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!

One new queen is well on her way. The other could be in trouble!

Saturday was inspection day for my three hives. While I had been inside the yellow, mother hive already this week to pull the green drone frame and replace it, all of the hives needed a really decent look-see. And while the temperature was at 94 degrees and the relative humidity was 48% -- I braved the elements to get it done (and hopefully I lost a few pounds too). It was like being in a sauna. 

Here's the work of the new Carniolan queen in the orange hive. I have to admit that is one fine looking frame of brood. This was the hive I was most worried about because the workers were so slow to leave the hive. The queen was introduced on June 2nd and she was out by June 8th. She was readily accepted, but I couldn't figure out why the workers were dragging their feet on foraging. I still don't know. But no worries now, they're out of the hive daily and now I can see that the queen is doing her job. I also found eggs and larvae so I have some of all stages of the bee birthing process going on here. The orange hive is well on its way to success.

While the orange hive seems to be fine, the lime green hive (a frame from it pictured right) still has troubles it seems. This is the hive that went from swarm cells to supersedure cells -- then those disappeared and it developed a laying worker. So after shaking all the bees way away from the hive, I introduced a new Carniolan queen at the same time I put one in the  orange hive. They both came from the same apiary. This queen was accepted as well...but look at this pattern. Spotty at best and there were lots of raised drone caps all throughout this hive. If there were new eggs, I didn't see them, but I did find larvae, so she has been laying. And I found the queen too, she was on the last frame (like all of them always are) so she's most definitely alive.

Here is the other side of the frame from the green hive. As you can see, while there are drone caps here, she has laid a decent pattern of flat, worker brood here too. And in the ones not capped, you can see glistening white larvae nestled in the cells. This capped brood is new. The only capped brood in the hive on June 2nd was from the mother hive (the big yellow hive). The capped brood in the hive on that date has already hatched. So it is my assumption that the workers have capped all of the cells you see here since June 2nd...just like the bees did in the orange hive that's thriving.

If I'm doing the math correctly, it is distinctly possible that a lot of the drone cells in this hive were from the laying worker I hopefully shook away earlier this month. Here's my thoughts: It takes 21 days for a bee to go from an egg to an adult. I shook this hive on June 2nd and the frames held typical laying worker eggs -- two and three per cell. So even though I introduced a new queen to this hive that day, I believe it is possible that the worker bees went about their daily routine and fed and capped the eggs and brood as they should. And my calculations say that brood should emerge sometime this coming week. After all, from June 2nd until June 19th -- that's only seventeen days, so its possible this mess isn't related to the new queen at all, but a hold-over from the dreaded laying worker. Least that's my thinking. Of course I'm open for theories here so throw them out at will.

While I plan to talk to the beekeeper at the apiary where I bought her and I've left some messages for some experiences beeks, I am now thinking that I should give her a few more days and watch for new eggs before I replace her. After all, she walked into a mess from the laying worker, so she hasn't had it easy. 

Of course I'll keep everybody updated on what is going on, but if you have some ideas, I am more than willing to know what they are.

ADDENDUM: On Sunday, I decided to swap some frames from the yellow hive over to the green hive. The yellow hive has plenty of full frames of worker brood, and since the green hive has mixed frames of worker and drone brood, I decided to swap some frames. After shaking every bee off the frames, I swapped them -- thus giving the green hive more workers that will hatch soon -- and the big yellow mother hive can handle a few more drones. Hopefully this will work out and keep the green hive on even keel until I can figure out what is going on. Wish us luck! 

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!

Inspection report: This one gets TWO thumbs up!

So as everyone knows, I was on vacation for a little over a week, and returned this past Sunday. Since it had been two weeks since I'd ventured inside my hive, I decided to get out and perform an inspection on Monday. I would have done it on Sunday, but after being on the road and fighting Interstate 40 traffic, I made what was left of Sunday as a day of rest. But I had to see just how the girls were doing, the curiosity was getting the best of me.

Monday came and after firing up the smoker, I suited up and headed for the hive. As I approached, I noticed the in-and-out traffic was rather slow, but I figured that since it was a cool day in the 70s, maybe they just decided to take their time and wait for the sun to go a little higher...then venture out. Turns out I was right.

Three to four puffs -- that's all it took -- and the hive tuned up like a well oiled machine. It was a steady, almost happy buzzing coming from inside. Honestly, in the four months I've had this hive, I must admit that the hum from the hive was the smoothest I'd ever heard. Not a panic kind of hum, but an almost serene kind of hum. It was music to this beekeeper's ears.

I took the hive top off and looked into the top chamber. As you can see, there were very few bees on top of the frames -- that's because by the time I got the camera out, they had scurried down unto the box. If you click the picture, you can see the little heads peering at me from inside -- and even though this is the honey box, they were not defensive whatsoever...matter of fact, they were rather laid back. I pulled out all of the frames, checked them quickly, and put them back. Most of the frames were filled with honey with the exception of the two wall frames, but they were working on those too, drawing comb on them. As hard as they're working, I feel like even those will be filled over the next few weeks. I think this colony's winter store is coming along rather nicely.

