Sign of Spring? My First Bee Sting

I took a slippery walk into Beelandia on this foggy, rainy upper 40F degree day. The snow has mostly melted in the yard but there were still patches of ice and slush which made walking quite difficult. This is the time of the year I get a bit "antsy" for warmer weather, and blossoming flowers, asking myself, "Will my bees starve before proper foraging conditions exist?"

On the basis of quick glances into the entrances of each hive, I am happy to report that all the hives seem to be doing well. And, as usual, the carniolans in Lib-BEE-taria are as fiesty as ever, giving me my first sting of the season. Spring can't be far away!

Videos of Saturday's Winter Flights

I got my cellphone working right and was finally to upload two short videos I filmed yesterday in Beelandia. The first shows some initial activity at the top entrance of Lib-BEE-taria,the langstroth hive inhabited by carniolan bees. The second is activity in front of Metpropolis, the top bar hive containing a colony of italian bees. The board most of the bees have landed on in this video is leaning against the hive in order to keep the entrance from receiving direct exposure to cold winds.

Please pardon the poor quality of this video as it was filmed from my phone. Next time I will out there with our proper video equipment.

Saturday Winter Flights

I went out to Beelandia this bright, sunny morning to discover all the hives are alive and in flight. The most active was Lib-BEE-taria with its carniolan inhabitants, but all hives seemed healthy.

I did take a video of Lib-BEE-taria but have not been able to upload it to youtube yet. I will try again later today.

Grumpy Winter Bees-- A Visit to Beelandia

With the temperature about 21 degrees F and a bright, late morning sun, I went out to the bee yard to give each hive a glance.

All three of the langstroth hives showed activity at the top entrances and, as usual, Lib-BEE-taria, with its population of Carniolan bees, was a bit grumpy at my inspection. Even in this temperature, I had one guard bee take a flight at my face, more as a bluff than an actual attempt to sting. While I do like seeing the bees alive in these hives, I do worry about them being at the top entrance. This could mean they have run out of food stores, and, while I did place fondant over the inner cover and under the quilt boxes last month, I don't know when it will be warm enough to place more fondant there. Around each langstroth, there is evidence that the bees have made cleansing flights. I hope none have nosema, a dysentary-like disease.

I saw no evidence of active bees at either of the top bar hives' entrances' but that could simply be because the winter cluster is not near the entrance that's opened. Each hive does show evidence of recent bee flights, however, so that is good.

Winter Feeding Quickly

I have had a hunch that the bees are at the end of their winter stores of honey for that last week or two. The late summer was not good for nectar, and while they took in a significant amount of sugar syrup and dry sugar in the fall, I was not confident that the bees had enough to get them through winter. I prepared myself for the first high 30s to 40 degree day by slicing some fondant and sandwiching them between two pieces of waxed paper and waited. Today's temperature is around 38 degrees, so I decided to feed the bees quickly.

The first hive I worked with is Nuc To Be Named Later. I took both the telescoping cover and the quilt box off, and sure enough I saw a good two dozen bees festooning out of the opening of the inner cover. Yes, they were in the top box and probably had little honey left. I placed a fondant "sandwich" near the bees at the opening and closed up quickly. In all, the operation took no more than two minutes. I went on and finished the other langstroths the same way. There were only a few honeybees at the top of Lib-BEE=taria (which contains carniolans) which I suspect have been a little more thrifty than the Italians in Nuc To Be Name Later. However, in Bee Glad..., the bees were in the same state as Nuc...,gathering about the opening in the inner cover. Like Nuc..., Bee Glad... is inhabited by Italians.

I also fed the two top bar hives. I opened up one of the secondary entrances in both hives and inserted a "tube" of fondant surrounded by sliced wax paper.

The whole operation took me little time and produced little stress on the bees.

Busy Two Days

Beelandia has been a busy place the last two days. The bees, of course, are truly active right now, and I spent some time inspecting them.

