The Eye of the Bee Holder

Urban Beekeeping Webinar

2010-01-05T17:57:00.000-08:00

Brushy Mountain Bee Farm is offering a webinar on urban beekeeping, for all you city folk. It's free but you need to register.

Online Seminars:

Urban Beekeeping: Dos and Don'ts - Ins and Outs

If you live in an urban area and are keeping bees or have thought about keeping bees than you won't want to miss this. We will have a conversation with 3 urban beekeepers with very different backgrounds and approaches. Cindy Bee, a beekeeper in the Atlanta, GA area, Toni Burnham in Washington, DC, and Cameo Wood in San Francisco. Registration is free but space is limited.

Title: Urban Beekeeping: Dos and Don'ts - Ins and Outs
Date: Sunday, January 24. 2010
Time: 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM EDT
Space is limited. Reserve your Webinar seat now at: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/153470658

After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.

System Requirements:
PC-based attendees Required: Windows® 2000, XP Home, XP Pro, 2003 Server, Vista

Macintosh®-based attendees Required: Mac OS® X 10.4 (Tiger®) or newer

Winter bee update

2009-12-20T12:45:00.000-08:00

As 2009 draws to a close, I have two full hives and a nuc that I am attempting to overwinter. One of my hives died out in November (I think mites got them, but I'm not too sure. A family of mice quickly moved into the hive and I don't have the heart to evict them since it's so cold.)

We just got about 15 inches of snow. I made sure there was adequate ventilation in each hive, but there's not a whole lot more I can do. The over-winter fate of each hive is pretty much determined in the fall. They either have adequate food and are mite free enough to make it through the winter, or they are not. Hopefully, all three of my hives will make it.

Slideshow of White House bees

2009-11-06T16:00:00.000-08:00

Here is a link to an interesting slideshow in the New York Times featuring the White House beekeeper. Pretty cool.

It's totally awesome that anarchist bees are living on the grounds of the most recognizable symbol of our republic. Yay anarchy!

Harvest time!

2009-07-05T16:32:00.000-07:00

I harvested two medium supers of honey from my carnies. They made three supers of honey this year, but I am leaving them with one super for winter. The two supers I took yielded about 4 gallons of honey, which weighs about 50 pounds.

I used a honey extractor which worked pretty well. Some people prefer to use the "crush and strain" method, which boggles me. To me, that is akin to destroying the greenhouse to get out the plants. The most valuable asset a beekeeper has is drawn comb, so crushing the comb to get honey seems a little strange to me. By extracting, I can use the same frames with already drawn comb to give my bees a jump on storing nectar next year.

The worst part was getting the honey from the bees, mostly because it was a hot July day and it was no fun to wear a bee suit. I used a combination of a fume board and an air compressor to blow the bees off the frames. Both of these methods worked well.

I drained all the honey into a clean bucket, and I will filter and bottle it later. Yay!

Necar flow drawing to a close

2009-05-31T06:24:00.000-07:00

The main nectar flow in my area is just about over for the year. I had a pretty good year, as I have at least 3 medium supers full of honey and I captured a swarm from one of my hives which is doing great. The second swarm that I captured appears to have absconded.

My Carniolans have done especially well this year. I have two full supers of honey from that hive and added a third super of foundation which they are drawing out. That hive is on a scale and I take daily weight measurements. One day they gained 17 pounds! That is quite a lot of nectar. They have had lots of other days in which they gained more than 10 pounds. During the month of May, they gained about 100 pounds (that 100 pounds is adjusted to account for the weight of stuff that I added like the super bodies, frames, etc., so it represents only the weight of what the bees have collected from flowers). They did not swarm and have worked hard all spring.

Another swarm!

2009-05-17T08:31:00.000-07:00

My Italians swarmed again. In fact, they threw off two swarms at the exact same time, and I was fortunate enough to witness the entire thing. In fact, I was able to capture one of the swarms, but the other was much too high up in a tree.

Below are some pics of me capturing one of the swarms. I am fresh out of spare hives to put any more bees in, although I do have an order from BetterBee for two more hive bodies and plastic frames that shipped the same day I got this swarm.

Hopefully this swarm will not get too restless in a cardboard nuc box, which is their home for now.

Swarm is queenright!

2009-05-16T10:17:00.000-07:00

I inspected the swarm that I captured earlier this week, and I located the queen. She is not marked, which surprised me because I thought she would be this queen. She is laying lots of eggs already (some can be seen in the photo of the queen below), and I am sure this is going to be a great hive.

The swarm is not drawing out the plastic frames at all. However, these particular plastic frames are not coated with beeswax which makes a big difference in how well the bees will draw comb on them. The reason there is drawn comb in this photo is because I put some frames in with my swarm that were already drawn. Today, I added three wooden frames with beeswax foundation. I'll be curious to see how quickly those get drawn out.

Swarm!

2009-05-11T18:47:00.001-07:00

As I was afraid of, my Italians swarmed today. The good news is that I was able to capture the swarm and hive it. I don't have any pictures of the swarm, which is kind of lame, but it was a large one. Since my hives are scales and I take note of the weights everyday, I do know that my Italians dropped 6 pounds since yesterday. Most or all of that was attributable to the swarm.

The swarm landed on the ground which kind of surprised me. I basically started scooping them up and putting them in the box. I had some drawn comb in the box which they seemed to like. I didn't see the queen, which I know is marked. I'll do an inspection this weekend and figure out what's up with the queen.

Time to super up!

2009-04-08T19:13:00.000-07:00

I saw dandelions on the way home from work! In my area, that is a sure sign that the nectar flow is starting. My Italians are already supered up with foundation (as opposed to already drawn comb), and earlier this week I finished putting a thick coat of beeswax on some more plastic frames so I can super my Carnies as well. The third year might be the charm for a surplus honey crop!

Just look at my Italians. They are kicking butt and taking names. If they don't swarm, they are going to collect tons of nectar.

Bat fungal infection

2009-04-05T09:48:00.000-07:00

This is not bee related, but it is interesting. A fungal infection called white-nose syndrome is wiping out bat populations in the Northeast. I put out my bat house, I'll be curious to see if I can attract some bats this year.

As creepy as some people find them, bats play important roles in plant pollination, seed dissemination and pest control. One little brown bat can consume 1,000 mosquito-size bugs in an hour. Their appetite for pests spares U.S. farmers an estimated $1 billion a year in crop losses and insecticide costs.

White-nose syndrome first appeared in 2006, in a cave near Albany, N.Y. Hibernating bats were found with a white substance on their faces and wings. All were emaciated; many were dead.

Some were clustered near the cave entrances or flying nearby long before they should have left hibernation and before enough insects had emerged to sustain them.

Genetic analysis revealed the fungus to be an unknown member of the cold-loving Geomyces genus. A similar fungus has been seen on bats in Europe, but it has not killed them, Haskew said. It's possible the fungus was somehow transported into North America and began spreading among native bats that have no natural resistance.

The fungus is not known to affect humans, and scientists are only beginning to learn how it affects bats. Some suspect it is an irritant that causes them to awaken frequently during hibernation. A Bucknell University study found that infected bats were waking every two to three days. Disease-free bats rouse every 10 to 18 days.

The frequent disruptions apparently cause the bats to burn too much body fat. They leave the cave too soon in search of food that isn't there, and they starve.

By 2007, the contagion had spread to more caves in upstate New York. By late winter 2008, it was devastating hibernation sites, or hibernacula, in Vermont, Massachusetts and Connecticut. Hundreds of thousands of bats died, 90 percent to 100 percent of each colony.

Trex Bottom Board

2009-03-15T12:52:00.000-07:00

Of all the parts of a beehive, the bottom board takes the hardest beating. This is one of the reasons that most people paint the entire surface of their bottom boards (as opposed to just painting surfaces that are exposed to the elements). Surprisingly, I have not seen any bottom boards made of anything more durable than wood.

Therefore, I am toying with making a screened bottom board out of Trex. Trex is an extremely durable product that is made from wood and plastic fibers. It is a very popular material to make decks out of because it holds up so well outdoors, but I have not seen any beehive components made from Trex. Trex is pretty expensive, but I was able to salvage a few short pieces from a dumpster at a construction site last summer. I already used some of it to make a pretty cool Trex birdhouse. Below is a pic of a rough prototype. I can't wait to finalize assembly and throw it under one of my hives.

