Hive Inspection 10/16/11

HELÉNA & MELISSA
Sunny
73°F

Heléna looks great.  Lots of brood, honey, & pollen.  A few SHB's but they're everywhere now.  Heléna was the last Georgia package i will ever buy.  Lots of people around here are blaming the Georgia apiaries for transporting the SHB to us in out bees.

Top Box DHB2: frames
1 - Solid honey
2 - Honey & backfill
3 - Honey , backfill, brood
4 - Honey & brood (eggs) - QUEEN (marked)
5 - Honey & brood
6 - Honey & brood
7 - Honey & backfill
8 - Honey & backfill
9 - Honey, backfill, pollen
10 - Honey & backfill

Bottom Box DHB1: frames
1 - ½ Drawn, honey, backfill, empty
2 - 4/5 Drawn, honey, backfill, SHB (2)
3 - Honey & backfill
4 - Honey, backfill, pollen
5 - Honey & backfill
6 - Honey & backfill
7 - Honey, pollen, backfill
8 - Honey, pollen, backfill
9 - Pollen, honey, drone cells (2)
10 - Pollen & drone cells (2)

Heléna's Bottom box

Her population is where i like to see it at this time of year.  It was mighty high a month ago but they never got honey bound then swarmed.  This is actually the only package i have.  The previous one didn't make to last Winter.  She requeen via swarm a while back.  The new (local) queen has done well.  This colony also had Myrina's nuc combined into it.  Which did well and really helped the Georgia girl.

Queen Heléna - She's a quick one, hard to photograph

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Melissa has a mother and sister in the neighbor's apiary.  Both are doing very well.  Melissa could be doing better though. Too many empty frames.  These frames weren't empty before.  It happened as the bees relocated the stores around the brood nest and the cool weather has caused some clustering.  Which may have used up some the stores. 

Top Box DHB2: frames
1 - empty, backfill, honey
2 - Honey & backfill
3 - Honey & backfill
4 - Backfill, honey, brood
5 - Brood (eggs), honey, backfill
6 - Brood, honey, backfill
7 - Brood (eggs), honey, backfill- QUEEN (marked)
8 - Brood, honey, backfill
9 - Honey, backfill, some brood
10 - Honey, pollen, backfill

Bottom Box DHB1: frames
1 - empty
2 - empty, ½ drawn
3 - empty
4 - empty, ½ drawn
5 - empty, ½ drawn
6 - empty & backfill
7 - Backfill, empty, 3/4 drawn
8 - Backfill, pollen, brood
9 - Pollen, backfill, 3/4 drawn
10 - Pollen, honey, backfill

Empty frames but lots of bees

Her population seems fine.  The bees are busy every day.  Why the bottom box is so light i don't know.  I don't want to break her down like i did Myrina.  Nor do i want to combine the two of them.  I'm in this stage where i want to maintain the most amount of genetic diversity in the yard.  I think I'm in denial about losing a strain.  To combine Myrina & Melissa would mean one of the queens has to go; it would be Myrina.

To remedy her issues i will exchange her empty frames with ones that have been filled with syrup.  It will add some moisture to the hive in cold weather but that location is a dry one.
 

The framed comb from beneath a medium frame

The bare comb that was framed with rubber bands did OK i guess.  All of it was attached to the frames but none of it was completely drawn out.  It worked but the bees ran out of time it seems.

Queen Melissa

Seven frames of brood is the best in the yard.  She really means to make it.  With enough stores i wouldn't worry but she'll need some help.

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Fixed Comb

It's been a few days.  So I took a quick look into Melissa yesterday to check on the progress of the divided comb frames.  That story can be read by clicking on this link, (Divided Frames).  I'm happy to say it worked.  The bees have secured the lose comb to the top bar on all the frames.  They continue to draw the rest of the comb out as well.

Rubber bands held the comb in place

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You can see where they chewed the rubber bands

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Almost completely drawn out

The bees are supposed to secure the comb to the bar before they chew through the rubber bands.  That definitely seems to be the case here.  Though they are drawing out Drone comb I'm sure that will be fixed in the coming weeks.  Once the comb is drawn out I'll remove the rubber bands; either from the frames or the bottom of the hive.

It's fun to learn a new trick.

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Dividing Melissa's Medium frames

As planned, today the Medium frames in Melissa were removed.  First the four frames were removed from the hive (bottom box).  Then the extended comb attached to the bottom bar was cut off.  After which the comb was set in to a deep frame.  In the end the neighbor got her frames back with brood, stores, & bees.  Melissa got four frames reduced in size giving her bees more room to expand.  Which i hope will reduce the colony's need to swarm.

