Split = 4 Hives ?

Well I am about to learn something, it may be a positive learning or a negative learning.

On the advice of my mentor I went ahead and split Hive #2. However, I made two big errors which may or may not be very bad.

So, I will back up. Hive #2 was my very successful hive. I got home a little early today, 80 degree weather and dug into it. The hive was still going strong, bees all the way to the top (4th) box. The top box was mostly frames being drawn and honey stored. The bottom three boxes were each 3/4 filled with brood frames, many had larva and eggs, many with honey around the edges. So, I decided to go ahead and do the split. The reason for the split is essentially a controlled swarm. The bees want to swarm when they get this big, so instead of letting them, the hive is split so that two hives now exist.

I looked at every frame, one by one, both sides several times - and I could find no queen :( I know she is or was recently in there bacause I clearly saw eggs. So, I had a decision to make, go ahead with the split or not? I decided to go ahead, not knowing where the queen was. I took boxes 1 and 3 and left them in the current position. In box #2 there were some swarm cells (queen cells at the bottom of a frame), some were empty, one had a larva in it. I put boxes 2 and 4 in the new location. So error #1 was not knowing were the queen is.

But, lets talk about that. If I did know were the queen was I would have made sure that she was with the boxes without the queen cells. But not knowing she may be in either place (or perhaps she got lost in the opening and transfer). My hope is that werever she is, she will survive and thrive and that in the other hive they will make a new queen. Anyway, I now have a new Hive #3 - I hope.

But - Error #2, I put the new hive in the same yard as the old hive. This could be a problem because the bees may simply return to the old hive and then there would be no bees to in one of the hives and potentially an overabundance in one hive - aargh.

In addition to the massive manipulation above - I was not done. I also took some frames of foundation and inserted them in between the frames that had the heaviest load of brood. Again, I am trying to give them room to grow the brood chamber so they will not think about swarming.

OK, on to Hive #1. Again this hive did not have any activity going on in the top box (it is a deep and a medium only). Down in the deep there was some brood, but not a lot. There were also some supercedure cells [queen cells on the face of the frames] so I am hoping they are fixing their own problems.

Hive #4. This hive is still staying at one box, although they had put some honey in the upper box. I put some empty frames down in the brood area to give them some space there, but not really sure what is going on with this one.

Well, that's it. As always comments are welcome.

3 Hives and holding

Went back into the hives today to see what was going on.

Hive #2 still going strong, four medium boxes high. Brood in three medium boxes, larva and eggs visible. Honey being put up in the top box.

Hive #1 was three boxes, a deep and two mediums. The top box was empty of activity or stores. The middle box had some honey, but not much. The deep had all of the activity. I did pull up a frame and it had larva and eggs so, I'll leave it alone for a while. I did remove the top box til they start getting busier.

Hive #4 was similar, it is two medium boxes high. Some honey in the top box, but all of the bees in the bottom box. Again, I pulled a frame and saw brood, larva and eggs, so we'll see.

I went ahead and put syrup on all of the hives. I did not see any queen cells. There were a good number of drone cells (a whole frame of them in #2).

So, I am a little worried about #1 and 4, perhaps a more experienced beekeeper would have replaced the queens - I'll wait and see, unless I get other advice...?

A good check-up

It warmed up over 60 today and the sun came out! So the bees were out and about.

All of the hives had bees buzzing around the entrances, obviously new bees orientating. I peeked in the top of each - Hive #2 was still going strong, some honey already in the top box, I replaced the syrup. Hive #1 seemed much better than last week-end, lots of activity. I had put a bowl of honey covered cappings (from the extraction last week) on top of this hive for general feeding and unfortunately it got filled with water from the rain and drowned some bees. There were bees in the top box cleaning up the empty frames I put in there last week - this was good. Hive #4 also seemed to be doing well, lots of activity and they were all over the cappings I put inside the hive.

So, all in all a good visit!

Hmmm

It warmed up again so I went into the hives yesterday to mixed reviews. Hive #2 again was doing very well, three boxes full of brood, larva and eggs! This one is looking good.

Hives #1 and #4 did not look as good. Hive #1 seems to have decreased in size. All of the bees were in the bottom box on only about four frames. I did see the queen and there was brood and larva, but I don't understand the size. I did not see any swarm cells and it really seems to have been too cool to swarm anyway, but I am not sure what is going on with it.