Can CCD be prevented by supplmental protein?

2009-03-08T17:33:00.000-07:00

There was an interesting article in The Economist this week that struck me as a bit dismissive of Colony Collapse Disorder. There may be merit to the argument put forth, but that is for the scientists to decide. The article suggests that feeding bees supplemental pollen that is rich in protein may significantly combat CCD. In other words, CCD can be mitigated by a healthy honeybee diet.

The evidence offered is that almonds have a low protein content, and more than half the hives in the USA end up in California performing almond pollination each year. CCD meant that there were not enough bees to pollinate the almonds and contract prices went from $35 per hive to about $200 per hive. This caused many beekeepers to feed their bees supplements to keep them healthy to chase those higher fees. The protein supplements introduced into the bees' diets appear to have led to a surplus of bees available for this year's almond pollination.

This year’s Californian bee glut, then, has been caused by a mixture of rising supply meeting falling demand. The price of almonds dropped by 30% between August and December last year, as people had less money in their pockets. That has caused growers to cut costs, and therefore hire fewer hives. There is also a drought in the region, and many farmers are unlikely to receive enough water to go ahead with the harvest. Meanwhile, the recent high prices for pollination contracts made it look worthwhile fattening bees up with supplements over the winter. That may help explain why there have been fewer colony collapses.

The rise and fall of the managed honeybee, then, owes as much to the economics of supply and demand as it does to the forces of nature. And if the nutrition and disease theory is correct, next year’s lower contract prices may see beekeepers cutting back on supplemental feeding, and a resurgence of CCD.

Again, I can't speak to the merits of this "diet centered" argument, but it does not seem completely absurd to me. My bees have had no CCD related problems, but in Maryland we have really good pollen sources.

First inspection of 2009!

2009-02-08T17:30:00.000-08:00

Since we had some decent 60 degree weather in central Maryland, I was able to inspect both my hives for the first time in the new year. My expectations prior to inspection that hive #1 would be fine, and hive #2 would be nearly dead. After all, hive # 2 was knocked over for an unknown amount of time, rained on while knocked over, and was very light (i.e. low of food stores) when I put it back together. I did notice some activity, so I knew that hive #2 was not completely dead, but I figured it was just a matter of time.

Much to my surprise, both hives are doing extremely well. The stronger of the hives is hive #2, which as a fair amount of honey left (although don't ask me where it came from). Below is a shot of a frame from hive #2, showing the queen.

My gut at this point is that hive #2 may throw off an early swarm. Therefore, I am hoping just to use them to draw out comb this year, and get my first honey crop from hive #1. I guess the third year is the charm!

Beeswax Lip Balm

2009-01-18T14:56:00.000-08:00

For my birthday, I received this lip balm kit. It comes with all you need (even the beeswax) to make 24 containers of lip balm. 12 of the containers are the "lipstick tube" type and 12 are small jars.

So far, I have made four containers worth (two of each type). It was really easy and it only takes about 10 minutes or so to melt the wax and carefully pour it into the containers. You don't need a fancy wax melter, I just used a queenline honey jar and a saucepan with some hot water. Then you just have to wait for it to dry into its solid form. It comes with a variety of flavoring oils so you be creative.

This time I made a peppermint flavor, and it turned out really cool. I am really looking forward to making some more lip balm with wax from my own bees!

Free hive tools!

2008-12-15T18:54:00.000-08:00

I received a flyer in the mail from Brushy Mountain Bee Farm. The folks at BMBF are giving away hive tools for the holidays, but you can request yours anytime during 2009. You just use the code "FHT" (free hive tool?) when you place an order, and you will get one. You have to order something, of course, and they will only give you one regardless of how many times you order during the year. I order stuff from them, and they have good products. I also have a brushy mountain hive tool, but I really only use it to pack pine needles in my smoker. I prefer the maxant style hive tools, but you can buy those from brushy mountain as well.

Quick Robin, to the bat house!

2008-11-17T17:18:00.000-08:00

Since cold weather is coming on, there is not much going on with the bees other than what is discussed in the post below. One of the things I have been wanting to get for awhile is a bat house. The models that were available at the local outdoor stores did not impress me. So, I checked this book out from the library and used it to make my own bat house.

I made the whole thing out of some leftover cedar boards and plywood from a construction project. The only thing I had to buy was some $4.99 red stain for the plywood parts. I can't wait until spring to put it out and see if some bats take up residence.

Below is a shot of the four inner chambers. There is only 3/4 of an inch between them, but that's enough for the bats:

Bee update

2008-11-17T17:10:00.000-08:00

My original hive has plenty of honey and is hunkered down for the winter. They are most likely going to be fine.

Some bad news on the front of hive number two, however. The hive is situated on a place on my property where I do not see it everyday. I went out one Saturday morning to check on it, and it had been knocked over onto its side. I have no idea how long it was like that, and it rained the day before. When I put it upright, it felt much lighter than I expected, which indicates that the bees may not have enough stores for the winter. I have not inspected the hive, but I think that the queen is still alive because the hive is generally quiet and appears to be acting normal. Even if being knocked over does not do them in, lack of food probably will. I'll try to do some emergency feeding over the winter and see what happens. I have heard that fondant makes good emergency bee feed.

Bumble bee observation nest

2008-10-05T06:26:00.000-07:00

I went to an open house event at an agricultural research facility, and I saw something that is really cool: A bumble bee nest!

The plastic top of the box that they are in is a little cloudy, so it is not possible to get a really clear picture. But you can still make out the pollen pots and see some individual bees. While I was observing them, I saw a new worker crawl out of the cell where it developed!

Pretty soon, these bees will start producing lots of drones and queens. The queens will mate and then hibernate underground for the winter. The drones and the worker bees will die in the fall. In the spring, the queens will emerge and look for a new nest so they can start laying eggs and start the whole process over.

From what I understand from the host of this display, the bees were purchased earlier this year and are used for pollination.

Bee update

2008-10-05T06:11:00.000-07:00

I know haven't posted here for awhile, and that is partly because I have not been doing much for the bees for awhile. Since I did not harvest any honey, I am not feeding very much this year. Last year I made the mistake of feeding too much which I believe made the bees too strong early in April which led to a mid-April swarm. My original hive has a super of honey, so they should make it through the winter just fine. My other hive also has a fair amount of stored sugar syrup from my feedings earlier in the year. Basically, the bees have managed themselves.

The only thing that I did do was treat for varroa mites. In my first hive I used Apistan strips, and the second hive I gave them one packet of Api Life VAR. The directions called for two packs, but the mite counts were so low I did not think that a second pack was necessary. I guess the consequence of this is that the mites that were in capped cells for the two weeks that the Api Life VAR was on the hive were shielded from the mite treatment, but I am not too worried about this given the low mite drops prior to treatment.

You gotta eat

2008-08-23T09:51:00.000-07:00

Here are some still pics of the praying mantis incident.

Lunch!

Nom nom nom

Mine!

2008-08-23T09:45:00.000-07:00

This video has nothing to do with bees, but it does relate to insects. I have a bush in my yard that is loaded with praying mantises. This is a video of a praying mantis eating a cicada, while another praying mantis snatches the cicada from the first. It's dog eat dog out there!

Well, I saw Lon Chaney walking with the Queen...

2008-07-29T18:14:00.000-07:00

If this picture from last year is bearding, what is the pic below? Werewolfing? I have noticed that my second hive beards like crazy, with bees covering the entire front of the hive bodies (the white supers are just concealing a feeder jar). I wonder if this is common among Italian bees?

This hive was started with four frames and a caged queen. They are on plastic foundation, and were not drawing it out very quickly or very well when they had only one box. Before I added the second hive body, I coated the plastic frames with beeswax and they drew that box out in no time flat. They got so strong that I took off the hive top feeder and am just using a feeder jar. My other hive, although healthy, is much weaker than these guys. Of course, I am not feeding the other hive, but I have not removed my only honey super yet either. I fear that this hive may swarm early next year.

Plastic frames

2008-07-12T13:50:00.000-07:00

Earlier this year, I purchased a whole bunch of Pierco plastic frames. I bought 40 black deep frames for the brood chamber and 40 white medium sized frames for my honey supers. I was very much attracted to the "no assembly required" benefit of plastic frames. These frames also have a slightly lower price and the bees do not seem to propolize them as much as wooden frames. Furthermore, they resist wax moth damage to the frame itself.

