Spring in the backyard

The girls are busy, going out to forage

And what will they find in the backyard?

On the flowering cherry tree

The flowering cherry tree is in bloom and covered with bees.

The pear tree has many blossoms.

Coming in for a landing on the pear tree

Ah, sweet nectar

The wisteria is just opening and attracting a few bees.

The rosemary has been blooming for months.  The lavender has started its new flowers after pruning.

 The bees love the berries, but they'll have to wait a few weeks

Blackberry buds

Raspberry buds

Not everything growing is for the bees.

The asparagus is shooting up

Our irises- the puzzle is still not finished

Fragrant fresias

Future grape vine

Sugar dusting, again

Before dusting

After dusting

Three days ago, when I went into the hives, there were a lot of bees in the top box of the old hive.  7-8 of the frames had comb drawn and there was some nectar.  Other than on the drone frame, there was no brood.  On the drone frame, there were lots of larvae as well as capped cells.  Because of the many capped cells, I took out the frame and replaced it with a new one.   This is one of the ways to control the mite population.  Remember, the mites prefer drone pupae.  I did not look into the bottom box.  I used the sifter to dust both boxes with powdered sugar.  Because most of the frames in the top box were drawn, I added a medium super.  The girls probably don't need the super yet, but I figure it won't hurt and it's there if they do need it.

"Ghost" bees at entrance after dusting

The new hive colony doesn't seem a lot larger.  No new comb being built in the top box.  There was a lot of brace comb between the two boxes.  I scraped it off, dripping honey and catching several bees in the wax.  I put the comb in a bowl and left it out for the bees to clean up.  The drone frame, which is in the bottom box, had some capped cells; I switched it out, also.  I never liked the plastic frames that had come with the nuc.  Furthermore, most of the brace comb was built on top of the plastic frames so I decided to get rid of them and replace with wooden frames.  Naturally, I can't just make an immediate switch since there is brood, honey and pollen on the plastic frames.  So I traded one plastic frame with the wood frame at the side of the box.  I expect that the bees will move away from the edge and in a couple of weeks there will be only comb and maybe some honey.  Then I can replace the plastic frame and move another one to the edge.  I really don't know what I'm doing, but I'll see if it works.  I dusted both boxes and closed up the hive.
Two hours later, I took out the sticky boards I placed before inspecting and did a mite count.  The score:  Old hive, 10; new hive, 7.  As usual, I can't knowledgeably interpret these numbers.  They are higher than 3 weeks ago and maybe I should treat.  I chose not to treat- I'll be getting nucs with new queens next month and if they are, as I hope they will be, mite-resistant, the problem should be taken care with just drone-culling and sugar dusting.  As I said above, and repeat often, I really don't know what I'm doing.  (It's fun and very interesting, though.)

Capped cells on the drone frames

I examined the drone frames.  I did see two mites crawling on the comb of the frame from the new hive.  Most of the pupae in both frames were very young, too young to have mites in the old hive frame.  I did find one mite on a pupa in the new hive frame. So I figure there is a mite problem, but I'm going to wait; see above.  The drone frames are now in the freezer, much to Maidi's disapproval.

One of nasty guys on the capped drone cells

Ants!

When I wandered over to watch the bees yesterday, I was dismayed to see a line of ants entering the old hive entrance.  I went around to the back of the hives and there was a line of ants crawling up one of the hive stand legs.  The legs are in cans with water to prevent such an event.  However, one of the screens I had put on the legs to keep the bees from falling into the water had tipped down and was touching the edge of the can allowing the ants a safe passage.
I immediately adjusted the screen and removed the ants I could see from the back of the hives and the stand.  I took a look inside the tops and there were many ants inside the new hive's vivaldi box.  These met a quick demise. (There were bees there, too, but they ignored me.)  No ants inside the top of the old hive.  There were a lot of ants inside both of the trays; naturally, there's a lot of good eats in those trays.  I scraped the trays clean.
I'm certain there are still a lot of ants running around the hive, but since they cannot return to the hive nor can there be any replacements, I figure eventually they will be gone. That is, as long as I keep the screens off the cans, the cans filled with water and no plants touching the hive stand or hives. Ants can live for several months.

After the line of ants was brushed off

Ants are a huge problem for beekeeping in this area.  Jeremy Rose says they are perhaps a worse pest than the varroa mite.  If enough ants get into a hive they can kill it in a few days by eating honey, pollen and brood.  The bees are bothered by them but cannot kill them or remove them.  An invasion of ants is one of the reasons the bees will abscond.
Addendum:  When I checked the hives this morning I found (and got rid of) only about 15 ants.

Population growing. Unusual comb. Honey-B-Healthy

The population of both hives has grown but still the bottom boxes aren't full.  Neither queen was spotted.....again.  I know that they are there because the area of brood has expanded and I see very young larvae.  I'm beginning to wonder a bit about the process of re-queening.  I will be combining a nuc with a queen and I want the new queen to take over.  The only way I know to insure that is to remove the old queen.  You may recall that I had a two-queen hive a while back; then it didn't matter to me which queen survived.  Perhaps there is some sort of way to trap a queen.  I will ask my mentors. 
Along the thoughts of re-queening.  Long ago, Kathy Nevin gave me a frame of brood when by population was small.  To keep the bees from fighting, she sprayed them with a sugar and essential oil solution.  Recently I asked what this was- it's something called Honey-B-Healthy.  So I went on line to find a recipe and today I made it- I used 4 cups of water, 4 cups of sugar, 12 drops of lemon oil, 12 drops of spearmint oil and about 1/8 teaspoon of lecithin granules.  I bought everything at Aptos Natural Foods.

Capped drone cells

Back to the hives.  There were some capped drone cells in the drone frame in the old hive.  Nothing was going on with the other drone frame in the new hive.  I left the old hive alone and moved the other drone frame into the bottom box.  There were a lot of drone cells at the bottom of the frames and in the brace comb.  When I took frames out, a few broke open exposing the larvae.  The bees were at them; I know that they eat dead larvae, so they were probably starting to eat these. 

Bees all over the brace comb

I was a bit surprised at how much brace frame the girls had made it the new hive between the two boxes since I scraped it out two weeks ago.

Irregular comb in old hive top box

In the old hive, on the frame across from the capped drone cells, the bees had built an irregular comb.

I took out the dark comb from Olea's hive as had been recommended at the top bar hive class I went to a few weeks ago.  The empty comb is unexpectedly light.  There was an interesting transition from small cells to drone cells   The comb is now sitting in plastic bags ready to be rendered.

Late winter mite count

I inspected both hives yesterday and did a powdered sugar dusting and a mite count.
There was a lot of pollen in the trays under the screened bottoms.  There were also a lot of small brown beetles in the pollen.  I tried to get a photo of one, but it was too blurry for publication.  There were also mites crawling around in the debris.  I cleaned out both trays, placed the sticky boards in and then opened the hives.

Wax being drawn on drone frame

There was some activity in the top box of the old hive.  Some wax had been drawn on the drone frame as well as on the frame abutting.
There were four frames of honey and nectar in the top box, three frames with brood and two with honey in the bottom box.  One drone was seen and some capped drone cells.  The queen wasn't spotted.....again.

Top of bottom box frames

Still nothing was going on in the top box of the new hive.  Just a few bees crawling around and no propolis.  On top of the bottom box frames there was a bit of brace wax. After inspecting, I scraped off the was so the powdered sugar would be able to fall between the frames.  There were two frames with brood and larvae and lots of pollen.  Queen not seen.....again.
I dusted both hives with powdered sugar and an hour later did a mite count on the sticky boards.  Old hive: 6; new hive:4.  No need to treat now.