We're between 7 and 14 days from bee spring. I'll be away for the next 10 days so I made sure everyone had sugar water and lime in their trays. All 5 hives looked good. After two-and-a-half days of heavy rain, they were happy to be out flying.
Nothing to report since I put in the mite treatment.
An earlier spate of rainy weather had left water pooling in lime trays which I spilled out about 5 days aho.
When I return I'll take out the strips and do a more thorough check. By that time if they've stored too much honey, I will put in some blank frames and remove a honey frame so they can rob it out and hopefully they'll think that things are starting to Gear Up.
Saturday, December 15, 2018
December 15 2018 Pre Holiday check
Tuesday, September 11, 2018
Breakfast with the Beekeeper - April 22 2018
4/28/18
Nosema treatment, fumigillian, is no longer available. Producer stopped making. No current solution. Need a mucriscope5or use extension office. This may cause the rise seen in recent absconding.
New news fungicides may bee a problem by making mitecides more toxic.
Blooming now:
Privet, some tupelo, high bush gallbery, black berry, black gum, tulip popular, dandelion, sparkleberry tree.
Not bringing in a lot of pollen.
Never stack weak bees on weak bees. A strong on a week may work.
Nosema treatment, fumigillian, is no longer available. Producer stopped making. No current solution. Need a mucriscope5or use extension office. This may cause the rise seen in recent absconding.
New news fungicides may bee a problem by making mitecides more toxic.
Blooming now:
Privet, some tupelo, high bush gallbery, black berry, black gum, tulip popular, dandelion, sparkleberry tree.
Not bringing in a lot of pollen.
Never stack weak bees on weak bees. A strong on a week may work.
4/28/18
Nosema treatment, fumigillian, is no longer available. Producer stopped making. No current solution. Need a mucriscope5or use extension office. This may cause the rise seen in recent absconding.
New news fungicides may bee a problem by making mitecides more toxic.
Blooming now:
Privet, some tupelo, high bush gallbery, black berry, black gum, tulip popular, dandelion, sparkleberry tree.
Not bringing in a lot of pollen.
Never stack weak bees on weak bees. A strong on a week may work.
If the queen doesn't get mated, she'll lay drones. Then, if you can request it, stack it. And split at a later date.
This time of year, not a lot of drones. Directly relayed to pollen availability.
Mix suger water and vanilla to spray when adding a nuc to queenless hive.
Think, if it is queenless you won't raise honey cuz you've lost population so spread resources if it's strong.
Tame a frame with nurse bees ans broid and shake out. Nurse bees are always accepted.
There's always a hive that can take a frame if bees.
Keeping them crowded keeps the happy.
Tony now uses single queen castle, not split.
Swarms like to go to the same trees/location. Strategy: place trap in that area. Swarm may be up to 10 lbs.
Swarms strategy, shake bees out of hives into a box of nurse bees, pull a frame each of nectar and eggs. Then I leave capped brood in old it keeps it strong but helps suppress swarm pressure. Put queen cell in the mix.
If they are building queen cells and not yet capped, the skinny queen will be hard to find.
If capped, they've swarmed, most likely. If you shake bees from old, into new, into a sheet or board, allowing them to walk into where the queen is helps them think they swarmed.
Requiring helps suppress swarms. New queen probably won't, 2-year old queen will most likely swarm.
The later in the year the harder it is to requeen. Now we are on the edge of the hard time-- we're at the start of the flow.
To help acceptance, use $7 push in cage over brood and honey, cover queen, after 4-5days she'll be accepted. Some times you'll have mother daughter queens in same hive as their scent is similar.
Always feed when introducing a new queen .
Don't poison your bees.
If there is spraying it needs to be done at night.
Don't drop an empty foundation in middle of brood nest, work it in slowly.
Don't stress hives by treating while queenless.
Don't give bees lots of room, keep them crowded year round
Honeycomb attracts pests so swap out broid comb over 3 year period.
Don't pull honey early. Let it get capped.
Treat hive during honey flow only with approved product to avoid contamination
A great queen this year may run out of sperm for next year. Raise queens off of her if her genetics are good, but be prepared to replace her next year.
To raise queens. You need a lot if nurse bees. Start with 5 hives or more.
Tony stopped using amitraz.
Oxalic acid works but is dangerous. Don't realty get resistant because it burns the legs off the mites. Tony uses full face respirator chase the vapor will settle out on your eyes
Oxalic acid in strips from Argentina study works good. Tonya had goid results. He was able to keep more count to 3%.
Formic acid is good within humidity and temp range, below 50% humidity and low temp.
Nosema treatment, fumigillian, is no longer available. Producer stopped making. No current solution. Need a mucriscope5or use extension office. This may cause the rise seen in recent absconding.
New news fungicides may bee a problem by making mitecides more toxic.
Blooming now:
Privet, some tupelo, high bush gallbery, black berry, black gum, tulip popular, dandelion, sparkleberry tree.
Not bringing in a lot of pollen.
Never stack weak bees on weak bees. A strong on a week may work.
If the queen doesn't get mated, she'll lay drones. Then, if you can request it, stack it. And split at a later date.
This time of year, not a lot of drones. Directly relayed to pollen availability.
Mix suger water and vanilla to spray when adding a nuc to queenless hive.
Think, if it is queenless you won't raise honey cuz you've lost population so spread resources if it's strong.
Tame a frame with nurse bees ans broid and shake out. Nurse bees are always accepted.
There's always a hive that can take a frame if bees.
Keeping them crowded keeps the happy.
Tony now uses single queen castle, not split.
Swarms like to go to the same trees/location. Strategy: place trap in that area. Swarm may be up to 10 lbs.
Swarms strategy, shake bees out of hives into a box of nurse bees, pull a frame each of nectar and eggs. Then I leave capped brood in old it keeps it strong but helps suppress swarm pressure. Put queen cell in the mix.
If they are building queen cells and not yet capped, the skinny queen will be hard to find.
If capped, they've swarmed, most likely. If you shake bees from old, into new, into a sheet or board, allowing them to walk into where the queen is helps them think they swarmed.
Requiring helps suppress swarms. New queen probably won't, 2-year old queen will most likely swarm.
The later in the year the harder it is to requeen. Now we are on the edge of the hard time-- we're at the start of the flow.
To help acceptance, use $7 push in cage over brood and honey, cover queen, after 4-5days she'll be accepted. Some times you'll have mother daughter queens in same hive as their scent is similar.
Always feed when introducing a new queen .
Don't poison your bees.
If there is spraying it needs to be done at night.
Don't drop an empty foundation in middle of brood nest, work it in slowly.
Don't stress hives by treating while queenless.
Don't give bees lots of room, keep them crowded year round
Honeycomb attracts pests so swap out broid comb over 3 year period.
Don't pull honey early. Let it get capped.
Treat hive during honey flow only with approved product to avoid contamination
A great queen this year may run out of sperm for next year. Raise queens off of her if her genetics are good, but be prepared to replace her next year.
To raise queens. You need a lot if nurse bees. Start with 5 hives or more.
Tony stopped using amitraz.
Oxalic acid works but is dangerous. Don't realty get resistant because it burns the legs off the mites. Tony uses full face respirator chase the vapor will settle out on your eyes
Oxalic acid in strips from Argentina study works good. Tonya had goid results. He was able to keep more count to 3%.
Formic acid is good within humidity and temp range, below 50% humidity and low temp.
April 22 2018 - Hive check
On the East hive, we we added a honey super with a queen
excluder but we didn't see an impressive wall-to-wall brood pattern. The bees
are calm, also all stages of brood and they're bringing in food pollen and
nectar so this is a good hive.
New line
On the Nook on the Eastside it's building out nicely and doing well might add a super look on top of it next week or so depending upon how things look.
The Hive next to it which was the rehire I've Nook with the yellow Queen in it seems to want to requeen there were a couple of Queen cups but still an okay brood pattern a little spotty. And a lot of drone brood which indicates that she might be failing.
New line North hive, this was the original box the yellow Queen was in but was allowed to requeen and it's building out quite nicely. It may be ready for a queen excluder and super within a week or two.
Tracy's Nook or the South Side Nook had a lovely brood pattern we moved frames around to checkerboard them and to build out Foundation. Possibly add a super Nook on top or rehire I've if they're that strong to attempt frame. This this could use a frame of drawn comb so that the queen has room to lay. Look in the refrigerator.
The Southside Hive had the honey super put on last week and there are already beginning to put nectar up there. None of the frames have been drawn out yet. The Brood box still has two or three blanks that have a little bit of foundation growing out so we move them around. This was the high visit the Michelle help me with and we saw a beautiful queen in that Hive as well as the yellow Queen back in the hive that she has given me. All in all it was a lovely day. Followed up with Organic grape Frozen cheese and crackers got all muddy.
New line
On the Nook on the Eastside it's building out nicely and doing well might add a super look on top of it next week or so depending upon how things look.
