Moving Day for Polar Bees

This past Sunday was moving day for the Polar Bees in the overwintered nuc.  I was hesitant to get into swarm season with this highly enthusiastic hive in a nuc.  I was cautious about moving them because last year every time I fooled with this hive, I got stung several times, but I accomplished the move with no gloves and no stings.

I used hive drapes the whole time.  First I took the hive down to the bottom box and covered each of the nuc boxes with hive drapes.

My excuse for the next part of this is that last year was the year of my injured leg so I didn't do much of a good beekeeping job.  This nuc was a split from one of my Bill Owens' hives in Tom's yard.  At the time I took the nuc box to serve as a Billy Davis quiet box during the inspection of the hive.  

So if you look at this bottom deep nuc box, the first thing I notice is that the two stapled frames are not my frames and must have come from Bill Owens when I picked up my hive from him.  The other three with the arrows on them are my frames.

I am sorry to report that I don't have a photo of this but will take one in my next inspection of this hive.  I pulled  up the second to the side frame on the left and found that in fact it was a medium frame.  The bees had added free comb to the bottom to fill up the box so that it is the depth of a deep but the wood stops at medium.  This was true of all three of my frames - all were medium frames that the bees had converted to deeps.  Here's a photo of a frame in another hive where this happened.

I think I had intended to take this "quiet box" home and put it into a full box but must have had trouble with my leg and didn't follow through.  Then time went by and I never did it.  I do remember looking at it, thinking it would be nice to have a nuc in my bee yard.  Then the bees were mean in the hive so I wasn't anxious to open it and totally forgot that there were medium frames in there.  When I did open it, I mainly did so to see if they needed another box or more room and didn't do a deep inspection.

I've read various places that if the bees extend the comb like that, they will draw drone comb in the free comb area.  Not true for me in any hive where this has happened.  They always just replicate whatever they were doing in the upper framed comb.  In this hive, it was brood comb and instead of a football pattern, the queen had a full deep circle of "dark biscuit" (another Billy Davis reference) brood comb.  

The dark biscuit comb means the brood is about 21 days old and ready to emerge so my move took place none too soon.

On one of the stapled frames I saw the lovely, majestic queen, moving slowly over her brood.  You can see her below.

At this time of year, often our Atlanta bees are on the verge of starvation because of the late winter freezes.  Not this hive.  The second box was full of frames of fully capped untouched honey like the one below.  No danger for the Polar Bees to starve.

I did see some small hive beetles who had overwintered with the bees.  I saw about five of them.  Below is an out of focus photo of an oil trap with absolutely NO SHB in the trap although there were live ones in the hive.  I guess I need to mix up the banana peel concoction to tempt the beetles into the trap instead of using oil.

So before moving day clean-up, here's how it all looked:

I put the hive in three boxes because after I filled out the bottom box with three empty deep frames, I had full frames plus drawn comb from the other two boxes enough to fill the second box.  It was almost full of honey (five full frames and two partial ones).  So I went ahead and put a third box on this hive to give them some growing room with new brood about to emerge.

I put on an entrance reducer as I do on all my hives and closed off the screened bottom since they had been living in a solid bottom nuc box.  The bees tumbled all over each other as they vied for entry.  In the next week or so, I'll put on one of Billy Davis' robber screens to leave on for the season.

New Bees at the Stonehurst Place Inn

So a couple of weeks ago, I picked up bees from Ray Civitts.  One hive was to be delivered to Stonehurst Inn where they are now happily installed.  The other was going to Robin's.  So now at Robin and Mary's farm I have two hives of bees.  One is from Slade Jarrett and the other from Ray Civitts of Mountain Sweet Honey.

When I arrived, his garage was crammed with nucs; bee equipment, neatly stacked; hive parts he sells.  He had been working hard all morning already (and I arrived early!)  He said someone had come at 4:30 AM that morning to pick up bees - can you imagine?



















I drove this nuc back to Atlanta and installed it at Stonehurst where they are doing well.

I love the cardboard nucs - easy to manage, to carry and best of all, you don't have to return them to the seller!

   

When I finished installing it, I left the cardboard box facing the entry so errant bees could get home.  

I stopped by on Thursday to see how they were doing (ten days past installation).  The bees looked great.  

There were lots of bees in the one deep box - many on the top of the inner cover. 

They were drawing and filling comb like crazy:

So I gave them a new box with one drawn comb frame in it to provide them with a ladder.  While I was at Ray's I noticed he had entrance reducers so I asked if I could buy one.  He insisted on giving it to me, so I insisted that he autograph it for me!

Installing the Tom Swarm

Jeff went home to his family and I drove home with the split nuc and the swarm nuc in the back of my car.  Bees were everywhere.  I got most of them out of the car,  but when I locked it for the night there were still a few clusters of bees in the car!

