When we go to the community garden in Rabun County, I let her run free out of the car. While I am checking bees, she is racing up and down the creek banks and running through the water. She had fun. I did not.
I found no bees in the remaining Rabun hive. The first Rabun hive was dead before winter and someone/something destroyed the equipment. The remaining Rabun hive was populated by a swarm last spring and the bees were still going strong in December. Now, however, there are no bees. They left the hive full of honey. On the top of the slatted rack were dead hive beetles.
On the screened bottom board were less than 20 dead bees.
I brought the honey home and crushed it to feed to the new hives. I hope there isn't anything wrong with the honey but I assume with honey's antiseptic qualities that the risk of the honey being OK is pretty high.
The only frame I could find with any brood looked like this:
I feel a need to explain that my brood comb typically doesn't look this dark and dirty. I usually replace it every year, but a swarm moved into this hive with old comb before I knew they were there, so the hive didn't get its usual culling out of comb previous to spring.
Even with the SHB on the slatted racks, the honey had not been slimed. I brought home six frames of honey that tasted like kudzu.
I put the hive back together and left it as a 2 box hive. I smeared swarm lure (olive oil, beeswax and lemongrass oil) on the landing, under the inner cover and in several other places. Maybe the feral hive in the wall of the abandoned school nearby will send a swarm my way.
Meanwhile, I'll make several nucs in Atlanta with the idea of taking one of them up to Rabun to have bees there this year. My sweet friend, Julia, gave me a frame with at least one queen cell on it to do just that. I added frames from the Morningside apiary to make the nuc and if it succeeds, I'll take it to Rabun County.
Linda,
ReplyDeleteI had asked Jerry Wallace to look at a frame that looked just like yours with the capped brood. He said the pin holes in the capping indicated a virus from mites. He also said, he thought the mite threshold was lower now. I keep meaning to get clarification on why threshold has lowered. I had treated for mites in two of four hives that had the exact same situation. Not slimed, had stores and no bees.
Thanks, Cassandra. I think all of my hives that have died have met their end because of varroa vectored viruses. Then the hive has diminished until only a few bees are left and nobody to carry out the last of the dead. I'm hoping the split I made from the three year old survivor hive will do well and I'll be able to split it again next year. I'm planning on splitting survivors and crying over the losses and that's that.
ReplyDeleteLinda,
ReplyDeleteI am a third year beekeeper and taking the Texas Master Beekeeper apprentice test this week. Our local library has a community garden of 9 plots. They are interested in my placing a honey bee colony at the garden. This is a request for you to share your advice and experience from the Rabun Community Garden colony with me (before I meet with the head librarian and the gardeners for the Spring social.) Thanks!
My best advice is to meet with the gardeners as early as possible so that they are informed about how bees behave (don't get in front of the hives, don't move quickly around the bees). And tell the gardeners that they are not in danger if the bees are on their cucumbers - gardeners love knowing that if their cucumbers are straight, it means the bees pollinated them well! I meet with the gardeners at each community garden where I have placed a hive and answer their questions in the early spring. I give them my contact info so they can get in touch if need be. At the end of the season, I offered them first opportunity to buy honey. Good luck with your community garden efforts.
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