hive has taken about 2 gallons in two weeks whereas the other hive has consumed just one. I think we will see that increase soon. Why? Well, I have moved a couple of frames of brood up into the top hive bodies from the lower hive bodies. I'm hoping this will stimulate some building. I'd like to have frames in both hive bodies to be drawn out by the end of the month (if not sooner). The if the nectar flow is still on I can see if there is any chance of bulding out (and filling) of some supers!

Here are a few pics of the installations:

Drawn out foundation

2011-05-03T22:58:00.001-05:00

My so called "weak" queen (the one that saved the beetle infested hive last year) is going great guns! These bees have tons of brood being reared and have built out about 6 of the 8 comb-honey frames in my shallow super. I don't think the other hive has even found out they have supers on their hive yet!

So I'm very happy with this one! The other hive is doing well too and I'm hopefull she will catch up soon!

Gone!

2011-05-01T16:51:00.000-05:00

No sooner than they got there, they went! What happened?

Well they moved, but not of their own accord; more due to someone else's! It seems the presence of bees in the International Institute's farm was a bit premature and although it is a farm, my particular kind of livestock has more issues than some were prepared for! I understand a board member expressed reservations over the safety risk they posed. Funny really, as I strongly suspect that firearms in this part of town are distinctly more of a threat to the local population than my girls! Still, I suppose the threat of possible litigation is far more frightening to some than what we can find in nature. Better stop spouting off at this point...

Anyway, the bees are now located at another address (which is tip, top, secret!!). It's about a mile or so from the farm. After the move no girls went back to the farm, which was nice! I just hope their new home has more accepting neighbours.

We haven't given up on the farm just yet. The Farm Coordinator and some of the managers are going to be lobbying hard for their return. I wish them well, it is a good location, and there are some local residents who I think would really enjoy having them around.

Very angry bees, and mis-understandings...

2011-04-26T22:40:00.004-05:00

So finally this afternoon I looked at the bees in my own garden. If you remember I was concerned that I saw some queen cells in them last weekend. Well, put it down to inexperience, or just the fact that it could have been blind panic at the time, but clearly I confused a drone cell (which was all on it's own) with a possible queen cell. I am now certain these queen cells were actually not that! How am I sure? Well I looked through Susan's hive this afternoon and saw very clearly what a queen cell looks like! They are much, much, bigger! How could I forget?

There I was, fully expecting to see queen cells throughout my hives, but I saw none! I think the fact I was in a hurry on Sunday made me make the confused diagnosis. What this all meant was that I didn't feel I needed to carry out any swarm prevention measures. I was fully prepared to implement the Demaree method and had all my excluders and frames ready etc. But on seeing they were drone cells I backed out and let the queens pretty much carry on as they were. I did leave some syrup in one of the hives, but come Friday I think I will remove this.

Now on to Angry Bees! Susan had a bad experience yesterday. A bee got into her veil and stung her on the lip while she was looking through her hive. Another bee then stung her on the arm. She suffered some considerable swelling! The other result was that she didn't get to look properly in her hive. This afternoon I offered to take a look - probably bravado after feeling good about my hives!

Her split was pretty calm, but somehow a bee also got inside my veil!!! Thankfully I did not get stung, but I did re-tie the veil! What did I see? Well no queen that was clear, but plenty of capped queen cells at the bottom of the frames! This is confusing. Susan had already spoken to Eugene about this and his suggestion was to just let the bees replace the missing one. Why not, it could be interesting and I suspect the gene pool in the neighbourhood will be good. I know of at least 4 hives nearby with 'hygenic' queens, and so good drones for the new queen should be easy to find. Susan will loose some production on this hive, but as she was trying to build this up to go through winter then she is probably OK.

Susan's parent hive was next and this was just plain nasty !!!! My gauge is my own hives and one is very, very, calm and does not get very excited, even when I rip it apart. My other hive gets more agitated; the bees tend to fly about and around you a bit, but they don't do much else. I was thinking these bees were a bit unpleasant, until I met Susan's! Wow they are brutes!

I had to get right inside her hive and so there were bits of hive body lying about on stands, the ground etc. So bees everywhere. I pretty quickly established that there were capped queen cells present (together with the existing queen) and so we have implemented the Demaree method. I put the frame of bees with the queen in the bottom deep, added an excluder over it and then popped some supers on.

Then I had to deal with the deeps. The 'fun' started when I started to remove the queen cells!! The bees came for me and started stinging my veil and suit and gloves. Stings embedded everywhere, but thankfully NOT in me! My son, who was warned about the nature of these bees, was watching from about 30 feet away and got stung twice! Yes, I did tell him he wasn't going to get any medals for being stung, but did he listen? Anyway, we succeeded to remove all the queen cells (I hope). We'll give it 8 to 10 days before going back in to remove any further queen cells we find; to check on the queen and possibly remove brood. Can't say I'm looking forward to that!

Personally, I think this queen needs to go, and soon. You really can't beat a good execution when it comes to royalty!

International Institute of St. Louis

2011-04-26T22:08:00.000-05:00

The other nuc now resides within the city bounday in McRee Town, on the site of an Urban Farm that is being run by the International Institute of St. Louis (THEISTL). I am very excited by this development and I will be blogging the news of the bees and their development on this site!

The THEISTL runs programs for refugees who came to the USA and helps retrain them. I understand the idea of the farm is to help refugees to adjust to growing different crops in conditions they are not necessarily used to. I also heard that there is a Nepalese guy who was a beekeeper back in Nepal. Im looking forward to hearing his view on how I manage the bees on the site! and to find out how my bees differ from the ones he was used to dealing with!

Anyway, I moved the bees from my porch first thing this morning. I closed them up late last night while it was raining heavily. How brilliant an idea of mine was it to put the nucs on the porch! I think the unrelenting rain meant that all the bees were sheltering in the hive and so I'm pretty sure I took all the bees to the 'farm'. There were no stragglers seen hanging around the porch today!

Whitney getting involed!

The new apiary!

View from the landing area!

So my thanks go to Whitney the farm coordinator and to Zach for building a very nice hive stand! I hope this proves to be a fruitful liaison for us all! Can wait to get back on Friday and see how they have been behaving!

Busy, Busy Day

2011-04-26T22:04:00.003-05:00

Well I was up early with my bees this morning! Both the Nucs I had stored on my porch have now gone to great new homes.

One is now residing in the Botanical Gardens! I received a call from a fellow beekeeper saying that someone at the gardens was interested in keeping some bees and did I have a hive I could sell? Brilliant!!! I was told they would need some help to get them used to keeping bees and also to coach them through the first year! This should be fun!

So after some discussions with one of the horticulturlaists we got a hive location sorted out and a stand set up and at about 7.30 this morning the nuc was installed on a lovely hive stand on the edge of a lake within the grounds of MOBOT!!!

I have not yet met the lady who is going to keep the bees, but on Friday I hope to meet her and show her around the hive. I also want to make sure there is sufficient syrup in the feeder. The hive comprises one deep full of drawn comb and brood etc. and a second deep with just a feeder and some foundation. I anticpate this deep could be drawn out in two or three weeks, maybe earlier and I also think it's not impossible for the bees to consume about 4 gallons of syrup during this period! That's about 30lbs of sugar!

But, if we can't make beekeeping work here with all these trees and flowers I guess I should hang up my smoker and hive tool and try something else!

Testing times...

2011-04-24T20:29:00.001-05:00

So I went through the hives again today. I removed some brood and combined it with the frames in my nucs. Hopefully I have made some space for the bees in my hives. Will it work? I don't know yet!

The upshot is that I now have two small hives on my porch, each with some 8 or 9 frames of brood and stores. These will get moved to their new locations on Tuesday if all goes to plan. But the weather is proving to be totaly disruptive. Storms and heavy rain all weekend, plus no end in sight this coming week. So bees cooped up inside, not doing anything other than thinking about swarming. They're like small children - I just have to get them to think of something else!!!

Just to compound the issues and add salt into the wounds, during all of this I found a queen cell in one of my nucs!! The new queen was there as well! What are the bees doing to me? Did I upset them? I'm now really confused! What will happen? I suspect I'll just have to wait and see. If my new 'nucs' swarm, what can I do? My objective is to build them up for next winter. So as long as I can do this I reckon we'll be OK. If they swarm I guess I'll need to get a new queen!

If my own hives at home swarm, that may be a different kettle of fish. I need to sleep on this and ask around for some advice. The Demaree method seems worthy of some reading up on. Maybe if I can get hold of a couple more queen excluders I can make sure both don't swarm!

Ugggghhh!!!!

Swarm Preparations?

2011-04-23T14:59:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure about this, but when I was in my hives this afternoon I may have removed a couple of active swarm cells. One was open and full of milky white royal jelly, the other was closed and had a pupa in it. It could have been a drone cell, but I don't think so. Both cells were on the bottom of a frame so in prime position for a swarm cell!

There were plenty of queen cups too. But these were all empty and I've sort of got used to finding them. I am more concerned about the possibility of queen cells as I do not want the hives to swarm!

So what do I do? My initial thought is to make nucs from some of the brood frames in the hives, thus making some more space for the bees. But I only did this a couple of weeks ago! Quite aside from the fact I don't have any queens right now, can I do this again? I can't see why not. One complication will be the fact that the two nucs I have currently contain bees - and will do so into next week. I am going to prepare new hives from these, but I don't this until Tuesday.

There is some good news! My 'Blue' hive has started to draw out honey comb on some of the plastic foundation in the deeps and on the pure beeswax foundation in the supers. Maybe this will keep them busy and take their minds of swarming. I can always cross my fingers.

Earth Day in Forest Park

2011-04-17T21:41:00.000-05:00

The EMBA had a stall at the Earth Day event held in Forest park today. There was HUGE interest in keeping bees and in general bee health. OK so we did have an observation hive, which always helps bring in the public, but nevertheless tons of people took a very genuine interest. Several took away information on starting hives and I hope they will take the plunge, get some bees and come to the beekeeing meetings. Who knows I may even have sold one of my nucs!

On Friday I went to the International Institute of St Louis' farm to check out thier site and see how it will be for some bees. Little did I know there was an article in the STL Post Dispatch (also on Friday) about the project. Really interesting stuff is going on there and I'm really excited about being asked to help in my own little way. There's a video which very neatly explains what it's all about. Anyway I hope I'll have a new hive installed there this coming weekend! The site is great. OK there's not much visible right now, but lots of planting going on will see to that. My plan would be to have a single hive there this year and hopefully split it this time next year! But I better not get ahead of myself just yet!

Settling in and moving on...

2011-04-14T21:16:00.001-05:00

I was a bit worried about removing the division board feeders from the nucs just as I had introduced the queens. But there didn't seem to be sufficicent room for the queen cages, 4 frames of brood and honey as well as the feeder. Something had to go and it was the feeders!

I was telling Susan about my predicament last night, and also the fact that I felt the feeders were just a little too wide to fit comfortably in the nucs. She kindly offered me 2 frames of honey she had taken from her hive earlier in the season and wasn't going to use! I gladly accepted these and set about inspecting the nucs this evening after I got home from work.

