Hive Inspection 4/23/13

LITTLE MISS & ROZINA
70°F
Sunny
Calm

A View of Little Miss from Rozina

Rozina was a bit defensive when i opened her up.  Her gallon of 1:1 syrup had crystallized.  It looked like she took maybe half of it before it hardened.  The bees were mostly up in the top box still.  frames 2 & 3 had capped worker pupa & eggs, nectar, pollen, & honey.  Frames 4, 5, & 6, were solid eggs or larva.  Frames 7 had a bunch of eggs too but the queen had put more than one egg into a few cells.  Young queens will do that from time to time.  The workers sort it out afterward.  The queen should stop doing that soon.  The Queen was on frame 9, a nectar frame.  This box had plenty of walking Drones too.  The ones that came in with the package.  The population in the top box was fair.

Bad habits of young Queens

The bottom box was being back filled with pollen and nectar.  The Queen hadn't got down there yet.  Plus, there are still lots of empty cells for the queen to use.  The worker population in this box was poor.

For a new colony she is doing well.  I don't know why she moved up to the top box so fast.  Just as long as she moves down again instead of swarming once the top box is filled.

Little Miss was very calm in contrast to Rozina.  Lots of activity in her new top box.  Frames 5, 6, 7,  & 8 had eggs, larva, & pupa.  The Queen was on frame 5.  The population in this hive was OK.

A very good Queen Miss

The bottom box had 4 frames of brood; 5, 6, 7, & 8.  Though frame 6 is almost a solid frame of drone cells and they've begun to emerge.  The brood pattern was spotty but those are the over-wintering frames.  Productive but not uniform.  I believe they'll work it out but i'll keep an eye on it.  Also patches of new honey being capped on the outer frames.

Almost solid Drone Frame

Both colonies look good for now.  They need to continue brooding up.  Still hoping to make some splits if the population grow fast enough.  Still waiting for Rozina to find the bottom box.

____________________☼____________________

Hive Inspection 9/24/12

MAB & HELÉNA
68°F

Sunny 
Calm


Mab is having the same SHB problem as the other hives.  This has been the worst year for them since we began beekeeping.  It seems that each week or so we buy more beetle traps.  Next time we'll get a whole case.  Three traps per box should do it.  Mab has three boxes and a Slatted rack so i'd like to give her twelve traps.  I guarantee they will all have a bunch of beetles in them.

Other than that Mab is doing great.  She is back filling her top box with honey and moving the brood nest down.  Her population is good.  She even has a few Drone cells and walking drones.  Plus she's very calm and responds well to smoke.

I didn't go through all her boxes since i found the Queen on frame four in the middle box.   She looked as good as always.  Well attended by her court.  Brood patterns get spotty in Fall.  Her's shows that but still has nice consistency.

The bees have also done a great job waxing the interior of the hive.  Most of the equipment is new but has a good coat of wax.  The other colonies have never been this quick about it.

I'll inspect her again in two weeks or so.  For now i'll start feeding them syrup. This is what i wish all the colonies looked like.

Heléna as usual is doing her own thing apart from reason.  As mentioned the SHB are bad but inspecting her was the first time i had SHB crawling up into my veil.  That was as soon as i opened the hive up.  A poor start to things.

Her population is Fair.  I'd like to see more bees and she has a strong reputation as a bee maker (as opposed to honey).  Yet, there weren't enough bees to fill the slated rack which is usually full of bees.  The majority of bees were in the top box.  I assume the Queen was up there but never found her.  Did see fresh eggs though.  Odd there are less bees in her.  We had some very poor weather this Summer.  It may have set everyone back. 

The brood pattern was normal for this time of year.  More & more cells being back filled with nectar.  Less & less cells being filled with brood.  Some what spotty.  Sadly it looks like she has no interest in lowering her brood nest into the bottom boxes.  A reversal will fix that in a month or two. The brood looked healthy though and had plenty of eggs.

The burr comb didn't help either.  The biggest piece was above the top box where the top entrance is.  Not a surprise as the shim is more than half an inch in height.  However, the first three frames were one with the frames below them.  Had to clean that up just to put the frame back in the box. 

