The Bees Found Me!

Today as I left for work, I noticed a swirling swarm of bees in my neighbor's yard across the street. I was running late and couldn't stop but I could see a plate sized pile of bees on the ground with others circling overhead and rejoining the group.

When I got a break in the day, I called my neighbor, Tom, and told him about the bees. He was shocked. He said he had been standing in that exact place earlier in the morning and there were no bees. I asked him to leave them alone and if they were still there when I got home, I'd put a hive box with them and try to retrieve them.

I called my local beekeeping guru, Cindy Bee. She said this was probably a hive that had absconded because of some problem like small hive beetles ruining their stores. Hungry and desperate, the bees leave the hive because of lack of supplies and lack of choice. She suggested that I set up a hive box with drawn comb and put it next to the pile of bees with a ramp of cardboard or cloth and that the bees would probably march right into the box.

At the end of the day, I drove home and looked over at my neighbor's house. The bees were gone. Oh, well, I thought, it wasn't meant to "bee." I checked my hives for signs of absconded bees but all of my hives were full and active.

When I get home at the end of the work day, the first thing I do is to let out the dogs. I opened the kitchen door and went out with Henry and Hannah. I was running with Hannah when I noticed the dish sized pile of bees in the center of my backyard.

The bees found me!

I did what Cindy suggested: I put out a medium nuc box, filled with drawn comb. I made a cardboard ramp and smeared a little swarm lure on it for encouragement. Right away the bees started climbing the ramp into the box! I had to go to a working dinner but by the time I left, they were steadily entering their new home. I have another box for this nuc - it's a medium nuc from Brushy Mountain - that I will add tomorrow.





Cindy suggested that I feed them heavily because they are now in a hive with absolutely no stores. I mixed up 2:1 syrup and put it in a Boardman feeder on the front of the hive. I didn't think about stings and did all of this with bare hands and no veil. I only got stung once under the fingernail of my right index finger - and that was because I smushed a bee while moving them around to put on the Boardman.

I hope they live and thrive - I'll sure try to help.

Mellona and Bermuda

These two hives are my standby strong ones. Mellona is entering her second winter. Bermuda is entering her third. She has barely made it through both of her winters, but perhaps this one will be the best one yet.

I've been worrying a little about Mellona. She has always looked weaker than Bermuda - less bees on the front porch and always looks a little on the low numbers side. Today there was brood everywhere - capped cells and brood in all stages of development.



On this frame you can see five emerging workers - they're the bees coming out of the cells face forward. The nurse bees are going into the cells headfirst!



In the picture below you can see larvae in all stages of development.



I was tired and needing to shower and go to work when I got to Bermuda so I only took this picture. The brood is obviously still in process - so that's good. I noticed in Bermuda there are two boxes each of which had half of its frames filled with honey and the other half empty. On my next inspection I'll combine the two boxes.

The combination will be a little problematic because one of the boxes is a medium and the other is a shallow....this is the argument for using all the same sized boxes. I had to put a box on in a hurry when I was on my way out of town and grabbed a shallow by mistake since all of its frames were there. But next time around I'll put the shallow frames in the medium box and hope for as little burr comb as possible!

I just noticed the stick in the bottom left of the frame. I believe this is a box that I started with popsicle sticks as starters and the stick must have fallen out of the slot and been incorporated by the bees into the wax comb!

How's It Going At Aristaeus2?

This hive started from the second swarm I collected. The swarm was tiny and the bees were small as well. I've left the hive pretty much alone and have occasionally inspected it - maybe three deep inspections since I got it on April 8.

Today I looked into the brood box - I've never seen the queen in this hive. She obviously is hard at work and here is her brood pattern. Looking good, she's still building up the hive numbers as we approach the fall.



Aristaeus2 had an extra empty box on top of it so that they could clean it up after harvest for me. Now they will winter in this shape:
one deep and two medium boxes. I may need to consolidate the top two boxes but for now both are heavy with honey.

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.

Devorah--the Re-Queened Hive and Her Progress

Right before Labor Day I installed a new queen in this queenless hive. There was absolutely no brood in the hive and the cells in the brood box were polished clean. The bees were angry and the hive was not doing well, as would be true of any queenless hive.

I installed the new queen and went out of town. When I returned the queen had been released and the hive seemed to be buzzing along.

Today I inspected to see if she had actually begun laying. My first sight was this wax moth worm being dragged out by a house bee. I took the shot after the house bee had returned to the hive. My heart sank at the idea that wax moths had overtaken the hive.



I also saw small hive beetles, as I did on this inspection in all of my hives. Here's one just hanging out with the bees.


But when I opened the previously empty brood box, I found to my huge relief, there were brood cells, capped and ready to emerge. I saw some larvae but didn't look at more than three frames in the brood box. I just wanted to make sure there was capped brood and I didn't want to take the risk of smushing Her Majesty. So relieved to see capped brood, I closed up the hive and left.

