Recent visit to the hives (and a friendly word of warning)...

The weather has been absolutely beautiful the last couple of weeks. While March can come in like a lion and leave like a lamb, most of this month has been worthy of all the lambs in North Carolina.  As you can see, the flowers are blooming and the trees are budding. Here you can see the Bradford pear trees at my house as they open and show their blooms.  

This past Friday, the temperature made it to a balmy 80 degrees, perfect weather for foraging for pollen. Here you can see the girls in the orange hive as they come and go from their home. Deciding that it was nice enough to fully open up the entrance to the hive, I removed the wooden reducers to give the girls plenty of room to some and go. While the holes are small enough to keep mice out, they also create traffic jams for the girls coming and going.

Here the girls have all the room they need to come and go. This was just after I fully opened the entrance. While I had the hive open, I scraped all the burr comb off, and I added a green drone frame to keep the burr comb down to a minimum. I also put a honey super on to keep the girls busy. The bees are bringing in all sorts of pollen, so I know they'll soon fill up the brood nest with honey. So now they can go to work filling the honey super.

The ladies that inhabit the green hive were not to be undone when it came to foraging. Actually, the bees in this hive seemed to bring in more pollen than the orange hive. I could see that the bees were having to wait to get inside the hive, so I also took the entrance reducer off this one too.



Take a look now that the entrance reducer is gone. And if you click on the picture, you can actually see the different kinds of pollen that the bees found on their foraging trips. I found bees bringing in bright orange pollen and a pale green pollen too. The dandelions are in full bloom as well as all sorts of trees and bushes. If they're finding this much pollen already, I can only imagine what they'll find in a few weeks when the pollen hits full force.

As I mentioned earlier, I added a honey super to the orange hive. Because the green hive is slower, I didn't add a honey super to it, and that's because I don't want to stress them. The good news though, the queen in the green hive is working. I found four frames of capped brood and freshly laid eggs so the queen is alive and well. Once I see more honey production in the green hive, I'll add a super to it as well.

The ladies in the green hive came to the top of the frames to see what all the commotion was about. Since it was just me, they went right back to work and forgot about me. Unlike the orange hive, I haven't had to smoke this colony quite as much to work with them. While the orange hive is full of bees, this one is a little slower and their numbers lower. But with the queen laying a good pattern, I think it won't be long before this hive will be teaming like their next door neighbors.

A WORD TO THE WISE: This is the time of year when the grass and weeds start to grow. Many of you are like me and prefer to keep a neat bee yard, and that means keeping the grass down. Always remember to be careful and protect yourselves when mowing or trimming around bee hives. I always prefer to wear a veil and gloves or my overalls to work around my bees, especially with a lawn mower or Weedeater. Bees can easily become agitated by the vibration, the exhaust, fast movements and flying grass. And of course, when they become agitated, their behavior can become completely unpredictable -- but chances are they will go on the defense. This past Saturday, while mowing with the riding mower, my bees went into a frenzy because I made a fast, close sweep by the hives and they followed me to the street. I should have known better..but I was in a hurry. Most of the time I make slow motions with the push mower while trimming close to the hives, but I was trying to save time and that turned into a mistake. Luckily I didn't get stung. But next time I might not be so lucky. So remember, when you're mowing close to your hives, take your time and mind what you're doing. My neighbors chuckle when they see me in full gear while mowing near my bees, but I'd rather be the butt of their jokes than picking stingers out of my butt (or my head or somewhere else) while trying to be bold. We all have to remember that bees are wild and we have to respect that. When they go on the defense, that's their instinct. You can never predict what they're going to do, and yes, that includes even the gentlest of bees. Happy bees mean happy beekeepers. Remember friends, its better to be safe than sorry!

Bee good everybody!

Sweet! I harvested my very first honey!

I knew the time had come to reap the rewards of my very first honey harvest. The bees in the big, yellow mother hive had filled a shallow super with honey over a month ago, but with my busy life and some laziness thrown in, I decided to just let it set. But after checking during a routine inspection, and seeing that my bees were filling up the frames in the brood box with honey too, I knew it was time to take it off. So with minimal smoke and a hearty shake method, I got the bees off every single frame in the shallow...and I have to admit they didn't give me a hard time like I thought they would. As many of you know, when you mess around with honey frames, you'll discover the real disposition of your bees. But I have to admit that mine were pretty cool during the process even though I was 'robbing' them as the old timers call it!  

Let me assure you now that my next purchase will be an extractor and bottling kit. But to get me through this first time, I decided to use the "crush and strain" method with goods I have around the house. Fun? Yes, but a mess. I was lucky to have a few things on hand like this Pyrex strainer to keep the comb from mixing in with the honey I scraped using a cappings scratcher. As you can tell, the honey poured through the screen and into a brand new and thoroughly cleaned five gallon bucket. After scraping as much honey off the frames as I could, I sat them aside so they could ooze what honey was left on them into the sink. And later on I'll put the frames back in the shallow super and near the hives so the bees can clean off what honey is left.

