Backyard Apiary

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.

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 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.

It’s been a about a week since I found the dead queen on the landing board of Antheia. After the inspection of the hive, I think that the old queen may have been superceded. Just like what we saw in Hegemone a short while ago, there was lots of capped brood, but no signs of a laying queen. We took off the masks to check for eggs this time. There were a few more queen cells with the sides ripped out and it looked like a few that emerged. Hopefully the hive has a virgin queen off on mating flights.

The girls were not too happy with my rearranging of the hive, I pulled a few frames up to the second brood box. One of the girls climbed on to my left middle finger and gave me the kiss of fire. I pulled the stinger out after about 5 seconds, but she definitely got a little bit of venom in to me. My hand didn’t swell at all and I was left with only a small red mark. The red mark was gone in less than an hour. This confirms that I am not allergic to bee stings. With many years of this apitherapy ahead of me, I should be less likely to suffer from arthritis as I age.

I took off the cover of Hegemone and there were a lot of bees in the upper box. The frames contained lots of capped and uncapped brood, meaning the queen is using both boxes for brood. There were clear signs of a laying queen, so we didn’t progress in to the lower box. There was no point moving down further and potentially injuring or disturbing the queen. I put frames that were still being drawn out between the frames with brood. This should encourage the queen to expand the brood nest in to these frames and increase the number of bees in the hive.

Beekeeping Tip: Finding signs of a laying queen is just as good as finding the queen.

My wife and I went through Hegemone and Antheia for the first time on the 24th. We started with Antheia and then went through Hegemone.

Antheia Bee Log Entry

Inspection. 4 frames of eggs, larvae and brood. Unmarked queen found. Light, golden body. Superceded? Found an emerged queen cell, a killed queen cell and a capped queen cell. Lots of capped honey on the edge frames. Queen is laying a good pattern. Foundationless frames drawn out straight with a good grouping of drone cells. Added super and pulled up a brood frame to encourage queen to lay in both boxes.

Hegemone Bee Log Entry

No eggs, larvae, brood, drone cells or queen. Lots of straight drawn comb with lots of capped honey. Hive appeared to be strong since the workers have no brood to tend.

We were both a bit panicked about Hegemone not having a queen and it didn’t help that it was a holiday weekend. We followed the advise given to every new beekeeper, “you’re going to want to, but don’t go in to the hive for 3-4 weeks.”  Had we gone in sooner, we could have noticed the pending crash much sooner and taken corrective action. It’s a good thing we went through Antheia first. Otherwise it would not have been apparrent how dire the situation was in Hegemone.

We started to call around to get in touch with mentors from the WCBA and see if we could find a place selling queens. I managed to reach a WCBA mentor and was given a few options on how to proceed. Get a replacement queen, use a queen cage and introduce Antheia’s queen in to Hegemone, combine the hives, or do nothing and see what happens.  I also posted to beemaster.com to solicit advice (post: “Hive is going to crash“).

We chose to wait until the 25th to speak with the Busy Bee queen breeder. My wife spoke with Betsy, the Busy Bee queen breeder and she mentioned that the hive could potentially have a virgin queen. The virgin queen could either be off on mating flights or we may have just missed her in the hive since they are more difficult to spot. That would explain the lack of laying worker. I plan to get Will Hicks, the state bee inspector to come out in the next few days to help me look for her. If he determines that there is no queen, Betsy will put me to the head of the line for a replacement queen.

I was a bit less panicked about Hegemone, so I decided to split Antheia to form Chloris. I like the greek goddess naming convention. Chloris was the goddess of flowers. I took the frame with the queen cell (had lots of capped brood), a frame with capped honey with lots of empty space in the center for laying and a third frame which the bees were almost done building up comb. The third frame was mostly to add more bees to the split. Chloris replaces Antheia as the hive at the end, so I’m expecting some bees to drift in to it.

I built the nuc and top from scraps left over from when I built 10 medium boxes. I picked up the bottom board and entrance feeder from Busy Bee today. It’s not pretty or exceptionally sturdy, but the price was low and it only took me about 10 minutes to put it all together with hand tools and my pneumatic staple gun.

First Two Hives in the Apiary

The nucs I ordered from The Carolina Bee Company are now happily in their new home. There was a little bit of confusion with my order, but in the end it was handled very well and I would definitely do business with them in the future.

My bees are Minnesota Hygienic and very strong. One of the queens is marked (green) and the other one must be a ninja because she couldn’t be found to mark. Even with the foragers out collecting pollen, the medium frames were full There were clear signs that she was there and laying. Since Monica couldn’t get the queen marked, I was given six frames, instead of five. I modified two hive bodies with standard window screen stapled to the bottoms. This ensured good ventilation without giving any of the bees the opportunity of riding up front with me.

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