Yesterday I had an opportunity to look in on the nuc I set up last week when I took a queen cell from Plan Bee... I was surprise at their activity and did get a glimpse of the virgin queen scurrying on one of the frames. All goes well here!

I went next into Plan Bee.. to get a sense of how well they are doing since they swarmed. I could not find a queen, and they seemed rather testy. I closed up the hive and made a note to watch them closely over the next few days. There was still one capped queen cell, so they might be waiting like I am.

I went next to Lib-BEE-taria, the langstroth having carniolan bees. They are storing much honey in the top deep, but are not yet interested in the shallow super above. These bees were also a bit testy, though I did receive a sting.

This morning I went to B & B Honey Farm to buy some equipment. I am like a Boy Scout when it comes to preparation. I bought another deep box, two frame feeders (for the double nuc), and they were nice enough to give me a few used queen cages for free. While none of this equipment is needed immediately, I do not want to be caught without it.

This afternoon I inspected Metpropolis, the top bar hive filled with Italian bees. These honey bees were much calmer than the carniolans I inspected the day before. They are also extremely productive. I harvested one bar of capped honey. I also had a slight accident with a fragile comb filled with capped worker brood. Luckily the queen was not on this comb and the bees didn't get too upset. Anyway, Metpropolis is booming! It seems to have a good laying queen and productive workers.

I am happy to report only one sting during this two day inspection.

Belated Report: Slippery Reverse

Monta and I have been traveling (more on this later) so I didn't have time to place my last report online till this moment. Thursday afternoon I did an inspection of the four hives and nuc located in Beelandia.

Plan Bee..., the top bar hive filled with carniolans which swarmed over the last week, was the first to inspect. There are still a "load" of bees in this hive and some capped brood, including queen cells. I carefully cut out all but one cell (I hope) and left the bees pretty much alone. They still have bars in the hive which they haven't touched, so it looks like they have plenty of room. I also unplugged one of the back entrances to improve ventilation.

I next inspected the small nuc in which I placed the small swarm I caught last week. There was no queen in the hive to be found. The bees are consuming the honey in the frame I placed in the nuc and the frame of capped brood has all hatched. To be on the safe side I placed one of the queen cells I cut out of Plan Bee... into this hive with another frame of capped brood. We will see how this takes.

Lib-BEE-taria, the langstroth having carniolans, needed to be reversed and all went pretty well. They had comb drawn on 80 percent of the frames so I just reversed the three boxes with little or no problem.

I cannot say the same for Bee Glad..., the langstroth containing Minnesota Hygienics. I was trying out new gloves. (This was the first time I've ever manipulated a hive in gloves!) For some reason, I kept getting them caught between frames. I found out as well that they become slippery with the accumulation of hive products. Well, to make a long "excuse" short, I dropped to frames during my hive manipulations, resulting in a rather angry bee population. Not good, though no stings! I was able to reverse this hive as well, even with aggressive bees.

Metpropolis, the top bar hive with Minnesota Hygienics, was fine. I added some bars between the honey storage area and the brood area and culled some drone comb. Everything is thriving in Metpropolis.

SWARM!!!!

  

As Monta and I were eating a rather late leisurely breakfast, we heard our son, Eli, colorfully exclaim that thousands of  honey bees were flying about our backyard beyond Beelandia. The two of us, with our daughter, Eme, ran out to join Eli, and discovered that what Eli was observing was  a swarm of bees leaving one of our hives and taking a rest stop in a thornless honey locust tree in a neighbor's yard. 

Eme, Monta and I took immediate action. Eme and I put together a bait hive in an unused deep and the three of us ran off to the neighbor's house to ask for permission to leave the bait hive there. The neighbor was calm and cool about the whole situation. She had heard about the decline in the bee population and was only too happy to allow us to catch the swarm. (It was just too high in the tree to cut down.) 

Monta and Eme kept watch on the swarm while I checked Beelandia. The swarm seemed to have issued from Plan Bee..., the top bar hive filled with carniolans. When I got to Beelandia, this hive was still very active with two afterswarms here and there on the plants. By the time I assessed the situation with the hives, however, the initial swarm flew off and not into the bait box we left. Monta ran about the neighborhood  trying to discover where the swarm might've gone to but could not find it.

