Winer Prep: 2014-11-28

I'm trying a few new things to prepare the hive for Winter this year.  Ideally I would have two hives of similar strength and try something new on one hive and not the other.  Then I could compare the results in the Spring and see if it made any difference.  Not exactly a complete scientific study, but it would be a start.  Alas, I only have the combined Green/White hive to overwinter this year, so it is all or nothing. 

The first thing I am trying is adding wood shavings to the ventilation board on top of the hive. 

Vent board.  Notice the propolis on the edges and center of the screen

During the Winter, the bees generate heat to keep the cluster warm.  That warm, moist air rises in the hive and when it hits the inner cover can possible condense.  This water can eventually build up and drip back down on the bees.  Not good.  Bees don't have too much trouble handling the cold.  But if they are cold AND wet, it is a death sentence.  So, the idea is that the warm moist air rises up through the hole in the inner cover and then through the wood shavings in the ventilation board.  If it does condense at all, the wood shavings absorb the moisture and it cannot drip back down on the bees.  I think the loose wood shavings also allow for some air circulation from the bottom of the hive without creating some sort of wind tunnel.

Wood shavings added

The second thing I am trying is using a Winter wrap on the hive. 

I put velcro on the wraps to attach them

In the past I used a wind break to keep most of the wind chill off the hives.  They were big, bulky and heavy sheets of plywood that I would stake into the ground.  I would then have to put braces on them so they wouldn't blow over.  Way too much of a pain.  My thought on the Winter wrap is that it would serve the same purpose as a wind break and be much easier to use and store.  From all that I have read, the opinions really go back and forth on the benefit of using them.  They do help to block the wind for sure but they also may block the solar radiation on a nice sunny day from warming the hive.  Even though they are made of black plastic that would absorb some sun, there is a very thin layer of foam on the back side of the plastic.  I think that would prevent the warmth from actually reaching the hive.  Any heat transfer experts out there that can weigh in on this?  I know of others who staple black tar paper directly to their hives.  That may actually allow the heat to transfer into the hive enough for the bees to move around and get to other sources of honey.  I really wish I had my Arduino hive monitor running so I could see the temp difference from outside and inside the hive on a sunny day!  Maybe next year.

All tucked in for Winter

The last thing I did (which is no different than previous years) is to take the entrance reducer off and put the mouse guard on.

I have also gone out to the hive about once a week and used my J-Hook style hive tool to scoop out the dead bees from the bottom of the hive. 

Bring out yer dead!  (And look out for the 1 attack bee)

You don't want so many dead bees to build up on the bottom that they can no longer get out of the hive.  What has really amazed me is that I am still seeing drones!!  I really thought that every last drone would have been expelled from the hive two months ago!

So far, December has been mild.  Cold, but not horrible.  The end of this week is suppose to reach 40 degrees F.  I'll take it!  All I can really hope for is that this Winter isn't as bad as last Winter.  Waiting is the hardest part  =)

Until next time, thanks for reading!

Second Inspection: 2014-06-10

I was very eager to complete this second inspection for a few reasons.  First, I was very eager to retrieve my fist set of Arduino Smart Hive data!  Second, the hives are currently at Installation +30 days (Bee Math) and there should be many more young bees in the hive.  Not only will these bees be nurses for the next generation, but they will also be wax comb builders (Honey Bee Worker Jobs).  So, they should be expanding the nest area and allowing more bees to forage for nectar and pollen.  The increasing number of bees also means they will be running out of space soon.  Normally in nature, the size of the cavity the bees live in does not increase and when they run out of room they swarm.  Part of being a beekeeper is controlling the bee's swarming nature by adding more space (boxes) and I needed to see if it was time to add another box or not.  If your hive does swarm you've lost probably half of your bees and your old queen.  Not a good thing if you actually want any honey.  Plus most of your neighbors probably wouldn't appreciate a swarm of bees landing in their yard!  Well, onto the inspections...

Green Hive:

I opened the lid and found that my ventilation board with my electronics in it was nicely stuck to the top of the lid.  There must have been some propolis left on the underside of the lid and it works really nicely as glue.  I spent a few minutes trying to remove the ventilation form and when I finally removed it, I notice a LARGE, furry black spider resting comfortably on the underside of the lid.  Thankfully I was armed with a steel hive tool and dispatched the menace quickly.  I really dislike spiders but I also know they do eat "bad" insects, so I try to leave them alone when I spot them in the garden.  But when they are around my bees I show now mercy!  I'm sure beekeepers in Arizona, Florida or Australia can get some really nasty surprises around their hives.  Yikes. 

Anyway, after all that drama, I pulled the SD memory card from the Arduino and downloaded the data.  My first disappointment was that it appeared that it only logged about 3 days worth of data.  It appears my 6 AA battery pack didn't last very long at all.  I'll be looking into an alternate power source for sure now.

