Inspection 3/1/10

Myrina
48 f
Sunny

To aid Mary I need to rob brood or bees from Myrina. I should have done it a week ago. The temperatures have been to low to crack into Myrina to do it. Today though was close enough.

As I opened her up the bees were calm but it didn't take long for the girls to come out in force against me. It's a pain but I love this colony. They clung to my sleeves and veil in clumps. Later I checked the shirt for stingers and found none. As usual their primary target was the smoker. I think I need to relocate this hive to a sunnier spot were they might act less defensively.

Intimidating but I am getting use to Myrina and her antics. So off comes the T-cover & the Vent box. I saw that many of her girls were hanging out on the dry sugar. Many more were on the bottom of the IC. The majority of bees were milling about on 5 to 6 frames of the top Deep. They were not clustered but the bees covered the frames top to bottom.

Unlike the previous inspection there were a few dead bees to be found. The hive & frames still looked clean though. Stores were good in the top box with only 3 empty frames. The bottom box has been depleted of it's reserves. I was able to look through each frame of both boxes. Population is good for this time of year but moderate overall.

Two high points. There is capped brood on frames 2, 3, & 4. A small patch on each. I did not see any uncapped brood but the bees were very thick on the frames. Also I finally found Queen Myrina herself.

Queen Myrina

She was running around frame 3. I did not see her lay but it seemed like she was looking for something. This is the first time I've seen Myrina, or any queen from this colony. I love finding the queens. Always a thrill.

Queen on Plasticell Frame

I enjoyed a moment of watching her walk around then carefully put the frame aside to continue the inspection.

After finding the queen I felt better about which frames of bees to take out and give to Mary. Frames 5 & 6 picked the short straws. Each was 3/4's to 1/2 full of bees with enough capped honey. I slid them out and into a nuc. I replaced the frames with empty drawn out frames. These frames had clean fresh wax in them from last year. They were honey frames I culled to lure a swarm that never showed up. So I left them out in the yard last fall for the bees to pick through. They've not been used for brood yet. I read that a queen prefers fresh comb for laying eggs. I hope Myrina likes these.

Everything looked good down to the bottom board. All that was on it were cappings and dead bees. I gave it a good scraping and put everything back together.

After all this I threw on 2 pollen patties (Mega Bee) and added an entrance feeder to the hive. It's filled with a light 1:2 syrup now. Not medicated since I've not seen any problems. She got a good stirring today but it looks good for now.

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Adding the 2 bee filled frames to Mary was easy. Pull out 3 frames, add the 2 frames donated by Myrina, then put back 1 of Mary's frames. No one gets mashed or ruffled. Drop & close. I honestly do not believe that Mary is going to live but it's worth it to try. She also got 2 pollen patties and she's had syrup since I moved her inside the garage. Although I did locate a feeder to the top of the hive. They've not yet found the lower entrance feeder. I hope they find one of them soon. I trust Myrina's bees will find what they need to survive.

Time will tell.

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.

Condensation: Insulating the Vent Box & Dry Sugar

As you might recall from the last post condensation is puddling in Mary. Not certain how or why so I posted the questing at the Beemaster forum (here's the link plus some more good info). What I learned is that condensation is a part of the Winter hive and can be good & bad. It may be necessary since it can be a source of water for the bees. Yet, it can kill the colony if it drips down on the bees. Controlling it seems to bee the task at hand.

• Vent the hive properly so there's not too much. Some type of top vent...(Check)
  
• Tilt the hives to promote drainage away from the bees. Down the sides rather than on the bees...(Check)
  
• Control which surfaces cause condensation by the use of insulation. Such as insulating the top of the Vent Box...(Check, see below)
  

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Mary, sans her T-cover

I'm using 3/4" styrofoam as insulation. This should keep condensation out of the top part of the hive. I left open two vent holes; to the South & East to let the humidity out. I thought about opening the bottom of the SBB a crack but did not. Too easy for a critter to work it's way in and set up shop. The condensation should be less now. I'll monitor of course.

Now this insulated area above the IC provides a good location for Dry sugar to be dumped. As mentioned on the forum dry sugar can help mitigate moisture in the hive by absorbing it. That's good incentive. Plus, Mary's a small colony with half her reserves gone now. I have more honey & pollen frames I'll put in this week but first...

Diner time

I only had a pound of sugar left and gave it all to Mary. I'll pick up a 25# bag tomorrow. The gap between the IC and insulation is 2". I'll see how much sugar I can put in there between refills.

aun Aprendo