A Strange Find in SHB Trap

Today I went to check on Sebastian's hives.  We had put a new SHB trap on one of those hives on April 21.  I wanted to see if the trap were working and I wanted to see if either hive needed a new box.

 We are in the middle of the Atlanta nectar flow but the weather has beaten the tulip poplar blossoms off of the trees and hasn't really been conducive to nectar collection - cold nights, drippy days.


















I pulled out the oil trap in the new SHB trap first and this is what I saw:

In case you are confused, those are NOT small hive beetles - those are earwigs drowned in oil.  I didn't see a single small hive beetle either in the hive or in the trap!

The hive was doing fine but did not need a new box.

The second hive - the survivor there from last year - was doing great.  There was lots of brood.  As is true in hives with slatted racks, the queen had laid the frames from end to end.   What I mean by that is that she had brood from the end bar on one end to the end bar on the other end!

Not only that, the frame below with solid brood on both sides was the last frame in the box, right by the side of the box.  

The frame on the far side of the box was solid honey.  I moved it out and replaced it with a foundationless frame. I then moved that honey filled frame into the middle of a new box fitted with foundationless frames.  We'll see if they fill it up.

I then went to Stonehurst to see how the hive there was doing.  Here's what the top box looked like:

I moved one of these up into an empty box and added a box to this hive.  I also met the very nice new innkeepers, Paul and Lorrie.  Caroline and Gary have retired so I'll get to know this new couple as I work the bees over there.  

I also made a quick stop at Morningside to add a box to that fantastic hive.  Here's how it looks now:

First Hive Openings of 2013

Today I came home from a mountain site visit for a professional conference, immediately donned my bee gear and headed for the bee hives.  We've had such rain in Atlanta and finally today was sunny and a temperature when I could open the hives.  It was a mixed experience.

In my own backyard, I opened the first hive which was small going into winter.  It was housed in two boxes but really only needed one.  There was still a little honey on the hive.

This is a small group of bees but the queen is laying.  At first I only found spotty brood so she may have some problems.  I did find further frames with more solid brood on them, though.

I decided to treat this hive more like a nuc and left it in a single box.  I'll check next week and maybe either combine it with another or give it more resources from another hive.

Originally my plan was to give this hive some frames of brood and eggs from the very strong hive next to it (the only other hive in my own yard).

I opened the hive next to it and found it boiling over with bees:

When I looked through the hive, I found it to be full of honey and I found frames where they are obviously bringing in new nectar (I saw this in several hives today).  I don't know where they are getting it at this February date, but they are finding nectar somewhere.

But then my heart sank when I pulled the first frame with brood on it.  Only drone brood and tons of it - three frames that looked like this:

I looked through the entire hive and did not find ANY worker brood.  This probably means the queen who was new last year was probably "short-bred" to use a Keith Fielder term.  That means that she didn't get enough mating before she was placed in the nuc and thus couldn't make more worker brood.

Queens need to fly out several times sometimes to get fully mated or when they are in the air, they need to mate with up to 17 or so drones.  This one may not have gotten that opportunity.

The bees are everywhere in this hive.  I don't know how to make sense of this unless 21 days ago, her sperm ran out.  It's also possible that I couldn't see eggs in other frames since it was about 4:00 and the sun was not in a position to allow me to get a good view, but this was my strongest looking hive at this point, so I was really upset by what I found.

Originally I had planned to take a frame of what I thought would be plentiful brood and eggs from this hive to put in the small hive next door, but that was not to be.

Then I went to Sebastian's house where I found a lovely surprise.  This hive was doing well.  I didn't spend a lot of time in the hive because as soon as I knew it was OK, my instinct was to close it up.  I saw the queen and was happy.  She still had her yellow paint dot, though quite worn, on her thorax.

As you can see, this frame is full of nectar.  I was so pleased to see this.

I left Sebastian's and rushed down Piedmont to the Stonehurst Place Inn to check on those hives.

There are three hives there, although one box is empty and has been since right before harvest when the largest hive was robbed out and died.  I left one box there as a swarm lure.  The two that are left include one strong hive and one that doesn't look too great.

I opened up the weak one first.  I found only two deep frames of bees (these hives were purchased nucs last year).  The hive appeared queenless.  Oddly there was a full super of honey on the top and more honey in the second box although it wasn't full.  The bottom box was full of equal amounts of hive beetles and bees.  (Odd that the beetles weren't in the honey).  The bees looked pitiful.  The brood I didn't get pictures of, but it was scattered and looked old.  I think the hive is queenless.  I took a frame of brood and eggs from the stronger hive and put it into this hive to give them a chance to make a queen, but I really have my doubts.

