I didn't excel at wood shop...and it shows!

Fall. According to the calendar, it arrived weeks ago. Even though the season is officially here, the daytime highs have still hovered in the 70s with the lows at night getting into the lower 50s - maybe down to 48 and then stop.

That was until today. Fall arrived here like a lion, complete with cold temperatures and blustery winds. Actually it got up to 50 on my home thermometer...but the constant barrage of heavy winds made it seem much colder...almost like winter. And for the next week, forecasters say the temperatures at night are expected to reach 35 to 38 degrees.

As most of you know, I've been concerned about winterizing my hive. A few weeks ago I put a mouse guard on...but then I took it off because I'm sure that the metal bar with the small holes was causing an air flow issue on warmer days. Plus I worried that if the bottom board got cluttered up with trash, like dead bees, that the colony could die from being trapped inside. Even though I know it is a necessity and serves a purpose, I am just not too crazy about the mouse guard. But as the season progresses, I'm sure I'll probably put it back on, just not right now. And I don't want my girls getting too cold from the cold winds whipping through the entrance and the bottom of the hive. 


Now before I go any further, let me say that I'm not a carpenter. Truthfully, I hated wood shop in school. I barely made the required wooden key, one to hang your car keys on. But I made it so I could pass the class and to this day it hangs in my parent's kitchen (my Mom acted as if it was the greatest thing ever). I picked up enough skills in the class that if the need arises, I can create something. It may not be great, but hey, I can make it. And today was one of those days. I needed an entrance reducer to keep the wind out, and the ones I got from Dadant would not work. So with the few tools I possess, I got cracking in making a homemade entrance reducer, Mark-style!

If I had kept the old fashioned wooden bottom board, I could still use the usual Dadant reducer -- but with the new plastic screened board they sell, it will not work at all. They're too long in width and too narrow to cover the entrance (with gaps top and bottom). Sure I could trim the excess off, no problem there, but I can't fatten them up. They're worthless to me now. I sent Dadant an email and explained to them that their old fashioned reducers don't work now. Who knows what they'll do, maybe just ignore it. 

Remembering I had some old political campaign stakes in my garage, I took them out and decided that they would work perfectly. So I got the current measurements of my hive entrance and went to work. It would be a little tough to trim it to fit inside the entrance with a hand saw, so it would have to sit outside the entrance -- but that's okay, at least it would block the cold wind.

So with my hand saw, I cut it to the width of the hive entrance which worked out fine. But then the question came up inside my head...how would they get in and out, Mark? No problem! I took my drill and a wood bit and cut a hole at the bottom, then trimmed the round part out...making an upside down U-shape for the girls to come in and out. Oh, and to keep it from tipping forward and falling off -- I came up with the dandy idea of placing two popcicle sticks under it and slightly forward, so I stapled them to the stake, thus keeping it upright!

So now was the time to test my homemade reducer. And not a minute too soon either, as I got to the hive, there was a fight underway -- the girls were dragging out a wasp that tried to sneak into the front entrance. 

Okay, a drum roll please? TA-DA! Well, it fit okay, all except that I trimmed the width slightly short, leaving a slight gap. You guessed it, the girls were going in and out of the sides! It was a true Charlie Brown moment..I felt like a total block head. But after a few minutes, they started going in and out of the hole in the middle, although they were still using the gaps on the sides too. Oh well, at least the cold, blustery fall winds will not penetrate the front of the hive and chill the nest, not now anyway. 

I plan to tweak this idea some, and I have a cousin who is a cabinet maker with tons of tools, so I'm going to see if he can work on an entrance reducer for me. Until that time, I think my girls will stay toasty warm at night, and be able to get in and out and maintain housekeeping in the daytime. So even though it wasn't perfect, it was still a success.

You know...that mouse guard might not be such a bad idea after all.

Until next time, BEE warm!

Re-thinking my thinking - or - changing my mind is an easy thing to do..

Anyone who knows me pretty well will tell you that I tend to re-think things I do. I guess its because I always want to do the right thing and not have negative consequences. But sometimes, no matter how hard I try, things happen anyway, so I re-think and then change my mind. And beekeeping is no exception. Freud would probably have a field day with me!

