Still Alive! 60 degrees F. on February 19, 2016

West Michigan is known for its erratic weather, today is a good example. It is 60 degrees Fahrenheit in February.  My honeybees are out taking their cleansing flights.  Cleansing flight meaning they've been "holding it" until they can come out and defecate or you know, poop. Honeybees are hygienic.  They like cleanliness and order. Because of this they will not do their duty in the hive unless they are under severe stress. They wait and wait and wait until a day like today presents itself and then out they go.

Honeybee poop! The little spots on the top cover are from the bees. If you are out there when they are whatever you're wearing will also be spotted.  

My remaining live hive at my place surrounded by empty hives that didn't make it. I figures they'd at least make a good windbreak till spring.  I have one other hive at a friends place that is still alive also. 

Honeybee cleansing flights

Happy February!  Today is February 1st, 2016 and it is near 40 degrees F. with sunshine this afternoon in West Michigan. A winter day that would strongly beckon any beekeeper to take a stroll out to their hives in search of signs of life.  Are the bees out? Are the dead being brought out? Is the snow around the hives spotted with orange and yellow?  If so, a smile spreads across the beekeepers face. So was the case with me today.  My two remaining hives are still alive and for this I am very thankful.  I try not to get too excited though as we have many a cold night until we see pollen or nectar available.  Last year my bees were bringing in pollen on March 31st.

Honeybees on a sunny winter afternoon in February returning to their top entrance hole after taking a cleansing flight.

This girl is soaking up the sun on the front of the hive. February 1, 2016. 40 degrees F.

Michigan Honeybee Colony Loss

My "bee"ginners luck has come to an end. I knew I would have losses eventually, especially with my increased number of colonies going into winter. I did not realize how severe the loss would be.
I have gone from fifteen to two colonies in a matter of weeks. Three were gone before December. The other ten, according to notes all met their demise over the last week of December and first week of January.
I noticed one by one that no dead bees were being brought out to the landing board of the hive. I became more suspicious when I scraped out dead bees to keep lower entrances clear and neither heard or saw activity. On a warmer (above 30 degrees) day, I opened them up. In almost all the colonies I found a handful of bees on the comb with their queen right there in the middle of them, just frozen in time. Capped honey was on the frame and the deep super above them was full of capped honey.
What happened??? I don't have answers, I have theories. Theories that only lead to more questions.

I have helped other beekeepers in the spring with their dead out hives  and there were LOTS of dead bees to clean up, piled on the bottom board and stuck into the combs. My hives did not look like this. Most had a handful of bees with their queen on the center bottom combs and a scattering of dead bees on the bottom board. For as strong as these colonies were in September, I am surprised to find so few bees.  This is an odd finding.

I have had other beekeepers suggest that varroa mites "took over" in the fall and the majority of the bees just left. Maybe..... I did do brood breaks during the month of July to knock back the varroa naturally.  I did not do a mite count in the fall. I wish now that I would have. That would have been (if counts were below threshold) one more piece of evidence to "prove" it was not Varroa. I have learned one thing throughout all this, I will do mite counts from now on.

Another theory is pesticide exposure. We had an extremely warm November, it was actually in the seventies.  All my colonies were out flying and active. However, there was nothing blooming at this time.  The Honeybees collect tree resin/sap at this time of year to make propolis.  When crops are harvested, one can deduce that dust from the combining ends up in the tree sap. In this dust could be neonicotinoids, a specific group of pesticides which has been found to be harmful to bees. Because it was so warm this fall and I live in a very agricultural area, the bees would have collected a lot of this sap and been exposed.   Mel Disselkoens book, "OTS Queen Rearing, A Survival Guide to Beekeeper Worldwide" cover this subject well. He states, "When the honeybee dies, pathologists can detect all kinds of viruses and bacteria to account for the manner of death but insecticidal injury is the actual cause of death because it destroys the immune and central nervous systems."    This may explain why there were so few bees in the hive. If the central nervous system was affected, the bees would be disoriented and never return to the hive.