Both queens appear to be well settled in, and they're laying eggs too! Great News! So I have two good nucs with brood on 3 frames and I will be in a position to sell one of these and use the other one myself. Which brings me nicely on to the other news I have.

There was a call in the "Waggle" newsletter this week from Bob Sears for anyone who was interested in starting or moving a hive of bees to a couple of urban farms in St Louis. One of these farms happens to be located quite near the Botanical Gardens - WOW!!! what further motivation could I need!!! and it is run by the "International Institute of St Louis". I don't know a whole lot about the organisation but from what I have read online they run programs for immigrants to the US to help get people get started in agriculture and other things. That sounds like a good fit for me, what with me being an "alien" myself. So I called the people involved and I have set up a meeting on site tomorrow lunchtime.

I'm quite excited about starting a third hive, having it near the Botanical Gardens and on a site where there should be a lot of interest generated. Don't worry I expect I'll blog about this ad nauseam!

Queen Installation

2011-04-09T20:08:00.004-05:00

I picked up 5 queens this morning; not all for myself. It was especially interesting to hear them 'piping'. I was reading that piping is common when there is more than one queen in the hive. So I wonder if they were piping because they sensed there were other queens nearby?

I put my two queens in the nucs at lunchtime, without any incident. I even did it without wearing gloves! My first time this year. I left the cork plug in place in the queen cagesand I will go back in a couple of days (probably Monday) to remove the plug and let the bees loose on the candy. I hope by Wednesday the queens will have been fully released and accepted by the bees in the nuc.

STOP PRESS: The apparant nosema streaking I noticed the other day all seems to have dissappeared. Was the medication successful? Did the bees just get over it? or was the streaking just the result of the bees being "mightily relieved" after being cooped up for a couple of wet days? Who knows, but it all looks good for now. I saw my first hive beetle yesterday - boo!!!

Nucs made!

2011-04-08T12:20:00.000-05:00

It turned out perfect for making nucs this morning, once I got a trip to the dentist out of the way! I made up two nucs from my two hives!

There was plenty of brood in the hives. I took two good frames of brood (capped and uncapped) and two frames of food. For good measure I added a division board feeder to the hive too! There are at least 6 frames of brood remaining in the hives. Most of this in the bottom box and I will have to take a look next week and see whether I need to reverse the brood boxes again!

Tomorrow my new queens are due to arrive; one for each nuc. I hope the weather will be sufficiently good to enable me to install one in each of the nucs - I'm sure it will. I have put the nucs on the porch where they are sheltered. I will be able to open them up and install a queen (inside her cage of course) even if it is raining.

Right, so what am I going to do with the nucs? Well, I may sell one and use the other to start a colony in a community garden that is located in the city. I called the garden last two days ago but have yet to hear back from them. I am hopeful I will start this up. Eitherway I will not be shipping the nucs until probably next weekend.

Any takers? $120 each.

Last minute flurry of activity!

2011-04-04T10:14:00.000-05:00

Last minute flurry of activity!

I got to thinking yesterday afternoon (over a glass of wine) about when I should super my hives. They seem well set up, what with 6 frames of brood, stores and some available space to move into. But the big question was when should I add supers, when will the nectar flow start?

I posted a note to the forum and waited…..

It seems that at least one person has already added supers (albeit on Saturday) as he is seeing fruit trees and dandelions in bloom. OK, sounds pretty compelling I thought, so knowing it was due to be wet today, and stormy overnight, I quickly dashed to put my supers on my hives. Now, I only have one super with built out frames of comb and this I split between two of my supers. I put the built out frames in the middle of the boxes. So my hives now have two supers on each of them – the built out frames being at the bottom of each stack! We’ll see what happens over the next few days and weeks…

Of course still being a little new to this game, I then began to start worrying about whether supering now was too early! Anyway reassurance, in the way of Eugene, came galloping over the horizon and he tells me he too has supered, and thinks I am probably fine.

OK, (breathes a sigh of relief) I think I’m probably well set up now. But I still might make some nucs from the brood in the two hives I have now – swarm control. Might also have to get some more supers ready…

Reversals, Nosema medication and cleaning out old supers.

2011-04-02T18:46:00.003-05:00

Seems from the title of the post that there has been a lot going on this week. I guess that's right, but I don't think things are quite as dramatic as I have perhaps made out. Last weekend I topped up the syrup in both hives. On Wednesday, although it was cold, I added/topped up the syrup and I guess I added about 2 litres to each hive. This time I medicated the syrup with Fumagellin B as I had noticed some streaking on the front of the hives and thought that this might be nosema. The Fumagellin B was really added as a precaution. I cleaned off the outside of the hive in order to see the extent of the streaking. The following day it was quite clear the streaking was quite extensive (see photo).

This afternoon I went through the hives with Jurgen, a German friend who is playing with the idea of keeping bees. My girls' behaviour was exemplary! They were so calm. Jurgen felt very at ease and I reckon I'll be able to convince him to keep one hive for me, even if he doesn't want to keep any for himself this year. We probably had the hives open for 45 minutes and hardly used any smoke in the first hive. We opened the hive without smoking it in order to see the extent of the brood area. This wasn't really effective as the bees were all over the top of the frames and we couldn't make out the extent of the brood! It was another 5 or 10 minutes before we realised we left the smoker lying 20 feet away!

The first hive (blue queen) had 6 frames of capped and uncapped brood in the top box but no brood in the bottom box, although there was quite a lot of food stored in the bottom. We saw the queen. I therefore decided to a reversal. This all seems to be very good and all appears to be going to plan right now. I topped up the syrup with another litre or so.

The second hive (white queen) had a couple of frames of brood in the top box - only small areas, and there was quite a lot of brood on comb between the top and bottom box which I had to remove. The bottom box however contained about 5 or 6 frames of brood (capped and uncapped). Interestingly I saw the white queen in the top box and in the bottom box! She must have jumped below while I was lifting out frames! This hive, like the other one, took about a litre of medicated syrup.

So, the new queens arrive next weekend. I feel confident I will be able to make at least one nuc from what I have seen in my two hives.

Last, but not least, I put a couple of old supers out for the bees to clean. I had these supers on one of the hives over the winter but took them off a couple of weeks ago. On advice from Bob I left these out for the bees to clean up. It is likely that the honey in them is not really fit to be eaten as it has been left uncapped over the winter and could have exposed to contamination. So the best course of action seems to be to have the bees clean them up and then maybe I'll re-use them later in the summer. The frames and comb are old and very dark so I am tempted to remove the wax and put new foundation in them. here are a few photos of the girls cleaning things off...

Cracking on...

2011-03-27T12:19:00.000-05:00

It's nearly April, the clocks "sprung forward" last weekend, so what happens? 5" of snow fell yesterday!!! And it's quite cold, above freezing as I write this, but only just.

As I put full division board feeders on the hives last weekend (for the first time this season), I thought I really should get in and top them up this weekend. The weather wasn't great in the week, so today (Sunday) was the only chance I have had to look in for a week. It was cold, but warm enough in the sunshine, and there was no wind. No bees were flying.

I opened up the hives and both had a healthy number of bees. I was told of a trick in the week. If you open up the hive, wait 30 seconds, but add no smoke, a 'ring' of bees should appear on the top of the frames and this will tell you the size of the cluster. My girls are on about 5 or 6 of the 9 frames in the top deep. Nice! They were also very calm about me opening the hive.

So how much feed had they consumed? This week as I said has seen some been poor weather - cold and wet - and so it was not good conditions for foraging, flying and collecting pollen, and sure enough, the syrup I added last week was pretty much gone. I had to fill feeders in both hives which is about 3.7 litres (OK a US gallon). The hives are certainly cracking on now, and with a couple of weeks before the queens arrive this is good news. I will definitely have to inspect the hive during the week to see how quickly the syrup is being eaten. They could be going through a gallon in just 3 or 4 days!

My nucs are being painted and will be ready to receive brood. Anyone interested?

Well I may have been on a break but...

2011-03-20T21:45:00.000-05:00

We spent the weekend in Memphis taking in the sites and sounds enjoying and relaxing(ish)! It was lovely and warm when we got home this afternoon and so a hive inspection was calling. It had been a week since the last inspection and I was keen to see what had been going on.

Of course, unlike me, my girls had been hard at work and in the 'Blue' hive they had started to build comb above the frames in the space created by the hive shim over the patties. On closer inspection I found eggs had been laid in this comb! So it seems that my queen is getting impatient for space. Although there is probably brood on 4 frames I still decided to remove the last of the patties from the top of the frames and add a second deep, along with a division board feeder and some 1:1 syrup. And in order to encourage rapid brood rearing, I moved two frames of brood from the bottom deep into the new top deep.

In the second, 'White', hive the bees have also been busy - OK, there's no egg-filled comb above the frames this time, so I got to wondering how much of a 'distraction' [to the business of brood rearing that is] the super under the deep had become? Although there is probably a similar quantity of brood in this hive as in the 'Blue' hive - no question, the super had to go! This is now sitting between the hives, on top of a bee escape and tomorrow I'll take it away and store it in the basement. I added a second deep and feed, but unlike the 'Blue' hive I didn't move any brood from the nest up into the top deep. I felt the brood nest just wasn't as strong although I did want to stimulate some brood rearing

Maybe I should have waited for more brood to be reared on the frames before installing a second deep? I don't know. It will be interesting to see where the development will be in a week or so. My aim is to be in a position to put supers on in about 3 or 4 weeks and I feel comfortable with moving a second deep on at this stage.

I'll check mid-week to see how much feed has been consumed, and how much new brood has been laid in the top deep.

Developing Nicely!

2011-03-13T17:45:00.000-05:00

Brood rearing is coming on nicely in both hives - well both hives are at about the same stage of development; there is brood on 3 frames in each hive. Well done girls! So I have to ask what is everyone else experiencing at the moment? Anyway there is plenty of capped and uncapped brood in the hive. I didn't look for eggs as I didn't figure that was all that important in light of there being lots of larvae present. A month ago there was no brood in the hives at all!

My hope is that in a week (or maybe two) I will be able to add a second deep to the hive. The trigger will be when I have about 5 to 6 frames of brood in each of the bottom boxes. Fingers crossed for a period of nice warm weather.

The pollen patties I have been adding have been taken lightly. By this I mean that some is being eaten, but not much. This is OK I think as there is a pile of pollen being brought in from outside and there is still quite a lot of honey in the hives. I just think the bees prefer their food fresh and not 'tinned'!!!

All looks nicely poised for the spring. I have two queens on order for the 9th April. If the hives are not looking like there is sufficient brood in them to make nucs then I'm not sure what I will do - I hope someone will want a couple of queens!!!

Second Inspection

2011-02-27T18:03:00.000-06:00

Another warm day, and some more good news... My white queen has been busy and she's now "with brood" like my blue queen.

I estimate that the blue queen, from the "weak" hive (which now feels a bit of a misnomer) has brood on 3 frames. A nice oval about 6 inches by 4 inches. The white queen (from the "strong" hive) has brood on 2 frames, about the same size. Given that I missed seeing eggs and larvae last weekend, this is probably a bit of an underestimate of the amount of brood that is actually there! I reckon in a little over a week both queens could be on 5 to 6 frames of brood. Probably not this weekend, but the one after that.

