Super on the hill hive

On my lunch break today, 5/31, I popped by the house and put a medium super on the hill hive!  This is a pretty exciting event in my young beekeeping career- expanding the colony I was so worried wouldn't make it.

Interlachen - defensive hive

My father-in-law, John, mentioned that one of his hives got a couple stings on him through his gloves.  This hive has been a bit more defensive than the others since we got it.  It's by no means unbearable, but it's a little trickier to work.  We'll have to keep an eye on this and consider requeening if they don't simmer down.  John's of the opinion that a hive that's a little more defensive isn't necessarily a bad thing in that rural area - more predators to defend against.  Though, I don't want to propagate a genetic line that is overly defensive.  We'll see how they shape up and look at what other qualities they exhibit.

Tropical Storm Beryl and other weather/climate notes

Here in Gainesville we didn't get too much in the way of wind, but we got a goodly amount of rain.  Aside from keeping the bees home for several days there appears to have been no negative effect on my backyard apiary.  I hope we're so lucky for the remainder of this Hurricane season.

We needed the rain badly as we've been in a long drought here.  Hopefully the water helps my garden and other neighborhood flora bounce back a little before the brutal heat of summer sets in.

On the local NPR station I happened to hear a gardening spot in which the expert mentioned that the USDA climate zone lines are being moved a bit due to the general upward shifts in temperature.  He mentioned that this means certain tropical plants will be viable in North Florida going forward.  Also, a number of annual plants will become perennial  in the warmer conditions.  I assume this will also assist the northward movement of Africanized Honey Bees.

Hive inspection 5/26

This was a full inspection of both of Gainesville hives.  It went well and was the first time I'd opened the hives without sleeves.  Careful work + luck + docile bees = no stings!

Both hives seem to be doing well - I found a queen in both hives which is a first!  Also, lots of brood in both colonies.

There's a tropical storm coming this way later this weekend.  In anticipation of bad weather I went ahead and put a couple bricks on top of the hives.

Pink hive - these ladies have had the 9-frame honey super for four full days, and still no noticeable sign of drawn comb.  That being said, I'm using the "natural" color foundation on these frames, so it's a little harder to see newly drawn comb compared to the black foundation.  Otherwise, this colony is doing well - found the queen as well as lots of brood.  Brood now spans about 7 frames in the deep box and a portion of the middle 5  or 6 frames in the medium.  Very pleased with this colony's progress.

Notes:

• lots of bees home, but relatively docile - had to use a fair amount of smoke, but wasn't stung.
• took out the beetle blaster to clean and forgot to put it back - oh well, shb population seems to be under control
• full medium is very heavy... don't care to even try lifting the deep :)
• fair amount of wax drawn on queen excluder below honey super, cleaned that up some.
• found about 6 or so open queen cells on the bottoms of the oldest-looking wooden frames in the deep.  Will keep an eye on this.
• This hive is doing well, so I don't want to bother them again for awhile- need to wait two weeks for next inspection

Hill hive - this hive is definitely back on track!  Not only are there lots of brood now, but I found my queen too!  I can't quite express how happy this makes me.  As a new beekeeper it was scary having a queenless hive!

Notes:

• Queen!!!
• colony now drawing towards outside frames.
• shifted empty frame from one side to the other as colony growth was tending towards the one side of the box.
• will need to super soon! (probably next weekend)

On a "New Beekeeper, WTF?" note I should mention that while scraping some burr comb off of a frame in my pink hive I accidentally decapitated a worker bee.  I didn't realize what had happened at first, but then realized that her head was slowly being replaced by a golden glob of liquid that was viscous enough to form a big, round drop or bubble where the head had been.  It dawned on me that this was honey and that I had some on my hive tool and fingers... so I ate some.  This was a strangely gruesome and fascinating experience.  