The Hive next to it which was the rehire I've Nook with the yellow Queen in it seems to want to requeen there were a couple of Queen cups but still an okay brood pattern a little spotty. And a lot of drone brood which indicates that she might be failing.
New line North hive, this was the original box the yellow Queen was in but was allowed to requeen and it's building out quite nicely. It may be ready for a queen excluder and super within a week or two.
Tracy's Nook or the South Side Nook had a lovely brood pattern we moved frames around to checkerboard them and to build out Foundation. Possibly add a super Nook on top or rehire I've if they're that strong to attempt frame. This this could use a frame of drawn comb so that the queen has room to lay. Look in the refrigerator.
The Southside Hive had the honey super put on last week and there are already beginning to put nectar up there. None of the frames have been drawn out yet. The Brood box still has two or three blanks that have a little bit of foundation growing out so we move them around. This was the high visit the Michelle help me with and we saw a beautiful queen in that Hive as well as the yellow Queen back in the hive that she has given me. All in all it was a lovely day. Followed up with Organic grape Frozen cheese and crackers got all muddy.
April 1 2018 - Hive Check
So this is small Hive small Nook, Hive small Nook, Hive
small neck, hi Vis I go through. It looks like the Nook that I moved Michelle's
Queen into first of all I should say all of the hives are very calm can't
really explain why but the Nook that I made on March 17th and I took the old
yellow Queen and put it in there on April 1st it seems to be doing well enough
to move to a full Hive box. The 10 frame Hive that I had taken that Queen out
of and moved in the queen cells are left the queen sells others no capped brood
no brood couldn't find any eggs but everything's come in there a lot of bees
with three empty frames so I'm thinking that there is a new Queen in
there
From the big Hive the big Hive today is calm. There's capped brood and a lot of drone there could be a laying worker but it was calm and I'm thinking that the queen that was made from the queen cells in there or the Pippin Queen rather should be active just not laying lots of eggs unless they're drone. The note that was made with the two queen cells on April 14th rib is April 17th knows April 4th because of the Pikmin Queen had one open Queen sell no eggs no larvae lots of food and was very calm. Tracy's hive looks pretty good. The Nook that was made from it has lots of bees but not a whole lot of anything else and almost all of the capped brood is open these six boxes are sitting in field of crimson clover and there seems to be quite a bit of food available Tracy's big hive has a good laying pattern although it's quite small and the population is okay there are also some undrawn out frames. I decided because of the size of the population to put a brood box on my old big Hive. That's the report for today. I should probably go back into everyone next weekend
I need a new lid for at least two Hive boxes. I should be driving around with two boxes ready to take the nooks as necessary. And I should have to Honey supers and queen excluders to put on the hives. That's what the month of April looks like.
From the big Hive the big Hive today is calm. There's capped brood and a lot of drone there could be a laying worker but it was calm and I'm thinking that the queen that was made from the queen cells in there or the Pippin Queen rather should be active just not laying lots of eggs unless they're drone. The note that was made with the two queen cells on April 14th rib is April 17th knows April 4th because of the Pikmin Queen had one open Queen sell no eggs no larvae lots of food and was very calm. Tracy's hive looks pretty good. The Nook that was made from it has lots of bees but not a whole lot of anything else and almost all of the capped brood is open these six boxes are sitting in field of crimson clover and there seems to be quite a bit of food available Tracy's big hive has a good laying pattern although it's quite small and the population is okay there are also some undrawn out frames. I decided because of the size of the population to put a brood box on my old big Hive. That's the report for today. I should probably go back into everyone next weekend
I need a new lid for at least two Hive boxes. I should be driving around with two boxes ready to take the nooks as necessary. And I should have to Honey supers and queen excluders to put on the hives. That's what the month of April looks like.
March 3-4th Hive Check 2018
March 3rd. Went into this hive to see how it was building
out. Things look good there was capped brood. But it still has a couple of
outer frames to build out and its population to build up before I put another
brood box on top. I did not see any Queen cells.
March 4th. Went into all of the upper frames until I found
capped brood. It looks like the queen is building out nicely, but slowly. Going
to leave this one alone until I return from spring break. I'll go in there on
the 17th of March. We should be through with all Frost by then.
March 3rd. The Hive was very active with many bees taking
orientation flights. The nature was calm. I opened up the top box to see that
they were beginning to build wax on six sides of frames and a few quite a few
bees in the upper brood box. Searched and found 3 no found to Queen cells, and
heard the pipping of a Virgin Queen. I could not find her I did not see signs
of the old Queen. There was very little capped brood. I was concerned that the
horn Hive might swarm. I came back out on Sunday, the 4th. Determined after
lots of consideration to split the hive. I took some of the built out frames
with new wax from the upper brood box. I took the upper brood box off totally
from the big Hive moved the two queen cells, one looked good, one look gnarly,
along with frames of food and pollen. Any frames that had nectar in it I put in
the field to be rubbed out. Again the nature of all three hives right now is
very calm. Shook a lot of bees into the Nook and placed it where the previous
Hive had been. As I was moving the larger North Hive on the rack the entire
rack tipped over backwards opening all boxes and causing confusion. I moved the
rack to the ground set everything back up all of this without a single bite. It
wasn't until about 2 hours later that I realized that the frame was directly on
the ground. We came out and by the Light of the cars headlamps we set the rack
back up. I came out the morning of the 5th both large hives are flying, but the
cook has had only one be going in and out of it. Not sure it's status.
This is the comment from my friend Michelle regarding splitting or not.
The nice big hive I'm referring to is the one that's next to the hive I gave you, not Tracie's. If that Hive is jam-packed full of bees, you could make a split into a nuc box and put the queen cells in there. If that big Hive has a Virgin Queen in there she's going to mate and you will have a laying Queen soon. If for some reason that Hive doesn't have a queen, and the so-called Virgin Queen doesn't exist, then you could recombine the nuc when it has a laying Queen.
The temperature this morning at 10 a.m. is just 60°. That may be why the other Hive has no flying bees.
This is the comment from my friend Michelle regarding splitting or not.
The nice big hive I'm referring to is the one that's next to the hive I gave you, not Tracie's. If that Hive is jam-packed full of bees, you could make a split into a nuc box and put the queen cells in there. If that big Hive has a Virgin Queen in there she's going to mate and you will have a laying Queen soon. If for some reason that Hive doesn't have a queen, and the so-called Virgin Queen doesn't exist, then you could recombine the nuc when it has a laying Queen.
The temperature this morning at 10 a.m. is just 60°. That may be why the other Hive has no flying bees.
Hive check March 16 2018
South (Tracy's) Hive was looking pretty good today.
Had nice food pattern in the upper chamber which I flippef to be the lower one
so that it will now have all them emerge and let the queen move up into the
upper chamber. I did see two queen cells being constructed in the lower box so
I moved it to the upper box once I flip them. They were only about halfway
built.
The West (Michelle's) have also had a decent brood pattern and it built out seven to eight of the frames I think there might have been a swarm cell in Michelle's box that was beginning to form next time I come out I will bring a nuc box. However, because the East nuc was low on brood, I did not see any larva or capped brood from what should be a new Queen, I moved a frame from Michelle's into that nuc
The Nuc seemed like there were quite a few bees but as I went through it I could not find a queen or eggs. It was cloudy today so perhaps I just couldn't spot any, but there wasn't any larvae either. The gnarly cell queen queen cell had hatched out so we'll see what happens.
My Blue Hive, the East hive had no brood and it to speak of. I'm concerned that the new Queen which I had heard pipping was damaged when everything fell over. If I don't see any brood next week I will take a frame from one of the other hives to encourage them to build a new Queen. All of the hive seem calm, that's why I'm thinking there are Queens, just not fully laying. Only time will tell.
Update 3/17/18
After having breakfast with The Beekeeper this morning and discussing Queens, it became imminently clear that those Queen cups needed to go into split mode. On the two hives that had Queen cups, I was able to find the queen in one but not in the other. Have split them out. Will not open the hives with the queen cups for at least 21 days probably longer in fact. Because the cells must build out, (day 4 egg starts becoming queen cup, capped at 9 days, emerging at 16 days)the queen must emerge (day 16) take her mating flight come back and start laying.. If today is the 17th of March and the cups are 5 days old, , it will be at least 11 more days until she emerges (3/28) and if all is successful at least (6 days maturing + 4 days mating + 2 days sperm storage = 12 days) or 4/8 before she is laying well. I am feeding one to one sugar water and pollen patties made with sugar water pollen and some corn syrup. Suddenly I have six hives if they all make it! 3 nux 3 hives.
