Spring weather is finally starting to appear and the bees are busy. The hives were topped off with dry sugar and a 2:1 syrup was put in a feeder hive in front of the other 2 hives. It took the bees a while to find the syrup, but they’ve started to chomp away at it. Having lots of activity at the entrances and the large number of bees eating the dry sugar in the top of the hive gives me hope that I’ll be able to increase the number of hives this year with splits.
First video shows the hives with the outer covers off and lots of bees.
The second video shows the activity at the entrances.
The weather cooperated and I was able to swap the outer covers and give the bees the candy I made for them. Antheia had eaten almost all of the dry sugar and Hegemone barely touched hers. I’m guessing that Hegemone had more stores going in to winter. I didn’t smoke either hive because I was trying to cause the least amount of disruption to the hive. It also doesn’t seem like a smart move to trigger them to gorge on their dwindling stores. Antheia was very tame, but Hegemone netted me a string. It didn’t help that Hegemone managed to glue the inner cover to the outer cover so I completely opened the hive and exposed hundreds of bees that were feeding on the dry sugar.
The sugar definitely absorbed some moisture from the hive. The newspaper that was put under the dry sugar was soaked. The bees were less than thrilled when I tried to remove as much of it as possible. Antheia now has an entrance shim above the inner cover. Hegemone required a shim below the inner cover (in addition to the one above) because of the remaining dry sugar.
Shiny new covers for both hives
Antheia with the candy block in place
Hegemone with lots of bees eating the dry sugar
Antheia with the candy block above the inner cover
I have been wanting to experiment with making candy for the bees. There are several recipes available online, but I chose to follow Robo’s Emergency Feeding. I scaled down the recipe to 1/10th because I only have two hives and my electric stove burners probably couldn’t handle a much larger batch.
2.5 lbs sugar
4/5 cup water
1 4/5 tsp. vinegar
Bring the water and vinegar to a boil and mix in the sugar a little bit at a time. Continue to stir occasionally and let the temperature climb to 270F. Remove the pot from heat and wait for the sugar to stop boiling. Very carefully pour the molten candy in to the mold. I recommend using silicone bakeware to allow for easy cleaning and removing the hardened candy.
I took a short video when the sugar was boiling and almost at the right temperature.
Winter is in full swing and I checked up on the bees today. I slide open the bottom board’s tray and looked up in to each hive. Antheia was clustering at the bottom of the lower box. I couldn’t see the cluster in Hegemone, so I’m guessing that they were in the upper box. The weather forecast shows many more cold days and nights and the temperature should creep up above 50 on Friday. If the forecast holds true, then I’ll put bag feeder spacers on both of the hives and give them a lot more dry sugar. I’ll also get a chance to replace the falling apart outer covers with some new metallic topped ones that are a bit more weather proof.
I took advantage of Brushy Mountain Bee Farms December free shipping and ordered a lot of stuff to prepare for next year. Next year I plan on adding another hive and if the bees are strong enough, split a 5 frame nuc. I’m undecided about starting the 3rd hive from a nuc or a package. Still a little bit of time to make a decision on that. To prevent robbing and to make feeding easier for me, I purchased top feeder for all of the hives. I also bought screened tops to sit above the feeders to prevent robbing or having the bees fly at me when I refill the syrup.
As a beekeeper, there is not much to do when the weather is cold. I decided to branch out a little bit more and start tinkering with some of the various bee related crafts. I’m starting off with candle making. I ordered 10 pounds of beeswax, a votive mold and a few other essential tools of the trade. Candles and honey will probably be my gift of choice until I start making mead. If anyone know a good source of candle molds or some good mead recipes, let me know.
The temperature today reached the upper 60s and this might be the last chance to open up the hives until spring. Hopefully this winter is mild and has plenty of warm days in December that will let me feed the bees. The inspection of both hives was very quick. The bees were very calm and I didn’t need to smoke them, but the smoker was going strong just in case. Both hives had lots of activity at the entrance and the bees were bringing back an orange pollen. I’m not entirely sure what it is from, but I do have dandelions and camelias blooming in my yard.
I only inspected the top box of each hive and only a few frames. I could see many frames of capped honey and was relieved to see that Hegemone is much stronger than I originally thought. A few weeks ago I was worried that the hive was weak because I could see any bees through the bottom screen. I placed a sheet of newspaper over about 2/3rds of the hive top and poured 1 lbs. of dry sugar. I moistened the sugar a little with a spray bottle and covered up the hives. I flipped the inner cover to give more space. I’m not entirely sure this was a good idea, but I’ll figure it out the next time I open the hives. I hope that they don’t build any bur comb up there or seal the inner cover to the outer cover with propolis. The top ventilation hole of the inner cover is blocked by the telescoping top. The sugar should add a bit more insulation to the top of the hive and will absorb moisture. I’m a bit of a pessimist and think that the bees will probably consume the dry sugar before the cold weather really sets in and then suffer moisture problems.
