Consolidated Main Yard

Last night we brought the two original hives up from the backyard and put them down in the sideyard.  Now all the hives are in one spot.  The two that were moved are Mary & Myrina.

The now OLD Bee yard back in 2010 at maximum occupancy

We have been developing the sideyard since Spring of last year.  The area has better shelter from weather due to the culvert embankment.  It also has a Western slope providing more heat during Winter.

The Bee Yard now.  Mary & Myrina are the two at the bottom of the slope

The new hive stand was made for three hives.  I plan to convert the two older stand to support three hives as well.  At least one more stand will be installed in the future.  So i figure up to ten hives with two additional Queen Castles. 

So the backyard is finally empty bees for the first time since May of 2008.  Now i can drop a couple of dangerous trees that have been worrying me.  When that's done i have been ordered to build a Chicken Coop.  Yes i said 'chickens'.  My backyard is apparently a eighty-foot by forty-foot farm!

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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. 

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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'.

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Inspection 5/20/10

Mary
68 f
Cloudy

Mary has been busy lately.  She spent a almost 2 weeks at my place of work before being moved to a new Stand in the back yard.  While 'at work' she was in full sunlight.  Something we don't have here in the yard.  She used it wisely too.  Her activity level increased remarkably so her population looks good now.  The spot at work is a good one.  I'd like to use it all the time.  Right now it serves as only a temporary spot for moving hives & swarm catches.

The bees are working all 10 frames of the single Deep box.  The population has filled the box.  The number one reason I went in was to check for Swarm cells.  None were found but there were some queen cups in the 'swarm position' on frame 6 & 2 cups in the 'Supersedure position' on frames 1 & 2.  Right now 6 frames are filled with eggs, larva, & pupae.  There was a handful of drone cells.  Mostly on the bottom of frame #6.  There were a few isolated drone cells mid-frame in a few spots too.  They have even filled the end frames with fresh honey.  For a week colony they are looking about as good as they can.

Chalkbrood is still an issue.  A little on every brood frame.  Frame 2 is half gone with it.  Hence the dire need to requeen her.  I'll be seeing a beek this weekend who has queens.  I hope they're ready.  Although I couldn't find the queen today at all.  My beek neighbor helped me look but neither of us could find her.  I was ready to mark her but no luck just yet.

The bees are making lots of bridge comb.  The frames aren't too bad but I'd like to see less of it.  I scraped the propolis off each frame a while back to maintain the right bee space.  Yet every frame had a spot or two of it.

After all that it was time to add the second deep box.  This is almost the same box & frames she had on her last year.  I took them off when her population crashed last Winter.  After it came off the frames went into the freezer and the box was retired.  The box was original equipment from when I bought the hives.  I wanted to put it back on last week but after I thawed the frames the Wax moths found them.  I had to refreeze the frames for a few days to fix that problem.  One frame has a new wood part after I dropped & broke the old one.  I just transferred the old comb (plasticell) right into the new frame. A few others were cleaned up a bit with a sander.  The box is new.

The frames in the second Deep Box

Before I put the frames in the box each one got sprayed with sugar syrup.  As soon as the box went on the bees started to move up into it.  I didn't pull any of these out to look.  I'll check them in a week or so.

I put the hive top feeder on with a gallon of 1:1 syrup in it.  I hope that will help the bees produce extra wax.  That way they can quickly repair the wax moth damages cells in the second box.

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Hived the Package Today

We started out this morning by hiving my neighbor's package in her Bee yard.  We did everything that was shown to us at the club demo.  Her bees look good and all seems well.

Afterward I got ready to repeat the task over in my yard.  The new package (Duchess) was a good impetus for making a new hive stand.  I put it in a new spot too.  The placement of the first 2 hives was poor. This new spot has lots more Sun and is better drained. The stand is 8 feet long and is 20 inches tall and will hold all 3 hives.  The package will be the first colony on it.  I'll move the other 2 over to it in the next month.  It has room for a fourth hive too. Maybe I'll catch a swarm or start a queen nuc or something.   Once all 3 hives are on the new stand I get rid of farmer Bob's old rickety stand.

