Melissa - the Fifth Hive

Nuc #3 has been doing very well.  Her 10 frame deep box is filled with bees, brood, & honey.  She has more bees and stores than Heléna.  Which tells me she should be in a full hive.  So today i put a second Deep box on Nuc #3 along with 10 foundationless frames and a Hive Top Feeder topped off with a gallon of 1:1 syrup.

This Nuc's ability to draw comb is quite good.  The bees seem preoccupied with making comb since I'm always scraping extra off the inner cover.  I don't doubt she'll have the new box nearly all drawn out by July.  Which will give her a double Deeps worth of bees going into Winter.

If she's going to be a full hive she needs a name.  We found out that in Greek, honey bee is 'Melissa'.  So that's her new name now.  Her parent hive belongs to the Neighbor.  It's name is Beatrix, after the 20th century queen.  The neighbor also made a split from the parent hive at the same time.  It also has become a full hive.  Lots of good genetics there indeed.

Melissa - formerly Nuc #3

The yellow box is on lone from Heléna.  The white box is drying from a bleaching it received to clear up the mold issue.  In a day or so I'll switch them out.  I'll do an inspection  as soon as I see the bees have drawn some comb in the top box.  I need to make a Slatted Rack and a new cover for her too now that she's a big girl.

The year is just moving right along...

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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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Inspection 4/21/2011

Nuc #1, Nuc #2, Nuc #3
70°F
Sunny
Slight Breeze


A quick look at the Nucs before the monthly Club Meeting.  In case there was an issue i needed to ask the membership about .  Fortunately I didnt see anything that look like a problem.

Nuc #1 is looking great now with 3 frames of eggs & larva.  The pattern looks as solid as it can be.  I did see a cell with 2 eggs in it but only once.  I'll check again this weekend to look for more.  I don't want a laying worker problem.  

3rd row of eggs, 3rd cell from the left;  2 eggs

The larva was on each of the brood frames.  She must have begun laying soon after the first inspection.  No capped brood yet but that will happen soon.

Larva from Nuc 1

The brood looked good so it was a surprise to see the they're Superseding.  When the Nuc was first made the bees my not have begun to make queen cells for a day or more.  That would allow any fresh eggs to become older and less likely to form into a good queen.  The best queen cells coming from day old eggs to 3 days old at most.  This queen seems alright but the bees know better.

Supersedure Cell

I'll check this nuc every few days to see what happens with the queens.  Once the new bees begin to emerge another Deep box could be put on the nuc.  In the mean time i'll stop feeding them sice they have plenty of food and the Flow is about to start.

Queen bee, perhaps soon to be replaced

Nuc #2 has plenty of capped brood left in her as well as 3 Queen cells.  2 have been capped while 1 is being capped now.  So by the weekend after next a queen should have emerged.  Another week after that, or shortly after, there might be eggs in this nuc.

Queen Cell 1

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Queen Cell 3

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Queen Cell 2 with a....'What is that!'

I took this picture of the queen cell as the bees were capping it.  I didn't see the image until later.  Which is when I noticed the odd looking bee in the blue oval.  It appears that her abdomen is elongated like a queen.  She doesn't appear to be bigger than the drone either.  If it was an obvious queen i think i would have noticed her.  I'll check this nuc this weekend as well to see if i can find anything else.

One more issue was the mesh reducer on the entrance.  Because of the threat of early robing i cut a mesh reducer to fit a single bee.  I didn't think about drones & queens at the time though.  I found frame 5 completely covered in drones.  Just sitting there doing more nothing then usual.  I realized then they might not be able to get out of the hive; though i saw no bee waste stains anywhere.  It also means a queen couldn't get out of the hive either.  I made the entrance bigger and left it at that. 


Nuc #3 had lost most if it's swarm cells.  They had been torn down and replaced with regular comb.  I looked and looked for a queen but never saw one.  Hopefully in a few days i will find a bunch of eggs.  Then I'll know she has a queen.

Bunch 'o bees

Her population is great for a nuc but shes is in a 10 frame box not  a 5 frame nuc.  They wont be able to defend their space as well but have no pests yet.  

Both Nuc #1 & Nuc #2 had their Inner Covers finally put on. 

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NUC # 3 CHRONICLE

May 27, 2011 - HIVED to Melissa
(post link) (link to Hive Chronicle)
SBB, DHB1,  IC, TC

• Hived
• Add DHB2 w/10 foundationless frames
• Remove IC
• Add HTF w/1 gal syrup
• Add VB

May 21, 2011

r-SBB, DHB1, IC, TC

• Remove Reducer (r)

May 16, 2011

(post link)

r-SBB, DHB1, IC, TC
Queen Spotted = yes, frame 1

• Balanced frames, Deep-Medium-Deep...
• Cut out cross comb

May 5, 2011

(post link)
r-SBB, DHB1, IC, TC

• Marked New Queen - white

May 1, 2011

r-SBB(c), DHB1, IC, TC

• Open Bottom of SBB

April 21, 2011

(post link)
r-SBB(c), DHB1, TC

• Add IC

April 14, 2011

(post link)

r-SBB(c), DHB1, TC
DHB1 = 10 frames, Crimped-wire
                                Brood frames = 5/10
Queen Spotted = Queenless (we think)
Brood Present = yes (6-8 swarm cells)
Brood Pattern = patchy
Drone Cells = yes
Population = moderate
Condensation = no
Pests = none

• Add all Equipment
• Add 5 Medium brood frames from neighbors hive
• Add 5 empty drawn Deep frames from Duchess

 

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The Split Before the Swarm

One of the Neighbor's hives had a false start to swarm today.  I was home for lunch and went out on the back deck to look at my bees.  As soon as i walked outside i heard that Jet Engine sound of a swarm (a sound i became all to familiar with back in '08).  I followed the sound to my neighbors hives.  There the bees were flying in the typical manic sphere of Doom 20 feet across and pouring out of the one hive.  I watched and waited to see where they would eventually perch; while calling the neighbor at work.  They didn't go anywhere and all came back an landed on the outside of their hive.  Even after they came to rest on the hive they continued to stampede in then gush out of the entrances.  An hour later everyone had gone in for good.  The hive then resumed regular daily activities.

On their way back in

We split out the hive late this afternoon.  The brood nest was opened up with drawn and undrawn frames and an undrawn wax foundation honey super was added.  All the frames with swarm cells where pulled out (5).  We searched & searched for the queen but she was better at hiding then we were at seeking or she's not there.  All fingers are now crossed hoping it did the trick.

We are confident that the colony had not yet Swarmed.  The hive was packed!  Each frame had a pile of bees on it.  We couldn't see the comb without moving the bees away.  Even the newly place undrawn frames were quickly submerged in bees as we traded out frames.

Which left us with a Nucs worth of brood frames and bees.  Most or all of which have multiple swarm cells on them.  The neighbor didn't have any extra woodenware but I did.  She asked me if I wanted them to make a nuc.  I said sure!  So now I have another Nuc.

All the woodenware i have is from Duchess which was a double deep.  The frames I got from the neighbor are mediums.  So I put the medium frames in a single deep with 5 empty and drawn deep frames.  It may be a bit too much space so I need to get another nuc set up soon.

We plan to inspect these hives on Sunday looking for the parent queen.  Hopefully the she is still in the main hive and has started laying again.  We'll see.

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