December Fly Day

December Hives

This is the first fly day this month.  The poor girls have been stuck in their hives since before Thanksgiving.  Today's temp was in the high 40's.  Not to warm but enough for the bees to break cluster & preform hive maintenance.  Cleansing flights and dead bee removal is all i could see.  I'm sure they were all getting into honey cells they couldn't reach before.

"Bring Out your Dead"

Under the entrance of each hive was good sized pile of bees; Winter attrition.  Mary was flying first with a good number of bees.  Myrina came out later with as many bees though.  I used a stick to pull out the dead bees  stuck in the entrances.  Myrina seemed to have more piled behind the reducer.  Can't tell if that is a sign of a problem or not.

Mary's Girls

The Sun coming out helped them the most.  We have a few more sunny days in the forecast so maybe they can fly again tomorrow.

Yellow Snow

As expected there was good sign of cleansing flights.  I say good because it didn't look like Nosema.  No great large stain in front of the hives.  Just tiny individual spots all around the yard.  If it were warmer they could get a little farther from the hives.  Which would be nice.  But its still cool so they're staying close.  Good thing the paint doesn't stain!

Myrina's Bees

I had to open the entrance a little more for Myrina's bees to get all the dead out.  I hope she's not going under.  We will see...

Here is a great detailed shot of a younger bee taking a stroll outside.

Bee on Myrina's hive

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Modifications & Some Success

The bees in Mary finally found the window entrance! I'd like to congratulate Mary on this but likely it was Myrina's robed bees that figured it out. Today was in the high 40's which is a little too cool to fly. I figure they were OK to fly because the hive sits in a heated garage. They weren't bringing in pollen but taking Orientation flights. THAT is the success part. Myrina's bees could have flown back to their hive. Instead they have accepted Mary's ICU hive as their home. The orientation flight is a bees way of learning were her home is located so she can always find it after a days hard work.

Home Sweet Home

There were also some cleansing flights. This is an important step in Mary's survival. Now that they can go outside to work they can tend to the colonies needs. Which is better that relying on me to guess what they need next.

I had to modify my original ICU setup before the bees found the entrance. The aluminum tube was long and dark at first. I put a bend in it to act as a heat trap. I though it important since the cold air would otherwise flow over the little cluster. The bees never ventured into it to find the light at the end of the tunnel. So i shortened it and made it a straight shot directly to the entrance. 2 days went by and no effect. Last night i stuck a row of nail holes into the top ridge of the tube. Then put the shop lamp directly over these holes. Now with light streaming into the hive from the entrance tube I believe the bees saw the light and followed it out.

Top Perforated Entrance Tube

Also, here is the top syrup feeder I added a to the cover. The bees still haven't found it yet. I do not know why. I'm still working on it. It may be a gap issue. There is still a entrance feeder in the original entrance too.

We are looking at 50 degree weather next week. The maples will bloom and Mary's bees will have a chance to improve their lot significantly. She's not yet out of the woods though. Mary has a weak queen. The queen will need to start laying eggs to further her survival. As soon as I can steal a swarm cell from Myrina I will requeen Mary. That Queen will be strong and hygienic like Myrina and most, if not all, of Mary's problems should go away.

Inspection 2/21/10

Mary & Myrina
54 f
Sunny

Really...it's 54 degrees. Really!

Mary-
She is in her last days unless I do something drastic. Even then she might not make it. Her end is at hand. Poor Mary, she never could figure things out.

Before i opened the top there were only a few girls flying around the hive. The first fly day since mid-January. One would expect there to be tons of bees taking cleansing flights. When the cover came off I saw hundreds of dead bees covering the sugar on the inner cover.

95% of these bees are dead

This sugar was put on the inner cover Jan 18th. It had hardened over from the moisture in the hive. The brown stain is bee waste. It could be Nosema but I'm not sure. When I cleaned out the entrance lots of dead bees fell out. Maybe it was clogged, so the girls had nowhere to go. I regularly clean the dead bees out the entrance. They are apparently dying faster than I am cleaning.

Nosema or clogged entrance?

This is the Vent box. Very messy. The Inner cover was stained just as bad. If you click on the image a larger image will open. There you can see where the girls chewed the styrofoam around the vent holes to make them bigger.