5/21 Inspection

On Monday, 5/21 I went back into the hives at my house to check on a couple things: Hill Hive: queen progress/presence and transplanted brood frame progress; Pink Hive: brood super usage

Hill hive: To my pleasant surprise I found this colony to be expanding a little onto some of the unpulled frames.  Also, the beetle trap had about ten beetles in it.  I didn't notice many free-ranging beetles either, so I think they might be getting ahead of that problem.  It probably doesn't hurt that the frame of brood I'd transplanted into this hive has 95%+ emerged at this point, so there are more bees to harass the beetles and do other useful things like draw comb.  For the second inspection in a row I failed to find the queen that I spotted back on the 10th.  However, I saw a few groups of larvae and even some capped brood on old comb (not the easy-to-see freshly pulled stuff.  So perhaps just because of the dark wax I've been missing some signs of the queen.  I'm still under the impression that this queen is young and probably not fully up to speed with laying yet. Though seeing some reproduction is extremely encouraging.

Next visit to this hive I'll be looking for continued progress with generating brood.  I intend to take a small flashlight for peering down into the dark comb to see what I now assume I've been missing.

Pink Hive: This colony continues to appear to thrive.  They've completely filled the medium super I'd given them to expand the brood box.  There's some brood, and LOTS of honey (or syrup) stowed away up there making the medium frames quite heavy.  To my inexperienced eye, this medium led me to believe they were in risk of getting honey bound.  So I introduced a queen excluder and another medium with 9 frames in hopes of giving them some more storage space and maybe getting some honey this year.  I didn't go into the deep hive body, and I didn't hunt for the queen.  I worry a bit that I'm neglecting them because of their success... I'm sure they don't mind.

Like the Hill Hive, these bees seem to be getting ahead of their beetle infestation.  I didn't notice many at all.  I guess the traps are helping.

This brings me to some concerns I have about honey.  I'm optimistic that there's still enough nectar flow to allow them to partially fill the new super.  Prior to adding the honey super I'd stopped feeding syrup 4+ days prior and was able to shake some moisture out of the honey frames.  I've heard that's a good indication that they're still getting nectar from somewhere.  I do still see a fair amount of blooms around my area, but it might be getting late in the season considering what a hot, dry year we're having.  All this to say, I'm alternating between cautiously optimistic and slightly pessimistic about my chances of getting any sort of reward this spring.  Oh well, my goal for the first year as a beekeeper was to keep the bees alive and successfully manage their population.  Honey is supposed to be an afterthought this year, but it's so tempting!

5/18 Inspection

It had been almost a week since I spotted the young queen in my struggling hill hive.  My goal for this inspection was to check on her progress.  Also I need to perform a general checkup on the pink hive to see how they're doing with the additional brood space I'd given them a little over a week ago by removing their queen excluder to their med super. This inspection was performed fairly early in the morning, about 9am, and the sky is pretty overcast- they're not super active out front, so I suppose there will be lots of bees home.

Hill hive - they still have some capped brood on the transplanted frame.  They still haven't drawn comb on the outermost frames (outer two on one side) and there were a number of SHB in the empty space.  There's a beetle blaster with canola oil out there, but only one beetle carcass inside.  Perhaps I need to move this inwards  by a frame to bring it closer to the action - cede the outermost frame to the beetles for the moment :(.  Anyway, I still don't see any signs of a laying queen and this time I didn't spot a queen, so my optimism from last inspection is a bit bruised.  That being said, if she's still alive and didn't die on her mating flight beekeeping math says there's still a chance.  According to the table on Michael Bush's website it looks like the time between the queen's emergence and her start of laying is 12 days plus or minus 5 days each way.  So it was 5/10 that I noticed the bees were tearing down the queen cells and decided to transplant the brood frame from another hive.  Then it was 5/12 that I spotted the new queen.  So here's a possible timeline for her progression, again based on Michael Bush's Queen Rearing Page:

1. Emerge 5/10 or thereabouts (this is when I saw the queen cells being torn down)
2. Harden for 2 or 3 days (5/10 - 5/13)
3. Orientation Flights for 2 or 3 days (5/13 - 5/16)
4. Mating Flights for several days we'll say 4 - (5/16 - 5/20)
5. Start of laying (5/21 - 5/23) - 12 days would be ~ 5/22 margin of error is 5 days either side
6. Then it would be another 3.5 days for any eggs to hatch and a couple more days until easily visible larvae.

