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.

____________________☼____________________

Inspection 10/24/10

Duchess
75 f
Sunny


It took longer than it should have but today i finally got into Duchess.  She has seemed more productive than the other two all year.  From her constant wax production to always having more bees flying at any given time.  If this colony can get through Winter than I hope for much honey from her next year.  She's more defensive than Myrina & Mary now that those two have been requeened.  Not at first but after going through a box of frames she can take to head butting.  She is in no way a problem fortunately.

OOPS! - She would have had her last gallon of treated syrup in her HTF today if I hadn't screwed up.  I made it Friday night the 22nd.  On Saturday I went to put it out but it had begun to crystallize already.  So I place the pot back on the burner and set it for medium heat.  I thought after ten or so minutes it would be back to all liquid and good to go.  Sadly I became distracted.  When I finally got back to it the syrup had been boiling for some time.  What a waste.  So I dumped the syrup out.  I had to now that it was toxic.  Four dollars worth of sugar and a teaspoon worth of Fumagilin-B.  I'm still mad at me.  What a dope!  I do not have enough Fumagilin left to make even a single extra gallon of syrup.  So Duchess will  not get her second gallon.  She's the only colony i have that's not had Nosema.  If one of them is going to get only a half dose than it's best to be her.

Ask me how well it worked come March?

Anyway the HTF did have the crystallized remains of the first gallon.  So, afterward, I added a quart of warm water to it.  Thirty minutes after the inspection was over the girls were flying in the typical sugar shock frenzy that follows the addition of syrup. 

Top Box Frames:
10. Full capped honey - 2010 CW
 9.  Full capped honey - 2010 CW
 8.  Full capped honey, back fill - 2010 CW
 7.  Full capped honey, back fill - 2010 CW
 6.  Full capped honey, back fill - 2010 CW
 5.  Full capped honey, some brood cells - 2010 CW
 4.  Full capped honey, some pollen - 2010 CW
 3.  Full capped honey - 2010 CW
 2.  Full capped honey - 2010 CW
 1.  Full capped honey - 2010 CW

Bottom Box Frames:
10. Drawn incomplete empty - 2010 Plasticell
 9.  Drawn incomplete empty - 2010 Plasticell
 8.  1/4 pollen - 2010 Plasticell
 7.  Minor pollen, depleted - 2010 CW
 6.  1/2 Brood - 2010 Plasticell
 5.  1/2 Brood, some pollen - 2010 Plasticell
 4.  1/2 Brood - 2010 Plasticell
 3.  1/2 Brood, Queen Cup - 2010 Plasticell
 2.  1/2 Brood, 1/4 pollen, 1/4 honey - 2010 Plasticell
 1.  Some honey, some pollen - 2010 Plasticell

I could not find the Queen.  I also didn't see any eggs since I forgot to put my glasses on before I started.  I did see some very young larva though.

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 Extra wax, wrong place

Lots of bur comb on the top of the frames in the bottom box.  I scraped it all away including the propolis on the frame rests.  All the extra wax and still some of the Plasticell frames were unfinished.  They started out in the first box and yet, several of the outer frames were not drawn out completely.  The more I see the more I don't like it.  The Queen cup was well developed but nothing inside it.  

Frame 10, Initial hive box

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I pulled the SBB and cleaned beneath the hive as well.  The same critters were under this hive as the others.  Wasps & spiders.  It's not a problem but after a whole season it builds up more than I had thought.  The Mud Wasps kept to the hive stand.  They were easy to remove.  The spiders had webbed up under the hive like there would be no tomorrow.

 Mud Wasps

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 Many egg cases

The worst part of that being the type of spider.  Black Widows are docile creatures I have no problem with.  Except for the fact they could severely harm my kids; and mess me up too.  So she gets mashed every time i find her.  I thought the wood pile was bad but I've found more by the bees.

Charlotte

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I previously mentioned the portables hive stands.  Nothing more than 4 pieces of wood screwed together.  Yet, they're great for keeping the bottom of a box off the ground; no grass, leaves, or smashed bees.  There never seems to be enough space on the regular stand so these are handy.  First they were used to move the hives to the new spot; 2 feet at a time.  Now they are a spot to put a top box while I'm in the lower box doing whatever.  There will be more uses in the future i'm sure.