The bees here were much more defensive than in Mab.  Head butting quickly gave way to a stinging assault as i moved into the bottom box.  I spent more time smoking stings than inspecting frames.  NOT how things are supposed to work BUT with Heléna there is ALWAYS a chance of swarm cells somewhere in the hive.  Have to check each time.

She be fed for a few weeks along with the others.  Hopefully i'll find the Queen next time.

____________________☼____________________

Hive Inspection 8/24/2011

MYRINA
Mostly Sunny
84°F

When feeding Myrina the other day I saw a Wax Moth & a SHB in her.  I wanted to see if she was in bad shape or not.

Not what you want to see but they did a great job a cleaning it!

The first thing i saw were bees in the HTF.  So there must be a hole in the screening in put in but i couldn't find it.  I'll make some more and scrap the ones in here soon.

DHB2: frames
1 - Filled with brood & eggs
2 - Brood, eggs, some stores.  Spotty pattern. Queen (marked)
3 - Brood, eggs, some stores
4 - Pollen & uncapped honey
5 - empty.  Starting to add honey
6 - Uncapped Honey
7 - empty
8 - Full of uncapped honey
9 - some Honey
10 - Full of uncapped honey

DHB1: frames
1 - 1/2 pollen
2 - Brood & eggs.  Spotty pattern
3 - Brood eggs, pollen
4 - light pollen & honey
5 - pollen
6 - empty. little honey
7 - empty
8 - empty
9 - Some honey (SHB x3)
10 - some uncapped honey

Her population is smaller than i like and her stores are light too.  She is, however, adding brood & stores at an acceptable speed.  Plus, this inspection includes the first feeding.  A spotty brood pattern is typical for Fall yet she has several frames filled with eggs.  Interesting to note that there didn't seem to be ANY Drone Cells.  Though I did see a few drones walking around.  Another check in a week or so will confirm the end of Summer drones.

Filthy Rotten Bug! - Small Hive Beetle

The presence of the SHB is troubling.  fortunately i only found three of them.  I added a beetle trap to help the bees out.  I might put more in later.  No Wax moth were present.

The Slatted Racks are a Big Hit with the Ladies!

There wasn't any bridge comb and the frames looked clean.  The bees were calm and moved off nicely from the smoke.  I'll keep an eye on this queen hoping she can belt out a bunch of brood soon.

*_____________________________☼______________________________*

Myrina's Nuc & New Queen

Today's weather was Sunny & warm which is what I've been waiting for to make the second Nuc.  Myrina's population is increasing rapidly and I've been worried about her swarming.  I did not plan for a full inspection.  Only to make the nuc and close everyone up afterward.

As I took it of i saw the bees had not begun to draw out the Honey Super.  Oh well!.  I started removing the frames from the top brood box.  Lots of bees, lots of capped brood cells, & lots of drone cells.  To look for eggs I had to push the bees around on the frames to see into the cells.  I was also looking for the Queen of course.  I meant to locate then isolate her before i took any frames for the nuc.

It didn't take long.  Queen Myrina was in the top box on frame #5.  Not the blue marked VSH daughter from 2010 but a new Unmarked queen!  Whoa!  I grabbed the marking tube from the tool box and chased her around the frame for a few seconds before i managed to catch her.  She was laid to the side for later.  Then I took the frame she was on and the 3 adjacent frames and put them in the Nuc; they had plenty of eggs.  I put an extra honey frame in the nuc and it was full.  A towel was placed over the nuc while I finished up with Myrina.

All 4 frames were replaced with drawn crimped-wire frames saved from Duchess.  The remaining brood frames were checker-boarded some what to move the end frames into the brood nest.  Then I marked queen Myrina with a white marker and let the paint dry for a minute.  After which she was released back onto a brood frame.

The New Queen Myrina

At this point I closed up Myrina and grabbed the nuc to take to its stand.  The Screened Bottom Board & Telescoping Cover were waiting there for the Nuc.  All of it was assembled and there sat Nuc#2.

A Nuc from both Hives

As I closed the cover on the new Nuc I noticed that the bees were Very quiet.  Hopefully by next weekend they will have a handful of Queen cells made.  Also the Slatted Rack was added at the start.  I hope it will allow the bees to keep the bottom of the frames warmer so they have more queen cell candidates.  I should have done that with the first nuc.  Nuc#2 has 4 full frames of bees in it.  Which is what I've been told is a good amount.