The strong hive looked great.  Good brood, lots of it and frames of pollen and nectar.  This hive is a keeper.  I took a frame of honey out of the weak hive to put in a frame of brood and eggs from the strong hive. Since I don't know if those bees are just weak from queenlessness or because they are ill, I brought the honey home rather than giving it to another hive.  I replaced the empty space with a drawn comb.

Last but definitely not least I went to the Morningside Garden hives.  There is one hive that is dead there.  I did an autopsy on it and found absolutely no bees in the hive.  There were dead bees on the screened bottom board - I believe they went queenless into winter and died in the first cold snap.  Clearly they didn't starve.  I took the hive apart and left one box on the hive stand as a swarm lure.

Then I opened the live hive and found the best hive of the day.  This hive was thriving.  Under the cover, I found lots of ants and of all things, ladybugs.  Julia told me she found ladybugs in one of her hives.  This is a first for me in eight years.

But inside the hive were frames and frames of beautiful brood patterns.  I didn't see any swarm cells but I didn't look into the bottom box.  By the time I got here the sun was setting and I had my answer - the hive was doing well.

BTW, I worked on six hives today, lit my smoker and left it at the hive entry, wore no gloves, moved very slowly and did not get stung once even though these bees have not been disturbed all winter.  One of the best parts of wearing no gloves is I could really feel the heat of the hives.  In summer, Atlanta deserves its moniker: Hotlanta and there is no difference between the outside air temp and the temp inside the hive.  But today it was 60 outside but 90 in the hive around the bees and I could really feel it by going gloveless.

I also didn't brush off any bees.  If a bee landed on my hands, as many did, I continued to move slowly and trusted that they weren't after me but rather were landing on my hand because it was there.  I loved the way it all felt.

So I still need to visit the hives at Timber Trail.  I hope the two there are doing better than some of the ones I observed today.  I have time tomorrow, but I think the weather is going to be cold and not good for opening the hives.

Another Bee Day - at Jeff and Valerie's House

Today I went to Jeff and Valerie's house to check the hives there.  I started with Five Alive.  Look at the beautiful wax they are drawing.  This is the last frame in the box so it is drawn out the least.



The hive was full in every frame except the outside frame, so I decided it needed a new box.  I put the new box under the top box and took two frames of brood out of that box to make a ladder in the new box.  (A ladder allows the bees passage to start drawing wax from the top bar.) When I took out a full frame, I replaced it with a foundationless frame with a wax strip as in the photo below.



This is what Five Alive looked like when I closed it up - and it's only April 3!



I then went to what we've called the swarm hive but is now Lenox Pointe 2 because we moved the queen by accident into that hive.

They aren't going crazy and aren't building up as fast as other hives, but they are storing lovely honey.



And they are equipped with a laying queen.



If you enlarge the photo below you can also see eggs.






Then I went to the original Lenox Pointe - remember the queen was only laying drones.  Well, that was just how she started - now she is laying beautiful brood - you can also see larvae in the photo below.



Her frames are arranged just so - with honey in the corners, pollen next, and capped brood.



Last but not at all least, I opened Colony Square.  The top box is a full box of honey and I know they need a new box.  Instead of going into the hive (because I knew I couldn't lift the fifty pound full box to position six (over my head), I opened it and added a new box above the top box.  I didn't make a ladder with their own frames, but did have two fully drawn frames that I put in the center of the new box to provide ladder facility.

And this is what Colony Square looked like when I left.

A Big Bee Day: Nucs, Nucs, Nucs

First thing this morning I went to pick up nucs from my friend Jerry Wallace.  He had a yard full of nucs waiting for the purchasers.  I loved chatting bees with Jerry and his father-in-law (also a member of our bee club).  Jerry put the nuts on this trailer to close up the entrance.



He sprayed the bees with sugar syrup to encourage them to go inside the nuc.



Then he closed up the entrance with a stapled piece of screened wire.



I took the first two to Sebastian and Christina's house.  I didn't expect them to be at home and nobody answered the door, but we had prearranged the installation, so all was well.   They had cut the grass and settled the hives into place.

I set both nucs on top of the hive they would occupy.



