The Story Of A Beehive That Struggled For A While But Is Doing Better Now

I’m back! It has been a while, I know, and I will admit that initially it was just laziness on my part. But then the computer went down and it took a couple of weeks to get it up and going again. Now it has been so long and so much has happened that I am not sure how to tackle everything in one post. I guess I will add it all in “chapters”.

Back in July and August I mentioned that the Virginia hive was doing a poor job of drawing comb in its super with the queen excluder. I removed the queen excluder and the bees moved right up, started drawing comb, and storing nectar. I didn’t think the queen would move up to the super because she had a ceiling of honey on the tops of the frames in the top deep hive body. In other words she was “honey bound”. At the next inspection though, I found eggs in the center frames of the super. We don’t want eggs in the super because that is supposed to be the honey that we get to steal. I promptly put the queen excluder back in place to keep the queen out of my honey. During a later inspection I found that all of those eggs had developed into larvae and then capped brood. It was just a matter of waiting for them to emerge from the cells and clean them out so the cells could be filled with nectar which would be “ripened” into honey.

While Virginia suffered complications, Georgia’s hive seemed to be really taking off. She has been outpacing Virginia since the middle of July. Virginia was definitely the stronger of the two hives in the beginning and she filled up her deep hive bodies about a week before Georgia did. Starting in July, though, Virginia began to struggle. I mentioned in an earlier post that I destroyed what may have been a supercedure cell in Virginia’s hive. Since that time I have left the bees to do what they wanted. I did see what could have been supercedure cells in Virginia but did not look too closely as I did not want to damage them. They might also have been empty queen cups. In any case, Virginia seemed to lack the activity outside the hive that Georgia was having- that is until a few days ago. I went out to work a little in the garden and found hundreds of bees in front of Virginia taking orientation flights. I had not seen this for a while and I was getting a little nervous. I have theorized that Virginia’s bees did supercede the queen and it took a while for the new queen to emerge, mate with the drones, start laying eggs, and then for those new bees to emerge and start working in the hive. Now we just need to let her build up her numbers and I think she will be good to make it through the winter.

That's probably good for now. I will catch you up with the rest later.

Foragers

This is an alfalfa field south of town. You can see the Pryor Mountains in the background. I am pretty sure that these fields provide the main nectar source for the area.

On the left you can see big blue boxes that house cutter bees- the main pollinators for alfalfa. Honeybees get nectar from alfalfa but do not pollinate it.





Here is a close up view of some alfalfa blossoms from the field. The fields are jammed full of these little things.








Here we have a bee working the blossoms on the broccoli in our garden. Last years broccoli gave us nice big tight heads of broccoli. We must have grabbed a different variety this year because the heads were loose and sparse so we decided to just let it go to seed and see what the bees could do with it. They love it!













We have quite a lot of clover in our lawn. The bees had been ignoring it for the first part of the summer. They are paying more attention to it now.



















Pretty good profile of the bee here sucking the nectar out of the clover.












The wings really reflect the sunlight. When the sun is shining during mid-morning the bees reflect the sunlight as they take of and come in to the hives. It looks like little points of light zipping through the air.











Straight head-on view here. Too bad it doesn't have it's proboscis out to stick down into the clover.


















Honeybee in a red hollyhock. I thought that bees would only use hollyhocks for pollen- they have so much of it. But as you can see this bee is going past the pollen and I assume is sucking nectar from the center of the flower.

The bees were ignoring our hollyhocks as well until a couple of weeks ago.









Finally, a honeybee in a pink hollyhock. This one is dusted in pollen.

Confessions Of A Confused Beekeeper

Well, I have a lot of catching up to do- it has been a while.

As you might recall, back on the post dated Juy 12th I had reported that the bees were doing a poor job of drawing comb in the medium super I had placed on top of Virginia's hive a couple of weeks earlier. During that same inspection I found that Georgia had filled in her deep hive bodies with comb and so placed a super on top of her as well. Well, a week later I inspected the hives again only to find that there were very few bees in the supers and they were still making very little progress up there. Besides that, as I was inspecting Virginia I discovered what appeared to be a supercedure cell. I freaked out a little and destroyed the supercedure cell- I am not sure why I did that, but I did. I guess I felt like if there was a supercedure cell then there was something wrong. No supercedure cell, nothing wrong- so I wiped it out. I asked about the situation with other beekeepers on beesource.com and got scolded just a little for destroying a new queen cell that the bees probably needed. Always trust the bees! They know best!

