Local club meeting

On Friday I did the hive inspections. It was hot and I decided to limit my inspections to a quick examination of the second stories and a refilling of the feeders.

If the first colony to start drawing comb in the second story is an indication of colony strength then Galway is outperforming Clare. This surprises me because Galway had always seemed a little behind Clare. Even the activity outside the hive had always seemed a little busier at Clare.

It was the Galway colony that was installed a few days after Clare because we had to wait for a new queen. But as of Friday, Galway had started work on the two middle frames of the second story and in Clare nothing had been done in the upper hive body. Still, both colonies seemed healthy and active. And the weather forecast indicates they should have plenty of opportunity to forage and strengthen in the week ahead.

On Saturday I attended our local beekeeping club meeting. We were supposed to be installing the club hive but the guy supplying the bees didn't make it. Apparently he had a graduation to attend. You'd think that would have brought an end to the meeting in very short order but it lasted for about 4 hours and was very informative.


The meeting was held at the home of two of our club members, Bob Grajewski and Sue Garing. The day and the setting were picture perfect.

We had an opportunity to do inspections of a number of Bob and Sue's hives. They had inserted drone frames in the hives as a trap for mites. The mites like to use the drone cells for breeding because drones take a few days longer to develop than worker bees. So frames are inserted with drone cells. The mites settle in to the drone brood. The beekeeper comes along and removes the drone frames and freezes them -- killing the mites (and yes, the developing drones -- but in the bee world drones are often expendable.)


Of course, before you can take the frames you have to remove the bees that are tending to them. An examination of this drone frame proved worthwhile in that the queen was spotted on it. She was gently removed by hand and lowered into the hive before the rest of the bees were given the shake down.


All in all, it was a very worthwhile meeting topped off by finding and capturing a swarm as the meeting was drawing to a close. When the club president just happened to notice the swarm of bees on a nearby bush it reminded me of a line from an old Chevy Chase movie: "Queue the deer." If you haven't seen the movie Funny Farm, check it out. Good flick. Anyway, this swarm seemed to show up at the perfect time as if on queue. It was a great finish to an eventful meeting.

It was a long, cold week

I couldn't believe it when I awoke to snow on Sunday morning. There was no accumulation but it did leave a powder white coating on the roof of my house for most of the morning. The next few days were cold and windy and rainy. There was no chance for the girls to get into the field and do any pollen or nectar gathering until Thursday.

I was regretting not using pollen patties to supplement the syrup I was feeding them. In fact, I bought some pollen patties but it was so cold that I didn't want to open the hives to get it to them. Pollen patties are a mixture of real pollen and pollen substitute which provides the bees with some protein, vitamins and minerals. Normally of course, they'd get this naturally as a part of their foraging. And they won't eat the patties when the real deal is available.

I did end up cutting up a patty and setting a piece right at the entrance to each hive. I also reduced the hive entrance to keep the wind and cold out.

Things warmed up on Thursday and there was healthy amount of activity at the hive. Normally, I would have done my hive inspection then but because they had such a rough week I figured I'd give them a day to recover.

As I watched the activity at the hive entrance on Thursday and Friday it seemed like many of the bees were doing orientation flights. In orientation flights the bees seem to fly in circles around the front of the hive, orienting themselves to the landmarks which enables them to find their way home from foraging.

Of course, after all the lousy weather they were probably doing a combination of orientation and cleansing flights. In "cleansing flights" bees take short flights to "go to the bathroom." They can hold it for quite awhile which during the winter it is often necessary to do.

I can hear some curious kid asking so here's the rest of the story. Sometimes during the winter, if they don't get a day above 45 degrees for more than a month... well, when ya gotta go, ya gotta go. You know how it is. Right kid? Everything gets cleaned up and put back in order in the spring.

Anyway, back to Friday and the hive inspection. I think I must have been in shock on the previous inspection when the whole section of comb fell on top of the hive. I say this because when I opened Clare on Friday things were not as I had remembered them last week.

No work had been done in the new hive body I had added so I pulled that off and examined the lower section. It looked busy and healthy but the frames were not drawn as I had noted in my posting last week. Specifically, neither frames 1 nor 2 were drawn. Had the bees undone their work or had I imagined what they looked like last Thursday? I must have imagined it.

I'm guessing the bees must have devoted much of their attention to keeping the brood warm during the cold spell and not much attention to drawing comb. I'm also thinking that when I added the hive body and then the cold weather hit I had inadvertently isolated the bees from the hive top feeder. They'd have to move from the well developed and warmer lower hive body up through the undeveloped and probably quite cold 2nd story to the feeder on top. Not much syrup was consumed during the past week which suggests they had a problem getting to it.

The section of comb I had wired to an empty frame was intact and actively being worked by the bees. There was an abundance of capped brood but not much pollen or nectar. They may have been living off that for the past week.