Arduino Smart Hive data

With that said, it was cool to see that the general data collection does work!  From the data it looks like the external sensor might be a little flaky since the humidity spiked at 100% a number of times and the temperature measured at 103.82 F on June 2, 3:22 PM.  According to the weather report on that day, the highest it hit was 82 F.  Other than that oddity, the data looks consistent.  What I really like seeing are the readings from the brood area.  The temperature reading is a very flat, steady line, right around 95 F.  Despite what the outside temperature is, they do a fantastic job of maintaining the same temperature and humidity levels where the baby bees are being raised.

Pulling the first two frames from the hive, I saw they were still empty.  The third frame in was built much wider because of the empty space next to it.  With the top down view in the photo below, you can see how the wax sticks out past the top bar of frame 3.

Green Hive

Frame 3 was heavy with honey and frame 4 was the first to have brood on it.  Typically the brood nest is toward the middle of the hive so it was no surprise to see frame 5 had a lot of brood on it.  The other side of this frame had a large empty area where all the baby bees had already hatched out of their cells.

Hatched Brood

Frame 6 looked very similar to 5.  Frame 7 was about 50% covered with capped brood and had a large section of new wax drawn out.  Looking closely I could see there were eggs in almost every cell in the new section of wax.

Frame 7

Frame 8 and 9 actually had some large patches of brood on them with an empty queen cup as well.

Queen Cup

Thankfully there wasn't anything in the cup so it doesn't look like they are preparing to swarm or replace the queen.  The last frame hadn't really been touched by the bees since the last inspection.  So in total there are still 3 empty frames in Green Hive.  Looks like I'll be ready to add another box during my next inspection.  They are coming along nicely!

White Hive:

The first thing I noticed after removing the inner cover of White Hive was that I could see bees looking up from between almost every frame!  This hive in increasing in numbers more quickly than Green Hive for sure.

Looking into White Hive

The bees had stored quite a bit of nectar and pollen and the brood nest started a few frames in.  The queen in this hive knows how to lay some eggs!  Look at the photo below.  This frame is wall to wall brood with very few empty cells.  They will be bursting at the seems very soon.  I will need to add a second box for sure next week!

Lots of future bees

You can also see the patch of drone brood that was built along the bottom of this frame.  And speaking of drones, I was able to witness one being born.  Very cool!  You can watch the 30 second video here: http://youtu.be/X1rwGvIbuck

The last thing I did before concluding the inspection, was to change the entrance reducers on both hives from the small opening to the medium sized opening.  The population should be steadily increasing now on both hives so they should have no trouble defending a larger entrance.  This will also help alleviate any congestion as the foragers come and go all day long.

Looks like I have a lot to prepare for the next inspection.  New boxes to add and hopefully another way to power my Arduino.  So, until then thanks for reading!

Anti Robin Hood: 08-06-2013

You've all heard of Robin Hood, who robs from the rich and gives to the poor, right?  Well, in the bee world, their hero is the Anti Robin Hood!  They rob from the poor and give to the rich and powerful!  This is the sight I beheld as I approached the split hive to begin my inspection.

Split Hive:

As I came upon the split hive I immediately noticed a cloud of bees swirling around the outside of the hive.  Instantly odd since the population was so low that even basic in and out traffic was not very prolific.  The other thing that was odd was the majority of the cloud of bees were attempting to enter the hive under the telescoping cover instead of the actual entrance.  These were all signs that the hive was in the process of being robbed.  When a strong hive finds a weak hive that cannot defend the supply of honey they have, then they overpower the guard bees and steal the honey.  Not a good situation since bees are killed during the fighting and the weak hive can either be greatly damaged or destroyed.

Here is a photo of what a honey frame looks like when it has been robbed.  The cells have been torn open during the frantic raiding and have a very jagged appearance.

Robbed Frame

I had placed the entrance reducer on the smallest setting when I first set up the split hive and I thought that would be enough.  Not only did I made a mistake by putting the split into a full sized deep box (instead of a 5 frame nucleus hive), but adding a second box of honey wasn't good either.  I set them up to fail by giving them way too much space to defend with way too few bees.  Learning from mistakes are the best lessons, right?

Upon opening the hive it was obvious to me that the only bees present were the ones robbing out the honey.  There was very little honey left in any of the frames and I quickly went through both boxes looking for any sign of the virgin queen that was spotted two inspections ago or any sign of eggs or larvae.  She was no where to be found and the small cluster of about 50 dead bees on the bottom board told me that if I did find her, she would probably be amongst the dead.  I combed through the dead bees and did not find her.  I did find a dead yellow jacket and a bee with its stinger and venom sac exposed.  No doubt, she died in battle.

With nothing else left to do with the split hive (or ex-split hive), I decided to add the now mostly empty brood box onto White Hive.

