Inspection 3/1/10

Myrina
48 f
Sunny

To aid Mary I need to rob brood or bees from Myrina. I should have done it a week ago. The temperatures have been to low to crack into Myrina to do it. Today though was close enough.

As I opened her up the bees were calm but it didn't take long for the girls to come out in force against me. It's a pain but I love this colony. They clung to my sleeves and veil in clumps. Later I checked the shirt for stingers and found none. As usual their primary target was the smoker. I think I need to relocate this hive to a sunnier spot were they might act less defensively.

Intimidating but I am getting use to Myrina and her antics. So off comes the T-cover & the Vent box. I saw that many of her girls were hanging out on the dry sugar. Many more were on the bottom of the IC. The majority of bees were milling about on 5 to 6 frames of the top Deep. They were not clustered but the bees covered the frames top to bottom.

Unlike the previous inspection there were a few dead bees to be found. The hive & frames still looked clean though. Stores were good in the top box with only 3 empty frames. The bottom box has been depleted of it's reserves. I was able to look through each frame of both boxes. Population is good for this time of year but moderate overall.

Two high points. There is capped brood on frames 2, 3, & 4. A small patch on each. I did not see any uncapped brood but the bees were very thick on the frames. Also I finally found Queen Myrina herself.

Queen Myrina

She was running around frame 3. I did not see her lay but it seemed like she was looking for something. This is the first time I've seen Myrina, or any queen from this colony. I love finding the queens. Always a thrill.

Queen on Plasticell Frame

I enjoyed a moment of watching her walk around then carefully put the frame aside to continue the inspection.

After finding the queen I felt better about which frames of bees to take out and give to Mary. Frames 5 & 6 picked the short straws. Each was 3/4's to 1/2 full of bees with enough capped honey. I slid them out and into a nuc. I replaced the frames with empty drawn out frames. These frames had clean fresh wax in them from last year. They were honey frames I culled to lure a swarm that never showed up. So I left them out in the yard last fall for the bees to pick through. They've not been used for brood yet. I read that a queen prefers fresh comb for laying eggs. I hope Myrina likes these.

Everything looked good down to the bottom board. All that was on it were cappings and dead bees. I gave it a good scraping and put everything back together.

After all this I threw on 2 pollen patties (Mega Bee) and added an entrance feeder to the hive. It's filled with a light 1:2 syrup now. Not medicated since I've not seen any problems. She got a good stirring today but it looks good for now.

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Adding the 2 bee filled frames to Mary was easy. Pull out 3 frames, add the 2 frames donated by Myrina, then put back 1 of Mary's frames. No one gets mashed or ruffled. Drop & close. I honestly do not believe that Mary is going to live but it's worth it to try. She also got 2 pollen patties and she's had syrup since I moved her inside the garage. Although I did locate a feeder to the top of the hive. They've not yet found the lower entrance feeder. I hope they find one of them soon. I trust Myrina's bees will find what they need to survive.

Time will tell.

Mary in the Intensive Care Unit

Mary is failing. Her population is to low to survive another month. She has plenty of stored honey & pollen but the cold is killing her. From occupying a double deep she's down to a corner on 3 frames. There is only a couple hundred bees left. Why she's crashing is anybodies guess. Bad genetics, poor hygiene, Nosema, Tracheal mites, who knows. I'm not giving up on her just yet though. So it's time for extraordinary measures. On Tuesday i brought Mary's entire hive into the garage. She will stay inside this improvised Intensive Care Unit until the colony improves or it dies out.

Containment,
First, being inside the house she will need a new entrance to the outside like a Observation Hive has. I fit a stretch-tube to a plank of MDF on top of the hive then ran it to another plank set in the window. Now the bees can go outside when they need to. It's longer than I need but the extra length allowed for a heat trap. Just a bend in the tube to keep the cold air out & the warm air in. It's 20 F outside at night. I'd like for that cold air not to flow over them from the new window entrance.

Not a Dryer
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New Window Entrance

Also I closed off the hive's usual front entrance with #8 hardware cloth. They need to be outside, not in the garage. I may need to close it off with a solid block. The bees have ganged up on it once or twice. Trying to get out and fly I think. Right now it serves as a useful window into their activities. They may forget about it after they discover the new entrance up top.

Have a peek

What I'm doing Now...

