Checking on Blue Heron on the last day of June

Julia, Noah and I checked on the Blue Heron hives before the July 4 weekend.  We wanted to see if the queen were established in the queenless hive with the donated queen; we wanted to see if the nuc had managed to get started despite its poor resourced beginning; and we wanted to see if there was honey to be had at Julia's hive.

Here's a slide show.  After the inspection, we decided that if there is still no laying queen in the large Blue Heron hive, we'll combine it with the mean hive from the nuc that we know has a queen.  Hope for the future and all of that.  We have a MABA inspection on June 10 and we'll put the hives together then if we need to.

As always, click on the slide show to see the pictures with caption and full screen.

Albert Alligator and the Blue Heron hives

When I was a little girl, my father always loved the cartoon Pogo, drawn and written by Walt Kelly. It was a little confusing for me because there was a famous clown in the circus at the time named Emmett Kelly and I got the two mixed up and thought the clown wrote the cartoon in his off hours. Of course now I'm a beekeeper and there's a great beekeeping company called Walter T. Kelley. (Good I'm not still a child - think how confused I'd be).

Nonetheless in the cartoon, Pogo (a possum) and Albert (an alligator) frequently played checkers. When they did, Pogo often won and Albert had many responses to being beaten, most of which involved creating some kind of chaos. In one of my favorite Albert Alligator checker games, Pogo is winning and Albert suddenly throws the checkerboard into the air yelling, "Earthquake! Earthquake!"

If the bees at Blue Heron had read Pogo, they would have been buzzing "Earthquake! Earthquake!"  today when Julia, Noah, and I returned to the scene of the morning's inspection.

This is what it looked like in the middle of the chaos:



Noah took this picture below by accident, but I'm sure it's how the bee's world felt to them!

In the earlier inspection we found that despite queen cells in both halves of the split, neither hive had a queen.  I don't know if it was because of really bad weather over the last weeks; if I killed the queen when I dropped my hive tool through the one hive two weeks ago; if the emerged queens were killed going to or from their mating flights; or what.

The sad story is that the splits both failed.

I went home and stole a frame of brood and eggs from both Colony Square and Lenox Pointe.  They were none too happy since I had inspected both hives the day before and being opened two days in a row is more than disruptive.

I put the two stolen frames into a five frame nuc with some empty frames to make transporting it easy.

I made sure before the move that both stolen frames had eggs and very young brood on them....as well as capped brood.  The pheromones from the capped brood help the queenless hive avoid developing laying workers.

We removed two frames from the bottom box of the strongest of the two hives.

In their place we put the two frames from home.

Both hives had a good bit of honey on them.  We put the boxes of honey back onto this hive.  Then we topped the box with a piece of newspaper.  You are supposed to trim the newspaper so that there are not edges hanging over to wick in rain water.  I forgot to do that and will return today with a pair of scissors.

When the newspaper is in place, you take your hive tool and cut three or so slits in the newspaper to facilitate the bees working their way through the newspaper.  By the time the bees chew through the newspaper in two or three days, they will be friendly to each other.

We then put a box on the top for the bees from the other hive.  One frame at a time we sprayed the bees with sugar syrup and then shook and brushed them into the new box.

The frames we were shaking were deeps and the box into which we moved them was a medium.  We even shook the slatted rack and the screened bottom board.

We then added all the honey frames from hive 2 to the box into which we had shaken the bees.

In the end when we finished the combining, there was STILL chaos all around us.

We closed up the hive, cleaned up the "Earthquake" and went home with crossed fingers. We won't open this hive again for 21 days to give the queen time to emerge, go on her mating flight, and return to lay eggs.   I hope, hope, hope that this combined hive will survive, raise a queen and keep going.  We'll see on Memorial Day!

It was a difficult operation and I so appreciate that Julia and Noah came back with me to finish this project.  Both of them helped so much and Noah took most of these pictures.  They are wonderful friends and dedicated beekeepers and I enjoy every beekeeping minute with them.

Hive Combination - Can They Be Social?

Today I took the queenless nuc and combined it with the hive right next to it. Here's what the nuc looked like. This is the sum total of the bees that were in it. The frame on the right is a solid frame of honey, more than I can say for any of my other hives.



I have been feeding Aristaeus2 because, like my other hives, there are few stores here for the winter. I decided to treat them as usual except that the top of their hive would change. So I added another baggie of sugar syrup. I have gotten to be really expert at gradually laying down the sugar syrup baggie so that there are no bee casualties squashed under the bag.

Although I forgot to take the picture, I also replaced the oil in the AJ's beetle eater that fits between the two frames in this hive box.



I decided to do a newspaper combine. I used the society page, hoping that all of those socially appropriate couples pictured on the page would inspire these girls to be friends. It's an article about the Southeastern flower show - which could also feel hopeful to the bees!

I cut a few slits in the newspaper to facilitate the bees moving into the box below.



Then I put the nuc box on top and added its top, leaving it propped so the bees inside would have an entrance until they make friends with the bees below. You'll notice that I also tore off the overhang of newspaper. That is done to keep the newspaper from wicking water into the paper between the boxes in the event of rain.


So since I am not doing well with hive disturbance, let's hope I will succeed in this combination.

The Persephone Combo Succeeds

I opened Persephone to find a huge number of hive beetles. I call this first picture "Death by Hive Tool" All of the beetles including the ones congregating in the upper left corner are dead, smashed with my hive tool.

This hive has a shim on it under the inner cover because I need to feed it, but there were so many hive beetles that I think I need to put a trap inside the shim instead. The open area makes for more space that the bees have to defend, so I need to have a purpose for the shim or take it off.



