The Lost Colony

So it's Friday morning March 27th and I get a call from a local logger about a Bee Tree. He says they didn’t realize there were bees in it until after they cut it down. They then dragged it up the hill and left it far enough away from them to continue working. By the time I got there the bees were all over this guy’s equipment, specifically the skidder that dragged the tree. Yet I was still able to walk up to the tree, now a log, and check out the colony. Lots of activity, no swarming, still located in the log.

THE FORMER HONEY TREE

At this point I call the local Dadant shop. (I’m still new to this and do not know many people personally yet). I ask the guy there (Mark) if he can direct me to any other local person who can collect these bees. He gives me a name and I make the call. I end up talking to Larry about collecting the colony. Larry seems like a great guy and is willing to come out to get then but let me take them home. We discuss the options and decide to meet the next Monday at the site and get to business. I hand up with him and begin to figure out how much hive equipment I’ll need to get to house the colony.

The weekend passes with warm temps and Sun. Up until Sunday night when some predicted rain turns into the worst snow we’ve had in years. Then the temperature drops to a new all time low never recorded in this area since records have been kept. The snow and cold last as long as the major power outages. Four days.

Did I mention that the Bee Log is lying on its side on top of a windy treeless hill?

Well it was, and still is except that it is no longer a Bee Log. They’re gone. Frozen or gone I’m not sure; probably the former. I called Larry and let him know the status of our bees. He took it better than I did. Not his first rodeo. I also told him that if I locate any more colonies he’s the one I’ll call to come get them. I generally work over eighty-thousand acres so there will be more.

It’s just a damn shame about this colony.

NO ONE HOME

Inspection 3/9/9

The girls have had a great week with temp's in the 70's. The Red Maples & Daffodils have bloomed to start the pollen season. The pollen of which seems pale in color. All the rain we had from December to now has replenished the creek and both seep ponds. So it looks like the year will start well enough.

Mary. The Apistan strips have been in place for 45 days so today I took them out. She has changed some, I think for the better. First she had a nice clump of brood near the center of the Winter bee mass. This was unfortunately ripped apart when I separated the hive bodies. Yet that brood alone was more than I saw back in Fall when I tried to re-Queen. Also, The response to smoke has improved. instead of all the bees scrambling out of the hive onto the ground they mostly stayed inside. Some still bailed but only a few. The great majority went deeper into the hive looking for honey. That is the response I like to see. It's more like the productive hives I had last Summer. Added to her was a new telescoping cover. I am very suspicious of a ventilation problem in Mary. As I opened her up I noticed that the bees were already venting on the bottom board. The other hive was having no such problem. Also there was the Winter moisture issue. I had a good bit of water condense in the hive and spill out the opening.

Myrina. Again the Apistan strips came out. She is still the same. I detected no problems in her and she is still mean. Every time I hit them with smoke they take to the air to find the culprit. I could not find any stingers in my suit so she seams at least docile. Just aggressively docile!? I had to stop smoking her just to put the hives back together so no bees would be crushed.

Now is the time for any medications to be used. This is the first time I'll be doing that. I've read some and talked some to local keepers. I am somewhat nervous about it but should start soon.

The hives generally looked good. The girls had plenty of honey left in reserve. My occasional feedings with the entrance feeders worked well. I had purchased a bag of Megabee last fall to make patties. They never finished the few I gave them. I may give them the rest of the bag as dry this Spring to get rid of it.

Now it time to figure out what I want to do this year.

Apistan Strips

So today's temp was above 50F. I've had the strips for 2 weeks now and have been waiting for just such a day as this to put them in the hives. The girls are buzzing around enjoying a little Winter sun.

As soon as I open Mary's cover I see trouble (again!). There was a small puddle of water resting on the inner cover. We've had no rain for a week or so; so why the water?. Plus the water had saturated the inner cover completely. When I looked underneath at the hive body & frames I saw them covered in a greenish sooty mold. Mind you that the hive is loaded with bees. I do use an entrance feeder. Have been for months. Yet I've never seen this type of problem before.

Yes it's true that both hives are currently made up of two deep hive bodies with a honey super on top. The bees of neither colony did much in the supers before Winter. I was hoping they would draw out the frames and make some honey, or store pollen, for them to use. The super are mostly empty. The bees ball up down in the deep hives.

So, I have one hive with water & mold damage. I don't know if Myrina will be the same. I quickly place the strips where they need to be in both deep hives. I leave the super off and close the covers. Then on to Myrina. Fortunately she is dry on the inside. In go her strips and more sugar syrup for both colonies. Her super comes off too.

I'll scrub, bleach, rinse, dry, then freeze Mary's super & frames. Myrina's will go straight into the deep freeze. Now I must go and find out why There is water in my hive. Maybe condensation, I don't know.

Varroa Mites

Over the Holidays we had many guests show up to visit. As usual I showed off my bees with an inspection one warm afternoon. Each person gets their photo taken holding a deep frame plus a spoonful of honey off that frame. Lots of smiles and frantic laughs (not all are comfortable around bees).

While looking at the images a day or so later I saw them. VARROA MITES on the backs of a few bees. I hate reminders that I've been beekeeping for less that a year. Should have put in strips back in November. Anyway I go to the local Dadant store only to learn they can not sell chemicals anymore; or until they get a pesticide license. So now I must do it online. Fine the order has been made.

However while in the Dadant shop I talked to a guy with 160 hives, he said he was not commercial. He told me of a devise he bought that cleans or disinfects hive with vaporized vinegar. Some machine he bought from its creator in North Carolina. He told me that by pumping the vapor into a hive for 30 seconds just about everything would be cured. He then went on about how we use too much chemicals in our hives as it is. I'll need to research this some more of course.

The practice of using powdered sugar came up as well. I don't think, though, that Mary would survive it.

Anyway the strips will be here soon and the hives will be treated. I'm not big into chemicals but without the experience I'll keep to the tested ways for now. Mary's re-Queening never took. There was a Queen in the hive that I could not find. SO, Mary is still quite weak. Bad brood quantity and patterns all last Fall. Plus she continued with that odd trait off pouring out onto the ground during inspections (hence thumbs down with powdered sugar as the nights are in the 20's). Myrina still seems in good condition.

I am looking forward to next year. I have already though of acquiring 2 more hives.

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.