Now I got a good look at Mary's cluster. What a sad sight indeed. A couple of hundred bees is all that remains of Mary. Her cluster could fit in a two cup measuring cup. She can't possibly generate enough heat to survive these cold Winter months now. Egg laying should be starting soon if not already. Without sufficient heat to rear brood, let alone lay eggs, Queen Mary won't have a chance to replace the dead bees with new bees. She is over the edge. Past the point of no return.

The Last Stand

I pulled out all the frames to see what's going on. Four frames were light on stores so I replaced them with honey & pollen frames I had in waiting (The cleaned Wax moth frames from this post). The remaining frames had plenty of honey in them. Plenty of dead bees too. Two types of dead bee. The 'Starvation bee' & the 'Cold bee'.

Symmetry in death

The 'starvation' bees are tails out of the cells. They were inside the cluster when they died. The 'cold' bees died on the outside of the cluster where the temps were coldest. They were likely too cold to re-enter the cluster to feed. You can see the outline of the cluster at the time these 'cold' bees died. Oh, might I add a giant 'I Think" to the above hypothesis.

Also I found where Mary's girls were storing the sugar in one of the frames.

Sugar in cells

Notice how they put it in the brood area of the frame. Apparently beneath where they were clustering. Must have been done on a few warmer, but not fly, days. I replaced the hard messy sugar on top of the inner cover with fresh sugar. I hope it helps.

I've posted a question about their plight on the BeeMaster web forum. Lots of ideas there. I'll post what I do with sad, sad Mary.

Queen Mary nearing her end

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Myrina
What's to say about an aggressive clean freak who's population is sky-high. Other than she's doing fine if not great. Popped her cover to find thousands of bees moving freely around the inner cover where i put the sugar last month. I swear one of them yelled at me with a Brooklyn accent "Hey yous,..Shut dat door...We's workin' here". These bees came out of that hive like it was on fire. All of them head-butting me to move me off. I can't imagine how bad honey collection is going to bee in July when it's hot.

Myrina

The best part of this was that I could not find ANY dead bees. All her dead have been removed with the efficiency of a well oiled machine. Note that you do not see any bee waste anywhere. These are some very hygenic bees.

Next I took off the inner cover to look at her population. After all those bees came out to greet me I didn't think I needed to but should just to make sure.

Myrina's Legions

I don't think Myrina knows it's Winter. Just thousands of bees busy with hive chores milling about. Remember she's a double deep so there is much more than you see here. Again, not one single dead bee was to be found. I began to pull a frame to check for brood when another cloud of bees came at me. I realized I did not have the smoker with me. I didn't bring it thinking it was to cold to need it. Again Myrina always likes to prove me wrong. I called it a day and closed her up. I'll check her brood on the next warm day instead. She's healthy & strong. No need to pester her just yet.

First Fly Day of 2010

It's been almost a month since the last fly-day. Compared to last Winter when it happened about every week so I've been concerned. Both hives are brewing with warm bees today. At 55 degrees & sunny it's a great day for flying & the all important Cleansing flights. Tomorrow is to be 56 or so but then it's back to being in the 40's. Tomorrow afternoon I'll peek in each hive to measure their reserves. I have 6 deep frames filled with honey & pollen to replace any empty frames.

Myrina

If you're from the north and need a fix just put on your veil and turn up the volume

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Mary was the first one out at Noon. Odd I thought since she's the weaker & smaller of the two. It made me nervous about Myrina's condition.

MARY: A good showing

Yet not an hour later out came Myrina to show Mary how it's done. Of course Myrina does have more bees...

MYRINA: Bring out your dead!

We had one not so cold day 2 weeks ago. It was warm enough for the bees to move around some but not fly, 47 degrees. The ground was covered in snow. All the bees did was to toss out the bees that died. The snow was peppered with dead bees in front of the hive. That plus today makes for a big piles of bees. Hopefully the queens will start laying eggs again soon. I have some pollen substitute ready to go. I'll make patties for them. I plan to start some time before the end of the month. Next week might be warmer than this one has been. So hopefully we'll get more days like today.