Hive Inspection 5/24/11

Heléna & Nuc #5
83°F
Sunny

Heléna is coming along nicely.  She is drawing out 9 of the 10 frames.  the comb is straight and in good form.  They are storing plenty of nectar/syrup.  Though she's still very slow to take the syrup; a gallon will last over a week.  She is laying as much as she can in the limited space.  Plenty of eggs, larva, & pupae already.

Frame #2 -

Frame #3 -

Frame #4 -

Frame #5 -

Frame #6 -

Frame #7 -

Frame #8 -

Frame #9 -

Frame #10 -

I started to use foundationless/Natural comb this year.  At first i used small bits of foundation as a comb guide.  Now i nail the wedge in sideways.  The comb here is off side because the queen cage was on that side (oops!).  The bees definitely favor the South side of the hive though.  That's the side all the big comb is on.  Frame #1 is on the North side where they're slowly getting too.

Queen Heléna

The Queen looked good.  She didn't get marked though.  After the last debacle marking the Queen in Nuc #3 i won't do it if there isn't enough eggs to make an emergency queen.  This colony has fresh eggs but not enough.  She'll be marked sometime around when the second Deep is near drawn out.

- - -   - - -   - - -

Nuc #5

Nuc #5 is a real joy.  The bees are dark and may be feral.  They seem good about drawing comb and filling it.  They've been in the nuc for a week and are working every frame including the plasticell.  The queen has laid eggs in every available cell.  They have been feed 3 quarts of syrup so far.  The best part is that they couldn't care less about me.  They're very passive and don't mind me when i poke around their frames.

Frame #1

Frame #2

Frame #3

Frame #4

Frame #5

It looks great for a weeks worth of comb.  It was a surprise to see how well they did on the Plasticell.  I had given up on that stuff and gotten rid of most of it.  I would've kept it if I knew these bees were OK with it. 

Nothing capped yet but that wont take long.  I'll keep feeding them since they're taking it so well.  They never had syrup delivered to them while in their tree and probably think they're in Heaven.  Hope they don't get to dependent on it.

Nuc #3 Queen

The queen is a big girl.  She too won't be marked until they have a majority of drawn & filled frames.  Technically she should be marked with blue since she is likely from last year.  I'll need to find the blue pen again.

The plan is to go treatmentless with these bees.  I know they've survived at least one Winter in a tree without any help; maybe years.  If they do well I'll start using them to requeen the others.

* ____________________________________________________________*

Heléna - the Forth Hive

The Package showed up on Thursday the 5th.  Today they were hived without any problems.  The bees seem to have accepted their new queen.  She came unmarked.  I'll mark her in a few weeks after they've settled in.  for now the bees are taking to the hive well enough.  They were making orientation flights as soon as i poured then into the hive.

Heléna being Hived

It would have been better to hive them tomorrow but rain is in the forecast.  These bees were starved though.  When I poured the syrup into the HTF they all but swarmed the syrup.  It took a few minutes to get the bees out of the HTF just to close it.

Typically one is supposed to feed the bees Fumagilin at this stage to fend off Nosema (dysentery).  I want to back away from all these chemical treatments so i didn't.  They had Apple Cider Vinegar and Thyme oil added to the syrup instead.  Those will help with both Nosema & Varroa without being too harsh.  If i don't see any signs of Nosema I'll not use the Fumagilin at all.  So far no colony has been given any this year.

This hive is all foundationless.  They should draw it out faster so they will have brood sooner, so everyone tells me anyhow. 

* ____________________________________________________________*

A Few Observations

Lately I've been going into the hives every other day or so checking for laying queens, comb drawing, etc.  The bees seem to be doing alright.  There are a few things i wanted to put into the record.

Mary's bees are closer to drawing out the honey comb in the super.  I had added 3 partially drawn out plasticell frames to spur her to draw out the rest.  I don't know if it was those or the main flow starting but some comb is now being drawn.

Drawing Foundationless Comb

Each frame has a small piece of Crimped-wire foundation stuck to the top bar.  You can see the wires in the above image.  I use that as the seed strip to guide the bees.  The strips also get sprayed with syrup.

The bees have begun to bring in nectar and store it up in the honey super.  Though the frames aren't fully drawn out yet.  The wax bees seem to keep just ahead of the field bees.

Uncured Honey

This is one of the plasticell frames.  After this season i hope to have enough foundationless honey frames around to chuck the last of these. 

In the Brood boxes there is some odd looking debris in some of the cells.  I think it's either bits of mold or maybe SHB droppings. 

Dirty looking stuff!?

There was a SHB in Duchess's hive last Fall when I did the combination with Mary.  Maybe there were some more that made it through Winter.  To check I put a Beetle trap in Mary's hive and filled it with Mineral Oil.  To my surprise the bees went nuts and ganged up on the trap.

Why are they doing this?

Was I supposed to use Vegetable Oil instead?  I'll ask the question in the Forum.  The bees cant physically reach the oil in the trap but it looks like they're trying.  They immediately clustered around the trap as i was adding the oil to it.  Perhaps it should go in any swarm traps I make.

Mary had one frame that was entirely drone comb.  It wasn't a Pierco frame either but a regular foundationless frame.  It's swarm season and bees need to make lots of drones this time of year.  The bees can change the drone cells to worker cells later when they're over the drone rut.  In the mean time Mary is stuck making tons of drones and Varroa.  To fix that I cut the comb out leaving and undrawn frame.

Ex-Drone Frame

I left a few rows at the top to guide the bees making the next comb.  Which hopefully will be worker comb.

The Nucs look good too.  2 of 3 are broodless but should have laying queens in them soon.  Their populations are good.  Especially Nuc3.

Nuc3 loaded with Bees

This Nuc may end up as a hive this year.  It started with 5 Medium frames filled with bees & brood.  Plus I added an extra 4 Deep frames fully drawn with pollen & honey.  These bees have done well and love to make comb.  If i add another Deep box they might just draw it out before Fall.  How well the new queen does at laying will decide.

To finish I want to post an image of a hatched Queen Cell being torn down by workers.  Most of the time these are gone before i get to see them.  This one is from Nuc2.

Old Queen Cell

* ____________________________________________________________*

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!

* ____________________________________________________________*