I set the split nuc on its on set of cinder blocks, put a little leaf and grass pieces on the landing and left it.  The queen cell looked pretty newly capped (it was light biscuit as per Billy Davis), so it probably has almost its full time left - since the queen has a way to go in her development, it will be a month before the new queen is laying and three more weeks before any new brood emerges to add to the population, so it will be mid May before this will be an active hive, if then.  So the split is a hive to increase hive numbers but not one to expect to provide honey to harvest.

The swarm is a different matter.  The queen is mature and able to lay.  The bees with her have gorged themselves on honey to prepare for the journey and prepared to make wax.  I put this huge swarm in three 8 frame boxes (the equivalent of 2 10 frame boxes plus four).  I had some unharvested honey from another hive that I gave them (2 frames) and a few frames of drawn comb, although they should be ready to make wax right away.

I put frames in the bottom box and used the next box as a funnel.

 The bees on the comb are on a frame filled with honey.
















Once I got most of them into the hive box, I gently added in the frames and then put on box number three and added its frames.  It was a slow process because there were so many bees.  There were still a number of bees in the nuc box and on the lid so I left both facing the new hive.

I don't have the best track record with getting swarms to stay but I employed everything I've learned from previous errors to make this work.

1.  I used old comb in each box and a frame of honey in each box
2.  I put them on a screened bottom board, but closed it up with the sticky board.
3.  I put on an entrance reducer, reduced to the smallest entrance (as per Billy Davis)
4.  I gave them plenty of space (3 8 frame boxes and a slatted rack.)
5.  I put pine needles on the landing to help them re-orient (we are miles from Tom's house - no chance of their returning home).
6.  I used last year's not-yet-painted boxes (they like the smell better than newly painted)

For a while a large group of bees were clustered right outside the entry.  But by nightfall, all were inside and the nuc box was empty.

I put frames of honey in the swarm and put a frame of honey and pollen in the nuc.  I will however, make bee tea and feed it to both of these new hives - one recipe's worth until they get "on their bee feet."

I realize as I write this that I forgot to date the frames, most of which were foundationless.  I'll do it on my first inspection in about a week.

I did bring all the hive drapes into the house to wash as well as my car quilt (which protects my car from bee stuff), my swarm sheet, etc.  So my washing machine is on bee duty tonight.

Jeff and I need to install a Billy Davis robber screen on this and the hive we moved from Sebastian's.  I say Jeff and I because I really need him to operate the staple gun which I HATE doing.

Well, they are in the hive for the night, but I don't take anything for granted so I am crossing my fingers as hard as I can and hope they stay in the new home I have provided for them.  I am exhausted and am now going to bed after a long and very productive day.

To Bee, Continued....

Sorry I left everyone hanging.  I'm in one of those periods of my life where I have volunteered for way too many things and all of them are growing in unexpected ways and all of their due dates seem to be coinciding.....in the last two weeks.

I watched the hive with the queen includer for several days after my last post.  Bees were going in and out as if normally they would.  Then over the weekend, about Sunday, I realized that the bees had absconded, despite my efforts to contain the queen.  Oh, well, I thought, they will die somewhere.  And what a shame since this was a powerful swarm hive at the beginning of the season.

Someone commented on my previous post that maybe it was a small hive beetle problem .  Mostly bees that are strong hives keep the small hive beetle contained in the top of the hive.  This hive had done that as well, and I had seen a normal (for Atlanta) amount of SHB in this hive, smashed them with my hive tool, etc.

However, if you have a small hive beetle problem of any level and open the hive unnecessarily, then every time you open it you break whatever propolis trapping the bees have devised to keep the SHB on the inner cover.  I opened this hive and allowed it to be filmed when the Weather Channel came two weeks before the crisis and then the following weekend, opened the same hive to be filmed for PBS for their show, Growing a Greener World with Joe Lamp'l.  So if the SHB were contained before, in the two previous weeks, they had the opportunity to run amuck.

Realizing that for whatever reason the hive had indeed absconded, and I assumed the queen had gotten thin enough to slip through the queen includer, I then noticed robbing beginning.  There was at least one super of honey on the hive and since it was five boxes tall, plenty of other storage places for honey that they might not have taken with them.

On Monday night I was meeting friends for dinner.  I stopped at home to let out the dogs and robbing was happening in a crazy way at the absconded hive.  I was so angry.  My hives haven't produced honey this year with all the rain and all I could think was YOU CAN'T HAVE MY HONEY.  I walked out to the backyard in my business clothes, threw a veil over my head, opened the hive and took off the third box down (the one heavy with honey).  I carried it into my house, bees and all.

It's still not dark until around 8 or so in Atlanta, so I put the box in my basement and at least 500 bees (looked like even more than that) began flying up to the ceiling lights.  I turned out all the lights in the basement, opened the back door, bolted the inside basement door leading into my house and left for dinner.  I crossed my fingers that the bees would indeed go outside toward the light.  (And that no human robber would find it appealing to cross the robbing bees to rob my house!)