After prying apart and lugging the heavy honey box to the side, I got into the brood chamber, the one that seems to house most of the eggs and larvae in this colony. The first thing I noticed when I pulled a few of the center frames was that her majesty had indeed been busy while I was away. I did find eggs, but I found lots of capped brood too...brood just waiting to break through the seals of their cells and come into the new world. Larvae was there too...but I found capped brood all throughout the chamber. For a queen that almost "bought the farm" a few weeks ago, she sure was chugging along now like nothing ever happened. 

Take a look at this frame. This is one of the frames from the lower brood chamber, one of the few frames that has this much honey in it. Most of the other frames in this chamber have brood, but for some reason (and they know more about it than I do) -- they decided to load this one down with honey. But take a good look in the middle -- at the capped brood. Apparently the girls were so slow in filling up this frame, her majesty decided to put some brood in there for good measure, and in a consistant pattern too. I was almost tempted to put this frame in the top box since it had so much honey in it, but I decided that not breaking up the brood nest was the better option, so I left it alone.

 

Now as you can see in this picture, it is packed with bees. I started to do a "shake" so I could get a better picture of the capped brood and larvae, but it was covered with nurse bees tending to the bambinos, so I couldn't bring myself to do it. But this frame was heavy, not from honey (you can see a small amount at the top) -- but from all the bees crammed on it -- both sides jammed packed. After checking this and all the other frames, and scraping off the burr comb on the tops and bottoms, I gently put them back and closed everything back up. I put the hive-top feeder back in place with two gallons of freshly made sugar syrup, and headed back for the house. Everything looked fine.

On Wednesday afternoon, I noticed a frenzy of activity in front of the hive. Besides the large amount of bees flying all in front of the hive and going in and out, I noticed a steady stream of bees crawling up the front of the hive, taking off in wide circles straight up -- then flying off in all directions. It looked like some of the new hatchings were making their way into the new world and checking it all out.

As for now, I plan to leave the hive alone for two weeks other than feed it. Then around the first week of October, once some of the really warmer September days are over with, I plan to install the mouse guard and switch over to a 2:1 sugar syrup and feed them till they stop taking it. At the rate they've made honey and stored it in the top chamber, I don't think they'll take the sugar syrup for long before they cluster. We'll see though.

Inspection done. Report card shows all A+'s and two thumbs up (for good measure)...

Bee good, everybody!

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?     

Eviction order lifted! The queen stays in my hive!

What a day this has been! I started out early this morning because I had so much to do. First of all, I wanted to catch the queen from my hive and take her with me to Busy Bee Apiaries in Carrboro. As you know from my previous posts, she's been a little fickle lately in laying eggs...and she stumped quite a few people who really know bees well including the state aviary inspector -- and Betsy, one of the bee experts at Busy Bee. So the plan was to catch her and take her back, but if I couldn't find her before I left, I would still get a new queen from Busy Bee and then give my present queen the big pinch. If anything, I wanted to save her so Betsy could hive her and watch her behavior. Honestly I just didn't feel right about pinching her...so my task was to find her before I made the hour trip to the east.

I went into the hive with the optimistic attitude that I would easily find her this morning. After all, the last two trips in the hive I found her, and I figured today would be just as easy. What a joke! I get into the hive and started with the frames in the top chamber -- she was nowhere to be found. I get down into the bottom chamber -- she's nowhere to be found there either. So her majesty was hiding from me this time...of all times that I wanted to find her (and save her from the horrors of the hive tool)..but she was in hiding. Talk about becoming frustrated. I think I said a few curse words in my head.

But them the most amazing thing happened. While I was in the bottom chamber, I shook bees from some of the center frames to see what they were doing in the cells -- and there they were! White, glistening, and healthy looking larvae! Not one larvae just here and there...but they were everywhere. The honey at the top of the frame was cresent shaped, but all of the cells under that had larvae! Then I found another frame in the top chamber with larvae too -- the pattern wasn't as tight, but they were alive and growing.

I ran for the house to call Betsy at Busy Bee. After all, she was out in the bee yard and catching my new queen and I didn't want her to go to the trouble of getting one since I had good news. Well, I was too late, she had already caught a queen for me. But being the super nice person she is, Betsy laughed and told me that she was glad things are working out on my end and that maybe my queen just went on a holiday. I apologized for putting her to the trouble of catching another queen and she said it wasn't a problem, she would find her a good home. I really like Betsy and everyone at Busy Bee. They're truly a class act in the beekeeping business. Honestly, if you need a queen or supplies -- they're the ones to call. You can find the link to them on the right side of my blog...and please tell them that Mark highly recommends them!

So that's the story. The eviction order has been lifted...and her majesty gets to stay. I have no clue why she stopped laying, and have no clue why now, all of a sudden, she's back to normal. I blame some of it on my eyes...I've had to start wearing reading glasses in the last year. But even the aviary inspector didn't find eggs or larvae either -- so who the heck knows what was going on with her? I find it hard to believe she can fool more than one person.

My neighbor watched me work the hive this morning and she offered this explanation as to the on-and-off laying queen: "Mark...she's a woman! What do you expect?" -- and she laughed. She's a woman...and a really great neighbor...so she can get away with saying that.

So here we go again. It looks like things are back to normal. I added a gallon of sugar syrup and closed up shop for another week. We'll see what she does now. Hopefully she is going to keep chugging along and doing what she does best. And if she doesn't, I'm calling in a bee psychologist! Does Dr. Phil make house calls?