White Hive:

My goal this time with White Hive is to verify that what I thought might have been eggs really were freshly laid eggs.  As you may recall, I spotted the queen during my last inspection.  If she was from the queen cell I installed, I wouldn't have known for sure that she had flown out and successfully mated.  If I find eggs that tells me that she did.

The first few frames were honey with some pollen as I expected, but as I pulled frame 4 I hit the jackpot.

Larvae!

Since I know the "bee math" http://www.bushfarms.com/beesmath.htm, I know that when an egg is laid it takes 3 days to hatch, spends 6 more days as an open larvae before it is capped (total of 9 days) and then 12 more days before a new bee emerges (total of 21 days).  This photo shows big fat open (uncapped) larvae that will be capped any day now.  So they are probably somewhere between 6 to 8 days old and that places them as eggs during my last inspection on 7-30!  I love it when I can actually figure things out!

On the other side of frame 4 I was able to spot a baby bee emerging from her cell (dead center), some very tiny larvae (two cells down to the left) and what looks like a tiny grain of rice......an egg (one cell down to the left and another one two cells down to the right)!

Eggs and Larvae

Now that I know the Queen is laying for sure, I can stop worrying so much about White Hive.  She should really be cranking out those eggs, possibly 2-3 THOUSAND every day!  More than her own body weight!

Continuing on, I found what I think was one of the old Queen Cups that the bees decided they do not need anymore.  They look like they are in the process of tearing it down.

The remaining frames had more honey, pollen, open larvae, capped larvae and a small patch of drone brood that is just about to hatch on frame 7.  White Hive looks really good and with a new Queen going full bore, they should be very strong going into Winter. 

Speaking of changing seasons, I saw some Goldenrod in bloom.  That sure heralds the end of summer doesn't it?  Lame!

Until next time, thanks for reading!

07-31-2012: Quick Inspection

I haven't had the time, help or ambition to attempt fixing all the cross comb that I discovered during the last inspection of Green Hive, but I thought I would at least give them all a quick peek.  I also needed to remove the feeder from the Top Bar Hive.  Well, nothing is ever as easy as you think it will be!

TBH:

Upon removing the first few bars from the TBH I was disappointed (but not surprised) to see no real progress in comb building.  There were not many bees present, although the feeder was empty.  I picked up the empty jar and this is what I discovered.

Oh crap.  I instantly thought I discovered why the hive was so weak, Small Hive Beetles!  Well, come to find out after a little research, these are NOT SHB.  These are common "Sap Beetles" or "Picnic Beetles".  They are drawn to rotting fruit or fermenting liquids.  In this case, it was the sugar syrup from the feeder.

Sadly, after dodging one bullet, I was struck with another.  I removed a few more bars to open the hive up and I noticed quite a few yellow jackets and other types of wasps flying around my hive tool and inside the hive.  As I looked deeper into the hive I saw a lot of wasps and few bees.  I worked my way up to the front of the hive to see signs of a recent battle.

You can see many corpses littering the floor of the hive near the entrance.  The hive floor was also very wet looking.  After crushing a few wasps with my hive tool, I noticed that most of critters sticking their heads into the cells were wasps, helping themselves to the undefended honey.  This hive was being robbed.  Crap.  I did the only thing I could think of at the time.  I plugged up most of the entrance holes so that the remaining bees might have a chance to defend the hive.

There were so many wasps flying around, I did not proceed to inspect the last few frames.  So, I don't know if the queen is dead or not.  Not sure what to do at this point.  I don't think much can be done to save this hive since it is so late in the year.  Especially not knowing if the hive had any sort of brood disease that weakened them in the first place.  I had not spotted any eggs either so there is no chance of them raising their own queen.  Not good.

I ordered an American Foulbrood and a European Foulbrood test kit from Dadant and the results of those tests will likely determine if I need to burn the hive (with AFB) or attempt to save the hive in some manner if the tests come back negative.

Green Hive:

This hive is going bonkers.  I wanted to just take a quick look to see if they had made any progress on the medium super I added during the last inspection and a FULL box of bees were looking up at me when I opened the lid!  I did not pull the frames but seeing bees looking up from between EVERY frame gave me a great boost after the TBH.  I wasn't prepared for this and I had to run back into the pole barn to grab another super!  Two honey supers on now and I'm thinking I have a chance of taking some honey from this hive this year!

I finished this hive by placing some bottle caps onto the top cover to prop it up a bit.  This is suppose to allow for additional ventilation in the hive.  I really should have done this back in July when the weather was in the high 90's but I kept forgetting.

I also keep forgetting to remove the entrance reducer.  It is now stuck down really well with propolis and I have four heavy boxes piled on top if it!  Hmmm, maybe I can take it off during the NEXT inspection.  If I don't forget again  =)

White Hive:

Although this hive is behind Green Hive, I am pleased with their progress.  It looks like they have drawn out about 50% of the new box I put on during the last inspection.  I am not expecting to harvest any honey from this hive this year.  I'll end this report with a nice close up of the bees.  Smile girls!!