Hive Inspection: 06-04-2013

It is always fun for me to be able to share my beekeeping experiences with people.  During this inspection I had a friend of mine along to help.  I also enjoy teaching "newbees" all about the different miracles in the hive.  This inspection allowed me a lot of opportunities to do so!

We saw pollen, nectar, capped honey, open brood, capped brood, drone brood, hatching baby bees, queen cups and the queen!  I'm not sure what else there would be in a hive that I would even want to show someone.  It is really hard to see eggs and I don't care to show someone Varroa mites!

I've come to realize that people judge the strength of their hive by how many frames the bees are actually covering.  So I made sure to take note of this.  As of last inspection, I knew the queen was in the top honey super after the long, cold winter and there was plenty of brood there.  I was hoping all the brood had hatched out (new egg to hatching = 21 days) and the queen had moved down into the bottom two brood boxes.  Well, I had half of it correct.  She has moved down and been laying in the bottom boxes but she must have also laid a few more eggs in the honey super as well.  Here is a really weird brood pattern because of this:

Not only is there uncapped nectar and pollen scattered around, but there are little pockets of brood here and there and a few drone cells along the bottom edge toward the right.  I was hoping all the brood would be out of there so I can use these frames for honey later in the year.  I could use this frame as a part of the split I plan to do in the next week or so.

One of the greatest things in the hive to witness is a new bee being "born" or emerging from its cell for the first time.  Watching them poke out and move their antennae around is amazing!  Look right in the center patch of capped brood and you can see two little heads poking through and looking around!

 The bees were only covering about 5 / 10 frames in the top box and most of the empty frames hadn't really been built out much.  So, onto the next box!

It took me a while to figure out how to get the first frame out without squashing a bunch of bees, but with a little smoke and hive tool manipulation, I was able to get it started.  On this frame I was very pleased to see a SOLID patch of open brood.  You can see right along the center of the photo a whole bunch of pearly white glistening larvae!  Nice!

I would suspect the queen is probably actively laying eggs somewhere in this box.  I was really hoping to spot her too so that I could show my friend the queen in all her glory.  On the very next frame I pulled out, there she was!

Can you spot her?  No?

How about now?

I know, they all look like "bees", right?  Well, if you still can't spot her, she is just slightly above dead center in the photo.  Her abdomen is darker brown and less striped looking.  Also, her abdomen sticks out way past her wings.  Hopefully you spotted her!

At this point in the inspection I decided not to go through every frame in the box.  And I decided not to go into the very bottom box either.  I had seen and shown all the really important things and the inspections always take longer than you'd like to think.  The bees were probably covering 8 / 10 hives so that box was pretty strong.  I closed the hive up and called it a day. 

I was happy to see that the queen was strongly laying in the lower box and that there were a few drone cells dotting the bottom of some frames.  I did not see any drones walking around but I'm sure they will be out within a few days for sure.  This is important because I intend to split the hive and have them raise their own queen.  A new virgin queen will need drones and if there aren't any around then she isn't going to be properly mated.  Not that she would mate with her own drones, but if you have drones in your own hive, then there are probably drones out in the wild too!

Next post I hope to be showing you my new split.  Until then, thanks for reading!

You Take the Good, You Take the Bad: 2013-04-30

We have had really nice weather here in Michigan for about the last week.  It was a long time in coming but it is finally here.  So, of course, I was eager to get into the hive(s) and see what the girls are up to.  I had a few tasks left over from winter that I needed to attend to as well.  First off, removing and cleaning up my dead hive, Green Hive.  I began to disassemble Green Hive and quickly noted that the bees from White Hive were greedily robbing out all the remaining honey left over in Green Hive!  It didn't take them long to find an undefended honey source!  I pried each box apart and hauled them away from the bee yard.  I then applied a liberal amount of smoke to each box to try and drive the remaining bees out.  Finally, the last box was removed and only the bottom board remained with the deceased remnants of Green Hive gathered in a sad pile.

I scanned through the dead bees to see if I could find the queen and I did not see her.  I plan on going through all the frames from each box and decide if I will melt down the wax or keep them for later use.  Hopefully I will find what was left of the winter cluster somewhere in there.

The second task I needed to complete was the remove the extra sugar I had placed in White Hive as emergency winter feed.  I'm not sure they really ate much of it.  Anyway, I removed it and put some empty frames back in.  Now onto the inspection!