Beautifully extended comb on a Medium frame

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Back to a Medium Frame

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Extended comb placed into a Deep Frame

I used rubber bands to secure the comb.  They had to be tied off in the middle to keep the comb on top.  From what I have read the bees will eventually chew through the the rubber.  By then the comb should be attached to the top bar.

Don't let the pictures fool you.  The frames were swept of bees before the surgery took place.  So there were plenty of bees flying around.  Add to that the honey spilled cutting the comb and there were Tons of bees flying around!

Here's an exercise everybody should try to improve their bee handling skills.  Tie a square knot in a single rubber band with your gloves ON!

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Hive Inspection 5/24/11

Heléna & Nuc #5
83°F
Sunny

Heléna is coming along nicely.  She is drawing out 9 of the 10 frames.  the comb is straight and in good form.  They are storing plenty of nectar/syrup.  Though she's still very slow to take the syrup; a gallon will last over a week.  She is laying as much as she can in the limited space.  Plenty of eggs, larva, & pupae already.

Frame #2 -

Frame #3 -

Frame #4 -

Frame #5 -

Frame #6 -

Frame #7 -

Frame #8 -

Frame #9 -

Frame #10 -

I started to use foundationless/Natural comb this year.  At first i used small bits of foundation as a comb guide.  Now i nail the wedge in sideways.  The comb here is off side because the queen cage was on that side (oops!).  The bees definitely favor the South side of the hive though.  That's the side all the big comb is on.  Frame #1 is on the North side where they're slowly getting too.

Queen Heléna

The Queen looked good.  She didn't get marked though.  After the last debacle marking the Queen in Nuc #3 i won't do it if there isn't enough eggs to make an emergency queen.  This colony has fresh eggs but not enough.  She'll be marked sometime around when the second Deep is near drawn out.

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Nuc #5

Nuc #5 is a real joy.  The bees are dark and may be feral.  They seem good about drawing comb and filling it.  They've been in the nuc for a week and are working every frame including the plasticell.  The queen has laid eggs in every available cell.  They have been feed 3 quarts of syrup so far.  The best part is that they couldn't care less about me.  They're very passive and don't mind me when i poke around their frames.

Frame #1

Frame #2

Frame #3

Frame #4

Frame #5

It looks great for a weeks worth of comb.  It was a surprise to see how well they did on the Plasticell.  I had given up on that stuff and gotten rid of most of it.  I would've kept it if I knew these bees were OK with it. 

Nothing capped yet but that wont take long.  I'll keep feeding them since they're taking it so well.  They never had syrup delivered to them while in their tree and probably think they're in Heaven.  Hope they don't get to dependent on it.

Nuc #3 Queen

The queen is a big girl.  She too won't be marked until they have a majority of drawn & filled frames.  Technically she should be marked with blue since she is likely from last year.  I'll need to find the blue pen again.

The plan is to go treatmentless with these bees.  I know they've survived at least one Winter in a tree without any help; maybe years.  If they do well I'll start using them to requeen the others.

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Inspection 5/16/11

Mary & Nuc#3
72°F
Sunny moments in between rain showers

Since Myrina swarmed I've wanted to inspect Mary.  For a while there she was showing lots of Chalkbrood dropped out in front of the hive and the amount of field bees seemed diminished.

The honey super was a sad sight.  The bees are now drawing out the comb, but slowly.  However they are making many drone size cells so the comb will be great for honey production.  I moved the drawn or drawing frames to the side and placed the empties in the middle; trying to spur the drawing out of those frames too.  Beautiful new wax

The Top brood box looked like this (from left to right):

1. Plasticell - little honey - open cells - Brood
2. Plasticell - little honey - open cells - Brood
3. Plasticell - little honey - open cells - Brood - many swarm cups/ removed
4. Plasticell - little honey - open cells - Brood
5. Crimped wire - little honey - open cells - Brood
6. Plasticell - honey - open cells - Brood
7. Natural comb - no honey - open cells - All Drone frame/comb cut out - Queen
8. Plasticell - little honey - open cells - Brood
9. Plasticell - honey bound
10. Plasticell - honey bound - returned to position #1

Not much in the way of honey or pollen.  Plenty brood both young and old.  Very, very little chalkbrood.  Both Mary and her spun off nuc have the CB.  For some reason Mary always has it.  The solid drone frames have been popping up lately.  I cut off all the comb but left enough at the top for the bees to have a guide.  This, i hope, opens up the brood nest enough to dissuade them from swarming.  The copious amount of queen cups in the swarm position was unnerving.