There was healthy brood and larvae in this hive and I feel good about how the newspaper combination worked on this hive. It seems a little light on stores, though, so I need to feed it over the next few weeks. This hive had a hard time succeeding and the bees in it were without a queen at the beginning so they missed the honey flow.

Two Out of Three's Not Bad

The combine of Hyron and Hyron2 didn't appear to work. However in the rain last week, a cluster of bees (about 2 cups worth) remained clinging to the bottom of the entry way into the hive. As the rain increased, the cluster got smaller, but it was clear that a queen was inside.

The hive they were clinging to wasn't really worth it - full of wax moths, roaches, ants and a few bees. So I gathered the cluster into a Tupperware container and dumped them into a medium nuc box. I also moved the original hive directly in front of the nuc in case any of the residual bees wanted to join their sisters in the nuc.

I then went out of town for five days.

Today the nuc has absolutely no bees in it. The larger box in front of it doesn't have bees either. (I felt really foolish because I smoked the door and waited a minute before opening this totally empty hive! )



I took the hive apart and found slews of dead bees on the screened bottom board.



And all but four frames were heavily wax moth damaged. I left the damaged frames leaning against my oak tree on my deck - there's a squirrel who will be grateful and will clean it all up for me.



I picked up some of the dead bees from the SBB to examine them. Many were small and black like the one below.

OK, so here's my first theory. When I put Hyron and Hyron2 together. The bees possibly killed both queens (I now assume both hives actually had a queen). In the melee, many bees were killed. The hive could not go on and the rest of the bees drifted or died. Then along came a tiny wild swarm of small black bees. There's a lot of construction behind the woods at the back of my property. They came in the rain and clung to the hive because it smelled inviting. However, upon checking on the premises, they found dead bees and mayhem and they gave up. They died too.

And my second theory is: One queen survived the melee of the combination, but the rest of the hive did not forgive her for the combination. It's sad but the bees often blame the queen when she had nothing to do with it. So the bees under the landing board were balling the remaining queen - "Off with her head," as it were, so that they didn't honor her leadership any more.

Either way or whatever way, the hive was doomed and is a dead hive.


So Devorah has hopefully a new queen, Persephone and Melissa have successfully merged - Two down, but the third attempt to rescue my third problem-laden hive is a wash.

The End of the Newspaper Combine Story

A cou;le of weeks ago when I discovered that I had three queenless hives, I made several decisions. I decided to requeen the only strong-looking hive of the three. The second hive, Melissa, which had wax moths already laying and wax moth worms already eating, I combined with Persephone on my deck.

All of the beekeepers online say that with a newspaper combine, you cut slits in the newspaper between the two hive boxes and after a while the bees chew through the paper, leaving scraps of paper around the hive. Although my first attempt at combining Hyron and Hyron2 did not make a successful hive, this one appears to have worked.

There are newspaper scraps all over the ground near the front door.



When I took the top off of the top hive box there were tons of happy bees.



When I separated the two boxes, lo and behold, all of the newspaper had been chewed away and all that was left were the scraps between the wood edges of the hive boxes.

Hooray - success at the combine at last. I didn't go deep into the hive to see about eggs, etc, because the day was cloudy and threatening. My main goal was to remove any remaining newspaper and bid the bees well.

Combining the weak hives

Yesterday Hyron and Hyron2 became one.

At the end of the day when hopefully most of the foragers were home, I put the absconded swarm hive and the weak swarm hive together. I carried the absconded hive back up on the deck and put it in combination with the Hyron hive that has been weakly surviving all along.

Hyron was my first swarm hive back on April 1 and has not built out of the first box to this day. It's a sad little group. There is a queen and brood but it never has taken off. Hyron2 which was robbed out and absconded appears queenless at this point although most of the bees are in the box.

I opened up Hyron and put newspaper over the top of the box. I cut several slits with a knife through the newspaper to facilitate the bees chewing through. The idea is that by the time the bees in the upper box chew through to the lower box, everybody will be friends.

I removed the Imrie shim and the feeder bag - I actually don't know what to do about feeding and will post on Beesource and Beemaster to find out how to manage this.



When I put Hyron2 on top, I left the Imrie shim, but didn't replace the baggie feeder. I don't want to encourage any food fights as they get to know each other. Keeping the shim on does give me an easy option for feeding them in about a week when the combination will hopefully be successful.


I also removed the robber screen. I thought since there's not really anything to rob out right now, it isn't really necessary. I also thought that it would be easier for them to carry out the newspaper shreds if I didn't have the entry blocked.


It was cooler than usual this morning but already the bees at this hive were orienting. I expect that it will go well and I am keeping my fingers crossed for a successful hive combination.

The Small Swarm is No More

I opened the small swarm hive today to combine it with Proteus Bee (both queenless). The hive was full of bees - I couldn't tell if they were robbers who just never went back home or if they were the bees who lived there.

The frames that were not honey-robbed frames were full of wax moth worms and wax moth damage. I removed all of those frames from the box.

In the top of Proteus Bee, there is an unopened queen cell, no brood and some bees. In the bottom of Proteus Bee there were a few bees and frames with wax moth damage. I removed those frames.

Then I went to Bermuda (strong queen, great source of brood frames). I took three frames - one beautiful brood pattern, one with lots of new larvae and eggs, and a third with capped brood. I put two of those frames in the top of Proteus Bee and one in the bottom. I then put the two boxes together with newspaper in between them. I cut a couple of slits in the newspaper to facilitate the combination.

Next step is to order a queen.

The bricks in the last picture are where the Small Swarm Hive once stood. Perhaps there will be bees for it next year. Meanwhile I took the hive apart and leaned all the parts against a tree. I'll wash them out thoroughly with a hose before I use them again.