Winter check

So I am walking in the yard, and see a Yellow jacket walking Oh so brazenly into one of the hives. Now a week back I checked the heft (weight) of all the hives and this one was a tad lighter than others.

So I panic...... good reaction.

I open the hive, temps around 48-49 deg F, but almost no wind, ..... I see no bees in the top super, NOW a total freak out, I lift the super off the deep,..... ahhhhhhhhh a nice cluster of bees across about 4 frames and they are pissed at me, I get a tag and a few follow me about 20 ft away.

Having lifted the super I know why the hive is light, as I check the frames (still without any gear), I find all 4 frames on West side are empty.

I cover the hive and head up to the house , open up the freezer and pull 3 full capped frames of Honey I had saved.....pull 3 empty frames and add full frames into the super and put it all to bed after taking another hit.

Whew !!!!!! At least I know the hive will be OK for next 6 weeks.

Still watching out for the damn Yellow Jacket too.

Wrapping up an interesting season

My original hive was gang busters on honey, I eventually pulled 4 full boxes plus a few frames.

By end of season things quietened down and I continued to feed the other three hives.

The damn hive beetles became an issue and I played around with CD jewel cases as traps with some bait in them. They worked ok but each hive was different, which was surprising. One hive propolised the trap closed, while oters let them be.

Towards mid Oct I found some brood trouble and Don Hopkins , our inspector, came out and diagnosed varroa Mite problems, so we treated with the new Mite Away Quik Strips, and did all 4 hives. Saw large mite drop in 24 hrs, I next checked day 3 and again day 10, ( when i removed the strips) each time saw plenty mites and in one of the hives- dead Beatles too, but none in any other hives.

Still seeing pollen coming in on warm days despite it being December. The lightest hive has dry sugar food on top of inner cover. Will be watching it carefully.

Looking fwd to spring.

Bees and Boy Scouts

My son moved up to scouts , and I was asked to do a talk on bees

This generated some interest and we held an info session at my hives.

9 boys and parents arrived and 3 leaders. Much more than I expected

Two of my mentors also came to help me. Rob and Wally. Neither bothered with a bee suit , but I donned all my gear to show everyone what it looked like. We showed the boys how to light the smoker and opened up one hive , puling frames and showing brood , eggs, larvae and new bees. Did not spot the queen but also did not try too hard either.

Lots of great questions

Late season lessons

Damn Small Hive Beatles are a pain

While I Have not yet seen any damage inside the hives, I certainly am seeing plenty of beatles in all but the big hive. The big hive has some mean bees at times, so my guess is that they also go after the beatles like they go after me :-)
I have done a permethrin soil drench and we have not had much rain, so it should work, will do another drench this coming weekend

I pulled another two full boxes of honey off the big hive this weekend. That makes it 4 supers of honey his season, wow , these girls know how to work. I almost forgive them for tagging me each time I work the hive - almost !!

I continue to learn each time I work the hives, the Ballinger swarm bees are very calm, never seem to worry about me working them, but are also slow to build up, while it was a tiny swarm we caught, they are only just filling up the last of about 18 frames now, still some open wax foundation, but brood pattern is good, and stores look fine, I will continue to feed once a week.

The Waynes bees are awesome, good brood, good build up and great stores. One of the two Hives is slightly busier than the other and filled their first super about 2 weeks before the other. Feeding them both to help draw out the foundation in the supers.

I am hoping all three smaller hives will fill at least one more super during the late summer flow

Back to the beatles, i found a nice site that detailed a beatle trap using a CD jewel case, I made 8 of these, and concocted a bait,using pollen patty , honey, and Boric acid (roach bait)

After 3 days I checked the traps and found a few dead beatles, but suspect that i need more honey to get them in...... Will check them this weekend and then adjust the bait again. I did look for Roach Jell but cannot find it locally, but I did find some Ant jell using Boron , so might try that now

How the time flies.....

We are already mid July and the NC dearth is probably on us. BUT My bees are working something local as pollen is still coming in (visual observation), but with so little rain there cannot be much nectar.

The hives are booming. The big hive has already produced 4 boxes of honey this year and is still 4 boxes tall. Only take the top box off each time and move frames around to encourage work in all regions.

The Ballinger swarm is the slowest hive but doing well. Plenty brood and 3 frames of honey stores full and at least 1 full of pollen plus scatterings on oter frames in deep Plus started new super as well. Feeding all the smaller hives. About a quart every 5 days.

