Split

I've been back to the apiary once since Easter to see my bees and they weren't too bad - their behavior seems to be a bit erratic and unpredictable this spring.  The last time I was there (a couple of weeks ago) it was poor weather but I managed to get though the bees; enough to see that they were doing really well and were potentially in need of splitting.

On my visit last weekend (30/4/17) I found that I successfully trapped the queen in Hive 1 in the deep and the supers are now clear of brood - although there are some drones kicking about above the QE. I might have to go back and shake these supers out in order to clear all the drones. So this hive is set up well - there were no sign of queen cells!

Hive 2 was bursting!  I popped a second deep on a couple of weeks ago and this was pretty full of bees. I was half expecting this so I was prepared to make up another hive (thanks to Dave for preparing all the wooden-ware etc.).  I went through the upper of the two deeps to try to spot the queen - no such luck; but there was brood, eggs and lots of bees.

I decided to relocate this entire deep into a new hive (Hive 4), frame by frame.  My intention was to have them raise a new queen from eggs. I also gave this hive a partially full super.  If the queen wasn't with the bees I moved and there are eggs, by next weekend (6/5/17) there should be some queen cells present and my work was successful, so far.  If there are no queen cells in the new hive then the queen was in the group of bees I moved and there should be some queen cells in Hive 1.  Not quite what I was planning but I think that should still be OK. Again, I saw no queen cells in Hive 1. So that's a plus too.

I didn't look though Hive 3 (Dave's original hive).  I think I was pushing my luck by this time and so I decided to beat a retreat.

First Inspection of the year!

I completed my first inspection of the year yesterday.  It seems late I know but there just really hasn't been a good enough weather window when I was around.  Anyway the fog lifted, the sun came out and I leapt at the opportunity.

I wasn't sure what I'd find; the bees have been quite active so far this year so I was hopeful to find things were all settled and in good shape.  And generally that's exactly what I found! Although I have to say they seemed further advanced than I was expecting for mid March.

We have 3 hives, all had mite treatment in December, all have been active, some more than others...

Hive 1:

This is the hive that is nearest the big house (on the left in the above photo) and I think this has been the most active over the winter; at least every time I have been to the apiary this hive has had the most bees flying.  When I arrived yesterday I found a great crush of bees trying to enter the hive, many laden with great piles of pollen.  

This hive comprises 1 deep and 2 supers.  We left the supers on over the winter with heather honey we couldn't extract. I found there was quite a bit of honey stored in the supers, together with significant quantities of brood (see the following photo)!  There was plenty of pollen in the supers near the brood as well, so apart from the fact the brood is in the wrong place the bees looked OK.  

The deep was empty of brood but did contain some honey so I decided to move the supers (and therefore the brood) under the deep.  I hope the supers will gradually empty and the deep will fill with brood. I'll pop on a Queen Excluder on soon.

Hive 2:

This hive has a single deep and 2 supers and is usually quieter than the first and sure enough there were fewer bees around the entrance. Inside the hive I found lots of stores in the both supers, but no brood.  In the deep (at the bottom of the hive) there was a tonne of brood - 5 or 6 frames worth in a lovely pattern, a nice oval with some space for laying in the middle, together with pollen and honey surrounding the capped cells.  This is looking really,  really, strong!

The thought occurred to me that perhaps the reason they were quieter was down to the fact they had more stores in the hive and so didn't need to venture out as much!

I popped a Queen Excluder under the supers and will keep a watch on the brood - certainly on a week by week basis.  I think this could be my main hive for splitting this season - We have the necessary equipment available but I have nevertheless made some enquiries about additional stands, OMF etc.

Hive 3:

Dave's Hive. This hive comprises 2 deeps and a single super.  One deep contained brood and stores, the other deep had no brood and was mostly empty of stores.  The super contained some stores. I left the deep with brood at the bottom of the hive, slipped a Queen Excluder over this then added the super and finally the deep (which is a 'new' one) on top.  I may well use this deep for the future split. Again this hive looks to be in good shape.

