Conclusions about the Dead Hive in my Beeyard

Today I removed all the frames in each box of the dead hive in my yard. As I thought the hive died out from being queenless and through beekeeper error (I didn't realize they were queenless and didn't combine them with another hive, for example).

There were scattered dead bees throughout the hive. What looked like perhaps the last part of the living bees had died together (about eight of them) in box two on the tops of the frames. I looked through the bodies on the slatted rack and the screened bottom board. I saw no deformed wings, no varroa mites, no dead queen - just worker bees. All told there were about 30 or so dead bees in the hive.

In the picture below you can see numerous small hive beetles dead with the bees.

Because I had fed them bee tea, there was a lot of stored nectar. Here's one frame with every cell filled with nectar.  There was only one frame of capped honey.  Bees that are queenless can die out with honey in the hive because they simply come to the end of their life span and with no queen, there are not younger bees to replace them.

On the frame below, you can see some evidence of their attempts to make a queen. There was absolutely no capped brood or any brood of any kind.

This is clearly a hive that died out from lack of a queen. I should have paid better attention to it going into winter. It's also possible that their queen died fairly early in the winter and they didn't have resources to replace her.

I'm sad that they are gone, but satisfied that I know the cause and that gives me some peace.

Bee-wary of Late Winter

In Atlanta we had a sudden drop in temperature from the highs 60s to the 20s where the temperature has remained for several days.  When it's cold like this, we only have highs in the 30s at best.  When this goes on for several days, the bees are in real danger.

The warmish weather fools the bees into acting like it is spring and they go out, forge for pollen, raise brood, etc.  Then suddenly we have this kind of cold snap.  

The whole hive can die, if the cluster isn't located where there is stored honey.

So I am crossing my fingers and hoping for the best.

I have one dead hive in my back yard.  I looked through it the other day when I did my first powdered sugar shake.  There is honey in the hive and dead bees scattered through the frames.  I didn't take the bottom box off (too big a hurry to get back to the office), but I'll let you know what I find when I do.

My current theory is that the hive went queenless before winter and I didn't recognize that this had happened so I could combine it with another hive.  I may find something else when I look further and then we'll know more, but for now, I'd speculate that the hive died naturally because there was no queen.

In the photo above you can see the few dead bee bodies on top of the frames.  I'll look at these for signs of varroa or deformed wing when I get back into the hive.



For now, I put it back together until I have time in the next few days really to study it.

There was a rapid feeder on top of the hive still half filled with bee tea with a number of dead ants floating in the tea.  I strained it into a jar and may put that on another hive if I don't find evidence of foul brood when I study the cells in the dead hive.

Metro Atlanta Beekeepers Short Course on January 21 - REGISTER NOW!

Our local bee club, the Metro Atlanta Beekeepers Club, offers its short course on Saturday January 21 from 8 - 4:30.  We have an agenda that is filled with experienced, well-qualified speakers and the course is second to none in Georgia.  Some of our speakers include Jennifer Berry, Keith Fielder, Curtis Gentry  (and even me!)  To see earlier posts about previous short courses, click here, here, here, here, here.

To learn more, click here.  To sign up, click here.

There's a continental breakfast beginning at 8 and the speakers begin at 9.  We provide a delicious lunch for participants as well with the opportunity to sit at a table with an experienced beekeeper and talk about getting started.

Participants go home at the end of the day with enough knowledge to get started, with a list of places to order bees and best of all, with an incredible "Goody Bag" filled with beekeeping catalogs, honey, a candle, lip balm, and best of all, their own copy of Keith Delaplane's great basic book of beekeeping:  First Lessons in Beekeeping.  

We have had participants come from as far away as Mississippi - it's an informative, enthusiasm-generating, all-around-great course.  If you can come, you won't regret it.

No Use Crying Over Spilt…..Powdered Sugar!

I'm good at spilling things. I like wine glasses without stems for that reason. If something can be spilled, I'm your woman…..I can do it in a heartbeat.

Today I went over to Stonehurst Place to check on the bees. According to the research at UGA, if you want to treat the bees for varroa mites with powdered sugar shakes, then you start in January, treat four times, three days apart and then repeat the process every other month.

