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.

Beekeeping in North Carolina

I'm in North Georgia for the July 4th week. While here I went to visit my new friend Ed to see his bees. Ed has four beehives in North Carolina just over the Georgia line. His hives are in a beeyard protected from bears by an electric fence with a solar powered battery. He shares his beeyard with about 30 hives belonging to Bob Binnie, a well-known N Georgia beekeeper from Lakemont, Georgia.

Bob unexpectedly arrived at Ed's house just before I did so I was lucky to get a free lesson about bees from someone who really knows his bees. Bob is one of the speakers at EAS(Eastern Apiculture Society) in Young Harris, Georgia in August this year. His topic is "Breaking in to New Markets." Bob sells his honey all over this area.

Ed and Bob wait until the sourwood is in bloom to put honey supers on their hives. I wondered why the bees didn't swarm if they had to wait this long before getting space to expand. Bob (in my wonderful private bee lesson) explained that the hives at Ed's place were mostly new splits, started in May, so in fact were just now at production strength.

I have to confess that I have never seen the queen in either of my hives or in any hive. Bob showed me the queen in one of the hives and I was thrilled to see her. He also showed me a queen cell and many examples from Ed's hives of great brood patterns.

I also learned from Bob how he lights his smoker. Everyone seems to have a different trick. Bob's (and as a result Ed does this too) is to use a paper towel. He fills the smoker with thick twine and a paper towel and then lights the towel. Unlike mine, which I can spend a minimum of 15 minutes trying to light, his went up in thick smoke right away. He keeps it running with pellets he gets from Dadant.

So for smokers so far:
--Virginia Webb uses wood chips and puts some in the bottom, lights them and keeps feeding the chips.
--My friend and mentor, Nickie, in Atlanta uses hamster cedar chips and pine needles
--Bob Binnie and Ed use paper towels to start the action and then feed Dadant pellets
--I, who take forever to get mine lit, use dryer lint, cedar chips and anything I can find that will burn......hmmm, I think it will be paper towels for me going forward!

It was certainly a privilege to see Bob in action. I asked him about his hives in the Rabun Gap area where my house is and it happens that he supplies the observation hive bees at Osage produce market where I buy local produce daily when I am up here. His hives line the highway beside Osage as well. After my afternoon at Ed's, I went back to Osage and found the queen in Bob's observation hive there!

When I was a little girl, we had a housekeeper who would also say, "We live and learn and dies and forgets it all." Goodness, I hope I remember all I observed while watching Bob.