The New Queen Myrina.  The last time I saw the blue marked 2010 queen was in October.  Yet all spring there has been plenty of brood.  I feel like she may have been replaced after the boxes were reversed.  I couldnt have been last year since it would have been to late for drones to be around.  There was also no problem with egg laying early this year.  There was a slow down after the reversal.  I assumed it was related to the reversal but it may have been when the supersedure occurred; or she died and was replaced.  I havent seen any queen cells yet this year.  A full inspection is in order now.

The good news is that Myrina is requeened.  I'll not worry as much about her swarming now.  The new queen performance is Fantastic.  The brood frames were filled from edge to edge with brood.  The pattern was completely solid.  Possibly the best looking brood frames I've ever seen.  I hope the queen in Nuc#2 ends up the same.

On a final note the beekeeping neighbor and I both noticed TONS of drone cells in our hives this weekend.  Almost entire frames of them.  All our queens are local to this area.  I hope it is normal for here but I do not recall so many drone cells before.

* ____________________________________________________________*

Inspection 10/17/10

Mary
72 f
Sunny


Mary had the same crystallized sugar in her HTF as did Myrina.  Not to much but it was there.  The bees seemed calm when I started.  A good bit of bur comb too.

 Almost looks drone sized
-

The frames are Plasticell from 2008.  I've not cycled any of them out yet.  Maybe next year if the comb is dark enough.  The Nosema stains are from when Mary was in the ICU last Winter.  I scraped it off along with all the propolis on the frame rests.

Top Box Frames:
10. Full capped honey - 2008 Plasticell
 9.  Full capped honey - 2008 Plasticell
 8.  Full capped honey - 2008 Plasticell
 7.  Full capped honey, drawn out oversized - 2008 Plasticell
 6.  1/2 capped honey, drawn out undersized -  2009 Plasticell
 5.  1/2 honey, 1/2 brood (back filling w/honey) -  2008 Plasticell
 4.  Full capped honey (back filling w/honey) -  2008 Plasticell
 3.  Eggs, 3/4 back filled honey, queen cup - 2008 Plasticell
 2.  Capped brood, 3/4 back filled honey - 2008 Plasticell
 1.  Full capped honey - 2008 Plasticell

Bottom Box Frames:
10. 9/10 capped honey - 2008 Plasticell
 9.  9/10 capped honey - 2008 Plasticell
 8.  9/10 capped honey - 2008 Plasticell
 7.  9/10 capped honey - 2008 Plasticell
 6.  1/2 capped honey, 1/2 pollen - 2008 Plasticell
 5.  Eggs, larva, pollen, honey, CHALKBROOD - 2008 Plasticell
 4.  Larva, pollen, honey - 2008 Plasticell
 3.  Larva, pollen, honey - 2008 Plasticell
 2.  Pollen, honey, brood - 2008 Plasticell
 1.  Pollen, honey, brood - 2008 Plasticell

Spotty pattern but it's the end of the season
-

After pulling all the frames & scraping all the propolis I felt the bees needed even more agitation.  So I pulled off the bottom box and dumped and cleaned the solid BB.  The bees temperament was fine, until then.  They didn't come after me but they did take to the air with a vengeance.  Well, of course they did, their hive looked like the Scarecrow after a fight with the Flying Monkeys!  After I put it all back together it took an hour before they had calmed down.  And yet not a single headbutt or found stinger in the jacket.

Incidentally, under the BB was a huge Black Widow and her egg case; which was as big as a golf ball.  She got mashed and the eggs were thrown into the woods.

The Chalkbrood was very minor; only a few cells.  This queen seems strong enough so I'm not inclined to worry about it.  If i see it again in Spring I'll requeen.  Interestingly enough Mary never received a screened bottom board this year.  I left the solid BB on in Spring when her population was critical; she needed heat to brood up.  I never got around to fabricating her one this Summer and now here we are.  I can't say if they're related but I wonder why this hive has always had Chalkbrood in it, and through the reign of 3 queens now.  Quite suspicious.

So for once Mary looks good.  What a turn around after last winter.  Her stores are looking good, she still has plenty of brood, and her population looks great.  All of this from the 2 cups worth of bees that survived last Winter.  My options then were to let the colony die and use their hive for a new package or take extreme measures to aid them.  I'm glad I did what I did.  I now know how to bring back a colony from the population brink.  Think of it, originally not enough bees to cover half a deep frame!  And now...

