Hive Inspection 5/11/13

ROZINA
70°F
Mostly Sunny
Calm

Rozina has lots of bees doing orientation flights lately.  She should have plenty of emerging bees now.  My biggest concern is if she has enough space to lay.

Opening her up it was nice to see the bees had finally finished the syrup.  It was also nice to see no ants had found it.  The ants did find the detritus in the closed off Screened Bottom Board though. Like i've said before, around here bees aren't that interested in Spring syrup.  Rarely does it all get taken.  Leaving me with jars of syrup in the fridge until Fall. 

A cleaned out Hive Top Feeder

The top box was filled with seven frames of brood, some drone cells, and two nicely developed Queen cups in the swarm position.  Neither of which had an egg in it.  What i didn't see was any space for the queen to lay.  The Pollen the bees are bringing in is the same color as the existing wax.  Which looks like capped short worker cells.  It could be the Yellow poplar which is now in bloom.

Wax & pollen the same color

The Bottom box had several frames of newly laid eggs as the Queen has finally moved down.  This brought many of the bees down too.  Who are now working the frames.   I was worried she might not ever drop down to this box since the whole colony went straight into the top box after the queen was released.  Fortunately I found her down there too and marked her.

Queen Rozina freshly marked

Not the biggest queen i've had but her brood pattern and productivity are good.  She was on frame two which is an all honey edge frame.  I believe she was looking for somewhere to lay but she had already filled up the available frames.  So it's time for another box.

Rozina with three medium ten frame boxes

Added to the hive was another medium brood box.  This box comes with four filled honey frames and six not so drawn wax foundation frames.  All from previous dead-outs and what-not.  The bees will need to finish drawing out the middle frames for the queen to lay in them.  To help out i'm going to put yet another gallon of syrup on the bees.  The flow seems OK but some cool weather is on the way which might keep the bees from doing much.  They've not been encouraged to make much wax.  I hope this spurs them on.  If so we could get some honey frames drawn later on.

The overall population in the colony is up to OK from Fair.  She has plenty of bees on every frame but does not cover the frame.  By August her population should be High.  The frames won't be visible and the Slatted Rack will be packed with bees. 

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Hive Inspection 10/15/2011

MARY & MYRINA
Sunny
67°F
Slight Breeze

Mid-October is the traditional time for final inspections before Winter.  Both colonies have received one gallon of 2:1 syrup medicated with Fumagilin.  The second gallon will be fed to them in the next day or two.

Starting with Mary.  Last inspection she had little brood and i never saw the queen.  After checking records I learned i have no record of seeing Mary at all this year. 

Top Box DHB2: frames
1 - Solid honey
2 - Solid honey
3 - Honey & brood (eggs)
4 - Honey & brood (eggs)
5 - Brood & honey (eggs) - QUEEN (unmarked!)
6 - Backfill & pollen
7 - Backfill & pollen
8 - Backfill & pollen
9 - Backfill & pollen
10 - Solid honey

Bottom Box DHB1: frames
1 - Honey & backfill
2 - Honey & backfill
3 - Honey, pollen, backfill
4 - Pollen, backfill, brood
5 - Pollen & backfill
6 - Backfill - most
7 - Pollen, backfill, honey - most
8 - Honey & backfill - most
9 - Honey - most
10 - Honey - most

Three weeks ago this colony had nine brood frames.  Now it has only four.  The brood frames it does have are beautiful with solid laying patterns.  Brood production always falls off at the end of the year.  Usually the Queen completely stops laying eggs around mid-December.  It may be that these bees have slowed down a little early but the last week has been cool and solid rain.  The nightly lows have also been in the high forties since the first of October.  Which might lessen the queen's urge to lay, maybe.  The population is good but not high.  I would have liked to see more bees in this colony.

Bees on every frame of the top box

 Long live the Queen.  We found her walking around frame #3 in the Top box; and she was unmarked to boot!  I thought this colony had requeened in Spring but i could not find anything in the records about it.  The last entry involving Queen Mary Actual was last year and stated she was marked blue.  So my record keeping needs some honing. This pretty Queen was treated to a quick marking with white paint and released.

2011's Queen Mary about to be marked

 The bees are nicely backfilling the brood nest.  One or two more feedings should top them off.  They are still up in the top box.  I hope they plan to move down to the bottom box soon.  Last year one of the colonies Wintered in the top box and did fine.