Heat,
Now that the hive is in a controlled environment I hope to help the colony back from the brink. As I see it the main issue is heat. To that I turned on the space heater in the garage and placed it near the hive. If the area can stay at about 50 F the bees should not cluster. Out of cluster they can roam freely to get what food they need. Their energy can also be put towards working the queen. Getting her to lay eggs is the one thing that will save this colony. If not they're dead. 50°F is also cool enough to keep them from getting too antsy to fly since it's still 30 F outside. I hope.


Syrup,
In the garage moisture won't be a problem so I'm feeding them with 1:1 syrup. The light syrup promotes brood rearing so they're going to get a lot of it. I'm using the Boardman feeder in the old (original) entrance. I wanted to use the hive-top feeder but that would interfere with their New entrance. I'm not sure if they've found it yet. With so few bees it would take a while for the syrup level to drop enough to notice. There were signs of possible Nosema during the last inspection. If I see more of it I'll medicate the syrup.

Food,
The bees have not wanted for honey or pollen. When they weren't to cold to get any that is. Empty frames have been rotated out for filled frames all Winter. Yet at this point everything must be tried. Though the frames are filled I will start adding pollen patties immediately. Pollen starts the queen to laying so the more the merrier.


Light,
The amount of Sunlight available to plants & animals is dependent on what time of year it is. The bees thinking it's Spring instead of Winter might be further spurred towards brooding up. Plus bees love the sun so I've put 3 shop lights on the hive for 15 hours a day to mimic later in the year.

Population,
When it gets warm enough to go into Myrina, still outside & doing fine thank you kindly, I'll rob some of her brood or bees and place them in Mary. The beeks I've talked to said 2 frames of bees or brood, with nurse bees, should do the job. The boost in numbers will significantly help this colony survive.

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The point of it all...

If this colony dies out I'll have a nicely primed hive ready to accept a package of bees this Spring. They'll be way ahead of the curve if they start with a hive filled with honey & pollen. Honey in spades for sure. So why all this trouble then. For starters a package costs money; minor but important. The big reason is that I can take a swarm cell out of Myrina and put in in Mary. If Mary is still here that is. Then all the problems of Mary can go away as the new queen produces more bees. Replaced with Myrina's superior genetic traits that have kept her healthy & strong for 2 years now. Also gone will be drones carrying Old Mary's genetics to other colonies polluting them with lousy hygienic tendencies. I know first hand that Myrina is a master at dealing with all local climate & pest issues. I'd have to guess, fuss, & worry about a package from somewhere else.

They say breed your own local queens. That's what I aim to do.

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Oh, did I mention I saw a bee come out, fly around, and go back in the window entrance today. Hope she tells the others.

Inspection 2/21/10

Mary & Myrina
54 f
Sunny

Really...it's 54 degrees. Really!

Mary-
She is in her last days unless I do something drastic. Even then she might not make it. Her end is at hand. Poor Mary, she never could figure things out.

Before i opened the top there were only a few girls flying around the hive. The first fly day since mid-January. One would expect there to be tons of bees taking cleansing flights. When the cover came off I saw hundreds of dead bees covering the sugar on the inner cover.

95% of these bees are dead

This sugar was put on the inner cover Jan 18th. It had hardened over from the moisture in the hive. The brown stain is bee waste. It could be Nosema but I'm not sure. When I cleaned out the entrance lots of dead bees fell out. Maybe it was clogged, so the girls had nowhere to go. I regularly clean the dead bees out the entrance. They are apparently dying faster than I am cleaning.

Nosema or clogged entrance?

This is the Vent box. Very messy. The Inner cover was stained just as bad. If you click on the image a larger image will open. There you can see where the girls chewed the styrofoam around the vent holes to make them bigger.

Now I got a good look at Mary's cluster. What a sad sight indeed. A couple of hundred bees is all that remains of Mary. Her cluster could fit in a two cup measuring cup. She can't possibly generate enough heat to survive these cold Winter months now. Egg laying should be starting soon if not already. Without sufficient heat to rear brood, let alone lay eggs, Queen Mary won't have a chance to replace the dead bees with new bees. She is over the edge. Past the point of no return.

