2011-05-28: And Then There Were Three

A few days ago I was at my parents' long enough to take some quick pictures of the hives.

 

 

 

 

I have still not decided on names for Hive 2 and 3. I believe I may have to give up on a good name starting with 'B'. I think one will likely be Demeter and I might go ahead and use Juno again. However, tonight I stumbled upon Hegemone, who was a Goddess of Plants and she made sure they bloomed and bore fruit as they were meant to.

2011-05-20: Just Say No to Slip and Slides

I zipped to my parents' place after work. Along the way I stopped and picked up a frame assembly jig from my mentor and talked a little about the Chittenden County Beekeepers Club meeting that we had both attended the night before and perhaps making a double nuc box for overwintering since my planned supplier was AWOL from all reports.

At my parent's I suited up to move the third hive from the porch to its new home in the beeyard. To lighten the load I took the top cover off, but it was still pretty heavy. While it was only about stone's throw away, the beeyard was down a small steep hill and the grass was wet. Visions of slipping and ending up on my butt with a box of very angry bees in my lap filled my head. But careful foot work and muscles no doubt strengthed by shoveling all the snow this year (and perhaps from carrying BabyD while walking back and forth at 4AM) manged to get the bees to their new home. As I put them down a half dozen did zip out of the entrance and buzz around in a threatening manner. But no harm seemed to have been done to either me or the bees.

I did notice that the nuc box that had been placed at the hive entrance after moving them was empty of bees, so apparently they had taken the hint and crawled into their new home.

Before leaving I borrowed my father's framing gun and compressor. I should be all set for framing up a storm.

2011-05-15: Third Time's a Pain

Sunday the 15th was my day to pick up the nuc from Northwoods Apiary to make my third hive. After a lot of driving and some frustration with having left a box of frames behind I got the nuc to my parents' place around noon. I decided to go ahead and move the frames into their new home as there was some concern that they could start to feel cramped before my next visit and start to swarm. Since it was cold and raining I decided to once again use the covered porch to do the work so that the bees would be out of the rain while they settle in. I suited up and placed a small strip of burlap into the smoker since this was going to be a short job. A little puff of smoke came out of the smoker and I proceeded to puff some into the hive. I then started to unscrew the screws holding down the top lid. When I got it off I tried to give the hive another few puffs. The smoker refused to produce anything more than an anemic trickle, not enough to quell the growing irritation of the hive. I tried lighting the burlap again, adding some paper, and finally added another piece of burlap to finally manage to get a nice big puff of smoke. By which time some bees had started to head butt my veil. A minute's work and the frames were moved. A good portion of the bees stayed in the box, probably because a dinner plate sized chunk of comb had been built in the extra space in the nuc box. I placed the empty box at the entrance and hoped they would figure it out. I also hoped that the queen had been on the frame and was not sitting in that pile of bees in the box.

Other news. A few days before this my hives had been visited by the State Bee Inspector, Steve Parise. He had noted V mites in both hives, no surprise there really. He also spotted European Foulbrood in the new hive (ie the first nuc, or hive #2 after this day's addition). He said that others in that shipment of nucs from Louisiana had had EFB and that it should clear up on its own with warmer weather and a nectar flow. If not I could re-queen. I should also reverse the boxes in Artemis again to try to prevent swarming since I did it so early in the year, if I do so I will probably take that opportunity to move the yellow deep box out and replace it with a green one since I would like one color per hive. I also probably jumped the gun by putting a few supers on top Artemis. Oh well.

2011-05-06: Every Nuc Needs a Patio

A few weeks ago in early May I recieved delivery of the first of the two nucs I had ordered this year. It sat for a few days on my parent's back porch under cover while I waited for the weather to improve. On the 6th of May the sun came out and I was able to get to work.

I had decided to put a few supers onto my overwintered hive, Artemis. I opened the top cover and saw a large number of bees working the fondant and patty. I moved the feeding super with the inner cover to one side. I then placed on two shallow supers of undrawn wax foundation on top of the hive and then placed the inner cover and feeding super back on.

 

Moving my attention to the nuc, I brought it over to the beeyard. I had already set up the deep that it was going to go into. I had the drawn and partially drawn frames from Juno hive last year still and I used some of them to supply the extra frames to make up the full complement of 10 with the addition of the frames in the nuc. With my handy pocket leatherman I unscrewed the top of the nuc and transfered the frames to their new home. I left the box at the front of the hive in hopes that the bees clinging to it will eventually get the idea to go into their new home. I put entrance reducer in place (to deter robbing from Artemis) and put the top on.

 

 

Stepping back I admired the look of the two hives on their nice paver patio. They looked pretty good, though part of me wont be happy until Artemis has all green boxes again.

 

At some point I need to name the new hive. I could go with Juno again... but I think I want to get closer to an alphabetical progression... There are precious few goddesses that begin with 'B' so I may skip to Ceres.

2011-05-04: Things are Picking Up

On May Day I was at my parent's for my niece's birthday (she even has red hair, maybe I should get her a copy of Das Kapital for her 16th Birthday). While there I took the opportunity to get some work done with the bees. My father had picked up 6"x12" cement pavers for me so that I could lay them down to make a nice level base for the hives. This was dreamed up after my hive started to tip precariously last month as one leg sunk into the mud. In addition to stability, they should keep the grass from growing directly below and in front of the hives. The pieces of scrap roofing metal did a good job of that last year but were not very esthetic and my mother would like to have a nice bee yard to look at while having her morning coffee in the summer.

I donned the bee suit since I didn't know how they would take excavation being done so close to the hive and I wanted to cover my dark clothing. It was in the 60's but it did not take long to work up a sweat in that suit while I was hoeing the turf away so that the bricks would be flat. But even though it was hot in their, the suit did give me peace of mind while I was bent over with the hoe and presenting what must have been a tempting target to the hive not two feet away.

In the photo I took of the hive that day, you can see the pavers in the corner. I plan on moving the hive the next time I am up there if the pavers appear to be snug in the ground after all the rain we have been having. Also, you can see the bees are very active out of the top entrance. I counted 106 bees/min. I thought it was interesting that they were not using the lower entrance at all. About every third forager had pollen, some a pale yellow, others a strong orange color.

 

Yesterday I drove my mother home after babysitting BabyD. This gave me a chance to pick up the nuc that PY had picked up for me. The plan was that I would swing by at 7PM when he could close the entrance after most of the foragers had returned for the night so they would not be left behind. We need not had worried since it was a rainy day and the foragers were not going anywhere. PY suggested that I either put saranwrap over them or get them under cover since the nuc was really just a wooden box and the rain could enter the top and drip onto the bees. Fortunately, my parent's house has a porch on the back that still has a cover over half of it. I left the nuc under that shelter with a feeder full of syrup and vitamins nearby. Hopefully the rain will keep my hive from investigating the feeder for a while as I don't want the strong hive to then get stimulated into robbing the nuc. We shall see. Certainly it rained most of today and is expected to shower tomorrow. I plan on getting up to the farm on Friday in order to move the nuc into a real brood box, put a few suppers on the main hive to encourage them to start drawing out comb, and to possibly move the main hive onto the pavers.

In a few weeks I pick up the second nuc, bringing me to three hives. But I hope to install one down at a nearby farm, assuming I can get out there and find a good spot. The farmers would like to see more than one hive down there and I am tempted to oblige them with a double nuc I hope to start in July.