I'm a member of the Nebraska Beekeepers and this year I've taken on two young boys as apprentice beekeepers. They are brothers who are both recipients of a beekeeping scholarship from our club which includes everything they will need to get started with beekeeping. If they fulfill their end of the agreement everything they received becomes theirs after one year. The program has been a great success and I'm very glad to be a part of it.
They got their bees the same day I got my packages (April 17), and from the same place! These were big packages, advertised as 4 lb packages but in reality they were about 4.5 lbs. Most packages are 3 lbs so these hives will start up even faster than what I'm used to. They put the packages into their boxes on their own on the 18th and I stopped by to answer questions and check on their queen yesterday. We had planned on doing it earlier but the weather has been very windy and rainy.
The good news is that both of their queens are laying and they both have some capped brood already (bees who are about a week old) so both hives are doing perfectly well. One hive had 8 frames fully drawn and full of brood, pollen, or nectar already. That means they need a second box and I recommended they stay well ahead of the bees with boxes. Their location has an abundance of everything a hive needs and I'm predicting a big challenge in keeping open comb in the hive to prevent swarming and another challenge in harvesting the abundance of honey they'll be getting.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Sunday, April 4, 2010
The Many Faces of Death
The bees on the farm are indeed all dead. Both starved in the extra cold winter we had, they had honey that they didn't eat but the winter cluster can't move easily when it is very cold. The bees need to keep the queen in the 90s no matter how cold it is outside so they cling around her tightly. The cluster can eat any honey they are immediately adjacent to however they need the temperature to warm up a little for them to move the cluster over empty comb or a gap between boxes. A long string of very cold days means that the cluster won't be able to move over any gaps and then they will starve. That is what happened to the two on the farm.
Remember that hive that robbed the honey off of the other two hives in the fall? It stayed healthy through all of the winter and the hive stayed very heavy and full of honey. Then something very unexpected happened: The hive died. Why? I went through the hive to answer that very question. I found an abundance of mold and an unbelievable excess of uncapped honey. It appears that they weren't able to completely process their plunder from the late Fall and that was the very thing that did them in! There were no signs of disease other than the normal chilled brood that you almost always see in a winter kill.
I'm not entirely sure why but I do know that excess moisture in a hive over the winter is more dangerous than excess cold. The general thinking is that the excess moisture prevents the bees from clustering tightly and this in turn makes it impossible for the bees to maintain their 92+ degree temperature that the queen needs to produce new bees. Without new bees the hive will slow to a stop in the early spring when they should be accelerating at full speed.
With these unexpected losses and the expected losses confirmed I ordered some packages from a local beekeeper who was able to put them together with one week's notice. The queens will be Italian queens from a somewhat generic California breeder but at this point I can't be picky.
Remember that hive that robbed the honey off of the other two hives in the fall? It stayed healthy through all of the winter and the hive stayed very heavy and full of honey. Then something very unexpected happened: The hive died. Why? I went through the hive to answer that very question. I found an abundance of mold and an unbelievable excess of uncapped honey. It appears that they weren't able to completely process their plunder from the late Fall and that was the very thing that did them in! There were no signs of disease other than the normal chilled brood that you almost always see in a winter kill.
I'm not entirely sure why but I do know that excess moisture in a hive over the winter is more dangerous than excess cold. The general thinking is that the excess moisture prevents the bees from clustering tightly and this in turn makes it impossible for the bees to maintain their 92+ degree temperature that the queen needs to produce new bees. Without new bees the hive will slow to a stop in the early spring when they should be accelerating at full speed.
With these unexpected losses and the expected losses confirmed I ordered some packages from a local beekeeper who was able to put them together with one week's notice. The queens will be Italian queens from a somewhat generic California breeder but at this point I can't be picky.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
2010 has arrived
Although bees can sustain flight when air temperatures are over fifty degrees I hadn't seen any activity in my yard in the past weeks despite many days in the 50s. I checked on the MH hive throughout the winter so I knew they were doing well. I didn't open the hive, I put my ear against the side of the hive and listened to the sounds they were making and I picked up the bottom edge of the hive to make sure it wasn't too light. If either test indicated trouble there wasn't much I could do, but knowing the hive's status gave me a better idea of what to do when Spring does arrive.
Today I saw a bee make her way outside of the hive and turn around to scan her home. She flew side-to-side as she moved up and down the hive, making a mental image of what home looks like that she will reference for the rest of her life. I could tell by her behavior that this was her first time seeing the outside of her home, which makes sense because the bees that were old enough to venture outside last Fall are all dead by the time Spring arrives.
