Backyard Apiary

Spider with a bee corpse

I mixed up a large batch of 2:1 (40 lbs sugar, 20 lbs water) syrup for my three hives at the Garner community garden. Next time I’ll need to do 50 lbs of sugar to completely fill all of the feeders. Two of the hives were small swarms. During the last inspection, they had barely started to fill their second box. Today’s inspection showed that all three hives were doing well. They all had drawn out more frames and the right most hive even had 4 frames of capped honey in the top box. I only had enough sugar to fill half the feeder for this hive. I feel strongly that this hive will survive the winter. It’s already has a decent amount of stores and a several frames of capped brood in the bottom box. The hive has a screened top with a spider “foraging” on the screen. I managed to get a picture of it dragging around a bee corpse.

The middle hive had me worried after first removing the inner cover. Just like last time, there were a few wax moth larvae and a small hive beetle crawling around in the empty feeder. This prompted a full inspection. I didn’t see any signs of either in the hive. I guess the bees ignore the pests in the feeder because it’s separated from the hive.

I’ll need to bring an inner cover and two trays to start closing up the hives for winter.

I did a quick outside inspection of the beeyard. The split I made to prevent a fall swarm was all but dead. The hive’s top was a piece of plywood, which warped enough to open most of one side. In the entrance to that opening, I saw a wax moth cocoon. To get a better idea, I quickly propped the top open about an inch and saw many more cocoons and dozens of wax moths squirming around. I suited up and started to rip through the hive. It was a complete loss. All of the drawn frames have extensive damage from the moths and there was no sign of a laying queen.

The have wasn’t very strong during my previous inspections and that is the main reason it couldn’t handle wax the moths. The hive only had about 10 frames of drawn comb, but was in two medium boxes with the intention of letting them expand from feeding. They were also in the process of replacing a queen. The missed brood cycles, the extra large opening in the top and a pollen patty to feed the wax moths are to blame. It’s also possible that the hive was robbed out because it had a frame feeder and a population that cannot defend from the stronger hives.

I disassembled the hive and shook out all of the bees. I stomped as many cocoons and larvae as I could before standing up all of the equipment away from the hives. The local birds should get a nice snack in the morning. Over the weekend I’ll need to scrape all the equipment clean and then put them in the freezer to make sure any eggs I missed are killed.

The nuc on the top bar hive was the other hive I gave a pollen patty, so I did a quick check to make sure they were not suffering the same fate. I opened the top of the hive and it was overflowing with bees. I looked down the top bar  opening and there were no signs of wax moth. The hive has very small entrances and a good sized population. Unfortunately, it looks as if they have not drawn out any of the top bars. I think I’ll need to move them in to 10 frame equipment or quickly build a long hive.

I inspected the four main hives in the backyard apiary this morning. The split from Hegemone is replacing its queen. From the amount of capped drone cells, I’d say that the previous queen didn’t mate very well. There were a few capped and uncapped queen cells. They haven’t drawn out any more comb and their honey stores were looking a little empty. I removed two frames, one from each the top and bottom box and put the deep frame feeder. I ordered the wrong part from Brushy Moutain and ended up with a deep frame feeder instead of a medium. That should be enough food to keep them going and possibly encourage them to draw out a little bit more comb. I’m not sure if the hive will build up enough to survive a winter. I’m not sure if I’ll combine it with another hive or see if it can survive the winter.

Antheia is strong and doing well. The queen is laying in the bottom two boxes and the third box is mostly capped honey. As the strongest hive in the yard, I think that the hive has been getting most of the syrup from the communal feeding. Since all frames were fully drawn or mostly drawn, I gave the hive back it’s fourth box and pulled a frame of brood up from the second box. They already have plenty of stores for winter, so I’m hoping that they’ll draw more frames that can be given to other hives.

The split with the purchased queen is doing well. They still haven’t fully drawn the second box. I refilled the entrance feeder for the first time since the spring honey flow. The hive is strong enough that robbing shouldn’t be an issue.

Hegemone is doing well. I found some cocoons on the outside under the outer cover and on the bottom of the hive below the screened bottom. Could possibly be wax moth, but I’ll never know because I crushed them all. I saw a hornet snatch a bee off the top of the hive. My attempts to burn the hornet with the butane torch failed and it flew off.

I wanted to keep feeding the top bar hive without the flaws of using the screen. I bought a 2.75″ hole drill bit. This is the size needed for a regular mouth jar. It’s a very snug fit, so its best to either widen the hole with a file or use the drill to widen the hole a little bit.

I planned on inspecting most of the hives today, but ended up only opening the Nuc on a Top Bar Hive. I built the hive based upon the plans provided by Michael Bush. When using the hive in such a way that there is not a solid top to keep the rain out, it works fine as is. I wasn’t able to provide a solid roof to the hive because of the Nuc sitting on top of the front half of the hive. This wasn’t so bad, as the only entrances for water were the gaps between the first and second frames that served as the entrance to the hive.