I removed all the entrance reducers, the mouse guards and the OMF screen boards; the latter to help improve ventilation within the hive.  I found in all hives a lot of condensation, in the frame rebates and particularly at the top in the roofs where there was some mold growth too.

So it was an excellent first inspection.  The hives look strong and more advanced than I expected for the time of year.  I will have to keep a close eye on them, most particularly the middle one as the brood chamber is filling quickly.  Opportunities therefore exist for making splits.  I need to get organized, get some existing equipment cleaned up and buy some new deep frames and foundation.

Swarms and Students

I had a really great day on Friday! I gave three very enthusiastic students from the Jamia Ahmadiyya in Haslemere a tour around the apiary. They were extremely keen to learn about beekeeping and I only hope I was able to answer all their questions fully!

I met up with them mid afternoon and gave them a quick briefing - about the bees, the equipment, the protection and most importantly to stay calm, don't worry and have fun!

Fortunately the bees for once were similarly briefed and cooperated beautifully!

We had quite a lot to cover as I now have 3 hives that are all at quite different stages of development. However, the first thing for us to notice was what was going on outside the hives.  There was a lot of activity!  It was a very warm spring day and from what I could tell there was a good nectar flow on; lots of bees flying in and out, not so much pollen being carried. So what did we find?

Hive 1:  This is the long established hive.  It needed no mite treatment a week or so ago but I went through the hive with the students, showed them brood, pollen, capped honey, eggs and larvae - it has everything you could want for a teaching hive!  We left it after adding a super of drawn comb - there's a flow on!

Hive 2:  This is the combined hive which had just had a course of MAQS mite treatment. I wasn't sure how this hive would have coped as my experience in the USA (where admittedly it was much hotter) was not good. But my fears were unfounded.

When I opened the hive I found the queen had been busy laying in the super!  Not too much brood, but enough!   But by way of compensation there was also a lot of honey and nectar in the super as well!  Anyway, I was sort of prepared for this as I had a super of undrawn foundation with me.  I checked that the queen wasn't in the in-situ super and then put the new super under it; the theory being that the queen won't cross the undrawn super, the brood will hatch and the bees will then fill the brood cells with honey - well, that's the theory!

Again we looked through the rest of this hive saw there were no queen cells but saw there was a lot of nectar in the cells.  So I felt quite good about putting a second super on.

I'll also do another mite count in a couple of weeks.

Hive 3:  The new Swarm Hive.  Last Wednesday evening Dave got a call from someone local who said she had swarm in her front garden.  And what a swarm!  It filled the skep.  Sadly there are no photos, but Dave reckons it's as big a swarm as he has ever caught.  He put the swarm into a new deep, added a queen excluder and a super.  Unfortunately he didn't have any new foundation available so the bees went into a box of old comb.

The good news however was that I have plenty of frames and so I planned, with the students, to relocate the swarm onto these new frames.  It was all ridiculously easy! 

Most of the frames were in a bad state so we just checked if the queen was there before we gently shook the bees into the hive.  We left just 3 original frames of decent half drawn comb; the rest was new foundation.  We also fed the bees some 1:1 syrup in order to stimulate some frame drawing.  But given the size of the hive and the activity in and out of it this may not really have been needed!

So the 3 students and I left the apiary happy and excited for pretty much the same reasons!  They had been through three hives, handled bees, seen the stages of growth and even tasted a bit of honey/nectar direct from the comb!  Very cool! I had seen the hives looking strong and calm!

I went back into the apiary today (Sunday) just to see the swarm hive again, but ended up looking at all 3, and I'm glad I did!  There wasn't much change to Hive 1, but the second super in Hive 2 was being drawn out, fast.  I didn't want the queen rushing back up too soon so I dashed home to get another super of undrawn foundation and popped that under the other 2.  

