The Camera: An Essential Tool in Hive Inspections

Persephone looks like a hive that is flagging. I have felt quite discouraged about it. I opened it on Friday which was a very warm day (over 65). The bees in the other three hives were going like gangbusters - flying in and out, carrying pollen. The bees entering and leaving Persephone looked like marauders - they were hesitating at the entry and seeming tentative.

So I opened the hive to see what was up. I had left a ziploc feeding bag on the top of the second box, but very little had been used. This confirmed for me what I was afraid of - that the hive had died. Then I started pulling frames.

First I pulled from the bottom box where there were no bees. This was a deep (this hive was started from a nuc last year which came with deep frames). The frame had stored honey but no bees anywhere.



This is what I saw on the back of the frame: all of the bees in the photo below are dead, just clinging to the wax as dead bodies. Obviously I had my camera and was taking pictures so I could post here about the demise of this hive.


In the second box, a medium, I found lots of honey stores and a cluster of bees over about three frames - the size of a tennis ball. They were on top of honey but I saw no evidence of a queen - no brood that I could see and nothing but a few bees and the honey.

I left the hive after taking a few pictures and called Cindy Bee. "Is there a queen in this small cluster?" she asked. I told her I hadn't seen any evidence of one. She and I decided that I should combine this tiny group with another hive. She suggested that I used vanilla on the top bars of the hive I was moving the bees into to decrease the chance of rejection. And that I should do this soon so that the bees didn't die out.

I left for the mountains with the plan to combine this tiny cluster with one of the three strong hives when I returned today.

Before doing the deed, I transferred my pictures from my camera to the computer and looked at my record from the inspection of Persephone. On the first photo, you'll see bees, stored honey, lots of hive beetles.



In the second photo down at 6:00, you see Her Majesty. And above her you can even see eggs and brood in the cells!



Without this camera record, I would have begun transferring the bees and lost a potential good hive. There's no way in this weakened and quite small state that this hive will amount to much this year, but I'm going to do my best to help Her Majesty make the best success possible out of this.

I of course called Cindy again to report the news. She suggested that I move this small group into a nuc hive and feed them. I'll move a frame of brood and nurse bees from a thriving hive into the nuc as well if I can be sure there is no queen on the frame!

The Hive is alive! Long Live the Queen!

Frustration of No Camera

My sweet daughter who has the same camera as the one I destroyed last week offered to lend me her camera so I would not be without one while I wait for the one I ordered. Hopefully I may have some pictures tomorrow or the next day.

Meanwhile, we've had two good days of temperature and sky and at the end of the week the bees were working their little hearts out. Both Mellona and Proteus had so much action by the hive that it looked as if orientation flights of new bees were going on all day. In reality, I think they were working hard and fast and zooming in and out of the hives. I have seen bees arriving both with legs laden with pollen as well as hopefully bees filled with nectar.

The weather in Atlanta is not going to help the honey crop this year. From extra cold weather (more to come tomorrow) to really bad rain (right this minute), the work of the bees has been disrupted.

We'll see if I get any honey at all this year.

Beekeeping opens the door to many more things in my environment on which to focus. For example, I now watch the weather every day and think about the effect of whatever is going on with the weather on my bees. I am more interested when I see articles in the paper about how the farmer in this country is affected by the weather.

I also think about how we get so scared of what we don't understand. The papers in this country are filled every day with articles about communities that are so scared of bees that hives are being destroyed by firefighters or pest control people. And these very bees are the pollinators on which so much of our foodstuff depends. Here's an article from India on the same theme.

Set up Weak Hive with a New Medium Box

The last time I looked into Bermuda, the weak hive, the bees were increasing in number and the queen was expanding her brood pattern to five or six frames. I removed a frame of honey from last year (we have a nectar flow on now from the tulip poplar, among other plants and trees) and replaced it with a frame with a starter strip of small cell.

It's about a week later and I think I should give them more space for brood, so I set up a second medium. I wanted to inspire these bees for small cell, so I put in nine frames of starter strips and one frame more or less in the center (with ten, where is the center?) of almost a full frame of small cell. I did this to give them more of a guide.


















