Honey Is On Its Way

When the alfalfa and the Russian olives started blooming a couple of weeks ago I put two supers on both Ida and Georgia.  I always feel optimistic about the first alfalfa nectar flow and hope the bees will need two supers to contain all the nectar they are bringing in.  It never happens that way though-  it is a long slow process with the bees steadily bringing in nectar all summer long.  By the end of the summer I expect to have three (maybe four if it is a good year) supers on each hive.

As I checked the hives today I found that both Ida and Georgia have some nectar on their second super.  There is not a lot, just a little in a few frames.  In their first supers they both have at least some nectar in every frame.  Here is s picture of the nectar they are collecting.

I think, if you zoom in on the picture, you can see the sun reflecting off the nectar in the center right part of the frame.  This was photo is from Georgia and was actually taken last week.  I did not have the camera with me today.

Ida is ahead of Georgia in both nectar collection and population.  Ida has three or four frames in her super that are almost completely full of nectar.  I expect to see some capped honey next week.

Svetlana is slowly progressing.  I have been feeding her sugar syrup to help her draw comb on the frames in her two deep hive bodies.  I thought she would be all filled out and ready for her first honey super today, but she still has a couple of frames to draw before that can happen.  I will make her more sugar syrup today.  I think that by next week she should be ready to go, and we will have honey on its way from all three hives.

We Are Not Queenless

I guess that title might make it sound like I am talking about Queen Elizabeth's 60 year jubilee, but I am not. I am talking about the hives and specifically, Georgia. Let me explain the back story.

Our little apiary consists of three hives: Georgia, Ida, and Svetlana.  Svetlana is the new hive of Russian hybrids we set up from a package this spring.  Georgia is one of our original hives we installed back in 2009- boy does time fly!  Ida was created when we split Georgia earlier this spring and moved half of Georgia's bees (with the queen) into Virginia's old digs.  Virginia died out after going queenless and developing laying workers late last summer.  Are you with me so far?

The Italian mutt queen that was in Georgia got moved over to Ida during the split.  She has continued to lay eggs and has kept that hive good and healthy.  As Georgia was then queenless, we ordered a new queen from the Walter T Kelley beekeeping supply company.  We ended up getting a Carniolan queen who had been bred with Minnesota Hygienic drones.  Minnesota Hygienic bees are Italian's that have been selected for increased hygienic behavior- they keep the hive cleaner and are thus more "resistant" to mites and other diseases.  Georgia's bee seemed to accept her very well and a week later I  found some eggs in the hive- not a lot, but some.  I figured we were on our way to a good year.

The next week I checked on her again but found no eggs at all.  I was discouraged.  I removed a frame of very young larva from Ida and put them in Georgia so they could make their own queen.  I went back again a week after that to make sure they were making supercedure cells for a new queen but found none.  Instead, I found... eggs!  It has been a roller coaster.

It has now been a couple of weeks and I thought I better check the hives again.  I wanted to check everyone for swarm cells and I also just wanted to make sure that everyone was queen right.  Ida and Svetlana are doing great queen-wise, but I was still a little worried about Georgia.  As I started going through her hive I only saw empty frames and some honey.  On the fourth frame I pulled I found a bunch of brood- capped and uncapped, but I wanted to see eggs.  On the fifth frame I also found brood but no eggs- but right there on to of the frame was the big plump queen.  Can you spot her in these first two photos?

Here is a close up of her majesty.

Isn't she beautiful?  Better looking than Queen Elizabeth, I think.  This week I choose to celebrate the reign of Georgia's queen.  May she live long and lay lots of eggs!

It does feel good to be queen right in all three hives!!

Calling The Bees Home

I got to see something last night that I have never seen before, and it was really quite amazing.  I wandered out to the garden last evening right at dusk and, as it turns out, about 15 minutes before it started to rain.  As I got close to the hives I noticed that there were a lot of bees coming home.  The more closely I looked the more bees I could see.  They were coming in from all directions.  I knelt down next to one of the hives and looked out and up at about a 50-60 degree angle and, over the course of a few minutes, saw thousands of bees flying straight toward me and landing on the front porches of the hives next to me.  It was quite a sight.

I wonder if they were just coming home for the evening all at the same time or if they sensed that the rain was about to fall and that caused them all to return at once.  I would have liked to have somehow gotten a picture but I really don't think a camera would have been able to pick it all up.

Bees On Blossoms

We have already had various nectar flows this spring.  Here are a few pictures of the nectar flows that have been occurring in our own backyard.

First, the pear tree blossomed. 

We have only one small pear tree and I don't know of any others in the area.  This tree does not contribute a lot of pollen and nectar, but it was full of bees.  I suppose every little bit counts.  Interestingly, the pollen from the pear tree is a pale green color.... curious.  The person in the bee suit is Christina, my wife.  We had just been checking the bees and she had not taken her suit off yet.

These next two photos are pictures of bees on our pear blossoms.

We have no photos of bees on the apple tree this year. It was getting a little out of control and I pruned it way back. I think the trauma caused it to not blossom.

The dandelion bloom has been in high gear for about a week now.

