Beekeeper Error(s)

My commitment to this blog since the beginning has been to write about all of it - my successes, but also all of my failures....Today brought my failures front and center.  As always I have learned a lot, but I should have known better.  I know I should have.

When things go wrong in a beehive managed by a beekeeper, it is almost always due to beekeeper error.  I've made two major ones.

When I installed the Mississippi Queen in the hive at Ron's, I should have put her and the bees in a completely new and much smaller living situation.  I don't know why the bees were not thriving there, but they were originally the queenless half of Lenox Pointe, the thriving hive at my old house.

They never made a queen that was any good and the final queen they had before Mississippi arrived was weak and pitiful.  The comb was old and from last year and the bees were not doing well.  I should have put new frames or at least undrawn ones in a nuc hive, moved some of the honey and all of the bees and installed her there.

Instead I put her in the old hive and she and the bees decided to leave.  So today I found an empty hive.

I came home and was looking out my window and the Sister's Keeper nuc looked forlorn and empty - bees were madly flying out of all of my other hives, but this one had no action going on.  The last time I opened it, I took a frame of brood and eggs to give to the Unintentional Nuc to make sure they grew into a good hive.

Because we are at the end of the nectar flow, I decided to replace the frame I stole with a frame of drawn comb.  I have a few of pretty, unsoiled drawn comb mostly from hives that have died.  When I put that frame into the nuc, I broke some cappings on the adjacent frame of honey.  As I turned away from the hive to go back to my office, I noticed honey flowing out of the bottom of the nuc on the ground.

I had the conscious thought that the honey flow on the ground might draw robbers, but I didn't do anything about it...making the excuse that I needed to hurry back to the office.

Tonight when I opened the nuc and looked into it, there were about five bees.  I didn't explore it because it was getting dark and I didn't have veil or smoker, but the edges of the cells that I could see were ragged as cells look when robbing has occurred.

I was so upset with myself.

I don't know what I should have done - I know be more careful in putting in the new frame.  But should I have watered the ground under the hive to get rid of the honey?  Or scraped it up with a spatula and THEN watered the ground?  I know I should have done something.

I've been telling Jeff for several weeks that we need to get robber screens on all the hives and then not pushing that we get it done.  He's busy, I'm busy.  Now I'm worried about all the hives and that we'll lose more hives because we are not doing what we should be doing - putting robber screens on all the hives ASAP as Billy Davis has suggested.

I have a little #8 hardware cloth here and I know what I'm going to be doing either early tomorrow or after work tomorrow night.

Rabun County Bees

A couple of weeks ago when I went to Asheville for the Natural Beekeeping meeting, I stayed at my house in Rabun County.  On the way up I saw the bear in the misty rain at Black Rock Mountain Lake.    The day after the conference, the lake was sunny and beautiful and while I didn't see a bear again, I did see Joe Pye weed and goldenrod, evidence of the fall flow (for what it's worth).

Before I drove back to Atlanta, I checked on the Rabun bees.  The last time I was up at the mountain house, I discovered that one of the hives was almost dead and had small hive beetles all through it.

I didn't really check out the cause of the problem when I was there before because I was so upset, so I opened the hive on this visit and brought the boxes back home.  Clearly the hive had been robbed out, and left so weakened that the small hive beetle took advantage of the opportunity.

Two things are evident in this picture.  The edges of the cells are ragged, indicating a robbery.  There were dead bees littering the ground in front of the hive.  And you can see the slime of the small hive beetle.  I brought four boxes back to Atlanta and could hardly stand the sicky sweet smell in the car of the SHB's destruction.

The other hive was almost completely covered with weeds.  It was totally in the shade and had kudzu and other brambles all over the entry.  I didn't take a before picture, but I wish I had.  The bees were still flying happily in and out of the hive.  I knew this vegetation situation was likely so I brought my hedge clippers with me.  I went to work and freed the hive from most of the vegetation.

When I opened it, I was shocked (in all the previous shade) to find that I only saw one small hive beetle in the hive.  Perhaps they were all satiated on the frames from the other hive?