Three supers on - nectar flow - feeling happy!

I went this morning mainly to feed up the swarm and found they had taken about 1/3 of the feed from Friday.  So I topped it up.  I also found the queen and saw she had been laying - all very encouraging!  It would be nice to put some new super foundation on the hive soon.

All in all its been a brilliant weekend!  You just have to love spring!

Sting in the tail; well the neck actually

I finished beekeeping today at Ladue. My first stop was at the split I made for Jürgen in his beeyard. This is doing very well! You may remember it was basically Queenless in my backyard for quite a while. I relocated it, put in some eggs and brood and a couple of days after that a new queen.  When I looked in today it was filling very strongly with new larvae; probably 4 or 5 frames.  I didn't bother to find the queen!  So I reckon this needs some supers and soon!

At my apiary in Ladue the hive with the week queen I replaced has also taken well. I need to find some frames to complete a second deep and this needs to be done reasonably quickly.

The hive "north" of this was also very strong again containing plenty of brood, eggs and larvae, but no sign of any swarm cells. I put on 2 supers.

The final hive; the one I always do last in this beeyard because they are temperamental, was like the northern hive. There was plenty of brood, eggs and larvae and again no swarm cells or sign of any being made. 

The problem here was that a couple of bees somehow got in my suit and I now have a nice sting on my neck! Anyway they also deserved supers and I put on 3. Two are already drawn out the other is mostly foundation.

A good day's beekeeping and I'm now ready for a nectar flow!

Honey Harvest - Part 3 - Extraction

It took about 4 days to bring in all the supers from their various locations in St. Louis.  It was hot, hard work, although not as bad as last year; the temperature hit 41C one day!  It was still pretty hot and on one day I lost about 5 lbs I was so dehydrated (yes, I measured it!).  I learnt from last year's experience and I'm very glad I paced myself this time.  I reckon I would have been unable to do all the extracting if I had to bring all the boxes in just the day before.

So, once all 13 supers were in the house the extraction process started.  A huge thank you goes out to everyone who came round on Saturday July 6 to help me extract all my honey (and drink all my booze!).  We gathered in 376 pounds (170 kg) of liquid honey from around the area, but I also have about 5 frames of cut-comb honey as well, so that probably brings the total to around about 400 lbs (180 kg).  I simply must give a special shout-out to Maddie and Eleanor for bottling 74 honey bears and about 20 other assorted bottles!  Wonderful job girls! Thank You!  Anyway the breakdown was like this:

Backyard = 81 lbs (36.7 kg)

Diane's yard = 46 lbs (20.8 kg)

Botanical Gardens = 195 lbs (88.5 kg)

Ladue = 54 lbs (24.5 kg)

Cut-comb = 5 frames, so about 20 to 25 lbs (10 kg approx')

A very tidy haul indeed!  That's about 400 lbs from 5 hives, or an average of about 80 lbs (36 kg) a hive.  Quite impressive! Last year I got about 255 lbs (116 kg) from 3 hives, which is slightly more per hive, but there is still some honey on all the hives. I intend to take that off in September, so long as the girls don't need it. I'm sure there's another 10 to 20 lbs per hive out there! but I mustn't get greedy.


So as I said, the backyard honey is partially bottled, but the rest of the stash is in about 9 buckets in the basement!  I'm going to make some set/creamed honey as soon as I can and perhaps enter that in the Missouri State Fair.  Some "chunk" or cut-comb honey (jars of liquid honey with cut-comb inside) will also be made. But I'll need more jars and bottles, and fairly soon!

It was a wonderful weekend.  I'm now in the process of taking supers back to the hives to let the bees clean up the frames.  My car smells devine!!  However my forearms, hands and fingers ache now from all the repetitive lifting, spinning and grabbing!  I couldn't do this every week!

Some Interesting bee facts:

400 lbs of honey takes about 20,000,000 "bee-miles" to produce.