We were philosophical about the loss of the swarm, figuring we gave something back to "nature". I did place one of the afterswarms in a double nuc box, along with some brood, drawn comb, and honey from the other carniolan colony. We will see what happens with this nuc.

Taylor and the Bees

The first step in educating the public about honey bees and their bio-physical environment is to provide them with realistic knowledge about this fascinating creature. Beekeepers need to counterbalance the adolescent African Hybrid paranoia that exists without resorting to anthropomorphized and dysnified images of friendly bees who only sting evil people. Education should instead generate a healthy respect for this generally non-aggressive, important species. With this in mind, I decided to introduce my 4 year old granddaughter Taylor to the ins and outs of bee management.





On Thursday, Taylor and I suited up and went out to inspect the carniolan hives in Beelandia. (I'd bought Taylor a small bee suit from B & B Honey Farm.) I taught Taylor the various names of the inspection tools I use and we went out to open up Plan Bee... and Lib-BEE-taria.





Taylor just loved the experience while learning a great deal about the lifecycle and behaviors of the honey bee. Grandma Monta took a few photos of the inspection I'd like to share with you all.

Third Box On Lib-BEE-taria

Yesterday was a busy day of beekeeping at Beelandia. After driving Monta to work, I drove off to Houston Minnesota to pick up a telescoping cover at B & B's. Monta constructed a double nuke last weekend and I wanted to be prepared for any queen cells that might be built and be ripe. It rained a bit along the way, so I wasn't really expecting to do my scheduled inspections of the carniolan hives, but, by the time I got back, it was quite sunny with a temperature about 80 degrees.

Around 1:00 p.m. I did my scheduled inspections. I started with Lib-BEE-taria, the langstroth hive inhabited by carniolans. The bees were busy in the second box, working on all ten frame, so I added a third box with a frame added from the second and opened the entrance fully. In all, Lib-BEE-taria is a very healthy hive with gentle bees that allow me to work quickly.

I can't say that my experience in Plan Bee..., the top bar hive, was the same. Yes, this hive is also doing well "production and health-wise" but they seemed a little too defensive this afternoon. It wasn't simply the one sting I received on the hand but also a handful of guard bees hovering around my veiled face challenging me to continue. I got most of my activity done but the hive remained "testy" all afternoon. They didn't want me in Beelandia! I am pondering why right now. Cabin fever from two and half days (on and off) of rain? Some disturbance over the last few days? Just "mean" genetics? They are not unworkable, just not as gentle as the other three hives.

Wasp, Bees and Me

I was culling some capped drone brood from one of my top bars and set this bar aside. Some type of wasp flew in to steal a bit of honey and annoy the carniolans.

Almost a Disaster...But Everything's Alright Now

Structural linguists state that "meaning is in difference." You don't know what a stream is until you know how it differs from a river. To know a cat is gentle, you must also experience a mean one. I think I am finally understanding what healthy bees look like by comparing them to the bees I had last year... you know the ones that died!

I inspected the carniolans today and found them expanding at a much greater rate than last year's bees. In the langstroth hive, 9 out of the 10 frames in the second box, which I put on just last week, are being worked on. In the top bar hive, I had to add two more top bars to an ever expanding brood nest. Yes, there could be other reasons besides having healthier packages this year, but my intuition tells me probably not. There are much, much less bees scampering on the ground around the hives this year and, as of yet, nothing significant to report on the mite front unlike last year.

All was not perfect in today's inspection, however. Besides the sting I took on the finger, I dropped a top bar while working in Plan Bee... I was culling some capped drone brood and the bar just slipped out of my hand, bees and all. I am happy to report it was not much of a mess, and the bees were not too badly riled up.

I gave each hive a sugar dusting!