This hive has honey in all three boxes and brood in the bottom box.  I really wanted to taste their honey.  The top box is likely sourwood, but they had not completely capped the honey in those frames, so I brought back a frame from the middle box.

I didn't come prepared for harvest transport, so after brushing off the bees, I put the frame into a pillow case (I'm now using them for hive drapes like Julia taught me), and brought it back to Atlanta.  I crushed and strained it and now have three pounds of luscious grape-flavored honey, likely from the kudzu all around the creek bed where the hive is located!

(The HIDDEN honey frame).

Sorry for the Radio Silence

In my real life, I have two jobs in the summer - my usual job and in addition I teach in the Emory Med School, teaching communication skills to the doctoral students in the Department of Rehabilitative Medicine.  I've been drowning in grading final exams and videos, and thus off the air for the last couple of weeks.

I'm going to post some activities from the last month to catch me (and you) up, and now that the semester is over, I'll get back to blogging about my bees.

A couple of weeks ago I went to check on the Morningside hives and found them hidden by tall grass.  The community garden is on land owned by Georgia Power and they usually do the maintenance, but someone apparently dropped the ball and the grass hadn't been cut in forever.

I had recently been up to Rabun County where I had to cut the kudzu off of the hive so I had in my car some hedge clippers.  So I grabbed them and instead of doing bees, I did landscaping.

Now I and the bees can see their front doors.  I have Boardman feeders filled with water on the hives to keep the bees from going to the neighbor's swimming pool.  Who knows?  They probably like the chlorine better, but at least I am demonstrating an effort to keep them away!  The hedge clippers are on top of the closest hive.

Then I went over to Sebastian and Christine's.  I didn't post about it, but one of their two hives was robbed out.  It was sad and I assumed the hive that was beside it, which was also the stronger of the two hives, had done the robbing.

I opened this hive to see the spoils.  Instead I found bees that were doing fine - lots of brood and bees, but very little honey.  I went all the way down to the bottom box to see what I could see and found little nectar.  

That was two weeks ago and the asters and goldenrod have begun to bloom so maybe they will bring in some nectar.  I also have some honey that I can feed them.

You can see in the photo above that there is lots of brood but no honey in the corners.

In the bottom box which is a deep (this hive started from a nuc this year), I found Her Majesty, walking regally over the frame:

I don't usually wear gloves but a bee stung me on my right hand and I threw on a glove so I could finish up.  The queen is marked with a yellow dot and is in the upper left corner of the frame.  So this hive MAY make it through the winter if they can gather some supplies in the fall flow (which in Atlanta is generally minimal).

The Demise of the Hive

Such a sad feeling to open up a robbed hive.  I avoided it most of the day, but then realized I had to do it - I had to know what the situation was.  I've had robbing before and the hives have made it through but my heart sank when I opened the robbed hive and saw……only dead bees.




I took it down to the bottom.  The bees on the SBB were sad and some were still alive but unable to move to get up and fly.







I looked for the queen in the dead but did not see her.  I did find in one box clustered between the wall and the first frame a handful of bees.  There was still some honey unrobbed but no brood - all those cells which had brood on Thursday - were empty today.

I just feel sick.  I wonder if I did something at the inspection on Thursday to set this off.  Did I open the cappings of honey as I pulled frames from the box?

Then I remembered that the reason I opened the hive on Thursday was because I had seen very little activity and had wondered if something were wrong.  I was surprised to find the hive full of bees.  It wasn't boiling over, but there were bees in every box, new eggs and brood.  I had worried about honey and all of my bees but this hive had plenty of honey (thus the robbery).

I wonder if they had possibly already had problems and the robbing just cinched their fate.

I feel heartsick.  This has been a hard year.  I have had more hives this year than every before, but I have now lost five hives without the winter being the issue.  And most of the losses have been in my own backyard - not in the outyards that I also manage.

Mayhem and Robbery in the Bee Hive

Robbery in the bee hive is disconcerting, to say the least.  It is violent and upsetting to watch.  I am a grandmother on Fridays and after a morning with my grandchildren today at the Atlanta Botanical Garden, came home to find one of my biggest hives being robbed.