Each bee can process about 1/4 of a teaspoon of honey in it's life. So something like 100,000 bees were responsible for this year's haul.

Honey Harvest - Part 2 : All Harvested!

Everything I can bring in is now in the house (including a few bees). There are however still a few supers out there in myyards and  I'm hoping they will get filled over the next couple of months. That, or the bees will consume it if the weather turns out to be anything like last August! 

13 supers so far, so with luck that'll be about 300 lbs! Yum!  All supers are coded so I know where they came from; look out for the blind tasting event...

Honey Harvest - Part 1

It's time!  The busiest, and best, time of the year for us beekeepers!

I started harvesting at the Gardens on Wednesday and hauled in 6 supers with the help of some friends. Thanks so much to everyone it made a tough job much, much, easier! 

Once I was done there I managed to bring 2 more supers  from Diane's hive. Tomorrow (July 4th) I'll harvest from the back yard and then I'll finish up in Ladue on Friday! 

It's looking like a good year!

The Extraction Party is Saturday. Super busy, but my favourite day! I hope to see at lot of people!

Ladue Bees.

Yesterday I nervously set out to inspect the hives in Ladue! Nervous, why? Because last time I went to look at them they were very aggressive and unpleasant!

I have 3 hives in Ladue now, two nucs and this nasty existing hive. My plan was to go through the nucs first to see how they are performing and then to take the supers from the nasty hive and "store" them over the nucs prior to the harvest in a couple of weeks.  I thought that by working in this way it would make harvesting any honey from the nasty hive a bit easier.

The nucs look great! Both have good Queens laying in them. But I will need some additional deeps quite soon. However I now have to confess I am wondering if they should remain strong in single deeps for the winter, or maybe I should combine them with the nasty hive to create two strong hives going into the winter!!!  I might call Eugene for advice.

Anyway instead of closing up the nucs as I found them, I put on a queen excluder and added a new super of undrawn foundation. I then went to relocate the supers from the other hive...

I should say that before I worked the nucs (and also during) I smoked the nasty hive to try to calm them and keep them calm. I think this (and the fact it was a much nicer day than the last time I did an inspection) must have worked because they were really OK this time. A couple of bees did follow me back to my car but I wasn't stung like I have been.  

I smoked supers quite heavily before pulling them off and relocating them and I didn't have any major issues! Rather than just leave the deeps I added an empty super of drawn comb to the hive just to encourage the bees to keep on keeping on!

So this means that each of my nucs are now in single deeps with full(ish) supers of honey and an undrawn super over them and the nasty hive is down to two deeps and an empty super of drawn comb.

Next time out I will harvest the supers (or at least decide how many I will take) and then think about finding the queen in the nasty hive and executing her!

Next inspection June 30.

Memorial Day Holiday Inspections

It's a holiday weekend and so an ideal opportunity to get into the beeyard.  Of course it's raining as I write this so I'm pleased I finished what I needed to do this morning!

It was a mixed bag; good things and bad things happening but overall progress has been positive!  I started at the Gardens yesterday and finished in Ladue today. I think I have worked out an efficient system for inspecting my yards, at long last!

Mobot Hives:

Established Hive: this continues to go well. There's a good laying pattern and no Queen Cells in the hive. I also saw the Queen which is always nice. This hive looks in good shape! There was some brood in the supers, but not much! I'll need to keep an eye on that! 

Queen Bee at the Botanical Gardens.

Swarm Hive: I found quite a lot of eggs and brood in the supers which is a nuisance! However, the good news is that this at least means there is a Queen present!  And a good one judging from the laying pattern and quantity of new brood! 

In order to address this I moved the supers containing the brood to the top of the stack. the hope is that these clear and get filled with nectar and not refilled with brood. But its good to be prepared so I may need to put an excluder on; maybe on Monday.

New brood in a super!

Next inspection May 31.

Home Hives:

Home Hives.