The Waynes bee hives are both doing well. I am seeing small hive beetle in all hives, quite a few , but have not seen any damage yet and bees chase them whenever i open the hive. Kill any i see too. Have drenched the ground once and will do it again tomorrow. Ants remain a nuisance. I have ideas and must implement them sometime whenthe heat wave is over. 97 deg today with 98 forecast tomorrow. Phew!!

I am seeing some cool bearding in the hot evenigs. Will up load some pics soon.

So yesterday we opened all 4 hives

Been feeding the 3 new hives for last week or so, boy are they drinking up the syrup. Up to a gallon in 36 hrs.

Was worried the feeder was leaking , so checked the other hives and all are the same .... busy bees. I added some Honey Bee Healthy to the syrup, and this certainly had them excited.

All 4 hives have great laying patterns , we have almost 20 frames with half capped honey, already removed 12 frames from the big hive (Marc) . I always seem to get stung when opening this hive, and each time on the hands for some reason, I wasn't even on the hive when I had two bees hit me on my left hand. The queen is now laying in 3 boxes of this hive. We saw good brood in box 3 (Deep plus two Supers)
Very little in way of Mites or Beatles , we opened some drone cells and did not find a single mite in 5 cells. Saw only one beatle in the 4 boxes we took off. Nothing in the trap.

The Swarm hive is growing well and have worked 9 of the frames , so we moved frames around so they work the remaining side to draw it out. Have a super waiting if needed.

The two new Waynes Bee nucs , are also working well with great laying patterns , good stores already too. These are relatively calm bees too.

Once again I learned from Wally as he moved frames around to make the bees work all the frames. He approved of my wiring :-) after giving me a lecture about it previously.

I have discovered a new sw , that works wonderfully to keep track and record my hives.

Called Hive Tracks it is an online sw created by a team from NC, very intuitive and works on my iPad too. It has direct links to Weather Channel online, so even if you are updating a previous date , it can pull the weather from that date and time, NICE !!!
So in my case I created my hives and was able to use the original date and still pull in the weather from that time and date.

The swarm settles

Already first day the New swarm bees were bringing in pollen , usually
a good sign that they are rearing brood. Lots of entrance activity so
far too.

Wally suggested I leave it alone for a week and then move the frames
into my box. If strong they will go into a 10 frame langstroth , if
not into a nuc. So yesterday I built my own plywood capture box in
case i need it. It actually will take 6 or 7 frames at a squeeze. I
used external dimensions but used 5/8 plywood to build it ( scrap I
had lying around) and that is why it takes a few extra frames. Solid
bottom so easy to carry too. Still need to make an inner cover and
outer cover, and have cut the plywood to do so but ran out of time
last night.

I have chosen not to feed this hive yet, we will see after a week.
Wally put a frame of pollen and honey into the nuc , as well as a
frame of capped drone brood, so they have " things to do". Lol. The
reason not to feed is because the much stronger hive might rob it, and
also the flow is on with Tulip poplar in full bloom so no storage of
food.

Pretty cool that I now have two hives and yet the original bees I
ordered are still not here. Hoping for next weekend.

The first hive is booming. Supered up again this last Sunday as the
super from the week before was almost full. Weighed plenty.

Starting to plan to improve the hive location - decided I will build a
bench behind the hives and make a nice long rest for the hives , with
place for some 8 hives in total. The idea for the bench behind is
because everywhere I go beeks are putting things on the ground. Might
be nicer to have a work area close to the hive. in theory I might even
be able to build a storage cupboard. Will see about going too far :-)

--

Regards
Rick

http://zenzele-brewery.blogspot.com/

http://ballingerbees.blogspot.com/

Got called by my farmer neighbor, he had seen a swarm flying and they just landed in a tree in his yard. Used his Bobcat to get up to it, but my positioning of the nuc box was not ideal and Wally shook the branch and missed the box .....

Evidence of the apprentices mistake , the master suffers !


Easier than a ladder





Up there...


Perfect example of Nasonoving - fanning pheromone out to attract the rest of the swarm


Many more pics here:
Ballinger Swarm

Excitement and swarms

First Swarm

In situ

Iddee starting the cutting of excess limbs

One good shake and 80% are in..

Closing the lid

The remainder walking across from the now cut limb

Rob covered in bees

Rob bringing down the second swarm, 2 sec later the ball dropped off the limb

Bees walking across from limb

Wally the Bee Whisperer

Me holding up the second limb

The original swarm size - click to zoom

About a min later Wally found a second queen walking across

Working my own hive

A week after my hive was placed I decided to have a peek, Iddee came along to offer moral support and look over my shoulder , making sure I was doing it all the right way.