The only draw back of plastic frames is that bees just don't seem to want to draw comb on them as readily as bees wax frames. Last year my hive drew a medium super of plastic frames pretty easily, but I was feeding them very heavily with a hive top feeder when they were drawing comb on these frames. This year, my second hive is all on plastic frames, but they did not seem to want to draw them out. When they did draw comb, it was shallow and not what I consider to be quality drawn comb.

Although plastic frames are advertised as "beeswax coated", I could sneeze more beeswax on them then what they come from the factory with. I had read in various bee magazines and heard from other beekeepers that coating plastic frames with beeswax will entice the bees to draw them out much better. I tried this, and boy did it work. The frames I had coated in beeswax were drawn out quickly, and the comb looks like the kind of high quality comb you see drawn on frames with bees wax foundation.

Below is a pic of a deep frame before and after being coated with beeswax. Keep in mind that the frame on top was advertised as "beeswax coated". I like Pierco frames, but I criticize them for the scant amount of bees wax in which they put on these frames. I would even be willing to pay for these frames if they came with a decent amount of beeswax on them.

If you are having trouble with plastic frames, purchase some beeswax that you know is disease free, melt it down, and spread it on your plastic frames with a paint brush. Your bees will draw it out much better.

Marking the queen

2008-06-11T16:20:00.001-07:00

My new queens are unmarked and I wanted to mark them. This makes them easy spot, easy to determine the age of, and you know in an instant if the queen you are looking at is the one you put there. Due to an unfortunate incident involving paint and a home renovation project, I am not allowed to paint anything within 100 miles of my house. Therefore, my Omniscient Beekeeper marked the queen for me.

There are 5 colors to paint your queens, the color you use depends on what year the queen was born in. Years ending in 1 and 6 are white, 2 and 7 are yellow, 3 and 8 are red, 4 and 9 are green, 5 and 0 are blue.

"When You Read Good Books" is how I remember this.

You can buy queen marking pens, but we just used child safe paint (i.e. non-toxic) and a small paint brush.

Not too shabby for a first mark.

So far so good

2008-05-31T13:10:00.001-07:00

As we approach the tail end of the main nectar flow in my area, both of my hives are rocking along just fine although I am worried that the swarm from my established hive may have eliminated any possibility of a crop of honey this year. Since I now have two unmarked queens in both hives, I need to get my hands on a paint marker so I can mark them. Marking is a good idea so I know that the queens I see are the ones I are supposed to be there. Here are a few tidbits from last weeks inspection that I just now transferred from the camera to my laptop:

This is a frame from the established hive that is full of eggs (the white specs). The eggs contrast nicely on the black plastic foundation:

Below is a frame from hive #2 which shows some eggs if you look closely. This queen, which is Italian, is doing fine also. This hive just needs to draw out two boxes of comb this year and they will be fine.

Here is a pic of the Italian queen that I installed myself in hive #2:

Below is a pic of the Carniolan queen that my establish hive raised themselves after they swarmed. She is laying nicely as the first pic on this post shows. Notice how much darker the Carniolan queen is when compared to the Italian queen:

Just another Tequilla Sunrise...

2008-05-25T08:37:00.000-07:00

A gentleman who retired from beekeeping 15 years ago gave me some unprocessed wax cappings and let me use his solar wax melter to process the wax. If you have never seen a solar wax melter work, you would not believe how hot it gets. I put my beer making thermometer in the melter along with the wax, and it got up to 180 degrees F. It was not even very hot today, but the sun was shining. This goes to remind us how much energy the sun sends us for free each day, but the plants are the only ones who seem to be able to harness it effectively. We humans resort to paying $135 for a barrel of oil!

Sing for the moment...

2008-05-18T16:02:00.000-07:00

Above is a video of two queens in cages piping at each other. Piping is what queens do to alert each other of their presence. They can do this even in cells. The piping in this video only happens once and very quickly at the beginning.

Hornets!

2008-05-18T10:59:00.000-07:00

First of all, hornets are not bees. They are hornets. But they do have wings and a stinger, so I am somewhat interested in them.

I found a hornet's nest in a flower bed, and I put it along with its sole inhabitant (the hornet queen) in a plastic bag and put it in the freezer so I could inspect the inside later.

Below is the hornet queen after she spent 24 hours in my freezer. She looks pretty mean.

Below is a photo of the hornet larvae. I am not an expert on hornets, but I assume that the queen starts building the nest, laying the eggs, and gathering food all by herself until the "worker" hornets are born to help her out.

Brood!

2008-05-18T10:32:00.000-07:00

I installed my new queens last week, and today I inspected each of my two hives. Both hives released the queens as they should, and therefore both queen cages were empty.

In hive number two, which is my new hive that has only four frames of drawn comb, I did not see any eggs or larvae, but I did see the beautiful Italian queen walking on the comb. I need to mark her next time I inspect this hive. You can use any child safe/non-toxic paint to do so. I also noticed that both hives were quieter during my inspections. Hive number two seems to be starting to draw out the plastic frames, which they did not want to touch last time I inspected. As soon as they get some room, I expect this queen to be laying like crazy.

In hive number one, my original hive, I did not see the new Italian queen but that in itself does not concern me, because there are a lot more frames and more bees in hive number one. What does surprise me is that I saw capped brood! I inspected this hive one week ago and saw no eggs or larvae. It takes 9 days for worker brood to be capped, so either there was a queen, eggs and larvae that I missed last week or this new queen is breaking the rules in the book. I am really not sure what to make of this. This brood was on a white plastic frame, so I guess it is possible I could have missed the white eggs or white brood last week, but I am not so sure. I still did not see a queen, but given the capped brood and visible larvae, I am not to worried about this hive.

I have gone from not knowing anything about bees, to knowing everything (so I thought!) about bees, to realizing that they are complex creatures that will take years of study to understand. They are a challenging hobby.

She ain't no human being...

2008-05-10T10:04:00.000-07:00

I continue to be lazy with my updates, so I am backdating a few posts, starting with this one. My last post noted two challenges: making sure both hives were able to successfully requeen themselves and to get a crop of honey.

Well, after a careful inspection neither of my two hives show any evidence of a queen. I don't see any queens, nor do I see any eggs or larvae. Therefore, I need to purchase a queen for each of my two hives. I called around and found two unmarked Italian queens for $20 each. I installed one in each hive, and I have my fingers crossed that the queens will be accepted by each colony. The queens come in a cage with about 5-10 attendant bees. I have read it is best to remove the attendant bees before putting the queens in the hive. I chose not to do this, because I did not want to risk losing a queen.

The cage the queen comes in has candy on one end that bees like to eat. The theory is that once the queen cage is placed in a hive, the colony will eat the candy and release the queen. By the time the candy is eaten which takes a few days, the colony will have become accustomed to the queen and she will be accepted rather than killed. Fingers crossed...

Here is a crucial swarming fact that I learned: after a swarm, it will take 55-60 days before a new bee emerges that was laid by the queen that the bees raised themselves. Given that it takes 21 days for a worker bee to emerge, that means that the post swarm queen will not lay an egg for 34-39 days! Summer bees only live for about 6 weeks, so the population of the hive will dwindle pretty significantly after a swarm. This is the primary reason that it is difficult to get a crop of surplus honey after a swarm. IMHO, this is also a good reason to purchase a queen rather than let the bees raise their own. However, this break in the brood cycle that results from letting the bees raise their own queen is a good way to kill off varroa mites since the VMs reproduce in capped brood cells.

Despite my lack of updates, much is going on

2008-05-04T06:51:00.000-07:00

I have been very remiss in keeping this blog updated. My bees have actually been keeping me fairly busy. To recap, there were two major events that happened in my apiary recently. The first is that I pulled a four frames of my main hive (one with a queen cell) to start a second hive and to possibly prevent a swarm. The second major event is that my main hive swarmed anyway.

This leaves me with two challenges. Number one, I must make sure both hives requeen themselves. Number two, I want to try to get a honey crop off of hive #1 even though this is more difficult after a swarm.

I think getting a crop of honey off the main hive will be very possible, mainly because I simply pulled the honey super off of that hive and moved a medium super that was sandwiched between two deeps and being used as a brood chamber to the top of the hive. I put a queen excluder beneath the medium super, and hopefully some honey is on its way. To my surprise, the medium super had hardly any brood in it and already had a good bit of honey.

