A Metro inspection is scheduled for Blue Heron on September 25, the last one of the year. We went over this weekend because we wondered how the hives were doing and if they needed feeding. We took sugar syrup in preparation.
When we got there we discovered various problems. Julia's first hive did have some honey and we saw the queen, but the hive was light and needed feeding. Her second hive, BP of the oil trap spill, had absconded - nary a bee in the place. My hive looked like it had been robbed, and it had some other problems which you can see in the slideshow below. We addressed the problems, were sad about the loss, and fed the bees with hope for the future of the two hives that are left.
Both of the hives that are left were low enough on stores that we will need to feed heavily throughout the rest of September and October.
Click on the slideshow to see it full size - also there are captions for each picture.
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Hi Linda,
ReplyDeleteyou've got a great site -- I find it so helpful. The uncapped pupae you see could be the bees are being "hygienic" -- they recognize somehow that there's a varroa mite in with the pupae. There's more on Randy Oliver's site here: http://www.scientificbeekeeping.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=22&Itemid=40
Kind regards,
Chris
Maybe they are being hygienic and have opened the cells to remove the bee pupae. Why I thought it might be something else is that the pupae looked like they had been opened for a couple of days. Most of the bees I've had that are hygienic don't let the grass grow under their little bee feet before removing the ill or damaged bee.
ReplyDeleteI do love Randy Oliver and he directly says that you will see pupae in the purple eyed phase when they have been uncapped for hygienic reasons. I like that much better than cannibalism (although I know bees do that too!)
ReplyDelete