Paying a visit to a new beekeeper's hives...

On Saturday, I paid a visit to a friend's bee hives.  Keith Mabe started beekeeping this year with his own two colonies.  After taking the basic beekeeper course that was offered through the Rockingham County Beekeeper's Association, he bought his hive set ups and his bee packages and got started right away.  Here you see Keith as he stands next to one of his hives. This one is booming by the way.

Keith was a little concerned because one of his two hives seemed to be running a little slow.  He told me that he didn't see a lot of eggs and spotty capped brood, and thought something may be wrong.  So he asked me if I would come out and take a look and give him my opinion.  Always glad to see another beekeeper's hives, I accepted and met him on Saturday morning.  The hive he was concerned about is on the left.

Based on what he told me, I though he may have a failing queen.  But once we got into the hive, I found a lot of eggs in a tight pattern.  And we also found the queen as she made her way across the frame with all the eggs.  There was also larvae present that was hidden under bees on the frames.  I told Keith that it appears that all is okay with this hive, and that some colonies are faster in building up than others.  My advice was to close the hive up and not disturb them for a week, and to continue to feed them sugar syrup so they can finish drawing the frames.  Even without smoke, the colony was gentle and easy to work with.  

The hive on the right is doing great!  Keith told me that this colony took off as soon as he hived them, and that's apparent by the numbers of bees and the eggs and honey all throughout the hive.  They had so much honey there that I advised Keith to put a shallow super on top and let them fill it with honey, then he could have some for himself and leave some for the bees.  This colony was a tad testy at times, but they had a lot of honey to protect and we didn't smoke them either.  Overall I say that this is a very prolific colony that should do well through the rest of the year and hopefully overwinter well.

Keith has a great location for his bees.  They are near several area gardens and he provides water for them near the hives.  They are in a rural area of the county, not far from the county seat, and the area isn't accessible unless you drive through a parked gate.  So they should be protected from vandals or theft.

My only advice was to keep an eye on them to make sure that he sees eggs and brood, and that we would check them again in a few weeks.  I also advised him to switch to a non-toxic weed killer to spray around and under his hives, and to not use something like Round-Up which the bees can get into take back to the hives.  I use a gallon of vinegar to one full container of table salt.  Once I mix it in a sprayer, I use it liberally around and under my hives.  While you have to apply it more often, it doesn't carry the risks of poisonous chemicals.  You can also use rock salt under your hives to kill weeds and grass.

I think Keith is going to make an excellent beekeeper.  He's very excited about his bee colonies and doing all he can to help them.  Plus he wants to learn all he can from more experienced beekeepers.  And as we all know, that's what it takes to survive the ups and downs of helping the bees.

Happy summer!

We have BROOD! All four colonies get two thumbs up!

I'm proud to say that I have four thriving colonies in my humble backyard apiary.  Months ago, I somehow got the idea that this may be a "run of the mill" season as far as my beekeeping goes.  But that all quickly changed with the April addition of the colony I bought from Dadant, then the swarm that I was lucky enough to catch in Danville.  

Since it had been a few weeks since I hived my swarm colony, I figured it was a great time to do a first inspection and check all the hives for brood production while I was at it.

First up, in the blue hive, the Danville swarm. This is one gentle hive of bees which I believe are Italian.  In eighteen days, the bees had already drawn several frames (with a sprinkling of some bur comb too).  As you can see, on this frame, they mixed new capped brood in with honey at the top.  On the other side it was mostly brood.  This has been one busy colony in the time they've been here, and I think I should be able to add a second deep box and frames pretty soon. 

Next up, the colony from Dadant inhabits the yellow hive.  I did add a second deep to this since they had drawn around seven frames of comb.  As you can see, these caps are a little older and the hive is full of it, plus they're storing honey at the top of some of them.  The queen in this colony is really good, Italian stock, and she went to work as soon as she was released and had a place to lay.  This colony is increasing in numbers thanks to her majesty's hard work.  They're a very gentle colony too.