 So it's January and time to get started.

Today I treated my hives at home and then got in the car to take the Dustructor to the Stonehurst Place Inn to treat the hives there. When I opened the back door of the car to get the Dustructor, the cap came off of the canister and powdered sugar went everywhere.

There was powdered sugar in every crevice near the door of the car. What a mess!

I gathered up what I could and returned it to the canister.

The good news is that on this day with 69 degree temps around noon, the bees were flying with enthusiasm out of both hives. I am relieved that they are alive and have high hopes for their making it through to March.

On each hive, as I had done at home, I slid the end of the Dustructor into the entry to about the middle of the hive. Then I gave five large puffs of powdered sugar into the hive with as much vigor as I could muster.

Down with the Varroa Destructor! Long live my bees!

Bee Holiday Goodies

As people know I am a beekeeper, the more and more bees figure into gifts that are given to me and that I choose to give others.  This year was no exception.

I bought a set up honeybee pjs for my 2 year old granddaughter:

Someone brought these bee slippers from Amazon.com to our Metro Atlanta holiday party and I just had to have a pair for myself, so I went home and ordered them:

Of course there are bee mugs and honey dippers:

And I was given a luggage tag (I had one already but my dog ate it - REALLY.....) so I was thrilled to get another!  And a lovely mug for tea, and a canister...I bought the bee bottle brush on a whim - I'm sure I'll never use it but it's such fun.

And my daughter and son-in-law gave me a funny t-shirt with a bear on it wearing fake bee wings.  The bear on the shirt is looking at the bee and says:  "Honey?"  I tried to take a picture of me in the shirt in the mirror and it came out reversed, of course, and today my sweet niece, Amanda, a fantastic photographer took my lowly effort and reversed it for me:

On a Warmish December Day....

the bees are all over this plant in my neighbor's yard. It's a shrub with palmate leaves about 1 foot in diameter each and with nine "fingers" on each leaf.

The bees are busy collecting something from this plant when it's warm enough to fly as it was this afternoon.  From looking around the Internet, it may be a Japanese shrub named Fatsia japonica.....or maybe not.

Anyone have an idea of what this is? Put your answer in a comment below.

Making Hand Cream

Another beekeeper's winter thing-to-do:  make hand cream.  I still don't have the process down but here's currently what I am doing.

The recipe I used (always in revision):

1 3/4 cup olive oil
1/2 cup sweet almond oil
1/4 cup + 1 T cocoa butter
7 oz coconut oil
4 oz beeswax
2 T lanolin oil
2 T honey
1/2 cup or so of water

Melt the first seven ingredients together.  Pour into a blender container.  Blend until it starts to thicken.  Gradually blend in 1/2 cup water.  Blend for 20 minute increments and stop blender and cool mixture for about 5 minutes.  Continue until the lotion is thick enough to put into containers.  (This takes 4 to 4 1/2 hours).

If you simply pour the mix into the containers, it will be hard as a rock.  The blending is necessary, but I haven't figured out how to simplify this process.  Let me know what you try and what works for you.

The finished product can't be slathered onto your hands or they will remain rather greasy.  As in Brylcream, a "little dab'll do ya."  I use a fingertip's worth to lotion my two hands.

Meanwhile, here's the slide show (click to see it full sized and read the captions):

Making Lotion Bars - A Winter Beekeeper's Joy

Lotion bars are quick to make and a holiday gift that the recipients love to get.  The ingredients are only three:

1/3 oil (avocado or sweet almond oil are best)
1/3 butter (shea butter, cocoa butter - I like a half and half combination)
1/3 melted beeswax.

Equipment needed:

A boiling water bath
A large measuring cup
Chopsticks to use for stirring
Molds for the bars (commercial ones can be purchased or you can use ice cube trays)

One caution:  These smell great because of the cocoa butter.  Once I gave one to someone and she took a bite out of it!  Important that your recipient knows they are lotion (although nothing in the bar would be bad for eating!)

These take a short time and are fun to do.  Here's a slideshow of the process: