Swarm 5.3.16

Visited Beckie and her hive from the split we did with her. It was so sad- no queen, very few workers. The hive is done and not sure what happened to the queen. Bummer. I returned to enjoy my new topbar hive. They are really something. Black and beautiful. The sun was just going down, but it was still almost 70 degrees. Amazing after our snowy weekend!

I turned around and the Langstroth hive girls were beautiful in the sunlight too!

  I was about to go inside to do homework and discover my Langstroth girls had left the hive and had swarmed on our evergreen tree.   It was amazing- probably 15"-17" inches around at the top, and 25" long/deep. It didn't really know what to do, but since I had taken those classes I knew exactly what to do. I scrambled and got some plywood as a base and then put my new deep box ready to catch them. I put a quart of sugarwater in along with a couple deep frames, I borrowed the inner lid from the Langstroth and put my new mesh/feeder with hardware cloth over for air.       

In the swarm class I took with Beth Conrey she told us that the bees put their abdomen's in the air and fan their wings trying to spread the pheromones of their queen. This  kinda points them headfirst towards where the queen is. This worked great and I'll bet within 10 minutes they had called almost all the bees in (folks are right about time...you don't have any idea how much time is passing...should have set my alarm timer). I used my bee brush and all but about 20 in. I called a bee friend as to what to do next. We thought it probably wouldn't be possible to return them to their old home- just swarm again. I think I'll set them up next to existing Langstroth and see if my old Lang can produce a laying queen. If they both survive and I end up with too many hives...I'll just share with Beckie!For now- all is good and they are probably ok for a few days...until it gets HOT on Friday! For now, ALLES GUT!

Top Bar Package install 4.30.16

Snowy day (of course) but we were ready to pick up our package of Carniolan Bees for the top bar.

I was a bit worried about my top bar design that I built last year. So, I moved the door towards the end and designed a retractable reducer with landing board. (Probably too close to the end of the hive for cleaning and jamming)
    
We put some of the comb from the weak hive that we froze from last year thinking it might give the new bees something to clean up and start with. I also designed a top syrup feeder that would fit under the lid with hardware cloth. We thought we could put the whole thing in the garage stopped up until the weather warmed up in several days.
    
We installed outside in the rain/sleet and it was pretty cold for the bees, so they were balled up pretty good. Fed them 1:1 syrup for a few days in the garage. My mom even came to inspect and the 3rd day we took them outside and released the queen.

 

So far so good. The were even bringing in pollen and the mortician bees were hauling out some things. We'll see in a few days if that queen whips them in shape and starts laying! Good luck new hive- they sure are dark colored bees compared to the other hive!

Another Split! 4.24.16

A friend of Beckie's wanted to split Beckie's surviving healthy hive. The plan was to find the queen, isolate her and then pick some frames for a nuc (much like Beckie did).

It worked perfectly. We patiently found the queen-
   
See her? I think it is hard...so it is a good thing we pointed her out with the hive tool huh!

Good day...we got the hive split and I learned some more. Thanks ladies!
 
crazy bee-

Hive inspection 4.23.16

Two weeks after the split I did another inspection just to look at the overall health of the hive. We found some good stashes of pollen,brood, larvae (which it turns out I can never spell!) In addition to lots of workers, we found a capped queen cell (that I kinda ripped)
     

Turns out I didn't know where to look for them. I guess they are often at the top of a frame like this one. Not sure why my girls were making a queen, but I'm thinking about making more room (perhaps adding a medium in the next few days)
Did a bit more peeking around and found the QUEEN! Wow- we haven't seen her since we installed her a year ago! Pretty cool!
  
Interesting- I was hooting and hollering I can tell you what!

So excited was I that I dropped my favorite hive tool into the hive. Oh well, I get it in a few days after I build the medium + frames to keep them from thinking they should leave!

"About a week" after the split

April 13, 2016
Yup, just like Don Studinski said in his honeybee split class, we waited about a week.

     

We found evidence of fresh larvae (queen had to have laid it after the split) so we are happy to announce we still have a queen. That meant Beckie needs to see queen cells and evidence that her group is producing a queen.

She saw multiple cells so she is on the way to creating a queen. Next week (ABOUT A WEEK) she will toast a glass of wine (and not go in the hive) in hopes that her queen will be on it's nuptial flight, returning as a fertilized queen ready to lay!

We think we have avoided a swarm for our hive...keeping fingers crossed until the end of May.

Splitting our hive for Beckie!

April 4th, 2016
Since our bees looked like they could split any minute we proceeded with a split. On the Monday of spring break the weather looked like it would be the best all week...so Beckie and I hustled to do the split.
     
She brought her nuk and we planned on picking 5 frames 3 or 4 brood & workers, and at least one of honey. We were inspecting my frames and she told me to choose- (she was too chicken!)

  

While finding some good stuff, we also found some brood comb for drones on the base of a frame. It scraped off a bit, so I took the rest off. Before we did,we noted the Varroa mites on the drone pupa.
    

We found some very nice frames for her, packed them up and took them to her house.
She installed them and we were supposed to wait about a week- hopefully we'll have queen cells next week!
   

  

I feel confident we have a STRONG hive and won't have to worry having enough numbers to do well this summer.
    

Observations April 3

I think they have had dysentery earlier this month, so have been feeding 1:1 syrup.

Warm on this Saturday day (almost 70!) so the girls were out in force. Beckie texted and said she did an inspection today removed her drone comb and found a few queen cells an eliminated them. We hope to do a split later this week...I don't know what to do if I have queen cells. Hmm.

Here is a pic and movie from today.