Backyard Apiary

I moved the captured hive in to the yard and the bees seem to like their new home. They were festooning on a single frame instead of the wax attached to the pine needles. I checked the tree where I caught the bees and there was a tiny cluster of the stragglers.

The top bar hive bees are booming! They’ve already drawn out two bars of wax and started working on a few more. I cleaned out the scrap pieces of wax at the bottom.

One of the splits has a capped queen cell. The other split is mostly emerged drones and I didn’t see any queen cells. The split needs to be merged with a viable hive or given eggs so the can raise their own queen. I got a good picture of a few drones almost completely emerged.

My new neighbor stopped by to let me know there was a giant pine cone or swarm of bees up in a pine tree in his front yard. The cluster was about 30′ off the ground on the very end of a tiny branch. I don’t know why they chose that particular spot, but the hive would have come crashing down very soon because the branch was already sagging. He first noticed the bees almost a week ago, which means that despite the extreme winds, heavy rain and peanut m&m sized hail we had this past weekend, they decided to pick a completely exposed location to build.

I set up an A-frame ladder and fully extended the bucket on a telescoping pole. From the second rung from the top, I was close enough to reach the cluster. I positioned it right below with my neighbor spotting from a safe distance and then gave a quick thrust to scoop the bees in to the bucket. Some bees rained down and I was immediately stung on the wrist. Swarms are generally very calm and not defensive. As I lowered the bucket, I could see some fresh, white comb built in to the pine needles. I was no longer catching a swarm, but removing a hive. The cluster remaining in the tree was about half the size and the rest were poured in to a waiting medium box. I switched to the telescoping tree pruner and I propped the telescoped bucket in the ladder directly below (about 15′ below) the hive. At this point many of the bees were already in the box and fanning. Many slices later, it was a flimsy little twig of a branch,  the hive came down and missed the bucket. I didn’t think it would land in the bucket, but the chances were better than if I had not set up the bucket. It was already fairly dark and using a flashlight, I didn’t see the queen on the ground where the comb landed. I’m hopeful that I got her with the first scoop.

I caught my first swarm of the year this evening. They were waiting for me to get home from work on the dogwood tree about 15′ from the hives. I’m not sure which hive send out the swarm. My guess is that it was Hegemone because I haven’t been in the hive in over a week and I split the other hive, which didn’t have any capped queen cells on Friday,  in to three hives. Last year, Hegemone sent her second swarm to the same dogwood tree right next to the hives. I put last year’s in to the same top bar hive, but they absconded a few days later.

There are a few basic methods used for actively capturing a swarm.

1. You can cut the branch and drop the bees in to a box.
2. You can use a bee vacuum to suck the bees in to a container.
3. You can shake the bees in to a bucket or container and then pour them in to a hive.

I like the dogwood tree and the swarm was on one of the main branches. Cutting it was not an option and I don’t own a bee vacuum.  I held a restaurant busboy tray under the swarm and then tapped the branch down quickly against the tray and most of the bees fell in to it. I proceeded to pour the bees as quickly as possible in to the top bar hive before they all took to the air. The main goal was to get the queen in to the hive so the rest of the bees would migrate in to there instead of back on to the branch.

I’m hopeful that they’ll remain in the top bar hive this time around. Instead of being a new hive, it had a lot of bee traffic in it and there is even some small pieces of comb on some of the top bars. I also (probably a going to be a mistake) put a bunch of scrap wax in to the hive to give it that old hive smell.

I inspected all of the backyard hives on April 3rd and the long hive has a queen! The hive has been sustained and this new queen is an offspring from the purchased queen, which has been dubbed “super queen” because of her size and how much she lays. Antheia, Hegemone and super queen are expanding nicely. Hegemone had a few swarm cells on a few frames. As far as I could tell, the cells were empty. I added another box and swapped in several empty frames to help keep them from swarming.

The morning of April 8th, the long hive and Antheia were moved to the community garden. Both bee yards have a mix of genetics and at least two strong hives to help ensure any issues can be addressed easily. Both hives originally at the garden are weak and possibly caused by me leaving the top feeders filled for too long. Their queens didn’t have much room to lay because every cell was being filled with syrup. They’ll get more space and a brood boost soon. There were not many forages out when the hives were moved because it was early in the morning and a little chilly. I put a nuc about 15′ from where the long have sat. There were not the typical dozens of confused bees flying around trying to locate the hive. I found two bees in the nuc this evening and dropped them off at the entrance of Hegemone. Any forages from Antheia would have drifted to the super queen because her hive is now on the end.

On Friday, I inspected the long hive to see if they raised their own queen. Drones are just starting to fly, so a virgin queen shouldn’t have to wait much longer to find a few mature mates. It’s been about three weeks since I added the two frames of brood to the long hive. There were signs of a few queen cells, where one emerged and the others were ripped open. No eggs or larvae in the hive, but the queen has only been going out on mating flights for about a week. All of my hives have capped drone cells now to help spread the genes.

I inspected all of the hives on Saturday and need to start my swarm prevention steps. To keep the long hive’s numbers up, two frames were moved from Antheia containing the full range of brood. Hegemone’s queen was laying in the top (3rd) box and all of the frames were fully drawn and being filled. A fourth box was checker boarded on top. Antheia will get her fourth box as soon as I finish rotating the cleat from the wedged frames to make it a foundationless guide.

