Winterizing the Apiary

New Beekeeper in the Apiary

My dad has joined our fun in the apiary.  He took his class with Joe from Country Barn Farm in late October.  We let him follow Christian with the smoker for the first two hives.  Then the last was all his.  He successfully found the queen (at least the one I marked from this year since we know we have had two in there).

  

Winterizing the Hives

How many of you know what a beer cozy is?  Imagine that for a hive and you have a Bee Cozy!  All of our hives had a last check for health.  The hives had their entrances swapped with a https://www.mannlakeltd.com/10-frame-mouse-guard.  We slid a bottom board in and elevated the rear of the hive at the bottom about an inch.  Then slipped the Bee Cozy on.  We have two screws at the bottom above the hive entrance to keep the plastic up to allow the bees to come and go.

Christian made a hive feeder shim to give us space to feed the bees over winter and made a quilt box to prevent moisture build up in the top of the hive and have it drip down during the cold months.  This also made the hives a bit taller.

 

Fall at the Apiary

It's been a busy fall.  Sorry I haven't written lately.  So I thought I'd play catch up today.

Our Splits

Well, it's been a real learning experience with the queens we reared.  You must check them frequently to be sure your new queen is laying.

One of our hives was not at all.  We watched the population dwindle for a week and then finally - I did the unthinkable - I crushed the queen that wasn't laying.  Don't worry ... I called our bee mentor and bought a well bred queen who is now doing a fantastic job.  Here's some photos:

Then couple weeks ago, Christian and I became very concerned about the other split.  First, we found a frame with wax moth larvae - a sign they can't take care of thier hive.  Then a week later, they had moved to just using 3 frames.

So we thought about our next move:

• Put it down to a nucleus box with just 5 frames?
• Or combine the splits?

We decided to combine.  Here's why... It didn't appear that this queen was really working at all.

So now the splits have been combined.  This experiment will be continued soon!

Main Hives

One of our main Hives had a perplexing discovery!  I found two queens ... On the same frame!  Yes, it can happen!  So because they were coexisting, we left nature to itself.  I did Mark her, though!

Pests

Fall time brings wasps, yellow jackets and bumblebees!  Your normally docile hive may increase in being nasty!  Also, watch out for these to sting you when you smell of honey!  Ouch!  They sting more than once, too!

Milkweed

As a new beekeeper, there are so many things to learn about the bees!  But the learning extends beyond them - it becomes a whole habitat understanding.  You begin to add things to their environment to help them out and then have to become an expert on more things!  Milkweek is one of them!

Just plant it and walk away, right?  That's what I thought!  Then Liz called me out to take a look at what strange bug was on the milkweed:

OK - great!  We are attracting more pollinators to the yard!  Bonus.  Welcome to the monarch butterfly caterpillars!

Days later, they aren't there.  So what are their predators and how do we protect them?  Oh there are so many.  What's the safest thing to do?  Just bring them inside until they emerge a butterfly (after 3 hours to allow their wings to mature).

Then, there's something else there.  What on earth is that??

 

Say hello to Aphids.  Gross.  So again, we are trying to be pollinator friendly; therefore, pesticide are not the answer.  So our solution is:

• Crushing as many as we can.
• Spray on rubbing alcohol and quickly rinse with water.

Prior to, we are going to see if the girls next door will take on the raising of monarch butterflies.  We'll take them off even though articles say that it will not harm the caterpillars or eggs.  Better safe than sorry!

8/7/18 Hive Inspection

Update on New Hives (Brooklyn & Stark Tower)

Today we took a quick peek in on the new hives.  It appears that Stark Tower is doing well.  We still have a capped queen.

 

We added another capped queen to Brooklyn.  We weren't finding the queen cells that were there before.  So to err on the side of caution, we added a frame from Wakanda with another capped queen cell.

Added frame with capped queen cell from Wakanda to Stark Tower

  

Wakanda & Asguard

I defiantly have to say I am glad that both hives were much more calm today than they have been!  As you know, we took a frame from Wakanda that had a capped queen cell.  I'm not sure why they are trying to oust her (hopefully just because they feel full).  They are really putting on the honey, too!  We spotted our queen and she's doing a good job.

Asguard was just as calm today.  We didn't find our queen, but we did find all stages of bee (egg, larvae and capped brood).  So we are confident she is there even without seeing her.

Split Hives Update

Hive Split 7/19

The population of bees is exploding - so much so, they want to swarm.  To prevent this, we can do the split for them.  So we have gone from 2 hives to 4!

Before

After

Update 7/30

So far so good!  We are seeing progress in the new hives and the other two seem to have calmed down a bit.  Both queens are intact in the Asguard and Wakanda Hives.  The two new hives have capped queen cells (Brooklyn and Stark Tower).

We also have visiting Monarch Butterflies!  The milkweed is a great choice for honey flow (increasing the honey amount in the hive).  But to add to help Monarch Butterflies is a bonus!

 

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7-18-2018 Hive Inspection

Hive Inspection!  Time to see how they did on their treatment.  It's two days early, but it was close enough.

Asgard

This was the hive we were worried about.  Last inspection, we had a queen cell.  Diving right in, we found her in the top body box.  Hurray!  We had all stages of bee life cycle (eggs, larvae and capped bees).  Find the queen:

Our queen has the yellow dot.

Boy are they *hot* though!  We are hoping they calm down now that we removed the mite treatment strips...

Wakanda

Everyone was happy.  All stages of the bee life cycles and easily found our queen also in the top body box.  Here she was:

Our queen has the yellow dot.

