I took advantage of being halfway to Underhill on an errand to go visit my parents and look in on the bees. I was particularly interested in Juno hive (the yellow one) which was started from a nuc this Spring and has looked less robust than the other nuc, Ceres the blue hive. I got home around 7:30 and was with the hives a few minutes later.
I smoked Juno and opened her up. The bees were docile and I could see they had not done much of anything in the second deep box I had added to them. Putting that box aside I looked in on the first deep. In addition to the frames that came with the nuc, I had supplied it with frames that had been drawn out (or mostly drawn out) by the hives last year. Doing so should give a bee's leg up to them and it was something I had also done for the Ceres. However, since this comb was older it was darker and still had some debris on it that the bees hadn't cleaned up yet. Looking past those frames I pulled out some frames from the middle which were populated by the bees. I found some larvae, which was what I had been looking for so I know there is a laying queen. I didn't see a lot, but I didn't look at all of them since I was running out of light. I dusted them with powdered sugar for good measure and closed the hive.
I smoked and opened up Ceres. There I saw more bees than in Juno. They had not yet started to draw out the drone frame so I had no need to mess with them any further. I dusted them, just a sprinkle on the top of the top deep... not really a proper dusting, and moved onto Artemis.
I didn't smoke Artemis since I was just opening her to dust her. The bees there were less docile, probably due to the lack of smoking, and very numerous. I sprinkled the last of the confectionery sugar on the top of the super and decided that would be good enough today.
All of this took about twelve minutes. The burgers my parent's had made for me were not even cold.
I will have to make a decision about what to do with Juno in a few weeks when I have the double nuc class and will be bringing home a double nuc and two queens to populate it. Those queens will need a throng of subjects. I could rob some from Artemis and Ceres to fill the nucs. Or I could do what Mike Palmer does, he uses week hives to populate his splits and double nucs. The theory being that while you could drain the resources of a strong hive to supplement a weaker one, its better to leave the strong hive alone to maximize its production (since bees benefit from increased efficiency the more bees there are in a hive) and sacrifice the queen that is under performing since she likely has poorer genetics.
I will try to look in on Juno again this weekend. I will likely remove that second deep as they are not going to be using it anytime soon since they have plenty of empty drawn comb in their first deep box. I may also try to make more sugar to dust them with by putting regular sugar in a blender to make it fine enough for the purpose of getting mites to drop off. Then use this sugar to dust Artemis in earnest.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Monday, June 20, 2011
2011-06-18: Drone's Day
I went to my parents' for Father's Day Eve (since my father would be busy on the actual day driving my mother to a chicken swap). I had managed to finish assembling 10 deep frames over the past week to allow me to put another box on top of Juno. I was rather proud of my assembly as all the joints were nailed and glued, and I had not only wired the frames, but also managed to rig up a power adapter in such a way to heat embed the wires into the wax foundation for extra security.
The weather was very nice when we arrived and I put my frames around back on the porch where they would be easy to get when I started to work with the hives. I then went off to have lunch since it looked like a thunderstorm was getting ready to roll through. And sure enough one did! Not only was there thunder and lightning with heavy rain, but marble sized hail unloaded from the sky. Hail was sluicing off of the porch roof forming not-so-little piles on the lawn below.
After the storm had passed and time enough for the bees to start foraging again, I started to assemble my gear. I was very surprised to find that several of the frames I had left on the back porch under cover of the porch roof had in fact been peppered by hail and one in particular had big holes punched through it. I suppose hail damaged wax foundation can now be added to the long list of things that can go wrong while beekeeping! I decided it was probably fine to use as the bees would likely build comb across the gaps and since it was meant for brood boxes and would not have to go through an extractor like a honey super comb would it could get by with a little loss in structural integrity.
You can see the white hail in the grass.