Here is the green hive, one of the existing Carniolan colonies which was a split from last year.  A couple of inspections back, in April, this hive was full of swarm cells and no eggs - which can indicate the preparations for swarming.  Then a few weeks ago during a brief inspection, there were no eggs in either deep, but the swarm cells were disappearing and I could not find the marked queen.  I also noticed it seemed the population was less than before, so that led me to believe this hive had already swarmed.  But here's what I found on Friday.  This hive is full of eggs, larvae and capped brood, so now I believe that a new queen is ruling this colony.  This colony hardly required smoking so they're very gentle.  I can't wait to see what these bees look like once they start hatching.

Last but not least, here is the orange hive which is another of Carniolan stock.  As you can see, here is another fine example of a lot of brood.  Back in April when I did a deep inspection of this hive, I could not find the marked queen, and that was after three intense inspections of all twenty frames. This colony had swarm and supersedure cells all over, a few of them opened at the bottoms, and I found a couple of new queens walking the frames.  After giving it a couple of weeks, I opened this hive and found new eggs everywhere, so I knew one of the new queens had successfully returned from her mating flights.  This Friday's inspection also indicated that most of the swarm cells had been torn down from the sides.  I'm led to believe that this colony superseded the queen since the population doesn't seem to be much different than it was when the marked queen was here.  I'm also interested to see what these bees will look like.  And this colony was a gentle as lambs too.

After inspecting everything, I added a hive-top feeder to the blue hive, a second deep chamber and syrup for the yellow hive, then closed it all up.  The orange hive will have a super of honey ready soon, and that may be all I get this year.  While I haven't gotten a lot of honey from my bees, the peace I get from working with them is my satisfaction.  Plus hearing the remarks from my neighbors that their gardens are doing the best ever since I brought bees here (and them giving me some of their surplus too) is a big payoff.  In their own way, the bees are helping the neighbors and me too.  I'm happy with that!

Until next time, fellow beekeepers!       

Busy bees and getting ready for spring!

With the weather 76 degrees on Sunday, I knew it was time to do an in-depth inspection of my two surviving colonies, the first real inspection of 2011. When I opened the orange hive, I noticed what looked like a tower of bees over the frames in the top chamber. The bees, in their quest to go higher, had started building comb up to fill the space where the shallow super sets and where the bee candy was located. That was my cue to reverse the hive boxes to put the brood nest together and move some frames around to give the queen room to lay.

As I got down into the frames, here's what I found. As you can see, the queen is already busy laying. I found capped brood and larvae all through the frames scattered around the hive, so she's been all over the place. I decided to move the brood frames together in the bottom chamber, while moving the honey frames to the top chamber. This should remedy the urge for them to build up and over the top frames. I didn't see eggs this trip, but I'm very confident the queen is in residence.

Take a look at this frame from the orange hive. You can see that the queen is laying all through the frames, even those that have honey at the top. As I mentioned earlier, I took all of the frames that held brood and combined them in the bottom chamber, then moved the honey frames together at the top. While March weather can be fickle, the long term forecast for my area doesn't show any really severe winter weather, so I think they should be okay. By the way, the orange hive is full of bees. With the warm snap, I figured they will get the urge to build swarm cells soon. Now I'll have to keep an eye on this colony and do a split when I can get my hands on a new queen.

Here is a frame from the green hive. I only found two frames with a small brood pattern, so its obvious that this queen is behind her sister queen in the orange hive. This queen, while robust when she first arrived, has been much slower than the other two colonies. But I have to give her credit that she's kep this colony going although the numbers are much lower than the other hives. I am considering replacing her with a Minnesota Hygienic and using this queen for a nuc. I honestly believe that she can't produce enough to keep the colony going full force, and if I don't replace her, the bees will.

Deciding that I need to "beef up" the green colony, I took one of the many frames of brood from the orange hive, and put it in the green one. I thoroughly shook every bee from the frame and then moved it over to the neighboring hive. The bees in the green hive were still in the bottom chamber with the brood, and there was plenty of honey at the top. Unlike the orange hive, I did not alternate the boxes in the green hive. Instead, I moved all the brood frames together in the lower deep -- adding the frame from the orange hive as a supplement. Now this should help the numbers in the green hive, and I can move more frames from the orange hive as needed.

