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.
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