Wintering Bees

Pulled the Apistan strips on November 4th. I fed sugar syrup until it became too cold near the middle of November. Hopefully, the bees will survive the winter though I saw numerous dead bees in the snow today and a pile of dead bees at the entrance. Nonetheless, I placed a festive holiday bow on the hive and am looking forward to honey flows to come.

Even though I don't have an extractor, I decided to harvest some of the honey in the full super. I scraped the comb into a 2 gallon pot and then through cheesecloth. The honey is dark and very sweet. It's mostly goldenrod with a bit of purple loosestrife thrown in for good measure. I'll be medicating and feeding with sugar water on my next trip out to the hive. By the way, when beekeepers are told to always use a smoker when working a hive they ain't kidding. I put a bee escape into the inner cover then put the super on top on Thursday. On Friday I pulled off the super without smoking the bees and was stung four times.

Super Check

I can't leave well enough alone so I peeked in to see how the bees were coming on filling the extra honey supers. The lower shallow super is now nearly full of capped honey, (7 of 10 frames) and the little darlings are drawing comb in the upper super. I can't wait to harvest the excess.

9th Inspection

Took a peek under the hood today specifically to see how much honey the gals are making for ME, and to look at the upper deep hive body. Three frames are full of capped honey and comb is being drawn on several others. The top super was full of bees but no drawn comb. The upper hive body contained several frames of capped brood and visible larvae. The other combs were full of capped honey. They're HEAVY and I dropped one into the super. Yikes! No harm done and the bees were remarkably docile today.

8th Inspection

On August 8th I pulled the apistan strips and removed lots of burr comb between the two deep hive bodies. On August 16th I sucked it up and pried apart and inspected the frames in the lower hive body. I couldn't tell, with my bad eyes, if there were eggs in the empty cells but there was larvae and capped brood in several frames as well as lots of pollen. I finished removing the burr comb and tidied up things in general. The girls are still busy drawing comb in the first shallow super with about half the frames drawn so I added a second shallow super. Man, are there a lot of bees at home during the day. They come boiling up out of the frames so I had to smoke them back down and used the bee brush to get them off so I could replace the supers without crushing them.

Quick Peek

I couldn't resist taking a peek at the top super to see how things were coming along, but although the frames were full of bees, no comb has been drawn yet. The ladies had glued down the queen excluder but good, too. I wanted to get rid of some brace comb in the top hive body so I pulled the first frame. There was a beautiful big arc of capped honey surrounding the developing larvae and brood cells.

Bee Cloud

On warm, calm, sunny days by late afternoon there is a cloud of bee activity in front of the hive. Click on the play button to enter the bee cloud.

7th Inspection

Today I found the upper deep fully drawn into comb and the empty cells filled with eggs so I guess the queen is OK although I haven't seen her in five weeks. Several frames also contained capped brood. The lower deep contains frames of capped brood as well as numerous empty cells where pupae have hatched. I couldn't tell if there were eggs or not in them as I couldn't get the sun over my shoulder--too shaded when I inspected. I really need to wear bifocals when I check out the frames, too. The medium super was full of bees but they haven't started drawing comb yet. All in all, things are good except one of the gals stung me in the left thumb.

6th Inspection

Took another look-see today and the ladies are doing wonderfully well. The top deep is nearly fully drawn into comb--8 of the 10 frames--and newly laid eggs, larvae and capped brood are evident. Everything looks good in the lower hive body as well. Numerous capped cells and visible larvae are present. I added the queen excluder and a honey super today even though I can't use the honey since I need wait until August 9th to pull the Apistan strips. The girls can use it for winter stores, though.

5th Inspection

Today's peek was to see if anything was happening in the upper hive body. Since last week four frames have been drawn into comb in the upper body and most of the empty cells were filled with eggs. I needed to remove some burr comb from the top of the frames and from between two frames. Apparently, I didn't have the frames pushed tightly together so there was too much space between them. I needed to really jam my hive tool between the upper and lower hive bodies and pry around the edges to get the two unstuck. I lifted the upper body off and the bees came boiling out of the lower body. Some swarmed over the sides and others flew in a bee cloud around me. I smoked them back into submission and examined the frames. The center frames contain empty cells where pupae have hatched. The others contain larvae and capped brood in a nice tight oval pattern. There was also quite a bit of burr comb on the top bars that I removed. The bees seemed agitated today so I didn't bother to take photos, and for the first time since hiving the bees in early June I was stung. One flew up my pants leg and nailed me on the inner thigh. Ouch. Bet that will happen again.

4th Inspection

On Monday, July 7th I opened up the hive to remove the menthol crystals which had been in place for two weeks. The ladies had glued down the aluminum foil but good with propolis so it took some scraping to get it all up. I also removed some burr comb from the top of two frames. Everything else looked good. Although I didn't see the queen, I still noticed new comb filled with eggs so she must be in there somewhere. The frames are now all fully drawn into comb, but nothing is happening in the upper deep yet.

