The first attrition

Well my original hive that took the late season mite hit, has not made it. On 28th Janauary, almost exactly a year after I first wrangled live bees with Rob and Wally, I noticed clear robbing signs at the #1 hive, opened it up and found a few bees frozen in a very small cluster of only about 6", food both sides of them , so the mites just hammered them too hard, and maybe the queen also failed late season..... Never checked for brood late season. She would have been at least two years old according to Marc. LIVE AND LEARN. The other hives are working well, good pollen going in and a gallon jar feeder in the yard is being cleaned outi every 3 days. Did one fumigdalin treatment as well, just to be sure. Was hoping to be able to open the hives today before the cold snap (20 expected Sunday morning) but too cold and windy, only 52 with wind, so left them alone. Will clean up the dead out tomorrow too, as it was raining last weekend and away all week. Hive #3 is strong so will make a split when it warms up. Might get a pkg too as Larry Tate has some left. Will add some pics soon.

Winter tasks

So with a rainy cold day, I retired to my woodwork shop , to mess with some bee hive stuff.
I made and nailed up 10 Medium Frames for the Boy Scout Project

Frames

Then I started to build 4x Med Supers for my hives, I cut the boards to length

First step cut to depth of a board

Setting the blade to the height Aligning the Tenon jig The final product

of one boardNow we cut off the unwasnted part of the tennon checking the depth of the cut

Getting ready to trip the tennon

Rabbit cut on both ends

Cutting the frame rest 3/8 rabbit



The final dimensional cutting done


Next the cove handholds, this is a 15 deg jig that slides into a dado blade, the board being cut is inserted face (outside) down, an the top is also DOWN.





Cut board folded over a clean cut with 4 deg undercut as well as blade is at 19 dg

New Year

Well my first year of bees faded away, and I have learned a lot, but have so much more to learn.

So far the bees have done fine, with such a light winter, and they have worked many days, in fact even saw pollen last week. All the hives seem to have good stores ( heave test)

On Dec 31st, witha temperature of 63 deg f, I have a video of new bees taking an exploratory flight, a first I thought it might be robbing, but nope, and within 10 minutes they had gone back inside.

I am also open feeding in the bee yard, 2:1 syrup with splash of Honey B Healthy. Works very well from a 1 gallon pickle jar , raised on two pieces of wood.

If the weather stays so warm, then mid Jan, I will be adding pollen substitute, and brewers yeast.

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