There were still eggs in Virginia when I destroyed the supercedure cell, so I thought I would give it a few days and reinspect. I figured that if they really did need a new queen they might still have time to make a new supercedure cell from one of the remaining eggs. If there was not time I thought I would steal a frame full of eggs from Georgia and give it to Virginia so there would be plenty of eggs for a new queen cell. Once I got into Virginia for this second time I spotted the queen and lots of eggs but no supercedure cell. Since the queen was still there and there were eggs with which the bees could supercede if they needed to, I left everything the way it was. Yes- I decided to trust the bees. If there are any more experienced beekeepers reading this and are shaking their heads wondering what this newbie thinks he is doing- Please comment and tell me what is really going on and what I should be doing. Thanks!

While I was down in the brood nest the bees got pretty ticked off. I was glad to be wearing my veil and gloves. I couldn't believe how many bees were in the bottom box- they just kept boiling out. Anyway, my seven year old was out playing in the yard (this had never been a problem before), and the bees decided to go after him. He ended up with 3 stings before he made it in the house. I was talking to another beekeeper in town about it and asked why they were so mad this time. He said that if you mess around in the brood nest in the middle of summer they will always get ticked off. I will leave the brood nest alone for the rest of the summer.

Now back to the problem of the bees not making progress drawing comb up in the supers- Some of the other beeks on Beesource don't use queen excluders. They say that bees don't like to cross the excluder and it puts a damper on honey production up in the supers. I decided to pull the queen excluder off Virginia and leave it on Georgia. About 5 days later I went back and just looked through the supers. I found that the super on each hive was full of bees and that both hives were making significant progress- there was some comb on nearly every frame and the center frames had quite a bit. There was even some nectar being stored. From this I have concluded that, at least in our two hives, a queen excluder may not be necessary as the bees in Virginia were storing nectar and there were not eggs, but that the presence of a queen excluder does not hinder anything since both hives seem to be making equal progress. Maybe there was just a lull in the nectar flow which picked back up last week?

I was not expecting the bees to have made this much progress in this their first year so I do not have extra supers and frames on hand. I can see that I will need to provide more space for the bees. I have ordered two more supers and ten frames for each from Mann Lake Ltd. They should be arriving sometime next week. I think I still have time before they run out of space.

The alfalfa fields are still in bloom. I am surprised that the alfalfa to be used for seed is still blooming- this has gone on for quite a while. The other alfalfa fields used for hay have been cut once, are in bloom for the second time, and are just about ready for their second cutting. I had never noticed how pretty alfalfa blossoms are and how many there are. All summer the bees had pretty much ignored the nectar and pollen in our yard but are now all over the hollyhocks, clover growing in the grass, and the broccoli plants we let go to seed. Most of the bees do still take off for parts unknown but I have been able to catch a few photos of the bees on blossoms in our own yard. I will post those photos in the next post either tonight or tomorrow- the next post chronologically but the first post as it appears on this page.

New Sting

I got stung again. The first time I got stung I just wanted to peek under the top hive feeder and look in the hive for a second. The feeder had been glued in place with propolis and by the time I got it off it came up with a loud "CRACK" that set the bees off. One of them stung me on my forhead. I barely felt it and by the next morning it had swelled up in a knot and itched for a few days.

This time I just wanted to peek in the supers to see how much comb the bees had drawn. Chris has told me never to open the hives without my gear on. Why did I do it? I think I can relate to Pippin in The Lord Of The Rings when he couldn't help himself and had to look at the palantir just one more time. Anyway, I lifted off the outer and inner covers and 2 bees shot out of the hive and nailed my on the side of the wrist and the back of the hand next to my watch. They were more painful than the first sting but not horrible and they did stop hurting within 30 seconds. That night they looked like mosquito bites and nothing more. The next day my hand began to swell. Eventually my knuckles disappeared and the swelling extended up my fingers. Below is a picture of what my hand looked like this morning.

