Combination

Went into the combination of Gumption & Melissa today.  I forgot to cut a slice in the paper so the bees made their own.  They put it along the warm side of the box.  After which they all migrated down into Gumption's boxes.  The swarm box was practically empty. 

Empty swarm box above chewed combination paper

Looked for a queen, marked or not, throughout the rest of the boxes.  Found several frames of Fresh Eggs instead.  The eggs were single in the cells and perfectly positioned.  No signs of laying worker made eggs.  There is a Queen in this hive but i never did find her.  Likely an unmarked Queen but i can't be sure until she is located.  Either way her egg laying is good as well as her brood pattern. 

I looks like this colony can survive now.  They, along with the other colonies, were fed syrup today.  The remains of Gumption had a few frames of pollen and a box of honey.   There are some honey frames in the freezer if they need more.

Little Miss with Top Feeder

The swarm box was removed and a Hive Top Feeder was added.  Hopefully i'll find & mark this Queen within the month. 

For now we call this colony Little Miss.  If the Queen is a Marked queen from Melissa that'll be her name.  If unmarked she'll get a new one.

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Robbing causes Absconsion

The previous swarm was in fact Melissa absconding.  Robbing broke out in the apiary while i was capturing the 'new' swarm.  The next day, when everything had calmed down, the hives were checked.  Melissa was empty except for a few remaining robbers.  All the honey & nectar was gone.  Sadly several frames of capped brood were abandoned.  A loaded double deep with twenty frames of bees was lost.

Did the robbing cause the absconsion or vice versa?  There was robbing taking place a day before the 'swarm' showed up.  At which time all the bottom entrances were reduced.  the opening were only big enough for a bee or two.  Enough for the inhabitants to easily defend.  So i thought.  The robbing had begun again the next day when the swarm appeared.  We didn't see it come out of anyone and thought it might be wild.  Many wild swarms move through the yard in Spring & Fall and i couldn't check the hives because of the robbing going on.  I think the bees of Melissa left when all the stores were gone.  Many dead bees were on the bottom of the hive.  

The next question was what to do with the small swarm; remnants of Melissa.  She had been hived in a medium nuc.  A small colony like that will have a trouble getting through Winter.  I assume she has a mated queen but have not see it yet.  If she does then they need stores & some pollen immediately.  If she doesn't then it's over and the bees go towards boosting another hives population.

Meanwhile Gumption is believed to be queenless with a laying worker or two.  Her population is low and getting smaller all the time.  No mated queens were available to help her.  She's on her way out.

So, i combined the two; Melissa & Gumption.  If the queen in Melissa is present and healthy all will be fine if the combination takes.  It was a simple newspaper combination.  The one box of Melissa's 'swarm/absconsion' on top of the existing two boxes of Gumption.

Newspaper Combination

We might name the colony after Melissa since it is her line that will be continued if his all works out.  We might also give it a new name since both colonies failed (or their beekeeper did).  For now we wait to see what happens. 

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Hive Inspection 9/7/11

HELÉNA
Mostly Cloudy
80°F

It's the first time I've been in Heléna since the Combinations.  Her population is Very High.  There are bees everywhere.  I can't even see the frames through the bees.  The population going into winter is supposed to be as high as one can get it but i wonder if there are too many.  A swarm this late would leave too few bees in the hive.  Plus the swarm itself would never make it.

Both Heléna & Melissa have high populations from the combining.  Neither colony had drawn out a second Deep box.  The supplemental bees from the nucs only added ten frames into each big hive.  Which just equals another Deep box.  The two big hives should then only be the size of regularly seasoned hives.  However these two colonies seem to have more bees than anticipated.

Bottom box loaded with bees

On Melissa I added a undrawn Honey Super to give the bees a little more room.  She has now drawn out two frames and filled them.  She continues to draw more frames too.  I've been feeding them so the stores on these frames are the Adulterated stuff.  Which works great for me.  I'll take off the super when they go into Winter Cluster and feed it back to them come Spring.  Once the bees have emptied the frame they'll have more drawn Honey frames for next Summer.  So I'll put a Super on Heléna too since it seems to work.

We are in a Nectar dearth but pollen is plenty available.  The bees are sucking down the Syrup.  They'll take a gallon in a day.  When i looked into Heléna i saw no empty cells.  Either nectar or brood filled them all with a frame or two of pollen.  It concerns me that they may become honey bound inciting a swarm.  At some point the the queen begins to lay fewer eggs.  Those cells are then back filled with honey.

I did see nectar in brood areas.  Though, i don't know if the bees are back filling or they had nowhere else to store the syrup.  I plan to feed next week then hold off 'till October when I give them a Fumagilin treatment.  I'll be looking for a reduction of the brood nest.

Back to the inspection.

