Exciting news! all 4 hives survived the blah Vancouver winter. several inches of snow for a day or 2, and temperatures dipping to a mild -2 or so. March has been rainy and there have been very few times when i could get into the hives and check out what is going on.This winter I treated the hives with Oxcalic acid vapor the same way as last years treatment. You can read all about it here- Things I did this winter while waiting for the bees – Part 2 There was a small amount of varroa on the drop boards, perhaps meaning that the earlier Formic Treatment in the fall had worked. This year the hives at home and the hives at Still Creek Community Garden got moisture quilts and country quilt wraps, as they had proved themselves last winter in the post-Making A Winter Quilt For The Bees
March 10th, pollen patties were placed in the hives as the colonies seemed to be building and activity in all the hives was quite busy.
Busy Bees
A week later when i went to check the patties they was 1/2 of each of the 1 pound patties left and in the blue hive (at home) the bees were busy making burr comb on the top of the frames. I had left the eke on the top to make room for the patties but they probably didn’t need the extra space.
Next post: Building a 4 Compartment Queen Mating Box
So I pulled of the honey supers from the 2 hives at the community garden and on one of the hives there was 1 super full of this crazy yellow wax. I have seen lots of wax but never this color before. The other hive has none of this wax at all. Any one know what this might be from?
It looks a bit green in these shots
Man I have been busy this summer! The bees are still getting the loving they so deserve even after trying to kill me while defending their home. I’m not going to say much but just post a few pics and give you a note form of what has happened with the bees so far this spring/summer
1 Hive at home swarmed twice caught one of the swarms but they didn’t stay
both hives were queenless for a long time due to rainy weather but somehow they managed to collect a lot of honey as there was no brood to deal with
caught a swarm near the community garden and brought it home
Turns out the swarm was from one the hives from the community garden
Still Creek Garden hives
as of today I have 5 hives total and all have laying queens and there is a possibility of getting some honey from 2 of them. the other 3 should be able to rebuild so they can survive the winter.
I did manage to get a bit of honey from a few frames that the bees wont need
Early Season Harvest
Here is pic of a wonderful flower in the garden. Not sure what it is.
Its been a while since I last posted and it isn’t because there isn’t anything happening with the hives or I have given up on the bees. Life can just get way to busy sometimes and although there are 24 hours in the day it feel more like half that.
I have fully recovered from my almost deadly encounter with anaphylaxis and feel like the blame should be put on me not the bees as i wasn’t really prepared when I was near the hive. 3 days after coming home from the hospital one of the hives decided it was time to swarm, or as Phillip from MUDSONGS.ORG so eloquently puts it “they formed a splinter colony“
Swarm in a new box
My wife and I managed to capture the swarm and place it in a hive box but when I returned from work the next day all but a handful of bees had disappeared and the box was empty. A small clump of bees were still in the tree and as my wife shook her head in worry I climbed up on my van and caught the remaining bees in a diaper bucket taped to an old curtain rod.
Bee Wrangler
I then tried a paper combine with those bees and the remaining bees that were still in the original hive that swarmed. After 4 days I checked to see if they had combined and perhaps because there was so few bees in both boxes they hadn’t even chewed one hole in the paper. I left the top entrance open for the top box and the bottom for the bottom box in hopes that after we had returned from a trip to Vancouver Island they might combine after the new queen had hatched.
2nd swarm in same tree
Monday May 21 we returned to find a note on our door from a neighbor that said, “May 19th- Your bees have left their hive and are in our tree. You can come and capture them and their queen if you’d like” I put on my suit and went out in the light rain (it had been raining for a few days) and attempted to capture the swarm, now in 3 distinct bunches, hanging in the tree. They were not as high as the previous swarms so it was not as hard to get them into the diaper bucket on pole contraption. I got the first bunch and put it in the Nuc box. The 2 remaining bunches were placed in the 2nd Nuc box and they managed to all walk across to the one with the queen in it.