...Here is just 1 of her pollen frames

-

The decision whether to requeen every year has not been made.  Ideally I would use queens I reared.  I was hoping to rear queens this year but we couldn't even produce enough honey.  I will feel better about making my own queens once the bees & I have had a truly productive and successful year.  If I need to requeen I'll get more queens from Bobby again, or someone local.

I'll do a Varroa check this week to see where that population is going.  The whole year I've not seen a mite except in blown-up photos.  My neighbor did a 24 hour drop check in her 2 hives and counted only 11 & 13 mites Total!  I believe mine will be near the same. 

I'll feed the bees a few more times before Winter.  Include in that a Fumagillin treatment.  We'll see about the Apistan treatment.  If I can avoid it I will.

*

Requeening Begins

The time has come to requeen both Mary & Myrina.  Mary has been weak since last Summer.  I didn't requeen her then because I didn't know about that kind of stuff.  By the time I figured it out it was November and to late in the year.  Myrina was strong, productive, but old.  This is a good time to do her as well.  However, last inspection I could not find queen Myrina & the bees weren't acting queen-right.  Both Mary, since last year, & Myrina, from the last inspection, have had spotty brood & chalkbrood. 

I had meant to requeen in April but the local queen supplier didn't have any ready just then.  After which a bear shredded his apiary.  I've been waiting on his next batch to requeen.  When Myrina went south I decided to do it now.  Unfortunately I could not locate any queens.  So I had to wait some more.  Then last week the email went out that another beek had available queens.  I made the call & will pick up 2 VSH Italian queens Tuesday morning.

Which means i need to pinch any queens in the targeted hives.  Both have marked queens and Myrina should be queenless.  Or so I thought.  First into Myrina.  I wanted to make sure she was without a queen.  Suiting up in 98 degrees and inspecting 20 deep frames is no picnic but it must be done.

I had a Medium honey super on Myrina but they hadn't touched it.  So off it came.  Her population was down too and I noticed the Chalkbrood had vanished.  The amount of frames with brood had increase as well.  And many 'Eggs'.  Uh oh. Continuing the search found the capped brood to still be spotty but lots of eggs & larva.  The residing queen was eventually found on the second to last frame in the bottom box.  UNMARKED!

So apparently they had replaced or superseded the last marked queen.  Enough time has gone by.  I never did find any queen cells though.  I did watch the new queen for a bit.  she was scrambling around the frame randomly dropping eggs out her hind end.  Not putting them into cells at all.  Are they supposed to do that?  Well enough for me.  Myrina has always been very defensive.  Even if she's been trouble free I'm tired of putting on armor every time I want to look at her.  This daughter of her's would likely bee a good queen but still as mean as her mother.  So I removed her from the hive.

Mary was much easier on me.  She was on frame #2 in the top box.  She was easy to spot with that big blue paint dot on her back.  She was pulled from her hive as well.  Though I saw no signs of chalkbrood in Mary either.  Which is strange since she's always shown some sign of it over the last 2 years. 

So 2 queens out of their hives and into the freezer.  The freezer because I had no heart to mash them.  The bees will realize they're queenless tomorrow.  Tuesday I will place a new queen in each hive.  If all goes well the break in brood will only be a week.  Which Myrina has already done when she made the last queen.  Each will be back up to par before August, so should be set for Winter as far as population goes.  I'll update as the requeening progresses.

Also, Myrina's Bottom Board was replaced with a Screened Bottom Board.  That should help with keeping the hive cool.  The temps this year have been way up in the 90's each day.  3 old crimped wire frames in box 1 & 3 plasticell frames from box 2 were replaced with undrawn crimped wire frames.  The old frame because the bees had stopped using them; they were completely empty.  The Plasticell frames because the bees were also ignoring them; never drawn out.  The crimped wire wax foundations should entice the bees back to using the frames.

*

Marking Mary & Hornets

Several attempts have been made to mark Mary this year.  None have worked for one reason or another.  Today, though, was the day.