Top Box DHB2: frames
1 - Solid honey
2 - Solid honey
3 - Beautiful, solid capped brood
4 - Beautiful, solid uncapped brood
5 - Honey, Nectar, fresh brood
6 - Brood, honey, some back fill
7 - Brood, Drone cells, nectar, honey, back fill
8 - Brood, Drone cells, nectar, honey, back fill
9 - Back filling with Nectar & pollen
10 - Solid honey

Bottom Box DHB1: frames
1 - Not fully drawn nectar
2 - Mostly drawn honey
3 - Fully drawn nectar & honey
4 - Nectar & honey, some back filling
5 - Solid capped brood & Queen
6 - Solid capped brood & some honey
7 - Brood, Drone Cells, honey
8 - Pollen & honey, little brood
9 - Pollen, brood, little honey
10 - Solid pollen

Which gives them eleven frames of brood.  The colony looks to be doing well and is very strong.  Pests are at a minimum.  I did find a single SHB on the outside of the hive afterward.  It was dispatched.

We never used to see these here

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Pre-Winter Combinations

The honey year is over and it's time to get ready for Winter.  First on my list of things to do is make sure the colonies going into Winter have the strength to get through Winter.  By that I mean population.  Time to move the weak colonies in with the dependable colonies.

As it was

At most this year we had nine colonies; four double-deeps, two double-deep nucs, two single-deep nucs, and one wild log.

1. Mary - double-deep, twenty full frames & good population, strong
2. Myrina - double-deep, twenty full frames & good population, strong
3. Heléna - double-deep, ten full frames & fair population, slow
4. Melissa - double-deep, nine full frames & fair population, slow
5. Nuc#1 - double-deep nuc, ten full frames & OK population, slow
6. Nuc#2 - double-deep nuc, ten full frames & good population, productive
7. Nuc#4 - single-deep nuc, five full frames & fair population, unproductive
8. Nuc#5 - single-deep nuc, 5 full frames & good population, productive
9. The wild log's bees are gone or going

It was decided to combine the colonies in a way that maximizes the amount of genetics in the yard.  So queens from my yard will be pinched in favor of queens from somewhere else for these combinations.

•  Melissa came from the neighbors yard with a history of comb & honey production.  We combined her with Nuc#1 who is from Mary and kept Melissa's Queen.
• Heléna was from Georgia but requeened herself and is now a local girl.  She was combined with Nuc#2 from Myrina.  Nuc#2 was a powerful colony I should have hived first thing in Spring.  A lost opportunity but i know better now.  Anyway her bees should easily rocket Heléna's bees through Winter.  Heléna's queen was kept. (The Queen from Nuc#2 went to my neighbor who had to requeen a weak hive.  Yay!)
• Nuc#5 was a wild swarm from the next county.  They might be ferals and seem to have enough want-to.  Very calm bees too.  They were combined with Nuc#4, a swarm from Myrina.  The growth in Nuc#4 stalled early and remained unimpressive.  Here Nuc#5's Queen was kept.  These two Nucs together still only make up a large Nuc; ten frames.  I put them together with a third nuc box.  If they utilize it then great.  If not, no loss.  Either way these bees need to get through Winter as a Nuc.

This means we go into Winter with four Double-Deep hives and One Nuc.  All of them are filled with good bee populations and plenty of potential.


The Combination went as follows:
Nuc#1 into Melissa - 8/15/11
Nuc#4 into Nuc#5 - 8/17/11
Nuc#2 into Heléna - 8/19/11

Melissa Combined & Nuc#1's box left for the homeless field bees

All combinations were 'News paper combinations'.  The introduced colonies went on top of the resident colonies.  I will check them each next week.  It appears that all went well.  Only Melissa had a pile of dead bees outside of her front door but it was very small.  I may have cut too big of a slit into her paper (4 inches) when i did her.  The others only had slits of one inch put in their paper.

Nuc#5 combined with the extra box

Since no one moved more than twelve feet many field bees were displaced.  In each case we left a single frameless box at the original location of the lost hives.  These boxes stayed for a few days.  Long enough for the bees to drift to whichever hive of their choosing.

Moving Nuc#2's frames into a ten frame box

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Heléna Combined

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Queen of Nuc#2 on her way to the Neighbors Yard

By odd coincidence the white hives were merged with the white hives and the yellow hives were merged with the yellow hives.

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Combination Update

Today the newspaper came out of the combination of Duchess & Mary.  When i approached the hive I heard a loud roar from inside which was concerning.  That's usually a sign of colony stress.  On opening the hive many bees took to the air but didn't seem defensive.  It's overcast so maybe they don't like the clouds as bees are know to do.  The newspaper had a good size hole in the middle where i put the slit.  The east edge was also chewed away.