Portable stand & quiet box

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Last, we hit the high 30's this last week for nightly lows.  Frosts are coming.  So today I closed the SBB's in Myrina & Duchess.  Mary only has a solid BB.  I used a piece of luan cut to fit beneath Myrina's hive and slide into the back of Duchess's SBB.  Myrina's is a simple one I bought from Dadant.  Nothing fancy like rear access mite check boards.  So she had to bee lifted to put it on.  Duchess has a homemade one that does have the mite check board.  Her's slid into the back.  This leaves the main entrance as the bottom vent for Winter.  The vent boxes I use release the air up top.

*

Honey Super and More

 Ready to go on
 

Myrina got her Medium Honey Super put on today.  It was from last year and has drawn out comb on Plasticell foundation.  I added spacers to it so now it's a 9-frame supper.  All the frames were sprayed with syrup before they went it.  Since the frames are drawn I went ahead & put the Queen Excluder on.  I will check in a week to see how they're doing.  Her bees were defensive as usual. 

 New Super & New Stand

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Mary got another gallon of 1:1 syrup.  The first gallon was about gone.  I had hoped see would have repaired the damaged comb in  Deep Hive Box-2.  But no new comb there.  Her bees are still very active.  She has the earliest flying bees in the yard each morning.

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The new colony (Duchess) has a small ant problem.  They are getting into the HTF through a gap.  All the equipment is new and because of the HTF the bees do not access to the Inner Cover, Vent Box, & T-cover.  SO, they can't seal everything with propolis.  I flicked out the dead ants.  They are not taking the syrup as fast as Mary but they're still taking it.  I looked in the new DHB and found frames 5 & 6 were almost all the way drawn out.  There was a small piece of bur comb on the top of frame 5 in the first DHB. It was removed.
 

Invaders!

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Frame 6 in DHB2

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 Bur Comb

And since the bees have not sealed all the interior wood there has developed a mold problem on the T-cover.  A big green spot of mold above the hole in the Inner Cover.

 Wood not sealed by the bees

I put what wax I had left right on top of the mold spot.  I didn't have enough to treat the whole T-cover.  If the mold gets worse I'll buy some wax and do the all of it. 

Bees wax over the mold.  Problem solved

*

Inspection 5/15/10

2010 Hived Package (Duchess)
82 f
Partly Sunny


There have been reports of Small Hive Beetle in the packages that many of us received back in April.  My neighbor found one in her new hive and has since taken measures to control it.  I went into the new hive today looking to see if I could find any; hoping I wouldn't.  I went through each frame and didn't see any.  But I missed the Queen as well, and she's marked,  so I'll continue to watch for them.

The Hive top feeder was about at the empty mark.  What little was left had a thin crystallized cap on it.  I didn't get to it earlier this week due to a bout with the flu.  Nothing too bad, just enough to keep me inside.  I'll refill the HTF and monitor it better this time.

Only about a cup of syrup is left under a sheet of rock candy

The brood nest has grown at a modest rate.  3 undrawn frames remain while the rest are filled with brood, pollen, & honey. The first frames to have comb have a spotty brood pattern look to them.  The latter drawn frames have a more contiguous pattern.  I'm sure that's just an issue with cell availability at the beginning of the hive. 

Check the bur comb on the Drone frame

  Frames:

1. Undrawn
2. 1/2 drawn. Eggs, pollen, capped honey
3. Fully drawn. Mostly brood, lots of eggs and larva.  Pupae & Capped honey.  *Odd comb structure (the sheet not a cell)
4. Fully drawn. Eggs & pupae
5. Fully drawn. Eggs & mostly pupae. Some drone cells maybe.  hatching bees.
6. Fully drawn. Pupae, capped honey, pollen 
7. Done Frame - Fully drawn. Patch of pupae, some capped honey.  Mostly uncapped honey.
8. 1/4 drawn. Capped honey.
9. Undrawn
10. Undrawn

None of the frames had been propolised together.  Very clean throughout the hive.  The colony looks good.  It may be time for me to add the next Deep hive body.  
 

Frame 5 where the Queen cage was hung
 

Above you can see a spotty brood pattern in the middle of the frame.  That is where the Queen cage hung during installation.  After which the bees filled the hole with comb.  So that area lags behind the rest of the frame.  Currently it has eggs, pollen, & honey in it.
 

 Pierco Drone Frame

These frames would be great in Honey suppers.  They hold more honey because there is less wax.  The cell size is much bigger than the other frames to fit the larger size of the drone bees.  The queen can tell what kind of egg to place in a cell by feeling the size of a cell with her front legs.  Therefore all the eggs laid in this frame will become drones.  This frame is noticeably heavier than the other frames.  