The In-laws are visiting and my father-in-law wanted to see the bees.  So we suited him up with a veil & gloves borrowed from my awesome beekeeping neighbor.  Then we opened up the hive and showed him the bees.  He got a kick out of it and asked lots of good questions.

 Paint drying

The big thrill was marking Queen Mary.  We hunted for her on every frame and, of course, didn't find her until the last frame.  Frame 7 in  the bottom box.  Once we found her it was a mad dash to get her in the marking tube.  She was moving very fast skittering across the frame. It took several minutes the cage her.  Then marking her went quickly.  Allowed a minute to let the paint dry before placing her back on the frame.

Marked Queen Mary

It's a lot of trouble for a Queen i'm about to replace but this will make finding her that day much easier.  Although I must say that her brood pattern in the upper box looked great.  If i didn't know she's a weak Queen I couldn't have guessed it from there.  Solid frames filled with eggs.  I think moving the hives into a sunnier spot in the yard helped immensely. 

---

Also, there's a paper hornets nest by the hives.  I was leaning on the swing watching the bees.  I looked up and noticed the nest 3 feet from my head.  I backed off quickly since I wasn't wearing the bee suit.  Later after I had finished working the bees I went and pestered the hornets some.  Yes they are very defensive but to my chagrin they're not as bad as Myrina!  What does that say?  I would not mind letting them continue to build their nest all year.  Then I get to display their BIG nest on my desk at work come Winter.  The Wife does not agree with me though.  And her 'hive' comes first.  So the hornets will be going away very soon.  Oh well...

Hornets Nest by Hives

The hives you see left to right are: Myrina, Mary, the 2010 package.  All on the new stand.  We are still trying to name the new colony.  It has been over 45 days since they were hived so most of the bees should bee daughters of the queen now.  They are slightly more defensive than Mary but that's not saying much.  They're good little workers and are growing quickly.  Right now we have taken to calling her 'The Duchess'.

*

Inspection 4/29/10

Mary
75 f
Sunny

At least she's consistent in her problems...

I took off the T-cover to look at the Hive Top Feeder.  It was about a quarter full of crystallized sugar.  All of that was dumped on the ground away from the hive.  The ants & dogs will appreciate that.  Though there were still some bees in the HTF working the candy.  It will be put away for now.  The nights are now in the 50's & 60's so the bees won't be clustering anymore.

Beneath the HTF was the brood nest in the deep hive box.  The population looked great.  Few of the bees stolen from Myrina are left.  They still make their presence known during inspections by becoming hyper-defensive.  The rest of the girls are Mary's.  They have 4 full frames of capped brood right now.  Unfortunately the brood pattern is spotty.  Which is a sign the Queen is weak.  I have already talked to a local queen breeder about buying one as soon as he has some.  Mary was weak all last year.  I didn't understand that until late Fall when it's too late to requeen.  Now is the time for that.

Another sign of a weak queen is chalk brood.  Which i found several cells worth in the middle of the nest.  I knew it would happen.  That's why I talked to that queen breeder 2 months ago.  But I must say for a fading Queen Mary is doing better than expected.  If she can keep it going for a little while longer she'll have done her part.  After which with the new Queen the spotty brood & chalk brood will go away.

Speaking of which Queen Mary was found on frame 5 milling about.  I meant to mark her today but forgot to borrow the marking pen from my neighbor; now a new beekeeper herself.  I mark her next time.

I have been wondering how the bees will handle making drone cells on Plasticell.  It's cell size is smaller than drone cell but not by much.  Mary's girls made some drone cells on the bottom of 1 frame; not unusual.  However, they half attached it to the imprinted Plasticell foundation & half on the wood frame.  That way they could make it that little bit bigger that they needed.  I've not yet found any drone cells in the middle of the frame.  I'm thinking they won't but am waiting to find out. 

Also on the bottom of the frames I found a few Queen cups.  These differ from the queen cups in the New Hive due to their location on the frame.  Queen cups on the bottom of the frame would become Swarm cells.  When a Swarm cell hatches the OLD queen takes half the colony and leaves the hive for good.  They then setup shop elsewhere as a new colony.  The New queen from the swarm cell stays in the original hive to carry on the where the Old queen left off.  Not enough space in the hive is one reason for a colony to swarm.  This may be a indicator that this hive needs another deep hive box put on the hive.  With extra room for brood the colony will be less likely to swarm.  So I'll put another brood box on this hive this week, as soon as it's painted.