I'll have to wait and see about challenge number one, making sure both hives requeen properly. I did not thoroughly inspect hive #1 because the weather was a bit chilly, so I did not see a queen or eggs in that one, but I will be able to better assess the situation after a thorough inspection. I did thoroughly inspect hive #2, and no queen or eggs was present, although the queen cell had hatched. I also spotted an emergency queen cell. I would expect the queen that hatched to be laying eggs by next weekend, so I know more at that time.

Bittersweet day in the beeyard

2008-04-23T17:20:00.000-07:00

Today is somewhat of a sad day for me. I noticed lots of queen cells during my inspection last weekend, including one that was capped. I put that capped cell and three other frames into a nucbox to start a new hive and possibly prevent a swarm. Unfortunately, that course of action was unable to prevent a swarm. I arrived home from work today and my omniscient assistant beekeeper immediately noticed that there were only a few bees bearding the landing board, which is unusual. Since my hive is on a scale, I checked the weight and I noticed that it decreased 9 pounds from last night. That is a sure sign of a swarm. The above pic is the last picture that was taken of my queen, which was taken during Saturday's inspection before I pulled the nuc off of the main hive.

So, the good news is that I now have two hives since I did a split last weekend, but the bad news is that the main hive swarmed. I was unable to find the swarm anywhere.

Where ever you are queen, good luck and thanks for the memories.

Swarm in the works?

2008-04-16T18:32:00.001-07:00

My hive is doing so well that I am a little bit afraid that my bees might try and swarm on me. Last weekend, when I inspected my hive, I convinced myself that the cells in this picture were just drone cells. However, looking back it appears that these are the beginnings of swarm cells. I am going to have to keep my eye on these, and possibly pull a nuc off this hive in an attempt to prevent a swarm. The benefit of that is that I will get a second hive, but the downside is that my honey production will not be as great as it otherwise would have been.

Another downside is that I will owe my wife $20. She claims that she can read animal behavior very well, and before I even inspected the hive she bet me $20 that the bees were planning on swarming. I agreed to take the bet. She told me that she can read animal behavior so well, she could see that our cat wanted in on the action for $1. So now it looks I am out $21. Rats.

The benefit of letting your bees raise their own queen is that it causes a break in the brood cycle, which does not hurt the bees so much but it does hurt the varroa mites which reproduce in capped cells.

Time to super up

2008-04-10T19:08:00.000-07:00

The nectar flow must be starting in my area. I put my hive on a scale last week, and with the cold weather it has been steadily losing about half a pound or so in weight each day. Today, however, the weather was quite nice and my hive gained four pounds. On my way home, I noticed there are quite a few dandelions beginning to bloom. This all suggests that the nectar flow is here and it must be time to put on the honey supers!

It bites to have mites

2008-03-23T17:45:00.001-07:00

I overwintered my hive with drone comb, and I am wondering if that may have been a mistake. The first inkling of this is when I noticed that my mite drop was higher than I would like (about 25 mites in 24 hours), so I decided to do a sugar dusting and pull out the drone comb. Luckily for me, most of the cells on the drone comb were still capped. This means that that most of the mites were still in those capped cells and had not yet hatched. I pulled out the drone frame and replaced with with a new drone frame of drone comb. I am somewhat lucky with the timing, if I had waited until after these drones hatched, I would have a healthy crop of mites on my bees.

In addition to swapping my drone frame, I also dusted the bees with powdered sugar. Hopefully, today was a big setback for the varroa mites in my hive and a big boost to the health of my bees.

I also gave the bees some light sugar syrup (two parts water to one part sugar) to boost production of new bees. I had noticed that lots of bees were getting water from a nearby bucket with rainwater. When bees are gathering water, that is a sign that brood production is underway (and also a sign that there is no nectar flow underway). I want my bees to raise lots of new bees so they can gather nectar to make honey, but I don't want them to build up too soon so that they swarm. I am walking a fine line, I suppose.

Here kitty kitty...

2008-03-16T11:22:00.000-07:00

I have some unused hive bodies and a few extra plastic frames, so I decided to try my luck with establishing two bait hives. The theory behind bait hives is to simply make a nice place for bees to live and hope a passing swarm will decide to take up residence there. Of course, the success of this strategy is a function of swarming activity in the area. European bees can swarm about once a year, and part of good beekeeping is to reduce swarming tendencies to less than that. Africanized honeybees can swarm eleven times or so per year. Luckily, AHBs have not made it as far north as I am. The best time to catch a swarm is in April, May or June. A swarm caught later than that will not have sufficient time to draw comb and make enough honey to make it through the winter.

I obtained two viles of swarm lure from the State Department of Agriculture to improve my chances. I set up one bait hive "by the book". That is, it is the size of two medium bodies and it has a one inch hole for an entrance. It is also about 10 feet off the ground, sitting on the stairs leading to my woodshop. I would have liked to have some empty drawn comb to put in it, but I have don't have any that is not being used. Instead, I just have a couple plastic frames and foundation in it.

The other bait hive breaks the rules. It is simply two medium nuc bodies stacked on top of each other, and it is sitting right on the ground. I threw in two frames of plastic foundation for good measure.

With a whole lot of luck, maybe one of these hive will catch the eye of a swarm.

Whiskey for my workers, beer for my drones...

2008-03-11T19:11:00.000-07:00

As noted in my first inspection of the year, I found some capped drone cells on the drone frame. Tonight on my hive's landing board, I found the first drone I have seen this year. Unfortunately, he was dead and had obvious varroa mite damage (deformed wings). As soon as the weather permits, I will get the mites that did this and make them pay...

A Tisket, A Tasket...

2008-03-03T18:39:00.000-08:00

...a yellow pollen basket. Actually, it is a corbicula with yellow pollen, but the point is the same. I like this picture for some reason.

Hornets: the other things with wings and stingers

2008-03-02T17:54:00.000-08:00

My assistant beekeeper made me look like a fool. She spotted an object lying on the ground in the distance, which appeared to me to be a chunk of concrete. She identified the object as a "bees nest" (she knows hornets are not bees, but she calls them bees to irk me). I then did what any self respecting beekeeper would do. I asked her if she was smoking crack, because I know a hornet's nest when I see one, and that is not a hornet's nest. Turns out she was right, and I was wrong. It was a hornet's nest.

Obviously, this time of year the nest was not in use, and the gray paper wrapper that would normally surround the comb was gone. There were two distinct layers of comb were the hornets were raising their brood.

The below pic is pretty cool- it is of the lower layer of comb. The cells on the bottom layer are much larger than the cells on the first layer. I think the larger cells are queen and drone cells. Like bumblebees, hornets produce queens and drones at the end of the season. The queens mate and then go underground where they emerge in the spring and build a new nest. This is totally different than what honeybees do. A strong colony of honeybees will make a few new queens, and then just before the new queens emerge, the old queen and half the workers will leave the hive and start a new hive somewhere else. This is called swarming. Back at the old hive, the new queens then emerge and duke it out as to who will become the new queen.

Anyway, check out these hornet queen cells:

The Silver Lining...

2008-02-24T15:25:00.000-08:00

If there is anything good that has come from CCD, it is the way the media has portrayed the hobby of beekeeping. There is a repeat of a good piece about CCD on 60 Minutes tonight, and there was an article in The Examiner that really put hobby beekeeping in a good light.

As beekeepers use antibiotics or chemicals in the fight against mites or viruses, the overall ability to fight off infection declines, entomologists say. Commercial beekeepers, particularly, may turn to antibiotics because they can't risk losing bees.
But hobbyists can. And that means the bees they raise - and that survive - are stronger and will withstand whatever is decimating commercial bees. These bees, known as "survivor bees," could prove to be the saviors, some bee experts believe.
"We need the smaller beekeepers, and it's a fascinating hobby," said Ken Kloepper, president of the St. Clair Beekeepers Association in Illinois. "They can provide a great service to their communities. We need new young blood to keep this thing going."

First inspection of 2008!