Check out this beautiful, liquid gold! After the honey leaked through the Pyrex strainer, it still had tiny bits of wax and comb in it. So I filtered it again through extra fine cloth to get all the small bits, and the finished product is what you're looking at now. The only reason it looked somewhat cloudy here is because of all the fine air bubbles in it. But before bottling it, I let it rest for a little bit to get the bubbles out while I washed and sterilized the jars and lids si I could bottle it.

It still had some bubbles in it, but as the night progressed on, it cleared up a lot. These are just a few jars from the one super I harvested. I had two full quart bottles and a bunch of the smaller bottles to give to the neighbors and friends. I plan to give the smaller, flatter, 4-ounce bottles to all the adjoining neighbors since they've been really good and adapted to my mini backyard apiary. I promised them that I would give them some of my very first crop, and I'm a man of my word. I hate to tell them, but I'm keeping the quart bottles though! I deserve a little reward. Right?

Isn't it beautiful? Here you can see that the amber color really shows through as the air bubbles settle to the top after bottling. And as you can see, the smaller bottles make it seem lighter colored while the quart jars make it appear darker. Speaking of bottling, maybe by the time I harvest my next batch, I'll have my own personalized labels. A friend of mine that works with me at the television station (he's a graphic artist) is designing a "Mark's Bees" logo for me to use on my website and on my honey too. That should really make it look sharp!

In case you can't tell, I'm pretty darn proud. And I admit it has been a long and winding road. The bees in the mother hive were on the brink of dying when they arrived last year, but with a lot of determination, they made it. Then they survived the harshest winter we've had in years and rebounded this spring. Now they're rewarding me for helping them through it all with the sweet product of their own toils. It really isn't necessary...I'm just having a blast being a beekeeper, but what the heck, I'll accept it with pride. And when I give some away and people thank me, I'll tell them, please don't thank me -- thank the bees! 

Happy harvesting!

Can swarm cells turn into supersedure cells? (Cue "Twilight Zone" music)

So it had been a week since I moved the four swarm cells from my first colony to an empty hive. As you recall, I found them during a routine inspection, scattered on the bottoms of four different frames in the upper deep. Following the advice of several longtime beekeepeers, I moved the cells with some capped brood, eggs and larvae and pollen and nectar to an empty hive, along with a generous sprinking of bees, and closed everything up. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday was extremely quiet and very little coming and going was happening at the new hive -- so little that I became concerned that something was very wrong.

But when Thursday rolled around, I found a lot of flying in and out and I could see some orientation flights underway too. This made me feel better but I knew that I wouldn't truly feel better until I took a good look under the lid to see what was going on inside.

Without using smoke, I opened the hive and as I was doing an inspection, I found two of the four swarm cells almost gone. I had the frames with the swarm cells placed where I could easily find them, and the precious cells were practically gone. Truthfully I thought I picked the wrong frames out, but then on closer examination, I realized I had the right ones after all. It was obvious that the bees had torn the cells down, I knew it wasn't me because I'd been extremely careful about moving the frames as to not tear the cells. And a third swarm cell was completely empty. I didn't even look at the fourth, because after all of that disappointment, I closed up the hive. When I got in the house, I started calling around to try to find a queen without delay. The queen I have on order in Chapel Hill is still a week or more away and no one else I called in the immediate area had any ready to sell. One had them but the waiting list was at least three weeks. With all these disappointments, I knew I was headed for trouble. I kept thinking that if I don't do something soon, I am going to find myself with a laying worker and then everything will be a total mess. Needless to say, I called everywhere and no luck was in the cards. 

Looking to buy some time, I spoke to a local beekeeper who told me to take more eggs from the mother hive and put them in the new hive and the bees should take them and start making new queen cells again. And since the queen I have is a laying machine, I knew I should be able to find more donor eggs. So the plan of action for Sunday would be to move some eggs over and keep my fingers crossed.

So Sunday rolled around and I opened the mother hive to look for eggs. Taking my time, I found a frame with some eggs scattered around, but since this is honey flow time here, I also noticed that the hive was scattered with lots of nectar and pollen and becoming honey-bound. So I grabbed up a shallow super to put on top of the hive so they can move the honey up and give the queen room to lay. And then I opened the new hive to find a frame to swap out -- but I found something that perplexed me totally. It was something new, something I never saw before in the past week, and something that has me totally confused. I found two new queen cells -- two supersedure cells.

The supersedure cells were in the middle of two different frames situated next to one another. In all my examinations of these frames, I never, ever saw these supersedure cells...and I honestly believe they are new and created in the last week. No eggs were in the new hive, so there should be no other queens there, at least not a mated queen anyway. And since I found eggs in the mother hive, it is obvious that a queen is there and working. So I don't quite understand why the bees in the new hive tore down the swarm cells and moved up the frame and made supersedure cells instead.

Is it because they realized that they had no reigning queen and created emergency cells? Is it because they have changed plans to swarm (since they're not in a crowded hive box anymore) and decided to create a different queen instead? And why did I not see these cells when I've examined the frames on two occasions in the past week?

