Finally.....Sue's bees arrive!

Posted By Sue: My bees and I got off to a rocky start, but that means things can only get better from here, right? I picked up my nuc from my supplier on Saturday June 2, and it was pouring rain, windy, and 53 degrees out. Not good bee weather. For non beekeepers, a nuc, (short for nucleus) is a box of 4 or 5 frames that contains a small bee colony. Nucs consist of adult bees, comb with eggs and brood, a laying queen, and various amounts of honey and pollen. My nuc was overwintered in northern Maine, so I know my bees are already natives, and accustomed to our climate. My bees are Carniolans. This race of bees were originally brought from Yugoslavia and Austria, where the winters are cold and the honey flows variable. They are popular and well suited for our northern climates. They are known for being industrious workers,in many types of weather (not just sunny warm days, like some Italian bees I know), and also for gentle dispositions. Here is a photo of the nuc box: So, since Saturday was a monsoon, I waited to install them in the hive. And waited, and waited. Sunday rain, Monday more rain. It broke somewhat for little while on Monday evening around 5 pm, so I decided to quickly put them in their new home. In Hindsight, I probably should have waited until the next day, as they were not really happy to be disturbed during a cold wet evening. In the photos, you can see me unscrewing the top lid screws, and the nuc box that contains 4 frames. I took those frames out slowly and carefully, then put them into the bigger hive box, on the right of the photo. You may also notice I'm not wearing any gloves. On a warm sunny day, when bees are happy, that's probably no problem. But... this was not one of those days, and bees were not happy, and I did get stung on the hand. It was my own fault. One landed on my hand, and I didn't look, just brushed it off and when I did, she stung. Oh well, had to happen sometime, might as well get the first one out of the way. After that I was really ready to throw the lid on the hive and say see ya later, and that is basically what happened. It was not the optimum day to work bees, but the job was done, and I'll visit them again in a week or so to see how they are settling in to their new home.

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...

The First Complete Inspection

This weekend was my first scheduled inspection of my top bar hive.  Opening the hive and checking progress has to be done every 7 - 10 days.  Of course, when I say it has to be done, I'm referring to a human requirement, not a bee requirement!  I have a sneaking suspicion that the bees would have no problem with me leaving them alone for a while, if not forever!

Preparation for opening the hive is always the same; gather my tools, bee brush, hive tool, smoker, veil, gloves, note pad, pen, camera, and my lovely assistant, Sue, then light the smoker, don the veil and gloves, and head for the bee yard.  Once there, I gave a few puffs of smoke at the entrance and under the cover.  After a minute or so, I removed the cover and puffed some smoke over the top bars.

Now I can start removing top bars and checking things out.  First I removed several top bars that have no comb on them yet, giving me room to work in the hive.  I used the hive tool to pry the top bars apart.  The bees glue them together with propolis, but the tool makes it easy to separate them.

While I work, the bees that have been off foraging return and gather at the entrance of the hive, but because of the smoke, they're hesitant to go inside.  If you look closely at the picture below, you can see the full pollen baskets on their legs.

When I checked the hive two weeks ago, the bees had started to make comb on the bar in slot #14.  I removed one of the top bars on the populated side of the hive to consolidate the nest, so that moved the new comb to slot #13.  In this inspection, I found more comb on the bars in slots #12, #11, and a small comb between #9 & #10.

In my attempt to remove bar #10, the comb that was between it and #9 fell off and landed in the bottom of the hive.  I'm not sure why the bees drew that comb in the small space between the top bars.  I'll have to put a post on one of the bee forums and see what they say.

This is a lemonade from lemons situation!  I wasn't sure what to do, so I took the comb out of the bottom of the hive.  This gave me the opportunity to see the stored honey and the pollen, 

and then, well, I think you get the idea!  MMMMMMM! Warm, new honey!  And the pollen was a very interesting flavor, too!

The next bar to come out is #11.  I found that the bees had chewed through the string I had attached to the bottom of the top bar as a guide.  The comb was attached nicely, took up about 2/3 of the length of the bar, and it was straight and well formed.  This comb was about 3/4 full of pollen and honey.

Top bars #12 & 13 were fully drawn with comb, and had eggs, larvae, and capped brood.  So this comb is referred to as brood comb, and the area in the hive that has brood comb is referred to as the brood nest.  As the hive population grows, the brood nest will have more and more combs.  If you click on the picture below and zoom in, you can see a few open cells, which have eggs or larvae in them, and you can see the capped brood.  

When I was building the follower board, my angle cuts were off by about an eighth of an inch, so I attached some strips of wood to the edge so that it would fit snugly between the walls of the hive.  I should have put the strips on the back side of the follower board.  But I didn't, and this created a recessed area on the side of the follower board that faces the nest.  The bees have completely filled it with comb!  I didn't pull it out, but I assume it has pollen and honey in it.  Bees usually put their food on either side of the brood nest.