Since I'm regressing this hive to small cell, I dated the frames so that I will have some idea when I replace them next year. My understanding of small cell is that the bees will have some trouble with it this year, regressing to smaller cell, but not to the natural cell size until one more "regression." To accomplish this, I'll need to replace brood frames again with small cell, so I dated these. Next year I can pull some of these 2007 frames and put in starter strips again, and my now much more adept bees will draw exactly what they need....assuming they live through the winter.

















Here is Bermuda with her new medium super. I installed it with great adventure. It was quite cold in Atlanta for April 9 this morning. When I went to the hive around 11 AM, it was still only in the high 40s. Ordinarily Bermuda has been a placid, slow moving hive, so I wasn't too worried about opening the hive just long enough to put on this box and replace the inner cover and telescoping lid.

I put on my veil and went to the hives, carrying my hive tool in one hand and my gloves and camera in the other. I set down the camera (and absent-mindedly, the gloves as well) and opened the lid of the hive. The hive was quiet, but when I removed the inner cover, they were no longer quiet and placid. The bees were thick on the top of the frames and flew out angrily and I was stung on each hand.

I hurriedly put on my gloves and in the process, trapped a bee under my glove, who of course also stung me on my left arm. This shocked me and I dropped my camera, breaking it.......costly beekeeping moment. The picture below is the last picture taken with the camera before it gave up the ghost.

















Oh, by the way, after waxing in the starter strips, I poured the remaining wax through panty hose (new) into a bread pan as a mold. The double boiler top in which the wax was melted still had wax residue on it. I poured boiling water into the pan and the wax now hardens on the surface of the water. I can pick it up and add it to my frozen wax cappings in the freezer. "Waste not, want not," the old folks say.

















Extra costs of beekeeping this week:

1. I had to buy a new chest freezer. My 30 year old freezer finally died, not of its own accord but because a critter in my basement ate through the electrical cord and by the time I noticed it wasn't working, it was past repair.
2. I have to get a new camera since mine died when I dropped it today.

Lesson learned: Put camera on strap around neck rather than wrist.

I needed a new camera - this one has been taking rather blurry pictures and just yesterday I was thinking that perhaps I should look into a new one. Also the one that I broke was only 5 megapixels -

I came inside, read reviews, and immediately ordered a new camera which should be here in about a week, but probably no posts before I get new pictures. I've ordered one with higher resolution and with an anti-shake feature to control the blur. It will be better in the end for both the bees and my grandbaby. However, I ordered an economic camera given that my camera is always subject to sticky hive stuff as well as the possible casualty of a fall from a high place.

This is a wonderful but more expensive hobby than I imagined!

The Value of a Camera During Inspection

I've been so glad that I've had a camera when I've inspected the hives. Often I find something unexpected when I look at the photos after the inspection. And I'm not a photographer - just a point and shoot person with a basic camera.

During the inspection, I am wearing a veil, operating my smoker (when I remember that I have it) and trying to move slowly and not drop anything. It's a major challenge to do all of that. So I see what is on the frames but I don't really SEE details until the photos download to my computer.

For example, I had a large picture of a frame of honey and when I cropped one section of it, I found a great view of a bee drinking honey beside a small hive beetle:

When I had robbers in the beehives, I made a robber screen. It confused the bees and they were in the middle of a nectar flow. The foraging bees began flying under the hives, passing nectar to the bees in the hive through the screened bottom board. I couldn't see this, but the camera with its flash exposed the activity for me to see later. I simply held the camera under the hive and snapped without looking through the viewfinder.

I routinely took frames out of the hive and hung them on the rack I attached to the side of the hive. Then I took a picture of the activity. In the picture below, you see a frame of brood with bees all over it.

When I zoomed in on a small section of the picture, you can see the "C" shaped larvae in open cells.

Yesterday when I discovered that the bees in Destin had all died, I was relieved to find some brood in my other hive, Bermuda. When I came in to my computer I looked closely at the photo, examining what seemed like a spotty brood pattern:

In the cropped close-up you can actually see the grain of rice shaped eggs in each empty cell, proving that the queen in that hive is doing well. During the inspection I only saw the empty cells but during the photo inspection later, the eggs are quite evident. If you can't see them, click on the picture below to enlarge it and you'll see eggs in most of the empty cells.