2008-02-18T12:05:00.001-08:00

Today, I was able to do my first hive inspection of the year. Let me say right off the bat, my bees are kicking butt and taking names. There were many more bees in the hive than I expected, they have plenty of honey (more likely sugar syrup) stored, and there are several hand-sized patches of brood on several frames. They are bringing in tons of pollen (which is used to make new bees!). The additional super of sugar syrup that I left on the hive remains hardly touched. In fact, I doubt I will need to use a queen excluder this year when I super up for honey, since that super of syrup will keep the queen from laying eggs above it. I was worried that I might need to start feeding soon, but the way things stand right now, I won’t need to worry about feeding for a while.

The most surprising sight in the hive was the presence of capped drone brood on my drone frame- although I did not see any hatched drones. Thinking like a bee for second, I am a little worried that they might decide to swarm. Although this is only a second year queen, they have a ton of food stored, so the queen might decide to establish a new colony (by swarming) since this one is doing so well. If that is the case, I will see some swarm cells in another month or so, in which case I’ll split the hive. That will really put a hurting on the honey crop I was hoping for this year, but I will have two hives instead of one. The beekeeper wants the bees to make honey, but the bees want to make new colonies of bees.

Here they are trucking in a whole lot of pollen:

Here are the capped drone cells:

J. Crew announces a line of beekeeping footwear...

2008-02-18T11:52:00.001-08:00

And no, they are not mine.

The weather is beautiful

2008-02-03T10:14:00.001-08:00

After a few weeks of bitterly cold temperatures, today the weather turned out very nice. My bees took full advantage of the nice weather to do some cleansing flights and other chores outside the hive. It was so nice to see a flurry of activity going on around the hive. It brought back pleasant memories of Spring!

One of the tasks the bees were performing was bringing out the dead. I like to inspect the dead bees to make sure there are no obvious signs of disease. It is difficult to see in this photo, but one of the dead bees had a varroa mite on the underside of its abdomen.

Bee a Beekeeper

2008-01-31T05:43:00.000-08:00

If you are interested in keeping bees, and you live in or near central Maryland, you should consider taking this course. The course is pretty well put together and you are guaranteed to learn a great deal about beekeeping. The course is spread out over the course of a month, with a two and half hour session once a week followed up with a "hands on" class in an apiary (which is a place where bees are kept, derived from the latin bee word "apis".) The environment is informal and there are no tests or anything of that sort.

I have noticed that some other courses around the country are basically set up as a crash course- a one eight hour session. I don't see how anyone could learn anything about an unfamiliar subject in such a manner.

If you can't take the course, but are still interested in learning more about bees, there are plenty of good books that you can check out at the library.

At least they don't produce maggots...

2008-01-21T20:09:00.000-08:00

Anyone who is interested enough in bees to read this blog probably knows that honeybees were brought to America from Europe. I was just reminded of a funny term the Native Americans used for honeybees: "white man's flies".

Random Bumblebee Facts

2008-01-14T17:51:00.000-08:00

Although it does not directly relate to honeybees, the book I am currently reading is pretty good. It is about bumblebees. More specifically, it is about how bumblebees survive in a world of limited resources. Here is a hint: like the rest of us, they learn to be efficient. I had never heard of this book before I picked it up at Borders in the insect section, but anyone who knows about my other blog might find this sentence from the preface somewhat interesting:

"Ironically, while the work on bumblebees in Bumblebee Economics was used as a scientific justification for capitalism as espoused by political free-market advocates...".

Anyway, here are some interesting things that you might not know about bumblebees, and how the evolutionary strategy of bumblebees differ from honeybees:

1. All female bumblebees, like the queen honeybee, have a stinger that is not barbed. This means they can sting multiple times. (OK, most people learn this when they are 5 years old and barefoot.)

2. Bumblebees do not swarm. They produce multiple queens, who mate in the late summer and then find a place to hibernate underground. In the spring, the queens locate a new nest (usually an abandoned mouse nest) and start a new colony. Initially, the queen does all the work until brood is established, including collection nectar and pollen. As the colony grows, the queen devotes more time to laying eggs. In honeybees, of course, the queen is nothing but an egg layer.

3. Bumblebee queens do not lay eggs in cells of honeycomb. Instead, they basically make a clump on pollen, put it on the floor of the nest, and lay eggs on it. The larvae spins their own cocoons which are later cleaned and reused for storing honey and pollen.

4. Bumblebees are tundra adapted insects. Their evolutionary forefathers were from very cold climates.

5. If the queen dies, the workers will lay eggs which become drones (this can happen with honeybees as well).

Cool stuff.

All is quiet on New Year's day...

2008-01-01T18:04:00.001-08:00

Today, I received a bottle of Barenjager as a gift. It is liqueur made from honey. In German, Barenjager means "bear hunter". The lid to the bottle is shaped like a straw skep, and the picture is of some medieval dude luring a bear into a trap with a bee skep. It tastes pretty good straight up- very sweet and very much like honey. At 70 proof, it is honey with a kick.

Wintertime bee update

2007-12-28T11:18:00.001-08:00

Basically, the bees are tucked in for the winter and doing fine. I added a windbreak since the winds were getting a little violent at times. Ideally, it would have been nice to find a spot to park the hive that had natural windbreak of bushes or even a building, but I had no such space available.

Sometimes I pull the cover off the top of the hive and peek down through the hole in the inner cover to see the bees clustered. Everyone seems to be doing just fine in there.

The Eye of the Bee(r) holder

2007-12-28T11:05:00.000-08:00

This post has nothing to do with bees, but anyone who is interested in bees may also be interested in this. Since I had a few days off of work, I figured I'd brew up a batch of beer. The ingredients were purchased from Maryland Homebrew. They had a decent selection of kits with all the ingredients to brew up a batch of whatever your tastes desire. Below is a pic of my custom made brewing oven. The pot can be slid along the angle iron to control the temperature of the brew. Coffee can also be kept warm, as demonstrated in this pic. It looks a little hillbilly, I know, but it was a lot of fun to build and use. We'll see how the finished product turns out.

Update: The beer (or pre-beer substance) is fermenting like crazy. The fermentation process produces alcohol and CO2, and the CO2 must be released without air touching the brew. Hence, there is a fermentation lock on top of the fermentation unit, which basically functions in the same manner as the water trap on a sink or a toilet bowl. Bubbles come up through the water in the fermentation lock which lets me know things are going well. This will continue for about a week, at which point the brew will be siphoned off into a bottling bucket and dextrose sugar will be added. The beer will then be bottled. The dextrose sugar will be consumed by the remaining yeast, which will produce carbonation in the beer, a process that takes about a week. If the fermentation process is too strong, CO2 will build up and the bottles will explode.

Swarm collection box

2007-12-09T14:50:00.000-08:00

Today I converted the cardboard box that my nuc came in into a swarm collection box. I put a frame with foundation in the middle to give the swarm something to crawl around on, and on the top of the box I added four bee escapes, which are basically one-way valves for bees. Bees can go in the box, but they cannot get back out. In theory, I can shake a swarm into the box and put the lid on it. Any bees from the swarm that did not go in the box immediately will eventually go in through the bee escapes, so long as the queen is in the box. I reinforced everything with duct tape, which makes the box more durable and water resistant.

This box is lightweight and is a good thing to put in the car in case you come across a swarm in your travels. I can also store swarm collection tools in the box, such as a bottle of Jim Beam and some Benadryl. Just kidding. Mostly.

I'll be sure to remember the little people...

2007-12-01T10:24:00.000-08:00

Holy cow. Can you believe there are people that actually read this blog? I received "honorable mention" from Bee Culture magazine in an article about bee-related blogs. I am humbled and flattered that the folks at Bee Culture considered my blog for this article. Flattery gets you everywhere with me!

Projects for this winter

2007-11-23T09:09:00.001-08:00

My bees might be done working outside the hive for the Winter, but I have a laundry list of beekeeping chores that need to be completed for this coming season. First, I am hoping for a good honey crop this year so I need to line up bottles and honey processing equipment. I came upon some used equipment, including the pictured honey extractor, that I want to rebuild for next season's harvest. It works well enough, but since it is an older galvanized model (unlike the newer stainless steel models) I want to paint with a product called Cambridge Coatings, which is a food use-approved clear coating that makes it easy to clean. Additionally, I want to build a stand to affix the extractor to, which will allow the hone to drain directly into a bucket that can be used to bottle the honey. Some other honey processing toys that I came across is a hot knife to cut the wax cappings off the frames, and a bunch of bee escapes that can be used to evacuate bees from the honey supers when harvesting. I also have some other extractors, but the one pictured is the one I will likely use. I still need to get a fume board and some cool bottles to put the honey in.