3rd Inspection

Yesterday I opened up the hive to check the frames and administer the 3rd and final dusting of Tetra Bee. In the lower deep, 9 frames are fully drawn into comb. There is not as yet any activity in the upper deep. The ladies have been busy with propolis, however, as I needed to put new aluminum foil under the menthol crystals as the old tore apart when I removed it because it was so gummed up. The brood pattern looks good as several frames have larvae and capped brood. Several empty cells show were pupae have hatched. The end frames are full of eggs. I also observed numerous drone cells. Again, the girls were very gentle and I was not stung even though I dropped the inner cover. Do'h!

Inspection 2.5

I took a quick peek today and added some more medication. I fired up the smoker, pulled off the outer and inner covers and checked to see what the girls had done since Friday. Fully seven frames are drawn into comb and all the Tetra B was gone. The brood builder patties were about 1/3 eaten. I added two tablespoons of Tetra B (the 2nd of 3 doses) and placed another deep hive body with frames and foundation on top. It's time to give the girls some more room. I'll do a full inspection on Saturday the 28th, weather permitting. I may remove the entrance feeder since they're not using much as a good nectar flow is on.

2nd Inspection

Talk about your busy bees! The girls have drawn 61/2 frames into comb, numerous eggs and larvae are visible, and there are nice oval sections of capped brood on two sides of one frame. Some honey cells are capped as well. The bees have consumed four quarts of syrup to date. They have finished the medicated syrup, but I'm still feeding non-medicated syrup as I'm not sure if there is much of a nectar flow as yet. I didn't see a lot of pollen in the cells so I added two patties of brood builder to help. I also added these medications: 1. Two tablespoons of Tetra Bee Mix (oxytetracyline) to prevent American and European foul brood. 2. Two apistan strips to control varroa mites. 3. A package of menthol crystals to control tracheal mites. The bees have consumed all of the fumagallin-medicated syrup. I know from reading American Bee Journal that there is a movement toward "natural" beekeeping, but in my first season I want no nasty surprises and I am hoping to have a thriving and healthy colony.

1st Inspection

On June 13th (Friday, HA!) I opened up the hive for the first inspection. I wanted to check for three things: 1. Had the queen been released from her cage? 2. Was the queen laying eggs? 3. Were the workers drawing out comb onto the frames? I also got to fire up the smoker and put on my veil. Like hiving the bees, the 1st inspection is simple and straightforward. Light the smoker, blow smoke into the entrance and under the cover, and remove the covers. The bees were remarkably gentle and let me pull out all the frames and check them. The queen comes in a little cage that is plugged on one end with candy. Once the colony becomes used to her, workers eat away the candy plug and release here into the hive where she immediately begins laying eggs. My girls (virtually all the bees are female) released their queen and I noticed eggs in the drawn comb. One and a half frames were drawn into comb (the little hexagons) and there were also three large pieces of burr comb in the space the queen cage had been. I removed the burr comb, replaced the frame I removed to install the queen cage and closed everything up. So far so good.

Hiving the Package of Bees

Once I was home with the bees on June 7, hiving them was a fairly simple procedure. I removed five of the frames from the hive to create a space to shake the bees into, I removed the queen cage from the package and using two bent nails suspended it between two frames, and I shook the bees over the queen cage and into the space in the hive. I placed a quart of medicated (fumagillin) syrup (one part water/one part sugar/two tablespoons of Honey Bee Healthy) into the entrance feeder, replaced four of the five removed frames, replaced the inner and outer covers and the bees were in. Fumagillin, by the way, is necessary to prevent nosema in bees. Nosema is protozoan disease which causes bee dysentery. Nasty.

Last fall I started teaching Sue Monk Kidd's novel, The Secret Life of Bees, in my high school English classes. I bought a hive body to display in my classroom and had some of my students paint and decorate it. My students enjoyed the novel and the bee shrine that grew around the hive body displayed in class--I gave extra extra credit if students brought in bee-related items--and I particularly enjoyed Kidd's loving descriptions of apiculture. Curious, I bought Beekeeping for Dummies of all things and read it cover to cover. Suddenly, I found myself poring over the Dadant Company catalog and ordering all the equipment and supplies necessary to begin raising bees. In May, I ordered 3lbs. of packaged bees from the Draper apiaries and awaited their arrival at the post office. Apparently the post office wanted to be rid of them because I received two phone calls asking that I pick up the bees. The woman who brought them out held them at arms length with a horrified look--honestly, you'd think I'd ordered a werewolf--but I was finally ready to start my own apiary.