Nuc: Did not take! Disappointing but no great loss!

Single Deep: This is looking good! Theres plenty of new brood and I saw a new Queen. I thought I took a photo of her but I missed!  Still, you can see the good young brood and larvae. I added a second deep and I hope to build this up over the testing the spring.

Larvae in the Single Deep.

I thought I had a photo of the Queen!

Main Home Hive:  This is Queenless and that's very disappointing. But as there is no Queen the supers continue to fill. So that is one good thing!  Interestingly there were a lot if empty supersedure cells in the hive on at least 2 frames.  I suppose this could mean the hive may have swarmed but I'm not convinced. I need to research this further. 

Empty Supersedure Cells

So what action did I take?  I took two frames of eggs/larvae/brood from Diane's hive and slotted them in the top deep. I'll look in the hive in a week to see if Queen Cells are being prepared. If not I may have to buy a Queen. I may also have to move a couple of the full supers to the new adjacent hive as the stack is becoming to heavy and high to manage!

Next inspection June 1.

Diane's Hive: 

Another hive doing well!  There's a lot of brood and I saw the Queen (she's marked so one from last season). As I mentioned above I took 2 frames of eggs/larvae/brood from the hive and slotted them into the main hive at home. There's some space in the supers still but I'll need to check these in a week or so!

Next inspection June 1.

Ladue Hive:

I should have expected this; by now it was getting overcast and it started to look like rain.  Yes, these girls weren't too happy to be disturbed and got a bit nasty; I got stung 4 times on my right wrist and arm!

So they're strong! And I found brood in the hive! This was Queenless a few weeks ago so I'm happy they should now be OK. There's lots of nectar in the hive too. I hope with a Queen now in residence they will move this up into the supers to make some room for brood. One old super is full and the shallows are filling.

I cleared the yard with my brush cutter to make it easier to move around, and I now need to think about starting some new hives.  Nucs would be good! I also need to "de-propolise" the hive! It's so sticky and hard to work.

Next inspection June 2.

Further Spring Inspections

Writing up my inspections on my blog is fast becoming my go-to method of record keeping as well as planning.  I felt I dropped the ball a bit coming into the spring; I was disorganized and not fully prepared for what I needed to do with my bees. But since I started recording stuff here and using the calendar on my phone more, I've found I've been better able to plan my time and I'm also sure I service the hives I have dotted about the city much more effectively.  I guess the lesson is "record data in the way that best suits you"!

So what happened this weekend?  On Saturday I dashed about the...

Home Hive: 
I went through just the supers to see if any more were needed.  In the event I added a fourth, as of the 3 there two were almost full and the third partially full. I did not look for the Queen on this occasion as I want to wait a little longer to make sure if there is one she is settled in the hive.  I'm planning on doing that on 25 May (next weekend).

Home Hive with Supers

Diane's Hive: 
Now this hive has been in good shape this spring.  I went through the entire hive and found nothing untoward, apart from some larvae/eggs in the first super!  I looked in the super for the queen and as I didn't see her I bottom-supered with a third shallow. Hopefully this will discourage her from going up into the supers again. This will leave the brood in the supers to hatch and allow more nectar/honey to be stored.

The other two supers on the hive are filling well; there are lots of eggs and brood and larvae throughout the deeps - but no queen cells!. I'll check in on this hive soon - May 25.

Diane's Hive

Ladue Hive: 
This is not firing on all cylinders - not yet!  There should be a maturing Queen in the hive so I didn't want to disturb things too much; I just went through the supers.  These are not filling that quickly, but I nevertheless put an extra super on (up to 3 now).  I also took a quick look in the top deep and I found lots of nectar here and some mature brood as well, but not much.  I hope this doesn't mean the hive is Queenless! But it is early days still and I will go back to look this weekend to see if I can find brood and eggs (May 24) i.e. if there appears to be a resident Queen. If there isn't one in the hive I will consider either purchasing a new Queen or bringing the nuc I prepared from the Queen Cells in this hive (which are at home) back to Ladue!