I opened up Artemis and pulled out the drone comb I had placed in 10 days earlier. It was only halfway drawn out. So it will be a while yet before I will need to pull it to remove capped drones. I went ahead and transferred the frames in the bottom deep box (which was yellow) into a green box, taking the opportunity to clean up the frames a bit. They did not appear to be overly full of honey or brood. Also, I did not see any sign of swarm cells. So, cross fingers, they will not feel overly crowded going into swarming season, especially since I then reversed the boxes.
I then gave Artemis a sugar dusting before closing it up.
I then opened up the top of Juno and added the new deep box. Juno was did not have much bee activity as I was doing this. I think they probably did not need the extra box on top, but had the box and I do worry about getting caught up with other duties and being prevented from checking on the hives for an extended period. But the weakness of this hive makes me want to give it a proper inspection next time I am at the bee yard. I want to make sure that there are brood as proof that the queen is alive and kicking, and to see just how much progress they have made on the original 6 frames added to their box when I installed the nuc.
Both my mother and I agreed that the hives look very prim and proper not that they are properly color coded again. Another session with the weed whacker will likely improve the looks of the yard even more. Perhaps we will serve tea down there soon... maybe even scones!
Since then, I did a mite count on some of the drones from the frame I had removed on the 7th. I pulled 20 drones from their cells and three of them had mites. While to get a good proper count I really need to do 100 drones, this suggests that I have a moderate infestation at the moment. The sugar dusting should probably be done as often as possible and drone frames should also be used aggressively. This Fall I will certainly have to treat them.
I found this online tool useful:
https://secure.fera.defra.gov.uk/beebase/public/BeeDiseases/varroaCalculator.cfm
The weather was very nice when we arrived and I put my frames around back on the porch where they would be easy to get when I started to work with the hives. I then went off to have lunch since it looked like a thunderstorm was getting ready to roll through. And sure enough one did! Not only was there thunder and lightning with heavy rain, but marble sized hail unloaded from the sky. Hail was sluicing off of the porch roof forming not-so-little piles on the lawn below.
After the storm had passed and time enough for the bees to start foraging again, I started to assemble my gear. I was very surprised to find that several of the frames I had left on the back porch under cover of the porch roof had in fact been peppered by hail and one in particular had big holes punched through it. I suppose hail damaged wax foundation can now be added to the long list of things that can go wrong while beekeeping! I decided it was probably fine to use as the bees would likely build comb across the gaps and since it was meant for brood boxes and would not have to go through an extractor like a honey super comb would it could get by with a little loss in structural integrity.
You can see the white hail in the grass.
I opened up Artemis and pulled out the drone comb I had placed in 10 days earlier. It was only halfway drawn out. So it will be a while yet before I will need to pull it to remove capped drones. I went ahead and transferred the frames in the bottom deep box (which was yellow) into a green box, taking the opportunity to clean up the frames a bit. They did not appear to be overly full of honey or brood. Also, I did not see any sign of swarm cells. So, cross fingers, they will not feel overly crowded going into swarming season, especially since I then reversed the boxes.
I then gave Artemis a sugar dusting before closing it up.
I then opened up the top of Juno and added the new deep box. Juno was did not have much bee activity as I was doing this. I think they probably did not need the extra box on top, but had the box and I do worry about getting caught up with other duties and being prevented from checking on the hives for an extended period. But the weakness of this hive makes me want to give it a proper inspection next time I am at the bee yard. I want to make sure that there are brood as proof that the queen is alive and kicking, and to see just how much progress they have made on the original 6 frames added to their box when I installed the nuc.
Both my mother and I agreed that the hives look very prim and proper not that they are properly color coded again. Another session with the weed whacker will likely improve the looks of the yard even more. Perhaps we will serve tea down there soon... maybe even scones!
Since then, I did a mite count on some of the drones from the frame I had removed on the 7th. I pulled 20 drones from their cells and three of them had mites. While to get a good proper count I really need to do 100 drones, this suggests that I have a moderate infestation at the moment. The sugar dusting should probably be done as often as possible and drone frames should also be used aggressively. This Fall I will certainly have to treat them.