These notes are from honeybee suite blog:
Count the days before she lays
Looking at the math, we can see that if everything went as fast as possible, the queen could begin to lay as early as 8 days after emergence:
5 days maturing + 1 day mating + 2 days sperm storage = 8 days
But that almost never happens. More typical would be:
6 days maturing + 4 days mating + 2 days sperm storage = 12 days
But toss in a week of rain and it might look like this:
6 days maturing + 4 days mating + 7 days rain + 2 days sperm storage = 19 days
In fact, many people believe 2 to 3 weeks (14 to 21 days) is a good rough estimate of the hatch-to-lay timetable.
The West (Michelle's) have also had a decent brood pattern and it built out seven to eight of the frames I think there might have been a swarm cell in Michelle's box that was beginning to form next time I come out I will bring a nuc box. However, because the East nuc was low on brood, I did not see any larva or capped brood from what should be a new Queen, I moved a frame from Michelle's into that nuc
The Nuc seemed like there were quite a few bees but as I went through it I could not find a queen or eggs. It was cloudy today so perhaps I just couldn't spot any, but there wasn't any larvae either. The gnarly cell queen queen cell had hatched out so we'll see what happens.
My Blue Hive, the East hive had no brood and it to speak of. I'm concerned that the new Queen which I had heard pipping was damaged when everything fell over. If I don't see any brood next week I will take a frame from one of the other hives to encourage them to build a new Queen. All of the hive seem calm, that's why I'm thinking there are Queens, just not fully laying. Only time will tell.
Update 3/17/18
After having breakfast with The Beekeeper this morning and discussing Queens, it became imminently clear that those Queen cups needed to go into split mode. On the two hives that had Queen cups, I was able to find the queen in one but not in the other. Have split them out. Will not open the hives with the queen cups for at least 21 days probably longer in fact. Because the cells must build out, (day 4 egg starts becoming queen cup, capped at 9 days, emerging at 16 days)the queen must emerge (day 16) take her mating flight come back and start laying.. If today is the 17th of March and the cups are 5 days old, , it will be at least 11 more days until she emerges (3/28) and if all is successful at least (6 days maturing + 4 days mating + 2 days sperm storage = 12 days) or 4/8 before she is laying well. I am feeding one to one sugar water and pollen patties made with sugar water pollen and some corn syrup. Suddenly I have six hives if they all make it! 3 nux 3 hives.
These notes are from honeybee suite blog:
Count the days before she lays
Looking at the math, we can see that if everything went as fast as possible, the queen could begin to lay as early as 8 days after emergence:
5 days maturing + 1 day mating + 2 days sperm storage = 8 days
But that almost never happens. More typical would be:
6 days maturing + 4 days mating + 2 days sperm storage = 12 days
But toss in a week of rain and it might look like this:
6 days maturing + 4 days mating + 7 days rain + 2 days sperm storage = 19 days
In fact, many people believe 2 to 3 weeks (14 to 21 days) is a good rough estimate of the hatch-to-lay timetable.
Breakfast with the Beekeeper - March 17 2018
If you don't see the queer, eggs are eggs for 3 days.
Go slow, little smoke. Put two frames you've checked out to give you room to find her. If the frame has eggs, shes there or next to it. Slide it over easy
A box with an excluder and a box with screen with frame of the open brood. Shake frames, she'll be on top.
Practice catching and marking drones till you get good.
If a shipped q herb is unmarked, mark her in your car or a dark room with one window.
When working on a queen, work right over the box so she'll fall in if somethi ng happens.
Requeen annually. 2018 color is red.
Older queens lay more drones and are more likely to swarm.
Queen acceptance Tony believes is better without shipped attendants.
Feed 1:1 for nuc and new queen. Give pollen, too.
Mean hive? root causes, queenless, heavy mite load, other stressors. Lack of resources, too many bees. Break up hive, requeen each.
Use soapy water to kill the hive.
Bees don't like cloudy days, windy days. If there's sun and food, the foragerager force is out of the hive.
Re-queening. Make your own this time if year.
Make sure it is truly queenless!
No brood, no eggs. Drop in a frame of eggs and wait 24 hours. If the aren't drawing out queen cells, they have a young queen.
Hole in the bittom? Trap door, the queen emerged. The new queen breaks in on the side.
Piping starts in cell and once she is out to warn others she's coming.
In the spring, you might have 2 queens at the same time.
Put in excluder, 3 days later, box with eggs has queen.
Two boxes, reverse, put on excluder. She'll be down, top is moved off and new queen is introduced.
This time of year, let them raise their queen. Need s strong hive. Don't let a weak hive raise a queen, combine and split later.
A capped swarm cell, they've already swarmed.
Losses 35-44% annually.
Sample for mites 3x late spring or after flow, early fall and early at end of winter.
7k bees to Nurse hive, 7k to forage. If you produce more bees, you'll have more honey.
Young bees and sugar water needed to build wax. The faster the build the neater it is. Give them time.
If you find capped swarm cells, the hive has 90% swarmed. Don't cut out swarm cells. From day 8-14 they are extremely fragile to bumping. These are good cells. Use them to make splits. If not successful, recombine.
Have a nuc in your bee yard st all times to pull queen or other resources as needed. Nucs will swarm quicker so take more management. Keep a queen catcher and cage handy.
Nosema is also a problem. Don't rely on fecal staining to determine if you have a problem. Need microscope. Only approved treatment is fumigillian in drench solution.
Cumafos creates sterile drones.
Go slow, little smoke. Put two frames you've checked out to give you room to find her. If the frame has eggs, shes there or next to it. Slide it over easy
A box with an excluder and a box with screen with frame of the open brood. Shake frames, she'll be on top.
Practice catching and marking drones till you get good.
If a shipped q herb is unmarked, mark her in your car or a dark room with one window.
When working on a queen, work right over the box so she'll fall in if somethi ng happens.
Requeen annually. 2018 color is red.
Older queens lay more drones and are more likely to swarm.
Queen acceptance Tony believes is better without shipped attendants.
Feed 1:1 for nuc and new queen. Give pollen, too.
Mean hive? root causes, queenless, heavy mite load, other stressors. Lack of resources, too many bees. Break up hive, requeen each.
Use soapy water to kill the hive.
Bees don't like cloudy days, windy days. If there's sun and food, the foragerager force is out of the hive.
Re-queening. Make your own this time if year.
Make sure it is truly queenless!
No brood, no eggs. Drop in a frame of eggs and wait 24 hours. If the aren't drawing out queen cells, they have a young queen.
Hole in the bittom? Trap door, the queen emerged. The new queen breaks in on the side.
Piping starts in cell and once she is out to warn others she's coming.
In the spring, you might have 2 queens at the same time.
Put in excluder, 3 days later, box with eggs has queen.
Two boxes, reverse, put on excluder. She'll be down, top is moved off and new queen is introduced.
This time of year, let them raise their queen. Need s strong hive. Don't let a weak hive raise a queen, combine and split later.
A capped swarm cell, they've already swarmed.
Losses 35-44% annually.
Sample for mites 3x late spring or after flow, early fall and early at end of winter.
7k bees to Nurse hive, 7k to forage. If you produce more bees, you'll have more honey.
Young bees and sugar water needed to build wax. The faster the build the neater it is. Give them time.
If you find capped swarm cells, the hive has 90% swarmed. Don't cut out swarm cells. From day 8-14 they are extremely fragile to bumping. These are good cells. Use them to make splits. If not successful, recombine.
Have a nuc in your bee yard st all times to pull queen or other resources as needed. Nucs will swarm quicker so take more management. Keep a queen catcher and cage handy.
Nosema is also a problem. Don't rely on fecal staining to determine if you have a problem. Need microscope. Only approved treatment is fumigillian in drench solution.
Cumafos creates sterile drones.
Breakfast with the Beekeeper - January 6 2018
2nd year queen more likely to swarm. Good queen, build on
her to generaqueens. Spotty brood, lots drones, may be replace.
Good food source, lotta beese, queen failing, more drones than workers, they will swarm.
First of march here is, swarm time. Continuous queen reading, need 5. Can do with 2 need lot of nurse bee.double up brood with the 15 days old nurse bees. 2-3 hives enough to replace and add splits. Take advantagef warm season on first of march for swarm conditions. Need many frames of bees
Get ready by feeding. Mid jznuzru add new box. Feed 1 to 1, lighter surip stimuates rearing. Feed pollen as necessary.
A strong hive will raise a strong queen.
Methods
1. Tony prefers, queenless cell starter, strong, but sense queen is gone. Stops the swarm impulse.and emergency impulse.
Make a swarms mbox, add 4-5 inches separated by screen to bottom of nuc box Upper has pollen, honey and drawn comb.fill full of bees. After 24 hours they know they are wireless. This is to start your cells. Then out back in queenright box. They will start queen cell on the eggs in frame.
2. Queenright, Feed early, put nurse bees up top and queen down below. Can't have too many nurse bees. In bottom, lots of bees and brood frames and they will build cuz they are in emergency mode.
Different techniques to get cells startef.
Miller method.