This is a super strong hive , thanks Mark

The biggest task was to put the frames into varnished boxes , as I had nothing ready when the call came. So I would be handling every frame  during this opening and moving them into new wooden ware. Deeps looked good with 7 fully drawn out, Mark had used plastic foundation on his deeps, the outer frames were not yet drawn, so we also changed the hive opening to make the bees work the eastern side a bit more.

First super had lots of brood including done cells, good honey stores too, my wife who was watching from a distance asked Iddee when can we get honey, so he pulled a full frame and said NOW.

Found the queen on the upper super, lots of eggs and larvae and capped brood.

Great Brood (the brown capped cells)

Busy entrance , now on RHS , few lost bees on LHS

Watering hole

Apple blossoms

Cherry Blossoms

Fun being a new beekeeper.

A call...... and I suddenly have a hive unexpectantly

Monday afternoon 4:30pm , working in my office catching up after my African trip - and I get a call asking me if I want a hive of bees...... but I have two nucs coming in a few weeks time.

The deal is: I need to take it immediately... Mark has too many hives and is giving one away, just need to provide woodenware.

I ran down the stairs, gathered up all my bits and pieces , forgot a long sleeve shirt, or gloves or anything else. Put together all the parts for one hive and two supers, and headed out.

Just over an hour later , my girls are home as the sun is setting.

South African Adventure

 

My dad lives on the south coast of South Africa in a small town called Sedgefield. This region falls within the Cape Floral Kingdom, which has thousands of unique flora speci. These are known as Fynbos which are mostly heather type plants and small flowering bushes.

The region is temperate with mid winter only getting an occasional frost, and by mid morning will typically be in mid 50's F. Summer only just climbs into the 90's occasionally.This is the only region of South Africa that gets all year round rain.

For bees there is food all year round, and they have two strong honey flows, beginning of summer and end of summer which is usually stronger of the two. Hives close to the natural forests will forage on both Fynbos and Forest plants and create the most unique tasting honey.

My dad arranged for me to visit a local Beekeeper, Corrie, who gave us a great tour and info on both local methods as well as his hives.

Another day working the bees

I was very kindly invited back to work the bees of my Bee mentor Rob , last weekend. A beautiful sunny Sunday , temps in the 60's finally.

The Red Maples were in full bloom and the bees are definitely working the nectar and pollens.

Rob gave Dylan a lesson in lighting the smoker again, using the scorched knuckle method. We started looking at a hive that Rob was worried about, in fact when he opened it , it was showing swarm tendencies, with a few queen cups and good brood patterns, lots of stores still, and a good cluster, We found the queen too and saw all stages of bees, plus a few drones. This time Dylan was with me and worked with us right next to the hives , which really impressed me that he had taken so big a step.
The next hive was the one that had a duff queen the last time out (she was only laying drones), and we confirmed again that she was not laying worker brood. We searched for her and caught her and Rob put her in a queen cage, then started planning for combining the rest of the hive with the hive of this queens daughter.

The good hive was checked , and once confirmed that the queen was laying strongly, Rob added a sheet of newspaper over it, made a few slits in the paper and started stacking the hive deeps onto the new hive. At the top the top covers were put together back to back so that the new top based hive had an entrance. The lower still had its old entrance on the bottom board.

This was pretty fascinating to do. By now the wind had come up and we also had overcast weather so stopped for the day.

I learned about combining hives, I learned again about lighting the smoker, I learned about the stages of brood, handled and felt the weight of a good food store "super",  I saw queen cups and saw royal jelly , so a great day

Pics to follow

Warm days are here

Finally the warm weather is starting

Our First day working with bees

Finally for the first time since Thanksgiving, the weather warmed up - really warmed up, into 60's.

Rob invited Dylan and I across to watch him working his hives. 

Another Beek was there - Mark, and Wally also came past to visit.

Great experience, Dylan was a bit apprehensive , and briefly escaped to the car, but he overcame his fears and came back and watched the work.

Rob keeps detailed notes of the hive quality, where the bees were, how much stores they had, I think there were 10 hives in all,

one Nuc which had over wintered well.

He also had a feeder out about 50 feet away, feeding a dried food, which consists of used brewers yeast and soy flour. Boy were they interested in this food. Also had some syrup feeders out at same table.

Wally showed us how he works without any protection , he only took two stings both while doing things he should not. He also showed us Apitherapy where he stung himself on the back close to where he has a slipped/damaged disc, within 20 minutes he was feeling much better and able to stand up straight.

Here he is picking up a bee to be used on the lumbar region of his back

Here is a queen on left mid picture

Great day and very impressed, we looked and identified brood comb, saw eggs, saw the queen in most of the hives, and saw some drone brood cells too. Only person to take a sting was Wally.