By the time this picture was taken a lot of the swelling had gone down, but you can still see some puffiness in the middle knuckles in my middle, ring, and pinky fingers.

Now, I have taken the outer and inner covers off, peeked in the supers, and replaced the covers several times without incident. I think that as the summer heats up and they bees have more honey to defend they are becoming a little more protective of their hives. I think I will leave them alone now and only look in when I am doing inspections with the smoker and all the gear in place.

Adding Supers

I dug into the hives a few days ago. We have had a super on top of Virginia's hive for a couple of weeks now, and I fully expected to see the bees building comb and filling it up with nectar. There has been a nectar flow going on for quite a while since the alfalfa has been blooming. Maybe it hasn't been as strong a flow as I thought because when I looked into the super there wasn't much comb.

Here in this photo you can see the small amount of comb the bees had built on this frame. There were four frames with about this same amount of comb. I was hoping for more.

Once I got through the super I started into the upper deep hive body. I could immediately see that the bees had filled out all the deep frames. The first frame was really cemented in place with wax and propolis. That combined with the fact that it was full of nectar and capped honey, which makes the frame surprisingly heavy, made it difficult to remove from the hive. You are supposed to carefully pull the frames straight up so you don't damage the comb. Well, as I wrenched the frame loose from the wax and propolis, the frame twisted sideways as I pulled it up. Besides this, there was a piece of burr comb on the side of the hive facing the frame. As I pulled the frame out at a crooked angle the burr comb scratched along the honey comb on the frame and pretty well mangled a big chunk of comb. I pulled it on out as it was dripping with honey- I bet a couple cups of honey dripped out. I captured some of the drippings- just enough for everybody in the family plus one neighbor kid to have a taste. Mmmm- Delicious!

Here is a shot of one of the deep frames with mostly capped honey and some open cells full of nectar toward the bottom.

Another frame with capped honey on the top half and some capped brood in the bottom half. When we first started I worried that I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between capped honey and capped brood. The difference is obvious, isn't it?

Once I discovered that there was plenty of capped brood and new eggs in Virginia I figured that the queen was doing well. I don't know what else I could accommplish by going throught he rest of the hive except disrupt the hive operations so I put things back together and didn't bother inspecting the bottom box.

Georgia's hive still had it's top hive feeder and the bees had been taking large amounts of sugar syrup. I removed the feeder and looked down into the the deep hive body and saw that the bees had finished drawing comb on all of the deep frames. As I started the inspection I found that the bees had not filled all of the comb with nectar/sugar syrup, but they were making progress.

As I came across frames with capped brood I saw something I had not seen before. As the bee larvae grows it is capped with wax and the larvae transform through the pupae stage and turn into adult bees. When they are fully developed the worker bees chew away the wax caps and climb out. The drones need help chewing through the wax caps and climbing out of the cells from worker bees. Anyway, I looked closely at one of Georgia's frames of capped brood and discovered two cells where the worker bees inside were in the process of chewing their way out of their cells. I could see little sets of antennae and eyes poking through. I tried to take pictures but, like I have said before, we need a new camera. They turned out way to blurry to post.

After I was done inspecting Georgia I added a queen excluder, a super, the inner cover, and replaced the outer cover.

Here is a photo of the two hives sid by side. They both now consist of, starting at the bottom: screened bottom board, two deep hive bodies, queen exluder which cannot be seen, 1 medium honey super, inner cover which cannot be seen, outer cover, and a brick to keep the outer cover from blowing off.

This is not how the color scheme was supposed to work out. Virginia was supposed to be yellow and Georgia was supposed to be blue but, if you read the very first post of this blog you know that the second hive didn't arrive until a couple of hours after the bees did. We were forced to use Virginia's second deep as Georgia's first and we didn't get a chance to paint Georgia's bottom board before we had to install the packages. Now the colors are all mixed up. Oh well, it gives them character, right?

Hopefully the nectar will continue to flow and they will start drawing comb in the supers. Progress seems kind of slow but if you consider that they started with just three pounds of bees and no comb, they have really done a lot in just 2 months and 3 weeks.

