Honeybees Savoring Summer

Nectar flows, blooms, high pollen counts and honeybee foragers are waning like a summer sunset.  Yes, the Goldenrod flow is on now, but at its close the only significant honeybee plant will be asters. You can try to extend blooms and nectar flow by planting a garden full of buckwheat like I did, but the frost will still come and there is nothing me or the honeybees can do about it. So I will enjoy each happy, buzzing honeybee day we have until frost does come! Below are some pictures of honeybee plants and honeybee foragers at work.

Honeybee forager on Rose a Sharon bloom. 

Multiple honey bee foragers collecting nectar and pollen from Sunflower

Honeybee forager on Sunflower

An old Honeybee forager, look at her frayed and torn wings.

Honeybee in flight

Honeybee forager with load of pollen from Ragweed

How can you not love this little darling with her face full of pollen?! She is serious about her work!  Loaded down and time to go back to the hive. Ragweed plant. 

Ragweed and Goldenrod in the forefront. Not where you want to be if you have seasonal allergies.

Honeybee forager on Ragweed.

Some of my hives surrounded by Goldenrod! 

Honeybee Heaven.  Loosestrife, Goldenrod, Jewelweed, Joe Pye weed all along a creek 20 feet from my apiary.

Cosmos.

Goldenrod, Jewelweed and Loosestrife.

My Last OTS Queen of 2015

On August 27th I opened up the hive to see if I had a laying queen.  It was a start/split  from June 23 whose queen never returned after her mating flight.  I gave it a notched frame of brood on July 28. A week later I checked for queen cells and there were two.  I have been waiting since then. My patience was rewarded as I found eggs and a new OTS queen.  This start will overwinter in a single deep.

New post soltice OTS queen!

Another OTS Queen! On The Spot Queen Rearing by Mel Disselkoen.

Goldenrod hanging down near hive entrances. These girls don't have to travel far from their front porch to find some nectar and pollen.

These July splits/starts with new OTS Queens have built up incredibly fast. They have also had to draw out many frames of comb as each split had only 3-4 drawn frames to begin with.

Drawing out new comb, so beautiful clean and white.  I like using the black foundation as it makes the eggs and larva easier to see.

Honeybee Forage

August already? I saw Goldenrod blooming today!! We could definitely use more rain. It has been pretty dry in West Michigan. From morning till dusk my honeybees are frequenting the bird bath for water.  We do have a pond nearby, but as my bird bath is only about fifty feet from the hives, it is convenient for them to tank up on water there.

I checked my queenless hive yesterday and found a queen cell where I notched.  Patience is now needed as I will have to wait to the end of August to check for a laying queen.  The other hives have beautiful brood patterns and are building up nicely.

I went to the Honey Festival in Frankenmuth, MI last Saturday. One of the vendors was selling plants for pollinators and  I purchased an Anise Hyssop plant. When I got home that night, I left it outside the garage. The next morning at 0830, the Honeybees had already found it.

They have also been working my Zinnias, Purple Cones, Japanese Anemone, Lemon head Sunflowers, pumpkins, squash and pickles.  Tomorrow I plan to sow about three pounds of Buckwheat seed. It should bloom early to mid September for the bees.

Honeybee on Japanese Anemone

Honeybees on Purple Cone Flower

Honeybee with pollen on white Zinnia

Honeybee on Anise Hyssop flower



Honeybee on Anise Hyssop

Water! At the bird bath.

Making increase with Mel Disselkoen's OTS, On The Spot Queen Rearing

 July 23 was the day to go back into the starts and check for new queens.  In May, I had one hundred percent success, queens in every start.  June 23 I dispatched all of the queens.  It took a lot of trust in the OTS system of queen rearing for me to leave every hive queenless, but I did.  From the nine hives I had, I increased to sixteen. I could have made more starts based on the brood I had, but chose not to.  On July 23, fifteen of those hives had newly mated OTS queens. These queens are also post solstice queens, mated after June 21.  I was able to break the brood cycle in each hive which in turn knocks back the mite population while the honeybee population  soars with a newly mated queen who won't shut down laying into the fall. Each hive will go into winter with younger, stronger bees.
I will give another week to the start that did not have a queen yet and check again.

Each start is building  up quickly and already needs a second deep box. I love to find the new OTS queens and see them draw out beautiful new comb! OTS queens that were raised by their own colony, mated naturally,  never touched by human hands, never shut down, never caged.  The bees do it all, the way they were created to.  I think that's why OTS is such a great success, it works with the bees and their natural behaviors. For more information on OTS, checkout Mel Disselkoen's website www.mdasplitter.com or his book, OTS Queen Rearing.

OTS Queen middle of picture. She had been near the brood, but scurried up to the honey near the top of the frame when we tried to get her on camera. Thanks to my bee buddy, Mary, for these great photos of my OTS queens.

Another OTS queen, just starting to lay. Look closely in the center of the cells and you can see the eggs she is laying.  It looks like a very tiny grain of rice.

A Swarm in July isn't Worth a Fly! HA!

