Introducing more color into my apiary with a purple hive!

As proud as I was of my temporary hive (which I made from two honey supers and two bottom boards), I knew it was time to put my swarm in a permanent home. They had been in the temporary digs since Saturday, April 7th, so they were due for some real estate they could call their own. So after my weekend trip to Triad Bee Supply, and two healthy coats of paint, it was time to install the new hive.

Check out the new hive set-up! Yep, purple! As you've probably noticed by now, all of my hives have a different color, and while I was at the paint store, I saw this pleasing shade of purple. Okay, maybe it is really more of a shade of lavender. But I really like it. I saw a really hot shade of red I liked, but I didn't choose it because I hear the bees only see it as black. So I'm sticking with lighter colors. And I have another hive that needs painting, and I already have the paint. In honor of the ladies, my next colony will reside in a pink hive. My apiary is definitely becoming a splash of color!

In the time that this colony has been re-hived, you can see that the queen has been one busy lady. She hasn't missed a lot of time in laying eggs as long as she has a place, and this frame came from another colony the same day I caught them (as you know, you always put a frame of brood with swarm catches so they will stay put). This is all new capped brood. And the other side of the frame was just as covered. So for an old queen, she's still got it!

And not only capped brood, but take a look at all the c-shaped larvae! As you can see (as with all my pictures, click for a larger view), all the larvae are pearly white and glistening which is an indicator of a healthy colony. This colony is well on its way to doing extremely well. In addition to the great looking larvae, most of the drawn frames were filled with a mixture of eggs, larvae, capped brood and the essentials to make honey (nectar and pollen). And nine out of the ten frames were fully drawn, so I added a second deep hive body and ten new frames. Of course I spritzed them with sugar syrup to attract the bees. By the time I was closing up shop, they were already working their way up.

By the way, I did a quick check of the blue hive and things looked great there too. I found new eggs and larvae, so I know the colony is queenright. That wasn't the case for the last few weeks. I'm beginning to think that this may have been the hive that swarmed instead of the yellow one. Why? Because the same day the swarm happened, I found eggs and brood in every hive but the blue one. I know that queens will stop laying before a swarm in preparations to leave, so I'm inclined to think that maybe it was the blue one after all. For every week I checked after the swarm, I could not find eggs or a queen. I was even beginning to worry that it may develop a laying worker. Now all of a sudden, I have eggs and brood. So maybe I have a new queen in residence and she's back after her mating flight and already working? Could be. The bees were extremely calm and things were running as usual, so I think things are fine there. My only concern is a few small hive beetles I've seen there so I'm going to start a treatment soon.

Looks like I have one happy (and colorful) apiary!

My new goodies arrived from Brushy Mountain Bee Farm!

So I went to eat lunch on Thursday and by the time I got home, I found two packages on my front porch. I was happy to see that my goodies arrived from Brushy Mountain Bee Farm which is located two hours from me in Moravian Falls, North Carolina. As I mentioned in a previous post, I wanted a spare hive in case I find a swarm somewhere, and now I have a fully complete set-up for when the moment arrives. As you can see, the only thing it needs is a fresh coat of paint -- and I've already picked out the color. Bright orange! The orange color like the breakfast drink, Tang. So between my lemon yellow hive, the upcoming lime green hive -- and the spare orange hive, I should have all the citrus colors in my apiary. It should look like a taste of Florida right here in North Carolina!

Thank goodness the pest eliminators I ordered arrived too including the ten pack of ApiLife-Var (for varroa mites) and the disposable Beetle Blasters. Brushy Mountain includes their own instructions with the ApiLife-Var, and when I opened the plastic package to read them, you can really smell the ingredients even though each one is sealed in heavy foil. Each wafer includes the active ingredients of Thymol, Eucalytol, Menthol and Camphor. It is all-natural, and the active ingredient is the Thymol..a more purified form of oil of thyme. You open one foil package (you cut the two wafers into eight pieces) and put it over the brood nest for 7 to 10 days for a total of three treatments (21 to 30 days). The only problem I've read about the pieces is that unless you staple them to the frames or enclose them in screen wire, the bees will try to carry it out as trash. So I plan to take an old window screen and enclose the wafers inside to they can't move it around. You also have to block the screened bottom board and reduce the entrance so the vapors will permeate the entire hive. I'm planning to put the AprLife-Var in the hive for the first treatment this Saturday. And I plan to post just what kind of reaction my colony has to it and what observations I see too. The Beetle Blasters are self explanatory, but in case you've never heard of them, you put mineral oil inside them and put them on top of the frames in the five. When the small hive beetles scurry through the hive, they try to take cover in the traps -- and they meet their demise by drowning in the oil. All I can say is, good riddance! Back to the ApiLife-Var, Brushy Mountain says that used correctly, it will kill 95% of the varroa mites in your hive and won't harm the bees.