Below is a video of the hive.  I usually use a tripod and at the end of the filming with bees head bumping me on all sides, I was not a steady camera holder, so it's jiggly, but I put it up so you can see what robbing actually looks like.

Both Orientation in the afternoons and swarming behavior when the hive is gathering for the swarm are  often confused with robbing.  Both lack the violence.



In the end I soaked a sheet in water and threw it over the hive for a couple of hours.  The robbers desisted and left.

Later in the evening, I removed the sheet and set the robber screen up so that the entry was open for a bit.  The sad bees were carrying out opened larvae.

Under the hive you can see lots of wax shards from the robbers tearing open cells.

I had just inspected this hive yesterday and was pleased to find that they along with the rest of my hives were putting up some nectar and that they had some larvae in the cells.

I don't know what the state of this hive is and if it can recover.  I may open it on Sunday and see what I may need to do to support them, such as add some frames of honey from another hive.

Live Bees at Blue Heron and at Jeff's

The bees in the nuc at Blue Heron are ALIVE! I really can't believe it. These are the vandalized bees that are now housed in a nuc and locked with a bicycle lock against further intrusion. I did not believe they would still be OK and we are not out of the winter death possibilities until March. At least for now they are flying.

I couldn't believe it so I took four pictures to prove to myself that they actually are coming and going. You can watch a hive and tell if the bees entering and leaving it live there or are robbers from another hive. The residents enter confidently and in one fell swoop into the entry. Robber bees are unsure and tend to hover around the entrance before going into the hive.

These bees own this hive.

At my old house where Jeff and Valerie now live we have two hives we are concerned about - now three. Colony Square is doing great with bees all at the entrance. Lenox Pointe has bees but also evidence of nosema, possibly, in that there are streaks of bee poop on the hive box at the entry way.

The hive we call "Five" is still alive. It was tiny going into winter and we had talked about putting it into a nuc, but never did. It is housed in two medium boxes. Jeff hasn't seen any bees flying in or out, so we opened the top to take a peek. The rapid feeder was still on the hive and there were bees walking up and down the sides of the cone. We both whooped out loud to see actual bees alive in the hive.

Our fourth hive over there is the swarm we caught in June. Although small, it too is alive and had bees in the feeder cone of the rapid feeder.

Don't be disturbed by the mold in the rapid feeder or the "weeds." The weeds are actually sprigs of thyme and we'll clean out the mold on our next opportunity to open the hive.

Today it was still quite cold and we didn't want to remove the rapid feeder to clean it because it covers the hole in the inner cover and the bees are likely to have propolized any air space to maintain warmth. I'll take warmth over cleanliness if they can make it through the winter.

Jeff and I are following Jennifer Berry and Keith Delaplane's system for powdered sugar treatment for varroa mites.  We are dusting the bees with the Dustructor - which means dusting without opening the hive - four times this month (three days apart) and then will repeat this in March.

Today was my third treatment and I dusted the bees at my house and at the Stonehurst Place Inn.  Jeff will do the bees at my old house tomorrow.  It's out of schedule but I dusted the bees at Blue Heron when I stopped there - they are actually part of Jeff's schedule, due to be dusted tomorrow.

Avoiding Robbing Behavior

I've harvested a lot lately - from Colony Square and from Stonehurst. At the end of a crush and strain harvest, the beekeeper is left with dripping frames, honey harvested, but broken wax and drips of honey remaining. Usually it is a good solution to put these frames into a hive box and return them to the hives.

Neither Colony Square nor the Stonehurst hives are at my house. And the hives that are at my house had a robbing incident when I fed Topsy. So I decided not to put the dripping frames back on any hive.

Instead I set boxes of dripping frames and the cardboard which was under my transport nucs in which I brought the honey from Stonehurst out on my driveway in front of my house (the hives are at the far back of the house).



Bees arrived in droves to take away the spoils. However, none of my hives in the back of the house were subjected to robbing. This was set out fair to all comers. And come, they did!



Toward the end of the day, the last piece of cardboard was all that had anything sticky on it and the bees cleaned it up as well.



