Month: April 2016

Week 2, second hive check

Today was my second hive check. I felt a lot less nervous and had a lot more fun!

For the past week I’ve been feeding my bees one quart of simple syrup per day/per hive. Collective knowledge sources recommend: “continuously” “one quart every other day” and “one quart every three days.” But what is the appropriate amount?

I’m feeding my bees because these are new hives each with five brand new frames which do not have any drawn comb. (Drawn comb is where baby bees are raised and pollen and honey stored.) I’ve been told that supplemental feeding will help with wax production which in turn will help fill the empty frames faster with honeycomb. I’ve also been told that if overfed the bees will store the nectar in the brood area.

So, here were today’s hive objectives:

  1. Look for nectar in the brood area (overfeeding?)
  2. Look for eggs
  3. Evaluate brood, pollen and honey
  4. Learn more about my hives (I am a newbee, after all!)

 

hive2-4-26-16

Hive 2 is looking much better this week. I saw a lot of eggs and larva in all stages. The bees have now ventured to the outer frames, but have yet to start drawing out comb. I saw a lot of odd-shaped honeycomb (see bottom of above photo). Not sure why they’re doing that, will have to ask my mentor.

 

 

hive1-4-26-16-center-frame

Hive 1 is looking good as well. It continues to be the stronger of the two hives. Above is an inner frame. Here’s what I think I see: capped honey along the top and upper corners of the frame, pollen below that, then capped brood (babies). I’m thinking that the empty cells in the center of the frame is from previously hatched brood and will soon be filled with a new egg. I see drone brood along the bottom of the frame (cells are sealed with a dome-shaped cap) and again, weird honeycomb blobs on the underneath side of the frame.

hive1-4-26-16

This is another frame from Hive 1. I took this picture because the brood pattern looks spotty to me. Not sure, will have to confirm with my mentor.

 

hive2-4-26-16-bottomboard

hive1-4-26-16-bottomboard

A lot more debris on the bottom boards this week, plus you can see the bees are expanding onto the outer frames.

hive1-4-26-16-mold

This does not look good. The bottom board from Hive 1 has mold all along the front of the hive. There were also some dead bees and a couple of ants crawling around. Will definitely have to find out what’s going on!

Hive 2 Stats
Box 1
Did not see queen
Saw lots of eggs
Saw lots of larva in all stages
Saw much more brood, pollen and honey than week before
No drawn comb on outer frames

Hive 1 Stats
Box 1
Hive 1 Stats
Did not see queen
Saw a few eggs, not nearly as many as last week
Saw lots of larva in all stages
Saw lots of capped brood, pollen and honey
Outer frames are starting to be drawn out with comb

 

 

 

 

Week 1, first hive check …taking it all in

Today was my first “real” day in the hives. I must admit, I was excited as well as a little nervous. I had a lot I wanted to accomplish AND I’m suffering from information overload.

By now I have read many books, been to four Bee Association meetings with guest speakers, taken two different all-day classes, one workshop, one “in the yard” workshop and one visit to my mentor’s bee yard.

It is apparently well known in the beekeeping community that if you talk to five different beekeepers, you’ll get five different opinions.

Sometimes those opinions are diametrically opposed or vary greatly. So here I am – going into the yard – what is my approach going to be? I know it will soon feel like second nature, confidence comes with experience, but for now it’s feeling very real, nothing like living in the present!

Getting ready
Before going out to the hives I gathered my bucket with two quart jars of light syrup, my materials needed to test for mites, a notepad, pen, camera and my smoker and hive tools. It was around noon when I headed out.

Going in!

hive2-inside_4-19-16

I started with Hive 2 because I knew it was the smaller of the two hives. This allowed me to make an unbaised first impression, which was: that it didn’t seem to be thriving. I guess I thought the bees would have expanded out onto the other frames by now, but they hadn’t. They were still pretty much clustered on the nuc frames. On the other hand, maybe it’s a very young nuc/hive. It seemed like the larva were in an early state. So, who knows, we’ll see what next week brings. It might take off by then.

 

 

hive1-frame-pollen_4-19-16

Hive 1 is a much different story. It has a much larger population and the nuc frame honeycomb is filling in. This is one of the inner frames and I believe that we’re looking at a frame full of bright yellow pollen…though I’m not 100% sure. I believe the whitish band across the bottom is capped honey. Again, not sure.

hive1-frame_4-19-16

Not sure what to think of this. Many of the nuc frames had comb built on the bottom of the frame. It did not appear to be swarm cells, I think it was extra comb, maybe Burr comb. Wasn’t sure what to do. I tried to scrape some from a frame, but it was sticky and hard to scrape and I was afraid I would kill bees in doing so and didn’t want to sound the alarms.