I carefully closed up the new hive and took great care to not bump or rub the supersedure cells. And after adding a honey super to the mother hive, I closed it up as well and don't plan to disturb them again for a week or two. They've been stressed enough this past week so now I'm going to give them time to get back to being bees.

Without a doubt, I plan to keep an eye on the new hive to see what is going on there. If all goes to plan (at least the bees plan anyway) -- a new queen should emerge soon. But I'm not so sure that I should leave an emergency queen there or go ahead and replace her. I have read that emergency queens (by supesedure) are sometimes inferior to mated queens from a dealer. Maybe these are just the stories that some dealers tell just so beekeepers will buy their products, or maybe there is some ring of truth to it. I plan to mull it over in the meantime and do some research.

Anyone with experience with this kind of situation or your ideas on what you think is happening are more than welcome to offer comments. I would love to hear what you think is going on.

ADDENDUM: Beekeeping expert, Richard Underhill at the Peace Bee Farm, just sent me a note about my swarm cells turning into supersedure cells: "The swarm cells being replaced by supersedure cells is an interesting occurrence, but I think there is a simple explanation. You moved in a frame with swarm cells. The first one to emerge killed the others inside their cells, and the workers chewed out the sides of those cells. Now you find supersedure cells on the sides of frames. These may have been started as emergency queen cells by the workers when you started this new hive. The first day the new hive would have detected that it was queen-less. If there were eggs on one of the frames that you brought in, the bees would build emergency queen cells by extending worker cells and turning them downward. You did not see them on your previous inspection, because it only takes four days for them to build and cap a queen cell."

As always, thanks Richard! So if I understand this, there exists the possibility that my new hive could be queenright after all. Richard's scenario is that one of the queens in the swarm cells may have hatched and killed her sisters. The frames that now hold supersedure cells were a result of the bees realizing they were queenless and so they panicked and started building. Makes sense. I've always read that a queen-less colony is hard to work with, moody and irritable. But I've noticed that in the times I've been in this hive this past week, I never used smoke and they were really gentle -- so maybe the colony really is queenright. Now the search begins pretty soon to see if I can find a queen or eggs in the the new hive. 

House cleaning in the sun...and my honey supers are on the way!

So I decided to trek out to see how my bees are faring after Friday night's snow storm that blanketed my area with 8-inches of snow. Even though we're slowly but surely thawing out...it looks like this snow isn't going anywhere anytime soon. And the weather forecasters are calling for the possibility of more snow on Thursday night (Christmas Eve) -- so one way or another, old snow or new snow, we'll have a white Christmas...the first here since 1999.

The closer I got to the hive today, I noticed little dark dots on top of the hard, crunchy snow. They were little dead bee bodies. And the bee bodies were not the ones I scraped out of the hive entrance on Saturday. No, they were some that the housekeepers had brought out of the hive themselves. Some were about six feet from the hive entrance, others a little closer. Obviously the full sun against the hive had warmed the girls enough to where they wanted to do something, to stretch their wings, so house cleaning was the order of the day. I snapped this picture as the bees would come out, check what was going on, then fly off. Obviously they had been working some on Sunday too, removing the dead bees from the hive, because the dead bee bodies were scattered about the yard. I can't wait for the temperature to warm up into the 50s and they can get out and take a break from being stuck inside the hive. 

Great News from Brushy Mountain Bee Farm! My shallow supers and frames are on the way. They're coming by UPS, and the representative told me that she thought they would get here by Wednesday. Brushy Mountain Bee Farm is just on the western side of Winston Salem in Moravian Falls, North Carolina, but I don't have the time to drive there like I can with Dadant and Sons in Chatham, Virginia.

As I've admitted here before, my carpentry skills are horrible. I know it costs more, but I'd rather order some things made and ready to go. So when my package arrives, I'll have six assembled and painted shallow supers. All I'll have to do is put them on the hive and let the girls go to work.

  
What good are the shallows without frames? So I have 60 already assembled frames coming too. These are what they call the "Super White" frames. The frames are wooden, the foundation is plastic and beeswax coated. Many beekeepers (old school beekeepers) say that plastic foundation frames are worthless and that bees don't like them. I beg to differ. My colony took to plastic foundation frames just fine and drew comb on them in days. So I know they'll do fine with the shallow plastic frames too.

I've heard from a lot of beekeepers that when you set up your honey supers, don't forget the frame spacers -- otherwise you'll end up with a total mess. So I bought a box of 10 spacers. For the life of me, I don't know why I had it in my head that you just space the frames with one spacer. But Brushy Mountain tells me that you put these spacers in the supers after the bees draw out all 10 frames - then you remove one frame - leaving nine - and these spacers will make the distance exact. I learn something new all the time. Anyway, once I figure it all out, I'll get more if needed.

One thing that I plan to do is get another hive body set up (two deeps and a bottom board) in the next few months. I have one in the garage now, but I plan to split my one hive this coming spring, so I want another on stand-by in case I find a swarm somewhere -- or mine decides to it the road. Maybe I'll get the extra hive in February or March.

Just as I said recently, I was hoping that Santa would bring me some beekeeping supplies. And sure enough its going to happen! It has put me in a jolly mood for sure! Ho, ho, ho!