Once I moved the brood frames together in the bottom deep, you can see that the bees congregated there. And I replaced some of the frames that were above them and unfinished with drawn comb from the yellow dead-out hive. And I have drawn frames that I'll use for my package coming from Dadant this April. It will just be less work for them when they get here and make their home in the yellow hive.


After putting both hives back together, I slid the orange hive over to where the yellow one sat. The returning foragers did a fine job of finding their way home. That's because the bees stood at the entrance and fanned their scent outward to their returning sisters. When I checked a little later, not one single bee was on the concrete blocks wondering where their home went. Overall it was a successful inspection, and I'll keep a check over the next month to watch for swarming indicators. Hopefully I'll be able to make a split before the ladies hit the road on their own!

Bee safe!

Warmer weather brings the girls out! And the bee candy is a success too!

Like most of the country, we've been in the dreary pits of winter lately.  The weather here has been frigid.  We've already had two significant episodes of wintry precipitation with another on the way next week.  This is the time when I look out the kitchen window and wish that I could suit up, fire up the smoker, and head for the hives.  Soon enough I suppose.  Spring will be here before you know it.      

But out of the cold weather we've had lately, a warm day finally emerged last week.  As the sun was shining bright, the temperature reached into the 50s, and the bees emerged from their hives.  Here you can see the girls from the yellow hive as they decided to venture out and enjoy the warmth.  This is the biggest colony I have, and even in winter their numbers are high.  Click on any of the pictures to see the larger version.  

Not to be outdone, the girls in the lime green hive came out to bask in the sun.  I've worried more about this hive than the others, and I've had my doubts about their survival.  But out of all three colonies, this one had more bees hanging around outside the entrance.  Even though this is a Carniolan breed which is generally darker in color, you can see some lighter, yellow bees in the foreground.  Those are younger bees which indicates to me that the queen has been laying.  In all probability, this is probably the first time they have ever been outside the hive. 

I wanted to check and see if the bees were taking the bee candy I made over the holidays.  And as you can see, they are.  While the lime green hive had adequate stores, the orange and yellow hives seemed to be rather low.  So I made bee candy to help get all three colonies through the winter.  After all, its not the temperature that kills bees in winter...many times they starve to death.  In my opinion, the bee candy patties I made are much better than using the "mountain camp" method of feeding.  That's because it doesn't leave a big, gummy mess like the mountain camp method does.  Plus the candy patties are fairly easy to make.  I made enough to feed the bees through this winter, so once they finish these patties, I have more in storage.

The bees have eaten a hole in the side of this bee candy patty.  Another thing that makes this method unique is that the natural heat from the cluster inside the hive had risen and softened the patty.  That made it easier for the bees to take it apart and consume it.  This is just one of several patties that the bees had made holes in.  The other patties are the ones I had broken in half and they had a jagged edge for the bees to start working on.

A part of the warm weather ritual for the bees includes housekeeping.  That also includes removing dead bees from the hive.  Bees are extremely hygienic and will not tolerate trash and dead bees to clutter their house.  Here you can see some dead bees lying on the stand in front of the entrance.  I watched the bees as they would drag some of the dead ones outside, then dump them over the front.

A housekeeping bee rests on a leaf after she dumped her dead sister on the ground.  While many bees will just dump the dead ones outside the hive entrance, some will actually pick the dead bee up, fly away from the hive, then dump them.  After that manuever, she'll fly back to the hive to begin the task all over again.  The living bee is on the leaf, and just behind her (in the white circle) is her dead sister.  

Overall I was very pleased and excited to see that my three colonies were so active on a warm day.  While there is very little I can do with my bees at this point, I know that this is the time to start getting prepared for the spring.  Before you know it, it will be swarm season, time for splits, starting new colonies, experimenting to see what works and what doesn't, and just enjoy what beekeeping is all about. 