An example of one of the dead colonies. Queen is in the middle of the bees. This hive also had a super above with 10 frames of capped honey. 

A dead colony. This is all the bees I found except for a few on the bottom boards. Queen is in middle, more solid coloring. 

My bee buddy Mary and I, building hive boxes. We are consoling ourselves by being hopeful  and positive, building and painting the hive bodies we  had ordered  while our colonies were all still alive and well. 

January 14, breaking down the dead colonies. Hauling hive bodies full of capped honey in the sled to  the garage for storage.  I will hopefully extract the honey soon, all 70 + deep frames of it.  

Only one hive remains alive in this yard. I am breaking down the hives and bringing the honey in by sled. Spring will be interesting trying to protect all my frames of drawn comb from wax moths and other pests. No honeybees to guard and patrol it.  It was however a beautiful Michigan winter day today. The one live  hive had bees out on cleansing flights buzzing past me as I broke down the other hives.  Perhaps they were out trying to cheer me up! 

Gifts from the Bee Hive

 December 21, the winter soltice, the "shortest" day of the year, is two days away.  After this date, the days "lengthen" a few minutes every day until summer soltice, June 21.  Winter officially begins on December 21, but for me it is encouraging just to know the daylight hours are lengthening a little each day as we face January and February.
  It was 27 degrees fahrenheit today and my bees are all in their winter cluster.   I am restricted from checking my hives or doing anything with the bees at all, so what is a beekeeper to do in the winter. Well, many things actually; plan for spring, assemble new hive bodies, repair old equipment, make sugar bricks for emergency late winter feed, render wax.....
Speaking of wax, if you have some beeswax you rendered, you could make some gifts for Christmas which is six days away.  A small amount of  beeswax can go along way. I made some lip balm and lotion bars using 3 oz. each of beeswax, shea butter and coconut oil.   A very simple recipe, just equal parts of each. Heat them together in a double boiler, then simply fill your containers or molds.

Beeswax, shea butter and coconut oil.  A small kitchen scale is very helpful for accurate measurement. This recipe is equal amounts of each item depending on how much you want to make. 

Lip balm, lotion bars and bottled honey.  Easy and fun Christmas gifts.   I bought the lip balm tubes on amazon,  You can use any mold for the lotion bars, even a muffin tin will work great. 

Wintering Honeybees in West Michigan

Two weeks ago, the temperatures were in the seventies. Today, November 21st, reality settled upon bare branches, harvested fields, roof tops and the top covers of my hives.  Snow.  It came quietly during the early morning hours and we had been expecting it.  So much so, that four nights ago my husband and I wrapped our thirteen hives with tar paper. Their winter screen boards are on, top entrances are accessible and all have ample honey stores. The one task  I would like to accomplish yet is to put up a wind break.

The first snow in West Michigan this season. Hives wrapped with tar paper. Would like to get a windbreak in this yard yet before winter really sets in.

Robbing in Fifty Degrees, at the end of October, Really??