 Myrina on the Old Stand in the background

It was great to put all the new hive parts together on the new stand.  It's clean with fresh paint.  The newest house on the block.  I'm still updating Mary's & Myrina's equipment.  Frames are the slowest to update.  I can only take so many in a season.

 I'm trying the Drone frames this year

Once all the equipment was down by the new hive I opened up the package.  The Queen cage was missing it's cork over the candy but no big deal.  This hole was covered by a piece of metal anyway.  There was some wax being built up on the cage & syrup can but very minor.  The Queen looked good but 2 of her 5 attendants had died.  I attached her between the 2 middle frames and poured in the bees.

Queen (soon to be named)

The bees clumped out quickly and many took to flying around the hive.  The rest slowly crawled up the foundation toward the queen.  They seem to like her as there was no balling.  I put the hive back together and added a gallon of 1:1 syrup, with Fumagilin and apple cider vinegar, into the hive top feeder.  Once closed up the bees stayed close to the reduced entrance.  After an hour I checked on them and saw what looked like Orientation flights by many of the bees.  Lots of good signs.

 Before

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After

For this hive I built the Screened Bottom Board, Vent box, & Telescoping Cover.  The Deep Hive body & Inner Cover were purchased from Dadant.  The only prep that was done for the package was rewaxing the frames & spraying then with sugar syrup.

I don't have a name for this colony yet. As soon as she exhibits some of her personality she'll get one.  For now I call her the 2010 package.

Mary out of ICU

Today Mary comes out of ICU (the garage). Actually last night she came out. After it got dark and all her bees were inside for the night I sealed up the entrance hole and moved her. But only to a temporary spot until I make a stand for the permanent site.

New Temporary Location

She gets to come out into the world again. She's had 2 weeks of gathering pollen & nectar. Her population is still small but Myrina's stolen bees have helped tremendously. There may be a few cold nights left but they should be fine. I really want them outside now so they can forage as early as they want to. They also need to finally clean up the inside of the hive. In the garage for the past 2 weeks the bees have been chopping at the steal mesh closing off the entrance. Now outside with the front entrance finally open they may commence all hive activities.

I left her closed up all night and opened her up completely this morning. I place several sticks right in front of her entrance. That should tell the bees something has changed causing them to re-orientate the location of the hive. I'm afraid they won't do that and gang up at the old window entrance.

Of course with Mary everything is going to be a problem.

After I placed her out last night I wanted to add a Hive top Feeder. The bees were calm & resting in the Hive body so I gave it a try. Oops, her girls did not like me opening the top cover and became defensive. I didn't want all her bees flying around at night in a new location so I quickly gave up. In the moment the top was off I saw where the syrup jar had leaked sugar all over the Inner Cover. I'll need to clean that up when I can get in there again.

When I opened up the hive this morning I had more of the same. At the front entrance and at the top where the ICU entrance was located. I was able to get the HTF on but not able to use the Vent Box as a shim. So right now the T-cover is sitting directly on the HTF. I filled the HTF with the syrup. I used a 1:1 syrup medicated with Fumagilin. They still have the Nosema because they didn't take their medicine the first time.

The new hive stand is a tree stump. I cut a tilt to it but made it to much. I can not get the whole gallon of syrup in the HTF without the syrup over flowing the front end. I'll stick a piece of wood underneath the front end and fix that.

I really want to break into the hive and do a complete inspection but I want to see them learn where there hive is first. Plus the shock of moving will need some time to wear off. I'll update this post later after I've fixed the HTF & the tilt.

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***UPDATE***
(3/21/10)

I was able to get the HTF inside the Vent box after I suited up. I adjusted the tilt and poured in the rest of the syrup. After an hour or so I noticed much buzzing around the entrance. Behavior I always attribute to the bees having found the syrup.

The Inner Cover was trashed with crystallized sugar. That and the Nosema stain may mean the end of that Inner Cover. If I can't get it clean without too much water damage then to the burn pile it will go.

Most field bees performed Orientation flights but about 20 to 30 kept going back to the previous entrance location. I'd put them back in the hive then wait an hour and do it again. By nightfall all were back home from what I can tell.

Now I'll sit back and see what Mary can do. If she needs another infusion of bees I can grab a frame of brood from Myrina easily.