Hive #4 was still only in one box (and a medium at that) , I don't understand why this one does not build up. I probably should have replaced the queen (I did see her) - but not sure what the trip point is.

We'll check again next weekend ...

First Extraction

I had a friend going by the Dadant so I had him pick up one of the $100 Extractors and a honey bucket (with screens and valve). I had the frames of honey from the dead-out (the hive that died) so I thought I would give it a try.

The extractor came in a box without an English word on it, it was all in some Asian language, it was pretty much assembled however, so no issues. I had to put the valve on the bucket and I was ready to go. (I did have to do the dishes from the last few days, but that is beside the point).

I took the first frame out and began decapping - ie taking the wax caps off of the top of the cells that the bees put there for storage. Below is a picture of one of the frames with my decapping tool (a fork) in progress.


When I went to put the frames in the extractor I found that the unit was set up for full size frames not medium frames. After a little finagling, I found that the medium frames could be put in a little crooked and they seemed to work just find. Here is a picture of the frames in the extractor and some honey on the sides and bottom.


Finally, once all of the frames were extracted the honey is let out into the honey bucket. It is simply a white bucket with a screen over the top to catch the debris (wax, bee parts:) that came out with the honey. Here is the stream going into the bucket. I'll leave the honey in the bucket for now.


Clean up was not to bad, all in all - fun!

Dead or Alive?

Well we had some cold weather while I was out of town so I got worried about the bees, and went out to look at the hives when the rain finally stopped on Tuesday. It was still cold so I didn't expect to see any bees - but I was very surprised to see the landing area of hive #1 full of dead bees :(

So on Wednesday the weather warmed up so I went outside to look inside. The first thing I saw was the same landing area was empty! Somebody moved all of those dead bees and I soon found out that it was the bees themselves. What I had forgotten is that I had put the frames with dead bees from the deadout hive in hive #1 and the bees on the landing board on Tuesday were simply the already dead bees that had been cleaned out of the frames. When I looked in the hives I found those frames empty of dead bees and in fact several of them already being filled with honey!

The other hives looked good, so I updated the sugar syrup and left them alone - for now...

Three out of Four

It was a beautiful day after a week of ice and snow. With prospects looking good for warmer weather ahead I dove into the hives.

Hive #2
This hive was busting out with bees, brood, honey, and pollen. It looked more like the end of March than the beginning. It is composed of three medium hive bodies. As I took off the top, bees were boiling through the inner cover. I went down through frame by frame. Frames 3-7 of the top and second box looked like classic frames - bees and brood in the center with pollen and honey around the outside. Here is a typical picture.


Frames 1 and 2 were mostly full of honey. Frames 8-10 in both boxes were mostly empty, some honey, but mostly empty. I am wondering if they prefer the warmer side of the hive (facing the sun). Down in the bottom box, was a different story. The box was completely empty - nothing at all, just empty comb.
So, I moved the bottom box to the top and moved the other boxes down. If this hive continues as it is, it should be a strong producer in a month or so.

Hive #1 (I am writing about these in the order I worked on them)
This hive is composed of two deeps. It was my first hive that I got as a Nuc. Again, as I went into the top box, lots of bees, lots of stores and a healthy batch of larva and brood. Here is a typical frame:

As I went to the bottom box, again it was empty for the most part. The only thing left in the box was a couple of frames of what looked like old pollen. It looked kind of cakey. Here is a picture - if you recognize it, let me know.

But again, the hive looked healthy and I am looking for good things!

Hive #3 (RIP)
I have to admit that I have been surprised that all of the hives have made it through this winter. Unfortunately, this hive did not. As I took the top cover off there was no activity. It also had three boxes (that used to be teaming with bees :( The top box was empty, a little honey over in frames 8-10 but nothing else. Down in the second box was the bad news - dead bees, lots of them, some huddled in little groups and some with their heads down in the cells. Below is a close-up of a lot of bee butts - the bees are down in the cells trying to find food.
Unfortunately this means they starved to death (as did the bees last year). They were mostly clumped in frames 1-6. As I went through the frames I found two very full frames of honey in frames 9 and 10, with some honey also in frames 7 and 8. The food was in the box, but obviously when it got cold they hunkered down in the first 6 frames and could not get to the food. It is possible that if I went into the hive before the freeze and moved the honey around they might have been able to reach it - but who knows. Well, I have a full hive now for the first swarm :)

Hive #4
This is the hive I have been the most worried about. It never got over two medium boxes all of last year (it was my last swarm capture) and seemed to shrink down as the winter progressed. As I took off the top cover - not much activity, a few bees, but essentially empty comb, a little honey, but not much. This is the only hive that still had sugar syrup left on top. However, as I went into the bottom box - lots of activity, a good quantity of bees, stores, brood and larva! As I looked further I spotted the queen, she is in the upper middle of the picture below.