The real problem was when I decided to feed the bees using an inverted jar. I took an entrance moving screen, laid it across the hive in place of a few top bars and then put the inverted jar on that. It gave easy access to the jar for the bees, but kept them behind the screen to allow me to refill the jar without crushing bees. There were a few issues with that. The bees kept climbing on to the top of the screen, which made it impossible to replace the jar without crushing bees and it provided a nice big opening for rain to get in to the hive. The inverted jar prevent the plywood from covering the screen. My original plan was to get a drill bit the size of the jar tops and use a piece of wood to prevent water from getting in. I never found the time to make that happen, so I cut corners.

End result was that all this rain that we’ve gotten in the past to weeks made its way in to the hive and had no place to go, so it just sat there. There was about 2-3 inches of water in the bottom of the hive with many dead bees floating in it. It smelled disgusting. I ran and got my drill with a 3/8″ bit to put a few drainage holes in to the hive.  I then spent the next 30-45 minutes scooping out the dead bees and using the hive tool as a squeegee. The cardboard follower had to be tossed and this explains why there was always a mass of bees on the screen. They were desperately trying to dry out the hive.

The main lesson to be learned from this is that you should always assume that water will find its way in to the hive and it needs a way to drain out.

Inside the NUC on a top bar hive

The preventative split I made from Hegemone has several capped queen cells, which is great news. Whichever queen emerges first will be the proud matriarch of the backyard hive. The slightly bad news is that the capped queen cells were the swarm cells that I moved over. I had hoped that I split them before any eggs were laid in them, but I was obviously too late. I didn’t open up Hegemone to check and see if they tore down the swarm cells I left behind. It was excessively hot and I was not too eager to lift two boxes with my sore back. I’m out of equipment to make more splits, so the most I could hope to learn by inspecting Hegemone is if I will watch a swarm fly off and start a feral hive. If there were no signs of the split raising its own queen, I was going to take a frame of eggs from the new queen.

The smoker was still going strong so I did a quick check of the two hives on the western edge of my property. The NUC on a top bar hive didn’t really draw out much comb. It seems that they like to festoon off the bars, but have not been doing much wax building. I did find a dead carpenter bee at the bottom of the top bar. The honey bees were in the process of dragging it out.

The other hive, by the basketball hoop, has started to draw comb in the top box. This hive would be great in an observation hive because it doesn’t really propolize anything.

A close up shot of eggs. They are the tiny white things in the cell that looks like a grain of rice.

I went through the hives to make sure the bees have plenty of food stockpiled. To my surprise, Hegemone had lots of swarm cells. All of the queen cells were uncapped and looked to be empty. They are just preparing to swarm. I think I caught it in time to do a preventative split. I removed 11 frames of brood, pollen and honey to start the new hive. Eggs are very difficult to see in ideal conditions. Many of the brood frames from Hegemone that were not completely capped had very dark comb, which is not ideal. I was able to see eggs (possibly larvae) when I looked at the frame in direct sunlight.

The extended period of 90+ degree days has kept me from being outside and building more equipment. I have everything I need to start a 5 frame NUC, but I don’t think pulling only 5 frames would have done much to prevent Hegemone from swarming. I am lacking 10 frame hive tops and bottoms, but luckily I had scraps of plywood to make due. I used the queen castle bottom, which has a small inch wide entrance on three sides, instead of a full width entrance on one. The three entrances are designed to give each of the 3-frame mating hives their own separate entrance. The top box of the split has one frame of capped brood and my last nine assembled frames. It’s time to endure the heat and get to work assembling frames. I also need to finish building the long hive and get that moved over to the Garner Grows Community Garden.

Hive count is at eight and I need to be more attentive to Hegemone in the next couple of weeks to make sure she doesn’t swarm. If the hive caps those queen cells, then I will probably make a few more splits that will be sold. The hive has sent out 3-4 swarms this year, so it’s not really surprising that they want to send out another.

I added a second hive body to the swarm hive by the raspberries and to the split with the purchased queen. The new queen’s hive was especially unfriendly today and netted me a sting on a finger. The bees were attacking the hive tool, headbutting my veil and encouraged me to put on gloves. Such are the joys of inspecting a hive in a dearth. I also think I kept the hives open too long and triggered a little bit of a robbing frenzy. All of the hives are strong, so I’m not worried but there will be a few more dead bees than usual in front of the hives.

I was curious to see if a dead bee could still sting and also wanted to boost my resistance to stings, so I stung myself on the hand. The answer is, yes a newly dead bee will still sting and pump venom.

Yesterday, I did a quick inspection of the two beehives on the West side of my property. The one near the raspberries that has been gulping down one quart of 1:1 syrup daily is doing fine. The hive has five frames fully drawn and they were festooning on the six. The syrup should help them draw out the rest of the frames during this dearth and get them up to a good size for the next honey flow. This hive was started from a small swarm, so I’m not really worried about the speed of their build up.

