May 28th, 2012 Hive Inspection

After reading my May 12 post, my friend Dale told me to "let them bee, already".  So I decided to give the bees a two week hiatus from intrusion by their keeper.  Being Memorial Day Weekend, I was away Saturday and Sunday, and arrived home Monday afternoon.  My plan was to head out to the bee yard right after unpacking, and check the hive.  But as I was getting ready, I noticed that one of my cows, Effie May, who was very pregnant before I left on Friday night, was not with the rest of the fold.  So the bees would have to wait a while.  I walked around the pasture, and didn't find her, so I headed into an area we call "the clear cut", which is a 5 acre parcel that we had cut off about twelve years ago, and has since grown up with saplings, which the cattle love to eat, and there are a couple of small pine groves where they take shelter.  It didn't take long to find Effie, under some the pine trees with a new white bull calf.  Mom and baby were doing fine, so back to the bee yard!

My assistant this time was my youngest son, Jamie No Fear Faunce.  This was his attire for the hive inspection!  Short-sleeve shirt, rockin' plaid shorts, flip flops and a veil.  

In my May 12 post, I talked about the bees building comb in an awkward place between the top bars in slots #11 & 12.  I was going to post a query on the Maine State Beekeepers email list, but I decided to try and figure it out on my own.  The waxed sisal twine obviously wasn't working for a guide, so after checking out a few designs online, I crafted some new top bars.  I cut some wedges about 14 inches long and attached them to the bottom of the bars..  The point on the wedge hangs down into the hive, so the area the bees have to start drawing comb is more defined.  In the photo below you can see the new design (inverted, of course) on the left, and the old, sisal twine design on the right.  

After my last inspection, I opened up space in slots #11 & 13 and inserted this new style of top bar.  This is an example of hive manipulation that beekeepers use for various reasons.  My goal was to increase the size of the brood nest.  So I left the bar in #12, which was all brood, in place, and put new, empty bars on either side of it.  In this inspection, I found that the bees have drawn comb on both of the new bars in the brood nest, as well as on bar in #9.  So this manipulation resulted in three new combs!  Now there is comb on 7 of the 15 bars they have access to.  Four or five more combs, and it will be time to slide the follower board back and expand the size of the hive!

Up to this point, this blog has been about my top bar hive.  All of that will change, come this weekend!  As I said in the beginning, my wife, Sue is my partner in this bee endeavor.  She is going to manage a traditional Langstroth style hive, and her bees arrive on Saturday!  She's been a busy little.... well, she's been really busy, assembling her hive.  It came completely broken down, and she has built the boxes and the frames, and has put foundation in the frames, getting them ready to install in the hive.

Sue is starting her hive with two "deeps" (on the bottom in the lower photo above) and two "mediums" (the top box in the photo).  The deeps are where she will start her brood nest, and the mediums are where the bees will hopefully store honey.  She decided to use mediums as "supers" because a deep, full of honey, can weigh in excess of 60lbs!  And with Langstroth hives, you have to lift the boxes on and off at each inspection.

In the photo below, you can see the frames she has assembled, for both the deeps and the mediums.  After she assembles them, she installs wax foundation.  The foundation is embossed with a honeycomb pattern as a guide for the bees.  You can use foundation in a Langstroth hive, and most beekeepers do, or you can do like I did in my Top Bar Hive and allow the bees to draw comb on their own, without foundation.  The thing is, tests have been performed on all the wax sources used to produce foundation, and all have been found to contain some level of pesticides.  So if you're planning to do natural beekeeping, it's better to allow the bees to draw their comb in foundation-less frames.  Sue is planning to experiment with both methods.

