Inspections: The Good and the Bad

I did two sets of inspections on my langstroth hives the last two days. Somethings look better then they were, others looks worse. The weather has been hot, clear and muggy finally!

Yesterday, I inspected Worker Bees... and Lib-BEE-taria and things look a bit better in these hives then last week. The bees are building up now though the brood pattern is still not to my liking. I added a third box to each hive though as it was getting a bit crowded in the two.

I am not really pleased with Bee Glad... at all. The brood is spotty, and the workers have raised supersecedure cells. I will see how the bees work this all out with a new queen but I am not confident.

I am inspected the nuc and while I saw the new queen who looks mated, I saw no signs of egg laying.

I don't know whether it is me or not but it seems to me that my langstroths are all not producing as many drones as they did in previous years. I am going to email some local beekeepers to see if they noticed the same thing in their hives. I hope there are some drones around the local area for mating.

Last Tuesday's Inspection

Last Tuesday, I inspected all the hives in Beelandia. While it was sunny and reasonable warm, the wind was very gusty. I have caught the bees foraging Dutch White Clover, chives and mint on my property. I was a bit concerned about the bees since we had rainy and unseasonably cold conditions the previous week.

All the hives seem to be doing well. Plenty of larvae in all stages of development. They are bringing in pollen and the queens look large and healthy.

Drones have hatched in Plan Bee..., the largest top bar hive. I did not see any in the other hives.

I took off the top feeders but did leave a pollen patty in each hive. They have been consuming it and, with the rain and cold, I have worried about the bees diet.

Hive Autopsy Begins

Saturday, I began the autopsy of Bee Glad... and Metpropolis. I was planning on continuing my examination of both hives on Sundy but the weather did not cooperate.

Bee Glad... probably died because of what I suspected originally: starvation in the midst of abundance. The top two deeps were jam-packed with honey with no empty comb cells for the cluster to move up through. (Below is pictured a typical frame)


The cluster was in the bottom box. Many of these bees were found dead, head-first in cells. There was only one place where "spotting" might indicate a Nosema problem.

I collected some bees for microscopic examination.

Metpropolis' autopsy does not seem as definitive. Again there was plenty of untouched honey and pollen in the hive. However, despite my best efforts in the fall, the bees still moved the honey to both sides of the brood nest. This probably happened because I moved the top bars of honey around a little too early in fall, giving the bees enough time to rearrange things during the warm spell in late October. Because the honey was located on both sides, the winter cluster had become too diffused and separated throughout the brood nest, and when extreme cold occurred the bees couldn't keep the cluster temperature warm enough.


Two other things are worth mentioning about Metpropolis. First, the hive still had an usually high percentage of drones in it when it died. Whether this is an indication of some underlying problem is a question that needs further research. Second, I was able to find the queen. (pictured below) She looks healthy but I will do a closer examination of her body in the future.

Video: At The Kendall Farm

This fall Monta and I spent some time visiting the bees of our friends, the Kendalls. I filmed a worker evicting a drone, and then a guard bee decided to evict me.

Yellow Jacket - Honey Bee Symbiosis

Since I haven't been opening up either hive for inspections recently, I've spent a great deal of time observing the entrances of each. I've noticed an interesting relationship between the yellow jackets who've been hovering around the entrance to Bee Glad..., and the honey bees who are starting to prepare for fall and winter. The yellow jackets do not try to enter the hive but instead wait hungrily in front for the next drone to be evicted from the hive. The workers, seemingly ignoring the yellow jackets, push the drones off the entrance board, where thedrones are enthusiastically attacked by the hovering yellow jackets. The honey bees get rid of some drones, and the yellow jackets get a meal.

Mated Drone?

I found this mutilated drone struggling on top of Metpropolis two days ago. I wonder if it had just mated. If it had, it makes me wonder where the drone congregation area is. (Looks above Beelandia!)

Metpropolis Inspection

I inspected Metpropolis yesterday and moved a few combs around. The hive has drawn up three bars almost entirely of capped honey. Two others are almost there. The rest of the hive has bars with different proportions of honey, capped brood, and pollen. The three supersedure cells are capped. I pulled one comb filled with capped drone brood for inspection and found a few mites on the larvae. The hives were brimming with workers and a good portion of drones. I couldn't find the queen in all of it however. The bees were fairly gentle considering some of the manipulations I made.

Either the queen has slowed down her egg laying, which is entirely possible at this time of the year, or she is deficient, as the queen cells seem to indicate, because there was only a scant proportion of capped worker brood, and I had difficulty seeing any earlier stages of worker larvae. The bees don't act like they're queenless, but the supersedure cells indicate that they seem to have some problem with the current queen. I will monitor Metpropolis carefully.

Week 13: Cranky Bees

This week's inspection was split between two days, as rain suddenly interrupted Sunday's inspection. Monday was a hot, muggy day, unlike much of the weather we've had all summer here in southeast Minnesota. The bees are foraging in great numbers and seem a bit defensive. I've been chased by a number of guard bees recently. As a local beekeeper told me at the Farmer's Market Saturday, "The bees must be up to something."

When we (Monta, Tristan (an interested 10 year old relative) and I) opened up Bee Glad... on Sunday, I was quite surprised. The top box, which was on the bottom of the hive last week and was essentially empty, was now heavy with uncapped honey. They had practically filled the top box in a week! The middle and bottom boxes indicated the same busy activity. The queen is still laying, there was some capped brood, and plenty of honey was brought into the hive.

While Tristan and I did not get stung during the inspection, Monta did, right near her left eye. Monta was not wearing a veil like Tristan and I, and the bees exploited that weak spot in our defense to attack... Of course, if you know Monta at all, you also know that she was right back out there after removing the sting and inspecting the wound. The eye was a little puffy this morning but nothing too bad.

I left a sticky board under the screen to get a mite check on Bee Glad... and then the rains came. I was a bit concerned about mites, having found one drone outside the hive with mite right on him.

This morning I inspected Metpropolis, the top bar hive. The weather was sunny, hot and very little breeze.

Metpropolis has turned into a big, thriving hive with a good queen and foragers bringing in much honey. I found one drawn bar filled with capped drone brood which I inspected and found a few larvae with mites. I disposed of the capped brood and placed in another bar. I will take a mite count on Metpropolis immediately.

We will see what the mite counts are in the next few days and then figure out a sustainable strategy for dealing with them.

"Metpropolis" Filled to Capacity

Yesterday, I added two more bars to Metpropolis, the Kenyan top bar hive, making the total number of bars in the hive 33 which is its capacity. As I inspected the hive I found no queen cells whatsoever. Metpropolis is simply a large thriving hive. Of course, this leaves me with a bit of a dilemma. What do I do next? There are plenty of bars of honey in the hive but none even close to 50% capped. Hopefully, in a few days, this will be different but if it isn't I'll need to figure out a way to keep the hive "roomy". I have been cutting the brood comb off the bottoms of some comb but this isn't really all that significant.

Return to Feeding

After a week of rain and cold, I noticed, over the last two days, that the workers are ejecting young drones from Bee Glad... (interestingly, not Metpropolis, the top bar hive). I couldn't make heads or tails of the situation until I went over the postings on the Warre email list where someone mentioned the bees might be experiencing a shortage of nectar. To be on the safe side, I am placing the top hive feeder back on Bee Glad... tomorrow morning.