This Week's News in Beelandia

I am a bit behind in blogging on the comings and goings in Beelandia. Two days ago, I did an inspection of the two hives containing Carniolan honey bees. The top bar hive, Plan Bee..., is doing very good. Twelve of the 13 bars between the follower boards have some comb built on them. Plenty of brood, at all stages of development, were observed on each of these bars. At the edges on each side, a significant amount of capped honey and multi-colored pollen is stored. The weather has been pleasant the last few days, so the foragers have been out and actively returning with pollen, mostly I imagine, from dandelions at this point. As I worked with the carniolans in Plan Bee... I noticed how much more "gentle" they are than my Minnesota Hygienic bees: calm on the comb, and more intent on what they're doing and less focused on my intrusion. Of course, just at the time I was thinking this, one worker, intent on letting me see that no man controls their activities, stung me on the left wrist. I added one new undrawn bar to one side of the hive and closed the hive up.

I opened up Lib-BEE-taria after this as the wind picked up. The carniolans did not like the wind too much and the smoke was just ineffective, but what I did see I did like. I had to scrape some burr comb off the top of frames, and the bottom of the feeder. Like in Plan Bee..., the honey bees in this hive are active in drawing comb, caring for the young, etc. the wind made it difficult to inspect this hive however, so I closed it up swiftly. No reason to stress these honey bees.

Earlier in the week I did a sticky board examination of each hive looking for varroa mites. I am happy to report: no mites sighted.

I added some floating plants to Lake No-Bee-Gone and the honey bees are finally using the pond as their "watering hole." Even though some view them as a pest, the water hyacynths I placed in the pond are extremely "popular" landing sites for the bees. I also planted some floating parrot feather as well. The white clouds also seem to "like" the new additions.

Year 2, Week 5: Pleased to See the Queen

My friend Joyce and I did a quick inspection of Plan Bee... and Lib-BEE-taria this morning, after a quick program meeting. Although it was a bit cool for a mid-May day, the carniolans were very active, bring in pollen of various colors and shades.

Plan Bee..., the top bar hive, continues to draw out more comb, and the queen is laying a nice solid capped brood pattern. I had to add another bar to the hive, and fill the feeder with more sugar syrup. As usual, the bees were calm and gentle. No real problems seem to exist in this healthy hive of honey bees.

I did find the queen in Plan Bee... She attempted to hide under some workers but was unable to escape my gaze. She is large, at least larger than the queens I observed last year in my two hives.

I am pleased to report the same for Lib-BEE-taria as well. The carniolans in this hive haven't shied away from drawing comb on the plastic foundation. I am reluctant to admit that the black color of the plastic makes it much easier to see the eggs and young larvae in the open cells. This colony is producing a little more drone brood. I don't think this is a problem, just something I noticed.

In two days I will open up the other two hives and see what I can observe there.

Year 2, Week 4: A Quick Inspection While the Sun Shined

Today was one of those days in Minnesota. Just wait 5 minutes, the weather could get worse. The temperature was in the upper 60s, amidst periods of sunny skies and rain. I quickly got in my inspection of the carniolan bees hived in Plan Bee... and Lib-BEE-taria, between down pours.

The bees have been quite active this week. Trees of various types (e.g. crab apple, maple, cherry) are still blossoming and dandelions are in full bloom as well. The bees come back to the hive looking like participants at a clown convention, pollen of all color types on their back legs.

The carniolans in both hives have been quite active. In the top bar hive, nine out of ten bars had some comb drawn on them. The queen in this hive seems quite good. The capped worker cells on both sides of 5 of the ten bars is solid, very few empty cells to speak of. I closed up this hive, added one undrawn bar to one side, filled the feeder with some more sugar water and went on to Lib-BEE-taria, the Langstroth hive.

The honeybees in the Langstroth have been as well although they have been somewhat reluctant to draw comb on the plastic frames, as I expected they would be. Two frames have capped worker brood but with slightly more empty cells as the top bar. I had to remove some cross comb as well. The carniolans in this hive seem a bit more defensive than in the top bar but were still quite decent to me. I "escaped" this inspection without a sting!

