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.

Well, Shut My Mouth, as they say in the South

I think my bees must read my blog.  No sooner do I post that the nectar flow is slowing, based on my observation of the tulip poplars and blackberry bushes around here, but the bees show me that I must be wrong.

I came home the next day around 2:00 and the bees at both hives were falling all over themselves as they landed in the entry to the hive.  So many bees were coming and going that stepping into the flight pattern was hazardous:  a guaranteed bee-in-the-hair.

If you enlarge the picture below, you can see the little golden bodies speeding through the air on their way to and from Colony Square.



At the front door bees were landing on top of each other and pushing through other bees on their way to the hive entrance.


Even though Lenox Pointe is not as vigorous, they were exhibiting the same behavior.



So, shut my mouth, I take it back.  The flow isn't thinking of slowing yet.  They aren't gathering tulip poplar and blackberry but something very light is being brought into the hives by the bucket.

Ravenous Rabun County Bees

The bees at my Rabun County hive are flying enthusiastically in and out of the hive, bumping into each other on the landing and generally looking as busy as bees.

I haven't looked in the hive in about three weeks. I came to Rabun County planning to feed the bees at the community garden, so I am armed with bottled sugar syrup - I have about 1 gallon with me.

Here is the hive with bees flying in and out rapidly.

It's nearing the end of the fall flow here but there is blooming goldenrod everywhere as well as many asters and the bees are having a field day.



I took off the third (top) box which is full of foundationless comb and completely empty. I was pleased to see in the second box that the bees are putting up nectar and therefore storing honey.



I had brought two medium nuc boxes with me as demos for the festival. These boxes were filled with drawn comb on medium frames. I decided to take this drawn comb and substitute it for the foundationless frames in the third box. Fall is drawing near by the minute and I didn't want them to need to create space in which to store the syrup I am giving them today.



I put the third box back on the hive. I also brought a shim to surround the baggie feeders. This is the first time I have fed this hive.

Now that I know there is a hive in the walls of the building just across the field from this hive, I am worried about robbing.  I put two ziploc baggies side by side inside the shim.

The bad news is that I am using a bottom board from a 10 frame hive for the top cover of this hive.  This means there is a back entrance and there is no way to close this hive up completely.  I feel sick that I didn't think to bring an inner cover and a top for a 10 frame hive.  I certainly have them in Atlanta.

Because I had no entrance reducer and wanted to make these bees safer from robbing, I stuffed pine needles into the opening at the upper rear of the hive to close it up.  I hope they will make quick work of moving the syrup from the baggies into the drawn comb I left them.

When I come back in two weeks, I'll put an inner cover and top cover on, but I hope they will be OK until then.  The good news is that there is a good fall flow ongoing right now in Rabun County, so maybe the temptation to rob will not be there for the in-the-wall hive or any other neighboring bees.

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.

Hyron Doesn't Like Me to Be A Homewrecker

Hyron, the hive made from the swarm I caught in the office parking lot, is not particularly pleased with me. As swarms go, Hyron was a small swarm. I brought it straight home and put the swarm colony in my lure hive on the deck. The lure hive was composed of old yucky frames in an old box, but it was the only place I had to house the bees on short notice.

Immediately you may remember, the bees began housecleaning. I wondered how they would think of the beekeeper since I had supplied them with a rather lousy place to live. At the end of the day, they had swept the hive clean of clutter and set about bee-ing bees.

My own theory about this swarm is that they had a virgin queen. Often a hive will "throw" a swarm in which the old queen leaves with half the hive population. After the original swarm several after swarms may occur with a daughter of the now-absent queen. These queens are usually virgin queens.

This means that the queen has to fly off to be mated and successfully return to the new hive before any real action starts.

Hyron besides demonstrating excellent housekeeping, showed little growth at the beginning. I never fully checked for eggs because in the disreputable hive I gave them, there was a broken frame and this was the frame on which the population seemed to be concentrated. I just assumed that the queen was laying on that frame and went on with life.

Before I went out of town at the beginning of May, I put an extra box on Hyron but still didn't check for eggs. The hive was installed on April 1.

If the queen were a virgin, then she would have had to orient to the hive, fly away and return safely. She would then start laying, but her first eggs would not be bees for 21 days. At best, we might have had new bees emerging at the beginning of May.

When I looked truly into the hive this past weekend, I did see eggs and a beginning of brood build-up. This was the first really "deep" inspection I had ever done of this hive in the two months it has been in my beeyard.

Hyron's bees were not happy. One sneaked onto my sock and zapped me on my ankle. Another stung me on my knee through my beesuit. They head-butted me throughout the time I had the hive open. They are used to being left alone, so they must have experienced me as quite the homewrecker. I never smoke the bees, but I smoked these just so I could see what I was doing.
I am delighted that they do have eggs and brood. So best wishes, Your Majesty, live long and lay lots of babies.

I also noticed that in the hurry of a previous inspection I had failed to slide the next to the bottom box on Mellona all the way back flush with the bottom box. You can see the slight jut-out on the hive in the right side of the picture between boxes 1 and 2.



The bees have been using this as a mid-entrance! The next two pictures were taken close-up from the top
of the hive looking into the opened crack.

You can see the glee of the bees, having a new entrance to their hive.