Mellona as 2010 Bee Season Begins

I've seen a chipmunk under Mellona over the last several days. Today when I went out to open the hive for the first time in 2010, the entrance reducer had been pushed away. Maybe the bees did it in a Paul Bunyan effort, but I'll bet it was the chipmunk!

When I opened the hive, the baggie feeder of sugar syrup was still almost full. I put it on the hive 11 days ago. This says to me that they are not desperate for food, although I have not examined the boxes for provisions yet this year.



The hive looked small from opening the inner cover. The bees were concentrated on one side of the box. I assumed that probably meant the queen was in that area of the hive, so I expected to find brood either in the top or middle box on these side frames (2, 3, 4, 5).

In the past two winters, this hive has never moved out of the bottom box so I also was prepared to find activity and brood down there. However the bottom deep box that I have wanted to replace with a medium for two years was in fact full of empty-celled frames....not even any pollen stored there. I removed the box and will add a medium to this hive probably next week.



The top box had good honey stores still left after this hard, long winter, but I barely harvested anything from my hives last year.


On the outer frames I found never-used comb - I don't think it's this year's comb but the end of their comb-building from last year. If it were this year's comb, it probably wouldn't already be dirty, but with all the pollen they have been carrying in, perhaps it is from this year.



So Mellona is now an all-medium box hive! There were about 3 frames with capped brood on both sides. The brood area was small - about the size of a flattened grapefruit....but at least it was there. I saw some uncapped brood. The sun wasn't out, so I didn't see eggs although I tried and I didn't find Her Majesty - just evidence that she had been there.

"What's in a name? That which we call a Rose by any other name would smell as sweet."

This quote is from Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet.

I've been thinking about this all morning since I opened the hives today to see how the honey supers were looking. What's in a name? Well, maybe a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but I've been struck all day by how like their names my hives are behaving.

Last year I was into the beehives as leisure activity (what was I thinking???) and named my hives for vacation destinations. The hive that barely survived through the winter was Bermuda.

Bermuda, the country, is only 22 miles in length and 2 miles in width - quite a small piece of land. If I were to drive (I usually take MARTA) to the Atlanta airport from my house inside the perimeter around Atlanta, I drive 26 miles - farther than the entire length of Bermuda, the small country.

So my hive Bermuda, lives up to her name and is quite small. I'd like to give her an extra frame of brood but since I haven't yet switched to all medium boxes, the brood I have available from other hives is all on deep frames.

So Bermuda is growing very slowly. This bad picture is of a frame in the second box that the bees have finally drawn out and the queen (see middle of picture wearing a white dot) is laying well. But the hive is so small that today I put an entrance reducer on it to help them maintain their forces.
























The hive that drew the crazy comb is named Proteus. I named the hive Proteus because the Greek god Proteus saved the lives of bees, but he had another characteristic - he was a shape-changer.

So in this hive the bees refuse to build straight comb. The comb is never the shape it is supposed to be.

Michael Bush said that sometimes you can't get bees to draw straight comb. I think he must be right because the bees in Proteus take after their namesake and are continuing to draw crazy comb. I got them to stop it in one box which is now filled with beautiful capped honey, but in this their new box, they are still making bridging comb between frames (see the pieces in the frame below). Wikipedia gives all kinds of shape-changing references for Proteus. Perhaps I should have researched further before naming this hive in a way that suggests the bees will be shape-changing with the comb!

And finally there's Mellona, named for the Roman goddess of bees and beekeeping. Blessed by Mellona as this hive is with her name, the bees are quietly and methodically making wax and honey, busy as bees.

They are currently building up their fourth box. The boxes all have been drawn from starter strips. Mellona has a beautiful brood pattern and gorgeous capped honey (see below) in two boxes and the bees are busily drawing out comb and storing honey in the fourth box.

So what's in a name?

I think a lot - or in psychology we might say that this represents magical thinking on the part of the beekeeper to think that the name of the hive has influenced me to make assumptions about the bees in it. And they are fitting right into my assumptions....which is why magical thinking seems so effective!

Back Doors for the Bees

Since the weather is getting hotter, it's time to consider the hive's ventilation. For air circulation through the hive, it helps to give the bees a propped top. I usually find a stick to put in between the telescoping cover and the inner cover. Today I propped the tops on all three of my hives.

In addition to providing ventilation, the propped top gives the bees a back door. I do see them using it as such - perhaps it shortens the distance to the delivery of nectar when the top box (just under the inner cover under the propped lid) is where the bees are storing honey.

I also added a new box to both Proteus and Mellona. Proteus has brood in the bottom box and the medium above that was filled with almost completely capped honey in every frame. This is the box where they made confused comb. Mostly the comb is fine now and the box is almost completely capped. I want to encourage the queen to lay in the medium, so I put a new medium between the bottom deep and the honey-filled medium.

In the interest of giving these confused bees the best possible chance of building straight comb, I used Housel positioning in my starter strips and included two full frames of small cell foundation. I also wrote the name of the hive and the number of the box on the outside of each box. Proteus now has from the bottom up: Brood Box, Box 3 - new mostly SC starter strip frames with Housel positioning, Box 1 filled with capped honey; Box 2 - foundationless frames with starter strips.

In the version of Housel positioning that I used, I did not incorporate a center frame. For understanding what I mean by Housel positioning, see this earlier post.























Meanwhile, Mellona is going gangbusters with honey making. Mellona, the Roman goddess of the bees, is obviously working on this hive. When I checked the status, Mellona has beautiful comb throughout the hive. They have fully built out all of the boxes, so I added a fourth. When I checked yesterday, Mellona had a filled brood box on the bottom; a medium that they drew out from starter strip frames that is completely filled, a shallow (actually painted for another hive) that is already filled on 8 frames with almost capped honey. I wanted to add another honey super - a shallow using Housel positioning, so I did that today. I also labeled and numbered the boxes on Mellona in the order in which they were added. Unlike Proteus, the boxes on Mellona are stacked in the order in which they were added.
























I thought someone might like to see how close Proteus is to my sunporch. This picture was taken with me standing beside the other two hives looking at the back of Proteus.

And here is a picture of my grandson who spends every Friday with me, looking out of the sunporch door from the inside. This is the Dylan's-eye view of my beeyard on my deck.

Transformation of Destin

It's time to get ready for Bee Season. I painted Destin today and reclaimed the hive for new life for my new bees coming soon. I have lots of quarts of paint in my basement from indecisive moments choosing colors for my sunporch, so I am painting Destin with Grape Beginnings, hoping it will mean a GREAT beginning for the new hive. On the right of this picture, you can see the yellow of the previous hive and on the left, the new paint being applied.

I broke the hive down into the component parts - here's the hive stand - everyone doesn't use these but I like it because in taking pictures I can sometimes catch the bees on the landing strip that it provides.

And here is the screened bottom board - essential for mite defensiveness - if a mite falls through the screened bottom board when the bees groom themselves, or, I guess, if the mite is awkward and loses its footing, the mite can't come back up through the screen.

And here is the whole kit and caboodle newly painted from the yellow of Destin to its new Grape Beginnings color....guess it may look a little lavendar when it dries. I'm going to call this new hive Mellona - the name of the Roman goddess who was the patronness of bees. Maybe with a goddess looking after it, this hive will do better than its predecessor!