Typically the bees will start in the bottom boxes during the beginning of winter and gradually move up through the hive over the course of the winter, eating honey as they go.  So, come the spring, you expect to find them at the top of your hive and that is where they were.  I pulled the first frame and BAM, there was the queen!  I'd like to think my queen spotting abilities have improved but this time was way too easy.  She just visually jumped right out to me.  I could see that she was doing her job as the frame was fairly well covered in sealed brood, eggs and larvae.  The workers have also packed quite a lot of pollen along the top of this frame as well.

Brood Frame

I zoomed in a bit with the camera once I saw the larvae because I usually cannot spot eggs unless I'm looking at a photo.  The eggs are about the size of a grain of rice, so I don't think my vision is that bad yet.  Can you see the larvae of various ages tucked in their cells?  They look like little 'C' shaped grubs.

Larvae

Here is a slightly closer look with a lot of pollen packed in near the off to the lower right in the photo.  Pollen is very important in raising new bees so they keep it stored close!

Larvae with pollen

As I continued my inspection, I became concerned when I saw brown spots along the top and sides of some of the frames.  These brown spots are also referred to as bee poo  =)  Normally bees are very sanitary and never "go" inside the hive.  If they go inside the hive it can be the sign of a disease called "Nosema".  It is a spore that infects the gut of a bee and causes intestinal problems.  I've also read that it could be simply "bee dysentery" and could easily clear up on its own.  I will have to closely monitor this in the future.  I may decide to swap out some of these frames once all the brood has hatched out of them.

Nosema or bee dysentery?

 During an inspection you check for a few things:  Queen?  Check!  Eggs?  Check!  Open and Closed Brood?  Check!  Pollen?  Check!  Honey?  Check!  Things are looking pretty good.  The last thing I'm looking for are drones.  Spring time is also swarm time and usually the first drones are emerging at the same time.  I'm also planning on splitting this hive and you need drones in the air to mate with a new queen.  I did not spot any drones nor did I see any drone brood, so it looks like they might be a few weeks away yet.  I saw the first dandelion in the yard so I think a nectar flow is coming soon!

All in all I guess you take the good (they survived the winter) and you take the bad (maybe have Nosema), you take 'em both and there you have the facts of life.  Sorry.  Really bad but I couldn't resist!

Until next time, thanks for reading.

Survivor Bees!: 2013-04-03

My wife and I just returned from an awesome trip to Brentwood, CA to see our daughter, son-in-law and "grandpuppy".  It was easy to think about my bees shivering back home when we were walking around in our shorts in 65 degree California sun!  So, after returning home and getting the luggage unpacked, one of my first tasks was to put on my boots and head out to check on how the girls were doing.  It was bright and sunny, but the temperature was only about 38 degrees.  Looking out to the hives, I noticed that the wind breaks I had made looking out of kilter somehow.  As I approached, I saw that they were partially out of the ground and leaning heavily up against both hives.  My pace quickened as I walked up to White Hive to see that the wind break had pushed the outer cover partially off the hive!!  AHHHHH!  Part of the inner cover was completely exposed to the elements.  Great!

The bees survive almost all the way through the winter, just to see them die because my stupid wind break opened up the hive.  Lame!  I pulled the wind break off of the hive and braced myself for the worst.  I removed the brick holding down the top cover, set it aside and held my breath as I removed the top cover.  Hallelujah I see movement!  There is the cluster still holding fast against the cold right underneath the opening in the inner cover!!  Those are some tough bees!

Thank the good Lord that all hope is not lost!  Looks like the weather this week is going to be in the upper 40's only dropping down into the 30's at night.  With an entire week of above freezing temperatures forecast, that should be a piece of cake for these hardy girls!!  I think I'm going to bide my time for the first above 50 day before opening them back up again.  Maybe a knock test every few days is in order until then   =)

Knock Test: 01-26-2013

After a very cold week here in Michigan (temps around 0 degrees all week), I trudged out to the hives just to do a quick check of the sticky boards and knock on the front door to see if anyone answers  =)

I pulled the sticky board on Green Hive and there was no new debris at all.  I think at this point, their fate is sealed.  The few remaining bees probably did not have enough bodies to keep warm.  I'll probably open them up the next time we have a warm spell and give them a final <ugh> check.