Several weeks ago I installed my mouse guard. I figured that with cooler weather here, now is the time to keep Ms. Mouse out of my hive, after all, she'll be looking for a place to nest for the winter, and a bee hive would be an ideal spot. All of the newsletters and information I read said fall is the time to those guards on, so being a newbie beekeeper, I followed the advice. But now I'm thinking I acted a little prematurely.

On Sunday, I go down to put some new syrup in the hive-top feeder and I saw that my bees were clogging up the holes in the mouse guard. They were in a clump on the front, something that I observed for the last couple of days which concerned me somewhat.

The first thing I noticed was that condensation had gathered on the inside of the outer cover. When I took the cover off, water dripped down into the feeder and the inner cover was somewhat damp too. So from my science days in school, I knew that the cool air outside...combined with the heat inside the hive...had caused the dampness above the feeder...and that probably came from a lack of air circulation. 

Even though I have a screened bottom board...I feel like the mouse guard, which restricts mice from entering the hive...is probably restricting the air flow as well, and that's not good. I also noticed the other day that some mold had grown on the inside of the shallow super that covers the hive-top feeder. That comes from air restriction too.  

The temperatures here have hit the 70s by day and the 50s at night. The lowest nighttime temperature so far is 48. I find it ironic that a mouse, no matter how bold she may be, is going to chance it and invade a hive full of bees. Maybe when it stays cold day and night, yeah maybe, but with the days still being warm and the nights cool, I don't think she's going to take the chance of being stung to death. 

So anyway, I filled the feeder with more syrup and I removed the mouse guard for now. I am sure I'll put it back on pretty soon. And when I put it back on, to improve air flow inside the hive, I'll use the inner cover that has the popcicle stick risers. It makes a slight vent at the top of the hive and keep the air flow going through the winter. Supposedly it stops condensation from forming and dripping water on the bees through the winter.

My Mama always said it was okay to change my mind if the cause is right. And in this case, I think it was the right thing to do. I'll let you know when I put it back on and I may try to post some pictures of my inner cover with the popcicle stick risers so you can get an idea how it works.

New Bees 101: How to Manuever a Mouse Guard!

So imagine that you leave home, you go to work...and when you get back, someone had put a wall up...and you had to crawl through a hole to get inside your house! Well it happened here today. No, not my own house, but at my bee hive. As I mentioned a few posts back, with fall here now, I figured it was time to install the mouse guard on the front of the hive. I really don't think that a sneaky mouse would invade this hive because it sits off the ground pretty high, but since there is a bunch of bamboo and weeds near the creek, I'm not going to take any chances. So today was installation day, plus I decided to do a brief inspection while I was at it.

First though, the mouse guard. I had already fitted it to the hive a few weeks ago, so all I had to do was to put it in place and then tack it up. I used a large thumbtack instead of a screw. I would have used a screw, but I didn't want to make holes in the wood, plus I'm sure the last thing they would appreciate is some odd vibrating of their house. You should have seen (or felt) the ones returning who banged into me while I was squatting down in front of the hive. With the hive beind white, and my overalls and veil being white, I don't think they saw me in their flight path. But I hurriedly got out of their way so they could get back to coming and going.

As you can see, the girls are rather curious as to what is going on. Like all my other pictures, click on them for a better view, and pay particular attention to the holes...especially on the far right. Notice how they seem to be checking each other out. I'm not sure if they're guard bees, but they're definitely checking out the situation. Even though I'm near the hive, just off to the side with my camera, they acted like they could care less about me and seemed more interested in what this new thing is that's blocking the front door. 

It didn't take long before a crowd gathered. There were lots of incoming bees during this time, and I'm sure they were totally confused about the whole situation. It sort of reminded me of a busy airport, where planes are flying into the airport, but because so many people are waiting to disembark ahead of you...you just have to wait it out. I wondered what the guard bees inside the hive were thinking about all these things popping through those holes. Did they realize they were their own sisters? Or did they have to change the method of how they inspect each bee upon arrival back to the hive? I wonder.

Now take a look at all the bees flying all around, some are hanging on the front, and some are crowding into the holes in the mouse guard. It kind of reminds me of the day after Thanksgiving...you know, people out in the dark at 5:00am trying to get in Walmart to be the very first to buy something. You know how it is, as soon as the doors open, they go pouring in? That's what this reminded me of! But I'm happy to report that these smart girls figured it all out and within an hour and everything was happily back to normal. It was so normal that I mowed around the hive, pulled weeds, gave my crepe myrtles and plants around the hive a fall feeding, and everything was just groovy. I think they have it all figured out now.