Here's hoping that 2011 will be a very successful year for your beekeeping endeavors, and in your personal lives too!  I have a feeling that 2011 is going to be a great year for all of us!

Bee happy, fellow beekeepers!

Its been a long time, but we're all still here!

It has been a good while since I've blogged.  I had someone ask me just the other day what has become of my bees and me, so I knew then that it was time to jump online and do an update.

Its not because I don't care anymore or that I've lost interest.  Oh no, far from it.  It seems that I got lost in time around late summer when my brother got sick, and then his death.  Then it seemed like I just didn't have enough time to do things.  Throw in my yearly vacation and then back to work, and broadcasters will tell you that one of the busiest times of the year is between Halloween and the new year.  So I've definitely had my hands full and unfortunately, blogging had to take a back seat.  But I hope to get back in the groove and get back to blogging about my love for beekeeping.

My bees are doing okay.  As you probably know, I have three hives.  The yellow hive is the oldest and the orange and lime hives were established this year. 

All three colonies are doing okay, but I have to admit that I'm a little worried about the lime colored hive.  It seem to have the smallest number of bees of the three.  As I took the top off the hive to check for honey stores, I could look down through the frames and see the bottom board.  There were bees in there, but unlike the other two colonies still booming with bees, the lime hive has what seems to be lower numbers.  And honestly I think its the queen in that hive.  This colony was slower to get off the ground, the queen would do fine in laying for awhile and then get spotty, and it seems like they just didn't do as well as the other two. 

The other two colonies?  They're fine it seems.  I have a feeling I'll feed them through the winter just to make sure they'll do okay; syrup until they stop taking it, and if necessary, the "mountain camp" method until spring. 

As of now, I'm sure I'll replace the queen in the lime hive this spring, probably with a Minnesota Hygienic.  As I look back now, I should have replaced her this fall, but with everything going on I just didn't have time.  But if the colony makes it until spring, I'll replace her.  The queen in the orange hive (which is a sister to the queen in the lime hive..they came from the same queen breeder) has done rather well and I hope she will keep going strong.  And I plan to keep the queen in the yellow hive even though she has some age on her (she was my first queen) -- and she'll stay as long as she keeps laying a good pattern.  So far, so good.  We'll see if she cranks up and gets going this coming spring.  Some beekeepers believe in replacing their queens every two years, but my theory is, as long as a queen does a good job, just leave her alone.

So that's it, a brief update.  As you can see, we're all doing okay, and if we can all make it thorough the next few months, we'll get started up again this spring.  As of right now, I'm making a list of things I need for the coming year including hive equipment.  I have a feeling I'll have more bees this spring.  Thing is...where will I put them?  Wow...now theres even more to think about!

More updates soon!

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. 

Forget catching swarms! I found FOUR swarm cells in my own hive!

Today was just plain muggy. The temperature made it up to 92 degrees here, and the relative humidity held out at 47% -- meaning it was sticky hot. As I mentioned before, we've gone from a hard winter to summer, then back to spring -- and now back to summer. Since the weather was hot, I decided to go ahead and do an inspection since it had been a couple of weeks. Good thing I did because I found some interesting developments since my last peek under the cover.

Even the beginning beekeeper should recognize this -- a swarm cell.  Not one cell, but at least four of them. Two of the cells were on one frame, and the other two cells were on individual frames. Was I surprised? No. This colony has been absolutely booming after making it through the winter, so I knew that the congestion would eventually lead to swarming. I was hoping that they would hold out until I could do a split with a bred queen from the apiary in Chapel Hill, but as you can see, the bees had a different idea.

A few of the frames I pulled out had burr comb beneath them, some attached the frame in the middle chamber to the frames on the bottom chamber. I did the best job I could of not pulling the comb open and exposing the larvae and pupa, but it wasn't meant to be in some cases. No matter how hard I've worked to keep the burr comb to a minimum, just letting them go a couple of weeks can leave a mess for you to clean up. But as you can see in the picture to the right, this burr comb is intact including the obvious swarm cell. The pupa I did expose was collected and dumped into the creek behind the house. The creek is full of small fish so they had a nice Sunday snack.

