Feeding Fumagilin-B

Today the bees woke up with their HTFs filled with Fumagilin-B 2:1 syrup.  They will all get 2 gallons each.  I checked them today at lunch.  All three seemed to be flying about in the typical sugar shock way.  I could see Myrina's girls were drinking it up after i opened her cover.  I didn't open up Mary or Duchess because the bees started to dive bomb me.  I'll check on then tonight after work.

The problem I had last night when I put the syrup out was the bees had propolised the inside of the HTF closed.  I didn't see it at first and had to fix it after the syrup had been poured in.  The HTF had been without syrup in it for a few days and I guess the bees did their thing.  Another lesson there.

Sugar issues.  It's too expensive to feed the girls constantly.  They've been getting a gallon a week so far.  Their stores are OK in all the hives; I'll check Duchess this weekend.  The less I feed the better.  The problem is the impurities in the sugar.  Some liquid had gotten into the sugar and made dried globs.  These globs didn't dissolved like regular sugar.  Even after 6 hours it hadn't all melted.  There were still chunks when i put it in the HTF.  When I checked today they were finally gone.  I'm buying the cheapest sugar I can find ($0.57/lb).  These off brands apparently have their own hidden cost!

*

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
-

Undrawn
-

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.

-

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

*

Inspection 3/20/2010

Myrina
72 f
Sunny

A perfect day for an inspection. Lots of activity as I opened up the hive. The bees had chewed farther through the styrofoam insulation in the vent box. Its debris was scattered on the inner cover & looked like sugar. I may need to change to a different product next year.

After the inner cover was taken off I could see that the bees were not eating the pollen substitute I had left them. It had flowed/melted down the frames some. So that's it I'm done with it. I scraped it all out and chucked into the woods. Maybe they don't need it after the Maples bloom or I'm making it wrong. Either way they won't be seeing it anymore.

Unwanted Pollen Patties

Looking at the frames was good. They are beginning to store pollen and nectar next to the brood frames. It's mostly from the Maples and is consistent in color.

Maple Pollen & Nectar

Since the population is less than in Summer it's easier to look at individual bees. One thing about Myrina's girls is the difference in colors between them. Some are dark & others are brighter. I figure the instructors at Bee class can explain it. I hope.

Sisters

The bees were mostly in the top box. The brood was still only in 3 frames, like the last inspection, but occupied 1/2 to 3/4 of each frame. My reading glasses made seeing the eggs much easier. Lots of little eggs expanding outward on the frames. The larva looked great too. The bees had loaded them up with royal jelly. I never realized how much of that stuff goes into a cell. The capped brood was plentiful and in a solid pattern. I also saw several drone cells.

I pulled an empty frame and replaced it with a Pierco Drone frame. I only have one per hive right now. I'll pull them out, freeze them, then place them back in the hive. I may get one more per hive so that I can replace a drone frame 'with' a drone frame. As long as I don't forget to change them out I should put a big hurt on the Varroa Mite.

Overall, such a healthy colony is a beautiful sight after such a bad Winter. This next image is for every beek still waiting to get into their hives.

Eggs, Royal Jelly, & Larva
(click for close up)

Myrina is sure doing her job. I tried to get a blue queen marking pen yesterday but Dadant was out of them. I did buy the queen plunger which I can't wait to use. Right now it's easy to find the queens. A month from now it will go back to be almost impossible. Neither Myrina or Mary are marked; both being children of swarms. Until then I hope to see lots of this.

Queen Myrina on frame #3, with pollen & capped honey

So the top box is where all the action is. This means it is time to reverse boxes. Not a difficult task. It will lessen the need to swarm and contribute to build-up. I get another chance to clean off the BB. It wasn't very dirty at all just cappings mostly. The top box gets switched to the bottom and the former bottom box is now on top. Where I can now pull it's frames to see what is going on there.

This box has really gotten away from me. All but one of the frames are the old farmers frames. A bunch of old and black crimped wire wax frames. I have culled many new Plasticell frames that are drawn out and with some honey & pollen left over. Those will replace these soon. Though old these frames currently hold a good bit of honey & pollen. Bees in this box are occupying the frames that were beneath the brood. Frames 1 & 2. The girls have started this year on the Eastern side of the boxes.

Other than the old frames propolis is a slight issue right now. What the girls are doing is adding a layer of propolis to each spacer on every frame. This increases the space between the frames and leads to more bur comb. I scraped all 20 frames in this hive. Put them back in the boxes and squeezed them tight toward the East side. I hope the bees get the idea now.

Old Propolis on a Old Frame

After all that everything went back together. With the addition of the Hive Top Feeder. I had made a shim box to put it in but I found the Vent box does the same job. I'll drill holes in the shim boxes and turn them into Vent boxes too.

HTF with Syrup

The HTF was filled with a gallon of 1:1 syrup with a Tbs of apple cider vinegar. The inner cover & T-cover went back on and the day was almost done. I checked the lean of the hive. It had settled back some. I added a couple of shims to the back under the Bottom Board. Now it has a slight lean forward again. After about 30 minutes the bees came out in force for the rest of day. I believe they found the syrup and had at it.

The Event-log was updated (here)

Inspection 6/21/09

Myrina
84 F
Sunny

By the looks of it Myrina has finally swarmed. I'M NOT UPSET. I never liked her. Great producer but the meanest queen in the world. I hope her daughter mated with a more civilized drone.

First things first. Still no

drawn comb in the honey suppers. The same as Mary. So I'll be lucky to get any honey this year as far as I can tell. It has rained multiple times a week since the start of the year. The bees just can't get out to do their work. I recently saw how another keeper was still feeding his girls to get them through. It makes sense. The more they are fed the less honey they eat & more brood they can keep. I regret not knowing this earlier. So now I'm feeding them 1:2 syrup. Even if we get dryer weather I'll continue for the brood. Especially since Myrina is at half occupancy.

A pleasant surprise was the amount of Propolis around the excluder. It's the most I've seen either hive ever make at once. I can't help but think is comes mostly from the Yellow Polar trees in the Yard. Huge mature canopies loaded down with their big flowers. But it could be from anything. I don't really know.

Once in the hive bodies I began removing the ubiquitous bur come. Only some on the tops of frames yet a great deal more on the bottoms. I did not have the time to remove all of it. I scraped half the frames today. I'll get the rest next week or so.

The brood patterns look bad. But then only half the colony is here. I can't see the smallest eggs because: 1 - My eyes are 43 years old, 2 - Reading glasses under a veil in summer do not work too well. I should get a hand lens for this purpose. However, I did manage to see fairly recent young brood. Just not much of them. In the image to the side you can see where capped honey cells have replaced brood cells. I'll need to see more to have a better idea of how the new queen is doing. The remaining bees are still as aggressive and GREATLY dislike smoke & attack anyone using a brush.

I did reposition some of the frames to help with the brood. I replaced one old frame that the girls seemed to ignore. I always put the new Plasticell frames in the middle. They draw it out faster than on a side. I intend to eventually replace all the old frames. Out of 20 there is 16 left to replace from before I acquired the hives from the old farmer. That's 9 in Myrina and 7 in Mary. Only the bottom brood hives have original frames.