So, I am still hoping this one will perk up as the spring progresses. It just may have an old queen that doesn't produce very much. I may look at replacing her :(

So, all in all I feel pretty good about were I am at this point. Three out of four seem pretty good if we can keep them going. Thanks to my son for taking the pictures.

A couple of more things I did, that I forgot to mention. In the brood boxes I moved some of the semi empty frames from the edges of the boxes to the center were the brood was. This was an attempt to "open the brood area". There are those that believe this will keep the bees from swarming by giving the queen something to do (ie fill up the empty frames with bees) rather than go and start a new hive (a swarm). After I did this I got a message from one of the other beekeepers that indicated that I might have done this too early which could result in "chilled" brood (ie I might kill them if we get a cold snap).

From the hive the died, I took the frames with dead bees and put them in the healthy hives to hopefully get them to clean them out so I can use them for something else. Again, I got mixed information on whether this was a good idea or not :\ I also ended up with four frames with some honey which I went ahead and took in the house.

Bees in the Snow

We had a weird March storm that dumped our first snow of the year! Here are the hives covered with the white stuff. Hive #1 is on the right and Hive #2 on the left.


Here is Hive #3
And finally Hive #4
It is supposed to get bitterly cold tonight, so it looks like the bees will have to go through one more winter freeze. Hopefully I will not have the same result as after last years snow. BTW - I did clear out the snow from in front of the hives in case they want to get out, and to give them some ventilation.

Back to Syrup

So it looks like the bees did not really like the sugar on top of newspaper trial. They just left the dry sugar untouched. I peeked in the hives over the weekend, it looks like they are still OK, but I did not want to leave them without food, so I went ahead and made up some sugar syrup and put a jar on all of them. We'll see...

Mid-Winter Check-up

After my last post, checked the syrup one more time in December and then left town. It has been sub-freezing (20's) here since I returned to town so I haven't had the chance to check on the critters.
I will admit that I am using the lazy beekeeper strategy. If people in northern Illinois can keep hives over the winter with little intervention, I am going to try the same. So I fed the bees heavily in the fall hoping they would build up sufficient stores to take them through this tough winter. I did not wrap the hives or put any insulation in the top. I did not even put any additional ventilation in the hives (although this is the one thing I wish I had done).
Hive #1 had not been taking any syrup through out the fall, so I had some crystallized sugar that I just dropped in on top of the inner cover to see if they would take that. It may be that they simply had enough stores and were not interested in any more.
Well it warmed up to 49 yesterday and the girls were flying so I took a couple of peeks inside. Amazingly all four hives are still alive! I am surprised, particularly hive #4, it is essentially in one medium super, and I would still not be surprised if another cold snap wiped it out. With the weather being soo cold, I did not feel comfortable putting syrup back on the hives so I tried the newspaper method of feeding. I put down a single sheet of newspaper and poured granulated sugar on top of the newspaper. In hives 3 and 4 I put the newspaper right on the top frames. In hive #2 I put the newspaper over the inner cover. In hive #1, there was still about half of the crystallized sugar left on top of the inner cover, so I just left it alone.
From the activity in the front of the hives - the most active was hive #1, #2, #4, #3.
So, so far so good. I am sure we will have another deep freeze before the winter is over, so we'll see.

Getting ready for Winter

Did some cleaning up to get ready for winter. I went into the top box of the hives to see what was going on. A fellow beekeeper recently reported a hive collapse, so I thought I should take a look. I had put additional supers on a few months ago to give the bees some room to put up additional stores. It seems like they did not take advantage of the space. I went ahead and took the additional supers off of Hives 1 and 4. They had not put anything into these supers and there were only a few bees hanging around in them.
Hives 2 and 3 both had lots of bees up to the feeder in the top box, so I left them there.