Hummin' Hives

Ok- I know I just gave an update yesterday, but I have to mention what happened this morning. I sometimes like to listen to the hives- that has always meant pressing my ear against the side of the hive and litening to the hum inside. Is that weird? Maybe. But I enjoy it anyway. Anyway, back to the story- I went outside at 6:00 this morning ready to leave for work and decided to go look at the hives really quick. When I got within 5 feet I thought I could hear a low hum. I said to myself "That can't be the bees." I took a couple more steps and listened again and confirmed that it was in fact the bees humming that loudly! I have read about this on beesource.com before and I am excited to hear it myself. It is the sign of a really good nectar flow with the bees in the hive fanning the honey comb with their wings in order to evaporate the moisture out of the honey. Our bees are so cool!

Sweet Honey

Well, there hasn’t been a whole lot of new news with the bees lately. We did inspect the bees last week but there was virtually no progression in either hive, which left very little to blog about. We did peek in the hives yesterday, though and there is a little more to discuss.

To start with, we have been mildly concerned about the Virginia hive. A couple of weeks ago, since she had dawn comb on 8 of the 10 frames, we added a super and removed the top hive feeder. During last week’s inspection we found that there were some eggs and larvae, but the brood pattern was kind of spotty and there was not any new comb that was not there the previous week. In retrospect we can see that we were just a little too excited with Virginia and jumped the gun a little. We should have waited one more week before adding the second deep hive body and should have continued to feed them 1 more week before adding the super. I read somewhere (and any of you who might know better can feel free to correct me if I am wrong) that it takes a pound of honey to make 1 ounce of wax. I think that when the super was added there was no nectar flow going on. With no nectar flow the bees can’t make honey. If the bees are not making honey they can’t build much comb either.

During this past week the bees from both hives have been very active. All day long the bees have been taking off for and returning from parts unknown. The way the hives are situated in the back yard they either have to fly up and over hedge about 10 feet tall across the yard to the east, up and over a hedge about 8 feet tall to the north, or up and over the house to the south west. Consequently they all fly up immediately after leaving the hive. Anyway, when the sun is shining, the bee’s bodies reflect the sunlight. It is a beautiful sight to look toward the hives and see all these little points of light constantly shooting up and coming down.

As we have watched the bees coming in this past week we have noticed that they have been bringing in very little pollen. We assumed that this meant that there must be a good nectar flow going on and they were bringing in nectar instead. This was confirmed when, during yesterdays hive inspection, we discovered that Virginia had very nearly finished drawing out comb in the deep hive bodies and filled them with capped honey. Capped honey, by the way, is the finished honey ready to be eaten. Bees fill the honey comb cells with regurgitated nectar which has been treated with various enzymes used to break down the sugars in the nectar. They then fan the honeycomb to evaporate the water until they have nice ripe honey. They cover the honey with wax caps so they can store it until it is needed. As of yesterday they had just started to draw comb up in the super. I am thinking that if we had just been a little more patient and added boxes and stopped feeding at the right times we might be a week ahead of where we are now.

The nectar flow we are now experiencing must be from the alfalfa fields outside of town. They have all been full of little purplish blue blossoms. It is now time for the first cutting of hay so those fields will be out of commission until just before the second cutting. There are several fields being used for seed rather than hay. I do not know if alfalfa will continue to blossom as long as it is not cut or if the blossoms will dry up as it goes to seed. Does anyone out there know? Please leave a comment and tell me if you do.

Anyway, I did scrape a little burr comb with some capped honey from the top of the frames in Virginia’s top deep hive body. There wasn’t a lot of honey there- just enough to smear on a couple of fingers for Chris and myself. It was a very light mild honey- and quite tasty. Woohoo! Our first taste of Robertson honey!

Georgia, as usual, is lagging just a little behind Virginia. She has drawn comb on 7 of the 10 frames in her upper deep. When I saw this I got excited and just about removed the feeder and added a super. I took a deep breath, remembered Virginia, and decided to feed one more week before adding the super. I am confident that next week there will be a super sitting on top of both hives, and, as long as the alfalfa keeps up, both will be filling up with honey.