Beginning to Worry

Here we are again at the start of another honey season and these bees have yet to draw out any honey comb.  This has been the biggest problem over the past several years.  I don't know what i'm doing wrong but something ain't right!

Today i looked at the honey supers to see a bunch of bees sitting around doing nothing.  The supers have been on for several weeks now.  Plenty of time to draw the comb out.  They just wont do it.  I've used Plasticell, Foundationless, and now Crimped wire.  I've sprayed the frames with sugar syrup and feed the bees with even more syrup.  I'm about at wits end.

At the moment the honey supers are foundationless.  Today i replaced 3 frames in each super.  One with 3 semi-drawn Plasticell frames and the other with 3 undrawn Crimped wire frames..  All frames were then sprayed with sugar syrup.

Wish me luck!

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Inspection 10/11/2010

Myrina
85 f
Sunny


Time to look into Myrina and see if she's ready for Winter.  This was very different.  As soon as the cover was off I could tell everything had changed.  They weren't angrily attacking the smoke.  They were all the same color.  They didn't even mind when I shook my hand back & forth over the open box.  These bees were no longer evil mean bees but, dare I say, regular bees, Hallelujah! 

Top Box Frames:
10.  Thin drawn, 1/2 capped honey - 2010 Crimped-Wire (CW)
 9.  3/4 capped honey - 2010 CW
 8.  Full capped honey - 2010 CW
 7.  Full capped honey - 2009 Plasticell
 6.  1/2 honey, 1/2 brood (eggs), Marked Queen -  Old CW
 5.  1/2 honey, 1/2 brood (back filling w/honey) -  Old CW
 4.  1/2 honey, 1/2 brood (back filling w/honey) -  Old CW
 3.  3/4 capped honey, some pollen - Old CW
 2.  3/4 capped honey, some pollen - Old CW 
 1.  3/4 capped honey, some pollen - Old CW

Bottom Box Frames:
10.  Drawn, empty - 2009 Plasticell
 9.  Drawn, empty - 2009 Plasticell
 8.  1/2 capped honey - 2009 Plasticell
 7.  3/4 capped honey - 2009 Plasticell
 6.  3/4 capped honey, some pollen - 2009 Plasticell
 5.  1/2 capped honey - 2010 CW (Depleted)
 4.  1/2 capped honey & pollen -  2009 Plasticell
 3.  1/2 pollen & capped honey - 2009 Plasticell
 2.  Undrawn - 2010 CW (Depleted)
 1.  Undrawn - 2010 CW (Depleted)

Depleted means the bees took wax from these frames and used it somewhere else.  It's ugly and looks like this.

Drawn Out
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Undrawn
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So the top box is heavy and the bottom box is light.  There is about 1 more month before cold weather sets in.  I'll continue feeding, but at an increased rate.  As usual I add Apple Cider Vinegar to the syrup.

Queen Myrina was found on frame 6 in the top box.  She looked busy.  This was the first time I've seen her since the requeening.  

Even if I hadn't seen her there were plenty of eggs already on the frame.

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The Hive Top Feeder has been tricky going.  The bees keep propolising the vent holes closed.  It takes about a week for the bees to do it.  I clean it off when I feed but it's getting old.

Every week

This is new to this year.  They never did it last year.  I'll need to ask around to see if this is good behavior or not.  Also the syrup keeps crystallizing.  Again, that never happened last year.  I don't know what's so different now.  More studying then...

2:1 Rock Candy

Myrina's population looked good but not heavy.  The two requeenings probably didn't help (one on her own before I introduced the later queen).

The only question I have now is what to do with the handful of Varroa mites in the hive.  I never saw them during the inspection.  Only after looking at the photo's could I find any.  Very few indeed.  I'll talk to some older beeks and see what they recommend.

Oh, and here's something we all want to see this time of year.

Fully Capped CW

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New Brood Boxes

Yesterdays inspection showed that the New Colony (Duchess) needs an additional brood box.  Today I assembled the crimped-wire wax foundation frames and sprayed them with sugar syrup.  I finished painting 2 Deep Hive Bodies a day ago.  One is for the new hive and the other is for Mary.  I filled one with the frames and put in on the New Colony.  I used the smoker but didn't need it.  The bees were very calm.  The Hive top feeder was full, so that slowed things up a bit.  The 2010 package is now a Double-deep hive.  Moving right along.

I wanted to add-on to Mary today as well but couldn't.  I took her stored frames out of the freezer a few weeks ago to thaw.  Today when i opened the trash bag they were in I saw wax moths.  Dang it!  So i put them back in the freezer for a few days to kill them off.  I thought the trash bag would protect them but was wrong.  Oh well, lesson learned.

Mary's new DHB replaces an old DHB only; no new frames.  It will be filled with the established frames from the old DHB.  It was removed when Mary's population crashed last Winter.  She was reduced to a single DHB at the time.  The established frames are almost full, with honey & pollen.  Though there are some bare areas where I scraped the wax moth damage off.

I'll inspect Mary in a day or so when i can put the new box and frames on.  I expect to find the she has filled her current brood box.  If so it won't take long for her to fill the holes in the second brood box.  That being the case I could feasibly start adding honey supers to her if her population grows fast enough.  Her re-queening is still on schedule as soon as the breeder has them available. 

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