On Sunday my focus was at the Botanical Garden...

Established Hive:
The established hive here looks in good shape - it's very vital!  Everything looks good!  No Queen Cells, plenty of brood, larvae, eggs, nectar, pollen and honey in the hive. I added a single shallow as the two there are partially full.  The top deep appeared further developed than the bottom deep so I reversed these as well.  I'll be back to look inside the hive in a week's time! (May 24).

Swarm Hive:
As with the hive in my yard I only went though the supers on this hive.  Both were both pretty much full so I bottom-supered two more!  I will check to see if the Queen Cell I moved from home a couple of weeks ago has taken (may 24). If not I think I may have to obtain a new Queen!

Piles of Supers at the Gardens!

An Extended Day Beekeeping!

The weather was so bad this weekend that I didn't manage to get any beekeeping in, yet again.  Instead I took Monday off (May 6) and went round my hives.  This activity actually started on Sunday as I needed to plan what I was going to do at each hive location so that I wasn't unnecessarily running about.  Broadly my planning worked! Broadly, but not quite...

So what follows are my plans and notes of what actually happened - a few surprises came my way!

Equipment needs:
Tool box - 2 empty drawn frames + mating box frames.
Spare deep - no frames.
Supers with cut comb x 2.
Supers x 10.
Dolly.
2 nuc boxes for possible splits.

Should have taken my back support!

Home hive:
Check for queen cells and/or queen.
Perform artificial swarm if cells present! or simply reverse if not.
Need excluder and deep of drawn comb for AS.
Add 1x super with cut comb.

Didn't see the queen, but saw Swarm cells were present on two frames. Relocated one frame to mating box (centre compartment) left one in the hive but removed 2 of the 3 cells on it. If the queen in the hive doesn't take maybe the one in the mating box will.

I think it may be likely this hive will swarm!

Bottom supered with frames for cut comb. Three supers currently in place.

Diane Hive:
Check for queen cells. Remove any queen cells to tool box then to mating box in yard.
Reverse.
Add supers x 2 (max).

Didn't see the queen, no sign of supersedure cells or swarm cells. Didn't reverse. 

Bottom supered a single super. Two currently in place.

Ladue Hives:
Check two hives for queen cells. Remove to tool box/nuc box if present.
Perform reversals.
Add supers x 4.

Down to one hive, but combined the hives.

Swarm cells removed from the one surviving hive (removed a total of 4 frames) to make up a nuc at home.

Added 2 supers.

Mating box:
Check queen cells.
If not hatched relocate to nuc box/tool box, take to Gdns for swarm hive, otherwise leave.

Swarm cell present in western compartment. Decided to leave it in place!

These cells (and those in the centre compartment from the home hive) were subsequently all relocated to the "swarm hive" at the gardens.

Garden Swarm Hive #2:
Check for queen. If present OK. If not use frame from mating box.
Reorganize and reduce to 2 deeps.
Add supers x 2.

No queen! Swarm was either Queenless or they killed her! 

Reduced bees into 2 deeps added 2 supers (3 total now). Put in queen cells from the mating box. A couple were damaged in transit (at the bottom of frames) but hopefully either the healthy capped cell or the viable uncapped cells will develop. Check back in a couple of weeks!

Should have taken my swarm cells to the gardens as planned. The "swarm hive" was queenless and needed these cells and I had to drive home to collect them!

Garden Hive #1:
Check for queen cells. If present relocate to swarm hive or nuc box.
Reverse.
Add supers x 2 - check garage!
Add one super with cut comb.

All ok! Added two supers. Total of two in place.

A montage from the Botanical Gardens of some lovely brood,
pollen and a very prominent Queen Cell.

Another montage from the Botanical Gardens,
including the delivery of the Queen Cell!