I also want to get a second hive ready just in case I come across any swarms, be they from my hive or anyone else's. And of course, there are plenty of beekeeping books to read this Winter.

Wintertime and the livin's easy...

2007-11-23T08:52:00.001-08:00

My hive is buttoned up and ready for winter. I am wintering in two deeps and medium. I estimate that there is over 100 pounds of sugar syrup and honey in there, so starvation is not a concern of mine. The medium super, which uses the Pierco plastic frames, is all sugar syrup and honey, whereas the two deep boxes contain both brood and honey. I noticed that a few first year beekeepers entered honey in the local fair this year, so I will be curious to see if their bees will have enough food stored to survive the winter. I don't see how it is possible that you could have no bees in April (most folks in my area received their nucs and packages of bees in May this year) and have extracted honey the first week of August without seriously compromising the chances of your bees successfully surviving the winter. I guess we'll see how things shake out this Spring.

I switched the original mouse guard that I made for another one that I made out of 1/4 inch hardware cloth. This new mouse guard allows more airflow, which is important in cold weather so that the condensation produced by the cluster can escape the hive so that the bees are not encased in a block of ice. The new mouse guard also allows more bees to enter and exit when the temperature is over 55 degrees. The previous mouse guard that I made was acting too much like an entrance reducer for my taste.

Speaking of taste, I can taste this Spring's honey crop already...

Scales: Part 2

2007-11-17T06:30:00.000-08:00

I stumbled across a second scale that I can use to park a hive on. This scale (the light blue one) is a 1,000 pound model, unlike my other scale which has a maximum capacity of 500 pounds. I would surprised if even the strongest hive weighs over 300 pounds, even when stacked with full honey supers.

I completely disassembled, wire brushed, primed with rust inhibitor paint, and then reassembled and painted each scale. I also turned the direction of the needle balance, primarily because I prefer the counter weight holder to be toward the rear of the scale. It was a fun process to restore these scales. Each one is over 50 years old, and they are surprisingly accurate.

At least they aren't named Pat...

2007-11-09T17:02:00.000-08:00

An interesting op/ed piece in the New York Times about the inaccuracies in Bee Movie. Of course, everybody knows that Bee Movie is not a documentary (the bees have opposable thumbs and talk, for goodness sakes) but the fact that many worker bees are portrayed as male is unnecessarily inaccurate, and had upset some purists. Here is my favorite part:

If Mr. Seinfeld wanted realism (and an R rating), his male bees would be sex workers who do little more than mate with the queen — after which their genitals snap off. Worse: when winter comes, worker bees shove the freeloading males out into the cold. If drones are required in the spring, the queen will simply make more of them.

Life is tough!

Can't please everyone...

2007-10-16T18:30:00.001-07:00

This spring, I want to put my hive under a scale to weigh how much nectar and pollen are coming in. I might even put it under the hive this winter to measure how much honey is used. I was fortunate enough to come across this old Fairbanks scale for a steal of a price. All I had to do was paint it and clean up the inner workings to get it taking accurate readings. No one seems to like the color I painted it. Not even the cat.

Coconut telegram

2007-10-14T14:25:00.001-07:00

I had a frame of drone comb in the freezer that I finally decided to cull (scrape off the comb). Since there was a good bit of honey left on the frame, I decided to leave the comb with honey on the frame and let the bees take it. It took the bees about 10 minutes to be robbing about the frame like crazy. It is amazing how quickly they find food sources and communicate those findings to the rest of the colony using waggle dances.

Changing of the guard...

2007-10-14T14:18:00.000-07:00

Since the weather has cooled off a bit, I went ahead and installed a mouse guard on my hive. Mice find the warm confines of a beehive a nice place to live when it is cool outside and the bees are clustered an unable to attack. Once inside, the mice totally wreck the comb and woodenware.

This particular mouse guard is of the homemade variety. It is recycled from a leftover piece of roofing tin from a building that received a new roof.

Elephants run from bees?

2007-10-09T18:36:00.000-07:00

This is probably true. I can honestly say that I have not had any elephants in my yard since I got a beehive.

Next project: Observation hive

2007-10-09T18:14:00.001-07:00

My wife/assistant beekeeper/official bee photographer and I went to Larriland Farm in Lisbon. Larriland is a pick-your-own farm that is quite popular with yuppies in my ‘hood. I knew that Larriland had bees, because I had seen the hives during last year's hayride. However, I did not realize that they had an observation hive as well. It is located in the big red barn where you pay for all the stuff you picked. I am always fascinated with observation hives, but this one has finally made me decide to get one for myself. My wintertime project will be to build or buy one, and my preliminary plan is to take a couple frames from my other hive and have the bees raise a new queen in the observation hive. I think that would be pretty cool to watch. The downer is that it might put a real hurting on the amount of honey that I can produce this year.

The observation hive:

The queen in the observation hive that my wife found in about 3 seconds flat:

Uh, I think the outside apiary needs some attention:

Lots of dead mites...

2007-09-19T20:51:00.000-07:00

My varroa mite counts have been rising to peak at more than 50 mite per day despite my organic treatment methods, so I broke down and put some Apistan Strips in my hive. The strips work. I have never seen so many dead mites on my mite board. It is not a good idea to use the same mite treatment two years in a row, so next season I will try something different. However, I am impressed with the strips.

Heading into fall in good shape…

2007-09-09T09:42:00.000-07:00

As the summer draws to a close, my bees are in good shape. They have two deep brood chambers and a medium fully drawn. The medium is almost completely full of sugar syrup, and there is a good bit of honey in the other brood boxes as well. The hive is densely populated with bees, and they have become defensive of their stored food. As a result, my bee photographer has lost interest in hanging around the hive as I paw through it. In fact, the heat (especially when wearing a full bee suit) and the sheer number of bees have made my inspections pretty quick.

The only downer is that my varroa mite population has exploded. I was getting a mite drop of 10-15 mites every 24 hours, but now a 24 hour mite drop typically yields more than 50 mites. The rule of thumb is to treat when a 24 hour mite drop is around 150, so I still have some wiggle room before I need to take any chemical action. I am keeping on top of the sugar dusting, but I broke down and ordered some Apistan Strips (a commercial pesticide for mites) to have on hand in case things get much worse. Since mites develop alongside bee larvae, and brood production will likely shut down this month, mite reproduction should stop as well.

In the meantime, I just need to keep feeding and keep an eye on the mite situation to make sure my bees will survive the winter. I can taste next year’s honey crop already!

More on CCD...

2007-08-20T19:10:00.000-07:00

The New Yorker has an article on CCD here.

Just stay away from the pointy end...

2007-08-15T20:44:00.000-07:00

I received word from my neighbor that my honeybees were building a nest in the eves of their porch. Turns out the “honeybees” are actually yellow jackets (which are not even considered bees). It’s funny how everything with a stinger is a bee to most people. Of course, I probably would have thought the same thing a few years ago.

Like Top Gun. Only With Bees.

2007-08-07T20:09:00.000-07:00

Sunday afternoon I sat and watched a European Hornet pick a couple of my honey bees right out of the air and eat them. I tried unsuccessfully to kill the hornet, but I have resolved to let nature take its course. Well, at least for now anyway. My hive is doing very well and is more than capable of defending itself. European Hornets fit into the ecosystem, too.

Ouch!

2007-07-27T15:32:00.001-07:00

Well, my normally gentle bees have become much more aggressive since the nectar flow has ended. I inspected the hive last Saturday and I got stung twice. Unlike the first time I was stung, these two times hurt. In defense of my bees, I had let the feeder jar run out a few days prior to the inspection, so it makes sense that they would have been a bit more defensive of their honey stores. Also, there are so many bees that it is difficult to move your hands without disturbing at least a few of them.

Other than the defensive behavior, all is well. There is plenty of eggs, larvae, brood and honey. I would love to post some pics, but my official bee photographer has been slow in transferring the pics from her computer to mine (hint).

Home is where the honey is...

2007-07-19T17:18:00.000-07:00

From the Examiner:

LILLY, Pa. - Matthew Danchanko has squatters in his new home. And they won't leave without a fight. They're honeybees - tens of thousands of them. They buzz through the four-bedroom house, creating a low hum and an estimated 100 pounds of honey.