The paper came off the boxes easily enough, just a little scraping.  After i put the hive back together the bees became quiet again.  There are 3 holes in the Vent Box up top.  I closed the 2 on the sides leaving only the front one open.  Hopefully the combination went well and this colony will go into Winter with extra strength.

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I finally pulled the HTF off of Myrina too.  There was very little syrup left inside of it.  These bees have gotten their Fumagilin dose.  Her IC went back on and i closed all the holes, except for 1, on her Vent Box as well.  They looked OK from what i could see.  Which wasn't much.

Combination & the End of Duchess

Last week Duchess seemed to be queenless: agitated bees, many torn down mid-frame queen cells, no brood, & i could not find the marked queen.  Today I went in her looking for either eggs or a virgin queen.  I found neither.  The only option I know of is to do a combination.

I read up on a simple newspaper combination.  You place a sheet of newspaper on top of the good hive and make a small slit in the newspaper.  Then you place one brood box from the weak hive on top of that.  In 24 hours the bees will have chewed through the paper.  This gives the colonies time to acclimate to each other.  Then they will all be 1 colony.

A beek must ensure that a weak colony's queen is pinched or a queenless colony is indeed queenless.  If 2 queens are present in a hive they may fight for dominance. If the better queen is killed by a poor queen the new colony my experience the same problems the weak hive experienced before the combination.  If the better queen is killed by a virgin queen then neither colony has an egg producing queen.  In summer I could get a queen from another beek.  This time of year there are no queens available.  Without a laying queen the colony will die because they can't make up their losses.  The cluster will shrink as bees naturally die.  Eventually the colony will have too few bees to produced the heat they need to survive the Winter.  They won't last long enough into Spring for me to requeen them when queens are available again in May.

 Getting ready to put Duchess on top of Mary

Duchess was combined with Mary.  Mary's performance since her own requeening has been great.  She is a strong colony with ample stores of pollen & honey.  I used Duchess's top Deep box which is full of honey.  Mary's top Deep is also full of honey.  These bees will have over 100 lbs of honey to get through Winter.  I left Mary's bottom Deep on.  So Mary is now a 3 Deep hive.  Duchess's screened bottom board, bottom Deep, & telescoping cover have all been retired.  Duchess's inner cover went on Mary.  Mary's hive top feeder and vent box were also removed.

Mary & Duchess Combined

After Duchess had been put on to Mary I had to dump in the rest of Duchess's bees that were still in her bottom and the quiet boxes.  That was easy but many took to the air.  In a combination no entrance hole is provided to the box on top.  So any flying bees need to sort things out on their own after everything is closed up.  That why you see a cluster of bees on the front of Mary above.  They are the remnants of Duchess figuring out what to do.  In the end they all went in Mary at her entrance.  I was able to watch them slowly craw in.  I wonder if that may be another sign that they were queenless.  Calmly walking into a queen right hive. It's called 'Drift' and it happens when hives are close to each other.  In this case the one hive is gone so the flying bees will drift into the next hive over. 

The newspaper will stay in for at least a week.  I will take it out after that on the next warm day.  After that I'd like to do an inspection on Mary to locate her marked queen.  If she can be found then i know the combination went well.  If not I'll need to watch her for symptom of queenlessness.  Which would mean i'd have lost 2 colonies.

To add to the stress I found my first instance of Small Hive Beetle (SHB) in Duchess as I was taking her apart.  I found a total of 4 on the pollen frames in the bottom box.  SHB are all bad and poop in the hive.  These either came with these bees from Georgia last Spring or from my neighbors hives who also came from Georgia last spring.  The same shipment of packages.

SHB in front of the bee

This poses a big problem since i just combined a SHB infested hive with Mary.  Which means Mary now has SHB.  Isn't that great! I love how this Winter is starting out...  I'll add beetle traps in the hive and read up on them.  As usual a strong colony of bees can manage a few beetles. 

The Bee Yard Now - Myrina & Mary

It's a shame to lose Duchess.  I still think i killed her queen during the last inspection.  It's something that happens so I'll need to be vigilant going forward.  Now I'm thinking about how many packages I'll want to order for next spring.  Or, maybe buy a couple Nucs locally.  I would like at least 2 more colonies next year.

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The Meeting

After 3 months I made it to a meeting. It happened to be the Honey tasting meeting. Oh darn! I met with some life long keepers. I asked some questions & got some good answers.

• Two brood boxes is a little much down here.
• Mary is Queen-less or weak Queened.
• I will combine Mary & Myrina for the Winter.
• I will separate each brood box into it's own hive next year.

Much work ahead of me. I will do an inspection this weekend plus the combination. Wish me luck.

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UPDATE, 11/23/09

I did not do the combination. The populations in each hive were better than advertised. Reserves were also adequate. I will begin feeding them pollen in January the increase brood up. After which I will split them in Spring.