 

 

hive2_4-19-16hive1_4-19-16

Lots of pollen on the board. Thats what all the large spots are. Can pollen be collected from the board and used? Hmmm, I’ll have to find out. Did not see any mites on board. Last inspected 4 days ago.

Hive 2 Stats
Box 1
Did not see queen
Did see larva
Few eggs
No comb on new frames
Alcohol wash : 1 mite  (312 bees)

Hive 1 Stats
Box 1
Did not see queen
Saw eggs + larva
Some comb on new frames
Lots of pollen, nectar + brood
Alcohol wash : 1 mite  (278 bees)

 

 

Action plan

I have learned that you should always have a specific reason for going into a hive, so here’s my action plan…

Tomorrow I plan to open both hives to:

  1. Determine if the queens are laying eggs?
  2. See how many frames have drawn comb?
  3. Evaluate the frames for brood, pollen and nectar.
  4. Do an alcohol test for an initial mite count.

Bee info overload!

It’s been a very busy weekend for bee related activities. Saturday I took an all day class with Randy Oliver who is a biologist and internationally known beekeeper/researcher. He is also one of the earliest members of our local beekeeping association 20+ years ago. We are very lucky to have Randy and his vast knowledge available to us all. His class was very helpful and informative and his website www.scientificbeekeeping.com has a plethora of data based information about everything bees.

Today I took an “in the field” workshop where we got hands on experience with the bees. All in all, I’m feeling a little overwhelmed. As they say, “Talk to five different beekeepers and you’ll get five different opinions!” I’m sitting here now trying to sift through all the different bits of information I’ve learned so far trying to chart my course of action.

Saturday evening I put another quart of simple syrup in each hive, and again tonight. Hungry, hungry, hungry bees.

First bottom board check

hive1-bottom-board_4-15-18

I have screened bottom boards at the base of both hives which serve several purposes. By pulling out the plastic board and observing what you see, you’ll begin to get a sense of what’s going on in the hive. The above picture is from Hive 1. You can see lots of bee debris in the middle, left of center. This indicates where in the hive the main cluster of bees are and presumably where the queen is laying eggs.

Another important reason for observing the bottom board is to monitor pests like the Varroa mite. Should a mite should fall from a bee, it would fall through the screen and not be able to get back in the hive. The number of mites found on the bottom board help determine mite population inside the hive.

 

hive2-bottom-board_4-15-18

Bottom board from Hive 2. Both boards also had several brightly colored yellow and purple clumps of pollen.

 

hive2-corner-close-up_4-15-18

Not sure what I’m seeing in the top corner of Hive 2. Will have to ask my mentor.

 

hive_4-15-16

This picture was taken later in the day. The bees are out doing their bee thing.

Hungry hive

empty-jarTook a peek into the top feeder of each hive today and found that both hives had drained their quart jars of simple syrup. Hungry girls! I’m sure they were happy to “eat in” today as the weather was chilly – the 50s. I was amazed at how warm the hives were when I lifted the covers.  They were putting out some serious heat.

It’s official. I’m a beekeeper!

1_nucs-in-crvToday I arrived at 7:00 am to pick up my bees at A-Z Supply in Grass Valley. I purchased two nucs which are miniature bee hives used to start a new colony.

 

2_installation-selfie This is a selfie of me in the bee yard ready to install the new nucs.

 

3_smoker

This is my smoker. My first attempt to light it failed miserably so I watched a YouTube video and got it working just right!

 

4_nucs_empty-hives

On the left are two empty hives and the two nuc boxes are on the right. As you can see in the front hive, I’ve removed five frames to make room for the new frames of bees.

 

5_bees-in-nuc

As I slowly lifted the lid of the nuc box I puffed some smoke inside to calm the bees. This is what it looks like to open a nuc. A nuc is a small “nucleus hive.” They usually contain five frames and come with a mated queen and about 10,000 bees. The queen has already begun laying eggs and the worker bees have begun drawing out comb and storing pollen and nectar.

 

6_empty-hive

This is the bees new home.

 

7_bees-in-hive

Here is my new hive! It’s amazing how different the two hives already are. One hive is considerably heavier than the other. The heavy hive’s five frames has much more drawn out comb and already has capped honey and pollen. I saw little larva in the honeycomb, but did not see any eggs. I’m sure they were there, I just don’t quite know what I’m looking for…and they are very tiny. I feel fortunate to have spotted both queens. They are about twice as big as the regular worker bees and have very long narrow abdomens. I also saw several drones, which are male bees. They are also larger than worker bees and have bodies shaped like bullets and very large eyes on top of their heads.