Danchanko recently bought the house northeast of Johnstown, Pa. He planned to fix it up and move in. But shortly after he began renovating, the long-time residents of the house made it abundantly clear they had no intention of leaving.

Danchanko won't exterminate the unwanted guests because the honeybee population has significantly deteriorated this summer. Instead, he has found a local beekeeper who will remove the buzzing brood.

Hot Summer Nights…

2007-07-18T18:40:00.000-07:00

You know the dog days of summer are here when the bees are bearding on the front porch of the hive in droves. Look at that beard!

Leggo my eggo

2007-07-08T16:25:00.000-07:00

Saturday was inspection day, and I went through both the upper and lower brood chamber. The bees are really doing well. The frames closest to the walls of the hive are heavy with honey, and the remaining frames are filled with more honey, eggs, larvae, capped brood and pollen. I removed the drone frame and replaced it with a new undrawn drone frame. I am happy to report that no mites were found in the capped drone cells, but I am saddened that all those capped drones are now in my freezer. I think my sugar dusting have been so successful in preventing the mites that there are not many even in the drone cells. Lesson learned: from now on, I’ll uncap a sample of 30 or so drone cells before I decide to freeze the frame. If I don’t find any mites, the frame goes back in the hive, not the freezer. I can’t believe how gentle these bees are. I was shaking them wildly off the drone frame when I removed it, and I did not get stung at all.

My favorite pic from the inspection is below. The little white things at the bottom of the cells (they look like grains of rice standing on end) are eggs. How they become chickens I’ll never know. Oh, wait a minute…

Let me out!

2007-07-07T18:45:00.000-07:00

Here is a video of some drones hatching from the cells of the green drone frame. Ordinarily, there would be hundreds or thousands of worker bees covering this frame, but this shot was taken after I shook off the worker bees that were tending to the drone brood on the frame. The empty cells are from drones that already hatched. Luckily, I did not find any mites in any of the drone cells. I guess that means my powdered sugar treatments are working to prevent the mites.

Happy 4th of July!

2007-07-04T10:01:00.001-07:00

I have noticed that for the past couple of days, my bees have been bringing in bright yellow pollen like there is no tomorrow. I have racking my brain trying to find the source, and I happened to look at some blooming pumpkins in the garden. The bees were on the pumpkin blooms like white on rice.

To the right of the below pic you can see a working hauling in some pumpkin pollen:

Here are some bees on a pumpkin bloom:

They like cucumbers too:

Advice from Beekeepers

2007-07-01T17:54:00.001-07:00

I don’t even know what to say about this. So I won’t even try.

Now, if bees could vote...

2007-06-28T19:15:00.000-07:00

There was a bee related editorial in the Baltimore Sun. Basically, it called for further public beekeeping assistance. Here's a tidbit:

Unfortunately, the Maryland Department of Agriculture has only one full-time employee, plus some part-time contractors, to inspect hives for diseases. These inspectors have to do double duty advising beekeepers - which is not their job - because in 1996 the Maryland Cooperative Extension eliminated the last apiculture extension faculty position. If the system were working properly, the University of Maryland would do research on how to improve beekeeping, and agricultural extension would bring it to the beekeeper.

But it's not happening. One example of this neglect: Since 1984, two types of invasive mites have devastated Maryland bees, becoming resistant to several treatments in turn and leaving beekeepers without effective controls for these pests. But the Cooperative Extension has not revised its printed beekeeping handout since 1983. The inspection program needs better support; UM should do more practical honeybee research; and the beekeeping extension program needs to be revived.

Ahh, government inaction! Ooops, I meant in action.

Speaking of government and bees, I purchased my bees from a gentleman whose day job is a Maryland State bee inspector. He makes nucs as a sideline business. I guess he inspects his own nucs, because when I purchased my bees they came with the yellow inspection sticker that says that my bees are inspected and free of disease. I stuck the sticker on my hive after installation of the nuc. So if anyone was wondering about the sticker, that’s the skinny.

Sittin’ on the front steps, starin’ down the road…

2007-06-25T18:48:00.000-07:00

Now that the weather is getting hotter, many bees can be seen cooling off on the front of the hive. This is known as “bearding”. Just like people without air conditioning, the bees hang out on the front porch to keep cool. The pictures don’t do it justice- it’s pretty cool to watch.

The cat, of course, is unimpressed.

A shout-out to the environment…

2007-06-24T19:39:00.000-07:00

The bee is not afraid of me,
I know the butterfly;
The pretty people in the woods
Receive me cordially.

The brooks laugh louder when I come,
The breezes madder play.
Wherefore, mine eyes, thy silver mists?
Wherefore, O summer's day?

~ Emily Dickinson

Random thoughts

2007-06-20T16:45:00.001-07:00

Today, I went to Don Pablo’s in Columbia for a quick happy hour. In the parking lot, there was a small patch of grass and some trees surrounded by a curb, common in many parking lots. I notice a good bit of clover in bloom in the grass (something I would never have noticed if I didn’t keep bees) and I saw a couple of Italian honey bees collecting nectar from the clover.

Given the flight range of a honey bee is about a mile and a half, I suspect these bees were from a feral colony. I seriously doubt anyone is keeping bees in the commercial and heavily suburban areas within a mile and a half radius Don Pablo’s. This put a smile on my face. It is good to see there are still feral colonies out there that have not been killed of by mites, CCD or uniformed humans with cans of Raid.

What I find even more interesting, is that you rarely ever hear of swarm sightings or other kinds of European honey bee “inconveniences” in the local media. This shows that feral bees are thriving just under the radar of human awareness. Bees are highly evolved survival machines that (hopefully) will be around for a long time.

Movin' up town

2007-06-17T18:42:00.000-07:00

I did a brief inspection to see how things are going in the upper hive body. The comb on the new frames is being drawn well, especially the drone comb on the green drone frame. Too bad the brood on that frame will wind up in my freezer as a mite control measure.

My favorite queen pic so far:

A new frame of new comb:

Sugar coated bees

2007-06-17T13:28:00.000-07:00

After reading an article in the American Bee Journal, I decided to try a chemical free and cutting edge treatment for varroa mites. Basically, this method involves simply dusting the bees with two cups of powdered sugar, which interferes with the ability of the mites to attach themselves to the bees. This works because the sticky foot pad of the mites is ineffective once it is covered in powdered sugar. With the foot pad out of commission, the mites fall off the bees. Thus, this is a mechanical way to prevent mites, rather than a chemical.

I put a metal window screen on top of an empty super and brushed the sugar through it onto the bees below. The bees sounded kind of pissed.

Three hours after dusting, there were 26 mites that had fallen off the bees through the screened bottom board. I was hoping for more, but mites are not a huge problem for my bees at this point. As long as I do this every three weeks or so, along with the removal of the capped drone brood (mites reproduce in drone comb), I hope to minimize the mite threat.

What could be better than bees coated with powdered sugar?

Busy bees

2007-06-10T11:44:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was inspection day. I have not pawed through the hive in three weeks, and in that time the bees have been hard at work. With the exception of one side of a wall frame, all 10 frames in the hive are fully drawn. They have been sucking down the sugar syrup from the hive top feeder which has really stimulated their desire to draw the comb out. Most of new frames are filled with capped brood and a good bit of capped honey. The bees have really taken advantage of the clover bloom to build up significant honey stores. I ate some of the burr comb honey I scrapped off the top of a frame and ate it. Mmmm…it was delish. One of the new frames has eggs and larvae on it. Interestingly, I have only seen the queen on one of the four original nuc frames, but she is obviously getting around to the other frames to lay eggs.

The bees are doing so well, in fact, I have added a second deep hive body. The frames in the new hive body are not drawn, so the hive top feeder will stay on to encourage them to draw comb on these frames quickly. I am extremely pleased with their progress.

Miscellaneous pictures:

Her majesty...

This comb honey tasted GOOD...

Look at the capped brood and honey on this pretty new comb...

Check out the larvae in the cells of this frame (they look like little white grubs)...