The pollen patties I put on last week (as well as the ones from 2 weeks ago) are still there, so there must be enough natural pollen in the area to satisfy the bees demands. I think this is evidenced by the fact there was plenty of new pollen stored in the frames near the brood. So, all in all, I fell pretty confident about my hives at the moment. Maybe my re-configuration last weekend was worth while and it stimulated the queens into laying.

Anyway, if the brood rearing goes as I hope then I'll be looking to add a second hive body to the hives in a couple of weeks. So I think I'll leave the hives alone until then, but once the second body is on I'll feed, feed, feed and hopefully get drawn comb and supers on in double quick time!

This weekend I was lucky enough to get hold of some additional hive equipment. A complete hive; baseboards, top and inner covers, 2 hive bodies and a super, but no frames. All from my friend Brian, who is interested in keeping bees, but has not been able to commit to it yet. This equipment will buy me some time should I have to divide the hives. But where will I put the hive? Well, Jurgen (the husband of one of the local school teachers) may have it, but I am exploring other avenues...

Brood!

2011-02-20T17:42:00.000-06:00

Well a second inspection this weekend has yielded my first sight of brood this year! In the so called "weak" hive as well! Perhaps this hive isn't so weak afterall. Actually the differences between the hives has been interesting to see.

I opened my "strong" hive to do a bit of reorganization and consolidation today. I eneded up "reversing" the super and placing this at the bottom of the hive, and leaving the deep with the cluster above it. The second deep I removed entirely. I did however move some of the stores about the hive too. The deep with the cluster now contains a lot more stores as well as two empty frames of comb adjacent to the cluster. I hope now the bees will not have to look too far for supplies and can start to lay brood this week. The pollen patty I added a week ago has been partially eaten but I added another half a patty to keep them going. I removed the sugar mush as they just don't seem to want this. I think they have enough honey for the moment and I don't need to worry about them running out.

When I opened the "strong" hive it was very noticeable how many dead bees were lying on the screned bottom board. I couldn't actually see the screen! But they seemed in otherwise good health. Maybe this was why the top entrance was being so well used. By comparison there were no dead bees on the bottom of the "weak" hive, so maybe the queen in this one this is actually very hygenic and her workers fastidious! The queens are from difference sources and it is interesting to note that my "weak" queen pulled a nearly collapsed hive through a very nasty SHB infestation. She's a good 'un I reckon!.

Anyway, I moved a couple of frames of honey from the "strong" hive to the called "weak" hive, just to increase their reserves, but as I said the weak one is fine have now started to raise some brood. The queen must have started laying last week as there is some capped brood now visible. The pollen coming in from the willow and maple trees may well be giving the bees a little boost towards brood rearing and this may be why the pollen patty on this hive has only been partially eaten. Nevertheless, I added an additional half a patty for good measure. I can always take this off next week, or whenever I manage to get back in again.

Overall the hives look in good shape and I'm happy. I hope I will be able to make another inspection next week.

First Inspection of 2011

2011-02-14T20:48:00.000-06:00

I took my first proper look in the hives yesterday. I was pleased with what I saw, but also a little perplexed! There are plenty of bees in both hives and I saw one of my Queens, so that's good. However, there wasn't any brood present. At the beekeeping workshop held on Saturday there was talk that we should expect to see some brood being reared now. After some discussions with others, it seems possible that a lack of pollen in the hive (I don't remember seeing any) could be imparing the bee's ability to rear brood. I raised a therad on the EMBA forum and got some support from a couple of others; I added some pollen patties tonight!

It should be a warm week so it will be interesting to see if the bees take the pollen patties and start to rear brood. I hope I will see something develop at the weekend. I probably should have some more patties on hand - better go buy some!

Oh, there are a few pictures on the slideshow opposite this post!

Expanding rectums! What the...

2011-02-12T17:26:00.000-06:00

It's been a month (at least) since the last warm day. And of course it just happened to coincide with the Annual Beekeeper workshop run by EMBA! The same thing happened last year. Cold for ages, and when it finally did warm up and we could get into the hives, we were all inside in an all-day meeting!!!

There are clear signs that both hives are alive and well. But my poor girls must have been desperate to go for a wee! Do they cross all of their legs when they hold on? Still, they all seem to have taken the opportunity to gop on clensing flights today and have also done some housework!

Anyway a lot of cleaning of dead bodies has been going on and this is clearly shown on the backdrop of snow. I will try and go in to the hives tomorrow to see what I can see. Maybe I'll feed, maybe I'll rearrange the frames I don't know, but it will make interesting viewing. We learned today that bees have expanding rectums and can hold on for up to 6 weeks! How useful is that!

What can one say?

2011-02-08T23:00:00.000-06:00

Really, there's not much anyone can add to this, is there?

Thanks Kirsten!

Another weapon in the fight against Varroa Mites?

2011-01-17T19:29:00.026-06:00

I think it’s true to say that beekeepers enjoy “tinkering”, and I dare say we all know one or two who have their own particular system of doing things when it comes to managing their hives. I think the same is true when it comes to beekeepers playing about with beehive design. There’s an excellent blog (http://beehivejournal.blogspot.com) that contains literally hundreds of beehive designs, old and new, some of which are still in use and some of which probably shouldn’t be! It seemed to me that everything must have been tried at least once. So, just when you thought there really wasn’t anything new to try out…

Enter the “Rotating Broodframe Beehive” from Hungary! This was first exhibited in 2002 and comprises disk shaped brood frames mounted on a horizontal axle in a conventional looking brood box, located under “normal” supers. Brood is raised on the disks which slowly rotate (once every 36 hours). So why do this? Well it’s all done in the name of Varroa mite control.

In a traditional hive the mites live and lay eggs etc. above the bee pupa. However, in the rotating hive the location of mite eggs may be under the pupa, so they are effectively trapped and the mites are unable to hatch. The food source for the hatched mite larvae (i.e. the hole the female mite chewed in the bee pupa) is also periodically closed off by the bee pupa’s shifting/rotating position. All this serves to interrupt mite development and causes the female mite in the cell to try and reorganize her eggs, further delaying mite development. The result is that Varroa mites do not have the chance to mature properly in the cell and are not able to survive once the cell cap is opened!

But how do the bees cope? Well according to the inventor the rotating brood chamber does not trouble the bees. It just encourages them to reorganize the brood daily. As well as the reported Varroa reduction another interesting aspect of the hive design is that it allows frontal entry to the brood chamber so inspections can be done without having to lift off any supers! Now that sounds a very good idea!

It all sounds brilliantly simple. I wonder how effective it has proved to be since it first was developed? Some further research is needed...

The "Need for Feed"

2011-01-14T16:04:00.000-06:00

I came home early today to look at the bees and assess if they need any feeding. It was just above freezing (3C) and wasn't windy so it seemed a good time to quickly open the hive and take a look to see if I should add any feed. To help, last night Fred and I prepared some 2" rims for the hive. These, placed on the top of the brood box provide sufficient space above the frames, but under the inner cover to place a zip-loc bag full of sugar mush.

So, before opening the hives I lifted them to see how heavy they were. I was actually surprised as I expected them to be really light. "Heavy-ish" was my impression - but I still didn't know if that was good or bad; I just haven't been doing this long enough!

After I had assessed the "need for feed", (around 3pm) I opened the small hive (the one with only one deep) and found a large (well I thought it was large) cluster at the top of the frames! I was very surprised at how large it was - a big ball of bees!!! Brilliant news, the hive seems to be thriving!! Still, after a bit of fluster on my part, I smoked the bees down so I could place the mush on the frames over the cluster, put on the rim and covered it up! I didn't check for brood - I'll wait for a warmer day.

The larger hive (this has two deeps with a super sandwiched inbetween) was next. I lifted the top cover to find a few dead bees. Then, looking in the top deep I saw there were some more bees milling around and on lifting a frame I saw yet more and some honey still present in the comb. The bees are clearly clustering in the super. I don't think there is enough honey for them to move up to the top deep, but I reckon if the first hive is anything to go by there is probably enough honey in the hive for now. Again, I'll wait for a warm day before I look more deeply in the hive. I expect there may be brood in the super which would be annoying, but not the end of the world! I nevertheless placed the sugar mush on the top of the top deep, but I don't think they will take it. But you never know.

Overall I'm very happy with what I found. It looks pretty good so far and I think it is a real possibility the bees in both hives will overwinter successfully!

Ted's Sugar Mush : 8 parts granulated sugar, 1 part water. Mixed together to form a mush and placed in zip-loc bags over the top of the frames. Just cut a couple of slits in the top of the bag.

Here's something to consider on those dark winter evenings...

2011-01-13T12:00:00.000-06:00

If anyone out there fancies deviating from the standard Langstroth hive, there's more than enough alternatives contained in this beehive journal blog to keep you amused/bemused for hours! It seems there is nothing new in beekeeping. it's all been tried, and done, by someone, somewhere before!

When will there be another warm day?

2011-01-09T22:27:00.000-06:00

The last warm day was New Years Eve, it's been too cold to open the hive since and it's just been predicted to be the coldest week of the winter season next week; -14C on Wednesday. I hope that on Wednesday at the first beekeeper meeting of the year there will be some good advice on what and how to feed the bees, if they need it, when it does get a bit warmer. I hope we do get a break as I think this is being hard on the girls. Time will tell I suppose, and there is little I can do about that!

First warm day in ages.

2010-12-30T14:06:00.000-06:00

It's been cold for so long I can't remember when it was last warm enough for the bees to be out. But they were today! Both hives are active and busy cleaning out the dead bees. Good news, but I think I better start planning on how to deal with two over wintered hives. Maybe I'll try a top bar hive?

Winter Bees are different…

2010-12-28T14:21:00.000-06:00

So Winter Bees are different. Here’s a nice article and explanation of this, courtesy of West Mountain Apiary. Winter Bees have a different blood protein profile and fatter bodies to Summer Bees and are reared in the fall as number of bees reduces in the hive.

Here too are some pretty cool infrared photographs of some hives in winter.

How do honey bees survive winter?

2010-12-28T14:04:00.000-06:00

It seems topical given the cold weather we have at the moment, and it should help me to answer the single most popular question I get asked at this time of year. Follow this link to Kim Flottum’s article in The Daily Green.

I need to do some more research on this, but I understand that honey bees slow their metabolism down over winter and that helps them to survive for longer without having to rear brood. What this means is that in the depths of winter the hive doesn’t need to be as warm as 93F; a suitable brood rearing temperature.

I don't expect my girls to rear any brood in December through to mid to late February. That's about 10 weeks (70 days). Normally a worker bee lives for about 7 weeks (42 days).

A freezing cold day!

2010-12-12T21:42:00.000-06:00

It's now freezing!! The overnight temperature is expected to be -14C (7F). It's blowing a gale (50 mph gusts), and the wind-chill is an incomprehensible -20C (-4F)! It's cold enough inside by the fire, let alone being outside in a wooden box! I hope my girls are OK!!!