Bottom brood box:

1. Plasticell - honey - pollen frame
2. Plasticell - little honey - pollen frame - Brood
3. Plasticell - very little honey - open cells - Brood
4. Crimped wire - very little honey - open cells - Brood
5. Plasticell - little honey - open cells - Brood
6. Crimped wire - honey - open cells
7. Plasticell - honey - open cells
8. Plasticell - honey bound
9. Plasticell - honey bound - returned to position #2
10. Plasticell - honey bound - returned to position #1

More honey and less brood in this box.  There is enough open cells & undrawn frames in this hive to keep them from swarming, i hope.  With some of the honey comb reaching the bottom of the frames I'll add an excluder soon.  If it looks like it's getting crowded I may replace a honey bound frame with a foundationless one.  The colony looks OK for now.  The plan is to requeen her anyway.

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Next was the split made from the neighbor's colony that i call Nuc#3.  These bees are the hardest working bees I know.  The first to flight each morning and the last to rest every night.  The Nuc, a 9 frame deep box, is full with brood and honey.  Sadly the parent frames are Mediums.  The bees have taken to drawing comb tangentially to the bottom of the 5 smaller frames.  I cut it all out then rearranged the frames so each small frame was bracketed by larger frames.  That should straighten out the bottom comb.

The bees have little room left though.  I need to add another deep as soon as I can.  This was suppose to be a Nuc but she's turned into a full colony.  I guess that happens when you start out with 5 frames of bees.

There's a hitch to it though.  I am going to requeen Mary with the queen from Nuc#3.  Then let Nuc#3 make herself another queen.  Mary will then become as productive as this awesome Nuc/Hive.  I plan on requeening this weekend.

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Beginning to Worry

Here we are again at the start of another honey season and these bees have yet to draw out any honey comb.  This has been the biggest problem over the past several years.  I don't know what i'm doing wrong but something ain't right!

Today i looked at the honey supers to see a bunch of bees sitting around doing nothing.  The supers have been on for several weeks now.  Plenty of time to draw the comb out.  They just wont do it.  I've used Plasticell, Foundationless, and now Crimped wire.  I've sprayed the frames with sugar syrup and feed the bees with even more syrup.  I'm about at wits end.

At the moment the honey supers are foundationless.  Today i replaced 3 frames in each super.  One with 3 semi-drawn Plasticell frames and the other with 3 undrawn Crimped wire frames..  All frames were then sprayed with sugar syrup.

Wish me luck!

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Feeding for Comb

The Honey Supers have been on for several weeks now and haven't been drawn out yet.  In an attempt to get the bees to start drawing out comb i fed them 1:1 syrup yesterday.  Since there is no honeycomb i'm not worried about adulterated honey just yet.  The syrup continues to have Apple Cider Vinegar put in it; 1 tbsp per gallon.  I'm also adding a drop of 'pure' Thyme oil to each gallon. 

I checked the feeder late yesterday.  The bees were all over the syrup.  If they stay on it i'll continue to give it to them.

I'll give Nuc1 & 2 a pint each of syrup today as well.  Nuc 1 has no brood at all and Nuc 2 has little larva left.  Either way the bees don't need as much food as a colony with tons of brood.  I noticed the bees in Nuc 1 aren't flying as much as the 2 nucs with larva.  When i looked in Nuc 1 the other day i didn't see much in the way of stores either.  I want to make sure there are enough stores in the hive when the Queen starts laying again.  Though I wont be adding pollen patties.  They don't take to patties when there is real pollen available.  So i wont waste money on that.

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Update

It's been awhile since I've updated.  The Summer has been terribly busy and the bees didn't really produce honey again so my motivations were elsewhere.  I kept up with the bees just didn't post about it here.  Nothing major happened so no critical information was lost.

The few things that did happened are:
* The 2010 Package has been named 'Duchess'.  We meant to name her after she showed some personality traits.  I like to name the bee queens after some human queen with the same personality. During the interim we took to calling her Duchess; like an heir apparent before naming.  After a while it just stuck.  Her personality is great.  Mostly calm and very productive.  On days where Mary & Myrina are sitting on their respective porches Duchess is always flying and bringing in the goods.  She was slow to kick out the drones but I thinks she's still on Georgia time.  We will soon be into Winter which will be her biggest test.