Conditions in Galway were comparable to Clare: lot's of capped brood, little pollen or nectar and not much syrup consumed. It was a tough week for the bees.

Here's hoping for a nice stretch of warm weather and maybe next week we can catch catch the emergence of some new bees from all that beautiful capped brood!

Houston, we've had a problem

If you recall from our last episode, Clare had some issues with comb where the queen cage had been wedged between the frames. The comb was dangling from the top bar. I didn't remove the frame last week because it looked like the comb would fall right off. I thought the bees might repair it once I pulled the queen cage and in the interim I would seek out some expert advice.

I searched the books high and low, I searched the online forums. I came up empty. I decided not to bother any of the local beekeepers because we had our first stretch of nice weather and I knew they would have their hands full. Any help would most likely have required on site assistance because I didn't have any good pictures of the problem from my last hive inspection.

Today I went back into the hive to see what the bees had been up to. I was determined to get a good look at that problem frame and at least get some pictures so I could take them to a local beekeeper for a review.

At first glance it was obvious the bees had made great progress over the past week. The 8th frame (at the farthest edge of the hive body) hadn't been worked yet but the seventh was almost fully drawn (meaning the bees had built honeycomb cells on it for storing brood, honey, etc.) The 6th and 5th frames were fully drawn and had capped comb.

Then came the problem frame which should have been number 4 but in fact was 4 plus an extra as shown in the picture above. The bees had used the space created by the queen cage to build 2 sections of comb attached to the same frame.

As I slowly turned the frame to examine it closely the extra section of comb broke free from frame and landed on the top of the hive.

I was knee-deep in it now. No time to go hunting for experts. The bees had spent 18 days investing in this comb and the loss of that investment could doom the colony.

I decided the best approach would be to take the foundation out of the number 8 frame and try to attach this section of comb to the empty frame. I had wired the frame so if I could just press the comb into the wires it might support it well enough.

I hung the #4 frame on the support and went to work. I positioned the empty frame around the comb and pressed down but the wires were not penetrating enough so I put one hand under the comb and gently pressed upward. The bees on the underside of the comb were not particularly fond of my fingers pushing them and their comb and one of the bees let me know about it. My first sting while working in the hive. I barely felt it and continued on.

As I tried to bring the comb to an upright position in the frame it felt like it might break apart. I needed more support.

I ran down to the garage and grabbed a roll of framing wire to loop around the frame at a couple points to keep the comb in the frame. Then with the hive tool I trimmed off the excess comb at the bottom so that the bottom edge of the comb fit snugly on the bottom of the frame.

It looked pretty good or at least much better than I had found it. Hopefully my beginner's mistakes do not cost the colony too dearly.

So frame 8 was out and what was frame 7 became frame 8 as everything was shifted over. And the "extra" frame became frame 5. I was fortunate that frame 8 had not been worked and was available for this emergency because frame 1 at the other end of the hive had already been drawn. Otherwise, I would have had 9 frames in an 8 frame hive body.

There's plenty more to tell about today's hive inspection. I haven't yet touched on Galway but the good news is that the girls seem happy and they are doing what they are supposed to do even as I stumble.


Both Clare and Galway are doing well enough that I added a second hive body to each hive. Matt asked how tall they would get. Hopefully they'll get 4 stories high before the end of the season. The first 3 stories are for the bees. They need enough stores to make it through the winter. I can harvest the honey from frames in any hive body beyond those first 3 stories.

Brian

Apple Blossom Time

It's the first really beautiful day for the bees and I was delighted to see lots of action at the hives. I went looking for the girls in action in the meadow and was surprised that they were so difficult to find. You'd think that with about 25,000 bees that every flower would be covered with them.

I found that it was easier to listen than to look for them. They are quite loud in the stillness of the meadow. It was very relaxing, dare I say spiritual; the birds singing and the bees buzzing about.

I noticed something else. I was walking more carefully being more observant of where I was stepping. I am beginning to see a benefit to beekeeping that I hadn't considered - a deeper appreciation of the life around me.

I did manage to find some action in the yard and was very happy to see the bees had found my apple blossoms.

Inspecting the Hives

Late this afternoon I performed my first full inspection of both hives. I started with Clare and then moved on to Galway. Yes, I decided my second hive which is north of Clare should be named Galway.

I was hoping to see a thriving colony when I opened Clare. I was very disappointed. There was little foundation drawn and it seemed the most extensive comb in the hive body was barely attached to the top of a frame. It was not drawn from the foundation rather it was flimsily attached to the top bar. It was at the location where the queen cage was suspended. I think we left too much room between frames when we put in the queen cage and the bees decided to create their own comb rather than build on the foundation on the frame.