Goodness gracious. Yesterday, I witnessed a swarm. Sad to say, it was my own. It was in one of my hives that I dispatched the queen in on June 23rd and had only notched one frame for queen cells.  I did not intend to split this hive, but wanted a post solstice queen. I had dutifully went back a week later and broke down all but 2 queen cells. I thought. I apparently missed some.
The queens should have emerged around July 9.  From what I can figure, the hive felt too congested and decided to leave with a virgin queen because with the timing she couldn't have been mated yet by July12. 
I was out weeding my flower beds on a lovely, sunny Sunday morning when I heard a loud roaring buzz?  I looked up and saw a cloud of bees in front of hive E.  More and more bees filled the air above my apiary and within fifteen minutes all settled on a dead pine tree branch at least 18 feet up in the air. I stood there watching the entire thing with my mouth hanging open. It was quite at sight to witness, I was mesmerized.
Once I realized, "Oh my word! My bees just swarmed!!"  I started to figure out how I was going to get them back. It took me about two hours to gather up what I needed and  lop all the dead branches below the swarm so I could get under them with a bucket.  Then our neighbor stopped by to chat. I thought it best not to mention the swarm of bees twenty feet away.  Once the neighbor backed out of the driveway, my husband and I commenced with our plan. He grabbed the long pole with bucket attached and I forged ahead with the tree branch lopper.  While walking to the tree our son pointed to the swarm and laughingly said, "You better hurry up, your bees are leaving."
I looked up  and sure enough, within moments they left the pine tree branch that only moments before they had been so attached to and in a large cloud flew up over our tree line, across the road, over the field and into the woods!!  Seriously!  I couldn't believe it.  I had just done all that work in preparation to retrieve them.  At least they waited until the neighbor left.
I had put a deep super of empty foundation on them 2 weeks ago, but they had not yet drawn that out. The 2nd hive body was full of capped honey and the bottom box with pollen, honey, a little capped brood and queen cells that had not yet emerged. There was still a decent amount of bees present even after the swarm. Today I took about seven frames of capped honey from that hive and extracted it.  That made me feel better about the whole bees leaving me thing. Still can't believe they swarmed!

See my bees betraying me upper mid to left in the dead old pine tree?  If you look close you can see where I lopped off a lot of other branches so that I could get underneath it with a bucket without anything obstructing me or the swarm.  Will never know if my plan would've succeeded as they flew off moments before I was able to retrieve them. The picture is only the top half of the pine tree, they were quite a ways up there!

There they are, all cozy, giggling at me. My first swarm. How touching! Honeybees, so unpredictable!

OTS Queens and dispatching

The last day of June has brought a second phase of new beginnings to my apiary.  I suppose I should say apiaries as I have two sites now.  The splits from the beginning of May have grown to five to 6 frames of brood and are ready to be split again.  Following Mel Disselkoen's method of rearing On The Spot queens to raise strong, young, healthy colonies,  one week ago I dispatched my queens in all the hives  and notched frames that had thirty-six hour larva.  Today I went back into the hives to find the queen cells where I notched  and make splits.  I did not make nearly the splits I could have.  I have to stop somewhere. One can only purchase so many hive bodies, frames, bottom boards and top covers in one season!  The main reason for dispatching the queens is to have a post solstice queen in each hive and for the break in the brood cycle which will decrease the varroa mite population.  See Mel Disselkoen's book, On The Spot Queen Rearing, or his website www.mdasplitter.com for more information.
 I will check for new queens in the starts 30 days from when I did the notching. That date will be July 23. 

OTS Queen,  Isn't she grand? If you can't see her, she is in the middle of the picture.

 

Queen in queen cage with attendant bees.  A beekeeping friend of mine had swarms given to her that were queenless.  I was able to give her two of my queens. That was of course after I made her catch the queens and cage them.

Expanding my territory. A friend who lives three miles from me  and lives on ten acres wanted bees on her property. I was more than happy to help her out!  She has beautiful gardens, woods and streams of water for the bees!

 

Selling my first Nuc. hive of honey bees! Wrapping up the nuc for a secure transport in the MDA Splitter box.   June 6, 2015.

 

 

Honey bee on milkweed. June 30, 2015. In field across from my house.

Milkweed.  See the milk? 

Honeybee on milkweed.

I never realized till tonight how beautiful milkweed flowers are and what a pleasing aroma they have.

Unidentified flower.  Close to my hives in the field. The honeybees and many other pollinators were enjoying it.

Multi Flora Rose

As I as standing and observing my hive entrances today,  a gentle breeze brought with it an aromatic delight.  What smelled so lovely?  I ventured beyond my hives to the field and found my delighted honeybees as well.  They were all over the many blooms of a Multi Flora Rose bush.  I looked up Multi Flora Rose and apparently they are non native and considered quite invasive.  Invasive or not, they smell delicious and the bees were enthralled with their blooms.

Multiple Honeybees on MultiFlora Rose bush

Honeybee on Multiflora Rose bloom

Honeybee with corbicula full of pollen on Multiflora Rose bloom.