Backfilling the Brood nest

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Myrina was a surprise.  Her population is in the tank.  SHB all over the place.  Only as much stores as so few bees can muster.  She couldn't even finish off her Fumagilin syrup before it crystallized.  What a mess.

Top Box DHB2: frames
1 - Backfill & fresh brood (eggs)
2 - Backfill, pollen, honey, brood
3 - Honey & backfill
4 - Honey, backfill, pollen
5 - Backfill, honey, SHB (10)
6 - 1/2 Backfilled
7 - empty
8 - Mostly backfilled
9 - Empty & SHB
10 - Mostly backfilled

Bottom Box DHB1: frames
1 - Pollen & backfill
2 - Brood, backfill, pollen - QUEEN (marked white)
3 - Backfill & pollen (dropped & placed in 4th position)
4 - Backfill & pollen (placed in 3rd position)
5 - Some pollen
6 - empty
7 - empty
8 - empty
9 - empty
10 - empty

Whoa!  Not at all what one wants to see at this time of year.  This is the first time since i got Myrina in 2008 that she isn't the strongest colony.  In fact she's a wreck.  I had to add two more SHB traps for now.

Choices are few but at least we have some.  To address her small population she will be broken down to a single Deep box.  A better fit there will help her deal with the cold Winter temps.  It will also help her control the Small Hive Beetles.  If her population is big enough i can add a Medium Honey Supper filled with honey.  Then they would be in great shape going into Winter.  I hope to do all of this tomorrow.  Plus I'll add a regular Bottom Board to replace the Screened one she has now. 

I could also combine the extra swarm into her.  That would boost the population but not by the amount she needs to stay in the Double Deep.  I'll have to think that over some more first.

For what it's Worth, there were no drone cells on any of the frames i saw today.  That's the first time that's happened going into this Winter.

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Nuc #5 Swarmed

This year has been the worst swarming year since I've started beekeeping.  At this point I'm more of a bee-releaser than a beekeeper.

We noticed a swarm yesterday coming from the direction of the neighbors apiary.  We banged some pots together to get them to ball up.  It was a very small swarm and it settled in a tree overhanging my side apiary.  The neighbor checked her hive but found nothing to indicate the swarm came from her bees.  I was confident it wasn't from my yard as all the hive have plenty of open space in them (Ha!).  There are three other apiaries within a mile of our two.  We all thought the bees came from somewhere else.

Swarm in a Sourwood tree

Today i went to look into the Nuc & Mary.  I've not been in them for a while and i wanted to make sure the swarm didn't come from my yard.  As soon as i opened up the Nuc i saw an unmarked queen running around the top frames.  She was on top of two frames in the top box that have brood.  The brood on those frames is very young.  I wasn't wearing my glasses so i don't know if there were any eggs in there.  Again the larva were very young looking.

I need to find out when an existing queen swarms in relation to the emergence of the new stay behind queen.

The brood patterns in the nest was weak & spotty but that's the nature of brood during a swarm event.  I'll check in a week to see if i can find eggs.  The new queen was enlarged and good size.  It may be her that made the larva i saw.

New Queen ready to be marked

The clincher was the three used swarm cells on the fourth frame in the bottom box.  I have been peeking in this hive almost each week.  There has been plenty of room for the combined bees to live on.  The two nucs together equal only ten frames yet i gave then another five with foundation.  Which they've been drawing on.  The frames were not honey bound either.  idunno!

The culprit cell

It is late in the year for queens to be mating.  Not a lot of drones out there.  Yet this queen my have made it under the wire.  The population isn't actually low now after this swarm. If this queen is fertile she has two months left of laying before normal cluster time. Their population can be on track to get them through winter.  That and after all it's a nuc.  They only need to have ten frames of bees and they almost have it now.

This should not have been a surprise AND I should have bee looking out for this.  Both nucs that were combined to make this large nuc were from swarms!   So I essentially Doubled Down on the swarming bet.  I'm going to start keeping better, visual, track of how my colonies formed.  These aren't bees.  They're swarm monkeys.

...and then there was this guy

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Myrina Swarmed!

!

(insert curse word here)

Myrina swarmed today.  I hadn't been through her for a month.  Otherwise it may have been caught in time.  Too much of my focus has been on the Nucs.  Mary will be inspected tomorrow to keep this from happening there too.