Here's one of those frames I mentioned above with the exposed pupa. But you can see yet another swarm cell on the front, and when I looked up into it (it wasn't capped) there was a very lively larvae inside. So making sure as best I could that the queen wasn't on this frame, I moved it over to the empty hive next door. I did that with all the frames holding swarm cells. Doing the best I could to make sure that the reigning queen wasn't anywhere on them, I placed them in the empty hive along with the bees on those frames. I'm just hoping that her highness is still in the mother hive and didn't get moved over. I'll have to check in a few days to see if there are new eggs in the mother live.


A mixture of cells, what I believe to be drone cells and swarm cells too. The one on the bottom had a larvae inside and was almost completely capped. Some of the cells above that are drone cells. But to the other side of the frame, it appears that the oblong shaped cells were swarm cells as well. So now we're up to at least four swarm cells on the bottom of the frames, all of them in the middle chamber of this hive. The box I placed above it weeks ago, including frames with Plasticell foundation -- the bees had already started drawing out with comb. Two of the frames were drawn on one side and they had started on a third. And that's without me feeding them syrup.

So what did I do? As I mentioned above, on the advice of beekeeping guru, Richard Underhill of the Peace Bee Farm, he said that if I found swarm cells, I needed to move them to a new hive and do a split. Some other beekeepers told me that a split should also include capped brood and eggs too. So acting on the information I had absorbed from everyone, I moved the frames with the swarm cells to the new hive, and I added some capped brood and egg frames. Some of the capped brood frames had larvae too which was even better. I also found a nice frame of newly laid eggs, so I put it there too. And to top it off, I added some pollen frames and one full frame of honey for them to use.

I would be lying if I said that I'm completely comfortable with everything I did. I just pray that I did everything right. Even if the queens don't emerge or they don't make it, maybe they'll still have enough in this new hive to make a new queen. Although I included pollen and honey frames, I decided to go ahead and add sugar syrup to give them more food since the nurse bees have never left the hive. Then when I check it again in a week or so and things hopefully look okay, I'll possibly add another chamber with empty frames so they can start drawing comb. I placed the empty frames that are partially drawn back on the yellow hive which is the mother hive, so that should possibly keep them busy now that the swarm urge has hopefully dissippated with the disappearance of the swarm cells.

I am open for critiques here. Let me know if you think I handled this okay. With great advice from longtime beekeepers like Richard Underhill and others, I feel like I did the right thing. I'm just hoping that the bees have the same idea. So let me know what you think.

I'll BEE waiting to hear from you!

Has Mother Nature decided for me? Okay, beeks, I need your help!

Today (Sunday) was such a beautiful day that decided to get out and do a quick inspection. I've been keeping my fingers crossed that my colony would do well and thrive for the next few weeks, but not get the itch to swarm. But I've had a deep feeling that since this colony is a booming colony, their natural urge to swarm would kick in before I could make a manual split. They still have lots of room in both chambers, but I noticed that they're loading up the upper chamber with pollen and the queen was laying really well in the bottom brood box. Matter of fact, when I examined the top deep first, I could tell the queen had laid here and there, and I was feeling a little disappointed that she may be giving out by the spotty laying pattern. But when I got to the bottom brood chamber, she was laying like a champ and in a tight, consistent pattern on most of the frames. Capped brood was everywhere as well as larvae. 

But before I get too far ahead of myself, let me show you what else I found. Look closely at the photo and just above my website brand. I think that's a queen cell they're making in the upper deep. My photography isn't the best here as I was by myself, but if you could have seen this from my angle...the cell had a downward, protruding shape. And as you can see, there is a larvae inside and several nurse bees were busy attending to it. I didn't find any other possible queen cells, just this one, but I did find bunches of drone cells on several frames. And one of the drones was making a fierce racket while I was checking out the frames. Overall they were in a decent mood, a little testy, but I've seen worse.

