New Brood Boxes

Yesterdays inspection showed that the New Colony (Duchess) needs an additional brood box.  Today I assembled the crimped-wire wax foundation frames and sprayed them with sugar syrup.  I finished painting 2 Deep Hive Bodies a day ago.  One is for the new hive and the other is for Mary.  I filled one with the frames and put in on the New Colony.  I used the smoker but didn't need it.  The bees were very calm.  The Hive top feeder was full, so that slowed things up a bit.  The 2010 package is now a Double-deep hive.  Moving right along.

I wanted to add-on to Mary today as well but couldn't.  I took her stored frames out of the freezer a few weeks ago to thaw.  Today when i opened the trash bag they were in I saw wax moths.  Dang it!  So i put them back in the freezer for a few days to kill them off.  I thought the trash bag would protect them but was wrong.  Oh well, lesson learned.

Mary's new DHB replaces an old DHB only; no new frames.  It will be filled with the established frames from the old DHB.  It was removed when Mary's population crashed last Winter.  She was reduced to a single DHB at the time.  The established frames are almost full, with honey & pollen.  Though there are some bare areas where I scraped the wax moth damage off.

I'll inspect Mary in a day or so when i can put the new box and frames on.  I expect to find the she has filled her current brood box.  If so it won't take long for her to fill the holes in the second brood box.  That being the case I could feasibly start adding honey supers to her if her population grows fast enough.  Her re-queening is still on schedule as soon as the breeder has them available. 

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Wax Moth & Mary

At 60+ degrees today I went into both hives to remove the HTF's. Lots of crystallized syrup. I broke it up on to a cookie sheet & left it for the bees. However, in Mary I found 4 frames infected with Wax moth. 2 frames in the top box & the 2 adjacent frames in the bottom box. The frames had pollen & some uncapped honey. The frames had to go into the freezer; which would leave a substantial hole in the hive. So I broke Mary down to a 1 brood box hive. All I had left to do was pick the 6 additional frames to remove. I left Mary with 5 honey frames, 2 pollen frames, & 3 brood frames. She has a smaller population so the 1 deep should be better. It may be that she had too small a population for the 2 deeps leading to the wax moth problem anyway. When I checked her 4 weeks ago I saw NO Wax moth. I thought After a few freezes I wouldn't need to worry about Wax moth any more. Oh well...

Wax Moth web & frass ^
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Wax Moth mining pollen ^
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Wax Moth webbing ^
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Mary with 1 deep & the crystallized syrup ^

Myrina looked fine with a good population and plenty of reserves. I also closed off 6 of the 9 holes in each of the vent covers on both hives. 3 holes should be enough to vent the humid bee breath. I'll monitor for condensation throughout winter.

Screened Bottom Board, Hive-top Feeders

Big day today. I replaced the solid bottom board on Mary with a Screened Bottom Board. Poor ventilation last winter led to condensation in the hive. I installed hive-top ventilators this summer. Now with the SBB there should be a slight chimney effect in the hives. Yet with the Inner cover still in place I expect no trouble with too much heat loss. Myrina will get hers as soon as I make one.

The view from below the SBB

The debris on the solid bottom board was disgusting. Mummified brood, Wax Moth larva, Just a terrible mess. I hope the SBB works as well for me as it seems to for others in the Club.

Debris on solid bottom board
-Train Wreck!-

I was worried the the temps around the brood might be too low in the cooler weather so I flipped the brood boxes (these poor bees got such a stirrin' today!). When all was done everything looked good but soon after I saw some Robing taking place. I quickly popped in the reducer to control it. Eventually the girls sorted themselves out and everybody went home.

Alright! Break it up, break it up!

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Also today I added the Hive-Top Feeders to both hives. I already like these things for numerous reasons.

1. No more refilling jars every day
2. No more storing syrup in the fridge. All of it goes into the hive.
3. I can refill the feeder without exposure to the bees.
4. The syrup in HTF's will be warmer than in entrance feeders.
   
5. The syrup is closer to the bees.

There will be more reasons I'm sure. However there was an initial issue. HTF's must be put in a super. I first tried a medium honey super. It left too much room above the feeder. This extra dead space would (I think) draw heat away from the bees. I do not have smaller supers so I made some. I used 1 x 4's to make 2 of them. The box leaves only 1.5 inches of space above the feeder. I hope this is enough but not to much.

Hive-Top Feeder in it's new super

Mary's girls found the HTF before I closed the lid. Myrina's, however, had some difficulty in finding it. I had to drip some syrup down through the feeding slots onto the brood box. A few girls followed the trail upwards and found the feeder. Good to go.

I am also mixing a tablespoon of Apple Cider Vinegar for each gallon of solution. This prevents mold from growing in the sugar. It has been recommended to me to also add some essential oils: lemon grass & spearmint. I've seen this mentioned positively in the forums and have ordered them.

