Sugar Syrup needs replacing

The action at my new hive, Proteus, is fast and furious. The bees seem to fall all over themselves as they zoom in and out of the hive. Many of them are carrying pollen. They've been drinking some of the sugar syrup, but appear also to be doing a lot of foraging.

















Mellona, the replacement for Destin, is going through the sugar syrup. Yesterday this jar was full. This hive also had done less comb building than Proteus on my inspection yesterday, so today they must be going gangbusters in the wax production.

















I replaced their pint bottle with a quart bottle of syrup I made this morning while I was cooking breakfast.
























Meanwhile at Bermuda (below), the bees today appear to be holding their own, flying in and out, carrying pollen and having conferences on the front porch.

Festooning Bees in New Hives

Today is Sunday and I installed the two nucs into hives on Tuesday afternoon. They've been working for about five full days, but I wanted to see how they were doing since it's easiest for me to inspect on the weekend.

Mellona had built out the starter strip frames just a short way. When I removed the frame below from the hive, the bees were festooning but moved too quickly for us to get a picture (my daughter Valerie was around today and took pictures of the inspection).


















Although the bees in Mellona hadn't built out the wax very far, the bees in Proteus have been very industrious. We caught them festooning as they were building out the frames next to the ones from the nuc. The wax cells look smaller than the ones in Mellona, but I didn't measure. The bees hanging off of each other in a downward line are "festooning" as they make the wax cells.

















Here is a comb from Proteus that has almost been built all the way to the bottom of the frame. The bees here are building smaller cells than in Mellona.


















Here is a bee-covered frame from the nuc that established Proteus. Under all of those bees is a great brood pattern. I have a good feeling about this hive - it is extremely active and a little aggressive, but is enthusiastic, and I always appreciate energy put into a task, as these bees have with creating comb.

Bermuda Inspection Today

Compared to my two new hives, Bermuda still seems weak and rather pitiful. I did see the queen and she has established a pretty good laying pattern but still only in the medium box. There are many more bees in the hive, but I expected to see even more than I did when I opened the hive.


















I did another powdered sugar shake on the hive again today, as I plan to every inspection to address the varroa problem. I saw no small hive beetles, but they may be out of the picture until later in the spring.


















I poured the sugar directly into the sifter and sifted sugar between the frames. I brushed sugar that landed on top of the frames into the spaces after I was finished.

















Here's how the bees looked on the inner cover after the sugar shake was finished.

It's Raining on my new Beehives

It's raining in Atlanta tonight and Proteus still doesn't have a telescoping lid or an inner cover (both arriving on Monday). So I have a bottom board on the top of the hive to protect it from the elements. And in looking at the bottom board (now on top) I was worried that rain may leak in on the brood through a crack between boards....so I took the top from the two nucs and made a makeshift cover for Proteus.
























I also replaced the 1:1 sugar syrup on each hive box. Proteus is draining its jar so I gave that hive a quart jar and the other two a pint. I hope the weak Bermuda makes it. The number of bees foraging from Mellona and Proteus was more than double the number leaving occasionally from Bermuda.

Installing the New Bees

Last night I left the two new nucs on the deck beside the two hives they were to occupy. Today at a middle-of-the-day break, I ran home and had an hour to install the hives. I never take a watch out on my beehive inspections, so I set my cell phone to alarm at 2 PM and put it in my pocket to assure that I would leave to get back to my office for a 2:30 appointment.

I smoked one of the nucs and left it while I opened Mellona - the repainted Destin. I put in the six frames with starter strips. Then I added the frames from the nuc, one at a time, in the same orientation in which they occupied the nuc.


















I saw the Queen in this nuc. She is a large woman and you can see her in the picture below. She looks much different than the rest of her retinue and has a yellow dot on the back of her head. You'll notice that the bees are facing her in a circle. If you click on the picture and enlarge it you can see eggs in the cells at the top of the picture - she's laying well.























Then I installed the nuc for Proteus - the new hive. I haven't even gotten cinder blocks for the hive to sit on yet, but it is on the new fancy screened bottom board which does have redwood feet, so the hive is lifted above the deck surface. I also found the Queen in Proteus. You can see her in the center of the picture below. She has a white dot on her head and isn't as large as Mellona's queen.
























When I finished installing the frames of bees and brood, I stood the nuc on its side in front of the hive to allow the remaining bees to find the queen inside the hive. The brown thing leaning against the nuc is the inboard feeder that came with the nuc. I set up both new hives with feeding bottles with 1:1 sugar syrup in them. Tonight when I got home after work, I went out with a flashlight and all of the Mellona bees had moved to the hive. There were still 10 or so bees in the Proteus nuc body. By morning they will probably also be in the hive.

Small Cell Foundation Starter Strips

My plan is to encourage my bees to build small cells for their brood so instead of using regular foundation in the brood chamber of the two new hives, I am using small cell foundation that I ordered from Dadant. And instead of installing full sheets of small cell in the frames, I am using starter strips. Michael Bush suggested that I cut the foundation into 3/4 inch strips.

Step 1: Melt the wax to pour into the grooves in the frame to hold the starter strips. I bought a crummy double boiler at a junk store in the mountains to use for melting wax. These are cappings left over from last year. As the double boiler heated up, the whole kitchen began to smell like that wonderful honey/bee/wax smell that you can smell by the hives in the hot summer.


