Here are some of the other components of Sue's :Langstroth hive:  Lower left is the screened bottom board.  It has a panel under it that is marked off in a 1 inch square graph.  This is used to keep track of the mite population in the hive.  As mites die or as the bees groom them off themselves, they fall to the bottom of the hive, and they can be counted when the hive inspection is done.  More than a mite or two per square, and the hive needs to be treated.  In the upper left corner is the outer cover, and on the right is the inner cover.  This is where supplemental food for the bees can be placed in the winter.  The hole in the center allows the bees to come up from the hive and eat, then go back down.  They can also exit the hive by using the notch in the frame of the inner cover, which can be seen on the left side.  Under the inner cover is another medium super that has yet to be painted.

Sue's bees will arrive in a nuc (pronounced nuke), which is four or five frames with a queen, workers, drones, brood in different stages, wax, honey & polllen.  Essentially, a mini hive!  The nuc will be placed into one of the deeps to start the hive.  

More on that next week!  

5.12.12 Hive Inspection

     It's been another dreary week.  The clouds and rain came in on Tuesday and hung around through Thursday.  Yesterday there were some breaks of sun, but overall, not a good "bee day", at least for my Italians.  As such, not much comb building went on this week.  Today has come off sunny and warm, with a constant breeze, and the bees are active.
     Last week, after my hive inspection, I moved the follower board back one slot so that I could open a second entrance for the bees.  As I watched this morning, I found that the bees are using the opening they've had all along (at the far right side of the hive) as the entrance, and the new opening (just left of center in the photo) as the exit.  There were a few who insisted on going against the grain, but the vast majority had adopted this pattern.  Reminded me of that quintessential restaurant scene where the waiter tries to go in the out door!

       There are five entrance holes in the front of the hive; one on each end, and three in the middle.  I used corks to stop them up until I have to move the follower board back and make more space in the hive.  Currently the bees are occupying the right hand end of the hive, and so the entrance holes farthest to the right are open.  

     Once again, the bees have started a comb in an awkward place.  I think the wax coated sisal isn't enough of a road map for them, and they built this comb in between top bars #11 and #12.  Fortunately, I discovered it before I pulled the bar out, and I was able to remove the bar without destroying the comb.  Somehow, it is attached to the comb on top bar #12, and until I get some professional advice, I'm going to leave it as is.  I think I'll remove the sisal and look for some sort of wooden strip that I can attach to the bottom of the top bars.  Maybe that will be a better guide.

  

                         

     

     But for now, I have left about 1/4 of an inch between the top bars when I closed up the hive.  I'm going to email some other top bar hive beekeepers and ask them what would be the best way to prevent this in the future.  On the left in this photo is where the bees are, and you can see the space between the bars, as compared to the ones on the right, in the unoccupied side of the hive. (Bear in mind, I'm working from the back side of the hive, so right and left references may just refer to pictures.)

     In order to acheive certain results, like more comb building, increasing brood space, or honey production, beekeepers manipulate the hive, that is, they move things around.  Being a novice, I have a lot to learn about this.  Today I decided to try my first manipulation.  The bees seem to be keeping the comb towards the back side of the hive, so I turned bar #12 shown below end for end when I put it back in the hive.  My goal is to get the bees to build the comb out further.  I put a small mark on the top bar to indicate the width of the existing comb, we'll see next week if this works!

     Production in the hive seems to be going well.  Top bars #13 & #14 have brood in all stages; eggs, capped and uncapped larva, as well as hatched brood.  And top bar #12 has capped honey.  In the photo below you can see uncapped larva.  Zoom in on the black circle, and you'll see a little white worm curled up in the cell.  It is surrounded by capped honey and other uncapped larva, to which the workers are attending.  

     The weather for this upcoming week looks to be very similar to what we had this past week.  I sure wish it would change!  There are a ton of flowers out there just waiting for my bees, and I'm anxious for them to build more comb!  I read about inserting an empty top bar between the brood nest and honey stores to get the bees to build comb.  I may try that next week.