The sticky board on White Hive still looks promising!  Here it is:

Debris on sticky board

The lines aren't really distinct but to me it looks like there are about four solid frames of bees here.  It actually took quite a bit of prying to get the sticky board to come out.  I think I must have ruptured a few honey cells the last time I opened this hive and some of the honey dripped down onto the board causing it to stick to the grooves in the bottom board.  Based on where the debris was I knew the cluster was on the left side of the hive and as I leaned down to put my ear to that side of the hive, I heard a nice solid buzzzzzzz!  It took so much prying to get this sticky board out that I didn't even need to knock.  Keep your fingers crossed for White Hive to make it!  Temps are suppose to come up into the 30's for a while this week.  Go White Hive!!

Hive Inspection: 01-12-2013

With another veritable heat wave (just above 50 degrees) here in Michigan back on January 12, I had to go and see how "my girls" were doing!  Doing an inspection would also give me a chance to try out my new "J-Hook" hive tool that I received as a Christmas gift.  Exciting stuff for a beekeeper that just sits around the house in the Winter wondering how cold his bees are  =)

Flash back to previous hive status reports and you'll see that Green Hive was going strong with plenty of stores (honey) and White Hive had much fewer bees and no stores other than the sugar feed I had placed in the hive and what I had stolen from Green Hive (1 frame of honey).  What I found when I opened the hives was not what I was expecting.

Green Hive:
I opened the lid and did not see any bees in the honey super.  Still lots of honey there with almost every frame full of capped honey or nectar.  Removed that box and proceeded to look at the top box.  Strange, no bees moving around and none flying.

Top Box with new hive tool

I pried the box off with my new hive tool and after cracking through a lot of propolis (I haven't removed this box is quite some time), I removed the top box and began to look at the bottom box.  Sitting on top of the frames was a small cluster of dead bees around some areas of dark "stuff".  After brushing off the dead bees and removing some burr comb, this is what it looked like.

I believe this is a sign of bee dysentery.  One possible cause of this is too much liquid in the bees diet when they don't have the ability (because of cold temps) to fly outside and "relieve" themselves.  Another possibility is a disease called Nosema.  During warmer temps you usually see signs of this by seeing brownish streaks on the outside front of the hive.  The bees have runny stools and aren't as in control as they normally would be.  I'm sure you all are fascinated by this talk of bee poo, but I guess it is an important symptom to pay attention to!

Anyway, I pried apart a number of these frames to find another small cluster of dead bees (golf ball size).  This is nothing to really be concerned about as you do expect to loose some bees during the Winter.  The next thing that concerned me was looking through the frames to find this:

I had no idea what these little white granules were sitting inside these honey cells.  Weird.  At first I thought maybe they were some sort of insect larvae (yuck).  Upon closer inspection I quickly dismissed that possibility.  Since they all appeared to be wet with nectar, I was hoping that perhaps it was just crystalized honey.  I posted this picture on some bee blogs and everyone was in agreement that this was just crystalized honey.  Whew!  I guess everything unexpected is enough to freak out a new beekeeper!

At this point I decided to put the box back together and right off this hive as a Winter kill for some unknown reason.  I put the heavy bottom box back on the stand (there is still a lot of stores in the boxes!), and I reached for the second box just in time to see that I was being observed...

A small cluster of bees with their heads peeking up at me!  Hmm, looks like they aren't dead after all.  Sadly, this cluster is still very small and at this point I do not hold out much hope that they will survive the Winter, despite all the honey still in the hive!  Since I did not break apart the frames in this box, I can hope that there were a lot more bees that just did not want to come up and say Hi.

White Hive:
As I opened this hive, I was expecting to see very little activity since this has been the weaker hive all season.  Upon removing the lid, I was met with two annoyed bees.  They loudly buzzed around my veil and continued to fly around me.  They were probably trying to tell me to shut the lid because it was still pretty flippin' cold out!  =)  I removed the inner cover to check on the top honey super that is holding four empty frames, one frame of honey and an empty space where I put down a bunch of sugar feed.  Here it is:

 

To my happy surprise there were a handful of bees merrily crawling over the pile of sugar.  Now that's good eats!  Looking down past the sugar into the box below, it looks like there is still some stored honey there as well.

 

Although I would like to have seen a bigger cluster of bees for this hive, I am pleased to see the amount of activity that this hive is showing.  As a little extra insurance policy, I decided to take a few of the honey frames from Green Hive and move them over into White Hive.  It is possible that I moved Green Hive's problem into White Hive by doing this but if White Hive starved to death from lack of honey, they would be equally as dead, so I decided to risk it.

All in all, it looks like I might still get one hive through the Winter.  At least another two months to go before we are close to Spring, so keep your fingers crossed!