So this means I should start seeing larvae by the end of the month.  In the meantime it would be reassuring to see the queen again - I didn't see her on this hive inspection on 5/18.

Pink hive - these ladies are doing well.  They're expanding the brood chamber up into the medium super I've given them- I saw a number of eggs up there.  The population seems strong and I spotted the queen in the deep  box.  I didn't inspect every deep frame, but on one I did notice some open cells on the bottom of the frame.  I'll need to keep an eye out for swarm cells, even though based on how much room they've got I wouldn't expect them to swarm.  I have stopped feeding them 5/16 so that I can do a shake for nectar flow on 5/21.  I hate feeding them, but it's still not clear to me that we have a flow going on- they're certainly happy to take the sugar water.  At this point though, they've stored enough sugar water that I they should be able to survive on stored without feeding regardless of nectar flow for at least a while.  This pink hive has drawn comb on pretty much every frame I've given them, so they don't need the energy to draw comb anymore.  I just don't want to push them into drawing comb on a foundation-only honey super unless there's actually a nectar flow (duh).  It's worth mentioning that there's still some SHB in this hive, though with their greater population this hive seems to be coping - they driven lots of the little buggers into the beetle trap.

5/12 Hill Hive - check for brood frame acceptance

A couple days had passed since transplanting a good healthy frame of brood into the hill hive- everything from eggs to a few capped brood with all sizes of larvae in between.  I decided to check and see if the queen-less hive had accepted the brood and whether or not they built any queen cells off of this frame.  They had accepted the frame - it was almost entirely capped - wall to wall capped brood on one side now.  No queen cells though.  So my thinking was that either this hive has already produced a queen from some of the earlier queen cells I'd seen on other frames, or they're coming off the rails and not responding in a desirable way to being queenless.

As I was inspecting the frame my wife was standing off behind me and asked about what I was inspecting.  So I carried the frame over to her to show her the various stages of bee brood.  As I held up the frame to point out areas of capped and uncapped brood I spotted a queen!  My eye is not trained or experienced on this matter, so I can't say much more than "I saw a queen".  I'm not sure if she was big enough to have been mated, I suspect not since she would have only recently emerged.  Needless to say I rushed the frame back over to the hive and reinserted it carefully!

So my hope is/was that this hive is in the process of righting itself.

Inspection and Intervention

Last night I performed the most complex operation within my hives to date.  The problem I'm trying to solve is that one of my hives, the "hill hive" is queenless.  Last weekend it looked like they had several emergency queen cells capped.  The hope is that they'll be able to raise their own queen.  However, upon inspection yesterday it looked like they were tearing down at least a couple of those queen cells, so either there's a virgin queen on the loose in that hive or they've given up on the emergency process.  In the former case, I have a hard enough time finding  a mated queen so there's no chance I'm going to find a virgin queen.  In the latter case, they're doomed.  Either way it looked like they were running out of capped brood, and there had been no uncapped brood for awhile.  So unless I intervened there wasn't going to be much of a chance for this hive to right itself and even if they could there was/is going to be a break in the brood cycle.  So with all this in mind I decided to put a brood frame from my healthy hive into the struggling hive.

I found a good looking, brand-new brood frame in the other hive that had all stages of baby bees - eggs, larvae, and even some capped brood.  I shook the bees off this frame and moved it into the struggling hive.  Fingers crossed, I hope this helps them.  I hope they have enough nurse bees to tend the brood frame I've given them.  They still had some capped brood and brood has been emerging over the past little while, so there *should* be some decent young bees in there.