Step 2: While the wax was melting I went to my sewing room to cut the foundation into starter strips. My quilting equipment came in handy. I used a rotary cutter blade that I use to cut paper and my quilting ruler and the green cutting board and quite easily and quickly cut the SC foundation into 3/4 inch strips.


















Step 3: Fill the groove in the frame with melted wax to hold the starter strip in place. My wax fastener from Dadant hasn't arrived yet so I was up the creek without a paddle (or in this case, a wax tube fastener) and had no way to pour the wax accurately into the frames. On Beemaster, recommendations included using a straw, a bent spoon, a meat injector for grilling. I didn't have a straw, couldn't bend an old spoon without a vise, and didn't have a meat injector - just a turkey baster and it was too big. Then I noticed a small bread pan on my kitchen counter - PERFECT! I dipped it into the double boiler of melted wax and got about a tablespoon. Then I poured the wax gently into the groove and set the starter strips in place.


















Step 4: Leave the starter strips to cool in the frames until ready to install in the hives. I actually have a break tomorrow for about 1 1/2 hours in the middle of the day - just enough time to hurry home, put on my bee stuff, and install the nucs into the hives. I can finish making starter strips for the medium box and to put in Bermuda on another day after my wax fastener comes.

Note: The question was asked in a comment - why starter strips? I am trying to get my bees to make natural cells rather than what we request that they make by supplying a preprinted foundation. Bees on commercial foundation build cells that are 5.9 mm. Some beekeepers think that bees naturally build smaller cells - more like 4.9 mm. Dadant now carries small cell wax foundation.

A bee maturing in a small cell matures faster than a larger bee. This supposedly gives the Varroa mite less time in the cell with the bee so the mite cannot mature. Thus less Varroa in the hive.

I am using strips rather than full sheets of foundation because of Michael Bush's approach. The question of is it more work for the bees is answered by Michael in this way:

"Question:

Doesn't it take longer for them to draw their own combs?
Answer:
I have not found this to be true. In my observation (and others who have tried it), they seem to draw plastic with the most hesitation, wax with a little less hesitation and their own comb with the most enthusiasm. In my observation, and some others including Jay Smith, the queen also prefers to lay in it."



Some of the beekeepers I most respect are proponents of this, so I am following their lead. Michael Bush (my beekeeping hero) has lots of information on his site about natural cell size.
He typically uses foundationless frames.

A major proponent of small cell is Dee Lusby. She and her late husband Ed have done considerable work in this area.

Bees Arrive: Bee Season Begins!

At work today, I received a call from P.N. Williams to tell me that my bees (the two nucs I had ordered from him) are here and I need to pick up the bees tonight. Today was a long work day for me. I started at 9 AM and worked all day and without a break, I went straight to Emory to teach a class from 7 - 9 PM. My daughter lets my dogs out during the day on Mondays because I get home late.

You always pick up nucs after dark so that the bees are all at home tucked into bed. I drove south to P.N.'s place and got there at 9:30. My car is packed with furniture that needs to go to the mountains and other stuff (see the package of paper towels in the picture), so before I could put the bees in the car, I had to rearrange things. Here are the two nucs, bungee cords holding them closed, in the back of the car. This year, as he did last, P.N. cautioned me about going over any bumps on the way home. Atlanta is full of potholes, speed bumps, and rough pavement - it would be impossible to get home without bumps. Last year when I arrived home the back of the car was full of bees, mad at the bumps, who came out to see what was what. This year as you can see, the nucs were calm and the bees were not stirring.


I walked around the house to the deck (remember last year when I carried the bees THROUGH the house - see April 2006 archive) and set each nuc beside the hive where the bees will live.

I removed the bungee cords and let the door drop open. Each nuc was full of bees. There may be more bees in each of these nucs than are still alive in Bermuda....I put a feeder on each of the hives and came inside to fix the frames so that I can install the bees tomorrow.

Cool new Screened Bottom Board for new hive

I was frustrated by my screened bottom board (SBB) last year because there was no easy way to put a sticky board underneath for a mite count. There was no slide-out tray and I had to cut poster board and slick it up with vaseline to do a mite count.

This year Dadant is carrying a new board designed to help with the Varroa mite problem. It's called the Country Rubes Screened Bottom Board. They have their own website where the board is well described. They also describe how to do a powdered sugar treatment, if you didn't know how (my pictures are just like theirs)

The board is built well and the wood is treated so that it doesn't need to be painted. Their description: "We weather proof our boards by boiling them in a solution of paraffin and tree rosin and highly recommend this procedure for protection against the elements. "

















The board also has this little covered up hole that you can expose at the back of the board/hive that allows you to smoke the hive from the back.


















In addition this screw eye has been bent to provide a "lock" to hold the cover of the tray in place until you want/need to slide it out.

















My third hive is now painted a soft peach color and almost ready to go. It is waiting for the inner cover and telescoping cover to arrive this week. You can see the six empty frames in the deep at the bottom.

I am naming this hive Proteus so that it will be strong against disease.

Aristaios was the Greek god of beekeeping, honey, olive farming and cheese making. Aristaios had a terrible problem when all of his bees died. His mother, Cyrene, advised him to go to another god, Proteus, to get the problem solved. Proteus was persuaded under protest to help Aristaios. After Proteus agreed to help, Aristaios sacrificed 12 animals and left their bodies at the place of sacrifice. He returned three days later to find a swarm of bees in one of the carcasses. He never had disease in his beehives again. So in honor of this Greek tale, this hive will be Proteus and hopefully will gain strength (if the beekeeper does her job) against the Varroa mite.