Of course you can click on any of the pictures to get a better view. And while you're at it, take a look at this picture on the left. That's a little better view of what I believe is a queen cell. And you can see the bees checking on it. While my first instinct was to take my hive took and tear it off, I decided that might not be the wise thing to do. Beekeepers with a lot more experience than me say that it is never wise to rip the queen cells off because if the old queen has already left with a handful of her daughters or is dead or whatnot, then the hive could be queenless and doomed if you do that. So I decided to leave the cell alone and check it again in a few days to see if they finish the job and cap it and see it takes on the unmistakable appearance of a classic queen cell.

While it may be too late to keep this colony from swarming, I've decided that I may be able to buy some time by adding empty frames to keep them occupied for awhile. I added another deep with new frames (plastic foundation) so they can have a head start in case I do get to make a manual split. And if they do swarm on their own, at least I'll have some already drawn frames for when I find another swarm or get more bees. Oh, and I added the empty hive to the left of my current one. I've read that in quite a few instances, bees that swarm will go to nearby empty hives and settle in as opposed to traveling far away. So maybe if they decide to hit the road, they'll find that there's an empty house next door and ready for occupancy.

Okay, gang, I need your help!

Take a good look at the two pictures that shows the "suspicious" cell at the bottom of the frame. Does this look like a queen cell to you? And how would you handle this situation if you were me? Would you have cut the cell out? Or would you leave it alone?

I'm open for all ideas and suggestions. So lay it on me! All ideas welcome!

A visit with my buddy Jared and his Old Salem bee colonies!

This past Saturday, I had the chance to hang out with my buddy, Jared Watkins, at his house in Winston Salem. In case you've never been there, Winston Salem is the home of Old Salem, a beautifully restored Moravian community from the mid-late 1700s. One thing I've always remembered about the tours of Old Salem are the gift shops...complete with wonderful smelling old-time beeswax candles. If you're ever in North Carolina, check it out. Its a great place to visit.

Anyway, Jared blogs Jared's Adventure Into Beekeeping and he just got his first two hives over the last few weeks. Just like all of us, he is excited about his new bees and wanted me to come see them for myself. Jared has the hives on the deck behind his house and they seem to be adapting well there. These were walk-away splits from a nearby apiary...so they're already accustomed to the general area and the climate. I think Jared told me there are around 100 hives in this apiary and he got his bees from the two splits.

When we got to the deck, we were greeted by Jared's girls. As I mentioned, he has two hives there, and the ones in the picture to the right are very well tempered. I stood right in front of the deck in my street clothes - my face pressed between the spokes along the railing - and they acted like they could care less. Jared said that he uses little smoke with them because they're so gentle, and he did the same thing when I was there for the visit...hardly any smoke at all. Although he did smoke them under the lid, not a single one flew out in anger when we popped the top off. And it was obvious the colony was working and drawing comb and doing what they're supposed to be doing. This is one great colony. 

His newest colony is a bit of a different story. They're a little hot tempered and Jared had already warned me about them. We put our protective gear on in his basement, and as we went on the deck and Jared was lighting his smoker, one of the bees from this hive flew off the front and right at my face. Luckily I didn't get stung, and that's when I knew it was time to put my veil on. It was amazing to observe the dispositions of the two colonies. The first was just fine and made little noise. But the second one was ramped up and the buzzing had gotten pretty loud by the time we finished. You could tell they were tuned up and totally irritated by us being there. But Jared told me that this particular colony had issues at their old location, and I told him that maybe they just need some time to settle in and maybe their disposition will change. Maybe once the queen gets cranked up and as the natural cycle of the colony replaces itself, maybe it will get better. If not, it may be time to re-queen. 

Overall, Jared has a really great set-up and you can tell he really loves beekeeping. He spent the weekend planting all sorts of bee friendly plants around his house, and can name every single one of them without looking at the labels. His test to be a certified beekeeper is coming up and he's excited about that too. I think that Jared will be a great and conscientious beekeeper who will make a dent in the beekeeping world. And he is already involved in the Certified Naturally Grown (CNG) program too. That was the one day course that Jared, our friend Lynn (Walter Bee) and I attended. Jared is already registered as one of North Carolina's participating apiaries.