The wife called me late morning to tell me about the swarm.  When I got back to the house the swarm was still in the tree; 50 feet up that is.  While i was driving the Wife put out a 10 frame Deep box with wired foundationless frames (we have no extra drawn frames) and lemon grass oil as a make-shift Swarm Trap.  Wouldn't it be nice if that worked out.

I did an inspection on Myrina as soon as i got home.  The honey super was still undrawn.  The top Deep was bound with honey and swarm cells.  The swarm cells, both hatched & unhatched, were removed.  A new queen was found and she was marked.  The bottom Deep had a few swarm cells in it to but was not honey bound.  Plus, there was a Supersedure Cell in it.  The Supersedure cell was left alone.  No pests were found.

SO, maybe the queen stopped laying a while ago; preparing for the swarm.  Since then the bees filled the brood sections with honey & made Swarm cells, 17 total.  Several of the swarm cells had hatched.  Yet this is the first time we've seen her swarm.  The population is still good.  If the honey frames had been drawn out they could have still made surplus this year.  Not likely now.

I guess the Supersedure Queen will emerge soon and do away with the new queen i found & marked.  I expect the personality of the colony won't change much though.  Since 2008 these 2 colonies, Myrina & Mary, have been very consistent in that respect.  Which leaves me with a colony that like the last 2 years wont produce anything.  My patients is wearing thin with these bees.  We'll see...

When I was finished with the inspection and going back to work the Swarm was still in it's tree.  Unless they move into the Swarm trap the Wife put out they'll be gone for good.

* * *

The Swarm way up in the tree

7 Swarm Cells

8 Swarm Cells

I found this Queen & marked her

The population in Myrina is Still good

A Supersedure Cell in the Bottom Deep

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Happy Anniversary! 3 years

May 5th of 2008 is the day we acquired our first 2 hives, Mary & Myrina.  2 old souls just needing a place to be.  How they have changed our lives.  We plant more for the bees now than we do for the vegetable garden.  The neighbor was bitten by the bee bug and now has 4 hives of her own.  Every January is spent planning for the coming bee year.  In March & April I'm too busy with the bees to do anything else.  I've met countless people who graciously lend their advice and support.  All in all it's been great.

I had hope to celebrate by taking the wife to town for a couple chocolate shakes.  Instead, on a whim, i put the veil on and looked into the 3 nucs.  It turns out All 3 now have laying queens.  One i knew about, the other 2 are new.  So to celebrate I got to mark 2 new queens.  Just as I finished that up the neighbor pulled up with the bee packages we had ordered; she got 2 and I 1. 

Going into the fourth year will be 3 hives and 3 nucs.  Although I might make a forth nuc out of frames from all 3 nucs.  Then make Nuc #3 a full hive; they're comb building fiends.  A guy at work has a bee tree of Survivors.  He said I can set up swarm traps at his place any time.

Should make for a busy forth year.

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Inspection 4/15/2011

Nuc #1 & Nuc #2
68°F
Sunny
Calm

A queen should have emerged in Nuc #1 last weekend.  I went in today to see if she had begun to lay eggs.  The first frame had no new eggs and all the capped brood had emerged.  Frame 2 Also had no eggs or brood but did have the New Queen.  Though my colonies have generated many queens this is the first one I meant to make.  Woohoo! it worked

The marking tools are always in the work bucket.  It took a bit to get her in the tube though.  A worker bee always trys to get stuck in there with the queen.  2 small dots of white paint and a minute of drying later shes marked.

Marked Queen Bee

She went back on the frame then scurried out of site.  The other frames had no eggs either.  I posted a question on the forum asking how long it takes a new queen to start laying.  They said it can take up to 2 weeks.  I'll check again next weekend to see how they're doing. 

Still making Mating Flights

Meanwhile they are bringing in plenty of nectar & pollen.  They could potentially become honey bound before she begins to lay.  If so I'll swap out a couple of frames for empty drawn frames.  Plus I put the Slatted Rack on.

- - -

Nuc #2 had 3 Queen cells on the first frame I pulled out.  Only 2 were capped.  There was still plenty of worker capped brood on that frame too.  I didn't look any further and closed it up. 

The nucs are looking good so far.  Once a queen begins to lay I plan on adding the second nuc box with filled honey frames.

