Signs of the diminshing Nectar Flow

In Atlanta our nectar flow is tied to the bloom of the tulip poplar.  When the tulip poplar is done, the nectar flow is pretty much over.  We will continue to have nectar sources and we always have a little bump in the availability of nectar when the sumac and catalpa bloom in late June/early July, but for now, it's over.

This has been a funny spring.  Everything is two weeks earlier than last year.  The privet hedge bloomed in coincidence with everything else, and it will be interesting to see how that flavors the honey.

If I couldn't look up in the tulip poplars above my backyard and see that the bloom is done, I could tell that the nectar flow is over by the behavior of the bees.  They are still primed to collect nectar and disappointed that it has almost suddenly stopped.

They indicate that it is over by collecting honey wherever they can.

I had the two frames below sitting under my deck since January when I discovered that my hives in my backyard had died.  These frames had been somewhat slimed by the small hive beetle and the bees ignored them…….that is, until today.  Today there are bees robbing out these two frames like crazy.




Also I have lots of wax under my house cut out of frames and waiting for Jeff to build us a bigger solar wax melter.    Some of that had remnants of honey in it and you can see bees all over the comb in the foreground.



Another way to tell that the nectar flow has ended is that the bees have slowed down in building comb.  Whether you use foundation or not, when the nectar stops, the bees stop drawing wax.  They have to have resources to build wax and without nectar, they have no fuel.

When you have foundationless frames, it's quite obvious as you can see in the empty hive box below from Morningside.  If you use foundation, there's an illusion that something is going on because each frame is full (of plastic foundation, that is) but in those boxes as well as my foundationless boxes, NOTHING is happening in Atlanta today.

Possible Crisis Intervention

What was left of Mellona has been surviving but failing to thrive.  I've seen so much evidence of hive beetle problems that I have been going after the hive beetle using the Sonny-Mel trap and AJ's but haven't opened the hive further for fear of releasing more beetles.

When I opened the hive to check on the traps today, I could see wax moth detritus and was quite alarmed so I looked into the hive.  The bees were living on eight frames - four in the bottom box and four above in the next box.  The rest of the hive was filled with wax moth, slimed honey and a lizard.

I decided the only possible hope for this hive was to give them a new home.  I took the hive completely apart.  Here's what the slatted rack looked like - gross, gross, gross.  I invited the lizard (I think it was a skink - see photo about 5 down on this link) with a nudge out of the hive with my hive tool.



Here are two of the frames covered with wax moth web and mess.



I luckily found the queen on the first wax moth covered frame.  I coaxed her onto a drawn frame that I had waiting for her and put her into the white box on the bottom.  I then added or shook bees into the hive.   I put a few frames from the old hive in that showed no wax moth occupancy and weren't slimed.

I shook bees into the hive from each frame.  As you would expect, many bees did not want to leave their box, so I stood this one on its side to encourage them.



So the bees and the queen are now in the bottom box with drawn comb and two frames of honey.  I'll probably take a frame of brood from the Blue Heron hive, if there's one available in the medium box on that hive and add it to this hive.  The top box is an empty box serving as a surround for the Sonny-Mel trap and the baggie of sugar syrup that I put on this hive to feed the bees that are there.  I do have a shim that I could use in place of the empty hive and that would give the bees less room to have to protect. I'll change that when I get home from work today.

My experience with the slimed honey frames is that the bees do want the honey.  I didn't want to put slimed frames into the clean new hive situation, so I put the slimed honey frames into the empty hive in the yellow boxes.  This doesn't leave it exposed to the beeyard, but it can get robbed out by the Mellona bees.  Beekeepers say the bees won't eat the slimed honey and I think that's true inside their own hive box, but out in my carport or in this yellow hive box, I guarantee they'll transfer every bit of it to their home hive.

My deepest regret this year is switching positions to equalize the beeyard.  I now have essentially lost two hives because I did that; I harvested no honey from Atlanta this year because I did that; and I have felt like a terrible beekeeper because I didn't honor the old saying, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."  Never will I do a switch to equalize hives again.

Slimed! SHB kills Another of My Beehives

The damage from SHB is so slimy and so gross.  The queenless hive, left for a week while I went to a conference is in a state of complete demise.  SHB slime and larvae were everywhere.

We are in a dearth and bees were also everywhere - not living in the hive - but robbing out any and all nectar that they could find.  There were so many and they looked so organized that at first I thought a swarm might have moved in while I was gone, but watching closely it was clear that these bees were invaders.

In most robbing instances the bees are at battle - resident bees against the marauders.  In this hive, there were so few bees and they were so quickly defeated that the bees entering the hive to rob it, entered without the caution or hesitancy that robbers usually employ.

Below you can see the sheen of the slime.



Most gross are the slimy larvae of the small hive beetle.


Here's a huge pile of them.  I left the hive wide open to the sunlight to get rid of the larvae.  I said in an earlier post that I would be ordering nematodes but I didn't do it.  That's first on my list today.



I've now lost two hives to small hive beetles - first time in my beekeeping history.

On the good news side, I went to a talk by Cindy Bee at Young Harris on rendering wax.  She used the combs that had been slimed by SHB.  I ordered a burner (she uses a propane burner but I got an electric one) and will have an opportunity to melt down this gross wax using her methods.  Then I'll probably take the product and render it a second time in the solar wax melter.