This afternoon was cold too and here are a couple of photos! I'm not planning to clear the entrance to the hives just yet, but I am worried that leaving a screened bottom board in place was the right thing to do? I supose only time will tell on that one!

A warm day.

2010-12-10T23:59:00.000-06:00

After a period of some pretty cold weather it warmed up today - but it will be only for today if you believe the weather forcasters! It reached about 10C (50F). So my bees were out taking advantage of the warm temperatures; they were on cleansing flights, removing debris and dead bodies from the hives etc.

I say hives, but actually there was really only activity in the smaller hive (the one that had the SHB problem in the summer). The larger hive didn't have much going on at all. I was concerned enough to crack open the hive and look inside, and I did see some bees; I didn't want to take too close a look as I didn't want the hive to cool down inside. So, am I worried? Well perhaps a bit, but there is nothing I can do if the hive dies off. So I'll just have to sit tight and wait it out.

I'm still wondering if my hives are in the best position. Susan's hive gets some direct sunlight in the winter (mine don't get any) and there was quite a lot of activity at her hive! Perhaps I would have been better off placing them so that they would have been in the winter sunshine - perhaps next year!

Bee activity is slowing; did I choose the best spot in the garden for my hives?

2010-11-16T11:36:00.000-06:00

Are the two related? I’m not sure, but now that the sun is getting lower in the sky, there is only a limited window of opportunity for my hives get to be warmed by it! They are unfortunately being screened by the shadow cast by the house and also a large tree trunk. It was strangely noticeable that one hive (the eastern one, and coincidently the ‘weaker’ single storey hive) gets more direct sunlight and it was this hive that showed more activity at the weekend!

Basic physics: direct sunlight = heat gain by radiation = warm happy bees!

That said neither hive was particularly active, so I thought that might mean my girls are eating the syrup I added, instead of foraging outside. Nope! The syrup remains pretty much un-touched. Maybe now perhaps it is time to give up the syrup feeding, remove the feeder and put on the insulated top cover and shut up for winter. I’ll let nature do its thing, and with luck, both hives will survive the winter and will look strong going into 2011! Shutting them up does not of course exclude some winter feeding with Pollen Patties or “Ted’s Mush” (if it gets warm enough to open the hive), but I reckon I won’t start looking into that until Late January at the earliest!

Better get thinking about some more equipment….

Queen of the Sun!

2010-11-16T10:46:00.003-06:00

Susan and I went on a beekeeper outing last night to see a new documentary about CCD; “Queen of the Sun”. Overall it was beautifully shot, interesting, thought provoking and quite inspiring - a bit of a reaffirmation of why I started beekeeping in the first place.

My gripes with it were that it was a little disjointed and there didn’t seem to be a progressive flow through the film, but that is only a minor gripe. My main problem was that it tended to marginalize and stereotype beekeepers – I bet you didn’t think that was possible! Yes, I know we all like “interesting characters” in our films, but looking at most of the participants you'd be forgiven for thinking that in general beekeepers were slightly weird hippies who believed in biodynamics, and probably astrology too! The only ‘normal’ beekeepers that were depicted (with one notable exception, and I’ll come to that later) were those “money grabbing, evil, factory intensive” beekeepers (that’s me demonizing them), who transport thousands of hives across the country in order to pollinate the monoculture of almonds in California. Well fortunately, most of us really are normal, honest! If only they had filmed at a few local beekeeping association meetings!

The film could also have made a lot more of the urban beekeeping movement, and how anybody can get involved i.e. broaden the appeal. Sadly, I left feeling that either you had to be a slightly odd biodynamic farmer (thankfully located away from any centres of population) or a dredlocked gay hippy living in a deprived city neighbourhood. There wasn't enough time given to the middle ground. Hey, but least the most normal beekeeper appeared to be the English (of course) city beekeeper and his step son!

Marks out of 5? Well on balance 3.5. It’s a worthwhile, enthusiastic film that presented a very serious issue in an engaging way and which left people feeling that there is real hope our pollinators can be saved, so long as we get involved, and stem our current thirst for industrial agriculture.

Winter's coming!

2010-11-07T17:18:00.000-06:00

It was cold the past two mornings. And now that the clocks have gone back winter feels like it has finally arrived. That said it is forecast to be warm this week. So that might mean there is still a chance that some sugar syrup may be consumed.

I took a look today to see what syrup was consumed over the past week - well not much as it turns out! I think this might have something to do with the fact that I fed the syrup in zip-loc bags with holes pierced through the top to help the syrup ooze out, but this didn't seem to work well as little syrup has been taken by either hive. So I cut a cross in the top of each bag and folded the flaps of plastic down into the syrup. Perhaps this will make it easier for the bees to get to the syrup.

I'll check their progress next weekend, if it is warm enough. I'll also probably put a 2" thick insulating board on top of the inner cover as well, just to make sure as much warmth as possible is retained in the hive. This board has a channel cut in it to give the bees access to the top of the hive as well as the bottom.

They may not read books, but they can solve complex Maths!

2010-10-24T17:54:00.001-05:00

Some research has just come to light, that despite only having a brain the size of a grass seed bees are able to solve complex mathematical problems computers have problems with!

The problem in question is the "traveling salesman" problem. The one where the salesman would love to know the shortest most efficient route between stops. Well bees have been found to do this!

All we have to do now is ask them to write out how they do it!

Bees don't read the books!

2010-10-16T12:55:00.000-05:00

Why don't bees read (any of) the text books?

I went through the Daughter hive this morning. The super that was at the bottom of the stack of boxes has not been emptied - well perhaps a bit, but not as much as I would have liked and certainly not enough to warrant removing it! There is however a nice brood cluster on 3 frames of the lower hive body and lots of stored honey also. So I did some equalisation in the hive. The top hive body is pretty empty, but there were some signs of some stores being put away. At least there is plenty of drawn out comb available for them to fill.

So what do I do to prepare my girls for winter? Well, as part of the preparations I want to feed them some Fumigelin-B to treat against tracheal mites, but I'll need them to take a couple of gallons for that. The answer (for me at least) was to put the heavy box of brood and honey on the bottom, the partially full super on top of that and then the other (empty-ish) hive body on top of the stack. I put a division board feeder in this last hive body and added 1 gallon (3.75 litres) of 2:1 syrup with a heaped teaspoon of Fumigelin-B mixed in.

This means I will at least be able to feed and feed the bees from the top. I hope there will be another couple of weeks window for feeding. We will see.

Treatment Over

2010-10-13T21:42:00.000-05:00

It's been 4 weeks since I started the Apiguard treatment. I came home tonight and removed the foil tray and the inverted feeder. I also opened up the access hole in the front of the top hive body. I noticed a few SHBs on the top cover, but only a few. I will wait for the weekend before I do a more thorough inspection.

I want to assess the overall strength of the hive and whether I need to think about combining it with the other hive. I will also try to equalize the hive and if I need to I will move the brood frames to the bottom hive body. Finally I'll check the stores and see what feeing may be necessary and I'll decide if I need to add some Fumagellin. So a busy weekend ahead!

I also took the opportunity to feed the Parent hive again. They took the best part of 2 litres of syrup. So that's about 7 litres in the last 2 weeks. As with the Daughter hive I didn't take a thorough look, but I hope the bees have been building up their stores.

I will have to take care when undertaking the inspection. I do not want to have the hive open too long and do encourage any robbing by other bees in the neighbourhood! By all accounts this has been a problem this Fall.

Parent Update!

2010-10-10T17:07:00.000-05:00

I thought it was about time I looked through the Parent Hive. The weather has been lovely and warm and it just seemed a good idea! While I did the inspection I took the opportunity to replace the existing hive box with another one that had a hole drilled in it as an alternative access. Anyway, I also shuffled about some of the frames (equalized the hive) so that the empty frames are now on the outside and the cluster is in the middle. I reckon there are:

   2 empty frames
   2 to 3 frames of brood
   4 to 5 frames (or thereabouts) of honey and pollen.

I also topped up the syrup. The bees had taken some and I added approximately 1 litre more. I would have added even more but I had not made up any syrup. I planned to top up the syrup today.

This morning I was watching the bees with Matthew and they seem to have found a very yellow source of pollen - good news. But this afternoon (about 4pm) there was a lot of activity outside the front of the hive. The new opening was available and I wonder if there was some robbing going on. I put the stopper in the new hole and within a couple of minutes the activity around the outside had subsided. I later filled up the syrup inside the hive - I added another 2.5 litres. Was there any robbing? Did I stop it by replacing the stopper? I don't know, but I think I'm happy some syrup is finally being taken in a reasonable quantity.

Halfway through the treatment

2010-09-29T21:49:00.000-05:00

The "Apiguard" has been in the hive for two weeks now (half way through), so I installed another foil tray this afternoon. The weather has been good for the past couple of weeks and it is still pretty warm during the day - mid to high 20's Celcius (80's F). This should be enough for the gel to evaporate and the Thymol to do its stuff in the hive! Fortunately the next 10 days also look pretty warm-ish, and the temperatures are forecast to be in the high 'teens Celsius (~60F). So I hope the mite treatment will be able to see it's full course at suitable temperatures and be fully effective.

The Daughter hive still looks strong, and as the temperatures have dropped the bees are spending less time on the outside of the hive. Just before I added the first dose of "Apiguard", two weeks ago, I was able to do a quick check on the super that I placed at the bottom of the hive. This was much lighter than it had previously been and so it now appears to be emptying! I hope this means the bees have moved the honey up into the deeps. Once the treatment is finished I'll check the super and remove it if I can.

I also checked the Parent hive. This is doing OK as well, and I added about 1/2 litre of 2:1 sugar syrup. The bees are taking a little syrup and the stores in the hive are much improved. However, they are not still building out the honeycomb that they cleared out after the beetle problem earlier in the season. Perhaps the reason is that the comb is "contaminated"? I think I'll exchange it with another built out frame to see if this helps encourage them them to store something! Maybe if this comb was being built out I'd be thinking about adding a new hive body in the hope the bees expand the nest over the next month or so i.e. while the weather is still warm enough for them to raise brood before the winter.

It must be hot in there!

2010-09-19T19:05:00.000-05:00

Since I put the Apiguard in the Daughter hive the bees have been 'plastered' over the front of the hive. I guess it must be hot inside.

Because I want the Apiguard to do its stuff, I closed off the screened bottom board and reduced the entrance to its smallest size. Clearly it's getting stuffier than an illegal rave in a basement and the girls are just hanging around outside to keep cool. Some are frantically fanning to cool it off inside. I hope this is no cause for concern! I suppose they might not be enjoying the fumes the Apiguard gives off. Some research is needed.

Oh and a quick word of thanks to my old mate Dean - He gets the "pollinator-of-the-week" award for putting lavender in his allotment to attact bees - very thoughful!

A High Count?

2010-09-15T20:07:00.009-05:00

I did a varroa mite count; 61 mites in 48 hours. I'm not sure if this is high or not, but I suspect it is borderline with regard to treatment. So, what do I do? I reckon treatment is on the cards, but I'll do a bit of research and asking around tomorrow.

