May 17, 2018 hive indpection

Annual inspection with Steven cuts.

Not edited

West Hive that Michele gave me
Even with your cap 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 bitching 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 trade today there were lots of larvae crawling around in the line. I shook the line. I will ask the inspector what's going on. Some more Camp Road 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 brood comb once they've hatched out.

‏

June 4 2018 Hive check

On June 4th, this is looking good. They're not moving up into the honey super but there's all kinds of brood, all stages of growth. Did not see the queen. But took some of the brood comb that was filled with honey and put it in the second soup in the super to see if they'll move up there.

The Southside double-decker nuc was rehived. Again didn't see the queen but there was broodd in all stages all the frames had some type of wax on them although I put into new blanks and I will have to trade out the two leftmost frames because they're short and have way too much brood on the lower part. Overall looking good probably need to be treated.

Breakfast with The Beekeeper January 2019

Unedited
Thanks to Tony and Tupelo.Full Moon Apiary.
1. Go thru hives and check storage, 20-25# or 3 drops to get them thru. Or syrup.

Maples coming in
Look for  half to three quarters frame of pollen, wild mustard, camellias. Need pollen to feed larvae or raise drone

Warmer weather look for shb hasnt been cold enough.

Put pollen patties on to feed if no shb problem.

Check brood comb quality. Rotate out 30% per year. Date frame or the color of queen. Bee wax absorbs chemicals they've been exposed to. It will accumulate and compound. Nosema spores etc accumulate.
Testing comb is too expensive, so rotate

Fix your equipment  make up new equipment. Clean off propolis from frame rest especially on cooler days.

Clean bottom boards, even if screened, a couples of times a year.

Look at your bees. Quantity of bees but also are bees but and fat or small? Small bees, poor nutrition. Old comb? no room to grow. Good clean comb,
Greasy bees, black and shiny are an indication of paralysis virus spread by varroa.
Stressed bees will sting if stressed by lack of food, virus, beetles, are the nervous, what's their temperment.
After march, temperment improves.

What's the condition of the queen?  Check  quality of brood and brood pattern. How old is she, what's her genetics. Italians has larger brood nest, carnelian have smaller then explode. Is she marked?

Mark her and find her now. Before Feb brood up. Make a filter box. 2018 was red. 2019 is green. Jan mark old color since new queens haven't been raised for new year. Light color shade early in year, dark shade later. Tony uses model paint.

Brood condition? Spotty pattern, why? Queen failing? Virus? Varroa?  Varroa all poop in same place, inspect cells with flashlight and magnifier. If varroa poops on developing larva, the varroa will je sterile. Varroa poop is white. Founder mite hides right before the cell is capped.
What color is brood, pearly white and gleaming, shiny not creamy and slimy.

Antibiotics for bees us by prescription, tetracycline tylan and one rRer. You can get the prescription on line by state I speak for, ask tony.

Got mites? You'll have a big problem. Do you check even if you treated. Check before and after. In cooler weather, thymol based are possible. Formic acid will cause supercedure in queen and theresa's no way to replace this early. Most mites are forectic, outside of cell. Lots brood means you'll have more mites.

Try drip to control.

Beekeeping is math. Figure out numbers and you'll have a plan.
Eggs 3 days, lays down right before hatching
Larvae capped on day 8 or 9 for queen and workers,11 for drone
Cell hatch
21 worker
24 drone
15 or 16 days

Egg grows 1500 times before capped

23 days for queen egg to be fertile.
Drone is 38 days to be fertile

Queen lays 1000-1500-2000 eggs a day.
Calculate days to hatch then look back to know honey production.
Citrus blooms mid march. Want 45k bees, you need good queen by mid February
Jan 15 queen cell goes in.
Tupelo april15 blooms, let them raise queen takes much longer.
Gallberry low Bush blooms may 1st, April 1st the hive needs to be ready. March 1st for queen cell, the hive makes, Feb 14.
Popcorn trees bloom?

Varroa, founder mite buries it self 70 hous later lays male mite and the a female egg ever 30 hours. About 3 female mites comes out from worker  and 4 female mites for drone cells

Manage cycles or break cycle

Treat broodless like when doing splits and you can cage queen while treating a split.

When do supers go on? When nectar is flowing unless you are chasing a specific crop. . Maybe by first of March, if hive 80% is built out, put on super and stop feeding.

Feb 14 is grafting your queen day. Without drones, it's a failure. Drone production determined by pollen. No pollen for 4 or 5 days, they will kill drones or open cells. Pink eye to purple is indicator. Uf in purple eye, graft queens they will be mature at the same time.