Again, this was a situation I was ill prepared for. You can read and read and watch Youtube videos galore but there's nothing like the real world to quickly show you how little you know. Should I pull that comb and push the frames together forcing the bees to draw out the foundation? Maybe. But maybe the bees could attach the comb more securely and work with it as it was. This after all was a brood chamber. I wouldn't be trying to extract honey from that frame. I decided to let the bees have their way for the time being and I would seek more advice from the experts. Maybe I can get an expert out to check on this hive which has thrown me 2 curves in 2 visits.

I verified that the queen was released from her cage then pulled the cage, pushed the frames as close together as I could get them without crushing any bees then closed up the hive after adding more syrup to the hive top feeder. On to Galway.

Everything seemed more like I had studied when I opened Galway. If you recall, this colony was installed 4 days after Clare because the original queen was dead on arrival and I had to wait for a replacement queen. I checked the queen cage. She had been released. I pulled the queen cage from where I had it pressed against the foundation with a rubber band. The foundation wax came with it leaving a gash for the bees to repair (photo at top.)

I pulled each of the frames and examined them closely looking for eggs in the wax cells the bees had created on the foundation. There will come a time when I marvel at such a sight -- but for now I was more relieved that it seemed me and the bees were getting things right. I couldn't find any eggs in the drawn foundation -- but not to worry. I was only at day 10 with this colony. It can take the queen a bit of time to get going. I'll check again in about a week.

Hopefully the warm weather is here to stay. Upper 70's tomorrow. Dandelions everywhere. It should be bee heaven. Maybe I'll get a little luck of the Irish for naming the colonies Galway and Clare. Then again, Murphy is Irish as well and I am all too familiar with Murphy's Law.

If you'd like to see all the photos from today's inspection check out http://picasaweb.google.com/mcmahon.bj/HiveInspection#

Opening the hive

Last Friday I opened the hive we have decided to call "Clare" (after the county in western Ireland.) We haven't named the queen yet, because we have yet to confirm that she is performing her queenly duties.

It was windy on Friday and there should be little or no wind when you open the hive. So why did I open it? I was going away for the weekend and wanted to make sure there was enough syrup to keep the bees well fed.

I was surprised to find so many bees clinging to the underside of the inner cover. I expected the bees to be down on the frames. My first week as a new beekeeper and already a circumstance that I was unsure of how to address. I decided not to open the hive any further thinking the bees may have moved upward in the hive because of wind and low temperatures. Matt poured more syrup in the feeder and I replaced the cover.

The low temperatures this week have kept me from re-entering the hive to check on the queen. I did discuss the circumstances I found at the hive with a couple of experienced beekeepers and they said the bees looked strong and that they may already need a 2nd story on the hive. They said to just remove the feeder and brush the bees from under the inner cover down on the top bars of the hive and remove the comb they had drawn on the inner cover.

That's what is on the agenda for tomorrow weather permitting. I will also be making my first inspection of the other hive I installed last Tuesday. I haven't decided on a name for that hive yet but I'm leaning toward "Kerry." I'll name it upon it's first inspection.

The New Queen

I contacted Brushy Mountain Bee Farm on Monday about the dead queen I received with one of my packages. Joan called me later that afternoon and told me they had sent a replacement queen via express mail and to contact her when I received the package to ensure they were alive and well ("they" being the queen and her attendants of course.)

At about 10:30 this morning I get a call from the postmaster at the main post office in Binghamton asking me if I was expecting a delivery of live bees. "Yes, I am!" I told him. "Well, they're here. Do you want us to deliver them or do you want to pick them up?" "I'll pick them up and save you the trouble."

I didn't know what to expect when I got to the post office. How do they ship a replacement queen? I was surprised when I got to the window and they presented me with a standard express mail envelope with some holes punched in it. "I hope they're alive." I remarked to the woman at the window. "I won't be opening them to check!" she replied with a smile. I opened the envelope as soon as I got outside. Uh oh. All the bees seemed crammed at the candy end of the queen cage. And nothing was moving. "Not again!" I thought.

But wait a minute ... a little warmth, a little sunshine and the bees started moving. All occupants of the candy plugged cage seemed alive and well. I put the cage in my shirt pocket and headed for home.

I had been keeping the package of bees in my basement while awaiting the replacement queen. Twice a day I'd spray them down with a slightly above room temperature simple syrup mixture to keep them calm and well fed. They seemed in good shape when I retrieved them from the basement and headed up the hill toward their new home. I asked my son, Matt, to grab the camera and photograph my first solo installation of a colony of bees.

It was a beautiful day with a temperature in the upper 50's -- a far cry from the near freezing conditions on Saturday. The installation was a breeze. Matt did a great job of capturing the action which I captioned and posted in an online album.

A perfect day. Two healthy and happy bee colonies. The dandelions are in bloom. Life is good!

(I just discovered that you can embed a slideshow right in the blog. Below are Matt's photos)