As always, thanks for reading!

BEEginnings New Year's Resolutions: 01-03-2013

Happy New Year All!

Generally speaking I never make a New Year's resolution.  But I suppose it would be wise of me to start thinking ahead and setting some goals for my beekeeping in 2013.  2012 was a good year and I certainly desire to learn from my mistakes and improve things this year!

To start at the start, I have to get the two existing hives through the Winter alive!  Green Hive is in good shape with stored honey (last time I checked) and I have put supplemental feed into White Hive.  It consists of a honey super (medium) with five frames removed.  One of the remaining five frames still in the box is a mostly capped frame of honey that I did not harvest from Green Hive.  The empty space normally used by the five frames left out is now occupied by a sheet of newspaper laid on top of the frames in the box below and a bunch of raw cane sugar poured on top of the newspaper.  I misted the sugar with some water to make a small crust on the surface of the sugar pile.  Otherwise the bees can start removing the sugar thinking it is trash.  Ideally, this serves a number of functions: It is a source of emergency food if the bees consume all the remaining honey and the sugar and newspaper help to absorb some of the excess moisture in the hive.

I hope to have at least one "warm" day for the next three months that I will have a chance to quickly check the hives.  I think a day in the low 50's would be warm enough to pop the cover really quick to check them.

My second goal is to expand my operation to three hives!  If both my hives survive the winter, I plan on doing a split of whichever hive is stronger.  As a part of this split, I plan to let the bees raise a new queen of their own.  This will be sort of a foray into queen rearing or at least observing the bees as they do it.  An additional part of expansion is of course building a new hive, which I have already begun.  One of the lessons I learned this past year is that I shouldn't have ignored the comments I have read in numerous books that talked about standardizing box sizes.  I didn't think it would be that big of a deal to use all medium boxes until I wanted to move a medium sized frame into a deep sized box.

My third goal is to keep better records.  Of course I did inspection and I took a lot of pictures which did help, but having a standardized method of recording what was on each frame seems to be a good idea.  A clipboard with some paper would work, but I think I could create a nice little form that would make it easy.  Ten boxes on the form where I could write down the percentage of brood, honey and pollen on a given frame should work, right?

My last goal is to do a better job of IPM (Integrated Pest Management).  To be specific, I want to make sure I am doing a monthly sugar shake and mite count.  I am still resolved to be chemical free in my hives, but I at least want a baseline on how many mites are in there.  If they get too bad I could at least take some action such as doing a sugar shake on the entire hive, break the brood cycle by removing the queen or using drone comb to trap and freeze the mites.

Well, that is all for now.  Hope you all have a great year.  What are your bee related resolutions?  =)

Quick Peek: 12-03-2012

We have started the month of December with a veritable HEAT WAVE here in Michigan!  It was about 60 degrees on Monday and today it is suppose to be 50.  So I figured it would be a good time to check on White Hive without chilling the bees.  Since I know the only surplus food the bees have is the honey super that has 9 empty frames and 1 frame of honey.  My plan was to remove the super so they didn't have all that extra space to heat during the winter.  I put on my veil, grabbed my hive tool and a small zip lock bag with some honey in it to feed back to the bees.  I cracked the top open and the girls were instantly PISSED!  I had two fly out onto my veil as soon as I lifted the lid.  Once I opened the inner cover I had about four more flying around my head.  Dang!  I have never had them come after me that way before.  The last time I opened the hive it was much colder so maybe that motivated them to stay put.  I also did not use any smoke.....kinda thought I wouldn't need to, they have always been calm before.  Hmmm, hope nothing else is going on.  Anyway, I checked the 90% empty honey super and there were quite a few bees sitting on the one honey frame, so my plan to remove the box went out the window.  Guess I'll come back when it gets colder and hopefully they won't be in there.  I put the inner cover back on, laid my zip lock bag of honey next to the hole in the cover and cut a few holes in the bag and squeezed a bit of the honey out to ring the dinner bell for them  =).  The outer cover went back on and it was all closed up.  I pulled the sticky boards on both hives to see how many mites had dropped and there weren't as many as I'd seen previously but there were a few.  I wonder if grooming habits increase when the bees are more tightly clustered? 

Sorry, no pictures this time.  I did have my camera with me during the inspection, but I ended up being a bit stressed by their reaction and wanted to close them up ASAP!  I'll check on them again around the new year probably.  Until then, thanks for reading.