When I returned from dinner, there were only 2 bees still in my basement and the honey super was apparently intact.

I left everything alone.  Like I said in the first paragraph, over the last month, everything I am doing has come to a pinnacle point all at once and I've felt rather overwhelmed.

Five days later, it's the weekend and I thought I should take the hive apart to save the wax from the wax moths.  I started casually throwing the boxes around.  I got to the bottom box and as I lifted it up to put it rather brusquely aside, there was the QUEEN.  She had been included and hadn't left with her children.  She had no attendants and had been alone for at least five days and probably more.

I caught her in a queen clip and took her inside and fed her honey from my fingertip.  What to do, what to do?

I went to another strong hive and made a four frame split - two frames of brood and eggs, one of honey and one of pollen.  I found some drawn comb that was white as snow and made a push-in cage of #8 hardware cloth, and pushed it into the comb, with her majesty in the push-in.  I realized later that I should have pushed her into the frame of honey or pollen, so she'd have some food at least, but I was thinking to give her an opportunity to lay.

I put these five frames into a nuc box.  I set it up with a Boardman feeder of honey and one of water, surrounded by an empty nuc box above the inner cover:

I then closed up the hive entrance with screened wire, stapled it firmly and left the nuc for three days.  This was an effort to get them used to the new queen and to let that loyalty keep them from returning to mama just in the hive next door.   Three days later I removed the screened wire.

I looked inside and she had been freed from the push-in cage.  The bees had eaten the comb beneath the push-in to release her and there were eggs everywhere.  They had taken none of the honey and only a little water, but I felt good about having supplied their need should it arise.

I put an entrance reducer in and crossed my fingers.

I'm going to give it my all to get her and her children through the winter.  Michael Bush overwinters two frame nucs.  Now they are in duplex nuc boxes.  But I am going to write him for helpful hints about how to get such a small force through the winter.

I'm so sad for the bees who left and who will inevitably die without a queen, but if this had to happen, I sure got the best of it with my queen "includer."  After all this was a swarm capture queen this year and should be strong enough in stock to make it through the winter if I'm lucky.

Creative Entrance Reducers

In Billy Davis' talk to our bee club, he emphasized the importance of entrance reducers.  He stated that the use of entrance reducers and keeping robber screens on the hives at all times stopped robbing in his apiaries.  So I am taking him seriously and trying it this year.

I've had two rather humorous experiences so far.  First at Morningside, the men who live in the house beside the community garden (where my hives are) are complaining that my bees are disturbing their use of their hot tub.  They are nice guys and supply water to the community garden, so we want them to stay happy.  I wrote them that there are five beekeepers within a mile of the community garden and that my bees are highly likely not to be the only ones visiting their hot tub.

However, to begin to address the problem and hopefully to prevent my needing to move my hives, I put a Boardman bottle of water on each hive.  I put a teaspoon of Chlorox in each bottle and a few drops of lemongrass oil to entice the bees to get their water at home.  However, I also wanted to reduce the entrance as per Billy Davis.  The Boardman bottles took up space and I don't have entrance reducers that short so I did something that I had read about on a beekeeping forum.  I used wine corks:

The bees fell all over themselves as they learned the new entrance but then calmed down.  I also put the same corks on the hive that I made from the Colony Square nuc the week before.   This photo was taken just before I left the Morningside hives.

I do wonder what the gardeners will think of all the wine corks - possibly that I really like wine!  But it is serving the purpose and looks like fun, doesn't it?








After the corks, I was really tired - not from putting in corks, but because we had done a lot of bee work already.  Jeff and I had already done our splits that morning; I went to the Morningside Garden berfore the splits to work on my plot there; and I was anticipating moving the hives in a few hours that night.  I knew the 3-box hive at Morningside needed a new box, but I just wanted to go home for a couple of hours and not do bees.

I sat on a stump by the hives and watched the bees for about 10 minutes.  Then I started for the car, telling myself that I'd get to it another day.  But I was already there and had already carried the box and all my bee stuff up to the hives.

I sat another second and then opened the hive and got to work.  I had brought a box of half empty frames and half drawn frames.  I checker-boarded these frames with the frames in the box below.  As I lifted out the seventh frame in the box on the hive, there was the queen!  What was she doing in the top box and on comb that looked like it was for honey storage - too large a cells for worker bees?

I got a little concerned that the reason she was there in that box was because the bees were running her around to get her ready to swarm.  She does look a little skinny!  However, skinny or not, she is certainly a pretty sight, I must say.  As is the beauty of the brand new wax and the festooning bees.















So I decided it was a good sign to reinforce my staying to add the box.