Thanks for the good time Jared. And good luck with your girls!

I found my first cases of DWV or Deformed Wing Virus!

So for the first time in two years, I found my first bee with deformed wings. Not just one bee, I actually found a couple. Its just one more thing I'm seeing for the first time in the beekeeping world.

I found them during an inspection Friday morning to see how they fared after last week's hive box rotation. I just happened to catch something out of the corner of my eye that didn't seem right, and when I looked at the frame I was holding, I saw something slowly crawling across it. Unlike the other bees who were busy scurrying around, this one bee was moving at a snails pace. She wasn't like the other bees -- she had two small stumps for wings and was obviously having problems walking. I took my hive tool and flicked her into the hive top, which was laying upside down, because I wanted to take a really good look at her. Then I found a second one, she obviously fell off one of the frames and into the hive top too -- so I had both of them isolated. Sure enough, both had stumps for wings, and they were both very slow moving. I knew then that my colony has the beginning signs of DWV or deformed wing virus. It really was a pitiful sight to see and being the soft hearted soul I am, I felt sorry for them.

I knew that DWV comes from varroa, but that's about all I really knew. So I went online and also read some of my beekeeping books to learn more about it. To be honest, I always thought that a colony suffering from deformed wings was because the hive was slammed packed with varroa. Not so. Experts say that hives with low varroa counts (like mine have been) can still have problems with DWV. And in many cases, the colony will expel bees with deformities like those with DWV in order to keep the hive hygienic. Obviously they missed these two -- and I'm kind of glad they did. Otherwise I would have never known about the problem. 

Knowing I have to do something, but keeping it natural and not putting chemicals in my hive, I read up on a remedy for varroa called ApiLife-Var. You can find a lot of material about ApiLife online and in Ross Conrad's book on natural beekeeping too. ApiLife is a remedy that studies show to be 95% effective..and it contains all natural ingredients like thymol, menthol, and eucalyptus oil. Three treatments (7 days apart) are all that's needed. Ross Conrad recommends that ApiLife be used in the fall instead of the spring, but the product literature says it's okay to use it during the spring and fall -- and i'm not waiting until the fall to treat this colony.

In the meantime, I did a really heavy powdered sugar dusting, and I called Brushy Mountain Bee Farm and ordered a package of ApiLife. It should arrive this coming week or week after. I plan to put it in the hive as soon as the daytime temperature stabilizes in the 60s. I'll also treat the second hive once the new queen is placed there and she settles in...and now that time frame looks like early May.

Just a reminder to check your hives and make sure you examine your bees carefully. Just because your mite numbers are low doesn't mean you can't have bees with deformed wing virus. Hopefully things will be back to normal very soon and all of my bee creatures will be healthy and whole again.

New hive bodies and a great first full inspection!

Introducing the lemon yellow hive! No, its the same colony of my girls, but they now have a delicious, lemon yellow exterior to their home. I was tired of looking at the plain white hive, so I decided to change it up a little. So I painted my second stand-by hive a bright, lemon yellow. And I have to admit that I really do like it. 

Well, I have to be honest and say that my reasoning was two-fold. One, I just wanted to make the hive boxes more colorful. But two, I wanted the bees to be able to recognize their own hive when I have two of them sitting side by side. I already have one that's bright yellow, and now I'm painting their old hive -- get this -- electric lime! Oh yeah, a bright lime green color. So now I can refer to my hives as lemon and lime. And when I have a new stand-by swarm hive, I plan to paint it orange. How I came about with all these citrus colors, I don't know, but they're the ones I liked best when I went to the paint department at Walmart.