Swarming. Built up lots bees and they are swarming. Forgers will revert to nurse bees as necessary. Year old queen has high tendency to swarm. Lots pressure to swarm. 2 year old queen, definately will awarm. Ma

Make sure they have lots room.
Split your hives to fool them. Gotta be done before swarm impulse sets in.
Splits are important tool for this. Split then recombine if you want to keep number down, then choose best queen.
Can make split in any box 4, 10 frame, plastic box. Since we can't buy queen early enough for split, let them raise a queen.
After the impulse is over. Dont so it late or they will choose to built brood not store honey.
Dont wait till you see swarm cells to split.
Need you need and lots resources. Move old queen with minimal resources, leave lots resources in new split to raise queen.
Easy split put on 2nd bros box. Divide resources, wait 24 48 hours to put in exclude then separate later. Make sure to equalize resources in both the split out.
Eggs, pollen, honey frames and put in excluder. Take only 2-3 frames, not five solid in a nuc so they have room. If raising queen, need a frame if eggs and lots young larvae. Any bix with eggs and no queen, they will start raising new queen.

Queen cell on perimeter, they will still try to swarm. Middle if frame, emergency cell versus queen cup for supercedure queen.

If you found a queen cell, or uncapped queen cell, leave it. Move old queen to new box.

Do the math. When no capped brood do the math. Treat for mites and you'll get 90% reduction.

Feed heavier syrup to keep them storing, not thinking flow us on. But pollen will stimulate drone production. Swarming may start 1st.

What's box weigh? You last fed dec 15.2018 They are still heavy.
If they draw fast, the comb will be straight and pretty. Put in new foundation  between frame of pollen and first frame of brood nest to encourage comb building. Pull out stores honey and let them rub it out.

January 31, 2019 Hive Check

Low was 29 high was 58 it was a sunny day. Water is still high in the lake and the pond at the farm is still full.
The Northwest hive was light. Not a lot of food stores that they are bringing in pollen and there's bee bread. I should add some pollen patties and they've taken down a quart jar of food in the past few days. The temperament was calm, and though I did not see any queen I did see a bunch of larvae and a medium to poor brood pattern. It has been very cold she may not be laying that well. There were no queen cells. There was a little tiny cup but I crushed.

I saw some developing drone brood, and even a few drones walking around very casually.

I have had more extensive notes on the other for hives but somehow they got deleted so I'll just say that the temperament and all five hives was calm. I did not see any hive beetles in any of the boxes. I saw increasingly better brood patterns as I went across the three hives on the North side and then the best on the hives that are on the south side. I was even certain that one of the hives was honey bound but in fact they do have some room for continued growth. I should probably add brood boxes to at least two maybe even three of the boxes.
I'm going to order 3 deep brood boxes and construct all the frames that I have so that we can begin expansion in February. Queens will be grafted or promoted in the middle of February and then splits will be made at the end of February.

January 8 2019 hive check

1. So the Northwest hive feels like it's got enough weight on it the one putting sugar water back on. There is larvae some capped brood so we're just at the beginning of build out. I took out the Mite strips and I'll check this box again in 2 weeks. Didn't see anything worrisome.

2. Middle box has more brood and more bees seems to be waking up to be spring quite nicely. There are still at least two frames that could be built out for laying. I'll feed as well both box 1 and 2 are quite calm. Didn't see anything to be concerned about

3. Good-looking box. Lots of bees. Most brood and best brood pattern of all three of these. I will use this to equalize the population between these three boxes. Lots of stores and very calm temperament. I did not see any drone cells capped in any of the boxes that means it will be at least a month before any of them might even figure it out. Use the math.

4. The southernmost South hive was full of bees see the photographs. Everything look great.There were two full frames of capped honey I'm going to take one of them out and let them rob it  so that they'll be places to lay. There were already some drone cells in this box.

5. A mess is a mess and will keep being a mess until it gets cleaned up. Last year when I was cleaning up those two hives I got from someone else I did not move out all of the short frames. Now they're starting to brood up in them and two big chunks fell off when I was moving things around. At that point I decided it was time to add new blanks. I took out a frame of honey from each of the two South hives. I set it up to be robbed out at an okay distance from the hive. There's a picture of the broken off burr comb that had already had larvae in it. What a waste, but it's time to clean up the mess. I put in blanks on frame 3 in both of the South hives and left these two here to be robbed out in the next day or so.
Today was on seasonably warm with a high of 72 and sunny. The weather supposed to get cold and nasty again. I'll be feeding the north hives but I don't see a reason to feed the South hives until I can get these robbed out combs back in there. They're brooding up a lot faster than the North hives. However, the temperament on all of the hives is quite calm.