I found this online tool useful:
https://secure.fera.defra.gov.uk/beebase/public/BeeDiseases/varroaCalculator.cfm
2011-06-07: Queen Spotting
The plan for this trip to the bee yard was to first weed whack the bee yard, then move the frames out of the yellow deep box in Artemis and put them in a matching green deep and then put that box on top of the other deep. This would accomplish making the hive one uniform color and to reverse the boxes to decrease the chances of a swarm. I had done the later earlier in the season, but Steve Parise thought it would be a good idea to do it again. After those two chores, I wanted to get the third hive, which I have decided to name Ceres after the roman goddess of agriculture and who adorns the Vermont State House, into a blue box.
I took the top off of Artemis and notices that I had a green drone frame in there. I then remembered I had left it in there last Fall since it had been filled with honey at that time since the hive had probably stopped drone production when it went in. I decided to remove it and put a new one in, but while I was picking out frames, I might as well do an inspection and give most of the frames a one over. So I started removing frames from one side. I liked the look of the frames, the bees were working all of them, even the ones on the very outside. And when I got to the drone frame I had a surprise waiting for me. There I saw one of my queens for the very first time. She was obvious as soon as I saw her with her elongated and paler end and she also moved in a different way.. almost like an inch worm because she was extended so much more than a worker bee. Well, she was busily laying more eggs into the worker frame. I got flustered and instead of calmly brushing her off onto a different frame, I put the drone frame back in to think what to do. I then removed the frame again and she appeared to have now gone... hopefully she got the hint and skittered off to the lower box. I then brushed off the workers and put that drone frame on the ground and slid in a fresh drone frame. Since I wasn't sure where my queen might be, I decided to hold off on the frame transfer and reversing.
While moving the frames in Ceres to their new home, I had a chance to look at them. Everything seemed in order, except that I noticed several open supersedure cells on some of the frames that did come with the nuc. I am not sure if they are a sign that the nuc had superseded after arriving or before... or perhaps the frame was recycled and they were from other hive's revolution. I also went ahead and added another deep (also painted blue). It might be a little early to place it but I would rather err on the side of caution. Finally, I placed the old box on top of the inner cover on top of the hive in order to allow the bees clinging to it to retreat back into their new home.
I didn't do anything with Juno that day.
I took the top off of Artemis and notices that I had a green drone frame in there. I then remembered I had left it in there last Fall since it had been filled with honey at that time since the hive had probably stopped drone production when it went in. I decided to remove it and put a new one in, but while I was picking out frames, I might as well do an inspection and give most of the frames a one over. So I started removing frames from one side. I liked the look of the frames, the bees were working all of them, even the ones on the very outside. And when I got to the drone frame I had a surprise waiting for me. There I saw one of my queens for the very first time. She was obvious as soon as I saw her with her elongated and paler end and she also moved in a different way.. almost like an inch worm because she was extended so much more than a worker bee. Well, she was busily laying more eggs into the worker frame. I got flustered and instead of calmly brushing her off onto a different frame, I put the drone frame back in to think what to do. I then removed the frame again and she appeared to have now gone... hopefully she got the hint and skittered off to the lower box. I then brushed off the workers and put that drone frame on the ground and slid in a fresh drone frame. Since I wasn't sure where my queen might be, I decided to hold off on the frame transfer and reversing.
While moving the frames in Ceres to their new home, I had a chance to look at them. Everything seemed in order, except that I noticed several open supersedure cells on some of the frames that did come with the nuc. I am not sure if they are a sign that the nuc had superseded after arriving or before... or perhaps the frame was recycled and they were from other hive's revolution. I also went ahead and added another deep (also painted blue). It might be a little early to place it but I would rather err on the side of caution. Finally, I placed the old box on top of the inner cover on top of the hive in order to allow the bees clinging to it to retreat back into their new home.
I didn't do anything with Juno that day.
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