I have one more set of four nucs full of frames of honey from Stonehurst to harvest. I'll treat the dripping frames in this same way since it seemed to be a fair and peaceful way to share the spoils equally.

One year ago:  Bee Mad, Bee Mean
Two years ago:  Blooming Kudzu
Three years ago: Keith Fielder, Master Beekeeper, Speaks at the Metro Club
Four years ago:  The Small Swarm is No More
Five years ago:  Filtering the Honey

The Ravages of War

Last weekend I brought two frames of honey home from my old house to feed Topsy. I also made some syrup to put in the Rapid Feeder on top of the inner cover inside an empty hive box. I put all this on the hive and robbing began. As my grandson would say, it was a battle royale. I covered the hive with a wet sheet, but the bees were attacked viciously as other hives wanted to rob this very weak hive.

Bodies were strewn all over my backyard. The hives border a concrete basketball court so evidence of death was everywhere and more easily seen than in the grass.

Just look at all these dead bees. I wanted to cry.



Many of the bodies were ripped in half. Bodies were all across the concreted area covering about a 10 X 20 foot area.


If you click on the picture below, you can see many dead bees.


It's harder to see, but I stepped back so you could see how extensive the area of death is.



I believe at this point that Topsy is no more.  I am sad to see such a persistent hive bite the dust, but that is what has happened here.  Bang the drum slowly.

Dramatic Demise (or Was it A Dismissal?) of a Bee

On our 60 degree Saturday just past, I visited Blue Heron and was so pleased to see bees flying excitedly in and out of my hive. I saw at least four bees with packed yellow pollen baskets which means there's already a little red maple blooming. It generally starts blooming at the end of January in Atlanta.  The biggest bloom comes later in February, but clearly some is blooming now.  The pollen might also come from mahonia which blooms throughout the winter in Georgia.

At Blue Heron, my hive is alive and seems to be doing well.  Julia's hive appears dead, although on Saturday I saw bees going in and out in the hesitant way that robber bees approach hives and only saw about six bees entering the hive.

At Kevin's hive (he is the main gardener at Blue Heron and is the person who allowed us to keep bees there) I saw bees flying in and out.  At first I thought they were sparse and probably robbers, but then the drama began and I felt sure they are alive in the hive.

During the winter on warmish flying days, bees leave the hive to relieve themselves.  Generally they are not robbing, but with no foraging going on, the bees still are guarding the hive against robbing.  I watched Kevin's hive for a while and saw this interesting drama.

At first I thought the bees were convincing their sister that her earthly life was over and that she, taking up resources of the hive, needed to leave the hive (being placed on the proverbial bee ice floe as it were).  As I watched I began to think that this drama was about a marauding bee who chanced to enter the wrong hive, perhaps in search of food, perhaps in confusion since there's been a lot of non-flying days.

In the photo below the bees have surrounded this bee and are working on convincing her, for whatever reason, to leave.

 

Now they have circled around her, preventing her from choice of movement.

     
In the photo below, I believe they are biting her with their mandibles. She is on her side, looking rather helpless.



Now they are moving her toward the edge of the landing.

They shove her to the very edge of the landing.

And in this last moment, they send her into the weeds and leaves below.

Truly I thought she was dead, but she hesitated in the leaves for a moment and then took wing.  So I decided I was witness to a thwarted robbery attempt or at least winter intrusion into Kevin's beehive.

 

Loss ..... and Gain

We had wondered about the hive with food that we set up at Blue Heron - were the bees there homeless or were they robbers from the neighborhood? Yesterday Julia and I went over and removed the empty boxes.

Under my box which had had the most activity was a clear sign of robbers. When robbers open honey cells, they rip the cell open, leaving ragged edges on the comb and dropping wax shards carelessly below. You can see the wax shards on top of the cinder block.

The reason there are shards on one block and not so much on the other is that some of the frames we put in the wrecked hive had dead brood and some had capped honey - so the honey must have been on that side.



We left the cinder blocks to inspire us for next year and to remind us that once there were bees thriving at Blue Heron.



From a practical point of view, last night I decided to look at the cost of what was lost.