I poured the last bit of the 2010 harvest in to a half gallon jar and a quart jar. It’s slightly crystallized, but still delicious.

On Jan 30th, I discovered that one of the small, late season swarms at the garden didn’t make it. The hive had plenty of food stores, but they either couldn’t get to the food or they were too weak to stay warm. I didn’t find the queen’s body, so I have no idea what happened to her. The hive should have been merged with another before the winter, but I left it separate as an experiment. The other two hives at the garden were doing well at that time.

The long hive is also in a dire situation. There are a lot of bees, but no sign of a queen. No capped brood, eggs or larvae. I pulled a frame of eggs from the purchased queen hive and a frame of capped brood from Hegemone. The plan is to help the hive limp its way along until mature drones are flying and they can raise their own queen. This will slow down the other hives and will hopefully help prevent as much swarming as last year.

I found the queens in langstroth hives and they are doing well. The purchased queen is an amazing layer and she filled almost every free cell with eggs. I gave the hive another box with a few drawn frames to give her more space to lay.

This is an interesting video I stumbled across that shows flows the way bees see them, in ultraviolet light. The video also shows bees in infrared. There are a lot of high quality slow motion segments with bees flying around.

I moved the bees in to their new home yesterday after work.  The hive looks like it is in good shape for the winter. Several frames of capped honey, capped brood and now a sturdier home.  There were many small hive beetles at the bottom of the hive, on top of the top bars.  I didn’t see any on the frames as I transferred them over.  Resting a hive body on top bars yields many little corners for the beetles to hide.  The re-homing gave the bees the added benefit of me squishing every small hive beetle.  They didn’t stand a chance as they kept trying to get back in to the top bar hive body.  I took a video of the bees flying around after I transferred all of the frames.

I wanted to give the long hive a couple empty frames to fix the spacing issues.  Frames from the same box will slide together nicely because the wax was built with the neighboring frame as a guide.  The frames from the different boxes didn’t line up so well.  As always, I didn’t have any frames assembled and quickly put together a few foundation-less frames.  The only unused frames I had were pulled from the hive that was killed by wax moth, and I don’t plan on using those frames again until I get the chance to scrape the wood and cycle them through a deep freeze to make sure I don’t pass wax moths eggs in to a healthy hive.  I added two frames to the bee side of the follower board and put a few behind it to help keep it in place.  When I removed the inner cover, the bees were covering all of the frames. It was a good sight to see.

I previously built a Kenyan Top Bar Hive (KTBH), but so far have had no luck with getting bees to move in to it.  I really want to experience managing bees in non standard hives and the prospect of not having to lift boxes during an inspection is very motivating.  The long hive I built is the equivalent to three 10-frame medium (6 5/8″) hives.  Instead of them being stacked vertically, all of the frames are next to each other in the single long box.  With normal langstroth hives, you control the size of the hive by adding or subtracting boxes and moving frames between them.  The size of the long hive is controlled by using a follower board; a frame that is solid with no space for bees to crawl past it.

With the exception of the KTBH, all of my hives use medium frames (6 5/8″). This consistent frame size will let me easily move bees in to the long hive, unlike my failed attempts with the KTBH. In a few days when the primer and caulking off gas a bit more, I will transfer the frames from the nuc on a top bar hive in to the long hive.  They never expanded in to the KTBH and I would be happier if the hive was more than ten frames going in to winter.

Screened Bottom

The size of the broodnest in a long hive will use as many frames as the queen will lay.  A screened bottom is good to have under the broodnest because any varroa mites that fall off will fall out of the hive.  Two trays allows me to adjust the ventilation without having a long board extending out from the back of the hive. One of the trays is the size of a 10-frame.  The trays rest on a pair of 3/4″ x 2.5″ wood rails with 3/4″ x 3/8″ rabbets.  The rails keep the the sides of the hive from warping, act as footings and provides an inside edge to attach the 8 mesh hardware cloth.

Inner Covers

An inner cover has many uses for a hive.  It provides a thermal break from the main part of the hive and allows moisture to escape the hive.  I didn’t want to use a single inner cover for the hive.  It would be a bit unwieldy and result in many crushed bees.  A single piece inner cover would also expose every frame and that could mean a lot of angry bees.  I chose to make two 10-frame inner covers and a third shorter odd sized one for the middle.  The only plywood I had laying around was 19/32″ sheathing.  These are very thick and noticeably heavier.  Inner covers are normally made from 1/4″ plywood.  The extra wood should provide more insulation for the hive.

Outer Cover

This is the first outer cover that I’ve made with a metal top.  I used a roll of 20″ wide flashing and cut three 26″ long pieces.  I have an old paper cutter, which works surprisingly well for cutting flashing; nice straight, clean cuts.  I used a quick square to align the center piece first and clamped it down on the corners.  I bent the edges with my hands first and then finished off with a hammer.  I attached it to the wood sides using 1/2″ staples.  The next two pieces of flashing overlapped the first piece by ~5″.  I used exterior caulking to keep any water from getting between the pieces of flashing.

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.