Bee Business for Today

I inspected the hives today with several items on the agenda. First I wanted to see if I should add sugar syrup to the hives. This would be determined by the presence and strength of the numbers of the small hive beetles in my hives.

Second I wanted to see if the queen were alive and laying in Mellona. The numbers of bees have diminished greatly and I've been worried that the queen may have died while I was out of town on vacation earlier in September.

First when I opened the hive, I saw SHBs but in much smaller numbers. I had added the vinegar frame trap to the hive last Saturday and there wasn't a single beetle in the trap. I took out the feeding bottle from Mellona and you can see the SHBs in the edge of the screw top. I think this indicates that they do thrive with the sugar syrup, just as they do with grease patties.

However, Mellona isn't very prepared for winter. There are empty frames, as a result of the dearth at the end of the summer, with comb but no stores in the upper box where the honey should be, so I want to feed these bees.

Bob Binnie, a Georgia beekeeper who I really respect, says to feed your bees 2 gallons of sugar syrup per hive as winter approaches. So, SHB or no SHB, I am going to put food on this hive today.

When I began looking for the queen, I found capped brood and frames with nothing in the frame - no brood, no honey, no pollen, just empty cells. I even found the comb in the second picture which looks like queen cells on the edge - kind of bizarre - each of which has a hole in the bottom.

I went down into the bottom brood box, looking for evidence of the queen. I found several frames that were empty of brood and anything else. I found a beautiful frame filled with pollen (I've been watching them bring it in). I found lots of capped brood, but no evidence of new or young brood.

I left the hive opened and went to Bermuda while I thought about what steps to take. I could call the Purvis Brothers and see if they had a queen available and drive up to get her. I could put a frame of brood and eggs from Bermuda into Mellona, but that would do no good because in neither hive did I see drones, meaning that making a queen on their own would not work since the drones aren't around for mating.

Well, I thought, I need to make completely sure so I looked at every single frame in the lower brood box of Mellona. On the last frame I looked at, I finally saw evidence of the queen. Babies and very small brood. I didn't see any eggs, but I never do when out at the hives and the brood I saw was very young. I also didn't hear the queenless roar which I now know to recognize, so I felt reassured that Her Majesty is functioning.