My wife and I plant lots of plants to attract beneficial insects and it seems to be working. Our inspection started with seeing a pair of assassin bugs mating.
I remember being told by a few beekeepers that no matter how friendly a hive may seem during a honey flow, when the winter is looming they will be quite grouchy. Both of my hives were very friendly during the summer, but recently I have to suit up to refill the entrance feeders, or I get stung. Nothing like having tens of thousands of miniature food critics that are not happy with the free service. I’m on crutches, so I am not as quick or graceful with the changing of the food as I was a few months ago.
To avoid alerting the hives to my presence when I remove the bottle, I tried leaving them a plastic bin filled with 2:1 sugar water. I placed it on a concrete block next to the hives because I didn’t want them to have to fly to far to get to it. I even put a bunch of small sticks in it so they would have a nice place to land without the risk of drowning. They never noticed it. Instead, it turned in to the most popular club for ants. It was packed with the little red bastards with a hundreds more waiting for their turn to climb up the block and in to the bowl of sugary goodness.
I made a second attempt to feed the bees and was not going to give another free meal to one of the many ant hills squatting on my property. This time, I placed a small bowl of moist sugar on the water fountain that the bees frequent. There was no way that they would not notice this and the bees would have to ford two bodies of water to reach the sugar.
My other concern was yellow jackets. They like sugar as much as bees and one vs. one wasps are tougher than bees. A strong colony of yellow jackets can invade a bee hive, kill lots of bees and rob them of their honey. When I went back out to check on the bowl of sugar a short while later, the bees found it and there was a lone yellow jacket. The honey bees politely informed the yellow jacket that the sugar had already been claimed.
I took this opportunity to try and get a few good shots of the bees in flight. It took many tries, but I did manage to get some in focus shorts of bees flying.
The recent trend of a little bit of rain almost everyday is not good for the health of the bees. It keeps the bees from flying and washes away the pollen. It took me quite a few days to realize that Antheia might need to be fed. A quick lift of the back of the hive and it was disturbingly light. I immediately brewed up a fresh batch of 3:2 sugar water for them and have been feeding a quart almost every day. Their feeding pace has been rapidly increasing from when I first started feeding. The hive feels heavier and there are now more bees bearding on the front.
Hegemone has had a constant beard from the top entrance and the nightly gathering on the bottom entrance. To prevent them from (easily) robbing their sister hive, I’ve made sure Hegemone is fed too. Despite having significantly more bees, the hive is taking in less of the sugar water. I hope they’re not depleting the honey they stockpiled during the flow. I still hope to harvest at least a frame of capped honey this year. The hives owe me back rent.
I think Hegemone is in need of another box. The bees have been bearding a lot from both the top and bottom entrances. The bearding could be caused by the heat and humidity. I’ll find out when I inspect the hives this weekend.
It’s been over a week since last hive inspection and I was anxious to see if Antheia’s queen had started to lay; she is laying. Both hives are doing very well and producing a lot of brood. It doesn’t seem like there will be much honey for me this year, but I will be happy as long as they survive the winter.
I gave Antheia a third box because the hive has gotten much stronger and filled out most of the frames. There is still plenty of room, but I want to make sure they still have plenty of room when I check the hive in a few weeks.
Hegemone is as strong as ever. Many frames of capped brood, which has produced lots of new workers. It’s been hot and humid as usual for the area this time of year and the hive has been having a social outside almost every night. This hints at a heating problem. This prompted me to replace the inner and outer covers and use the old solid bottom board as the new cover. This provides them with a top entrance and a lot more ventilation. After the switch, the amount of bearding on the front of the hive has drastically reduced. It is also a little creepy looking in to the top entrance and seeing hundreds of bees lined up and looking back at me. I’m a bit worried that they will start making burr comb along the top since it provides more than bee space from the top of the frames. They’ll probably draw out the rest of the frames in the third box first.
I went through the hives today and things are looking good. Antheia has a queen, but no capped brood. I checked every frame, in both boxes, but couldn’t see any sign of a laying queen. I’m assuming there are eggs that I cannot see through my veil or she has been spending her time getting friendly with the local drones. I know about 3 other hives within a quarter mile, so she should have a good selection of drones for her mating. I don’t know why Antheia keeps replacing queens, but as long as the hive is still strong I don’t really care.
Hegemone is doing extremely well. The inspection stopped after looking at four frames in the second (top) hive box. All four frames were full of capped brood. There were two foundationless frames on the far side of the box that have not been drawn out yet, but I decided to give them another box and move one of the fully capped frames up to the third box. Three medium boxes is slightly larger surface area than two deep boxes, so the queen should be happy to have all this space.
Beeyard June 2009
Hegemone frame full of brood. The queen doesn’t like to lay in cells that have the wire.