Odd thing is that these bees like to bur comb the plastic.  This is the only frame to have bur comb both on the top and the bottom.  Maybe they don't like the plastic.  I know I'm liking it less & less in the brood chambers, meaning the plasticell & the Pierco drone frame.  At Dadant's the other day all I bought was crimped-wire wax foundation.  

Bur comb on the bottom of the Hive top feeder

Can you guess where the plastic drone frame was?  I'm not yet sold on the notion of using a drone frame to reduce to number of Varroa mites.  Yes it works, i'm sure, but I'd rather have a frame producing thousands of bees than drones & mites.  And since the frame is to be frozen before the drones hatch, to kill the mites, the frame really doesn't produce anything at all for the hive.  It may be that I will take them out for now.  In the event of a mite infestation I could put them back in then.  In the meantime I can be producing lots of bees.

A question of Supersedure came up during the last inspection.  I could not find and Queen cups of Supersedure cells.  However, I didn't find the marked Queen either.  There are lots of new eggs on the outer frames though.  So I don't know what to say.  An experienced beek told me her packaged bees may have superseded after only 22 days in the hive!  So both of us are interested in what these girls do.  Hopefully I'll find the queen next week.

*

Inspection 7/25/9

Mary & Myrina
89 F
Sunny

Mary - The honey frames that where filled with nectar are now partially filled with brood. Not much but some. Enough to tell me the young queen is very healthy. Perfect brood pattern. Also much of the honey is now capped. So I put that honey super back on top and reinstalled the queen excluder. I then put the undrawn honey super from the top down between the brood boxes. Hoping for similar results. This Plasticell really doesn't do the job.

NO boiling over of Mary during smoking. However she seemed more aggressive than usual. This is honey season so I think it will pass.

Myrina - Still has not drawn any frames. She is still badly understaffed from the late swarm. There is uncapped brood in a weak pattern in the boxes. I'm sure there are also eggs in the boxes but without glasses I can't say positively. Will leave everything alone for now. All I'll do with her is monitor her activity. I did pull out some more bur comb though. Also I put in a longer sceened reducer at the entrance.

I used the syrup water on Myrina again, along with the smoke. Heavy, heavy, heavy spray. I'm very impressed with how well it works on the mean bees.

I've taken to feeding the bees syrup every time it rains. Which as it turns out is almost non-stop. The rains continue here even though we are in our dry season. I saw a few girls up in the Ventilator box on Mary. Hopefully they are propolising all joints finally.

Inspection 6/21/09

Myrina
84 F
Sunny

By the looks of it Myrina has finally swarmed. I'M NOT UPSET. I never liked her. Great producer but the meanest queen in the world. I hope her daughter mated with a more civilized drone.

First things first. Still no

drawn comb in the honey suppers. The same as Mary. So I'll be lucky to get any honey this year as far as I can tell. It has rained multiple times a week since the start of the year. The bees just can't get out to do their work. I recently saw how another keeper was still feeding his girls to get them through. It makes sense. The more they are fed the less honey they eat & more brood they can keep. I regret not knowing this earlier. So now I'm feeding them 1:2 syrup. Even if we get dryer weather I'll continue for the brood. Especially since Myrina is at half occupancy.

A pleasant surprise was the amount of Propolis around the excluder. It's the most I've seen either hive ever make at once. I can't help but think is comes mostly from the Yellow Polar trees in the Yard. Huge mature canopies loaded down with their big flowers. But it could be from anything. I don't really know.

Once in the hive bodies I began removing the ubiquitous bur come. Only some on the tops of frames yet a great deal more on the bottoms. I did not have the time to remove all of it. I scraped half the frames today. I'll get the rest next week or so.

The brood patterns look bad. But then only half the colony is here. I can't see the smallest eggs because: 1 - My eyes are 43 years old, 2 - Reading glasses under a veil in summer do not work too well. I should get a hand lens for this purpose. However, I did manage to see fairly recent young brood. Just not much of them. In the image to the side you can see where capped honey cells have replaced brood cells. I'll need to see more to have a better idea of how the new queen is doing. The remaining bees are still as aggressive and GREATLY dislike smoke & attack anyone using a brush.

I did reposition some of the frames to help with the brood. I replaced one old frame that the girls seemed to ignore. I always put the new Plasticell frames in the middle. They draw it out faster than on a side. I intend to eventually replace all the old frames. Out of 20 there is 16 left to replace from before I acquired the hives from the old farmer. That's 9 in Myrina and 7 in Mary. Only the bottom brood hives have original frames.