This is certainly the major source of pollen and nectar right now.

These last two photos of bees on our lilacs are interesting.

We have a lilac hedge that produces tons of blossoms.  This is our fourth year with bees and I had never seen a single bee on any of the lilac blossoms.  I had always assumed that the blossoms were too deep and narrow for the bees to access the nectar in the bottom.  However, I spotted a handful of bees working the lilac blossoms the other day.  After doing a little more research I found that bees will work lilac blossoms but usually only if there is no other nectar flow.  What is strange is that while the lilacs are blooming there is a very strong dandelion nectar flow at the same time.  I don't know what made these blossoms so attractive to these bees but it was neat to see.

The Russians Are Coming!

The Russians are coming!!  Actually, they already arrived.  On April 18th our package of Russian hybrids finally made it to our front porch.  We were excited to get them in the hive that we already had set up and ready to go, but the weather was rainy, windy, and cold.  The 19th was the same.  Finally, on the 20th, there was a break in the weather and we installed them in their little home.  We made it just in time I think; when I removed the feeding can I found that it was completely empty.  The following are some photos of how things went with Svetlana and how she is progressing.

This first photo is Svetlana in her package.


 

Three pounds of bees.  I'm not sure exactly how many bees are in there, but it is a lot.

Here we are out at the hive.  I am removing the feeder can.  The other gentleman in the bee suit is my son.  He is 14 years old and is taking more interest in working with the bees.

Here I am dumping the bees on top of the frames in the hive.

You can see some comb and some drone brood on the 3rd frame from the bottom.  I stole a frame of pollen from Georgia to get Svetlana going.  Perhaps I should have ordered some pollen patties for her but this seems to have worked okay.

Here in this photo the bees are spreading out and finding their way down into the frames.

 I removed a frame to leave a space for the queen cage.  She came in a plastic cage with a candy stopper.  It took the bees a few days to eat the candy and release her into the hive.  A few days after that she began laying eggs.

Here is a closer photo of the bees.

 These Russians seem to be a little bit darker than the Italians in our other two hives have been.

I couldn't get all the bees out of the package so I left it open by the base of the hive.

 It didn't take them long to find their way in.

Here, my son is pouring the sugar syrup into the top feeder.

 If the bees don't have either nectar or sugar syrup they will not be able to draw comb.  This gives them a good start.

Here the bees are finding their way up into the feeder.

 It didn't take them long to finish off the first gallon of syrup.

These next three photos show the progress they have been making drawing comb on the frames.

The queen started laying eggs a few days after being released.  I don't have any photos of that but she looks like she will be pretty prolific.  As of a couple of days ago she had two full frames of eggs and brood.

This is what our little apiary looks like now.  From left to right we have Ida, Georgia, and Svetlana.

No, the vine behind the hives is not dead- it is just one of the last things to green up on the spring.  This photo was actually taken after I split Georgia to create Ida.  But that will be a blog for another day.

Pussy Willow Bloom 2012

It has happened!  The pussy willow bloomed today.  It is one of the first key blooms of the year and supplies a lot of pollen for the bees.  For the past two years the pussy willow has bloomed on or about April 11th.  This puts us nearly 3 weeks ahead of schedule this year.  I stopped by some other willow species in town and found that they have not yet bloomed.  The dandelion bloom has not started yet either.
Georgia is getting very full of bees- I think it would be a good idea to split her soon.  The problem is that I have only seen two drones around the hive so far this spring.  Without a sufficient supply of drones any new queen that is made after the split will not be able to mate well, and that will not make for a healthy hive.  I do hope drone production starts up soon.

Here is a picture of the pussy willow.  It was very full of bees- you could here the hum from quite a distance.

If you look through the willow branches you can see two hives.  The hive closest to the pussy willow is empty and will become Ida after the split.  The other one is Georgia.

Here are more photos of bees in the willow.

It seems a little early, but I do think spring is here.

Little White Fuzzies

This past weekend I noticed little white puffs of fuzz popping out on the pussy willow.

 Now in a couple of weeks these white fuzz balls should pop out in bright yellow blossoms covered in pollen, and the bees will kick pollen collection into high gear.  I looked back through the blog to find last year's pussy willow bloom date and found it on April 11th.  It looks like this year we are about 2 weeks ahead of last year.  This means that the big alfalfa bloom which has occurred on about June 20th for the last two years will happen closer to the first part of June- I can hardly wait!

I also noticed this past weekend that the bees are bringing in what looks like pollen.  I don't see anything green or blooming so who knows where this is coming from.  As you can see in the following photos the pollen baskets are small, but they are definitely there.

Interestingly, I read a blog today, which is kept by an experienced beekeeper in Minnesota, stating that what beekeepers think is pollen coming in lately is actually dust from bird feeders and deer feeders.  So, are my bees bringing in dust instead of pollen?  Maybe.  Or maybe there is a tree with catkins in the area that begins producing pollen earlier than other more obvious pollen sources.  Hazelnut trees, for example, bloom and pollinate in the middle of winter.

What do my bees have on their legs?  The world may never know- but they sure are fun to watch!