In a couple of weeks, I'll check again. I didn't do a powdered sugar shake on this hive because the varroa cycle was interrupted by the queenless problem. However, I may do a shake on my next inspection of this hive.

The Metro Atlanta Beekeepers' Honey Contest

Tonight was the annual Metro Atlanta Beekeepers Association honey contest and party. The food was great. I took a beehive cake like I'd made for my book club last year. The little jelly bean bees with almond wings turned out better than the previous cake I baked.

I'm so grateful that my daughter Valerie gave me this cake pan - what fun I've had with it!




We had an auction of donated items from a garden hive top and an observation hive to baskets of honey goodies, baked goods, etc. I bought a candle holder, a basket of homemade honey lotions, balms, and other body indulgences, a pair of bee earrings and a necklace, and a bee hand towel.

We did all of this while the honey contest was being judged.

Our honey contest has grown - there were about 60 entries this year. Some of us entered in more than one category, but it is still a phenomenal number. Our Welsh honey judge, Evelyn Williams, declared that next year we need to have more than one judge or more time. I think she worked like a Trojan for several hours.

I am so excited! I won six ribbons - four blue first place ribbons and two red second place ribbons.

The blue ribbons were for:

1. The wax block that I poured in the end 18 times!!!!!
2. My boxed cut comb honey
3. My jarred chunk honey
4. My entry into the black jar contest - the honey is poured into a black jar and is judged purely on the taste and consistency. I wasn't planning to enter the black jar but did at the last minute. So I was particularly pleased about winning that because it was so last minute! My bees make delicious honey and I think it helps not to use an extractor in terms of the richness and thickness of the honey.

The red ribbons were for:

1. My light amber honey
2. My dark amber honey

Now I'll re-pour the wax block for the Georgia Beekeepers' meeting in a couple of weeks and I'll re-clean all of my jars and the cases for the cut comb honey and start all over again!

And What of the Bees?

I've been focused on the wax block for so long that some of you may be wondering if I have forgotten the bees. I am going to do an inspection and powdered sugar shake tomorrow. I have not inspected the bees in a couple of weeks.

Here's the good news:
At Young Harris this year a number of speakers, Kim Flottum and Ross Conrad, for example, gave talks about how important splits in mid summer are to reduce the varroa mite issue. When you do a split and force the hive to make a new queen, brood rearing is disrupted.

In my hives, the hive I requeened a few weeks ago was in the middle of an interrupted brood cycle. I haven't checked to see if the new queen is laying or if she is established in the hive beyond removing her empty queen cage.

However simply by being queenless long enough to interrupt the rearing of brood, that hive is much less likely to have a varroa problem. Without eggs being laid and brood being capped and growing, there is no place for the varroa mite to lay her eggs or for young varroa to grow and thrive. The Devorah hive is highly likely to have a very low varroa count as a result.

I will check all the hives in the morning to see what's what and I'll report to you about how the requeened hive is doing, how the combined hive is doing and how the other three are doing.

The Saga Continues

This may be it - it isn't perfect, but I give up - this is the 15th pour and I've had it with trying for perfection. I'm getting in the boat with the Amish who make mistakes in their quilts on purpose because they believe it is an affront to God to think that any human can achieve perfection.

And the Metro Beekeepers Annual Honey contest, Auction and Picnic is this coming Sunday so time is running out.

I poured this in a glass dish lubricated with dishwashing detergent. I've tried PAM, dishwashing detergent, Crisco, and Silicone Spray. The latter had to be sprayed outdoors and could only be used in a metal pan. I was so afraid that the chemical smell would ruin the wax. That pour had divots in it but popped right out of the pan. Thus I'm up to POUR 15......grrrr.



It cooled well and popped out of the pan looking shiny and lovely. The glass pans work well for smooth sides, but it's hard to pop out of the pan without flexible sides. Looks perfect, right?



But no, right in the center of the top are these tiny marks from the dishwashing liquid pooling on the bottom of the pan or maybe, since this spot is in the location of where the first wax went into the pan, they are the result of the pan not being hot enough. Usually when I pour I have the pan sitting in another pan of boiling water. This time I poured and then put the water around the pan. Maybe this is where the wax cooled faster than the rest since it was first in the pan and then the hot water didn't remelt it. Who knows?

I have been polishing it with a knee high stocking like crazy. Here's the damaged part:



I have polished and polished and it's looking better. I also poured Pour 14 at the same time with some darker wax. It didn't come out well - looks great but has three bubble holes on the top - small ones but quite obvious. I may pour that wax again into the pan of #15 and see. If it's better than this one, I'll use it, but otherwise #15 enters the contest on Sunday.

There's a fabulous candle maker in our club - she makes candles that look like bundles of asparagus, pine cones, etc. and they all come out of the molds perfectly. I'm trying for second or third place with this small attempt below. I poured my extra wax into silicone cupcake holders that I had poked a hole in and inserted wicks. I think they turned out cute. I can only enter one of them but the one on the upper right is perfect, so it will enter to try for 2nd or 3rd place.