Take box put in a frame with drawn foundation with notches on it. You'll put this into the box with lots nurse bees. They'll start filling in comb. Usually this will be drone. When queen lays eggs pull it drawn out cut along the edges to find new eggs from what she built. Smash out cells so they don't build queen cells next to each other. Date it after 2 or 3 days so you know when she was laying in New cells. Swarm cells will be on the perrifery where they normally want. No grafting.
Note: Eggs and larva susceptible to uv lught. Work quickly in shade. Wrap in damp towel take inside to work. Put this into starter box.
Put a blank new foundation frame for them to draw out.
Hopkins method: he will lay a newly drawn out foundationn frame and place face down on queenless box.
On a new frame put 1" strips of foundation with eggs in it., adhere with wax, put in box, they weill draw it out. Eggs facing down. Mash down so eggs aren't side by side. The put in finishing box.
Rule of thumb: start queens on Valentine's day. But can be earlier. Need drones to mate.
Key: drones in purple eye stage, they will be ready when your queens are.
Micro raising method: susan drake.Start queenless with frame of honey, pollen, eggs, pack with nurse bees. See info on line. Cull extra cells you don't need. Tony said: Need 2k bee visits per queen cell, that's why you need so many.
Get your hives ready before you start.
Pollen on either side, then emerging larva frames, then honey, then empty with queen cell dram in middle.
Find the old queen, put her in box with frames of brood to keep her happy.
You can later combine and or equalize.
Raising a new queen can be used to break the varroa cycle cuz so many varroa are in b r old cells. Treat when you have no capped brood, oxalic or thymol will knock out uncapped brood. In th 1o day cycle while she's mating then 8 days later she's been laying and they start to cap. At 21 days, no capped brood then treat and it w I'll really knock it down. After honey. Harvest is a good t i me to raise new queen. In Mid or late june. Still have nectar and pollen, but if not feed. Also good time to split or increase
Drones must be flying. If pollen stops coming in for 2-3 days bees will eat drone larvae. Five days, the eill kick out the drones. So in June, raise queen, knock down varroa
Cloche board, bottom board with queen excluded, shuts off queen pheromones. Set uo: brood box, clothe board
Turn brood box around 180 put 2nd box on top facing old way slide in divider for 24 hours. Box on top is where the starter frame is put. You can move honey, drawn comb, couple of blanks etc from bottom to top. Shake in bees from other box, without a queen. Afterb24 he put in the queen egg frame.
Good food source, lotta beese, queen failing, more drones than workers, they will swarm.
First of march here is, swarm time. Continuous queen reading, need 5. Can do with 2 need lot of nurse bee.double up brood with the 15 days old nurse bees. 2-3 hives enough to replace and add splits. Take advantagef warm season on first of march for swarm conditions. Need many frames of bees
Get ready by feeding. Mid jznuzru add new box. Feed 1 to 1, lighter surip stimuates rearing. Feed pollen as necessary.
A strong hive will raise a strong queen.
Methods
1. Tony prefers, queenless cell starter, strong, but sense queen is gone. Stops the swarm impulse.and emergency impulse.
Make a swarms mbox, add 4-5 inches separated by screen to bottom of nuc box Upper has pollen, honey and drawn comb.fill full of bees. After 24 hours they know they are wireless. This is to start your cells. Then out back in queenright box. They will start queen cell on the eggs in frame.
2. Queenright, Feed early, put nurse bees up top and queen down below. Can't have too many nurse bees. In bottom, lots of bees and brood frames and they will build cuz they are in emergency mode.
Different techniques to get cells startef.
Miller method.
Take box put in a frame with drawn foundation with notches on it. You'll put this into the box with lots nurse bees. They'll start filling in comb. Usually this will be drone. When queen lays eggs pull it drawn out cut along the edges to find new eggs from what she built. Smash out cells so they don't build queen cells next to each other. Date it after 2 or 3 days so you know when she was laying in New cells. Swarm cells will be on the perrifery where they normally want. No grafting.
Note: Eggs and larva susceptible to uv lught. Work quickly in shade. Wrap in damp towel take inside to work. Put this into starter box.
Put a blank new foundation frame for them to draw out.
Hopkins method: he will lay a newly drawn out foundationn frame and place face down on queenless box.
On a new frame put 1" strips of foundation with eggs in it., adhere with wax, put in box, they weill draw it out. Eggs facing down. Mash down so eggs aren't side by side. The put in finishing box.
Rule of thumb: start queens on Valentine's day. But can be earlier. Need drones to mate.
Key: drones in purple eye stage, they will be ready when your queens are.
Micro raising method: susan drake.Start queenless with frame of honey, pollen, eggs, pack with nurse bees. See info on line. Cull extra cells you don't need. Tony said: Need 2k bee visits per queen cell, that's why you need so many.
Get your hives ready before you start.
Pollen on either side, then emerging larva frames, then honey, then empty with queen cell dram in middle.
Find the old queen, put her in box with frames of brood to keep her happy.
You can later combine and or equalize.
Raising a new queen can be used to break the varroa cycle cuz so many varroa are in b r old cells. Treat when you have no capped brood, oxalic or thymol will knock out uncapped brood. In th 1o day cycle while she's mating then 8 days later she's been laying and they start to cap. At 21 days, no capped brood then treat and it w I'll really knock it down. After honey. Harvest is a good t i me to raise new queen. In Mid or late june. Still have nectar and pollen, but if not feed. Also good time to split or increase
Drones must be flying. If pollen stops coming in for 2-3 days bees will eat drone larvae. Five days, the eill kick out the drones. So in June, raise queen, knock down varroa
Cloche board, bottom board with queen excluded, shuts off queen pheromones. Set uo: brood box, clothe board
Turn brood box around 180 put 2nd box on top facing old way slide in divider for 24 hours. Box on top is where the starter frame is put. You can move honey, drawn comb, couple of blanks etc from bottom to top. Shake in bees from other box, without a queen. Afterb24 he put in the queen egg frame.
Put on 2nd deep by middle of month of January.
To set up s starter put 2 frames capped honey, two frames pollen, put queen in nyc box. Put a frame of young brood between pollen, then near emerging in this starter box and lots of nurse. Then go through both boxes for the best frames. Capped frames, ready to emerge, and frames with youngest brood, no eggs in this, eggs can go into queen vacation nuc.
Now ready to construct starter. Shake in as many bees as possible close up for 24 hours. Or put in clothe board. Then, put in Miller method egg frame. Check after 24-36 hours and should see queen cells being build. No queen cells? The queen may still be in there. Or may be a new small queen You didn't see. You can put queen from vacation nuc back into the other brood box box.
Don't let either of them be too weak. Use drawn comb so laying begins immediately.
Miller frame can produce 10 queen cells. At 10 days after they start, cut around with a cell sharp knife to move a cell to another bix. Or put it in a cell protector. From day 10 on they are sturdier and able to move. Don't let them chill. You can candle the cell in protector to see hiw they are moving if your keeping the for a later nyc. There's a queen rearing chart on our site from OSU. Plug in dated to know each stage. 12 hours makes all the difference.
Queenless for 24 hours best for introducing cell, for live virgin queen, leave 72 hours for better acceptance.
Be ruthless. Don't baby weak hive or mutt queen. Raise a new queen.
Drone comb will be built on damaged comb. Use green foundation to see it easier and put between edge and food source, not in center.
Evaluate your local queens
Tony Tricks: queen excluder on bottom of box, shake out all bees into box. All will pass through, but queen will be on the excluder
Opposite way, put excluder in between two boxes, shake off all bees, put top back on upper has brood, nurse bees and others will move up leaving queen on bottom. Takes about an hour. Shake all bees off of top. Great way to harvest nurse bees.
Leave 180 rotated box turned around.
To set up s starter put 2 frames capped honey, two frames pollen, put queen in nyc box. Put a frame of young brood between pollen, then near emerging in this starter box and lots of nurse. Then go through both boxes for the best frames. Capped frames, ready to emerge, and frames with youngest brood, no eggs in this, eggs can go into queen vacation nuc.
Now ready to construct starter. Shake in as many bees as possible close up for 24 hours. Or put in clothe board. Then, put in Miller method egg frame. Check after 24-36 hours and should see queen cells being build. No queen cells? The queen may still be in there. Or may be a new small queen You didn't see. You can put queen from vacation nuc back into the other brood box box.
Don't let either of them be too weak. Use drawn comb so laying begins immediately.
Miller frame can produce 10 queen cells. At 10 days after they start, cut around with a cell sharp knife to move a cell to another bix. Or put it in a cell protector. From day 10 on they are sturdier and able to move. Don't let them chill. You can candle the cell in protector to see hiw they are moving if your keeping the for a later nyc. There's a queen rearing chart on our site from OSU. Plug in dated to know each stage. 12 hours makes all the difference.
Queenless for 24 hours best for introducing cell, for live virgin queen, leave 72 hours for better acceptance.
Be ruthless. Don't baby weak hive or mutt queen. Raise a new queen.