That was my funny entrance reducer story #1.  My second story happened on Sunday afternoon.  After the big split Saturday, on the next day (Sunday), I drove to Lula, Georgia to get a package of bees from Don Kuchenmeister for our teaching hive at Chastain Conservancy.

First I drove up to Rabun County to see if the bees there had lived through the winter.  Remember the one hive had been destroyed by what, I don't know.  The other was a hive that was populated on its own by a swarm last spring.  Those bees were alive in December, but Rabun county is 125 miles north of Atlanta and they have had a cold winter and some snow.

I found the hive dead, full of honey, with no bees at all in the hive except for about 20 on the bottom board.  I left the hive set up to possibly attract another swarm from the feral hive that lives in the wall of the nearby school building.

Then I picked up my package from Don - actually he had an extra one that I also bought to replace the Rabun hive, since I need a hive there and don't have confidence in my splits.  I couldn't drive another hour north to Rabun again, though, so I took both packages home.

I installed the first package in my backyard.

As I am getting ready to install the bees, I am thinking of Billy Davis.  So before I put in the package, I equipped the front of the hive with a robber screen as close to the one Billy had as I could do with my landing being slightly different from his.

Then I installed the package and stepped back to view my "great job."

And then there was my moment of realization, my Ah-Ha of the day.  A package consists of several pounds of bees (three in this case) and an unknown queen in a queen cage.  These bees aren't attached yet to the queen - they were only dumped in the package yesterday.  So the bees are no different than robber bees.  Without the pull of the queen pheromone, they have a hard time finding a way into the hive.  Attached to the queen, resident bees can negotiate the robber screen and undaunted, enter the hive from the side opening of the robber screen.

DUH.  My bees were flying at the hive in every direction and not finding the hive entry.

So I removed the robber screen and allowed the wayward bees to find their to-bee-queen and will wait to install the robber screen!

But I do plan to put them on every hive this year.  I lost my two biggest hives last summer to robbing and I am not having that happen again, if I have any possible way to influence that occurrence.

Pushing toward winter

At my own house where I live, the bees also need help in getting ready for dinner. I put Rapid Feeders on these hives also. This morning I lifted the top of one hive to see if they were taking the sugar syrup. You can see the bees inside the inner cone, enjoying the bee tea.



I also put entrance reducers on each hive to discourage robbing each other. One of the hives already had a reducer but the hives that didn't have reducers tripped all over each other as they figured it out.



Remember when I thought robbing had happened because of all the dead bodies on my basketball court? Well, I no longer think any hive was getting robbed. I've only been at this house for three months. There's a basketball goal with concrete underneath it with room enough to play Horse. The bee hives are at the edge of the concrete.

I've now noticed that there are bee bodies all over the court every day. What I've realized is that the mortician bees want to carry dead or dying bees out of the hive, but carrying a body the same size as themselves, they aren't anxious to carry the bees too far. So all these dead bees on my concrete are simply the dead of the hive being carried out only so far.

Where are the bees?

Bees in winter are deeply involved with each other but not seen except when the temperature is higher than it is today in Atlanta. The front of the hive looks lonely and forlorn. Mostly in the winter, the bees cluster in a ball and keep themselves warm. They are not warming the hive but rather are warming the cluster. They do not relieve themselves in the hive but save up for a warm day when they can fly out and relieve themselves outside the hive.


Right now we've had a number of over 50 degree days and the bees get out and fly so I don't have an entrance reducer on my hives. However, it will be below freezing tonight and probably tomorrow I'll put entrance reducers on my hives to help the bees keep out intruders.


I did open Persephone and gave the hive a bag of syrup to help them with their low supplies. They were not happy to see me (it was 4:30, cold and almost sundown). I only got one slit cut in the bag and will revisit this hive feeder bag tomorrow or the next day to cut slits that are useful for the bees.



I saw a ton of hive beetles in this hive just under the sugar syrup Ziploc. I didn't stay in the hive long enough to kill them but was disgusted with how many there were. Even though this picture is not focused, I thought I'd show you their large numbers - and that's only under the sugar syrup bag......GRRRR.

It's cold in Atlanta - are the bees warm? Only they know but supposedly they are clustered in a ball shaped group in the center of the brood box and are maintaining the cluster temperature at around 45 degrees at the outer edges and warmer in the center.

The bees are not keeping the entire hive warm, just their cluster. Occasionally when the days get above 55 I see them flying out of the hive.

The entrance reducer allows them to enter and leave through this small entrance. Here two bees are stepping all over each other as they leave.

Yellow jackets robbing the beehive

In front of Bermuda, there were scores of dead bees and yellow jackets today. I have recently seen the yellow jackets congregating outside the front of the hive about a foot from the porch. I guess robbing happened and bees and yellow jackets died.

When I inspected the hives today, I put the entrance reducer on both hives. If the yellow jackets continue their assault, I'll put the robber screen back on the hives.