* I pulled out all the Pierco drone frames from the hives early.  They don't work well with me.  One needs to have two to fill a spot, not one.  As you pull one out it needs replaced by another.  It takes awhile before the bees can fully draw it out.  Meanwhile drone eggs are being laid in whatever good cells it has. The queen doesn't jump onto the frame the moment you install it either; it can take a few days.  Yet, you need to freeze it every twenty days regardless.  I never had more then a fist sized patch of capped brood on a frame going into the freezer.  Which caused me wonder how many honey making worker bees weren't produced all this time?  However, these frames would be great in a honey supper.  Bigger cells equals less wax which equals more honey.  So I'll cut down the frames to fit into a medium honey supper for next year.

* As mentioned above the harvest was pitiful.  Only three quarts of honey.  The bees never drew out the frames in the honey supers.  One super had been drawn out the year before.  What little honey was still in it from 2009 was to draw the bees into the super this year.  It sorta worked.  They filled it some more but there were few full frames.  I don't know what the issue is but we can not currently produce honey.  Maybe its the excluder or their temperament or the plasticell or I just suck as a beek!  I don't know.

* Done with Plasticell!  It has qualities I like but the bees in Mary & Myrina do not agree with me.  This year I pretreated each frame with a extra heavy coating of their own wax plus a thick sugar spray.  But the bees just wouldn't go for it.  Which drives me crazy.  When I started all of this they took to the Plasticell I put in their brood boxes.  It replaced the old black comb left in by the farmer.  Very frustrating.  I've gone to crimped-wire now.  I also treat it with the sugar spray.  One of the reasons i like the rigid foundation is for spinning survival.  We had honey the first year.  All of it fell apart during extraction.  Oh well.  I'll reinforce the crimped-wire with horizontal wire too.  Did I mention that Duchess (the 2010 package) couldn't care less about the foundation.  I put a post extraction super on her to clean it out.  After a week of rain I pulled it off.  She had begun to draw out all the frames!  Good little bees...

* I began feeding all three colonies in September.  I gave each if them a gallon of 1:1 each week.  It scared me the way they would put down the gallon in under 24 hours.  We had a significant dearth here to start with but the girls have bee doing well lately on whatever is out there.  The 1:1 helped them finish drawing out a few frames replaced in June.  Now into October they're getting a 2:1 syrup.  It is crystallizing before they can take the whole amount.  I'll need to do something about that.  Still I only feed once a week.  A 50 lb bag equals 2 feedings.  That gets expensive fast at several feeding a week.  I'll assist for now.  A check of their stores this week will help me gauge how to continue.

* Varroa mites have not been a problem either.  Last Winter beat up everybody.

That's all for now.

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Honey Super and More

 Ready to go on
 

Myrina got her Medium Honey Super put on today.  It was from last year and has drawn out comb on Plasticell foundation.  I added spacers to it so now it's a 9-frame supper.  All the frames were sprayed with syrup before they went it.  Since the frames are drawn I went ahead & put the Queen Excluder on.  I will check in a week to see how they're doing.  Her bees were defensive as usual. 

 New Super & New Stand

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Mary got another gallon of 1:1 syrup.  The first gallon was about gone.  I had hoped see would have repaired the damaged comb in  Deep Hive Box-2.  But no new comb there.  Her bees are still very active.  She has the earliest flying bees in the yard each morning.

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The new colony (Duchess) has a small ant problem.  They are getting into the HTF through a gap.  All the equipment is new and because of the HTF the bees do not access to the Inner Cover, Vent Box, & T-cover.  SO, they can't seal everything with propolis.  I flicked out the dead ants.  They are not taking the syrup as fast as Mary but they're still taking it.  I looked in the new DHB and found frames 5 & 6 were almost all the way drawn out.  There was a small piece of bur comb on the top of frame 5 in the first DHB. It was removed.
 

Invaders!

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Frame 6 in DHB2

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 Bur Comb

And since the bees have not sealed all the interior wood there has developed a mold problem on the T-cover.  A big green spot of mold above the hole in the Inner Cover.

 Wood not sealed by the bees

I put what wax I had left right on top of the mold spot.  I didn't have enough to treat the whole T-cover.  If the mold gets worse I'll buy some wax and do the all of it. 

Bees wax over the mold.  Problem solved

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Inspection 4/28/10

New Hive (Duchess)
71 f
Partly Sunny

They finished their first gallon of 1:1 medicated syrup the previous day.  I added another 1/2 gallon of unmedicated then, yesterday evening.  There were a handful of drowned bees in the HTF then but none today.  I check each day now to see how fast they're taking it. 

Once the HTF was off I was able to see that the bees were working in frames 4 through 7.  I pulled the cage frame and saw the Queen had been released.  They had not built too much comb around the cage.  It came out with only a small tug.  The rest of the frame had been mostly drawn out & somewhat filled with pollen & syrup or nectar.