While I was moving the frames into the yellow hive, I did a full inspection. The sun was bright and it was 76 degrees..the perfect day for doing it. While I did not find the queen, she is definitely there. I found an abundance of tiny, newly laid eggs with just about every cell filled. I also found larvae and pupae throughout the frames, so her highness is in residence and already laying. I also found drone cells through several frames too -- and thankfully, no swarm cells anywhere. Since this colony is already active, and it is full of bees -- that's been my biggest fear, that they're going to get the urge to swarm. But so far, so good. I plan to get a new queen so I can split this hive soon. While I could chance it and let them raise their own queen when I do the split, I'm not too hip on that idea. I'd rather buy a queen from a reputable dealer like Busy Bee Apiaries in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and know that chances are, she'll be as good as the one I have now. 

While I didn't see any hive beetles, varroa or wing issues, and this is still one booming colony even though we had a rough winter -- I did see some spotting on the front of the white hive that could be a possible indicator or Nosema. If its there, its slight, but I plan to make the trip to Dadant and pick up some Nozevit (all-natural) and give them a spring treatment. While I'm at the warehouse, I plan to pick another hive set-up just in case I get lucky and catch a swarm sometime this year.

Overall, I'm very pleased with my honey bees and how they've fared. Very pleased! I can't wait to split them soon and have my second colony in the electric lime hive. And as you can see in the picture above, my old hive is still in great shape, but I have a lot of propolis to scrape before I give it a fresh coat of paint. It gives me an excuse to get out and enjoy this wonderful spring weather!

Happy SPRING everyone (now that its official by the calendar)...

Just when things settle down...more snow is on the way!

As most of you know, the weather here in my area over the last month has been totally rotten. In mid-December we had an unusually heavy snow (8 inches here) and then the first week of this month it was brutally cold for this region. Earlier this week we had flooding all around my area. It even washed part of the creek bank away from behind my house.

And now...we're expecting another torrential snow event within the next 24-48 hours. As I write this, we're under a winter storm warning for around 8+ inches of snow. One local weather forecaster said he was being conservative in his estimate. Oh, and nighttime lows are supposed to be back in the mid-teens this weekend too. When it rains (or snows)...it pours!

Old man winter is just determined to stick around it seems. Over the last few days the weather was really nice. Even today I noticed people out in shorts and tee shirts as they try to absorb some warmth and put some color to their pasty appearances. But just as things settle down and looks as if we might start down the path to springtime, old man winter taps us on the shoulder and reminds us that he is still here and going nowhere soon.

I figured it was warm enough to get inside my hive and see how the girls were doing with the 2:1 sugar syrup I made for them this week. It was 61 degrees when I looked out the kitchen window at lunch time, and the front of the hive was abuzz with activity so I knew now was the time to check. So I grabbed up my overalls and headed for the hive.

I'm yet to use smoke on my bees when I've checked them lately. I think the last time I used it was October. So far they've been extremely gentle...so gentle I wish I could manipulate them all year without smoke. I got inside the top of the hive and checked the sugar syrup and was pleasantly surprised that about 3/4 of an inch of syrup was gone. My guess would be about a quart, maybe less. So that indicated to me that they're taking the syrup, plus I could see some of the bees peeking at me through the vent on top of the feeder. Evidently on warmer days, they're able to climb to the top and use the feeder which is great. I definitely felt better knowing that they're doing as I hoped they would.

You can see in the picture to the right (click and it opens in a new window) that my foragers were finding pollen again. Some of it was a really bright orange and some was a light gray color. It seemed that they were bringing in more pollen a couple weeks ago when I checked them, but I didn't watch them all day, so maybe they had started early and continued past the time I went inside the house. 

I decided to experiment and see if my bees would take some moist cane sugar or some Mega Bee if I placed it just outside the hive. Since they really take the Mega Bee when I spread it across the frames, I figured they may take it here too.

Guess what? Not one single bee took the bait. Not one bee tried the sugar...and only one walked through the Mega Bee (she actually landed in it) and it looked like she was irritated because she got dusty. But I left it there and will check it again to see if I can determine if any is missing. And I'll definitely get it up before the snow storm sets in. Maybe I should try it again when spring comes and stays. 

I'll make more pictures when the storm gets here so you can share in the glory we call an unusual Piedmont-Triad area, North Carolina, winter. Hopefully a very short winter.

Bee safe!