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Myrina's Nuc & New Queen

Today's weather was Sunny & warm which is what I've been waiting for to make the second Nuc.  Myrina's population is increasing rapidly and I've been worried about her swarming.  I did not plan for a full inspection.  Only to make the nuc and close everyone up afterward.

As I took it of i saw the bees had not begun to draw out the Honey Super.  Oh well!.  I started removing the frames from the top brood box.  Lots of bees, lots of capped brood cells, & lots of drone cells.  To look for eggs I had to push the bees around on the frames to see into the cells.  I was also looking for the Queen of course.  I meant to locate then isolate her before i took any frames for the nuc.

It didn't take long.  Queen Myrina was in the top box on frame #5.  Not the blue marked VSH daughter from 2010 but a new Unmarked queen!  Whoa!  I grabbed the marking tube from the tool box and chased her around the frame for a few seconds before i managed to catch her.  She was laid to the side for later.  Then I took the frame she was on and the 3 adjacent frames and put them in the Nuc; they had plenty of eggs.  I put an extra honey frame in the nuc and it was full.  A towel was placed over the nuc while I finished up with Myrina.

All 4 frames were replaced with drawn crimped-wire frames saved from Duchess.  The remaining brood frames were checker-boarded some what to move the end frames into the brood nest.  Then I marked queen Myrina with a white marker and let the paint dry for a minute.  After which she was released back onto a brood frame.

The New Queen Myrina

At this point I closed up Myrina and grabbed the nuc to take to its stand.  The Screened Bottom Board & Telescoping Cover were waiting there for the Nuc.  All of it was assembled and there sat Nuc#2.

A Nuc from both Hives

As I closed the cover on the new Nuc I noticed that the bees were Very quiet.  Hopefully by next weekend they will have a handful of Queen cells made.  Also the Slatted Rack was added at the start.  I hope it will allow the bees to keep the bottom of the frames warmer so they have more queen cell candidates.  I should have done that with the first nuc.  Nuc#2 has 4 full frames of bees in it.  Which is what I've been told is a good amount.

The New Queen Myrina.  The last time I saw the blue marked 2010 queen was in October.  Yet all spring there has been plenty of brood.  I feel like she may have been replaced after the boxes were reversed.  I couldnt have been last year since it would have been to late for drones to be around.  There was also no problem with egg laying early this year.  There was a slow down after the reversal.  I assumed it was related to the reversal but it may have been when the supersedure occurred; or she died and was replaced.  I havent seen any queen cells yet this year.  A full inspection is in order now.

The good news is that Myrina is requeened.  I'll not worry as much about her swarming now.  The new queen performance is Fantastic.  The brood frames were filled from edge to edge with brood.  The pattern was completely solid.  Possibly the best looking brood frames I've ever seen.  I hope the queen in Nuc#2 ends up the same.

On a final note the beekeeping neighbor and I both noticed TONS of drone cells in our hives this weekend.  Almost entire frames of them.  All our queens are local to this area.  I hope it is normal for here but I do not recall so many drone cells before.

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Marking Mary & Hornets

Several attempts have been made to mark Mary this year.  None have worked for one reason or another.  Today, though, was the day.

The In-laws are visiting and my father-in-law wanted to see the bees.  So we suited him up with a veil & gloves borrowed from my awesome beekeeping neighbor.  Then we opened up the hive and showed him the bees.  He got a kick out of it and asked lots of good questions.

 Paint drying

The big thrill was marking Queen Mary.  We hunted for her on every frame and, of course, didn't find her until the last frame.  Frame 7 in  the bottom box.  Once we found her it was a mad dash to get her in the marking tube.  She was moving very fast skittering across the frame. It took several minutes the cage her.  Then marking her went quickly.  Allowed a minute to let the paint dry before placing her back on the frame.

Marked Queen Mary

It's a lot of trouble for a Queen i'm about to replace but this will make finding her that day much easier.  Although I must say that her brood pattern in the upper box looked great.  If i didn't know she's a weak Queen I couldn't have guessed it from there.  Solid frames filled with eggs.  I think moving the hives into a sunnier spot in the yard helped immensely. 