So, the lessons from this hive inspection are; first, the string didn't work.  In the future, I'll use something more substantial and permanent for the guide on the bottom of the top bar.  Two: the side of the follower board that faces the nest has to be flat, solid, and uninviting to the bees!  And C: the bees are going to do things the way they want to, not how I plan things.  My plan was for them to start drawing comb on the bar in slot #1.  After all, that's why I labelled it #1!  And finally, if your bees love you, they don't sting!

Retrieving the Feeder

I know I said I wasn't going to post again until next weekend, but it's supposed to rain on Sunday, and I really want to get that sugar syrup feeder out of the hive!

So...
This morning I opened the hive at about 6:15 am to retrieve the feeder I had placed inside when I installed the bees.  The books tell you to open hives during the late morning hours, when workers and foragers are out flying.  I figured the bees would be fairly inactive this early, even though the temperature was just over 60 degrees (bees don't fly when the temps are below 57 degrees), and I have to go to work!  So I put my veil and gloves on and out I went.  No smoker. Just a spray bottle of sugar water to spritz them with.

The bees were fairly docile when I first opened the hive.  I gave them a few squirts of sugar water to keep the busy while I worked.  I took out several top bars from the uninhabited section of the hive, and moved the follower board over.  Then I was able to start moving top bars in the active portion of the hive.  The bees had started to glue everything together with propolis, a gummy substance they make from plant resins.  I carefully pried the top bars apart with my hive tool, and moved them over to make room so I could reach in and get the feeder.  I found that the bees have started to make more comb on top bars #9 through #13, in addition to the comb I found Sunday on top bar #14.  I was able to retrieve the feeder, and I saw the empty queen cage at the bottom of the hive, so I reached down and got that as well.  With the sun shining on us, and the temps steadily rising, the bees were starting to get active, and a few were even getting a little defensive, so it was time to close things up.  I removed three top bars from the active section of the hive that the bees had yet to work on, thus reducing the open space inside the hive.  Once they've fully built out comb on 8 of the 11 top bars they have, I'll move the follower board over and give them more room.  The whole process took me about twenty minutes, so no foul, no harm!  Once again, I didn't get stung!

Here's a picture of the feeder I've been trying to get out of the hive.  It's just a chick feeder from the farm store with some hardware cloth fitted inside the dish so the bees don't drown. I'll fill it with a 1:1 sugar:water solution and replace it on the cribbing outside the hive.  I probably don't need to, but I haven't seen any bees on the sugar cake I put in, and I know they like the syrup, so they'll have some extra food, just in case.

Here's a picture of the package the bees came in.  3 - 4 lbs of bees with about 3500 bees per pound.

And here's a picture of the cage the queen and her three attendants came in.  It was suspended inside the package next to the tin can (which contained sugar syrup for them to eat during their trip).

Now that I know the queen has escaped her cage and is establishing herself in the hive, and I've gotten the feeder, I can leave the bees alone to do what they do!  I'm marking my calendar to recheck the hive a week from Sunday.  

Putting in the top bars, and an exciting discovery!

This morning my tasks were to put the remaining top bars and some sugar cake in the hive.  When I installed the bees, I put just half of the bars on and placed the follower board behind those.  I did this to restrict the bees hive space so that they wouldn't be building comb randomly, all over the place.  Here's what the inside of the hive looked like before:

You can see the white follower board on the left side, and to the right are the top bars I previously installed.  It's pretty warm today, and the location of the hive gets a lot of sun, so the bees were more active than I would have liked.  I wanted to take out the feeder that I put inside the hive when I installed the bees, but they were getting agitated, so I'll have to do that on a cooler day.  This was my second time working with them, and I still haven't been stung!  KNOCK ON WOOD!

Here's what the hive looks like with all of the top bars and the sugar cake installed.  I've moved all of the top bars as far left as they can go, which leaves some "bee space" at the far right side so the bees can come up and eat the sugar cake.  The raised bar you see in the middle of the picture is the follower board.

AN EXCITING DISCOVERY!

In my attempt to retrieve the feeder that is inside the hive, look what I found!

In my hand, I'm holding top bar #14.  Look at that BEAUTIFUL, snow white, new comb!  I was so excited I almost dropped the top bar!  The bees have been in the hive for just two days!

 As an aside, I should tell you that I've numbered the top bar slots so that I can keep record of what happens where in the hive.  I'll be recording in which top bar slots brood is laid, where pollen is stored, where honey is stored, which bars of honey get harvested, and any other information.  I numbered the top bar slots, not the top bars themselves, because there will be times when I need to move bars around.

So that's probably all I'll be posting for now.  Unless there are some interesting  events I need to record, the next time I will go into the hive will be in 7 - 10 days.  I'll need to make sure the queen has been released from her cage, and I'm going to try again to retrieve that feeder!