Grass Mowing

I thought I'd end this discussion with the topic on grass mowing.  If you like clover honey ... your most common summer honey ... don't mow so often!  We can sit on our back patio and watch the bees work the clover:

 

Varroa Mite

They say if you keep bees that you also raise varroa mite, sometimes called the varroa destroyer.

What Is It?

"Varroa mites are external parasites that attack both honey bees and brood. They suck the blood from both the adults and developing brood, especially drone brood. This weakens and shortens the bee’s life. Emerging brood may be deformed with missing legs or wings. Untreated infestations of varroa mites will increase and may kill colonies. If the colonies are not examined for mites, losses may be mistaken for winter mortality or queenlessness. " ~ Ric Bessin, University of Kentucky College of Agriculture.

Varroa Mite *photo from University of Kentucky

Aren't they ugly?!  Yes, they are!  And what a pest.  The female mite will go into larva and lay eggs.  They then feed on the poor new bee.  And they multiply even before the bee enters the world!

Gross.

So what do beekeepers do?  Some will keep their drone population down.  You can do this by destroying drone cells.

We have chosen to use a natural method.  There are some types of acid found in favorite plants of bees: formic acid.  How do we use it?

In July, you apply "Mite Away" strips.  By laying the strips into the hive, it will kill adult and can kill some under cappings.  It is safe even during the honey flow.

So that's where we are.  We applied them on July 6 and are awaiting the treatment end date.  This can cause a bee loss.  So we have invited the chickens into the apiary fence to "clean up" debris.

Undertaker Bees

How do we clean up the dead bees?  Don't forget that there are worker bees tasked with "undertaker" duty.  So they can either shove them out of the hive or fly the dead bodies away.  Here's what an undertaker does:

Edit: link to Univ of Kentucky no longer works. ENTFACT-608: Varroa Mites Infesting Honey Bee Colonies by Ric Bessin, Extension Entomologist. University of Kentucky College of Agriculture 

Update on Our Apiary

We've been so busy, I didn't realize I wasn't updating our blog!  Sorry!  Well, here's some news:

Join Us On An Inspection

July 6 - How Bees Know Where the Entrance Is

We took a quick peek in tonight. It's been too hot to get in there! The population has exploded more! Anyway, listen to them call others back to the hive entrance who go lost when we disrupted them!

Capped Queen Cell

Here is a capped queen cup in our Asguard hive. Our mentor suggests we leave it alone and check in two weeks that we have a laying queen.  We would ordinarily do more, but we just treated for Varroa Mites.  Watch for a discussion on that in a few days!

1st Hive Inspection

Christian and I spent an hour in the apiary today.  We quietly and calmly worked through each frame out of both hives.  What were we looking for?

• First and foremost: our queen.  She looked healthy and was working a frame.
• Representatives of healthy hive activity:
• Emerging brood: in each hive we were able to spot new worker bees crawling out of their cups.
• Capped brood: larvae working to becoming a pupae.
• Larvae: eggs that have hatched to little worm looking things.
• Eggs: oh so tiny, but there sitting in royal jelly.
• We did see some practice cups for queen or drone cells.
• Honey, water and pollen cells!  This means they are working to feed themselves.

Both hives seemed to be in working order.  On the Asguard hive (red roof), I moved another empty frame to the center.  (We put an empty one in the middle of both to encourage comb building.)  This is hopes of them knowing they have some space to work on growing themselves out.

All in all, happy progress.  We removed some burr comb (Burr comb, bridge comb, and brace comb are all terms used to describe comb that is being built in places that the bees want to fill - a space greater than about 3/8” (1 cm) wide.  Bee keepers call it burr comb because it is annoying.  We remove it, store it and eventually make wax from it.

We removed their feeding buckets.  We aren't happy that they drip down a little bit.  So I will make them sugar patties with Mann Lake Bee-Pro Pollen Substitute.

Bees Have Arrived!

They're here!  We are so excited.  We picked up two over-wintered queens (meaning, the queen was hatched in 2017) with their colony (or nuc) on Saturday, May 19th, 2018.

Watch the video here of us in the bee yard of Bill Kopar:

Then we successfully brought them home (yes, in the cab of the truck) to place them into our hives.  Elizabeth, our daughter was in charge of recording.  It does take nerves of steel to not react to a bee that is buzzing around your head!

Our girls and I thought it would be fun to name the hives and stencil the boxes rather than numbering the hives (to keep track of the activity).  So the one with the red band on the top is Asguard and the upper hive is Wakanda.  The paw print and hammer stenciling will be added soon!

On May 20, 2017, Elizabeth sat and monitored the bees in our Wakanda hive.  Here's some photos.  Can you find:

• Bees coming in with their "pockets" full?  Called corbicula (plural corbiculae), it is the part on her hind legs to bring pollen, water or nectar.
• Bees with their bums in the air?  One of the ladies hangs out at the entrance of the hive and exposes the Nasonov gland to release a pheromone to show returning forager bees back to the colony.

 

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Detailed Hive Inspection

What fun I had visiting a local beekeeper's apiary.  Our local club organized a small outing at one of the member's apiary.  Here's some photos of the experience!  I can't wait for our bees to arrive!

Looking for the queen and inspecting the cells.

Drone being fed by two worker bees.

The queen is in a queen clip surrounded by the workers.

Queen inside the clip with a worker bee looking at me.

Overcrowded nuc - bees are "hanging out on the porch" because there is no more room inside.

Can you find the worker bee telling her sisters where to find something good?

Looking for the queen.

Worker bees telling everyone to come into the entrance of the new hive.