Drone comb will be built on damaged comb. Use green foundation to see it easier and put between edge and food source, not in center.
Evaluate your local queens
Tony Tricks: queen excluder on bottom of box, shake out all bees into box. All will pass through, but queen will be on the excluder
Opposite way, put excluder in between two boxes, shake off all bees, put top back on upper has brood, nurse bees and others will move up leaving queen on bottom. Takes about an hour. Shake all bees off of top. Great way to harvest nurse bees.
Leave 180 rotated box turned around.
Breakfast with the Beekeeper - July 13 (notice a trend)
Amitraz - test 2weeks after treatment and again at 6
weeks to find more count.
We're going to have more so is the question lower mites and smaller hive effecmore robust with higher count.
Tony doesn't recommend Amstrad so he's now thinking 2-3% more loads may he acceptable. And maybe oxalic 2-3 times a year.
Recreational beekeepers gave the goal of strong healthy hive.
Oxalic is .5 grams per hive, Europe is 2 frames per hive. Vaporizer only kills foretic. With brood on, you need to do it four consecutive weeks. Doesn't seem to slow down laying. Does knock down mites. Option t o use grain alcohol and of alic through bug fogger.
Tony uses strips in late summer, but can be used year around. Leave in 6 weeks max or replace. HMF can be generated, which is toxic to bees.
Oxalic dribble with 3.2 -4% solution no more the 50ml per hive with tubing on end to be more accurate. Good treatment for fall winter, only one time as it effects their exoskeleton. Use mixture that day so doesn't make hmf. Too weak it doesn't work, too strong will burn wings off. Dribble not effective in summer spring because so many mites are in broid cells.
Commercial keepers expect 50% loss. They treat 6x s year so what's the overall effect.
Winter food -- need 25 lbs. Warmer winter needs are higher cuz they flying to look for food.
1% was Tonya level with oxalic
Evaluate queen in fall, August to request in fall. Need lots of bees to split in fall. By 3rd week of January, hive should be booming. In January start with pollen if nothing is around. Count 15 bees/minute bringing in pollen that's good. 72 hours w/o pollen from production shuts down. Tony feeds dry pollen, about .5 cup to see how long they take to eat it. In a communal feeder. Like ulra bee.
Better not to move frames this time of year. Take off top, 6-7 frames of bees, leave them alone.
Don't want to encourage too much brood production before February cold comes. Tony will put 2nd broid box in 3rd week of February and splits March 1st. If weather is cooperating. Just by feel. Then, be sure you control for swarming.
Splits take place in early, first week of March. In late February if really warm winter. By end of March, split only if you've let them have lots of room.
Queen grafting on 15 February.
Raise your own queens in sprung, request with new queen in fall.
Seeing white wax-
To encourage them to store honey not make more bee, balance brood space, and spurring, when they produce white wax, super the box. Bees in bottom box needs room. New super, with no foundation, bees won't go in there. So leave it off and wait till queen moves up, the start drawing out and then put queen below excluded. For honey, on double deep with room and a super produced honey.
Strong hive might make two 5 frame nucs, shake off bees to reduce pop in old hive, out queen in one of the nucs and queen cells in other nuc, and leav e queen cells in original hive. All this in first week if March.
Honey flow in our area.
Ty ty honey in January. but March april may in our area. Chinese tallow is made later.
With soon/new hatched queen, shall take a two week break to get mated but the go into honey oriduction.
Cold weather won't kill the bees, moisture, condensation will. Use shim or popsicle stick year around.
Tonya not a fan if screen bottoms, think about nature setting in the tree.
10lb in 1 cup water, makes hard. Make block, feed, on wax paper. In mold.
Use white sugar not brown sugar.
Florida State beekeepers assoc for link to lab.
Horizontal hives. Not for commercial. Dr. Leo sharaskin . And videos. Low maintenance, go in twice a year.
We're going to have more so is the question lower mites and smaller hive effecmore robust with higher count.
Tony doesn't recommend Amstrad so he's now thinking 2-3% more loads may he acceptable. And maybe oxalic 2-3 times a year.
Recreational beekeepers gave the goal of strong healthy hive.
Oxalic is .5 grams per hive, Europe is 2 frames per hive. Vaporizer only kills foretic. With brood on, you need to do it four consecutive weeks. Doesn't seem to slow down laying. Does knock down mites. Option t o use grain alcohol and of alic through bug fogger.
Tony uses strips in late summer, but can be used year around. Leave in 6 weeks max or replace. HMF can be generated, which is toxic to bees.
Oxalic dribble with 3.2 -4% solution no more the 50ml per hive with tubing on end to be more accurate. Good treatment for fall winter, only one time as it effects their exoskeleton. Use mixture that day so doesn't make hmf. Too weak it doesn't work, too strong will burn wings off. Dribble not effective in summer spring because so many mites are in broid cells.
Commercial keepers expect 50% loss. They treat 6x s year so what's the overall effect.
Winter food -- need 25 lbs. Warmer winter needs are higher cuz they flying to look for food.
1% was Tonya level with oxalic
Evaluate queen in fall, August to request in fall. Need lots of bees to split in fall. By 3rd week of January, hive should be booming. In January start with pollen if nothing is around. Count 15 bees/minute bringing in pollen that's good. 72 hours w/o pollen from production shuts down. Tony feeds dry pollen, about .5 cup to see how long they take to eat it. In a communal feeder. Like ulra bee.
Better not to move frames this time of year. Take off top, 6-7 frames of bees, leave them alone.
Don't want to encourage too much brood production before February cold comes. Tony will put 2nd broid box in 3rd week of February and splits March 1st. If weather is cooperating. Just by feel. Then, be sure you control for swarming.
Splits take place in early, first week of March. In late February if really warm winter. By end of March, split only if you've let them have lots of room.
Queen grafting on 15 February.
Raise your own queens in sprung, request with new queen in fall.
Seeing white wax-
To encourage them to store honey not make more bee, balance brood space, and spurring, when they produce white wax, super the box. Bees in bottom box needs room. New super, with no foundation, bees won't go in there. So leave it off and wait till queen moves up, the start drawing out and then put queen below excluded. For honey, on double deep with room and a super produced honey.
Strong hive might make two 5 frame nucs, shake off bees to reduce pop in old hive, out queen in one of the nucs and queen cells in other nuc, and leav e queen cells in original hive. All this in first week if March.
Honey flow in our area.
Ty ty honey in January. but March april may in our area. Chinese tallow is made later.
With soon/new hatched queen, shall take a two week break to get mated but the go into honey oriduction.
Cold weather won't kill the bees, moisture, condensation will. Use shim or popsicle stick year around.
Tonya not a fan if screen bottoms, think about nature setting in the tree.
10lb in 1 cup water, makes hard. Make block, feed, on wax paper. In mold.
Use white sugar not brown sugar.
Florida State beekeepers assoc for link to lab.
Horizontal hives. Not for commercial. Dr. Leo sharaskin . And videos. Low maintenance, go in twice a year.
July 13 2018 - Oxalic Acid for controlling varroa mites
Argentina super saturated version. Diane sanmatero
researcher.
3-5% more loads reduced to less than 1%
Food grade glycerine
Chip board, like cardboard but chip is best.
Need pot to heat glycerin like wax pot.
Need dehydrate acid
Scale
Safety glasses
Glass measure or stainless
Baking soda to neutralize acid splash
7mil gloves
Stirring stick
Low temperatures so it doesn't gass.
Thermometer
1 part glycerin to .6 part dehydrated oxalic by weight
1000g kilo glycerin to 600 grams oxalic
Chip board of 30 point 1" x 18" , a bunch, some use shop towels
100 strips treats 20 hives.
300 bees or 1/2 cup bees in alcohol wash to count mites.
Need 30-40 grams per hive.
150degrees Fahrenheit warm glycerin, add slowly no splash. Raise temp slowly over 10 min. Hold a few min. Let cool.
Goal is 19g grams of solution per strip
Put strips n large tub, add solution. In 24 hours all will be absorbed. Drain any excess over queen excluser.
Can be stored for a few weeks. Too long forms hmf hydromethel ferferal which is toxic to bees. Two months is too long.
Use gloves. Fold strip in half, hang over frame. 4-5 in summer in a brood box. 1-2 in winter. Works in a week, continues over month. Strips are good for a month or so.
Research shows no transfer to honey or wax from italic acid.
Used in Europe for 30 years. Good for heat of summer or winter. You can pull honey and treat. Our population goes down July and August.
Always use gloves even when removing as acid stays active all the time.
If you try this, keep great records. Sample before then at 2,4,6 week intervals.
Early spring treat is formic acid, then after honey us pulled, use strips of oxalic, then in late fall 3-4% oxalic solution dribble in fall when nearly broodless, or use something else.
Use this for lots of hives, like 200.
Vaporizer method is better for 5-6 hives. May be easier. Need to do three treatments to break the brood cycle. More load of 2 after treatment.