STOP PRESS: I decided to treat with Apiguard. Although the count is borderline, there is still likely to be 4 weeks of reasonably warm weather, so it seems that adding treatment is a good idea. I therefore put on the small entrance reducer, closed up the holes in the hive bodies and put the Apiguard tray on top of the brood frames under an upturned top feeder. I closed off the feeder entrance with tape. I'll be in the hive again in a couple of weeks to repeat the treatment.

Further Fall Management - Daughter Hive

2010-09-09T20:33:00.003-05:00

I don't want to give the Parent Hive any brood from the Daughter Hive for fear of weakening the Daughter Hive. I know it sounds a bit callous, but I'd prefer go into winter with one really good hive and one weak one, rather than two good-ish ones!

So, how to make the Daughter Hive as strong as possible? Well I want to get the honey that is in the supers into the hive bodies. I've tried putting an inner cover between the hive bodies and the supers and that didn't work, so I'll try something different. This time I'll put the super with the most honey on a screened bottom board and put the hive bodies on top of this. The other super I will remove and store for the winter. It may be interesting to see what happens for a couple of weeks.

Before I do this I think I may do another sticky board count!

STOP PRESS: Some work has been done on the supers as there definitely seemed to be less honey in them today (Sunday 12th) than the last time I checked. Nevertheless, I made the adjustments as above. Perhaps I tried to get the bees to move the honey too early? We'll have to see how quickly they deal with the remaining honey. I guess out of the other super, one frame had a reasonable amount of honey in it. I removed and froze all the frames from this super.

Further Fall Management - Parent Hive

2010-09-09T18:44:00.001-05:00

It was a bee club meeting yesterday so I had the chance to ask a few questions and get some opinions on what I should do with the Parent Hive.

I did a 48 hour "sticky board" count for Varroa mites before the meeting and I found only 3 mites. So this is very good news and means I won't need to treat this hive. The added bonus is that if I did have to treat the hive, then the queen would not lay well for a month, plus I could not feed the bees either! So without applying the mite treatment the queen has a chance to lay more strongly into the later Autumn and the bees can feed, feed, feed! The downside of the sticky board inspection was that I saw quite a lot of what most people thought were Wax Moth larvae faeces, as well as some live Small Hive Beetle larvae. But we think there were not enough to be a real concern.

There hasn't been much going on in the top hive body i.e. little in the way of stores have been put away and there are few bees 'living on the comb'. The lack of bee numbers might explain why wax moths might be present. Normally if there are enough bees around they will chase the moths out and destroy the larvae. So, after a lot of discussion I decided that I would remove the top hive body and consolidate the bees in a single hive body. This should increase the bee numbers on the combs and will help the bees fend off any intruders and pests. I will also install a screened bottom board to help ventilate the hive and will try to intensively feed them over the next month or so!

With luck, in a couple of weeks, they will have filled out the bottom hive body and I can then consider putting back the top hive body and carry on feeding. Maybe there will be enough honey stored away by the middle/end of October and the bees will have a really good chance of over-wintering!

If it's not Small Hive Beetles it's Varroa mites!

2010-09-06T15:42:00.003-05:00

Things never seem to settle down! Just when you think your weak hive is back on it's feet, something else crops us that needs attention.

Anyway, let's deal with the Daughter Hive first. It's been about 3 weeks since I inserted an inner cover between the hive bodies and the supers, in the hope this would encourage the bees to move the honey in the supers down into the brood boxes. Well nothing has happened. In fact, if anything, it seems there is more honey in the supers now! So what to do, what with Autumn just around the corner? I reckon I may have to extract the honey and hope the bees have managed to store enough pollen in the hives already. I'll then start feeding with syrup - if they will take it, and possibly with some pollen patties if they seem weak.

But, the really good news is the queen is laying extremely strongly and there is tons of brood in the bottom hive box. Nothing is really happening in the upper hive box i.e. no stores to speak of and no brood. I am wondering if I should move the supers to just above the brood box and remove the 'empty' hive body. This seems a good question to ask at the next meeting. So what if the bees lay eggs in the supers over winter?

Now to the Parent hive. This hive was first weakened by the Small Hive Beetles, and it lost a queen, but recovered after a new queen was introduced. Now I think (but do not know) that there may be a Varroa mite problem - groan! A few weeks ago I tested for mites and the 48 hour count was low - just one mite, yes one! But this is probably a result of there being no brood in the hive for a while. The new Queen is laying, just not very prolifically. I want her to start laying vigorously now, so that bee numbers increase before the winter. When I inspected the hive on Saturday, I noticed some uncapped brood with quite mature pupae (purple eyes) visible - I have added a photo below.

These uncapped pupae may be a sign of the bee's hygienic behavoir. The bees having detected mites are in a cell have uncapped it and will remove the pupa in order to get rid of the immature mite larvae. The photos I think may also show a mite on the back of a bee, but I'm not sure!

So, now I'm doing a mite count to see if the number is high, or has increased. If it has I'll treat with "Apiguard".

They're just not taking syrup!

2010-08-29T11:07:00.002-05:00

I inspected both hives the other day to see if the Parent was taking syrup and the Daughter was moving the honey form the supers down into the hive bodies.

Answer: Nothing is happening in either hive!

Is it because there is plenty of food about? I don't know. There has been so little rain recently it is hard to believe there is much nectar out there flowing. But there is nevertheless pollen being collected - I've seen lots of yellow and orange pollen being carried in. So, I think there must be something for the bees to find otherwise surely they would have taken the syrup by now. I have changed the syrup to see if freshening it up helps.

The same goes for the Daughter hive. Actually, if anything, they seem to have put more honey in the supers over the past couple of weeks. If you remember these supers are above an inner cover, so I think this kind of dispels the idea that by inserting an inner cover this will encourage the bees to move the honey down into the hive bodies - well at least in my case!. Maybe the weather needs to be cooler (more autumnal) to encourage the bees want to consolidate their stores. I'll leave the supers in place a while longer.

The good news is that the beetles, although still present, are in reduced numbers. I replaced the Beetle Blasters and added the West Trap under the Daughter, just to see how many larvae are removed, and I'll look at the end of next week. I am developing a new trap to be located outside the hive that will disrupt the life cycle of the beetle. I will install my first prototype after I remove the West Trap. Photo's will follow.

Bee Grooming and the Swindon Bee

2010-08-25T12:55:00.000-05:00

A British beekeeper, Ron Hoskins, has identified a strain of bees that is go good at grooming and removing varroa mites that they are virtually mite resistant. As a result, he has not expeirienced the levels of colony losses that others have! Is this too good to be true? I don't know but it deserves further study. Ron's objective is to spread the genes around the country by distributing queens and hopefully the drones produced by a Swindon Queen can spread the genes to other colonys.

Anyway as the article suggests, although this might not be a cure for CCD, having bees that are good at grooming each other can only be good for bee health!

Well done Ron!

My Urban Bees are healthier than your Rural Bees. Discuss!

2010-08-18T10:49:00.005-05:00

A study in the UK (link http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/aug/17/bees-urban-pollen-diet ) has determined that urban bees have a more varied diet than those in a rural setting and are healthier. Clearly this must depend on the setting but it will be interesting to see how the research pans out over all 45 hives being studied, and we can see what plants the bees favour. But overall I think my response was a “well, Duh!”.

As I think we all knew in the UK, the dreaded yellow peril that is Oil Seed Rape is being shown to give our bees a restricted diet, and that can’t be good. I’d guess it’s the same here in the US, and maybe even worse given the much larger areas turned over to monoculture. A lot of us have been saying this for ages and the findings of this research comes as no great surprise. The comments made at the bottom of the article are evidence of this.

I would however be wary of saying the urban environment is now a refuge for bees. We have some way to go before that is really a reality. How much pesticide do we really use in our gardens and do we apply them in accordance with manufacturer’s guidance? I’d bet a lot of people just use the bottle of chemicals indiscriminately and use it all in one go. There is a lot of debate about how the toxicity of the chemicals may be greatly enhanced when the application pesticides and herbicides is doubled up or applied close together.

It’s all about educating people who live in the ‘burbs so they do not treat, or over-treat, their gardens with chemicals – or indiscriminately ‘fog’ for mosquitoes. If we can move away from a dependence on having that perfect green sword of grass (which benefits no pollinators, well, not much more than a slab of concrete would) and move towards having wild flowers and plants and shrubs that actually benefit animals, and make our gardens and yards spaces that are actually used and not just viewed, then I think we’re on to something big in our towns and cities.

We never had any doubt, did we?

2010-08-17T23:14:00.000-05:00

Beekeeping is cool, well "geeky-cool", and it's not just me who says so...

http://www.delish.com/food-fun/food-jobs?GT1=47001

Starting Fall Management.

2010-08-17T19:53:00.000-05:00

It's mid August so I'm preparing to do some Fall/Winter management. I did a sticky board count for Varroa in both hives over the weekend and fortunately I think there is little to concern me. The Parent hive had 1 mite and the Daughter 24 mites, both in 48 hour periods. So no chemical treatments required as yet - horray! I will do another check in a week or so, just to satisfy myself the mite levels remain manageable. Similarly I will check on the beetles; their numbers still trouble me.

So my Fall preparations began. I did a reverse on both hives as there was brood in the top hive boxes, but not in the bottom hive boxes. I hope moving the brood will stimulate some more brood rearing in the few weeks that are left before the queen slows and finally stops laying for the winter. By the time winter comes around I hope the brood will be nicely established in the top hive box and will be surrounded by stores.

I fed the Parent hive some 2:1 syrup in a Division Board Feeder; about 3.75 litres. There isn't much in the way of stores in the hive, so I will be feeding in earnest over the next few weeks. With luck the varroa count will remain low in the hive and so I can continue to feed. If I find the bees are really packing the syrup away I may even try to get the bees to draw out the empty foundation in the spare hive body I removed the other day. I think this is a bit optimistic, as the bees really haven't been interested in foundation bulding this year.

The situation in the Daughter hive is more interesting. There is honey in the supers (probably in excess of 10 lbs) but I want this to be in the hive bodies. Therefore, in an attempt to encourage the bees to move it down into the hive I have moved the inner cover between the hive bodies and the supers. Eugene assures me this does work, but how reliable it is only time will tell. I'll check the progress in a couple of days time to see how much has been moved. This method is at least better than leaving the supers out in the open for robbing by all and sundry in the neighbourhood! I guess if the honey does gets moved I will start to feed this hive with syrup until I am happy sufficient quantities have been stored.

I think the next 4 to 6 weeks will be very interesting indeed!

Screened Bottom Boards - Definitely a Problem.

2010-08-14T16:07:00.000-05:00

I'm certain now. Screened bottom boards - the type that sits above a base board to enable the use of a sticky board - are a problem. I opened up my Daughter hive this afternoon and found piles, and I mean piles, of Small Hive Beetles. They just hide under the screen away from the bees and breed!

I think the best way to deal with them may be to install a normal baseboard with a screen so that debris can fall out of the hive, but which isn't too big to allow beetles in. This coupled with a West Trap and entrance reducer should I think enable the bees to fight off an onslaught of beetles. So, I therefore intend to modify my bottom board this evening and install a West Trap, once I have done a Varroa count.

