August 28 Bummer

I currently have four hives. I did have five, but sold one to a friend in July.  This friend was pollinating her own garden with Q-tips!   She NEEDED HONEYBEES!  How could I say no when I had a beautiful little nucleus hive she could have.  Last I heard this hive was doing excellent and she was no longer running around her yard with Q-tips. 
My bummer news has to do with one of my hives. I had noticed over the past week that they were not as active compared to my other hives. I had checked this hive on August 15 and found larvae in various stages, but saw no eggs. The brood pattern was spotty. Well when I checked it today, there was only a scant scattering of sealed brood, no eggs, no larva.  BUMMER!  No queen  laying in that hive. Most likely, no queen at all. I found two queen cells open on the bottom of a frame, so perhaps they have already replaced her and she just isn't mated and laying yet.  I took a frame of brood from another hive and notched it where there was 36 hour larva on both sides. I then placed that frame in the supposed queenless hive. If they have no queen,  this will give them opportunity to raise a new one.  If they have a virgin queen, they won't raise a new queen. I will have to check in 7-10 days for queen cells on that frame.  It is a good learning experience. Every time something doesn't go how it is "supposed to" with the bees, I am able to learn from it. So I guess a queenless hive is not a total bummer.

August 22 Ghost bee mystery solved!

For the last week or two I observed bees entering and exiting the hive with a white spot or sometimes stripe on their thorax.  Because they always fly in and out so fast I wondered at first if I was imagining it. Early on it seemed to be bees in just one hive, but as I watched day after day, it was all the hives and I was not imagining it. I did however start imagining what awful thing it might be that had caused this. A weird parasite attached to their thorax? Were my queens laying mutant bees? Had all their "fur" rubbed off and this was what was underneath??  (remember, I am a newbee. Been beekeeping for the big three months now!) So, I did some internet research and thanks to Honey Bee Suite (an excellent beekeeping site/blog), I found an answer for my little mysterious "ghost" bees.   On his blog they had a great picture identifying exactly what I was seeing on my bees, pollen. The Jewelweed flower is where it was coming from.  Within an eighth of a mile behind my hives is a pond and a muck field with ditches all around it. I took a small trek and found massive amounts of Jewelweed with honey bees, bumbles and even hummingbirds darting in and out throughout their flowers.  When the honey bee enters the flower, pollen is rubbed across her head and thorax.  When she grooms herself she cannot reach the pollen on her thorax, leaving the white stripe or hourglass figure that I was seeing.

Jewelweed flower, also known as Touch Me Not

The Mother Load of Jewelweed

Honeybee entering Jewelweed flower. See how the stamen will rub pollen right along the bee's head and thorax? The bees have to go quite deep into the flower to get the nectar.

Going in.

Check out the honey bee in the center of the picture.  See the white on it's head and thorax?  I was laughing watching them fly in and out of the flowers, it was quite comical to see them come out with white all over their head and back.  I was also relieved to know this white stripe was a good thing. Just bees being bees.

Honey bee entering Jewelweed flower.

August 10 Housing

I had the pleasure of visiting friends who keep honeybees in a Top Bar Hive.  They were without bees this spring as the harsh winter had taken it's toll.  However, over Memorial day weekend, they were blessed with free bees!  Free bees you say? How do I get some of those? A lure and a ready home! He had placed a lure in his Top Bar Hive and a large swarm found this new home met all their requirements and moved right in.  Our friends also planted a large amount of Buckwheat for their honey bees.  While we were there, we had the enjoyment of watching the bees forage on the flowers.

Top Bar Hive. Love the viewing window!  Our friend built this hive himself.

A new top bar is added as the bees build a full comb on the previous one. He  has added almost 17 bars that the bees have drawn full combs on  since they've moved in! 

This is the entrance at the bottom of the hive.

Field of Buckwheat

Honey bee on Buckwheat flower.

Honeybee on Buckwheat flower.  Notice the color contrast of these two honey bees? This one to the one in picture above.