The hives at the community garden are doing well but that could change at any moment. I guess that my first year beekeeping was a lot of luck and this year is payback and more like real beekeeping. At home there are now 2 hives that are queenless due to the fact it wont stop raining so more than likely the virgin queens had no chance to get out and mate before they got to old to be viable. I have taken some frames of brood/eggs from the 2 hives at the garden and added then to the 2 hives in the hopes that they will create a queen cell and if the weather cooperates a queen. I am feeling a bit discouraged but am hopefull the bees will know what to do.
After work it is my usual routine to go look out my bedroom window and see what the hives are doing before getting dinner or heading out to a little league baseball game with my son and wife. Today I was planning on letting my wife put a honey super on the brown hive as I had a feeling that they needed the room. When I looked out the window I saw a familiar site of a very large swarm hanging up in the same tree that the previous swarms had landed in. We had been pretty diligent in hive inspections and had done a pre-swarm split with the Blue hive and opened the Brown hives’ brood nest in put in empty frames with starter strips in the hopes of slowing or stopping the swarm urge until we could give them more room or do the split. Originally we were planning on doing the inspection/split on Saturday but something came up, something crazy.
swarm
I was tired Thursday evening so instead of going to a little league game I stayed home. Sometimes I like to go up on the roof and just watch the bees do their thing. Not sure why but this is very relaxing for me. I headed up and noticed the outer lid on the blue hive (the queenless one) was off kilter so reached over and adjusted it. A few bees started to buzz my face so I turned around and lowered my head while walking away from the back of the hive. Suddenly a bee gave up her life as it left its stinger in my eyelid. I had been stung before while working on the hives. On my hands, arms, leg and once on the crack on my posterior! I have never had more than a local reaction and was only concerned that my eye was now going to swell up. Inside the house grabbing an ice pack I noticed my ears were getting warm and my skin was turning red. I don’t have allergys so had never felt this feeling of wanting to scratch the insides of my incredibly itchy eardrums. There was no thought in my head that I was suffering from anaphylactic shock as my breathing was fine. Calling my wife to let her know was probably the best thing I did that evening. I wasn’t doing to bad and told here i would call if it got worse. I never called but in her amazing ability to know if things are not ok she called and I asked her to come home from the game down the street.
By the time she arrived about 5-10 minutes later I had vomited twice and then proceeded to pass out on the kitchen floor. 911 was called, I came to and for some reason had to go into the bathroom where I passed out again. The paramedics arrived shortly after, they couldn’t read my blood pressure and gave me a shot of Epinephrine to get it going. Seems that the common preconception about anaphylactic shock is that it affects your breathing. It might but it also can affect your blood pressure causing death. I spent the next 7 hours at the hospital because of the possibility of returning symptoms. Probably one of the scariest moments of my life lying on the floor wondering what the hell was going on.
If you are deciding to take up beekeeping or are a beekeeper already don’t think because you never had a bad reaction to a sting that you won’t. Carry or have an EpiPen auto epinephrine injector close by. Don’t wait to call for assistance if you feel at all not normal. It might save your life.
More on the swarm in the next post, and a very public thank you to my wife for letting me continue to keep bees (she must really love me!)
Things have been going well with the bees lately. Both the Blue and Brown hive at home have rebounded from their winter clusters and their populations are increasing at a phenomenal rate. Foragers for both hives are bringing back an abundance of brightly colored pollen to provide for the growing hive. This also means this is the prime time for swarming. 1 week ago at inspection I noticed quite a few queen cups on the bottom corners of about 8 different frames. There were no eggs or larvae in the cups and there were no drones on the frames. Although there were many drones just emerging from their cells I thought is still was a little to early for them to swarm. Last year I missed the queen cells and the bees swarmed
Lots of bees April 14
About 2 weeks ago the bee population started to increase rapidly, so to possibly prevent them from swarming a medium box was added on top the 2 supers. In the medium I place a few frames of partially drawn frame and some wax damaged drawn frames. The bees did a great job of cleaning up some of the frames but I was very surprised to find these, what looks like supersedure queen cells!
Supercedure cells?
I removed this frame and a couple others replacing them with empty frames with the thought that it would give the workers something to do and not think about swarming. The other reason was that it looked so amazing!