I became an eyewitness to one of my worst fears in beekeeping, robbing. I seriously was so very, very careful to avoid this from happening. I noticed it on October 26 when I went to place my winter screen on the hive. This particular hive sits by itself more that 500 feet from five of my other hives. The reason for the different location is irrelevant. It was sunny and 58 degrees. As I walked up to it I noticed  a lot of activity and a louder buzzing than what would be normal. Honeybees and Yellow jackets were flying up the sides of the hive, hovering at the joints between boxes and trying to gain access under the telescoping cover.  This hive already had an entrance reducer on and was reduced to four small holes.  I had placed a queen excluder and top winter shell on Oct 20.(I use the exculder to set my winter sugar bricks on)  The top shell had a single small hole for a winter upper entrance and ventilation. Yellow Jackets and honeybees were pouring in and out of that hole. I grabbed a wad of grass and stuck it into the hole. I ran back to the van and grabbed my trusty  Duct Tape.  I wrapped the tape around the seams even though they weren't getting in there. I taped shut all but one entrance hole on the reducer at the lower entrance.  Then I stood back and just shook my head.
There wasn't much more I could do.  I do not have robbing screens nor did I have the materials to make one.  Later I spread Vicks Vapo Rub on the entrance.  I had read that it confuses the robbers and placed a screen in front of the hive entrance.
I checked the hive today and found Yellow jackets sauntering in and out of the single entrance hole uncontested.  They are just so wicked!  I waited till dusk to investigate the inside of the hive. In the pictures below you'll see I found only a handful of bees surrounded by wax cappings on the bottom board.  A very small amount of capped brood was in the lower hive body and on a brighter note I found about five frames of capped honey that the robbers had not gotten to yet in the top box.
From my notes, this hive appeared strong on September 17, lots of bees, enough honey for winter.  I did not do a thorough inspection on that day.  When I placed the winter shell (shallow box) the week before there were not many bees in the top box, but  I figured they were down in the bottom at this time of year. Soooooo, not quite sure what happened here. Was robbing alone to blame for its demise or had the majority of the colony already left and hence the robbers were able to gain access because it was so weak?
  I picked through the dead honey bees on the bottom board and did not find the queen. I did see evidence of Varroa mites.  A few  dead Varroa mites scattered among the cappings. This hive had a break in the brood cycle in July, but no chemical treatments for Varroa.  No evidence of small hive beetle or disease.

The sad sight when I removed the entrance reducer

The bottom board, dead honeybees, yellow jackets and wax cappings



The dead defenders.  If you zoom in you can see tiny red ovals among the cappings, those are dead  varroa mites, the Honeybees and beekeepers worst enemy.

Capped honey frames from the top box. I can add to  other hives for extra feed. 

You can see where the wax cappings were carelessly ripped away by the robbers to obtain the honey stored beneath.

A frame of partially capped brood and honey from the lower box. in top left corner you can see evidence of robbing. 

The hive that was robbed.  It is one at my off site.  Noticed it on October 26.  Not sure when it started.  More looters/robbers on other side of  the hive, I should've gotten a better picture of that. I plugged the upper entrance with grass. 

The other hives some five hundred feet away.  All precautions being taken to prevent the start of robbing in this yard. I can't believe I'm hoping for lower temperatures and some good hard frosts!

Autumn Asters, Mouse Guards and Enemies

We are almost midway through October here in West Michigan.  We are still enjoying seventy degree days on occasion and have been basking in the warm autumn sunshine.  Asters are still blooming for the bees, but nights are getting chilly with temperatures down in the forties.  Time to put mouse guards on the hives.  Not only do the mouse guards keep out mice, but they also reduce the entrance  to help ward off  yellow jackets and other pests that are trying to gain access at this time of year.

Honeybee on white Aster

Honeybee on white Aster

Honeybee on light purple aster

This forager is older, see her frayed wings. 

I like these mouse guards from Dadant because you can slide them open or closed and make the entrance smaller or larger. As it gets colder you can reduce the entrance to only four holes.

This is my smaller hive that had a late August queen. I am going to pull some frames of honey from another hive and place those frames on the sides or I could place the frames right above the brood frames in a box above them.  I am feeding them syrup right now until they can't take it down anymore because of the cooler temps.  People have had a decent amount of success overwintering nucs, which is really what this hive is going into winter.  I will have to wait and see how it turns out. 

This is how I am feeding syrup to the weaker hive, Mason jars inverted over the hole in the inner cover. 

This is a gallon of feed I set outside my door before bringing it to the hive to feed. It was not even open and these girls plus the nasty yellow jacket found it within minutes. Do NOT leave any open syrup  and or honey out this time of year.  With decreased forage around, honeybees are very susceptible to robbing either by yellow jackets, hornets or other honeybees. I have not yet witnessed robbing and I don't want to! Watching you tube videos of it is horrible, I can't imagine seeing my own bees in  a worked up, frenzied state of robbing.