Here is the new inner cover I ordered from Brushy Mountain called a Goble cover.  I like it much better than the ones I have from Dadant. This inner cover is a piece of 3/8" plywood which is glued and nailed into the outer rim. And as you can see, it has a hole in the front which acts as an upper entrance. Its a lot more solid than the Masonite inner covers from Dadant which buckle really easily from hive moisture (and I speak from experience). I plan to order two more of these inner covers this week for all my hives. I'll never go back to using the Masonite inner covers anymore. Plus you get a better deal with the Goble covers because they're cheaper in price than the Masonite ones.


I have no clue what kind of bush this is, but I know my bees love it! It sits in my neighbor's yard, just across her fence and directly behind my bee hive. I noticed a flurry of bees on it all afternoon. Not only was it popular with my honey bees, but it was full of bumblebees too and they all seemed to be getting along just fine. I went to get my camera and waited patiently to snap some pictures of them gathering goodies from the flowers but every time I would get poised, they would move around. Finally in frustration, I decided to snap a picture of the entire bush. But take a look at the top left of the picture (where I circled in yellow). There you can see a bee as she's flying away from the bush. Hey, it wasn't a picturesque as I hoped for, but I think you get the idea.

I didn't mention that I bought 20 Pierco one-piece frames for the brood nest of my new hive. I've read lot of good things about the one-piece frames, they seem to be the rave of commercial beeks, so I decided to give them a try myself. They're coated in beeswax, and as soon as I opened the box, you could really smell it. Let's hope they work.

Pictures coming of the new lime green hive which goes into service just as soon as I split my current hive!

Bee good, everybody!

Critters in my hive! My new book arrives in the nick of time!

When I attended the Certified Natural Grown workshop this past Saturday, January 9th, I thought they would devote more time to dealing with bee colony pests in a more all-natural way. And I was disappointed when they didn't. They spent more time dealing with the rules for the organization than anything else. I still haven't reviewed the meeting, but I plan to soon. You can probably tell that I'm not all that enthusiastic about the program as of yet...but keep in mind that its the infancy stage and has a lot of growing to do yet. But more on that later.

The temperatures here are finally climbing back up to the moderate level. Over the next few days the daytime temperatures are expected to climb back into the 50s, so I decided to remove the corrugated plastic from under the screened bottom board so the air can circulate again. The plastic sheet had been in place since December 31st, and I decided that it wouldn't be necessary anymore with the warmer day and night temps on the way. 

When I removed the plastic, I noticed a dark dot the size of a really small garden pea. Making sure not to drop it, I went inside the garage and grabbed my magnifying glass to get a closer look. You guessed it..it was a small hive beetle. Honestly I didn't know what it was at first, but the more I examined it (and looked at pictures on the Internet) I realized I found my first. The beetle was dead, possibly dying from the freezing cold we've had lately. I've always heard the beetles could be found inside the hive itself..but this one was between the screened bottom board and the plastic corrugated sheet I installed. That leads me to believe that it may have hatched on the underside of the stand where it is dark and out of the way of the colony itself. But its possible that it was inside the hive. The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services website says, "They have been shown to attack bumblebee nests in the laboratory, and have been observed to survive winters in the hive inside the bee cluster." So now I'm going to have to keep a closer eye on this situation. The last thing I want is a major invasion of these beetles in my hives. They're disgusting looking and obviously not good for the colony.   

Now remember, I put the plastic corrugated sheet in place on December 31st. So it had been in place for 13-days altogether. While I was examining the plastic sheet, I also found some dead varroa mites. How many? 67. So if the sheet had been in place for 13-days, and a total of 67 varroa mites were on the plastic, then I consider the count as rather low. I realize that some may say that my method of arriving at that conclusion may not be very scientific, that a 3-day count would be more accurate. But when you add the extra days to my count, I think a count of 67 is a low count. Still though, it looks like the first thing I will do after I split this hive in a few months is give them time to settle down, then do a thorough powdered sugar dusting.

In light of these developments, the book I ordered over the weekend, "Natural Beekeeping: Organic Approaches to Modern Apiculture" arrived from Amazon on Tuesday, and just in the nick of time it seems. Ross Conrad, the author, looks at holistic methods to keep our hives healthy and handle pests without chemicals. It is obvious that many people, like myself, prefer to steer clear of chemicals when it comes to hive health. I've heard nothing but good things about the book, and now I plan to delve into it and read some each night. I think I'll hit the small hive beetle and varroa sections first.

Enjoy your day and bee safe!