The original split from Antheia that has been in a double five frame NUC is doing really well. All of the frames are almost entirely drawn out and the hive is packed with bees. Instead of giving them a third NUC box or swapping them in to ten frame boxes, I decided to do a little experiment. I had built a Kenyan Top Bar Hive (KTBH) to put at the Garner Community Garden, but the swarm didn’t stay and the hive has remained empty. I really want a KTBH, but the swarm season has passed, I don’t want to spend $80 on a package and cutting the wax from a frame and wiring to a top bar is too much effort in 80+ degree weather. My plan is to see if I can encourage the bees to build down in to the top bar hive. Two of the top bars have small pieces of drawn comb from the swarm that didn’t stay. I placed those top bars as the front two and left a gap between them. I placed the NUC hive on the Top Bar Hive so that the bees must use this gap as their entrance, which they are doing. Now all I need them to do is expand the small pieces of comb and continue to draw comb out on the top bars. The bees need to either be in the top bar hive or the NUC, but definitely not both. I’m hoping that they build up the top bars enough so that I can take away the NUC and give those frames to another hive. I anticipate the need to feed this hive a lot.

I took a short video today of the activity at the front of the hive. The bees are still a bit confused about the entrance being a foot higher up, which is why there are a lot of bees hovering at the bottom of the top bar hive. They circle until they remember that the entrance moved.

Did a quick inspection of five of the hives to make sure they are doing okay. The giant swarm hive that I relocated off of the shed roof has been doing lots of orientation flights this past week. I gave the hive a second box and moved three frames up. I saw the queen. She is huge with a golden redish brown abdomen. I expect this hive to start to expand quickly.

The next hive I checked was the split with the queen purchased from the Carolina Bee Company. Monica was not exaggerating when she said the queen is one of the best layers she’s ever seen. There was a full frame  of eggs, both sides and I didn’t notice any empty cells. Each had an egg placed squarely in the middle of the cell. The hive is doing awesome and will need a second box in maybe a week.

I didn’t inspect Antheia because the hive is strong and I can tell from looking at the entrance. There are always several hundred bees wash boarding on the front of the hive and lots of activity at the entrance all day.

Hegemone was in a foul mood today. I used a lot more smoke than I normally would and they were still acting aggressive toward me. I didn’t get stung, but they clearly wanted to let me know they were not pleased with my presence. During the last inspection, I was worried about the hive being queenless and gave it a frame of eggs from Antheia. That was  12 days ago, so all of those eggs would have been capped ~3 days ago, and they were. They didn’t use any of the eggs to raise a new queen and I saw uncapped brood, so there is a queen in there somewhere. The best tip I read somewhere was that unless you absolutely need to find the queen, don’t look for her. Instead, look for signs of her being there. It would take a very long time to find the queen in Hegemone. She could be anywhere on the 40 frames of bees and she constantly moves around. It doesn’t help that the hive has lots of drones, so every frame has many larger than worker sized bees roaming about to distract me.

If the hive is pissy during the next inspection, then I might split it down in size and use the opportunity to raise a few more queens from the purchased one. Hegemone’s queen isn’t showing herself to be worthy of her crown.

The split that is in the double NUC is doing well. Nothing special, but they’ve recovered their numbers from when losing lots of their foragers during the hive swap. The other swarm hive over by the blackberries and raspberries is doing okay. Not building up that quickly, but the hive is stronger than I thought it would be after seeing the low activity at the entrance.

I inspected five hives today, gave each of the ~100-150k bees a reason to sting me, but they did not. While mowing the lawn, I discovered a yellow jacket nest…when they started stinging the crap out of my ankles and legs. I ended up with 4 stings, but it would have been more if the 2 yellow jackets stinging my shoelaces were a bit smarter. I counted over a dozen of them flying around the lawn mower when I returned with the can of wasp spray. I couldn’t see the entrance to the nest, so I decided to “nuke’em from orbit” and just sprayed anywhere they were hovering. I don’t mind yellow jackets. They are a beneficial bug, but they are not beneficial enough to give them a pass after stinging me. Wasps have been known to raid honey bee hives and kills lots of the bees, so I can never let a wasp nest get too strong.

I inspected the split today to see if they released the queen. When I opened up the hive, it was overflowing with bees. I had put 3 frames full of capped brood and half of them emerged. All those nurse bees easily accepted the only queen they’ve ever known. The nurse bees will not have much to do until the queen starts laying, which should happen in the next day or so. This should give them plenty of time to draw out new comb.

The new split was not a very large split and I’m sure it has been losing its foragers as they fly back to Antheia across the yard. To help give it a boost until the brood starts to emerge, I swapped the location of the hive with Chloris. For the past week, Chloris has had a lot of bees hanging out in the front of the hive. After swapping the hives, there were over a dozen bees flying in front of the hive acting confused. That’s a decent number given that it was raining. A forager brought back white pollen, landed and walked in to the hive. It walked out a few seconds later, flew around and then repeated the process. If bees could talk, this one would say, “wtf? I have the right address, but this isn’t my house!”