Waiting for Mary

It has been slightly over two weeks since the last inspection. In that time I have stopped feeding both hives. Neither sugar water or pollen patties. That is because of the more that sufficient rain & Autumn pollen bloom. The fields near the house are loaded with Fall flowers.

I've taken to sitting beside Mary after work watching her girls come & go. What a difference. She now acts more like she did when she was healthier. The number of foraging bees has increased dramatically. Though not many younger bees bobbing up & down learning the hive's location yet. Plenty of pollen being brought in too.

I'll do an inspection this weekend. I hope to find the new Queen doing her job. Or at least lots of brood in a good pattern.

Inspection 9/14/08

Mary & Myrina
83F
Mostly Sunny

Myrina seemed as aggressive as usual lately. I swear smoke makes them angry not passive. I use pine needles as fuel. Have all year. It worked fine in Spring and still does on Mary. As soon as I smoke them from the top they come looking for me. As apposed to eating their honey like good little bees.

The colony had not yet drawn out the top super. For some reason I thought they had. There was plenty of activity right under the inner cover though. I did not go into the hive body. I left them a pollen patty on the excluder and closed her up.

It went the same for Mary. Activity under the inner cover but no drawn wax. Still if the new Queen took it will be awhile till they can build comb. I gave her two pollen patties. It takes them both a week to eat a single patty. I'm wondering what Mary will do with two of them. Plus she can use the help.

These pollen substitute patties are a pain. I make them from Megabee dry mix. I add Karo syrup, mix, let stand for a day, then freeze until needed. Even when frozen they will stick to everything. When I first tried to put one in a hive it became a tar baby. It was ten minutes before I got it, well most of it, in the hive. Wax paper didn't help at all. Crisco, I now know, handles it quite well. I take the paper off the patties and then just plopped them in the hive. Mere seconds now.

Both colonies also got their daily dose of 1:1 sugar water. Mary Always sucks down the light 1:2 syrup in a few hours. Myrina takes all day. So I give them both 1:1 now. They take it at the same rate. I don't know why Mary took the 1:2 faster. Maybe it has something to do with her bees being older in make-up. More older foraging bees less younger hive bees. I don't know.

Queen for Mary update 1

Three days after I put the new Queen into Mary It's time to take out the Queen cage. These bees have seen more of me lately that I'd like them to. So I pop off the top super, reach into the hive, grab the cage, & close it all up. Well not that simple. I did not secure the cage well enough so it was on the bottom. Plus they had made some nice Natural comb in those few short days.

Did they bees act any differently? To soon to tell. It will be two weeks before I check them again. Hopefully I'll find lots of brood when I do. So now I'll keep feeding both hives with sugar water & pollen patties.

I noticed the natural comb was not made of new wax. Not a surprise as there are so few brood. They recycled the wax from else where in the hive. It was yellow & filled with flecks of hive debris. I don't think it means anything much. They had a big space to fill and they're supposed to do that.

Next week I'll check to see if Myrina has finished filling her super with comb & honey for Winter.

New queen for Mary

With what I've learned since Spring I now realize I should have done this sooner. The colony showed signs of being weak from the first inspection. Unfortunately I didn't know what I was looking at then. It came out of Winter with a weak queen. It seemed in May that a new hive bred queen swarmed with half the hive. I was ready to buy a queen then but the colony made a new queen before I did. Chalk that up to inexperience. They did well after that so I thought all was fine. Alas two months later the colony was showing signs of weakness again. I don't know what happened but something did. They had plenty of room. Two hive bodies & two honey suppers. The top of which they never fully drew out. I've seen no evidence of diseases or pests, except for the recent minor Wax moth infection. In the end though I still have a colony that may not make it through Winter.

So I ordered a new queen. Italian, and marked. I'm not sure about clipping them. Still reading on that. She got here a day before I thought she would. Good service from Rossman. A drop of water, a drop of honey. Pop the candy cork and in she goes above the few brood left.

Was there a Queen in the hive? I took out every frame and looked for her. Not only did I not find her but I found no evidence of one. A handful of capped brood and a few uncapped. No new eggs. I'll check on the condition of the new queen on Sunday and remove her cage.
Crossing my fingers.

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.

Old Wax

Old farmer Bob, who I bought the hives from, never used an Queen excluder. I know this because I melted down all the wax from the honey supers only to find them filled with brood cocoons. Wow! Well here's something else I didn't know about till now. They're like little silk liners in each cell. The problem is that they certainly soak up the wax. I lost much wax to these darn things. I wonder if I wrap up the cocoons in fine metal mesh, weight it down, and boil the wad if I'll get back enough wax to be worth while? My Wife make soap. She said bees wax is a major ingredient. So I want to get as much as possible.

The back pot is raw boiled comb. Cocoons and all. The front pot is filtered wax on water. I've had enough of the kitchen today so the rest of the wax is going to the solar melter tomorrow.
I'm so glad that I have excluders on both hives now. Next time I take wax it'll be so much more cleaner to start with. Which reminds me that I'm using Plasticell foundation. Well that's just in the supers that are permanent. So for all the honey supers I add next year I'll use only wax foundation. This may all work out yet.

Bee Ball

This morning I checked on Mary to see if all the bees made it back into the hive last night. Sadly there was still a good size ball beneath the hive. I will definitely need to check for a queen.

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.

The Hives

I have two of them & find it necessary to give them names. Hive one is named Marry after Mary I of England. Notice the profound lack of activity?


Hive two is named Myrina after Myrina Queen of the Amazons. Those guards are just waiting to nail something.


I got them from an old farmer who was heading into assisted living. He originally had ten hives. I bought the last two. He had a hard time keeping up with them over the past few years as his health failed. It was mentioned that no honey had been harvested in years. So they were established, but needing much in maintenance.

They initially only consisted of one hive body & two small supers each. All very old. Myrina got two new hive bodies, a new bottom board, excluder, & a new honey super. Leaving one old super on top.

Mary only got one new hive body, inner cover, & excluder. Which left two old supers on top. Next year the rest of her hive will be updated as well.

It is important to note that Beekeeping is new to me. My wife told me about the hives for sale and I said sure lets be beekeepers. The tale of moving events & the first inspection can be found HERE.

Mary is passive & never seems to produce enough brood. Myrina, however is very aggressive. I must put on the gloves just to change out the entrance feeder. She is healthy and good at making brood. Both are good for making honey.