Three Week Report

It has been three weeks and a lot of cold weather.  I and Ellen left for 5 days to try to see the launch of the shuttle Endeavor and were disappointed that the launch was scrubbed. When we left the hives seemed to be OK but behind because of the cold and we were concerned about one of the top bar hives which did not seem to be taking the syrup.  When we checked on them when we returned home we found that that hive was dead.  Just a pile of bees in the bottom of the hive.  Apparently the bees starved to death by staying in their cluster while the syrup supply was just three inches away.  If we were to see this situation again we would try putting candy board right over the top of the cluster.

The weather is now in the 50's and on 2 days it hit 60 for an hour or so and the bees are taking advantage of the better weather in a big way.  They are going through about a gallon of syrup every 3 days.  The picture above is of T1 which has pulled comb and sealed brood on 5 top bars.  We added 4 top bars to the hive to give them more room.  T2 is the hive we lost.  L2 has 3 frames of sealed brood.  T3 has 5 top bars of sealed brood and we added 3 top bars to that hive.  L3 has 5 frames of sealed brood.

The issue now is timing.  The hives are building fast and we want a strong hive for the honey flow but if a hive gets to strong ahead of the honey flow we could lose a large portion of the bees to swarming.  We will be inspecting regularly for swarm cells and too insure that the hives have space to expand.

I and Ellen and another couple from the West Plains Beekeeping Association spent 3 hours this morning in front of Jarms, a local hardware store, talking to those interested in bees.  It was a bit cool but people were curious and we had a good time.

Jack

First Feeding

We added syrup to the hives this afternoon.  It was spitting snow this morning and then rain most of the day with a high temperature of 46 F.

T1 took 1/2 gal, T2 took no syrup, L2 took 1/2 gal, T3 took 1 gal, and L3 1/2 gal.  We are curious why T2 is not taking syrup and will take another look at the hive as soon as it warms up a bit.  The top bar hives show a variation of none to a full gallon and the Langstroth hives were consistent.  The sample space is too small to draw any conclusions but it is something to watch as the season progresses.

Jack

First Week Checkup

It is Saturday April 23rd and a beautiful day with the temperature at 56 F.  It looks like it will be a beautiful Easter weekend but the the forecast is for more rain and cold next week so we did not want to miss this opportunity to finally take a close look at how the bees were doing.  It has been a full week since we installed the packages. There  were lots of bees flying so we put on veils and gloves since we were going to pull frames and look for eggs. We did not smoke the hives.

Ellen and I  started with T1.  We checked the syrup and about half of the original gallon was used. We pulled the queen cage and noted that the queen had been released. There was some comb being drawn but we did not want to shake the bees off a top bar to take a closer look. Overall, the hive seemed to be doing well, the bees were finally flying, they were taking the 1:1 syrup, the queen had been released and comb was being drawn.  We did notice that when we put the top bars back in it is a more difficult operation than a Langstroth hive because the bar abuts the neighboring bar along its full length with no bee space so that the bees must be brushed off the full length of the bar to keep from crushing bees when the bar is replaced.  With a lot of active bees hanging from a bar, by the time the bees are cleared from one end they are back on the other end and they must be cleared of both bars as the bars are slid together.  I need to get faster and smoother in the future.

Next we took a look at T2 with the same result except that less comb was being drawn.  L2 was next and was the hive with the ant problem which we seem to have solved for now by removing an ant nest near the hive.  The Lanstroth hive is clearly ahead of the Top Bar Hives because comb was being drawn and eggs were being laid and some syrup and pollen was being stored.

When we took a look at T3 and L3 the results were nearly identical to the previous hives. So far so good, now we just need warmer weather.

Jack

Snow and Cold

 No bee activity today.  Just more snow.  JM

Ants

Ant Hill

Ants Pulling Bees from L2

I checked on the bees this morning and L2 had fewer ants but still a problem. They do not seem to like the cinnamon but it did not get rid of them entirely. The ants seem to have no problem crossing the wood ash. I searched around the hive and found a two foot high ant hill in the wild roses about 20 feet from the hive. I removed the ant hill by shoveling it into a 30 gal garbage can. The hill contained brood but I do not know if I got the queen. There are still a lot of ants in the area and I will see what happens with their hill gone (and maybe their queen as well).