Finishing the inspection had a slight bump.  Without the HTF i need to put the Inner Cover on.  I don't have one I'd use.  Mary's old one from fall was puled off when I moved her back outside.  It was plastered with crystallized sugar & Nosema droppings.  The leaking syrup also warped the cover.  I'd rather burn it than use it.  For now I'll leave the HTF on but with water in it.  What rock sugar i couldn't knock out will sweeten the water.  I'll make another IC this week and put it on next weekend.

To review:
Spotty brood & chalk brood.
She needs a DHB and a IC.
Oh...and a new Queen!

Inspection 4/15/10

Myrina
75 f
Sunny

***A special Thanks to Sherry who found the queen for marking and is planing to hive her first package of bees next week.  A round of applause for my awesome neighbor and new beekeeper***

_ _ _      _ _ _

3 reasons for going into Myrina today:

1. To mark the queen
2. To check the drone frame
3. To look for swarm cells

And to clarify the brood boxes:

1. Current top box = Old frames with old, dark, natural comb
2. Current bottom box = Newer Plasticell frames, mostly drawn out

The bees Winter cluster was in the box with the Plasticell frames.

_ _ _          _ _ _           _ _ _

Upon taking off the cover I found a colony of small black ants on the inner cover.  There were different sized ants & a winged one or two.

 HEY! we're zoned for a single family home.  No duplexes!

They didn't like me letting the light in and they really didn't like me dumping them on the ground.  I'm sure they were attracted to the sugar in the HTF; it has crystallized.  So I removed the HTF.  I'll clean it and have it ready to use for the package that arrives on Saturday.

Looking through the frames was alright.  5 frames in the top box have brood, 3 in the bottom box.  Queen Myrina was on frame 5.  The brood patterns look spotty right now.  The forum people say reversing the brood boxes was stressful to the bees.  They also say wait a week or two and the pattern should be back in good order.  So Ill be watching that and reading up on reversing brood boxes.

The marking went quickly & easily. I used the little plunger tool Dadant sells. Worked great. When I put it over her she climbed up into it. Then the plunger immobilized her while I marked her with the pen.  It only took a few seconds.  A light touch of the tip to her back and a small drop plopped out.  Yet more paint came out than I wanted; a single drop goes a long way apparently.

-The image below shows how a very small drop can cover the Queen's entire back-

Myrina Unmarked
-

It's light blue when there's no Sun glare

The president of our bee club recently lost a queen to marking paint.  He used an older pen.  He said when he marked her a pool of paint came out and completely covered her.  The blob of paint killed her quickly.  Heeding his warning I was as careful as possible.

 Ideally Myrina should be requeened  later this year.  This will make it much easier to find her when that time comes.

-

Checking the drone frame was easy too.  They hadn't touched it.  It had been placed on the edge of the brood nest before I reversed the boxes.  Since then the bees have moved back up into the new top box.  The brood in the now lower box are hatching out but the queen isn't laying down there.  So the drone frame hasn't had any attention placed on it.

I replace it with another drone frame that had been rewaxed.  I didn't think about it at the time but I should have put the new frame next to the active brood nest.  Instead I put it back where the old one was.  The queen is laying plenty of drones in the bottom corners of the frames in the top box.  

I have yet to find any drone cells made on the Plasticell frames.  So far they're all in the natural comb frames.  I'm curious to see if they will do that or not.

-

I really don't want to see any swarm cells right now.  I have one good colony, Myrina, one weak colony, Mary, and a package on the way.  Which means Myrina is the only colony that can make surplus honey for me this year.  If she swarms there won't be any honey for us.

Fortunately I didn't see any in this inspection.  If they do make some I'll toss them in the nuc.  I can use them to requeen Myrina and maybe the other colonies too later this year.  It was a very hard Winter so populations are down.  I feel it will be awhile before swarm cells pop up.  We see...

-

Hive-wise I'm still trying to change out the old frames with new ones.  Last year was a bust since the bees weren't making much comb.  I removed 2 old frames from the sides of the top box & added 2 new rewaxed Plasticell frames.  I also replaced an undrawn Plasticell frame, from last year, with a new rewaxed Plasticell frame in the bottom box.