Just a note about the other two hives in which I installed Minnesota Hygienic bees two days ago. So far they have seem to be doing well. Metpropolis, the top bar hive, had drawn comb from last years bees and this year's inhabitants have been cleaning out debris and dead bees from it. They were bringing in pollen and have gone through half a gallon of sugar water already. The other hive, Bee Glad..., the other Langstroth, seems to be doing fine. They have a harder week ahead, having to draw comb in 8 out of 10 frames. I will take out the queen cages Saturday or Sunday, weather permitting.

Year 2, Week 3: After the Rain

I was finally able to inspect both Plan Bee... and Lib-BEE-taria this morning between classes. The last three days have been cool and rainy. This morning it was sunny and in the 50s as I opened both hives. Maple and plum trees are blooming close by and the first dandelions are flowering as well.

I was very pleased with what I found in both hives. In Plan Bee..., the top bar hive, the carniolans have drawn a significant amount of comb on 5 bars. Three of the combs have a nice, full pattern of capped brood, and some capped honey to the top. The bees were unbelievably calm on the comb as well. I added another bar to the ten that were already available, since they have comb built right next to a bar located adjacent to a follower board.

I found Lib-BEE-taria, the Langstroth, healthy also. They are drawing comb on 4 of the plastic frames. I was skeptical about using plastic but wanted to experiment a bit. I melted some extra beeswax on the foundation to make them more appealing and that seems to have done the trick. Again, as with the top bar, these carniolans seem to have a healthy queen if the brood pattern is any indication.

Year 2, Week 2: Taking Out the Queen Cages

Yesterday, morning I did my first short inspection of the year, primarily for the purpose of removing the queen cages from Plan Bee, and Lib-BEE-taria. The weather was excellent, in the upper 60s, with little or no wind. The bees have been bringing in pollen for the last week from an assortment of trees finally blooming. This had to be the first Saturday of 2009 that actually felt like spring.

I opened Plan Bee first. The bees were drawing comb on 4 bars already and were very calm as I removed one of the bars to inspect it. I removed the empty queen cage and closed the hive up. I was very happy with what I saw.

Lib-BEE-taria, the new Langstroth, seemed also to be doing well. The bees were working on two already drawn frames and drawing comb on parts of adjacent plastic frames. Yes, I know, plastic frames! Not very sustainable of me but something I felt I needed to do. I just had too many problems with cross comb last year and felt I needed to get the hang of beekeeping before I'd return to the challenges of foundationless frames. I did include some foundationless frames in this hive that had fairly "straight" comb. Anyway, these Carniolans don't seem to mind plastic frames, though, as a precaution, I did brush on an extra coat of beeswax on each to make them more "enticing".

I have noticed that I am second guessing myself and being overly cautious during inspections this year, possibly because of the dying of last year's colonies. I do not know whether this is good or bad.

Week 1, Year 2: Picking up Packages at Nature's Nectar

Monta and I got up early this morning and travelled over a hundred miles to pick up our two 2 lb. Carniolan packages at Nature's Nectar in Stillwater Minnesota. We had an excellent trip thanks to google maps and also found that our Vibes' cargo strap system keeps 2 lb. packages very secure over a relatively long trip.

Early in the afternoon I installed both packages in our two new hives: a top bar named Plan Bee From Outer Space, and a green Langstroth called Lib-BEE-taria. The installations went well without much problem. (see videos below). I gave each hive a MegaBeetm pollen patties and filled each hives' feeder with 1:1 sugar syrup.




The packages seemed very healthy, if I compare them with last year's two. Only a few dead bees, and very, very few damaged in transit. I am quite pleased with Nature's Nectar.

Carniolans Due on April 11th

I checked out Nature's Nectar's blog today. It looks like my carniolan packages will be in on April 11th.

Carniolans Ordered

I ordered two packages of Carniolans yesterday from Nature's Nectar in Stillwater Minnesota.