As I was opening the first nuc, Christina appeared from a dog walk and wanted to watch.  I didn't have a lit smoker - it was in the car - and I had already started opening the nuc.  She was sleeveless, but wanted to see the installation.

I had left the boxes set up with room for the five nuc frames.



As Christina was taking the next two pictures, she got stung a couple of times on her face and bees were in her hair.  I hated that she got stung when her new bees had just arrived.  She had appointments all afternoon and now would be dealing with bee stings.

I had so hoped for a better introduction to bees for the two of them.





The bees in the first box were really feisty.  There were a lot of bees in the box, more than in the second nuc, and they had been cooped up for a while.  I didn't see the queen, but did see tiny eggs so we know she is there.

For the second box, I lit the smoker and had a smoother experience.  These bees were really nice and calm.



The brood patterns in this hive look great.



And I saw the queen.  She has a lovely yellow dot on her back - which made her easier to find.



As always when you install a nuc, many bees remain in the nuc rather than going into the new hive.  I left both nucs standing on end so that the bees would go into the hive to join the others.



Here's how they looked when I left.  I didn't get to see Christina again before I left - she had gone - and I hope she is OK.

Queen Release at the Blue Heron

As I returned home today, I stopped at the Blue Heron to see if the new queen had been released. Remember, she had not quite been released on Tuesday. The hive seemed calm and happy. I left my smoker in the car, so it was nice to discover that the bees were calm.



In the second box, the queen had been released and the queen cage was empty. I guess it just took them longer because there was more fondant to eat through.



I didn't check to see if she were laying. I would have been so disappointed if she were not, so it was simply enough that she had been released.



The hive started with the nuc was very quiet - no bees on the landing. I decided even though they were feisty bees and I was without my smoker, I'd still give them a look. As you can see in the photo above, it's a hive in only one deep box.

I am not a foundation user, and this is the first time I've ever looked at black plastic foundation. Wow, can you see eggs and brood well. You can have the same experience looking at the photo below. There is lots of brood and c-shaped larvae on this, the only frame I looked at.

Don't worry, I'm still a foundation-less beekeeper, but I'm glad I've had the experience now of looking at eggs and larve on black plastic - no wonder people like it.  I still think the bees like having the opportunity to make their own foundation and I'm sticking to that!

I am relieved - this hive may turn out to be a good one after all.

Big Bee Day Part Two: The Blue Heron

Sunday morning after inspecting the Rabun County hive, I drove back to Atlanta for an inspection at the Blue Heron at 2 PM. Noah, Julia's son, led the inspection and did a really great job. We had a small group of beekeepers for this inspection, which made it easy to move around the hives and to be a part of it.

Noah is about to open the first hive and is explaining about the smoker and our foundationless frames.



He takes the ventilated hive cover off of the first hive.

There were a few hive beetles on the inner cover and we smashed them with our hive tools. This hive had been chock full of hive beetles, but the numbers have significantly diminished since we put the nematodes all around the hives at Blue Heron.



There's no nectar so the bees have no resources for building wax. But to be sure they wouldn't fill the empty space with wax when Julia and I took two frames out of this hive this past Monday for my nuc, we filled the space with newspaper. We would not have left the hive like this, but I didn't bring shallow frames with me when we took the frames. I only had mediums.



Noah is showing the participants the brood and eggs in this frame.



When we moved to my hive, I wanted to try using hive drapes as I had in Rabun County that morning.

In this hive, even though it faces east, the bees are putting the brood, the honey, etc at the back of the hive.  This probably means that the sun hits the back of the hive first in the morning.  Bees like to let the natural forces heat the hive so they don't have to work so hard.  The queen in this hive is laying well despite the lack of nectar resources available.

Finally we moved the the third hive at Blue Heron where Noah decided to try the hive drapes as he worked on it.  All of the Blue Heron hives are light and have very little stored honey.  We are worried about them and put sugar syrup or honey on my hive and the hive below.  The first hive we looked at has stored honey so we didn't put food on it.

This is the first Blue Heron inspection when we didn't see the queen.  These hives all feel a little fragile to us because they are so light on stores and we didn't want to disturb them as much as we would have needed to to see the queen.  So we looked but we didn't find Her Majesty in any hive.

At the end of the inspection Noah and Julia shared with us some delicious creamed honey they had made after the three of us took Keith Fielder's workshop at Young Harris.