The crocus flowers in our yard are blooming and our big Maple is putting out a some pollen already. The bees aren't quite ready to take advantage of these yet but it was nice to see one of the ladies venture outside.
I haven't been out to the farm to check on the bees there in many months, my guess is that both hives are dead due to their late start last year and the cold winter we had. I hope to get out there soon to check on their status and make plans for the coming year.
Today I saw a bee make her way outside of the hive and turn around to scan her home. She flew side-to-side as she moved up and down the hive, making a mental image of what home looks like that she will reference for the rest of her life. I could tell by her behavior that this was her first time seeing the outside of her home, which makes sense because the bees that were old enough to venture outside last Fall are all dead by the time Spring arrives.
The crocus flowers in our yard are blooming and our big Maple is putting out a some pollen already. The bees aren't quite ready to take advantage of these yet but it was nice to see one of the ladies venture outside.
I haven't been out to the farm to check on the bees there in many months, my guess is that both hives are dead due to their late start last year and the cold winter we had. I hope to get out there soon to check on their status and make plans for the coming year.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Bee-On-Bee Violence
I've learned an important lesson this month and that lesson is how to better manage an apiary.
This year I had five hives in one location, something that was new for me. Four of the hives were NWC hives, New World Carniolan. I've found them to be healthy and gentle, a bee that is easy to manage. The other hive was an experiment, they were MH bees. Minnesota Hygenic. These bees are a fairly new variety and they have one trait that caught me by surprise: they are prone to robbing honey from other hives.
The MH hive was very strong coming into the Fall, as strong as my more established NWC hive. I suspected these two strong hives were the two that brought the smaller hive to its end last month, but this month I learned that the large NWC hive was not to blame. The MH hive recently robbed the large NWC hive of all of its honey and they have died as well.
Robbing is not a good thing, the invading hive overwhelms the defending hive and both hives end up with dead bees. The defending hive in this case lost so many bees that they were unable to keep their hive warm. By the time I noticed there was a problem with the hive all of the bees were dead, the cold November temperatures froze and killed the survivors of the initial invasion.
This means that the MH hive has over 100 lbs of honey in it at this point, much more than they will need to survive the winter. Since the weather is so cold now I plan to leave things where they are and focus on what I'm going to do in the spring. With the loss of this NWC hive I don't think I'll be able to repopulate the hives myself.
This big NWC hive was my favorite one and I'm sad to see it gone.
This year I had five hives in one location, something that was new for me. Four of the hives were NWC hives, New World Carniolan. I've found them to be healthy and gentle, a bee that is easy to manage. The other hive was an experiment, they were MH bees. Minnesota Hygenic. These bees are a fairly new variety and they have one trait that caught me by surprise: they are prone to robbing honey from other hives.
The MH hive was very strong coming into the Fall, as strong as my more established NWC hive. I suspected these two strong hives were the two that brought the smaller hive to its end last month, but this month I learned that the large NWC hive was not to blame. The MH hive recently robbed the large NWC hive of all of its honey and they have died as well.
Robbing is not a good thing, the invading hive overwhelms the defending hive and both hives end up with dead bees. The defending hive in this case lost so many bees that they were unable to keep their hive warm. By the time I noticed there was a problem with the hive all of the bees were dead, the cold November temperatures froze and killed the survivors of the initial invasion.
This means that the MH hive has over 100 lbs of honey in it at this point, much more than they will need to survive the winter. Since the weather is so cold now I plan to leave things where they are and focus on what I'm going to do in the spring. With the loss of this NWC hive I don't think I'll be able to repopulate the hives myself.
This big NWC hive was my favorite one and I'm sad to see it gone.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Sometimes bigger isn't better
The harvest this year wasn't too good, only fourteen frames of honey. Of those fourteen five are only partly ready to go and they are dark honey so we'll be processing those by hand, no extractor. The other nine went through the extractor I'm borrowing from a friend.
Using an extractor to spin the honey out of the frames was supposed to be easier than the old crush-and-strain method but I have to say for only nine frames it isn't worth the extra setup and cleanup. I was expecting to have at least 30 frames but found that most of the hives didn't have any honey for me this year. Only two hives produced enough honey for me to take some!
The best part of this is that the frames I put through the extractor will be ready to go next year with the wax comb waiting to be filled. This is great for preventing a booming hive from swarming, when they run out of wax comb the queen stops producing bees and the hive splits. That is a good thing if you can get two hives out of it but if you send thousands of bees flying into a city that is a bad thing.