Back to the Daughter hive. The third hive body was still not built out so I removed it, partly to give the beetles fewer places to hide and also partly to get the bees more focussed on the brood chambers. The supers are however filling up with honey which is interesting. Depending on the Varroa count I measure tomorrow I will keep these on longer. But if I record a high count I will treat and so remove the supers. I will probably put the supers in the freezer to kill any beetles and then store for later extraction.

Despite the beetles, at least the bees seem healthy and have not been over-run inside the hive. All in all it's best to keep on top of the beetle problem and trap before they become an issue! Bit of a no-brainer really!

My Girls Rock!

2010-08-13T13:21:00.000-05:00

Well the beetle infested hive is now doing very well. The queen I installed a week or so ago is now laying and I saw some nice brood coming along! Brilliant!

The hive also looks nice and clean and all the 'slimy' honey comb has now been been removed from the hive. Some honey has been retained too, so that's a bonus! I reckon there is still some work to do before this hive will be able to go through the winter - a lot of feeding and possibly some feed supplement to make up for any lost pollen.

I have put a sticky board under the hive to see if there is a varroa problem, but I'm not expecting this. There hasn't been much in the way of brood cells in the hive for a while, so varroa shouldn't have been able to find any brood to get into to breed.

nevertheless I will check again on Sunday, but with luck I will be in a position to feed this hive up and get it through the winter!

Well done girls!!

Small Hive Beetle update

2010-08-08T22:16:00.000-05:00

The Small Hive Beetle problem now seems to be well under control. Although I admit I won't really know until I check to see how the new queen is doing, and I'm reluctant to do this for another week. Anyway I cleaned the oil in the West Trap today, without opening the hive up.

Initially I had thousands of adults in the hive and what I can only describe as a beetle breeding area under the screened bottom board. The Beetle Blasters were excellent for removing the adult beetles, but now that the adult numbers are somewhat reduced, it is the West Trap that is coming into it's own!

This trap is now intercepting the larvae as they try to leave the hive and complete their life cycle. Although the Beetle Blasters are still working, it's obvious they can't remove the same numbers of beetles they did when they were initially installed. So, I reckon the emphasis is now on stopping the beetles reproducing. The next thing to try is nematode worms in the soil in order to kill the larvae - I don't want to use chemicals. The only thing is I think it is the wrong time of year to get my hands on these worms.

So if you have an infestation of Small Hive Beetles I reckon a combination of both traps is your best option. Oh, and I tried sprinkling cinnamon powder in the corners of the hive frames (I read the beetles don't like this), but I really can't say this made any difference, one way or the other. The jury's still out.

Another Queen!

2010-08-02T19:33:00.002-05:00

A queen bee came my way this afternoon - no, not the opening line to some old gag, but a spare queen had become available. I decided to use it in my (apparently) queenless parent hive - the one that's had all the problems with beetles.

What do I have to loose? If there is a queen already inside that's great! If not, well the new queen should help bring the hive up to strength. Win Win! But I don't have much time. She's been in her cage for about a week now and there's no candy plug left - so once the cork is removed that's it - acceptance or be killed.

As she's been in so long I reckon I'll have to release her tomorrow, unless it's really clear the bees don't like her. Then maybe I'll just pull her out and hope someone else wants a queen.

STOP PRESS: The new queen was released yesterday evening. The workers appear to have accepted her, so it's now fingers crossed for about a week!

Yet More Beetles!

2010-07-31T10:14:00.000-05:00

Yesterday (Friday) I checked the beetle traps I added on Wednesday. I wasn't sure what I'd find, or how good I'd find the performance of the "Beetle Blasters" had been. When I looked in the Parent Hive I found that some more beetles had been caught in the "Beetle Blasters", but that many, many more had succumbed to the West Beetle Trap at the bottom of the hive. So I have good reports on the performance of both traps! The bees certainly seem happier now that there are fewer beetles in the hive, but it's too early to say that they are on top of things and will recover. There are still a large number of beetles in the hive and I will persist with the trapping for a while longer! I didn't trap many beetles in the Daughter Hive but I did get some.

My main concern is with the design of the screened bottom board that I've been using. I have been using the type of screen that sits on top of the base board and which also allows a sticky board to be slid between the two sections. I removed this bottom board when I installed the West Trap and when I took this apart for cleaning I found a very large number of beetles and their larvae hiding under this screen. YUK!

Maybe this is where the beetles have been breeding, because I couldn't see larvae anywhere in the hive! So I'm not very happy with the bottom board as there are spaces and crevices where the beetles can hide and breed without being harassed by bees. I will not use this type again. I've nothing against using screened bottom boards; indeed I plan to add a screen to the bottom of my existing base boards. It's just that the type that allows you to slide a sticky board between the baseboard and the screen seems to be a bit of a safe haven for pests. In future I will only use this screen when I want to use a sticky board i.e. as a temporary measure.

Another problem - this time Small Hive Beetles.

2010-07-28T15:56:00.001-05:00

No sooner than I get the girls home I find I have an infestation of Small Hive Beetles (SHB) in the Parent hive!

The other evening I removed the only super from the Parent Hive as I wanted to store the comb, but while working the hive I noticed a number of SHBs. After seeing the bees exhibit some unusual behavior yesterday morning i.e. flying around up into a tree, and generally not wanting to go in the hive, last night I took a better look. I was upset by what I saw.

I found hundreds of SHB on the top cover and a number of dead bees, plus the frames inside looked slimy and unclean, oily even. I assumed therefore that I had an infestation and the bees were not able to cope with the numbers. All I could do last night was put a "Beetle Blaster" trap inside the hive to see what would happen. Today I called around for some help and advise.

After some encouragement from Bob, and Jane, I devised a plan. I was going to try to salvage what I could from the Parent Hive, and trap as many beetles in the Daughter Hive as I could. When I opened the Parent Hive earlier this afternoon, there were noticeably fewer beetles on the top cover, and the trap was full, yes full, of dead beetles - take a look at the photograph.

Inside the hive the frames did not look as bad as I had expected. Still quite oily, but not bad enough for me to wash them out an. So I decided that all was not lost and I installed my West Beetle Trap at the bottom of the Parent Hive and 4 more "Beetle Blasters"; two above the lower hive body and two above a super which is full of of foundation. I even sprinkled some ground cinnamon around the edges of the frames - I read somewhere that someone had some success with this. I can't imagine it would hurt the bees, but if it helps chase the beetles out of the comb and into the traps then so much the better!

The Daughter Hive looks in good shape - still, not much brood anywhere - but I did see some larvae - and plenty of honey and not many beetles. I nevertheless put in a couple of "Beetle Blasters", just for good measure. I think this hive is OK for now but I will keep a closer eye on it that I have been able to up to now. What with moving the bees I haven't been able to check the bees' health.

I will inspect both in a couple of days to see what I have been able to remove! I am quite optimistic as the first beetle blaster worked brilliantly.

Plan Bee Complete!! - Back home at last!

2010-07-25T10:38:00.000-05:00

It was all straightforward in the end, well relatively. This morning Eugene and I moved the bees home. Apart from one hive bottom board becoming dislodged, and the bees spilling over the back of Fred's truck, all went smoothly.

Both hives are now installed in the back garden on their hive stand. The hives are not in direct line of sight of Rob's baseball batting plate (his main concern), so that is good too!

One interesting thing is that the bees that spilled over the truck didn't stay put in the driveway, they moved to the area where their hives were previously located. Do they remember the location, or does it have the smell of bees about it? Who knows. Anyway another box for the stragglers is in the place where they used to live. I will move this tonight, or tomorrow.

Plan Bee - Phase 3 Final Move underway!

2010-07-24T20:53:00.000-05:00

Right, the final move for the bees is underway. I got the hive lifter and other sundry items together today, and both hives were stapled together and the entrances taped up. I left the 'holes' open in the hive bodies though.

Early tomorrow morning I will go with Eugene to the hives (probably around 6.30 am). Although if I'm awake earlier I may pop down just to try to encourage as many girls into the hive as possible before the move. Fred has kindly let me borrow his truck for the move too.

So all is ready - except for the fact I just heard thunder! I don't fancy doing this in the wet!, mind you thinking abut it, at least all the bees will be inside if it's raining!

Also, unlike last time, I know that this time if there are any stragglers left behind after the move there are at least some other hives for these bees to find a home in, but I'd rather not leave too many behind!

Plan Bee - Final Push, Phase 3 Started

2010-07-18T20:00:00.002-05:00

I moved the beehive stand this morning. But I think I may have to move it again! Elspeth, after I finished, said...

"Oh, I thought you were going to set it up at an angle - you know like the supports were lying, when they were on the floor"

The supports were on the floor because I was moving them, not because I was checking their alignment! Agghhhh! If she had mentioned this an hour earlier, I wouldn't have fixed it the way I did. Look, I'm an engineer, and we LIKE things when they are parallel and perpendicular! All these creative types do is say how much better it could have been if only we did it a different way, usually after we're finished - Common guys enter the discussion when it is underway - not afterwards!!!!

Well that's off my chest now! So I guess I may move the bees back either next weekend, or the weekend after. Depends on the weather mostly!

All settled in.

2010-07-11T20:08:00.001-05:00

I did my first proper inspection for over a month today! Holidays, harvests and bee moves just seemed to get in the way!

Anyway, all seems to be really, really well. The queenless Parent hive that we put the frame of brood into on 4 June now has eggs and larvae and brood in it. So clearly the queen we reared managed to get mated and also return to the hive! There is a very strong brood pattern, so that hive looks strong, although I didn't see my new lady! The lower hive body looks a bit empty of brood, but there is honey and pollen, so i think the queen will find her way there if she wants to.

The Daughter hive (the one we re-queened from first Iris, and then Bob) also looks to be doing well. Strong brood pattern, but still not all deep frames have been built out. So I gave them some 1:1 syrup to help encourage them, and I shuffled some empty and drawn comb about. They look pretty good.

Perhaps going into winter with two strong queens from this year is a good idea, and de-populating one is not such a good plan. What purpose would killing a hive off do? Both queens are healthy and laying. Maybe I'll start a new colony, or two, next year! I will have to find another location and think about this a bit.

We swept up the stragglers!

2010-07-07T15:11:00.000-05:00

OK so the move out is now complete. The final stragglers were relocated last night, and I reckon there must only be a handful of strays now at home.

Moving them was however all a bit shambolic – which was all down to me. The move was planned for dusk, after the bees were all smoked inside, and I think this was probably the main problem. It was pretty dark when we opened up the colony the bees were being moved to, and so rather than fly about the bees crawled; onto my sleve, up my trouser leg (2 stings) and into and under my veil. Not pleasant. In the ensuing melee I lost my glasses somewhere in the field in front of the hives, and by this time it was too dark to find them! Agghhh!

Luckily Eugene and I shared my car down to his yard and so he drove us back. I spent the rest of the night wearing a pair of prescription swimming goggles! "You look weird!" Matthew observed! Felt pretty stupid too...