The wind was down today and I took the opportunity to fly my airplane and while I was gone Ellen observed ants pulling out bees from L2. I thought that they just liked the sugar syrup but it looks like they like the bees as well. Rain and snow in the forecast for tomorrow but temperatures may get to the high fifties on Saturday which will give us a chance for a closer inspection.

Jack

Day 3 After Installing Packages

The weather has not been the best for bees.  We have seen record low temperatures for the high with the temperature barely breaking 40F.  Yesterday it snowed and hailed and there was no activity around the hives.  Today the high temperature was 46F and there was some activity around L3 and T3 but none around the other three hives.  I wanted to check to insure that the queens have been released from their marshmallow plugged cages but we did not want to break into the clusters.

While checking on the hives I noticed a lot of ants around L2 and a few around T2 which are located next to each other.  Ellen did a quick check on the Internet to see what could be done and came up with wood ash and cinnamon as possible ways to mitigate the problem.  Since we have a wood furnace and cinnamon in the cupboard we decided to see if these would actually work against ants.  I put the ash can in a wheelbarrow and Ellen grabbed the cinnamon and we headed back to the hives. 

First we slid the top lid aside enough to check the frame feeder on L2 and found it full of ants so we brushed ants off of the feeder and the hive as well as we could without opening the hive completely.  We did hear a nice hum coming from inside which is a reassuring sound even if the bees are not flying.  I shoveled wood ash around the base of the hive stand on L2 and did the same on T2 even though ants did not appear to be a problem on the TBH.  Ellen sprinkled some cinnamon around L2 for good measure. Ants only seemed to be a problem on one hive but that may only be because they have not found the other four hives.  I will check tomorrow to see if these ant "remedies" worked.  I posted pictures of the ants and hives at https://picasaweb.google.com/miller.jrm/Bees .

We did notice that L3-T3 had some flying bees and checked the hives for ants and found none but we did find that they are taking the 1:1 syrup but the bees in L2-T2 and T1 did not seem to be taking any syrup.  The hives are only a 100 yards apart and on the same side of a ridge but it still makes us wonder if the micro climate might be just a little warmer in the L3-T3 location.

I took at look at the inside of T3 through the observation window and noticed the the bees are hanging in a cluster around the queen cage location.  I tried to take a picture of the cluster but it is not great through the glass and inside a dim interior but I posted it anyway. When I opened the feeder on T3 it was full of bees which flew up, so I quickly closed the lid.  The weather is forecast to warm up this weekend and I hope to bee able to check on the queens.  As I look outside just now, it is snowing again.

Jack

Package Bees arrive April 16

Saturday morning the weather was cool and damp with light rain and a temperature of 43 F.  I and my wife Ellen picked up 5 packages of Carniolian honeybees and headed home.  We had readied the hives the day before and supplied each of them with a gallon of 1:1 syrup with 1cc of thymol added to a 5 gallon batch of syrup.  The thymol was added as part of our mite control program and is something we had not used before because the varroa destructor had not been introduced when we kept bees in the past.  We are using our old Langstroth hives but modified them by adding screened bottom boards as another form of mite control.

When we arrived home with the bees the temperature was up to 49 F with a high of 50 F forecast for the day and cooler weather forecast for the week so it was as warm as it was likely to get.  We started with L3 a Langstroth hive.  I removed the syrup can from the package and Ellen removed the queen cage.  Ellen replaced the cork in the queen cage with a marshmallow and I hung the cage toward the rear of the hive and replaced the frames.  I knocked the bees down and poured them into the hive.  The bees were cool and not many were flying and they took a few minutes to settle into the hive.  I put the cover back on the hive and set the package down in front of the hive so the stragglers could make their way back to the cluster.

The next hive was T2 which is a top bar hive. We went through the same drill but the process was faster because there are no frames in a TBH so we just dumped in the bees and did not need to wait for them to settle into the hive before we put the lid on.  All 5 packages were installed with no problems.  3 in top bar hives and 2 in Langstroth hives.
Pictures of the hives have been posted at

https://picasaweb.google.com/miller.jrm/Bees

Bees

Today the high temperature was only 47 F and very few bees were flying.  Just a couple of bees at a time from L3 and a half a dozen in the air around T3.  No pollen was observed on the bees.  I will check that the queen has been released on Monday afternoon when it is warmest.

  Jack