Backyard Apiary

The next batch of bees to be laid will most likely be the ones who will keep the hive alive through the winter. Bees live about 6 weeks. The main limiter of their lifespan are their fragile wings that get worn out. To help ensure the next batch of bees is good and strong, I wanted to feed the bees some pollen. I made a pollen patty by mixing about 1.5 pounds of sugar  with 4 ounces of water. I mixed it up until it made a thick paste and then mixed in 4 ounces of dried pollen. It made a nice thick gooey mess with pollen chunks in it. It looked disgusting. I put a golf ball sized clump in the top bar hive to see if they liked it. The following day, it was completely gone. I guess they approved. I spread the rest out on to wax paper and let it harden in the fridge. One patty went to the most recent split. The other was given to the top bar hive. I plan on making more for the hives over at the community garden.

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.

Due to a mini vacation and rain, it has been over a week since I last fed the bees in the backyard. Today’s weather forecast was clear so I mixed them up a fresh batch of syrup. It took almost an hour before any bees were at the feeder and despite them having a few hours to rally the girls to come clean up, they are mostly ignoring it. There are at most a few dozen bees at the feeder at any moment. There are still 5 hives in the yard, so I would expect more bees than that. The Goldenrods are in bloom, so the Fall honey flow might be in full swing.

The bees got a flavorful treat this evening. Alissa was canning blueberries and some of them leaked. The water turned dark blue. Instead of dumping the water down the drain, I used it to make a batch of syrup for the bees. They seemed to like it better than regular syrup and more of the ladies turned out for the feeding. I also refilled the quart jar on the NUC on a Top Bar Hive with some of this blue water. I’m hoping they draw out some blue-ish comb. If they draw out any blue tinted wax, then I’m going to start experimenting more with different natural colorings. I think the ladies of that hive either don’t like blue or were not too pleased with my attempts to put the jar on the screen that they were obstructing. They send a representative bee to state their objections above my left knee. No noticeable swelling yet.

Here in NC, we’re in the middle of dearth. The only thing the bees have to eat is what they can find and what they stockpiled during the last flow. I am fortunate to have my hives located where I do. More urban areas tend to have more in bloom because people landscape their yards with non-native plants that bloom throughout the year. I also happen to have several garden nurseries and home improvement stores within the forage range of a bee.

I wanted to give them a little food boost to help them draw out more comb in preparation of the fall flow. Yesterday, I put out 10 lbs batch of 1:1 sugar syrup (10 lbs sugar, 10 lbs water). I was at work and asked my wife if there was any activity at the feeder. “There are a few bees”, she responded. I expected her to see more than just a few bees. The feeder was completely empty of syrup when I returned from work. There were still a few small clusters of bees, a few yellow jackets and a spider with a butt the size of a quarter. I put the local newspaper to good use and played whack a mole with the yellow jackets. After I killed four of them, the rest had scattered. I’m not sure what the spider was doing, but it would hide whenever it saw me.

I put out another batch of the same size this morning. There were about a dozen bees crawling around looking for any leftovers from yesterday’s feast. There were a lot of ants crawling around in the dry feeder. I refilled the feeder, drowning many of the ants. I put away the now empty stock pot and fetched my camera to take some pictures. I was back outside in about 10 minutes and took the below video. Thousands of bees feasting. I couldn’t see a single ant anywhere near the inside of the feeder. I did notice a few crazy yellow jackets landing and trying to feed.

The main honey flow has come and gone. Now there really isn’t much for the bees to gather for the next month. They’ll use what they’ve stored up until the next honey flow. Many of my hives are still relatively small because they started as swarms and need to build up. For this reason, I plan on feeding them syrup. I boiled 10 lbs of water, removed from heat and then added 10 lbs of sugar. I gave a quart of syrup to the weak hive by the raspberries and to the split with the purchased queen. Antheia already has a top feeder in place and I’ll give her a gallon or two in the morning. The hive at the community garden will also get a gallon or two.

I think I’m going to make a few pollen patties. I don’t think any of my hives really need them, but I have the pollen, never made them before and it doesn’t hurt to give them more pollen. It may even get the hives to build up quicker. I need more of my hives to be good and strong if I have any hopes of being able to make a starter hive for raising queens. I still have not even unwrapped the grafting tools.

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.

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.

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.