Oh, and yes I did have to drive to the beeyard in the morning wearing the same goggles! I’ve no idea what I would have said if I were stopped by the cops! The truth just wouldn't have been credible! Do you think Mark Spitz keep bees?

"Plan Bee" - Phase 2 complete.

2010-07-05T12:12:00.010-05:00

I was up with the dawn chorus (5am) yesterday morning to make sure my girls were ready for their move, but it felt much earlier! I thought that at 5am in the morning they would still be inside the hive. A miscalculation!

I had assumed that the evening "beard of bees" (or perhaps more accurately that should be the "5 o'clock shadow" of bees!) that my hives grow in this weather would have moved inside the hive by morning. Wrong! I reckon the bees actually hang around on the outside all night and then go out foraging at first light.

I saw a few bees leaving the hive at about 5am; so what?, but when I blocked off the main hive entrance and the holes in the other hive bodies, a great cloud of bees appeared from seemingly nowhere and wanted to get back in the hive. Great, so I thought if I move the hives now there will be a huge mass of "straggler" bees all confused and homeless. Guess how long that would take to become a "nuisance". So, I decided to try to "smoke" the stragglers to see if that encouraged them to go inside.

Well, it was like watching water flow down a plug hole! I "smoked" the bees, then removed the rubber stoppers from the holes that had been drilled in the hive bodies at the start of the season. The bees simply marched in (rushed would be an overstatement) and over the next 10 minutes most stragglers had found their way home.

The rest of the move proved really uneventful. It just shows what having a bit of planning, the correct equipment, a pickup truck and some help can do to smooth the process. Fred's truck, unknown to us all (and also Fred!) was already perfectly "bee equipped", thanks to the purpose built plank that can be placed across the flat bed, just behind the tailgate. The ratchet straps used to secure the hive parts together were worth their weight in gold (especially as we only had a handful of hive staples), and the hive lifter was a joy to use! Ah, I only have myself to blame for being stung - twice on the foot. I was wearing sandals - Doh!

So, the bees are now in their new, temporary, home. Any stragglers have a super waiting for them in their old home (empty after the harvest yesterday), and I plan to take this, and the bees, to the temporary bee yard today, or later in the week. We will wait a couple of weeks before moving them all back to their new home in the back garden - once we find a suitable location!

Phase 3 - moving them home - is likely to be the 17th or 24th of July. Better tell the city what we did this weekend!

Honey Harvest!

2010-07-03T20:50:00.017-05:00

What a brilliant day! Thanks to Eugene, Susan and Fred, and Iris. I managed to harvest about 24kgs (or 53lbs) of honey from 3 supers! That's between 4.5 and US Gallons of liquid gold. It's just amazing what one hive of bees can produce in just a few weeks!

Apart from me, Iris managed a haul of about 60 to 70 lbs from 2 hives and Eugene, well I really don't know. He had 10 supers so I think he must have collected about 150 lbs of honey by the end of the day! And he's doing it all over again tomorrow with another 8 supers! Watch our Kirkwood Farmer's Market.

Anyway, I now have two large buckets of honey sitting in the living room waiting to be bottled, and distributed! I will post some pics later, so bear with me...

A more sombre day tomorrow. I have to move my 2 hives to Eugene's bee yard. I hope we manage to do this without harming them.

Looks like a reasonable haul!

2010-07-01T23:12:00.002-05:00

I took the supers off the hive tonight. I reckon my initial guess of 60 pounds of honey is about right as three of the four supers were pretty much full, although not much was capped. We will see what the actual yield is on Saturday! Anyway, well done girls!

The evacuator worked pretty well. A few bees remained in the supers and curiously quite a number of drones - how did they get past the queen excluder? I guess they must have been there before the excluder was inserted.

"Plan Bee"

2010-06-30T21:23:00.000-05:00

"Plan Bee" is now active and the preparations to move the bees have got underway. It's not quite D-Day, but I nevertheless have several tens of thousands of lives depending on my expert planning and project execution!

"Plan Bee" will be to send the girls on holiday to Eugene's beeyard for a couple of weeks, where they will no doubt have a good time with his girls, and once they get adjusted we'll move them home to the backyard, here in Kirkwood. The proposal, as explained in my previous blog, has been approved by the city who have also accepted my timeline. The move will start this weekend and hopefully be completed by the start of August.

The supers on the parent hive will be removed tomorrow (I put a bee evacuator in place tonight) and the honey will be harvested on Saturday. Three of the four supers felt pretty full so I reckon there will be about 60lbs of honey! The fourth super was more or less empty. So, if that's the case that's not bad at all.

Once the supers have been removed I will add an empty super to give the girls a bit of additional space; I'll do this tomorrow. Then, early on Sunday morning we'll (that's me Eugene, Fred and Susan) move them. Early (I'll start before 6.00am), because I want as many of the bees inside as possible and lately the morning seems to be the best time.

Oh, and to answer a common question - "How do you move two hives of bees?".

Answer... Carefully!

I've been loaned some hive staples, a hive lifter and some moving screens from Bob. Eugene has some spare entrance screens, some hive staples and a couple of old pallets in his beeyard. Fred has a pickup ( I really didn't fancy moving the bees in my car!) and some webbing straps to hold the hives down during the transportation. I think I just need to get some duck tape (when doesn't this prove useful) and some more staples if I can!

I hope the impending fiasco (that is bound to result) will be photo-documented!

Holiday Blues!

2010-06-25T22:00:00.002-05:00

You're supposed to come back from holiday relaxed, calm and at one with the world. And so I was until I opened the mail...

While I was away it seems that two people (one anonymous, isn't that brave!) complained to the city that my bees were a being a nuisance to the neighbourhood. After what must have been a pretty short and quite superficial inspection the city agreed and I was greeted by a Code Violation Notice. In the letter I was given until 24 June to remove the bees from my property. Yep that was yesterday, the day after I got home. Nice... Words cannot express how upset I was!

So, yesterday I tried to find out why the complaint was raised, and by whom. I was very surprised to get the letter as I have never received anything but very positive feedback from the entire neighbourhood about my beekeeping, and why we must find out why bees are disappearing. Almost everyday someone stops outside the front yard to look at the bees and see what they're doing, and to ask me about them. However, it seems this proximity to nature and wildlife is far too inconvenient for a tiny minority of small minded unimaginative individuals who complain (from behind a veil of anonymity) that they feel threatened by a group of insects going about their business.

So what did I find out? Well I found out that our city officials are intimidated by our litigious society! Apparently the anonymous complainant was stung a couple of times and this prompted them to moan to the city, and for the city to declare the bees a nuisance. Very sadly the city official even said she would consider a bees nest in a tree a nuisance - wildlife, not causing anyone any grief, labelled a nuisance! Aggghhh! A dog that attacks children is a nuisance, not bees - check the data people!

When I phoned the city yesterday, and went over the situation, I was initially greeted by the response "well, you can always take us to court if you disagree" and "I would have to talk to the city prosecutor about that". I paraphrase this, but that was the gist of the message. Straight off the bat, the city went on the offensive throwing their weight about! Scare tactics to make me back down and do as they say. It works too! I don't have the funds, nor stomach, for such a fight. Anyway, I decided to try and "win hearts and minds" and not give in to the city's "shock and awe" tactics.

I tried to explain that actually the bees in question might not be my bees; there was no way of telling they were mine, or from hives or nests elsewhere. I also tried the approach "like it (or not) bees are a part of summer and do vital jobs", and, "did you know we rely on bees for a third of our food" etc. etc. but I could see I wasn't really making any progress. Not because the official I spoke to didn't agree with what I was saying, but more because I think the city is so scared of what any inaction could expose them to. Imagine, a complaint is received about bees stinging and the city takes no action. If the complainant receives another sting, they could sue the city for not dealing with the incident or not acting proactively. What can the city do? A case of damned if they do, damned if they don't. So the city seemed immovable. I asked "could I move them to the backyard?". She had to check with her supervisor. OK, I'll call back in the afternoon...

When I called back I sensed the mood had changed. More understanding somehow. I was told that I could move my girls to the backyard (for future reference this will now be called "Plan Bee"). Now the city was only interested in my compliance with their order and they confirmed that my moving them to the backyard kept them happy. Maybe the supervisor understands bees better, or perhaps sensed the difficulty in proving a case, or perhaps thought as I was cooperating they could be more flexible. To help smooth things over I offered to help tell the community about bees and what they do. The city official liked this idea and said they would pass on my details to a committee that works on festivals etc. Maybe I'll be asked to set up a display about bees (and possibly a observation bee hive) at a local event? That would be great!

So there you are, the intellectual pygmies that made the complaint, and which in effect were the squeaky wheel that got the oil, won! The silent majority had no say or influence! Makes you mad!

I wonder what would happen if, say hypothetically speaking, a dog harmed a child in the street? In Missouri a dog is given a second chance, a kind of a "one bite" rule. After a second offense, or if it is not held on a leash in public, well then I suppose the law says the dog must go. So is it fair that a dog, which I would bet is a much greater nuisance than a hive of bees, is given a second chance and that bees do not and have to be removed from a property? Dog owners that have animals that are known to have harmed children should be very careful that they control their dogs in public and make sure they are kept on leashes at all times.

Definitely No Queen!

2010-06-07T11:07:00.003-05:00

So, Susan did an inspection for me on Sunday afternoon to see if the bees took to the frame of eggs, Did they ever! She reported about 15 queen cells on the frame so they were clearly in need of a queen. She did remove some.

So that means in 16 days, starting from 2 June, we should have a new Queen. There will be a "Queen Smack-Down", or fight to the death to see who the reining monarch will be. It sounds a bit like Highlander - "There can be only one" - well, then again, perhaps not.

Still, on or abouts 18 to 20 June the queens will hatch. Give it 10 days for the winner to mature and mate and (fingers crossed) return to the hive and she should be laying in early July. I will wait until then, at least, in order to see if we have a winner...

I have a Plan! - with a little help from my friends...

2010-06-02T21:33:00.000-05:00

Things are clearer - and I now have a plan set out, well I think it's a plan. It's an idea at the very least. OK so this is what happened today...

Another round of inspections was carried out, this time with Eugene. In the Daughter hive we saw the queen, so all is well, and we saw some eggs and larvae. But the main thing was we saw the queen! We also shuffled about some of the frames in the top hive box i.e. we swapped some frames of foundation (at the outside edge of the box) with built out frames that were in the middle. I hope this encourages some more building.

The inspection of the Parent hive pretty much has confirmed to me that the hive is queenless. This is a shame, and I think is the result of some over enthusiastic inspections I carried out earlier this month. We looked very hard but saw no eggs or larvae. The is a lot of brood however. So this is what we decided to do...

We moved a frame of brood and eggs from the Daughter hive (making sure the queen wasn't on it) into the middle of the top hive box of the Parent hive. This is kind of the opposite of what I did at the beginning of May! Well, I suppose "what goes around comes around"!

The idea is that the bees in the parent will raise queen cells from this frame. The successful queen will then mate with a drone near by and then I hope start to lay. This should all happen reasonably quickly. A new queen should take 16 days to rear. Another week to 10 days will pass before she mates and gets down to laying. So by early July I hope I will be able to see new eggs and larvae in the hive. This works out quite well as I'm off on holiday on Friday!