 

 

 

August 7 To Feed or not to Feed

What is blooming for the bees this time of year? Not a whole lot. A "Dearth" for the bees is when nectar levels are low.  The weather is also usually drier during this season causing what nectar there is available to be diminished.  Behind my hives, there is a field of beautiful red clover. I thought, "Yes, this will be great for my bees"  Unfortunately though, I've heard from another beekeeper that honeybee's tongues are too short to be able to get nectar from the red clover. The two types of clover blooming now that the bees can feed on are Ledino and Alsike clover.  Because two of my hives are July starts I decided to feed them 1:1 sugar syrup. They are still building up, still drawing out new comb and have lots of new brood to feed.  I don't want them starting to go through their honey stores. I want them to save that for winter. So on the 7th  of August I started placing a quart of syrup in each hive. They have been drinking down a quart in less than 48 hours for over a week now. I'm looking for sales on sugar!  Waiting for Goldenrod and Aster to start blooming!

Honey bee on Purple Cone Flower in July. The Bee Balm or Monarda in the background was only visited by Bumblebees, not the Honeybees as I had hoped.

August 4 I deserved it!

Because the first honey we took from the bees was so delightful, we decided to take two frames from my largest hive.  This is the hive that has had a queen laying since June 11. They have stores of plenty and I really wanted a few more quarts for my cupboard. This hive has three boxes and I wanted to take a frame from the top and middle box.  A bit trickier than only taking one frame, brushing bees and throwing the cover back on.  I enlisted the assistance of another beekeeper. The evening was warm and muggy, a perfect night for sweating in a bee suit!  We had a plan; remove the top box off the middle, grab a frame from the top, brush bees off and place frame in nearby empty box.  Then go to middle box and take second frame, brush bees off and place in empty waiting box. Quickly place 50 pound box back on top of middle box, pop cover on and simply walk away with our two frames of honey.  It sounded like a good idea. Brushing off bees tends to make bees angry, especially if the frame you are taking has honey and brood. (only 20 or so cells of brood).  While attempting to get the second frame, the bees we had brushed off from the first frame were quite agitated. Flying into my veil at extremely high speeds and buzzing with a ferocity that began to sound like a roar, I knew this wasn't going as planned.  Handing the second frame to my helper, I bent to hoist the heavy top box back onto the middle and as I did I felt a red hot poker piercing my knee. My sympathetic nervous system registered, PAIN!, while the rest of my brain screamed, "don't drop the box!" with 20,000 to 30,000 bees in it. I voiced, "I think I just got stung." My beekeeper friend says, "Really?".  I quickly eased the box down and placed the top cover on the hive and that was that, my first sting.  I, with all honesty, can say I deserved it. 
Later I brought the frames into the house to harvest the honey from them. My nine year old daughter, who was watching said, "Look Momma,  a baby bee is coming out"  Sure enough, I had forgotten about the 20 or so cells of brood at the bottom of the one frame.  She excitedly asked if we could watch the new bee emerge from it's cell. What kind of mother would I be if I denied her? I didn't realize it would take 20 minutes. I had hoped to get the frames back into the hive that evening (evening being around 8:30pm and it was getting darker).  Finally around 9pm, the bee emerged and began walking daintily around the frame.  She was cute. This is in my kitchen, in the house.  My daughter says, "Aren't you going to put her back with her family?"  It was basically dark now.  All the beekeeping books I've read, reiterate over and over  not to mess with the bees at night.  Why? Because everybody is at home and they are cranky after a hard day's work and want to be left alone!  I knew I shouldn't, but I did. An ominous sound came from within the hive when I lifted the inner cover. At lightning speed, I pushed the frame back down into the open space, whipped the covers back on and ran.  I remembered thinking to myself as I read what NOT TO DO in beekeeping, that I would never do the what Not To Do when I kept bees.  Never say never.

July- Honeybees in my sweet corn tassles. I do not think honeybees pollinate corn. I have to research that.

Honey bee in my sweet corn gathering pollen.

Honeybee on my Sunflowers