Some other notes:

• The healthy "pink hive" has brood going on 8 out of 10 frames in the deep box and they've nicely drawn comb up in the medium super.  I went ahead and removed the queen excluder to give her room in the super to lay.  Based on what I've heard from other beekeepers in the area this is likely the final brood chamber configuration.  Anything above that will be queen-excluded honey supers.
• I found eggs on a non-black foundation frame in my healthy hive - my eye for spotting eggs is getting better.
• My eye for spotting my unmarked queen is still not so great.  I was unable to find her.  Though I was careful to make sure she wasn't on the frame I stole for the struggling hive.
• Beetle traps with apple cider vinegar don't work.  I've heard of folks doing this, but all of my vinegar evaporated within a week.  Perhaps this is a characteristic of warm weather - outside temps have been in the upper 80s/low 90s this past week.  Anyway, I've redeployed my traps with canola oil.

Interlachen hives - my first inspection

Today, 5/8, was my first opportunity to inspect the two hives my father-in-law is keeping at his house.  He's opened them up a couple times and indicated they seemed to be doing well and expanding at similar rates.  I was thrilled to find that both of his hives are doing great!  Both hives have tons of capped and open brood.  Additionally, he's been more aggressive about feeding and it shows - he's got lots of capped honey/syrup.  We also found eggs thanks to the black plastic foundations.  I expect he'll be adding supers to his hives within a week or so.  It was also interesting to see that one of his hives had noticeably darker bees.  We suspect this is a little more dominant caucasian genetics in that hive.

Cinco de Mayo Hive Inspection

On Saturday, 5/5, Susan from the Gainesville Area Bee Club was kind enough to come by my house to help inspect my hives.  She was full of great information and it was a real privilege to have her expertise available during my inspection.  As a new beekeeper I find that watching other people perform hive inspections is useful, but not nearly as helpful as having an experienced beekeeper backstop me while I do the work.  Last Thursday my friend Martin, another novice beekeeper, and I thought we were seeing two very different and interesting scenarios play out in my backyard hives (previous blog post):

1. My "hill" hive looked like the brood cycle has been broken - no open brood, no other indications of an active queen.  Also, some large cell structures in the middle of frames.  We thought perhaps this colony had gone queenless and was trying to create an emergency queen.  With Susan's assistance I was pleased to find out that we were right; however, I was obviously sad to realize one of my hives is in such difficulty.
2. My "pink" hive was bustling and seemed to be doing very well.  They're drawing the expansion brood frames and super frames nicely.  With Susan's help we were able to find the queen!

Martin was again present for this inspection and was kind enough to take a number of photos during the inspection.  These have been useful for going back and revisiting what we were seeing.

We also decided to add some beetle blasters as both my hives were suffering from a decent population of small hive beetles.  Martin helped out by loading the traps with apple cider vinegar.

After the inspections at my house I met Susan at a location where she keeps a couple hives.  I assisted with her inspections (mostly by trying to stay out of the way) as she was moving frames between her honey super and her brood super.  This was an interesting process in which she was attempting to bring largely unused frames down into the brood chamber (first med super)  to provide the queen more laying room (her deep hive bodies were chock full of capped brood).  Simultaneously, she was moving honey frames from the first super up into the honey super.

All in all I think this was a wonderfully educational experience and I feel so much more confident after having worked through a handful of inspections with an experienced beekeeper.  This is yet another example of why I feel the master/apprentice system of learning a craft is so effective.  This sort of one-on-one guided learning is really the best way to accumulate experience and confidence.  Thanks Susan!

One of Martin's photos of my queen.

Second inspection

I've inspected my hives for a second time today.  The "hill" hive continues to lag - bees on original 5 nuc frames, but not much else.  No clear presence of open brood - still a fair amount of capped brood.  I'll check for signs of queen again in a couple days and intervene if necessary.  I've asked a more experienced bee keeper from the local club to lend a hand on next inspection.