More Feedin'

Went out and checked the syrup today. Hives 2,3 and 4 were all empty. Hive 1 still had a full jar - no clue. Everybody looked fine from the top.

Feedin' and hopin'

Seems like I am doing OK at the present as a beekeeper, but not so well as a blogger.

In the last month we had a little run-in with the mosquito sprayers. I had just returned to the house with empty sugar water jars when I heard the plane fly directly over my house. I went out to the hives and added a little cover, but you could already taste the pesticide in the air. I left them alone until the next day and found piles of bees outside each hive :( The next day I went back out and the bees had cleaned up their dead and I put on full feeders.

Last weekend I went back in for a full inspection and things looked amazingly well. There was brood and honey in good quantities across the hives. Of course hive 4 was still smaller, I am not sure exactly what to do with these guys. I checked the syrup jars this afternoon and found that Hive 2 was empty while Hive 1 was full - no clue. Hive 3's jar had clogged to I unclogged it. Hive four had only taken about a third of their syrup. It is amazing how different they are.

That's all for now.

Fall is here!

Well I am back from my trip, and there is definitely a cool down in progress.

I went into the hives to see how they were doing. Generally, hives 1-3 are in similar states. The top box has a little or no honey, the next box down has about 70% honey and brood begins in box two. I did not go any lower but assume box one has mostly pollen as it was a month ago. Hive 4 is still only in two boxes with mostly honey in the top box and the brood in the bottom.

So, I decided to go ahead and begin feeding these buggers to get them set up for the winter. I really do not have a good idea how much honey they need to get through the winter, but since there is room, I'll give them the chance to fill it up.

I got quart jars on two of the hives then ran into a snag on the other two. I had made inner covers for these hives, but had not included the normal lip. The resulting box was therefore not tall enough to cover the jar - I'll have to fix this tomorrow to get the other jars on (or maybe I'll just put on pint jars...).

The Lazy Beekeeper

Do to a variety of circumstances, I have really not gotten into the hives in nearly two months. I did a couple of honey checks in early July, but have not really looked further. I must admit to liking Michael Bush's suggestions more and more - http://www.bushfarms.com/beeslazy.htm

So, I went into the hives yesterday full bore not really knowing what to expect. There has been a lot of talk with some of me fellow beekeepers about hive beetles and summer feeding. I have been watching the entrances to see if they looked weird (not that I am sure that I would know). I also put up some beach umbrellas to try and protect them from the summer sun.


Hive #2 is in three mediums (on left), the top box had about 50% honey and the rest empty, the bottom two boxes were a mix of brood, honey and pollen. Seemed to be in pretty good shape. Perhaps they could use some feeding, don't really know if the "fall nectar flow" will take care of them or not. The lazy in me says that if they made it through the hot summer, certainly they will make it through the cooler, more flowerful fall.

Hive #1 (2 deeps, 1 medium, on right above) was unusual (as usual). The top box was nearly empty (this seems to have been the pattern even through the honey flow). Interestingly the bees had joined four of the foundations together in a zig zag pattern. I think they were just playing around up there. The top deep box was jam packed with honey and brood. It weighed a ton and seemed very healthy. The bottom deep, surprisingly to me, was full of pollen. Row after row of pollen. Is this good or ?


Hive #3 (4 mediums) had a completely empty top box. I went ahead and pulled it off. The next three boxes were very similar to hive #1. Partially filled top box, followed by a heavy honey/brood box, followed by a box full of pollen. Well, maybe this is how they like it! (picture is after I had moved the empty box)


Hive #4 (2 mediums) looked as good as I have ever seen it. They had essentially filled up the two boxes with honey, pollen and brood. The patterns looked good and all seemed well. I went ahead and put the box left over from hive #3 on top of this box to give them some more room. I'll probably need to feed these guys at some point to help them pull out comb in that top box.

Some other notes:
I must also say that Hive #1 is the feistiest hive that I have, it is where all of the stings that I have gotten (save one) have occurred. As I worked the hive yesterday I had a group of bees around each hand and had to walk away several times to catch my breath. My heavy gloves have been worth every penny.
I used the smoker yesterday and was able to keep it lit pretty well. Used paper in the bottom and a cut up old mop on top. I am still, however, not sure about its usefulness. It is definitely useful to move the bees, i.e. if I want to get them off of the top bars, the smoke works great. But it certainly does not seem to quiet the bees, in fact every time I use it the noise in the hive goes up, indicating to me that they are aggravated, not quieted.
I also saw (I think) my first hive beetle in the hive. It seemed bigger than I remember, but I squished it anyway. It was in Hive #2.