Rain, Rain, Go Away by Next Weekend

2007-06-03T12:39:00.001-07:00

Well, I wanted to inspect the hive today but the weather thwarted my plans. Honestly, we need the rain so badly that I am not complaining. The weather yesterday, of course, was perfect for hive inspection, but my excellent bee photographer was unavailable. It appears that Orlando Bloom dressed like a pirate is more important that my bees ;-). So, today I just filled up my hive top feeder with sugar syrup. Since they are unable to fly, I at least want to make sure they are able to draw comb. Sugar syrup ensures this. In the meantime, I will put on a Jimmy Buffett record and hope for better weather next weekend.

Below are some bees gorging on syrup from the hive top feeder...

And here is my wonderful bee photographer, dressed to remove plutonium from the hive…

You load sixteen tons, what do you get...

2007-05-26T10:46:00.001-07:00

One of my favorite things to do is just sit back a little ways from the hive and watch the bees fly in with loads of pollen and nectar. The pollen can be seen on the hind legs (in the corbicula for the scientifically inclined) of the returning foragers. Right now the bees are bringing in light grayish pollen and bright orange pollen. The nectar is carried in the stomach of the bees and cannot be seen.

Thus far, the colony seems to be flourishing. Every week there are more and more bees flying about.

Float like a butterfly….

2007-05-20T18:24:00.000-07:00

I finally got stung. It really didn’t hurt that badly, I actually felt worse for the bee for which it was a suicide mission. Plus, it was my fault. I had just put a grease patty on the hive (a mixture of Crisco and sugar) which is used to prevent tracheal mites, and I had the sugar all over my hands. Sugar attracts bees, so I tried to get as much off as possible. It didn’t work. A bee must have landed on my hand without me noticing and when I moved my hand, she got me.

She works hard for the money...

2007-05-20T17:10:00.000-07:00

I cracked open the hive to see how things are going after one week. Basically, everything looks great. The bees are busy drawing new comb on the new frames as expected. There is plenty of capped brood, larvae and honey on the original nuc frames. The queen is looking healthy. I’ll check again in two or three weeks, but in the meantime I’ll just keep feeding them sugar syrup and let them do their thing.

Plenty of capped brood...

Pretty new comb...

The queen is looking good...

Bee Movie

2007-05-17T09:42:00.000-07:00

Finally! Bees with opposable thumbs!

When you sleep with the dogs…

2007-05-15T17:51:00.000-07:00

You wake up with mites.

The bottom of my hive is made of wire screen mesh. These types of bottom boards became popular after the invasion of the varroa mite, a parasitic mite that inflicts bee colonies. Almost every bee colony is infested with these mites to some degree. Anyway, the theory behind the screened bottom board is that when the mites happen to fall off the bees, they will fall through the screen and onto a tray that can be inspected by the beekeeper. Counting the mites is one way to gauge the severity of the mite infestation of your bees.

Tonight, I pulled the tray beneath my screened bottom board and I found three varroa mites. They are so small they look like random dirt specs- but they move. I also found lots of little flakes of beeswax which leads me to believe the bees are busy drawing comb. Additionally, I found little green pellets which were kind of mushy. I think these are pollen pellets that the bees were working into the comb and happened to drop.

Ah, the fun things you can see without even opening the hive!

Home Sweet Home

2007-05-14T17:44:00.000-07:00

After a late Saturday morning phone call along the lines of “Hey, your bees are ready- can you be here tonight to get them?” I found myself on my way to Western Maryland to pick up my nuc (pronounced the same as “nuke”, the WMD).

A nuc is basically a couple of frames (usually 3-5) of bees in a wooden or cardboard box that serves as a temporary hive. The frames from the nuc are then installed in a permanent hive. The good thing about a nuc is that the queen has already been accepted by the bees and she has been verified by the nuc-maker to be laying eggs. I thought this was the best way to go for a beginner.

The installation of the nuc frames into my hive went very smoothly. The weather was a tad chilli and it was a little bit breezier than I would have liked, but all in all it wasn’t too bad. The temperament of the bees was great. I just blew some smoke into the nuc box which immediately chilled the bees out. The whole time I was juggling around the frames the bees were as calm as Hindu cows. The bees had glued the frames in the nuc box pretty good, so I had to do quite a bit of prying to get them out. It seemed like there were zillions of bees on the frames so it was tough to see if there were eggs or larvae in the comb. I did notice a good deal of nectar and honey which is a good sign. The comb on the nuc frames was drawn out far enough where it was a bit of challenge to fit them, along with six frames of foundation, into the new hive.

Check out the queen bee in the above pic. She is the one with the yellow dot on her back.

The last step was to add some sugar syrup to the hive top feeder to get the bees to draw comb on the new frames. In about a week I’ll crack the hive open again and make sure they are drawing comb and I’ll check for eggs and larvae. They're home at last!

Operation Desert Swarm

2007-05-11T19:24:00.000-07:00

Tis’ the season for swarms, so I want to say a few words about them as a public service to non-beekeepers.

First, a swarm is when about half the bees (including the queen) decide to leave the hive all at once and look for a new place to live. The bees in the hive that stay behind raise a new queen and otherwise continue business as usual. Swarms are how bees start new colonies. Most animals, like people, perpetuate their species by rearing young that leave the nest and start new families. Social insects, like bees, need to produce new colonies in addition to new individual bees. Thus, Swarms are the means in which bees “leave the nest” and make new colonies. In other words, swarms are perfectly natural bee behavior.

Secondly, bees normally sting to defend their hives, their brood, and their food stores. Since swarms have no hive, no brood and no food, they are gentle. In fact, a swarm of bees is the gentlest state in which you can find bees. You can literally paw through them with your hands to find the queen and you won’t get stung (as long as you are gentle).

Third, Africanized Honey Bees (AHBs) are not yet in Maryland. It is doubtful that AHBs will ever be able to live in Maryland since they do not survive northern winters. If you a see a swarm in Maryland, it is probably not a swarm of so called “killer bees”.

Swarms usually hang out for a few hours or a few days while scout bees go out and look for a new place to live. As soon as one is found, the swarm will head to the new home and take up residence. If you see a swarm, the best thing to do is take a few pictures and enjoy the miracle of nature that it is.

If you see a swarm and do something like this, you are a moron.

A swarm in May is worth a load of hay...

2007-05-04T19:17:00.000-07:00

Here is a brief news video on a swarm that was captured today in DC. I wonder where the swarm came from? Is there someone keeping bees in the city (which I suspect is illegal) or are there feral colonies out there that have not been killed off by mites?

Bees in the Court System

2007-05-03T17:12:00.000-07:00

Honey bees just cost Monsanto some sales. By transferring pollen from Roundup Ready alfalfa to regular alfalfa, bees cause the Round Up resistant trait can be transferred to the regular alfalfa. Many people, including the judge, are unhappy about this.

A Federal judge today made a final ruling that the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA's) 2005 approval of Monsanto's genetically engineered (GE) "Roundup Ready" alfalfa was illegal. The Judge called on USDA to ban any further planting of the GE seed until it conducts a complete Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on the GE crop.

Call me anytime…

2007-05-02T17:20:00.000-07:00

How did the “cell phone” theory as a cause for CCD become so popular? Even the scientists who conducted the experiment did not link cell phones as a cause of CCD.

CCD: it's anybody's guess

2007-04-30T17:49:00.000-07:00

Here is a great article on Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) and race to find a cause. Theories run the gamut on what the cause of CCD might be. My favorite is that God is calling the bees to heaven (someone actually suggested this to the researchers). Another one, which sounds like it might be possible but the science does not support it, is that cell phones are causing CCD. It might not make sense scientifically, but I won’t take any chances. When my bees finally arrive, I will not be allowing them to have cell phones!

The Sun had a good article today as well.

Just waiting for my nuc to arrive...

2007-04-29T14:21:00.000-07:00

I have selected the site for my apiary, assembled and set up my equipment, so now I just sit back and wait for the nuc that I purchased to arrive. Hopefully, it will arrive in the next 2-3 weeks. I have most likely missed the nectar flow already, so a crop of honey is probably not in the cards this year. I will focus on building a strong, healthy colony of bees to get a crop of honey next year and possibly split this hive into two. In the meantime, there are plenty of bee books to read.

The goofy looking thing between the top cover and the brood chamber is my fancy pants hive top feeder. I will leave that on at least until I have two brood chambers of drawn comb and then stop feeding for the summer or switch to a feeder jar with only a few holes to simulate a light nectar flow.