Bees working 4 through 7

(click to enlarge)

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Almost capped syrup at the top

Frames 4 through 7 were close to being completely drawn out.  Beautiful white wax.  They had also capped a small patch of syrup on frame 4.  The frames were a mix of new wax & old wax.  The bees used the old wax from the rewaxing effort to build the comb down on the lower half of the frames.

Frames 5 & 6 is where the eggs were at.  Closer to the top of the frames mostly.  There was also pollen & syrup on the ends.  The bees obscured the view but I'll say half of the typical brood nest area had eggs on each frame.  The Queen was on frame 5.  Busily laying eggs.  She looks OK and the workers are taking care of her.

Queen & eggs

Frame 7 is the Drone frame.  It has been partially drawn out but the queen has not got to it yet.  In the meantime the bees are storing some syrup on it.  I'd love to use these drone frames in the honey suppers.  The cells are much bigger than normal brood cells.  So more space would be dedicated to honey than comb wall.

On frame 6 there was 2 Queen cups.   At first I thought they were Supercedure cells.  Since then I have learned that they are only 'Cups'.  The bees regularly construct Queen cups.  So if something happens to the Queen they can quickly form a emergency Queen cell.  As much as they are always making these they are also tearing them down.  So there should always be some somewhere in the hive.  I mentioned this to one of the Bee club leaders.  They thought the stress of being shipped was enough to cause the bees to make these so soon.  As of now it doesn't seem to mean anything is wrong with the colony.  I'll be watching for any other signs though.

Queen cup.  Currently filled with pollen

The colony is looking good.  They are building up the comb & population.  They may need another hive body in the next week or two.  She doesn't have a name yet because it's too early to know what she's like.  It'll be 45 days, or so, until all the bees are daughters of the Queen.  Then I can get a good idea of what the colonies personality is going to be like.  I'd settle for calm & productive, but who wouldn't.

Inspection 7/25/9

Mary & Myrina
89 F
Sunny

Mary - The honey frames that where filled with nectar are now partially filled with brood. Not much but some. Enough to tell me the young queen is very healthy. Perfect brood pattern. Also much of the honey is now capped. So I put that honey super back on top and reinstalled the queen excluder. I then put the undrawn honey super from the top down between the brood boxes. Hoping for similar results. This Plasticell really doesn't do the job.

NO boiling over of Mary during smoking. However she seemed more aggressive than usual. This is honey season so I think it will pass.

Myrina - Still has not drawn any frames. She is still badly understaffed from the late swarm. There is uncapped brood in a weak pattern in the boxes. I'm sure there are also eggs in the boxes but without glasses I can't say positively. Will leave everything alone for now. All I'll do with her is monitor her activity. I did pull out some more bur comb though. Also I put in a longer sceened reducer at the entrance.

I used the syrup water on Myrina again, along with the smoke. Heavy, heavy, heavy spray. I'm very impressed with how well it works on the mean bees.

I've taken to feeding the bees syrup every time it rains. Which as it turns out is almost non-stop. The rains continue here even though we are in our dry season. I saw a few girls up in the Ventilator box on Mary. Hopefully they are propolising all joints finally.

Two Successes!

It worked!
If you recall neither hive ever drew out the frames in the honey supers. So to trick them I placed the honey supers in between the brood boxes. Well, the bees in Mary are now drawing out the frames in the honey super. Most frames are drawn out all the way. The added bonus is that the bees are filling the new frames with honey only. No brood at all.

Mary : Frame # 6 : Beautiful new wax


Fill 'er up!

I tried this trick with both hives. One honey super between two brood boxes. When I checked Myrina I found they had not drawn their frames yet. I will have to wait to see what happens there. It looks like I'll have a late honey harvest but at least I'll have one. Even 30lbs. Will make my day.

This week I also put a second honey super on top of each hive. I thought that just because the bees refused the first two supers doesn't mean they will refuse the second two. These two new supers are still empty. No drawn comb. This puts much space in each hive yet I've seen no problems.

Myrina is still short handed due to the late Swarm. As usual I can never find my Queens but there is good sign that Myrina has one. I tried to take a picture of a frame. I hoped that if I zoomed into the image I could see new larva. No luck though. The flash masked the bottom of every cell with a reflection. I must get a hand lens.

Myrina's brood in top brood box

The second success is the ventilation tops. Since I put them on the bees have stopped bearding during the days & evenings. I still don't know what great difference it makes but I plan to find out at the up coming meeting.

The Ventilator above the inner cover

View from the back

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.