Hive Body - 2 per hive $24
Telescoping Top $20
Inner Cover $10
Screened Bottom Board $15
Frames $20
Slatted Rack $11
Original nuc bees $75
Replacement Purvis Queen $50

Total $225

That's a lot of stuff floating down the river. Since there were seven hives there, each with approximately the same equipment, that means the total losses at Blue Heron for all the beekeepers there amounted to about $1575. Goodness -

While the whole thing was and is very sad, I spent some of Sunday afternoon with a young woman and her family who wanted to learn about bees to see what it would be like to start keeping bees in the spring.

Here's Annie in one of my beesuits, happily opening and exploring beekeeping as a possible new venture for herself.



So I tell myself there is balance. The bees and hives may have washed down the river, but there's at least one new beekeeper who wants to bring the tiny insects into her life.

And next year there will be more beehives and more beekeepers in the world.

No Bees at Home, No Homeless Bees - Blue Heron Update

I have been concerned about the fact that the bees I saw on Thursday night looked like robbers rather than homeless bees. They were approaching the hive in the frantic way that robbers do. But still, if there were still homeless bees in the vicinity of the Blue Heron hives, now gone, I'd want to try to make them a home.

Today it is pouring rain in Atlanta. But it is still daylight. I decided to drive over to Blue Heron in the pouring rain and look at the hives. If any bees are taking shelter in their old home box, they should be there now, taking shelter from the rain.

I arrived in the rain at Blue Heron, put on my muddy tennis shoes and rain jacket and sloshed through the mud over to the hives. No bees were anywhere. I opened the nuc box - no bees. I opened the yellow hive - no bees. I opened Julia's hive - no bees. Her hive had six dead bees on the top of it.

We can now definitely toll the bells for the Blue Heron bees, rest their little souls. All of them are no more.

The bees eating the honey must have been neighborhood robbers or bees who survived the flood but were so worn out that they have died this week.

I didn't move our equipment in the pouring rain - but I'll go get it in the next day or two.

And we'll try again next year.

Beeyard Mayhem

At 8 PM on Saturday night I was moving a wheelbarrow through my backyard to the shed when I realized there were bees buzzing and swirling all around my yard and rising from my deck. I put on my bee jacket and veil and went out to see. Bees were everywhere. It was organized like a swarm and it wasn't apparent that any particular hive was being robbed.

The bees were all over the deck - they head-butted me no matter where I walked. Hundreds were flying in circles near my sun porch door. It was almost dark - what was this about? I assume because of the nectar dearth and the relatively low supplies for this time of year, that probably robbing was going on. I approached the two weakest hives and both, while not looking like robbing I've seen in other years, did appear to have some attacking happening on the front landings.

I immediately dropped the propped tops on all three hives and planned to get out robber screens for the two front entries of the hives that looked violated. By the way, opportunists were just waiting. I saw two bald-faced hornets get into the act of violating the hives as well as a couple of yellow jackets.

I went into the house to get the robber screens and angry bees went in with me. Usually they abandon the cause at the door, but not this time. I got the screens and put them on Mellona and Aristaeus2 since both seemed somewhat in distress. I posted on Beemaster to see if someone had an idea about what might be going on, but most of the wise people I depend on were at the Northeast Treatment Free Beekeeping Conference in the northeast and nobody answered for more than 24 hours.


On Sunday the center hive, Mellona, looks OK, but I was worried about the robber screen on Aristaeus 2. When I took it off, there were lots of dead bees behind the screen. By this afternoon (Monday), they had removed the dead and everything appeared to be back to normal. I will open the hive tomorrow and know more about what happened - if they were robbed and what is the state of the hive.

Meanwhile I had a wedding shower at my house on Sunday morning and didn't have the time to rescue with the glass and postcard all the bees that were on my porch. I carried about 20 of them outside that way. But then I am ashamed to say that I vacuumed up the 102 others that were still on the sunporch. I was afraid of having them there with all the people coming to the shower and I didn't have enough time to remove them one by one. So I was part of the hive devastation that happened on Saturday night.




If you click on the picture below to enlarge it, you'll notice in the lower part of the picture a bald-faced hornet attacking a bee.