All in all, my lazy beekeeper style seems to have paid off :) I am about to go away for about another month so I am hopeful that they will be fine. I assume I will be readying them for the winter by then.

The end is near :(

I got the honey back from my extractor helper - 3 more quarts. This honey is darker than what I have gotten up to now. We'll see how it tastes.

I put the empty frames back in the hives. I only found one full frame of honey that I was willing to take - this may be the last for the season.

Honey and mix-um up

Into the hives again. It is the end of the nectar flow in this area so I also decided to take a look all the way down in the hives to see what was going on.

Hive #2 & 3. I took one frame from hive #2 and four frames from hive #3. When I went through all the boxes I found that the bottom box in both hives were essentially empty. They had pulled comb but not much of anything in them. So in both cases I swapped boxes 1 and 2 and put the brood filled box on the bottom. I hope this makes sense, I'll check with some of the experts and see what they say.

Hive #1 has essentially mixed brood in with all of the honey. There is a lot of honey in the box but I am not willing to sacrifice the brood to get it.

Hive #4 is still a small batch of bees, they are still mostly in one medium box. If they do not start to grow I will probably need to combine this hive with one of the others at some point.

From last weeks honey run - we got 6 quarts of honey! All of this is now in cute little bears.

Bears and more honey!

I took the honey that we had been temporarily storing in quart jars and put them in 8 oz. plastic bears. I bought a case of 396 bears and after today am glad I bought that many! The jars I had on hand filled up over 30 bears.


I also went into the hives an removed 8 more medium frames of honey. Probably two of them could have stayed, but I pulled them first before getting to the heavy ones. One of the frames I cut out of the frame for my family to use for comb honey - yummy!

For the record, I got five of the frames from hive #2. The heavy ones were down in the second box The other three frames came from Hive #3, again down a box. I didn't get anything off of Hive #1, but there was a mess of brood in there. I think they are a little off normal timing after the swarms. I also took a look in Hive #4 and found that it had not changed or grown much, it may still be a little early. We'll keep watching it and see what happens.

Bottom Boards

I have two different bottom boards (the boards on the bottom:) on my hives. Simple solid boards and screened bottom boards. Supposedly the screened bottom boards are good for two reasons: they allow for better circulation in the hive and they allow any "mites" to fall through to the ground and therefore it is more difficult for them to climb back on the bees. Here is a picture of my two hives on the stand with two different bottoms.


The one on the right is solid and the one on the left is screened. Notice that the bees are huddled near the entrance on the right - they are actually trying to cool off the hive in the blistering heat we had today. So - it looks like the screened bottom board is working!

4 more quarts = 5 more stings!

Well I have to fess up and admit that I have not used the smoker the last two times in the hive. It is a pain for me to get going and I have read that it may cause the honey to taste smoky. But, of course, this could be the reason I have become a human dart board.

For the records I got 4 more quarts of honey from the last pull. This means from Hive #1 I have gotten a total of 6 quarts of honey and from Hives #2 and #3 about a quart a piece. This is actually pretty amazing to me as folks had lowered my expectations to the point that I thought I might not be geting any this year.

Fortunately, I have a near infinite supply of quart jars. I have ordered some plastic bears to put the honey in - it will be our gift of choice this year if we get enough to go around :)

Back to the hives - In hive #1 I had put in two medium frames were I took out the deeps to extract the honey. On the bottom of one of the medium frames they had pulled the most beautiful comb in just four days! They had it partially filled with honey. This is were I got in trouble with the bees. I was afraid to shake the bees off too aggressively for fear that this comb would break off and fall into the hive. So I decided to just brush them off. They didn't like this one but. Three of them got me on the back of the hand again simultaneously. I yelped and jumped a few feet all the time brushing the rest of the bees off of the comb - it would have made a good video :). If I had been smarter, I probably should have just cut the comb off the bottom of the frame and shook the remaining bees in the box.

I got into similar trouble in Hive #3 when replacing the emply comb and got stung two more times on the same hand.

OK, so smoke next time and minimal brushing.

Again, fortunately, the ill effects from these stings have been nonexistent after the first 30 second - ouch. But the honey is goooood.