The Last Stand

I pulled out all the frames to see what's going on. Four frames were light on stores so I replaced them with honey & pollen frames I had in waiting (The cleaned Wax moth frames from this post). The remaining frames had plenty of honey in them. Plenty of dead bees too. Two types of dead bee. The 'Starvation bee' & the 'Cold bee'.

Symmetry in death

The 'starvation' bees are tails out of the cells. They were inside the cluster when they died. The 'cold' bees died on the outside of the cluster where the temps were coldest. They were likely too cold to re-enter the cluster to feed. You can see the outline of the cluster at the time these 'cold' bees died. Oh, might I add a giant 'I Think" to the above hypothesis.

Also I found where Mary's girls were storing the sugar in one of the frames.

Sugar in cells

Notice how they put it in the brood area of the frame. Apparently beneath where they were clustering. Must have been done on a few warmer, but not fly, days. I replaced the hard messy sugar on top of the inner cover with fresh sugar. I hope it helps.

I've posted a question about their plight on the BeeMaster web forum. Lots of ideas there. I'll post what I do with sad, sad Mary.

Queen Mary nearing her end

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Myrina
What's to say about an aggressive clean freak who's population is sky-high. Other than she's doing fine if not great. Popped her cover to find thousands of bees moving freely around the inner cover where i put the sugar last month. I swear one of them yelled at me with a Brooklyn accent "Hey yous,..Shut dat door...We's workin' here". These bees came out of that hive like it was on fire. All of them head-butting me to move me off. I can't imagine how bad honey collection is going to bee in July when it's hot.

Myrina

The best part of this was that I could not find ANY dead bees. All her dead have been removed with the efficiency of a well oiled machine. Note that you do not see any bee waste anywhere. These are some very hygenic bees.

Next I took off the inner cover to look at her population. After all those bees came out to greet me I didn't think I needed to but should just to make sure.

Myrina's Legions

I don't think Myrina knows it's Winter. Just thousands of bees busy with hive chores milling about. Remember she's a double deep so there is much more than you see here. Again, not one single dead bee was to be found. I began to pull a frame to check for brood when another cloud of bees came at me. I realized I did not have the smoker with me. I didn't bring it thinking it was to cold to need it. Again Myrina always likes to prove me wrong. I called it a day and closed her up. I'll check her brood on the next warm day instead. She's healthy & strong. No need to pester her just yet.

Bee'ginners Bee School

Tonight was the first class of the 'Beekeeping for Beginners' course presented by the Piedmont Beekeepers Association in Lynchburg, Virginia. About time! About time, because I've had bees for Two years and am finally attending a class. About Time, also because the first two classes were postponed due to bad Winter storms. The class was packed with soon to be new beekeepers. Which is a very good sign. People mentioned many different reasons for enrolling:

1. Lack of pollinators
2. Bees need a helping hand
3. I want honey
4. My garden needs bees
5. Parent & child shared activity
6. I have bees and don't know what to do with them
   
7. I saw a demonstration and decided to start
8. My wife saw a demonstration and decided that I was going to start

Or this one,

My relative who kept bees in the States moved to a Caribbean island where he was attacked and almost killed by Africanized bees.

I have no idea how that last one works but I'm glad they came all the same. #'s 6 & 8 apply mostly to me. I can't wait to finish this bee class & bee smart.

Condensation: Insulating the Vent Box & Dry Sugar

As you might recall from the last post condensation is puddling in Mary. Not certain how or why so I posted the questing at the Beemaster forum (here's the link plus some more good info). What I learned is that condensation is a part of the Winter hive and can be good & bad. It may be necessary since it can be a source of water for the bees. Yet, it can kill the colony if it drips down on the bees. Controlling it seems to bee the task at hand.

• Vent the hive properly so there's not too much. Some type of top vent...(Check)
  
• Tilt the hives to promote drainage away from the bees. Down the sides rather than on the bees...(Check)
  
• Control which surfaces cause condensation by the use of insulation. Such as insulating the top of the Vent Box...(Check, see below)
  

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Mary, sans her T-cover

I'm using 3/4" styrofoam as insulation. This should keep condensation out of the top part of the hive. I left open two vent holes; to the South & East to let the humidity out. I thought about opening the bottom of the SBB a crack but did not. Too easy for a critter to work it's way in and set up shop. The condensation should be less now. I'll monitor of course.