---

Also, there's a paper hornets nest by the hives.  I was leaning on the swing watching the bees.  I looked up and noticed the nest 3 feet from my head.  I backed off quickly since I wasn't wearing the bee suit.  Later after I had finished working the bees I went and pestered the hornets some.  Yes they are very defensive but to my chagrin they're not as bad as Myrina!  What does that say?  I would not mind letting them continue to build their nest all year.  Then I get to display their BIG nest on my desk at work come Winter.  The Wife does not agree with me though.  And her 'hive' comes first.  So the hornets will be going away very soon.  Oh well...

Hornets Nest by Hives

The hives you see left to right are: Myrina, Mary, the 2010 package.  All on the new stand.  We are still trying to name the new colony.  It has been over 45 days since they were hived so most of the bees should bee daughters of the queen now.  They are slightly more defensive than Mary but that's not saying much.  They're good little workers and are growing quickly.  Right now we have taken to calling her 'The Duchess'.

*

Inspection 4/15/10

Myrina
75 f
Sunny

***A special Thanks to Sherry who found the queen for marking and is planing to hive her first package of bees next week.  A round of applause for my awesome neighbor and new beekeeper***

_ _ _      _ _ _

3 reasons for going into Myrina today:

1. To mark the queen
2. To check the drone frame
3. To look for swarm cells

And to clarify the brood boxes:

1. Current top box = Old frames with old, dark, natural comb
2. Current bottom box = Newer Plasticell frames, mostly drawn out

The bees Winter cluster was in the box with the Plasticell frames.

_ _ _          _ _ _           _ _ _

Upon taking off the cover I found a colony of small black ants on the inner cover.  There were different sized ants & a winged one or two.

 HEY! we're zoned for a single family home.  No duplexes!

They didn't like me letting the light in and they really didn't like me dumping them on the ground.  I'm sure they were attracted to the sugar in the HTF; it has crystallized.  So I removed the HTF.  I'll clean it and have it ready to use for the package that arrives on Saturday.

Looking through the frames was alright.  5 frames in the top box have brood, 3 in the bottom box.  Queen Myrina was on frame 5.  The brood patterns look spotty right now.  The forum people say reversing the brood boxes was stressful to the bees.  They also say wait a week or two and the pattern should be back in good order.  So Ill be watching that and reading up on reversing brood boxes.

The marking went quickly & easily. I used the little plunger tool Dadant sells. Worked great. When I put it over her she climbed up into it. Then the plunger immobilized her while I marked her with the pen.  It only took a few seconds.  A light touch of the tip to her back and a small drop plopped out.  Yet more paint came out than I wanted; a single drop goes a long way apparently.

-The image below shows how a very small drop can cover the Queen's entire back-

Myrina Unmarked
-

It's light blue when there's no Sun glare

The president of our bee club recently lost a queen to marking paint.  He used an older pen.  He said when he marked her a pool of paint came out and completely covered her.  The blob of paint killed her quickly.  Heeding his warning I was as careful as possible.

 Ideally Myrina should be requeened  later this year.  This will make it much easier to find her when that time comes.

-

Checking the drone frame was easy too.  They hadn't touched it.  It had been placed on the edge of the brood nest before I reversed the boxes.  Since then the bees have moved back up into the new top box.  The brood in the now lower box are hatching out but the queen isn't laying down there.  So the drone frame hasn't had any attention placed on it.

I replace it with another drone frame that had been rewaxed.  I didn't think about it at the time but I should have put the new frame next to the active brood nest.  Instead I put it back where the old one was.  The queen is laying plenty of drones in the bottom corners of the frames in the top box.  

I have yet to find any drone cells made on the Plasticell frames.  So far they're all in the natural comb frames.  I'm curious to see if they will do that or not.

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I really don't want to see any swarm cells right now.  I have one good colony, Myrina, one weak colony, Mary, and a package on the way.  Which means Myrina is the only colony that can make surplus honey for me this year.  If she swarms there won't be any honey for us.

Fortunately I didn't see any in this inspection.  If they do make some I'll toss them in the nuc.  I can use them to requeen Myrina and maybe the other colonies too later this year.  It was a very hard Winter so populations are down.  I feel it will be awhile before swarm cells pop up.  We see...

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Hive-wise I'm still trying to change out the old frames with new ones.  Last year was a bust since the bees weren't making much comb.  I removed 2 old frames from the sides of the top box & added 2 new rewaxed Plasticell frames.  I also replaced an undrawn Plasticell frame, from last year, with a new rewaxed Plasticell frame in the bottom box.