Get a kill switch to stop from distance.
When storing hives, moldy is ok for need, but is stored wet and wrapped use paramoth to keep moths out. Replenish the crystal every 3-4 weeks. Sete up supers with rim, wrap and put paper plate in center with crystals. Slice open to replenish and tape closed.
3-5% more loads reduced to less than 1%
Food grade glycerine
Chip board, like cardboard but chip is best.
Need pot to heat glycerin like wax pot.
Need dehydrate acid
Scale
Safety glasses
Glass measure or stainless
Baking soda to neutralize acid splash
7mil gloves
Stirring stick
Low temperatures so it doesn't gass.
Thermometer
1 part glycerin to .6 part dehydrated oxalic by weight
1000g kilo glycerin to 600 grams oxalic
Chip board of 30 point 1" x 18" , a bunch, some use shop towels
100 strips treats 20 hives.
300 bees or 1/2 cup bees in alcohol wash to count mites.
Need 30-40 grams per hive.
150degrees Fahrenheit warm glycerin, add slowly no splash. Raise temp slowly over 10 min. Hold a few min. Let cool.
Goal is 19g grams of solution per strip
Put strips n large tub, add solution. In 24 hours all will be absorbed. Drain any excess over queen excluser.
Can be stored for a few weeks. Too long forms hmf hydromethel ferferal which is toxic to bees. Two months is too long.
Use gloves. Fold strip in half, hang over frame. 4-5 in summer in a brood box. 1-2 in winter. Works in a week, continues over month. Strips are good for a month or so.
Research shows no transfer to honey or wax from italic acid.
Used in Europe for 30 years. Good for heat of summer or winter. You can pull honey and treat. Our population goes down July and August.
Always use gloves even when removing as acid stays active all the time.
If you try this, keep great records. Sample before then at 2,4,6 week intervals.
Early spring treat is formic acid, then after honey us pulled, use strips of oxalic, then in late fall 3-4% oxalic solution dribble in fall when nearly broodless, or use something else.
Use this for lots of hives, like 200.
Vaporizer method is better for 5-6 hives. May be easier. Need to do three treatments to break the brood cycle. More load of 2 after treatment.
Get a kill switch to stop from distance.
When storing hives, moldy is ok for need, but is stored wet and wrapped use paramoth to keep moths out. Replenish the crystal every 3-4 weeks. Sete up supers with rim, wrap and put paper plate in center with crystals. Slice open to replenish and tape closed.
July 13 2018 - Varroa Mite Information
3 mites per 1/2 cup alcohol roll us too high in June.
Prof. Keepers are treating 4x s year
Hobbyist treat 2-3times.
Pinch drone to see if there are hitch hiking varroa
#1 vector for problems
Treat before flow in the spring, after flow in June or Julyand maybe in the fall before winter and leave it on for them.
Rotate your products
Apilife var is thymol -- watch for off gassing. Break into pieces and wedge in each corner.
Hopguard 2 is messy, no more than 3x a year. One a week for 3 weeks.
Apiguard comes in pouch. Need a rim so the beds come in to take it out. Block screen bottom and block entrance. Except for small one. Watch temperature range.two trays 10-14 days
Apivar strips use amitraz. Put them over the brood, 2 per hive.use nail between to suspend. Not heat sensitive
Mite away quick strips will kill in capped broid use strip 2 per super, lay it across, off gasses, use in spring or fall
Oxalic acid us not heat sensitive. Use now.
OVA. Sublimation 1/8 teaspoon or 1 gram. Use deep cycle car battery, need 12 volt. Or emergency car re charger from harbor freight.
Don't use during honey flow.
Best respirator.
Or search Randy Oliver and is for drench.
Honeybee health website has good info
Prof. Keepers are treating 4x s year
Hobbyist treat 2-3times.
Pinch drone to see if there are hitch hiking varroa
#1 vector for problems
Treat before flow in the spring, after flow in June or Julyand maybe in the fall before winter and leave it on for them.
Rotate your products
Apilife var is thymol -- watch for off gassing. Break into pieces and wedge in each corner.
Hopguard 2 is messy, no more than 3x a year. One a week for 3 weeks.
Apiguard comes in pouch. Need a rim so the beds come in to take it out. Block screen bottom and block entrance. Except for small one. Watch temperature range.two trays 10-14 days
Apivar strips use amitraz. Put them over the brood, 2 per hive.use nail between to suspend. Not heat sensitive
Mite away quick strips will kill in capped broid use strip 2 per super, lay it across, off gasses, use in spring or fall
Oxalic acid us not heat sensitive. Use now.
OVA. Sublimation 1/8 teaspoon or 1 gram. Use deep cycle car battery, need 12 volt. Or emergency car re charger from harbor freight.
Don't use during honey flow.
Best respirator.
Or search Randy Oliver and is for drench.
Honeybee health website has good info
June 20 2018
Went in quickly to add a honey super to the Southside high
that was the Nook. It's built out nicely. There's a photograph that shows three
different super frames all have been rubbed down with five Strokes on each side
of a beeswax Patty to see if that encourages the bees to move upstairs. The
older Southside high that was Tracy's is putting up just a little bit of Honey
hardly anything at all. The might seem to be under control when I went to the
north side of things I decided to move the baby nuk to the newsstand location
and so to make sure it was able to find its place I put a branch in front of
it. There's a photograph to tonight we will move both of the other hives.
Neither one of them are really putting any honey up in the Super's yet. The
Westside North Hive looks good so I took a frame of mixed brewed eggs and food
and put it in the small nuk that seems to be suffering. The blue Hive on the
northeast side has good population but again no one's putting up and eat nectar
to speak of just supplies they need. Again mites look under control so I think
I'm going to wait until we return from New York to do my summer treatment, just
in case they decide to put up something while we're away. There is some white
wax that's been built on the strongest Northwest Hive but other than that
nothing really is happening. I'm hoping that by rubbing the beeswax on some of
these super frames it will encourage the bees to move up into the Super's.
We'll see. I've also planned to do a Mite count on Thursday morning if I can
get a new beekeeper out here to work it with me we'll see.
July 13 2018 - Hot!
Boy, oh boy, is it hot.
I came out to check the hives at
9:30am. took me an hour to go through all of them. I'm not going to give a hive by hive report just to say that the treatment is still in. It seems to be effective
the queens are laying but at a slower rate.
There was uncapped brood, larvae
and capped brood; good supplies but no extra supplies -- maybe half a frame of
capped honey in the stronger hives.
I'm going to start feeding and put on
supers with the intention of forcing them to build out foundation. That should mean having extra room
for the queens to lay once the treatment winds down and the queen start
producing again.
There'll be no queen excluders.
I'm taking some frames
from the stronger hives and put them into the nuc and bring the nuc out to 10
frames. That will give me five full hives going into the fall.
I will feed them
between now and the time that the goldenrod starts coming in. Hopefully, the bees will store sufficient supplies.
When the fall comes, I'll push them all back
down into their 10 frame boxes. I will merge weaker ones with stronger queens.
I may try a fall re-queen or I may try to have them raise their own queensm but only if therecare sufficient drones.
The nature of all these bees is very calm so I think I've got some good
stock if I can get some good genetics mixed in.
The Amitraz is scheduled to be
removed on July 23rd. I've got the option to check the hives one
more time between now and then. I may wait till next week that'll be the 20th
to put on the frames. I'll feed them this week and then put on the supers with
some wax strips so they can draw out new comb on everything.
May 17 2018 - Annual Inspection time with Steven Cutts
West Hive - the one that Michele gave me
Even with your cappings and wax you're going to get some gum.
it's not on there looking for a friend with the least amount of bridging in here it's going to be difficult that's a lot of bridging going on. Here they stretched it out here they stretched looking for the frame with the least amount of bridging this is the heart that has everybody out on the front
It looks like she's trying to swarm and we can split this and leave the queen cell that's here and move her to a new box or we could just offer. Well she is that old there she goes okay but she's not lying that well
I moved the frame that have the three Queen sell started on it into the blue Hive. She's probably going to start some other Queen cells keep an eye out for them and you may ha
Small Hive with yellow Queen
When I open the lime tray today there were lots of larvae crawling around in the lime. I shook the lime. I will ask the inspector what's going on. Some more Cpcapped brood but not a lot, not a solid pattern and we've got a queen cell two queen cells with bees in them see anything in there
Double decker Nuc box
Blue Hive on East with Pippin Queen
Time is money and that's smart. In invert the lid and set the excluder SEPTA super on it. Oh yeah.
one of these more common things that I see one of my more common helpful hands sorry girls everybody tells you don't paint the inside of the box if you don't paint the upper edges of the box you can get wood rot there you don't need to paint the inside but the upper edges and lower cuz of the damp because they're up against Foundation because they're up against Foundation they draw this honey because they're up against Foundation they draw this honey I see when going up against New Foundation that's not drawn and not painted they may draw the other side too seep. The bigger communication holes allow them to go around while staying on the wax instead of going onto the wooden frames Mister pip in this is Miss Anna's and I I've been asked not to have you in our up our inspection we're in the middle of a 10 frame box how you doing easy cut out
Look in the queen cup to see if you see anything but that's okay to leave those cups in there.