Supercedure closeup
This Saturday was another great day for opening the hive. I wanted to make sure that the queen cells that were spotted last week were not being used. There was a bit of excitement as we would get to see the first foundationless frame in the hive. I could not believe how much the bees had built on the popsicle sticks inserted in the groove meant for the foundation. I am so amazed, whats not to love about bees!
Looking closer a this photo you can see eggs! Click on the image and look on the right hand side of the frame.
foundation-less frame
Continuing the inspection several queen cup/cells had eggs in them and few had larvae floating in the milky royal jelly. The fact that there was plenty of drones in the hive and it would be 2 weeks at least before the new queen would emerge the decicion was made to do a split. In a swarm control split the queen is removed from the hive and placed in another hive or Nuc box along with nurse bees, some eggs and brood, honey and pollen. The original hive now has to raise a new queen from the queen cells. Hopefully the bees in both hives think there was a swarm and things progress well in the new hive with the old queen and the old hive with the new queen. Emily from Adventuresinbeeland and Emma at Miss Apis Mellifera can tell you all about trying to find a Queen in the midst of tens of thousands of small quickly moving insects. It is not an easy task so it helps if you have an extra set of eyes. My wife was the one that spotted her. she was much lighter than the other queens in the other hives. The frame was placed one of the two 5 frame Nuc boxs along with frames of pollen, honey/nectar, open brood. A total of 7 frames were taken out of the 20 deep, 10 medium frame hive. The frames taken out were replaced with frames with foundation and a few frames of partially drawn comb. After sealing the nucs and putting them in the van, it was off the garden approximately 4.5 km away drive away
2nd hive at Still Creek
This is the only picture of the installation of the split, I need to work on taking more pics. Things went well, a single frame feeder and 2 undrawn frames with foundation were added to the 7 frames from the Nuc boxes. There were a lot of bees flying around the hive but within about 15 minutes they were all in the hive. Of course in the rush to get to the garden (driving in my bee suit with at least 10 thousand bees in 2 little boxes) I forgot the entrance reducer. You can see in the picture one of the many uses of duct/gaffers tape. I did return on Sunday afternoon with the entrance reducer and the bees were busy with many foragers returning with pollen sacs full. Stoked!
Friday April 6 was the day we installed the first of 2 new hives at Still Creek Community Garden. The day was looking great scattered cloud and the temperature nearing 12 C when I picked up the packages, one for the garden and one for a fellow beekeeper.
new packages
We headed to the garden and were met with showers and a small thunder-storm! I was prepared with a pop up tent as last year it was the same weather, unpredictable
pop up tent
There was about 15 people expected to witness the hiving of the package so we set up a little info table in the shed. Both myself and my partner spent time informing gardeners of the fabulous world of the bee.
info table
The garden had purchased 3 veils and when we asked who would like to wear them immediately 3 little arms shot up and the 3 boys in the front got to see it all up close
three amigos
The installation went well. I added a two frame feeder along with a frame of honey I had in the freezer from last year and used mostly drawn comb so the queen doesn’t have to wait until the bees draw out the wax comb for her to lay eggs in.
queen in cage
hard to see but there are bees in the hive
Here is a video that one of our gardeners made event
All in all a wonderful day. New bees, new people interested in bees and I got to share my stoke. (“stoked” – adjective – to be “stoked” is to be completely and intensely enthusiastic, exhilarated, or excited about something. those who are stoked all of the time know this; being stoked is the epitome of all being. when one is stoked, there is no limit to what one can do. )
This weekend was amazing! The sun was shining and the temperatures were hovering at a balmy 13-15 Celsius (59 F) perfect weather for doing the 1st spring inspection and cleaning. The weather here lately has been miserable. If it wasn’t raining or trying to snow, it was cold and windy. For this inspection my partner/photographer was unavailable so there are only a few pics. I find it very annoying having to keep taking off my gloves to take a photo. I still have not been able to shed the leather and go glove-less and doubt that I will in the near future.
The blue hive was a hive that swarmed twice last season, combined once with the 2nd swarm and still produced a nice surplus of Honey. Starting the inspection around 2pm the bees were flying and foragers were bringing in tons of bright orange pollen. There was so many bees at the entrance reducer opening that when it was removed the traffic was reminiscent of a busy summer day last season.
