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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.