Using an extractor to spin the honey out of the frames was supposed to be easier than the old crush-and-strain method but I have to say for only nine frames it isn't worth the extra setup and cleanup. I was expecting to have at least 30 frames but found that most of the hives didn't have any honey for me this year. Only two hives produced enough honey for me to take some!
The best part of this is that the frames I put through the extractor will be ready to go next year with the wax comb waiting to be filled. This is great for preventing a booming hive from swarming, when they run out of wax comb the queen stops producing bees and the hive splits. That is a good thing if you can get two hives out of it but if you send thousands of bees flying into a city that is a bad thing.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Preparing the farm bees.
I made a trip out to the farm to check on the two new hives. Last month they had little to no honey stored and weren't drawing new comb. When I checked on them now they still hadn't drawn any comb but they did have enough honey to make it through the Winter. Probably. One hive was a little light, probably about 40 lbs of honey stored. The other is good, with about 55 lbs stored. If we have a mild winter they will eat about 20 lbs and a cold winter will take about 50 lbs so I am taking a bit of a risk with the lighter hive.
While I was going through the hives I removed the crazy cross comb from before, I didn't have enough drawn frames to give proper comb guides so the bees went off of the frames in a few places. Since the comb won't be used until the Spring there's no harm in removing it now.
After inspecting both hives all I had left to do was to reduce their entrances for the winter, but I didn't bring anything along to do that with. I grabbed a few pine branches of the right width and broke them down to the right length and put them in place, I think it will work just fine.
Just one hive left to check, I'll get to that one tomorrow.
While I was going through the hives I removed the crazy cross comb from before, I didn't have enough drawn frames to give proper comb guides so the bees went off of the frames in a few places. Since the comb won't be used until the Spring there's no harm in removing it now.
After inspecting both hives all I had left to do was to reduce their entrances for the winter, but I didn't bring anything along to do that with. I grabbed a few pine branches of the right width and broke them down to the right length and put them in place, I think it will work just fine.
Just one hive left to check, I'll get to that one tomorrow.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
A hive lost?
The new hive in my back yard was not very active so I wasn't too surprised when I opened it up and found the hive nearly empty. Further investigation revealed a queen and about 50 workers alive and little to no brood. There wasn't any sign of disease but I set aside some comb that had scattered capped worker brood for further investigation.
My diagnosis is that the hive was robbed of all of its honey and with the cool weather the bees couldn't bring in enough nectar to keep the hive going. Furthermore the stronger hives in the yard continued to pester the weak hive. There were a few spiders and a few wax moths in the hive but the comb was still in good shape which means the hive crashed sometime in the past month.
I should have reduced the entrance size when the weather got cold and the activity slowed, the large entrance allowed the stronger hives to overcome the defenders and steal the honey. My decision now is do I let this queen and her small cluster of workers die or do I try and save them? I know the answer is that I should let them die but I am curious what would happen if I gave them some honey and protected the hive from further robbing. I put in a division board feeder and closed up the entrance to only a single bee width entrance and put the hive back in the yard. Once I did this the outside of the hive was covered in bees, a few of them nasanoving but most just trying to get into the hive where the top entrance used to be. After a day this activity ceased (the weather also turned cold). I plan to check on this hive in a few days to see how many bees are left alive in the box and to check if they have taken in the feed.
Even if the queen survives until the Spring I know that this hive won't produce much next year, they'll continue to be a weak hive. At this point I've got nothing to lose with the hive (other than the honey I put into it) so I'll learn what I can from this failure.
My diagnosis is that the hive was robbed of all of its honey and with the cool weather the bees couldn't bring in enough nectar to keep the hive going. Furthermore the stronger hives in the yard continued to pester the weak hive. There were a few spiders and a few wax moths in the hive but the comb was still in good shape which means the hive crashed sometime in the past month.
I should have reduced the entrance size when the weather got cold and the activity slowed, the large entrance allowed the stronger hives to overcome the defenders and steal the honey. My decision now is do I let this queen and her small cluster of workers die or do I try and save them? I know the answer is that I should let them die but I am curious what would happen if I gave them some honey and protected the hive from further robbing. I put in a division board feeder and closed up the entrance to only a single bee width entrance and put the hive back in the yard. Once I did this the outside of the hive was covered in bees, a few of them nasanoving but most just trying to get into the hive where the top entrance used to be. After a day this activity ceased (the weather also turned cold). I plan to check on this hive in a few days to see how many bees are left alive in the box and to check if they have taken in the feed.
Even if the queen survives until the Spring I know that this hive won't produce much next year, they'll continue to be a weak hive. At this point I've got nothing to lose with the hive (other than the honey I put into it) so I'll learn what I can from this failure.
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