After the top was removed I got a good look at the frames in the top box and there was bees, a whole lot of bees. I pulled up a few frames and they were covered with bees, in fact every frame was brimming with bees.
blue hive top box March 25 2012
The top box contained some frames of capped honey , 2 frames off capped brood some emerging and some close to emerging, a frame containing young larvae with some eggs and the rest of the frames were drawn but empty. I expected more brood and eggs. There was fresh white wax comb being laid out on some of the frames near the brood.
It was time to inspect the lower deep. The top deep was covered with the inner cover and moved over and placed on top of the outer cover on the ground. I was expecting a few bees and a lot of empty drawn out brood frames not as many or more bees than the top deep! I have been reading about reversing the boxes in the spring, the theory being that the brood nest is moved down and the queen has room to move up the box and expand the brood nest. Most of what I read says the bottom box will be almost empty but this is what there was.
Bottom blue box March 25 2012
Checking the frames they consisted of a few frames of capped honey, some pollen on a few frames and the rest was drawn out brood comb from last season all of these frames were covered with bees. So many bees that when the frames were pulled out, they just spilled out onto the top of the box while still having the frame covered in worker bees. Not one drone to be seen but there was some fresh drone comb being drawn out around the edges of a few frames. I decided to leave the bottom box where it was after cleaning the bottom board The bottom board was fairly clean with not many dead bees, I guess the caretaker bees have been doing their job.
Here is a close up of the bottom box. These bees look fairly young and fuzzy and they were very calm. Click on the image to see them in wonderful Hi-def.
Fuzzy bees March 25th 2012
I will have to watch this hive closely as it looks like it could be one that might swarm early. I am planning on doing a split but was going to wait until the drones are flying or I can purchase a queen.
So excited to have the bees make it through the winter and be back into the hives.
Today was warm enough this afternoon that the bees were out flying in abundance. I saw a few with pollen of various colors and the entrance to both hives was busy. Since my time this weekend for a hive inspection might be limited, I decided to do a quick look into Kashyyyk or as it is called more often “the brown hive”. After popping the outer and inner cover (the moisture quilt box was removed about a week ago) looking in it was apparent the bees were concentrated on the 5 frames on the west side of the hive. Replacing the inner cover I then took the whole box off and placed it on the outer cover beside the hive. There was about 3 or 4 frames of bees again concentrated on the west side of the hive. Thinking that was strange, I used my hive tool to pull out the first frame opposite to where the bees were congregating. To my dismay the frame was covered in fluffy grey mold! No wonder the bees were avoiding this area.
Moldy frame
2 more frames were removed with various degrees of moldiness on them. None of them as bad as the first one. This hive did not have a screened bottom board but instead had a slatted rack so my guess is that the moisture was staying in this hive even with the moisture quilt box. Everything I have read states there must be an exchange of air through the hive to keep the moisture level down. I now am a firm believer of the power of the screened bottom board.
varroa poop?
There was a lot of what looked like sawdust on and in the cells on the frames that were not as moldy. Any one know what this might be from? First thoughts were Varroa feces but it seems like a lot unless my hive was severely infested. Take a look and if you know please make a comment.
Edit March 22- I think I might have figured out what the white specks may be. Sugar. I did a Mountain Camp feeding in February so the specs could be sugar crystals. I will take a closer look this weekend.
As the frames were scraped into the garbage I noticed that these were the pollen frames. All the moldy bits were on the pollen, not on the empty cells or cells with honey.
One promising note, I looked at one of the frames where the bees were hanging out and saw brood that was emerging as well as fresh eggs and a few larvae. Hopefully I have enough time this weekend to fully inspect and clean up the hive.
This winter I treated the hives with Oxcalic acid vapor the same way as last years treatment. You can read all about it here- Things I did this winter while waiting for the bees – Part 2 There was a small amount of varroa on the drop boards, perhaps meaning that the earlier Formic Treatment in the fall had worked. This year the hives at home and the hives at Still Creek Community Garden got moisture quilts and country quilt wraps, as they had proved themselves last winter in the post-Making A Winter Quilt For The Bees 
