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.

Last Day of Queen Rearing Course

I finished up the queen rearing class at the University of Minnesota this morning. Our primary activity was taking our grafted cell bars out of the swarm boxes to see whether the bees started any queen cells. Of my eight grafts, only two were being cultivated into queens. One unlucky group's swarm box had included a virgin queen, so none of their grafts took. (There is a lesson there, there could be two queens in any hive so be careful when you shake bees into your swarm box!) After examining the bars, they were all placed in prepared hives for "finishing". These queens will be used in Marla Spivak's classes to teach the techniques of artificial insemination.

We all left with a pleasant surprise. Gary Reuter gave each of us a ripe queen cell grafted from a strong survivor hive. We actually packaged the cells in the nalgene bottles we were given the day before. When I got home I placed my cell in a 5 frame nuc created from frames and bees taken from Bee Glad... We will see if a mated queen will result from this. This allows me to experiment with wintering a double nuc.

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.

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.