The "pink" hive continues to bustle and expand.  They're beginning to draw out the frames in the medium super I put on two days ago.  Lots of capped and uncapped brood.  Overall looks great.  Didn't find the queen today, but signs abound that she's in there working.  Noticed a number of queen cells near the bottom of frames.  Will probably intervene w/ assistance upon next inspection.

First Inspection, First Impressions

Only 4 days into having bees in my backyard I was becoming concerned due to the apparent crowded-ness of one of the hives.  I decided to do an open hive inspection to see how much they'd expanded in the single, deep hive body and found that the colony which had been on five nuc frames was actively drawing comb on all 10 frames and every frame was crowded with bees. This led me to the decision to go ahead and add a medium super and a queen excluder. 

Since I was opening hives, I decided to go ahead and check my second hive.  This colony is still mostly on the original five frames.  The brood pattern had more open spots.  I decided to check on the health of the queen - decided to look for her and check for eggs.  Didn't find a queen (probably due to my inexperience).  I *think* I saw some eggs, but I'm not sure.  And I don't recall if there were uncapped larvae.   I saw something that could be an emergency queen cell, or maybe a supercedure cell... not sure (again due to lack of experience).

Afterwards I reflected on a few things:

1. open hive inspections are intense and lead to extreme focus - nothing to focus the senses like working with 50,000 stinging insects
2. on first hive I assessed for overall population and expansion throughout brood box because there were lots of bees
3. on second hive I was more concerned with finding evidence of an actively laying queen - inexperience prevented conclusions
4. missed opportunity on first hive to assess for more information - were there swarm cells, how was brood pattern, etc?
5. I have some hive beetles, I wonder if tweezers might be a handy tool to grab them.   Anyway, need to get some beetle blasters
6. probably need to develop a standard open hive inspection checklist to work through to minimize missed opportunities (at least until I have more experience and better intuition)

How this all got started

I'm a brewer.  Back on Mead Day 2011 while brewing with a dozen or more members of the Hogtown Brewers our group brew was invaded by thousands upon thousands of honeybees.  I'm not sure where they came from and therefore don't know if they were managed or feral, but I found them absolutely fascinating.  They descended upon everything that had honey on it including my big, charismatic brew spoon (I've got a picture of that somewhere...).  Anyway, while the thousands of bees were mingling with the twenty or so brewers over the span of several hours only one person I know of was stung. The sting was because a hapless bee managed to crawl down someone's shirt leading to panic, swatting, and subsequently a sting.  Otherwise, the day went without incident for the brewers (a handful of bees died as they found their way into hot mead must or drown in carboys).

Some months later my next door neighbor, also a brewer, mentioned that our brew club was going to collaborate with a local beekeeping club to provide a mead brewing demo.  Somewhere in that conversation UF's Bee College was mentioned as another collaboration point for our brew club.   Fast forward again a couple months when one of my coworkers mentioned that he was interested in becoming a beekeeper and that he was planning to attend UF's bee college.  So in February of 2012 I tagged along with my neighbor, my coworker, and some friends from the Hogtown Brewers who were going to provide some mead samples at the Gainesville Area Bee Club meeting.  At this meeting Jeanette from UF's Honey Bee Research & Extension Lab gave a half-hour presentation on honeybee diseases, pests, and predators.  It was terrifying, way over my head, and absolutely fascinating. 

At this point I became convinced that I needed to look into beekeeping further.  I'm not fatalistic, but sometimes unexpected opportunities knock pretty loudly.  So in early 2012 I decided read a couple books on the subject of beekeeping.  I was interested and as it turns out my father-in-law, John, had kept bees some years back.  His attempts didn't fare particularly well, but he seemed interested in picking it back up.  So he and I decided to attend UF's Bee College program in March of 2012.

Bee college was great, and afterwards we hatched a plan.  I would keep a hive or two at my suburban house in Gainesville, FL and John would help me out if I kept a hive our two out at his house in a rural area near Interlachen, FL.  A few visits to the Dadant branch up in High Springs sealed the deal - I was on the list for four colonies.