No Queen, no eggs. Think about it. But take the Super in the Queen excluder off. What were you thinking
double decker South nuc
Cut larger Corners off of the passageway so that they'll build drone come there and that will give you the Drone cone that you need it should be about 10 to 12 in per hive square inches. I love talkin
On the way of the inspection he's looking for two frames of sealed brood. See queen photo.
More than they'll be okay if you want it
South Hive from Tracy's old box.
Consider putting in a 1 inch feeder hole at the top with an inverted jar with the whole centered instead of having such a big hole for your mason jar. Nice idea when you got an excluder go above it and pry a way up in a way, if you're going below it pry down and away. Tear over here check your bottom frames to make sure a queen or a little Queen didn't get up there and is laying in your honey super. When you smoke one area smoke the super that you set to the side as well or they'll come back from the backside to get you. Aluminum tape for ductwork is a good way to repair a break in a queen excluder go over and under the area and block off any distorted area. Otherwise, Queen might sneak through. At 1 smoker see outside frame look at the Burke home on the 4th frame and we're. , see the photo of the queen and then on the next frame you'll see a combination of the worker and the Drone together this was on one of those short frames with Burke home along the bottom. When you see the bees lining up along the edge of the frame they're getting ready to come up so give him a touch of smoke to keep them down. Bees prefer to be shaking and brushed for those short frames move them up into a full deep but with a excluder below them after you shaking them off after a couple of weeks clean off the Burke home once they've hatched out.
Even with your cappings and wax you're going to get some gum.
it's not on there looking for a friend with the least amount of bridging in here it's going to be difficult that's a lot of bridging going on. Here they stretched it out here they stretched looking for the frame with the least amount of bridging this is the heart that has everybody out on the front
It looks like she's trying to swarm and we can split this and leave the queen cell that's here and move her to a new box or we could just offer. Well she is that old there she goes okay but she's not lying that well
I moved the frame that have the three Queen sell started on it into the blue Hive. She's probably going to start some other Queen cells keep an eye out for them and you may ha
Small Hive with yellow Queen
When I open the lime tray today there were lots of larvae crawling around in the lime. I shook the lime. I will ask the inspector what's going on. Some more Cpcapped brood but not a lot, not a solid pattern and we've got a queen cell two queen cells with bees in them see anything in there
Double decker Nuc box
Blue Hive on East with Pippin Queen
Time is money and that's smart. In invert the lid and set the excluder SEPTA super on it. Oh yeah.
one of these more common things that I see one of my more common helpful hands sorry girls everybody tells you don't paint the inside of the box if you don't paint the upper edges of the box you can get wood rot there you don't need to paint the inside but the upper edges and lower cuz of the damp because they're up against Foundation because they're up against Foundation they draw this honey because they're up against Foundation they draw this honey I see when going up against New Foundation that's not drawn and not painted they may draw the other side too seep. The bigger communication holes allow them to go around while staying on the wax instead of going onto the wooden frames Mister pip in this is Miss Anna's and I I've been asked not to have you in our up our inspection we're in the middle of a 10 frame box how you doing easy cut out
Look in the queen cup to see if you see anything but that's okay to leave those cups in there.
No Queen, no eggs. Think about it. But take the Super in the Queen excluder off. What were you thinking
double decker South nuc
Cut larger Corners off of the passageway so that they'll build drone come there and that will give you the Drone cone that you need it should be about 10 to 12 in per hive square inches. I love talkin
On the way of the inspection he's looking for two frames of sealed brood. See queen photo.
More than they'll be okay if you want it
South Hive from Tracy's old box.
Consider putting in a 1 inch feeder hole at the top with an inverted jar with the whole centered instead of having such a big hole for your mason jar. Nice idea when you got an excluder go above it and pry a way up in a way, if you're going below it pry down and away. Tear over here check your bottom frames to make sure a queen or a little Queen didn't get up there and is laying in your honey super. When you smoke one area smoke the super that you set to the side as well or they'll come back from the backside to get you. Aluminum tape for ductwork is a good way to repair a break in a queen excluder go over and under the area and block off any distorted area. Otherwise, Queen might sneak through. At 1 smoker see outside frame look at the Burke home on the 4th frame and we're. , see the photo of the queen and then on the next frame you'll see a combination of the worker and the Drone together this was on one of those short frames with Burke home along the bottom. When you see the bees lining up along the edge of the frame they're getting ready to come up so give him a touch of smoke to keep them down. Bees prefer to be shaking and brushed for those short frames move them up into a full deep but with a excluder below them after you shaking them off after a couple of weeks clean off the Burke home once they've hatched out.
Sunday, May 20, 2018
Hive check April 22, 2018
This hive visit I was accompanied by
M., a dear-beekeeping, coffee-drinking, secret-confidant friend. All of this
report is a result of your help. We saw a beautiful queen in the “abandonded”
hive I’ve been working to save, as well as the yellow queen in the hive that
she has given me. All in all it was a lovely day. Followed up with organic
grape wine spritzer, crackers and cheese. Cheese and crackers got all muddy.
On the East hive (blue brood box),
we added a honey super with a queen excluder but we didn't see an impressive
wall-to-wall brood pattern. The bees are calm, and we saw all stages of brood.
They're bringing in pollen and nectar so this is a good hive.
On the Eastside Nuc: It's building
out nicely and doing well. I might add a second nuc box on top of it next
week or so depending upon how things look.
The Yellow Queen (nuc) Hive, was the
rehive I nuc’3e with the Yellow Queen. It seems to want to requeen. There were
a couple of queen cups but still has an OK brood pattern, just a little spotty.
And, it has a lot of drone brood which indicates that she might be failing.
North hive, this was the original
box the yellow queen was in but was allowed to requeen. It's building out quite
nicely. It may be ready for a queen excluder and super within a week or two.
T.'s hive nuc, I also call the
Southside Nuc, had a lovely brood pattern. We moved frames around to
checkerboard them and to encourage the build out of foundation. I’ll possibly
add a second nuc box on top or rehive to a 10-frame, if they're that strong.
This box could use a frame of drawn comb so that the queen has room to lay.
Note to self: Look in the freezer.
The Southside Hive had the honey super
put on last week. They are already beginning to put nectar up there. None of
the frames have been drawn out yet. The brood box still has two or three blanks
that have a little bit of foundation drawn out so we moved them around to
encourage build out.
Monday, February 19, 2018
Hive checks, February 17 2018
Hive check, north
The box is nicely built out, there were no queen cells but there were drone cells. Did not check for purple-eyed yet since I had not seen any queen cells. I'm ready to split as soon as I see an indication so I will check again next week. The deep on the top had some new wax built out nothing impressive.
They are finally building out the midbar frame very nicely.
Calm nature, lots of stores. I did I mite count on this hive with an alcohol shake, but saw only one mite. However, when I pulled the limetray out there was some sort of creature like a larvae crawling around. Not happy. Could have been an egg of a moth lodged in the corner crevice of the brood box i added. Humnn.
2/23/18 Update. There were three different size larvae in the lime trade this week, but when I visited on Saturday I saw no further signs of them. And no other signs of any pests. I looked at the frames on the upper box. They had white wax and these were beginning to build them out. I stop feeding the mid-week on advice to do so if I wanted to prevent a swarm.
Hive check, west--Michelle's
Went in today to transfer equipment from her 8-frame equipment to my 10-frame. The hive was really full so I put a second deep on top using some of the deep frames from the south hive that had the beginning of build out on them. I'll be feeding all three hives. Michelle is going to be out to treat this hive again on Wednesday. The other hives were treated in late November. I did not do a mite check on it. I looked for queen cells and saw none.
Update 2/23/18 Michelle felt the population was still low, although it's intrance was more active than the North Hive. I took the upper box off to allow them to build out the three empty frames in the lower box. We'll see how they do in the next week. She is finishing up the Api-var life treatment.
Hive check, south
South hive. The hive formerly known as Tracie's. So, I've been slowly rotating off her shallow foundation brood boxes, to use deeps. Today I transferred as much as I could. The bottom of the hive now has a deep brood box but with very little built out foundation.
I put the shallow box with all of the foundation on top, switching the positions. They are beginning to build out white wax. My theory is that soon, the queen will be in the upper, shallow box with lots of room to lay. The workers will build out the deep brood box. In two weeks which will be March 1st, before or after I go to Atlanta, I will rotate the top to the bottom, and the bottom on the top. There should be enough bees by that time to build out the deep, which will be on the top, rapidly.