Hive Inspection Week 3

There's not much to report from today's hive inspection.  Most of the past week has been rainy and cool, so the bees didn't expand the comb by much.  There is no new comb being drawn yet on top bars #1 through #10.  #11 is now fully drawn, and I was able to pull out the follower board, which is in slot #14 and examine it.  I found that the bees have nearly fully drawn the recessed space with comb, and the queen has laid brood there.  In fact, the comb was mostly filled with capped brood.  So those bees will be hatching in a few days.

When I dumped the bees into the hive three weeks ago, I figured they would start drawing comb on top bar #1 on the right side of the hive, and work their way towards the left end.  Obviously, the bees thought it would be better to start at the left side, and work right.  Note to self; despite our thoughts to the contrary, we puny humans really cannot influence Mother Nature!

Changes in Perspective

I drive a lot for my career, and as I'm driving, or when I'm calling on nurseries and greenhouses, I find myself looking at the flowers around me, and thinking "Oooh, my bees would like that!".  Even plants that, in the past, I've viewed as weeds, like black cherry and dandelions, now have much greater importance.  Your perspective changes when you see your bees happily foraging on those first cherry blossoms, or in early May on a field of dandelions.  Used to be I'd think nothing of spraying these with an herbicide.  Now I'm hoping my neighbors aren't using any weed 'n feed on their lawns!

MY LAZY BEES

The day started out dreary, cool, and damp.  I have Italian bees, and the instructor at our bee school says that Italian bees, like Italian people, prefer to be outside only in the best of weather.  My bees, true to form, wait until the sun is bright and warm before they venture out.  But once it is, on go the Gucci sunglasses, and  out they go!  Sue is getting Carniolan bees, and supposedly, they're much more like a New England farmer; up early, and outside working in all kinds of weather.  We'll see... 

Around 11:00 my bees had finished their venti lattes and started their day.  I stopped by the hive around noon, and there was a lot of activity.  I have to say, once they start working, they're ferocious about it!  The foragers head out and start gathering pollen and nectar, and when they come back to the hive, they're so laden down, that they bounce around at the entrance of the hive like an overloaded pick up truck.  Their pollen baskets are full, and some even have pollen all over their thorax and abdomen.  

INTRUDER!

While I was watching, there were a handful of hornets and other wasps, as well as a couple of ants around the hive.  They're attracted by the sugar cake I feed the bees.  One of the hornets attempted to enter the hive, and while they weren't aggressive about it, the bees prevented him from doing so.  At first, they chased him around a little, then one of them attempted to sting him, but he had the advantage, both in the size of his body, and his stinger.  Finally, as he made his way towards what I call the "side door" (a gap in the joint between the hives side wall and end wall), the bees all crowded into the opening, stingers pointed outward, denying him entrance.  Eventually, he decided it was fruitless and chose easier spoils, a small piece of sugar cake that had fallen onto the cribbing.

DRONES

Honey bees will vigorously defend their hive from most intruders.  But one thing I find very interesting is that they will allow drones into the hive, any drones, whether they're related to the colony, from another colony, or even feral drones.  One of the books I have refers to drones as "flying sperm", because they basically have no other function than to mate with the queen, and that doesn't happen inside the hive.  Queens take flight a few days after they emerge from their pupal stage, mate with a bunch of drones, in mid-air (I'm told that after a drone mates with a queen, he literally, not figuratively explodes with an audible "POP"!) then the queen returns to the hive.  So, it seems strange that the bees, which all have very particular functions inside and outside the hive, depending on their age, would allow these do-nothing drones to fly in, eat their pollen, nectar and honey, and then leave.  Maybe all drones are extremely handsome!  Oh, to be a drone...  There were several drones around the hive today.  They're much bigger than the worker bees, and they're pretty clumsy.  One of them flew in while I was watching, bumped into the sidewall and fell over on his back.  He laid there like an upside down turtle, grasping at the air, until one of the workers came over and rolled him back onto his feet.  In the pictures below you can see the oaf, upside down on the bottom board, and then to the right of the entrance hole.

That's all for now, but it's possible I may post again tomorrow.  Sunday is my regular hive inspection day, so check back then...