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The club meetings are great. I'm learning more all the time plus getting my questions answered. I plan to take a beginners Beekeeping class in February. I'm going to get my neighbor to take the classes with me. She loves the bees and sits them for me when I'm not home. I'm planning to put hives in her yard anyway.

It looks like I'll be able to split both hives next spring if they're in good condition. That will give me 4 hives total. Since they are both down in numbers from such a rotten year (or my crappy handling) I'm thinking about insulating the hives for winter. It should decrease the cold stress plus give them an earlier start to spring. We will see.

Picky bee wants her bottle back!

Mesh Reducers

I came up with these after the so-called robbing incident on Mary. I wanted to reduce the entrance but maintain air circulation. The answer was wire mesh.

Myrina on the left & Mary on the right

Mainly I hoped to lessen the pressure from Wax Moths & robing. The hive would still vent as fully open yet the entrance could be open only several inches. I though at first the bees would fill the mesh with propolis but they never did. It seems to work so I'll leave them in for now.

Hive Inspection, Mary & Myrina, 8/31/8

Inspected both hives. Mary has had a rough year. She may not currently have a queen, inspected small top super and there is no honey, but they have begun to draw out some of the frames. The top hive box has honey and I inspected 75 percent of the frames and found no brood. The second and bottom Hive box, had honey and a week showing of brood. I had placed a mega bee patty in the hive last week, it was almost completely gone. they have been going through 2 quart jars of sugar water a day.
Myrina is very healthy. Inspection shows that they have drawn out the top super and have begun to fill with honey. The top Hive box was a beautiful mix of brood honey and pollen. The second and bottom hive box looked exactly like the upper one, with an even placing of brood and honey. The Bee patty was also gone. They , however, use less than a quart of sugar water a day.
Need to do something about the queen in Mary.

Emergency honey collection

So I've decided to remove all the old honey supers because of the wax moth infection. Today I removed the remaining three supers. Two on Mary & one on Myrina. I spun what honey they had and pulled the wax. 43 lbs of honey & roughly 48 oz of wax. Thirty frames & three supers on the burn pile for tonight. I don't like that wax moth larva pupate in wood. I know freezing solves that but these frames are seriously old with many wax moth scars on them as is. It's time for them to go.
I had not planned to take the honey in these frames till the end of September. I fear the moth will only get farther into the hives and do more damage. Right now the damage is minimal & I'd like to keep it that way. I don't think any larva have pupated yet. There's no silk that I see yet either. Some frames are filled with capped honey. Some are about a quarter filled. Several Are totally empty. So it's take the honey that's here and be done with it.
As usual it's family fun day when we spin Honey. Had to deal with the occasional wax moth larva. They were quickly dispatched. My family spins Honey like they pick strawberries. One for you, two for me, one for you two for me... Plus the neighbors came over to help as well. It's amazing that I keep any honey at all.I noticed in Mary though that the bees were acting very odd. When I knocked the bees off of the frame they formed bee balls on the ground instead of flying back to the hive. Not for a few minutes but for the rest of the day into the night. Plus when I smoked the bees on top of the hive they did not retreat back into the hive. Instead they flowed, like water, over the edge of the hive. They bearded along the edge but eventually fell off. Grouping up with the other bees already on the ground. They're all under the hive now. Even as I brushed them off into the hive they 'flowed' over the top.
When I did Myrina every bee I brushed off a frame immediately flew back into the hive. They never formed a ball outside at all.
I have the feeling that there may not be a Queen in Mary.

To finish up I put a new honey super on Mary. Now each hive has two hive bodies and one honey super each. I'd like the girls to have an extra super of honey to get through the Winter with. As with all the frame i've replaced this year I use the coated plasticell in a wood frame. I wonder if that hinders the wax moth since there's no midrib to burrow through?

Wax moth

Well, each hive consists of two hive bodies with two additional supers on top. I propped open the top covers a month ago to let the hives vent. I never screened them or anything. I made them both targets for wax moth. I'm sure they got into Mary first. She being the weakest unable to defend. The moth tried to get into Myrina too but she fought them off. Next year i'll make some screened vent covers to use.
I saw the worms in Mary during today's inspection. After some major reading I went to check Myrina. As I opened the cover two moths flew out. Not a good sign. It seems like both hive are infected. I was lucky enough to catch it early. The frames had not been webbed up yet. Only a few trails of frass could be seen in the comb. It doesn't help that these are still the old frames. I couldn't tell you how old they are either. The comb is practically black. Old wax, which those moths like so much.
So I'm upset. I essentially rang the dinner bell over the hives. Now I need to fix it. This is, however, a great opportunity. I now have an excuse to dump the old supers & replace them with new ones. One each for this winter and however many more they'll need next year for honey.
So I'll harvest what honey & wax is in the old supers. Three in all ( I already replaced one old super in July). Then burn them to put an end to the moth. I will also begin to feed the girls with food patties & entrance feeders. This way the open space will be reduced & the bees will be stronger.
I hope.