Once the last of the brood in the shallow box hatch out, I can totally remove the last of the shallow boxes. If the flow is coming on, I can put it can on top.
The hive has plenty of stores, and I saw both capped brood and open larva, but not necessarily in a great pattern.
I did not find any queen cells. Nor did I see any drone brood, yet this is the slow developing hive. I did do a mite check and only caught one mite. But there were a few odd looking bees, so I'll need to be vigilant.
Update 2/23/18
I was hoping that the queen would move up into the upper shallow box where all the frames have pulled out comb. I checked them all. I did not see her, however this being the seventh day I think I saw some curled larvae in the bottom of some of the cells. I will check again next week and then try to leave them bees alone!
Monday, February 12, 2018
New hive, expanding populations
Today, Michelle brought me out a single brood box of eight frames as a gift. I'm going to leave the traveling screen on until I get the sugar water into them.
It's next to the strong North hive. I went into the North Hive this morning. It is ery active, lots of bees but the queen has not moved up into the upper box. There's no new comb being built out for her and I don't have drawn comb to put up there.
I did a quick check for swarm cells, but I believe it's too early. The few drone cells that I checked did not have purple eyes.
In the South Hive, there was less activity. And only a few bees walking around in the upper brood box.
I think it's still too early, I will need to look at the timing of the purple eyed drones and see if we can't get swarm management under control this year.
I need to order the small hive beetle poison for the beetle traps and to do a mite count in the next weekend.
Both of the hive seemed rather calm. The population in the South Side was clearly smaller.
Both are bringing in pollen and both have good supplies.
Saturday, January 27, 2018
Scarfing down the food
A quick check of both of the hives today showed a lot of flights during the 70 degree afternoon sunshine. A check in the hive show that all of the pollen patties have been eaten and a quart of thin syrup had been chugged down by each hive in a week. These were in the upper brood box checking out the new frames. Things are looking good. Enlarge the photos to see the pollen that they're bringing in.
Sunday, January 21, 2018
Pollen feeding in the hive
Two hives, two new brood boxes with blanks and pollen patty paste on each box. North hive was booming. See photo. The bees found the patty even before I got it into the hives.
Saturday, January 20, 2018
Pollen feeding
Some dry pollen this morning for the bees to discover. Within a few minutes it had been found.
Time to spruce the brood boxes.
Wednesday, January 10, 2018
Early action
Brought some sugar water out to the hive today and saw lots of good action. These are big and they're bringing in pollen.
Saturday, January 6, 2018
Queen rearing - January 2018
These are notes on queen rearing I gleaned from this morning's Breakfast with (Tony Hogg, Master) the Beekeeper from Full Moon Apiary in Monticello Florida
Queen rearing for a small scale beekeeper
What the status of your queen? Second year queens more likely to swarm. If you have a good queen, build on her to generate new queens. If you have spotty brood, lots drones, it may be time to replace her.
You need a good food source, and lots of nurse bees. If the bee are trying to build up, but the queen is failing, producing more drones than workers, they will swarm. Here in north Florida, the first of March is swarm time.
To handle continuous queen rearing, you'll need 5 hives You can do it with two, but you'll need lots of nurse bees. Double up your brood boxes with 15 days old nurse bees - 2-3 hives are enough to replace your queens and make additiinal splits.
Take advantage of the warm season, on first of March check for swarm conditions. Your hive should have many frames of bees. Get them ready by feeding. In mid-January, add an additional brood box. Feed 1:1, lighter syrup to mimic flow and stimulate rearing. Feed pollen as necessary. A strong hive will raise a strong queen.
Methods
1. Queenless. Tony prefers queenless cell starter. The hive will be strong but sense the queen is gone. This stops the swarm impulse.and emergency queen impulse.
Make a swarm box, add 4-5 inches separated by screen to bottom of nuc box. Upper box has pollen, honey and drawn comb. Fill full of bees. After 24 hours they know they are queenless. This is to start your cells. Then, put back in a queenright box. They will start queen cell on the eggs in the frame. (Check with Tony and make sure this paragraph is right.)
2. Queenright. Feed early, put nurse bees up top and queen down below. You can never have too many nurse bees. In bottom, lots of bees and brood frames and they will build queen cells because they are in emergency mode.
Different techniques to get cells started.
Miller method.
Take a box, put in a frame with drawn foundation with notches on it (see photo below). You'll put this into the box with lots nurse bees. They'll start filling in with drawn out comb. Usually this will be drone. After queen lays eggs pull it out and check the drawn out comb. Cut along the edges to find new eggs from what they built. Smash out cells so they don't build queen cells next to each other. Date it. After 2 or 3 days so you know when she was laying in new cells. Swarm cells will be built on the periphery where they normally want to build them. No need to graft.
http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/millermethod.html
Note: Eggs and larva susceptible to UV lught. Work quickly in shade. Wrap in damp towel take inside to work. Put this frame into starter box. Put a blank new foundation frame for them to draw out.
Hopkins method:
He will take a newly drawn out foundation frame with eggs and place face down on the top on queenless box.you need a lid spacer for this method. Bees will draw out cells.
On a new frame put 1" strips of foundation with eggs in it., adhere with wax, put in box, they will draw it out. Eggs facing down. Mash down so eggs aren't side by side. Then put in finishing box.
Rule of thumb: start queens on Valentine's day. But can be earlier. Need drones to mate.
Key: drones in purple-eye stage, they will be ready when your queens are.
Micro raising method: Susan Drake: Start queenless with frame of honey, pollen, eggs, pack with nurse bees. See info on line. Cull extra cells you don't need.
Tony said: A queen cell needs 2000 bee visits per queen cell, that's why you need so many nurse bees.
Remember bee life after hatching:
3-11 days old, feeding workers semi royal jelly. Advanced nurse bees
6-11days old they feed queen larvae royal jelly and drones receive worker jelly.
12-17days old wax production time.
Get your hives ready before you start.
Pollen on either side, then emerging larva frames, then honey, then empty with queen cell drawn, in middle.
Find the old queen, put her in box with frames of brood to keep her happy.
You can later combine and or equalize.
Raising a new queen can be used to break the varroa cycle because so many varroa are in brood cells. Treat when you have no capped brood, oxalic or thymol will knock out uncapped brood. In the 10 day cycle while she's mating then 8 days later she's been laying and they start to cap. At 21 days, no capped brood then treat and it will really knock varroa down.
After honey harvest is a good time to raise new queens. In mid or late june. Still have nectar and pollen, but if not feed. Also good time to split or increase
Drones must be flying. If pollen stops coming in for 2-3 days bees will eat drone larvae. Five days, they will kick out the drones. So in June, raise queens, knock down varroa
Cloche board, bottom board with queen excluded, shuts off queen pheromones. (This is picture 2 below) Set up: brood box, clothe board, other broil box.
Turn active brood box around 180 degrees. Put 2nd box on top facing original direction. Slide in divider for 24 hours. Box on top is where the starter frame is put. You can create/move honey, drawn comb, couple of blanks etc from bottom to top. Shake in bees from other box, without a queen. After 24 hours, put in the queen cell starter egg frame. Leave rotated box as is, no need to switch back.
For good build up put on second deep by middle of month of January.
To set up a starter box put two frames capped honey, two frames pollen, put queen in a vacation nuc box. Put a frame of young brood between pollen, then near emerging in this starter box and lots of nurse. Then, go through both boxes for the best frames. Capped frames, ready to emerge, and frames with youngest brood, no eggs in this, eggs can go into queen vacation nuc.
Now ready to construct starter. Shake in as many bees as possible close up for 24 hours. Or put in clothe board. Then, put in Miller method egg frame. Check after 24-36 hours and should see queen cells being build. No queen cells? The queen may still be in there. Or may be a new small queen you didn't see. You can put queen from vacation nuc back into the other brood box box.
Don't let either of them be too weak. Use drawn comb so laying begins immediately.
Miller frame should produce 10 queen cells. At 10 days after they start, cut around with a cell sharp knife to move a cell to another box. Or put it in a cell protector. From day 10 on they are sturdier and able to move. Don't let them chill. You can candle the cell in protector to see how they are moving if your keeping the cell for a later nuc.
There's a queen rearing chart on our site from OSU. Plug in dated to know each stage. 12 hours makes all the difference.
When do you put in drawn cells? Queenless for 24 hours best for introducing cell. I'd you end up with a live virgin queen, leave 72 hours for better acceptance.
Be ruthless. Don't baby weak hives or mutt queens. Raise a new queen.
Drone comb will be built on damaged comb. Use green foundation to see it easier and put between edge and food source, not in center.
Evaluate your local queens
Tony Tricks: queen excluder on bottom of box, shake out all bees into box. All will pass through, but queen will be on the excluder
Opposite way, put excluder in between two boxes, shake off all bees, put top back on upper has brood, nurse bees and others will move up leaving queen on bottom. Takes about an hour. Shake all bees off of top. Great way to harvest nurse bees.
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