Do Bees Like Broccoli?

The question is, Do bees like broccoli?

The answer is, Yes!

For some reason the broccoli in our garden did not form nice tight heads this year so we never cut them. They eventually went to seed, and the little yellow flowers turned out to be very attractive to the bees!

 

Bumper Crop

Well, I see that I haven't posted anything in this blog since June 11th.  I have had a very busy summer and haven't had time to keep up very well.  Besides neglecting the blog I feel like I have neglected the bees as well.  But, as you will see the bees have taken care of themselves.

We had a very mild winter, and spring started early this year.  The alfalfa, which is our main nectar source, blossomed a full three weeks early, but the majority of the fields within a couple miles of our house did not get cut any earlier than they usually do.  This gave the bees a huge extended nectar flow.  In fact, I ended up putting four supers on both Ida and Georgia and ran out of supers by the end of June.  I extracted two supers full and got 70 lbs (about 6 gallons) so I would have some supers to put back on the hives.

That is when things got really busy, and I rarely got back out to check the bees.  But about three weeks ago I did get out and quickly checked Svetlana, that is the new hive from the package of Russian hybrids I installed in April.  She had had one super on her for quite some time and had hardly touched it.  All the frames were still empty.  I decided that, when I had time, I would take the honey from her deep hive bodies and let her die out over the winter.  I would then be able to split one of the other hives next spring and put them in Svetlana's hive.  However, this last weekend I went out to pull her deep frames and found that she had almost completely filled in the entire super.  I decided to leave her alone and let the bees continue with their work.  I guess when they decided to get after it they really got after it.

Since we are getting close to the end of August I went out today to check the supers and get an idea of how much honey we might get and to decide how long to wait before we harvest.  It was amazing how gentle the bees were- I went through all nine supers with no smoke, and they did not get upset at all.  Here is a picture of one of the frames out of Ida.  This is what I like to see- a nice fat frame of honey all capped and ready for extraction.

Almost all of the frames in the hives looked just like this.  I think that six of the supers could be extracted right now.  The other three are probably 75% full and capped.  I will give them a couple more weeks and plan on taking their honey sometime in the first week of September.

Wow- nine supers!  That could mean up to twenty-seven gallons of honey this fall plus the two we extracted in June.  This has definitely been a bumper year.  Our biggest year until now has been just seventeen gallons.  A new record for the Robertson bees!

If you have ever wondered what happens to a hive when the beekeeper doesn't stay on top of things and keep the burr comb cleaned out you can just look here.

 The bees had built so much extra comb and stuck everything together so well that it was really difficult to pry the supers apart.  It is amazing how strong bees wax can be.

After prying the supers apart and exposing all the honey that had been stored between the frames, some of the bees come out for a little snack.

I took a little snack for myself and the family, too.  Good stuff!

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.