Now this insulated area above the IC provides a good location for Dry sugar to be dumped. As mentioned on the forum dry sugar can help mitigate moisture in the hive by absorbing it. That's good incentive. Plus, Mary's a small colony with half her reserves gone now. I have more honey & pollen frames I'll put in this week but first...

Diner time

I only had a pound of sugar left and gave it all to Mary. I'll pick up a 25# bag tomorrow. The gap between the IC and insulation is 2". I'll see how much sugar I can put in there between refills.

aun Aprendo

Inspection 1/15/10

Mary
57 F
Sunny

The second fly-day in a row a good time to check the bees. This is my second Winter with bees so one might think it would be easier on me but it's not. I think last Winter I was too inexperienced to know what was happening. Fortunately it was a mild Winter. Yet, this year Winter has been very harsh and I now know just enough to be worried all the time, Ha ha. The girls just spent a month in cluster with daytime temps in the 20's. However, next week's forecast calls for lows in the 30 & highs in the 50's. A warm spell sure would be welcome.

First a quick note about Mary- Weak, under productive, & limping along. SBB (closed), Single Deep, IC, Vent box, & T-cover.

Now back to the inspection. Approach at mid-day, bees flying around the hive. Veil and gloves but no smoker today. Much more evidence of cleansing flights today than yesterday. Good thing I'm wearing the veil. A cloud of bees takes to the air as I remove the T-Cover. A couple hundred bees had congregated inside the vent box above the IC. Yet i still see several bees holding on to one another as if they're still in cluster in the IC opening. Once that comes off i see where the majority of bees are on the top of the frames in the middle of the Deep. Not a great amount of bees, population somewhat low in numbers but I still think they'll make it

For orientation I stand behind my hives and number left to right; more or less. Frames 1 & 2 are still filled with capped honey as are frames 9 & 10. Frames 3 & 8 have capped honey corners and partial pollen filled centers. Frames 4 & 7 are 2/3's empty. Frames 5 & 6 are too busy with bees to check. I replace the frames in this order: 3, 4, 2, 1, 5, 6, 10, 9, 7, & 8. Bees on moved frames were brushed onto 5 & 6 to keep them together. Then it all got put back together. I'll replace the empties with full ones soon. I figure the bees will bee balled up in the middle for now anyway.

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Issues.
*Moisture & Condensation. -Again with the puddle of water in the hive. They did this last year too. So over Summer I replaced the solid board with a SBB. I added a Vent cover above the IC with 1.5" holes in it. And all the wooden ware is new. Not much water probably several table spoons worth resting on the luan beneath the SBB (and dripping out the back!) . The T-cover was dry. The IC was dry. As far as I can tell the bees were dry. So why is there water puddling in rows beneath the frames? 8 out of 9 vent holes were closed off so I opened one more, left side, to increase ventilation.

Water leaking out the through the closed SBB ^

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Two puddles on the left side beneath the SBB ^

*Heating. Passively that is. -The vent box is 2.5" tall. Heat escapes upwards of course so this box draws heat away from the cluster. To fix this I bought some foam insulation to fill the box. I'll leave enough room, or channels, for the humidity to escape through the vents though.

Vent box currently ^

*Dead bees. -2 kinds of dead bees. The ones that are still standing where they were in the cluster when they croaked. And, of course, the bees that starved head first in a cell. Very few dead in the cells. More dead from the cluster locations.

All dead ^

Starvation ^

Then there's this bee. I believe she wandered away from the ball during a warm spell. Found a whole frame of honey to eat. Then didn't make it back to the cluster before the temperature dropped at night. Poor girl.

(click to enlarge) ^

I did not get into Myrina as I ran out of time. I'll try to inspect her within the week. Although Myrina almost never has any problems.

aun Aprendo

First Fly Day of 2010

It's been almost a month since the last fly-day. Compared to last Winter when it happened about every week so I've been concerned. Both hives are brewing with warm bees today. At 55 degrees & sunny it's a great day for flying & the all important Cleansing flights. Tomorrow is to be 56 or so but then it's back to being in the 40's. Tomorrow afternoon I'll peek in each hive to measure their reserves. I have 6 deep frames filled with honey & pollen to replace any empty frames.

Myrina

If you're from the north and need a fix just put on your veil and turn up the volume

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Mary was the first one out at Noon. Odd I thought since she's the weaker & smaller of the two. It made me nervous about Myrina's condition.

