Blue Heron First Real Inspection 2011

I am thrilled to report that this hive made it through the winter and is going great guns! There were lots of bees and lots of brood throughout the hive. They are healthy looking - I didn't see any Varroa and no other bad signs and they seemed nonplussed by my intrusion.



Next time I am going to take a tripod. I didn't get good pictures. I was by myself and didn't check the camera settings. The camera was still set on Kids and Pets from taking pictures of my grandchildren the day before.



I used the purchased hive drape to cover the hive except for the frame I was removing. As you can see on the left in the above picture, I also draped the boxes I removed.

I was concerned about this hive because the bees were still in the bottom box after the winter with a solid box of honey above them. Often the queen will not cross a honey barrier like that and she is said to be honey-bound. I looked at the old capped brood in the bottom box. All but the outside two frames were being used for brood. One frame had a perfect football shaped pattern, all the center had emerged and new eggs and larvae now occupied the space.

I took off the second box - it's full of honey and the comb is often cross-combed with two frames joined by comb between them. The honey in that box is all composed of "bee tea" syrup driven honey so it is only good for bee food. I took the box off of the hive and set it aside to decide what to do with it.

I was so surprised to find that Box three contained lots of beautifully drawn comb and new capped brood as well as young larvae and eggs. I didn't see a queen cell anywhere, nor any drones. In this third box, however, I did see some drone brood (see the picture below).


And then I saw her. I so regret that bad picture - I took THREE bad pictures! Anyway, I outlined this absolutely gorgeous queen so you could see her. She was large and long with an all golden abdomen. If you click on the photo below, you can see that I've outlined her in red.

 Right in front of me, she lowered her abdomen and laid an egg....privacy notwithstanding. She was beautiful and brave - she had crossed the honey barrier to continue her egg laying in the box above it where there was space for the taking.



Every frame in every box was being used so I added a fourth box of foundationless frames. I actually put it in position 3. I took a frame of nectar from the side of Box 2 and put it in the middle of Box 3 (the new box) to help the bees know how to build the comb in the frames.

I replaced that frame in Box 2 with a foundationless frame.  I also marked all the frames as per Housel positioning.

Julia is inspecting this hive on Saturday and we'll see if they have built any comb out by then.

I then decided to put the honey barrier box on as Box 4 and wrote on it in magic marker "Bee Tea Honey" and "Cross Comb". I will not harvest this honey for eating because of the bee tea. If the bees don't use it, I'll probably collect it and feed it back to the bees so that I can make use of the honey and straighten out the cross comb.

And now I'm going to enter my adventure on Hive Tracks and go to the kitchen and wash my hive tool which is gunked with propolis as often happens in the first inspection.

The Ongoing Saga of Proteus A and Proteus Bee

On June 6, I posted that Proteus had a solid box of honey between two boxes of brood. On Beemaster forum, the suggestion was that I put a queen excluder between Box 2 and Box 3 to determine if there were a queen in both boxes. I did that and on June 13 reported that there was new brood in both boxes, indicating that there were two queens.

On that same visit to the hive, I opened up the brood box in Proteus A by taking out the center 6 frames of honey and putting in starter strip and SC filled foundation to encourage the queen to expand rather than leave via swarm. Then I put the queen excluder between Box 2 and Box 3.

After asking around about splitting the hive vs. combining the hive, I decided to split the two hives and give each queen her own place. I did the split on June 16 and posted here that only after I had moved Proteus Bee into her own 8 frame medium hive, I thought about brood and that I had not noticed any new brood in Proteus Bee.

I think that action of opening up the brood nest was a mistake if I wanted to keep both queens alive. My guess is that the bees, with the hive now open top to bottom killed the queen in Proteus Bee before I did the split. I should have left the honey barrier until after doing the split. When I considered that I had not seen any new brood, I decided to add two frames of brood and eggs to Proteus Bee in case they were queenless and needed to make a queen.

Indeed, today when I opened up Proteus Bee, it is full of bees, no new brood, and they have made two supercedure cells, although in this case they did this not to supercede a queen but rather simply to HAVE a queen. Those locations were where the newest and best eggs were in the frame I gave them.

We're about through with the honey flow here. We're in the middle of a drought and I will be thrilled to have another hive. So like the small swarm nuc, I have another hive - this time a split - on its way to being queenright. Let's hope it works.

I watched Proteus Bee this week and found it disconcerting that I rarely saw a bee actually enter the hive. The two hives are side by side and bees would approach the entry to Proteus Bee and fly up and down in confusion. Sometimes they would even land on the bottom board and walk on the landing but then go into Proteus A.

Yesterday I saw a lot of bees orienting to Proteus Bee - must be new foragers - and the population entering Proteus Bee went up considerably. When I opened Proteus Bee today, there were plenty of bees. I had thought I might trade places of Proteus A and Bee to increase the numbers in Proteus Bee. I may yet do that but for now, let's see if the queen emerges.

Open-Brood plan for Monday

When I go into the hives tomorrow, I will have several goals:

1. To examine the medium in Proteus. This is the box right on top of the deep brood box. When last I looked the bees were building crazy comb and filling it with honey.

• I straightened out the crazy comb problem but I need to check to see if it worked or if there is more crazy comb to cut out.
  
  
• I don't want the queen to be bound by honey above her and want to encourage her to build more brood in the second box. So I plan to add another medium to Proteus and to move some of the honey filled comb up into it.
  
  
• Then I'll put some starter strip frames in the center of the first medium to encourage more usage of that box for brood. I'll put about three starter strip frames in the box. I think I'll install them with honey frames in between, but I'll post on Beemaster or Beesource to get an answer about what I should do.
  
  
• In honor of the tulip poplar bloom and its role as a high nectar source for Georgia bees, I also have a honey super on Proteus. I'll simply move this up above all three boxes when I do the maneuvers above.
  

2. I want to check on Bermuda to see if the bees are drawing out any of the starter strip frames in a medium on that hive that I added last week. I also am generally curious about Bermuda. I haven't looked at the brood nest in about 3 weeks and need to see if the queen is still expanding in her laying.

3. Mellona has a medium box undrawn as of last inspection above the deep brood box. I also in anticipation of going out of town added a honey super to Mellona without waiting for the box below to be drawn out. I'll need to check and see how/if the bees are working on those frames in either box and to determine what is my next concern about that hive.

It's funny, last year I opened the hives about weekly to learn about the bees, but wasn't actually managing the hive. This year I am more focused on hive management. It's interesting how the process of learning works - this year I KNOW so much more (still tons of learning ahead) and what I know informs my choices of what I am looking for in an inspection.