However, if there is already a queen in residence (and I just missed her during my inspections) then no queen cells should be developed and we have to go off and solve another puzzle, or at least try to figure out what is happening! Anyway, Susan has kindly said she will do an inspection this weekend for me and will check to see if any queen cells are being made with the new eggs. If they are we will leave all alone (but maybe put on another super) and wait to the beginning of July before trying to see if a new queen has taken.

This poses another question of what to do in the autumn. If I rear another queen, do I really want to kill her in the autumn, as is suggested in the Minnesota H2Q system, or should I keep her and try to over-winter her? I think I'll worry about this later.

A bit clearer, perhaps...

2010-05-31T22:39:00.000-05:00

OK, I took another look in both hives today and I saw at least one egg in the Daughter hive - so i'm pretty certain the queen is in there. However, I removed a couple of queen cells from the Parent hive, again. There is a lot of brood and I saw some uncapped larvae, but it was really difficult to see any eggs - I'm just not sure about it.

At least there is no more new brood in the supers. I reckon the larvae I saw in the hive bodies is smaller than the larvae in the supers (they are younger) so I think that it a safe bet that the queen (if she is alive) is in the hive boxes - somewhere.

I think I may need to call on some more experienced help this week.

It's all a bit confusing!

2010-05-30T12:21:00.000-05:00

Checked the girls this morning. The daughter hive seems OK, but there hasn't been much more in the way of building - so I think I will have no chance of adding the third hive box for a while. I hope I can do this once we get back from holiday at the end of June.

The Parent hive is more confusing and concerning however. There is still brood in three of the frames in the top super - but I saw no eggs, nor any new brood elsewhere in the supers, nor the queen, which is all good news as this is what I wanted to achieve. It's been a week since i discovered the brood, so this should be disappearing as new bees emerge. Brood is in place between day 10 and day 21 of bee development; so eleven days in total. By my reckoning the brood should have all gone by Wednesday or Thursday (2nd or 3rd of June). If it is still there, I may have trouble as the queen may still be in the supers. I also saw some uncapped larvae in the supers, which again is possible, as the egg/larval stage is up to day 9. The larvae should be all capped by Tuesday! Again, if I see larvae on Wednesday, I'm in trouble.

Not withstanding the capped brood / larvae issue I saw a lot of queen cells being built throughout the supers and also in the hive bodies - I don't think they were active cells, so they may just be "play cups" as Ted Jansen calls them. Does their presence mean there is no queen? I'm not sure. There is a lot of brood in the hive and I looked for eggs, as this is the best sign of a queen being in residence, but I saw none! I'm a bit worried that the Parent hive may be going the same way as the Daughter hive did, and this was queenless for a couple of weeks.

Hopefully an inspection tomorrow may prove more telling.

I was nearly right!

2010-05-24T18:46:00.000-05:00

I was pretty much working along the right lines yesterday...

The daughter hive now has a frame of brood in the top hive box - to encourage the bees to do some WORK. They have to look after the bees in the top box so they might also build out the foundation while they are there.

In the parent hive, upon Eugene's suggestion, I have moved the super with the brood to the top of the stack. Again, as with the daughter, this is supposed to encourage some work i.e. bees looking after the brood in the top may prefer to make honeycomb lower down as they have less far to travel! Eugene also suggested I put back the queen excluder. Great idea, if you can find the queen, which I couldn't.

After looking for quite a while (and getting stung on the back), I resolved to put the queen excluder in above the two brood boxes, as I think the greatest likelihood is that the queen will be in one of these two brood boxes. I will nevertheless look in the supers over the next few days to try to locate her, or spot new eggs. With luck I guessed right. The girls were quite cross with me by the end of the inspection!

Well, that wasn't in the script!

2010-05-23T15:47:00.001-05:00

So, I've had problems getting the girls to build where I want them to. Typical females, they think they know (and they probably do know) best and were building new honeycomb kind of between frames of foundation, not on it. So to encourage them I painted the frames of foundation with some beeswax and added these to the hive.

When I looked in the parent hive today I saw that some honey storage has begun in the top built out supers, but none of it is capped. This is encouraging, I thought. Below these two built-out supers there are two supers, which have not been built-out. I found no activity in the topmost of these supers, but some building has been going on the lower super. "Super" I thought! And was (and am) really pleased that, finally, some new building seems to be underway.

But with beekeeping, and I am learning there always seems to be a but, there is a catch, or at least some kind of cloud to every silver lining. On the one hand, great news - the bees are building out honeycomb in the supers. But, not so great news, the queen went and took a look to see what her spawn had been doing and was so pleased that she decided to start laying eggs! So I have eggs in at least two, possibly three frames in one super! I'm sure this isn't the end of the world, and I'd much rather they build out the foundation and lay in it, than not build it out at all. I guess the solution to all this is to make sure the queen is in one of the bottom hive bodies (which she was today) and then insert the queen excluder below the supers. Then, after give it 21 days, and the new bees will have emerged, and the cells that were formed for the new bees can then be used for honey storage. This is my theory and I have yet to check it out with others. I hope they see things the same way as me! Oh, and no, I did not put in the queen excluder yet. I thought I would wait a week to see what building happens in the super with no building going on first. Either way it will go on before we go on vacation at the beginning of June.

I also looked in the new "Daughter" hive. I found the queen, and she is busy laying in the bottom hive box, but nobody wants to, or seems interested in, building out the top hive box! What is it with 'plasticell' frames this year? Last year they loved it! Perhaps this is the difference between package bees who really want to build a home and a divided colony who seem pretty ambivalent - who can tell. Anyway, there is a lot of pollen and honey stored in a couple of the frames and I decided to move this to the top box in the hope this will get the girls to start a bit of building. I probably should have moved eggs and larvae, but still, this is what I did.

I better talk to Eugene!

The new Queen has taken

2010-05-16T14:46:00.003-05:00

Well it's been over 10 days since I put the new queen in the daughter hive. They have taken to each other and there is at lease one frame of eggs and new brood now. There also appeared to be several queen cells, but they looked unused, so I suppose they are old cells (off the frame of eggs I transferred) that were being formed while the hive was queenless. Anyway, introducing the new queen appears to have been successful and things are beginning to get back to normal. I didn't see the queen (and I can't remember if she is marked!), but the sight of eggs was good enough for me. Some foundation was being drawn out and this is good too, but they have a long way to go yet.

The Parent hive remains bursting with bees and burr comb. No swarm cells that I could see, but as with the daughter there was brood, and I think eggs! So the queen is OK. There also appears to be the start of some work drawing out foundation on the remaining hive frames and also on the supers. Strangely (or perhaps not so strangely) the workers have made honey comb off the side of one of the supers, thereby avoiding the plastic foundation. This is particularly annoying as they had built nearly a whole frame's worth of comb which I had to remove. I hope they will start to use the plastic foundation soon. It's been about 2 weeks since I removed the queen excluder!

It's been a bit of a mixed blessing today. Good that the queens are doing well, not so good that their building has not been very productive and off the foundation. I'm not happy with the plastic foundation - the bees do not seem to like it this year, and I wonder if I will use this again.

Reversal and a Swarm!

2010-05-09T20:58:00.002-05:00

Lovely Mother's Day here in the US. And what should come into the garden? A swarm, and a whopper at that! We don't know where they came from but there are a lot of bees. Maybe between two and three rugby ball's worth!

It's a bit awkward to reach though as it is about 40' up in a tree with very spindly branches. So no real chance of getting hold of it. I have tried to entice the bees down with a hive box of frames and some honey, who knows I may get lucky!

Anyway, I thought it would be a good idea to check if they are my bees! Well they certainly don't look like they come from my parent hive as this is still contains an awful lot of bees. I didn't look in the daughter hive as I only put a new queen in there on Thursday, and I don't want to open it up and disrupt things a second time! I'm pretty sure they don't belong to me but they could be Susan's. She doesn't know yet, but will look tomorrow!

While I was in the parent hive I reversed brood boxes!

STOP PRESS: They moved on this afternoon - we don't know where!

New Queen installed - for the last time I hope!

2010-05-05T18:47:00.000-05:00

OK, so we completed the home stretch tonight. I brought the new mated hygienic queen home and gave the old virgin to Eugene. There were 4 queen cells being formed on the frame of eggs so we did the right thing in brining in a new queen.

Now just sit back and let them get to it - without interruption. I will wait until at least May 15th before looking again!

Yet another Queen....

2010-05-04T20:35:00.001-05:00

After much deliberation, and advise from other beekeepers, I have decided that Iris' Queen (IQ) is not for me! I have nothing against her it's just I have limited experience with virgins!

Having only 2 hives, and hoping to over-winter one, it seems that my best chance for success lies with a 'hygienic' queen, specifically bred. The one I will be getting hold of (via Bob Sears) is from Bordelon, we'll call her BQ for the time being. Although IQ is probably health she still has to mate with unknown drones who may not have hygienic behavior, thus she may not be as 'good' as BQ, who is form know stock.

To cut quite a long story short, BQ should arrive tomorrow, IQ will go to one of Eugenes hives and with luck we will all live happily ever after. It was an interesting, if a little confusing, few days discussion!

Oh, and just for the record - I believe I got about 4 different opinions from 2 separate beekeepers!

The Human Bee

2010-05-04T20:27:00.001-05:00

The Human Bee – Carol Ann Duffy

I became a human bee at twelve.

when they gave me my small wand,

my flask of pollen,

and I walked with the other bees

out to the orchards.

I worked first in apples,

climbed the ladder

into the childless arms of a tree

and busied myself, dipping and

tickling,

duping and tackling, tracing

the petal's guidelines

down to the stigma.

Human, humming,

I knew my lessons by heart:

The ovary would become the fruit,

the ovule the seed,

fertilised by my golden touch,

my Midas dust.

I moved to pears,

head and shoulders

lost in blossom; dawn till dusk,

my delicate blessing.

All must be docile, kind. unfraught

for one fruit -

pomegranate, peach

nectarine, plum, the rhyme1ess

orange

And if an opening bud

was out of range,

I'd jump from my ladder onto a

branch

and reach.

So that was my working 1ife as a bee,

till my eyesight blurred,

my hand was a trembling bird

in the leaves,

the bones of my fingers thinner than

wands.

And when they retired me,

I had my wine from the silent vines,

and I'd known love,

and I'd saved some money -

but I could not fly and I made no

honey.

------------------------
Thanks to Mum and Dad for sending this to me from
Saturday's Guardian newspaper.

Got a new Queen - A local Girl!

2010-05-02T20:20:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Iris Risler who offered up a new queen to me today. She (the queen that is and not Iris) is now tucked up in my queen-less hive, albeit in a cage, probably until Wednesday.

Iris found three swarm cells in her hive this afternoon in Richmond Heights, and actually saw the queen she gave me emerging from the queen cell. She also heard it "sing" which is pretty unusual. Anyway here's a photo of the queen cell and the end of it which was snipped off by the queen inside.

With luck this new local gal' will be accepted, but even if she is, she still needs to go on her maiden flight and return to her new home - fingers crossed then!