The hive inspection was very brief because it was cool...but here's what I saw. Plenty of the incoming bees were loaded down with pollen, I mean sacs stuffed full. I think they're bringing in goldenrod pollen from some nearby fields, and I mean bringing in a lot...so that means no pollen supplement for now. The honey store in the top chamber was so heavy I could barely lift it...it must weigh over 50 pounds easily. The bottom chamber, or brood box, was jam packed with bees! Not only that, but in the six frames I checked, capped brood was everywhere. I didn't see the queen...but since there is evidence that she's in residence, I stopped the inspection and reassembled everything -- plus I added two gallons of new syrup. Things looked really good. My only complaint was that the propolis inside the hive was like glue! It was hard to manipulate the frames...basically because it seemed like they were stuck to the rack in the hive. Even my hive tool didn't help much! I have tried to keep excess propolis and burr comb out of my hive...but I'll have to work harder at it next season. if I ever invent a glue...I'm naming it propolis! 

I plan to feed them for a little while longer, basically because there are two frames that are not drawn yet, but they're working on it. I may feed until the first heavy freeze or they stop taking the syrup -- whichever comes first. If the winter this year is as mild as winters past, I think they'll do just fine with the store they already have. I have my fingers crossed anyway!

Until next time, my friends...bee sweet!    

Inspection report: A box full of brood and a gold star for my queen!

Since I'm going on vacation, I decided to check on my colony to make sure everything was on task before I hit the road. Just yesterday, I noticed these tiny, fuzzy creatures sitting on the hive front, and I knew it was newly hatched baby bees. It was funny to watch them walking around, not really doing anything other than walking in and out of the hive. Every now and then one of the adult workers would come over and check them out, but otherwise, they just did their own thing.

So today I light up the smoker and decided to concentrate on the lower brood box. That's where I saw the eggs and larvae last week, so I figured that would be the place to go first. Once I gave the hive a few gentle puffs, I tried to take the top chamber off, and it was as heavy as lead. After getting my hive tool between the boxes, I was finally able to pry it apart and I sat it off to the side and began my work.

Without going into long details, let me say that her majesty has bounced back full force. While some of the frames in the lower deep held nectar and pollen, there were at least four middle frames with capped brood, and another was full of newly laid eggs. One side of a frame was jam packed with nothing but capped brood, and the other side was capped brood and larvae. So needless to say, she has made up for the time she stopped laying -- the time that almost called for her to be replaced with a new queen. Maybe she's trying to make up for being naughty?

I decided that I would check the top chamber while I had the hive apart, and I was surprised that about eight of the ten frames are pretty much drawn with comb...much of it filled with beautiful white capped honey. That's the reason the darn thing is so heavy, they've filled it up for the winter -- and might I say, doing a rather thorough job. I was thinking that I may have to feed them this winter, but if they continue to fill up the top brood box with honey, I may not have to feed until later in the winter, depending on how fast they consume their current stores. But I'm very proud of this colony and how hard they've worked, and I'm thankful my queen hasn't let me down.

By the way...funny story. I thought I would put the mouse guard on the hive since the weather is turning cooler, but in order to fasten it to the hive, I needed a tack which I didn't have. I decided to see how it works and if the bees could get in and out of it okay before I fasten it on.

After a few tries, most of them got right inside the hive -- but one poor girl, her pollen sacs were packed full, and she could not seem to grasp how to get inside. She got her upper body in the hole, and she fought and fought to get her rump inside, but it just didn't work. Then she flew off a couple of feet, eyeballed the hole -- and tried it again -- but it was the same thing all over again -- she got her head inside, but the rest of her body just wouldn't go. I decided to help her and pull the mouse guard off, and before I could get my hand on it -- boom -- she popped herself inside the hole. I felt sorry for the old girl, and I'm sure she wondered what the heck happened in the time she left home for work...who put that funky looking wall there? I'm going to give them one more week of a wide-open entrance, then I plan to put the mouse guard on for the fall. The last thing I want is some field mouse building her nest inside my hive. I love handling my bees...but mice? No way!

Like they used to do in elementary school for a job well done -- my colony gets a gold star for today's inspection. Can you tell I'm smiling?