MARY: A good showing

Yet not an hour later out came Myrina to show Mary how it's done. Of course Myrina does have more bees...

MYRINA: Bring out your dead!

We had one not so cold day 2 weeks ago. It was warm enough for the bees to move around some but not fly, 47 degrees. The ground was covered in snow. All the bees did was to toss out the bees that died. The snow was peppered with dead bees in front of the hive. That plus today makes for a big piles of bees. Hopefully the queens will start laying eggs again soon. I have some pollen substitute ready to go. I'll make patties for them. I plan to start some time before the end of the month. Next week might be warmer than this one has been. So hopefully we'll get more days like today.

Winter Storm

Winters here are typically mild. This year, though, is breaking that trend. We got 12 inches of snow dumped on us last night. Normally we wouldn't see that much in a whole season.  Looks like this Winter will be quite a test for my bees & me.

Hives in the Snow

During the storm we had to clear the entrances numerous times.  I don't know how long a hive can survive with a closed off entrance.  I also don't want to find out.  They are calling for freezing rain on Christmas.  I may need an ice scraper before that's all done.

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The one piece of equipment that helps out the most in challenging weather is the extra wide roofs.  An 1/8 inch sheet of sheet metal extends 6 inches on all sides.  This adds shade in Summer & cover in wet or snowy weather.  The old farmer had them on when I bought the hives.  I never took them off and will include them on all future hives.

Speaking of hives I'm waiting for the next 40 degree day.  A day too cool for the girls to fly but warm enough to allow me to wash the outside of the hives.  Soap & water since I don't like the alcohol & ammonia in window cleaners.

Fly Day

Today was the first day above 50 degrees in weeks.  The bees took advantage of that and broke cluster to get some much needed work done.  Cleansing flights, dead removal, reallocation of reserves to name a few.  The bees in Mary, only 1 box, were massed in the SE corner working the end frames.  Myrina's girls were also in the SE corner but mostly in the lower box, again working the end frames.

I really only went in because i needed to take the Apistan out.  The target date is Friday the 18th but it is forecasted to be freezing again by then. I also looked around Myrina some pulling the frames from the upper box.  All honey and as usual angry bees.  I saw no problems.

This time next month I hope to be feeding both hives with pollen.  I want to build up the population as best i can for the Spring splits I'm planning.

Screened Bottom Board & Winter

***Update (10/10)***

Now I close off all my SBB's in mid-October.  I use a bottom entrance and have an (insulated) venting shim/box between the inner cover & telescoping cover all Winter.  This provides passive air flow to allow humidity to escape without condensing in the hive.  Though half of the beeks in the local club keep their SBB's open all Winter I prefer to close mine.  For me it is a issue of brooding up early in Spring.  I open the SBB's up again once the nightly temps are above 60f.

I have a Dadant SBB on Mary.  It comes without a bottom sheet normally used for Varroa counts.  I can close it of with anything made of plastic or wood but I thought I might leave it open all Winter.  Moisture has been a problem with this hive so I want to vent it as much as possible.  Last year saw a puddle of cold water drip down through the hive during Winter.  I did not want to repeat that again. But, it has been a very cold couple of weeks & it looks like it will be a sever Winter.  The bees have been in cluster for almost two weeks now.  Last Winter we had fly days every week or so.  I took a picture from under the SBB of Mary yesterday and found a bunch of dead bees.  That is natural, i think, but concerning.  Since she is down to a single deep her cluster is very close to the bottom edge.

Dead Bees 

I sealed off the SBB this evening after work with a piece of luan.  I'll leave it there for the rest of Winter.  The Vent box is still on the hive so the humidity will continue to dissipate from there.  I have designed a SBB of my own that utilizes a deep tray beneath the screen and some adjustable side vents.  I'll post it when its made, after the New Year.  

Some beeks leave their SBB's open all year some beeks use only solid boards.  I guess I'll be taking the middle road on this issue.  SBB's all year but closed off during Winter.  The timing will be dependent on the weather.  But, I figure the hives will be closed off from December to April.

Myrina still having the Solid BB was left alone.  Both colonies showed signs of activity inside the hives.  As good as she is about her solid board I don't yet know if she'll get a SBB.