Tuesday, April 29, 2014

A swarm for Olea's hive, not

A small brown trout on the Beaverhead River in Montana
There have been changes in the apiary since the last post
The day after capturing the swarm, Karly and I went into #1.  Karly is positive she saw the queen run quickly from one frame into the box below.  We did not see her again.  Most of the queen cells I had seen on the earlier inspection were gone; we did see two empty queen cells with the tops chewed off.  I am certain there is a queen in #1.  I will take a look this week to check for larvae.  I also exchanged the drone frame.   The frame only had some pupae, so I tediously picked them out.  There were 349 total pupae, 14 of them had mites- 5%, an ok number for now.
Back to the swarm.  I had noticed that there was a casaba melon sized clump of bees left on the Hebe bush.  The day before we left for Dillon, Montana, I noted bees still flying around the clump.  I could see many of them flying to Olea's hive and some returning from that general direction.  I looked closely at the clump and saw bees doing the waggle dance and could tell the direction was toward the apiary.  I realized that the bees were scouting for a hive meaning that the queen was still probably in the bush.  I hoped that they would decide on Olea's hive; after all, it was a nice place to live and already had comb, as well as a few thousand bees.  I decided that when evening came, I would cut the bush and move the remaining workers, and queen of there, to the top-bar hive.
Then, the bees took off from the bush and flew slowly in the general direction of the apiary, then over the fence and out of sight towards Viewpoint.  I went over there, but the swarm was nowhere to be seen.  I figured that I had not moved the queen into Olea's and that the bees there would eventually die.  I emailed Tom Seeley describing the situation and he said "I'm sorry to report that your hive is probably queenless, but of course, time will tell.   Give them a week and take a look inside for eggs and larvae."
We returned from a terrific fishing trip yesterday.  There I fished the Beaverhead, Big Hole and Ruby rivers.  These three rivers flow together to form the Jefferson, a tributary of the Missouri.  We floated in drift boats with guides on the Big Hole where Karly caught the most fish!
I took a look into Olea's- new comb with nectar and pollen but no larvae or eggs and no queen seen.  A doomed colony.  Then, today, I took the bees from the TBH and after spraying them with Honey-B-Healthy, I shook them into hive #2, giving it a big boost in population.  I moved the TBH away and left the comb with nectar near the hive for the bees to clean up.  

Thursday, April 17, 2014

A swarm for Olea's hive

The swarm in the yard

Beginning to move towards the hebe hedge

The start of a much larger cluster
Maidi called me yesterday when I was in Santa Cruz waiting for marimba.  "The bees just swarmed and are clustered by the lilies!"
It was dusk when I got home and I decided it was too dark for me to capture the swarm, but I did get the top-bar hive ready.
I had saved comb from the hive after its demise to use when repopulating.  However, I had discovered just a day earlier that a rat had gotten into the comb and chewed away much of it, presumably for the beebread.  I had broken off the chewed comb and started processing the wax.  I took the two remaining combs and bars with an inch or so of comb still attached and opened the hive.  To my surprise, a paper wasp had started a nest inside the hive.
The wasp is on the right, mostly hidden
I gently removed the wasp and the nest in a jar.  This morning the wasp had flown away.
I cleaned the propolis off the sides of the top bars, arranged twelve bars with the full combs toward the front, left space in the middle and placed the false back.
This morning I went to move the cluster into Olea's hive.  Access to the swarm was restricted.  There was very little space below them and there was a main trunk next to them.  I cut away a couple of branches, moved some dirt and slid a shallow pan beneath them, then vigorously shook the branch so the bees fell into the pan.  Of course, many landed on the ground, too.
It was then that I realized that the swarm went further into the hedge and was about twice as large as it had seemed.
I carried my tray of bees to the apiary and dumped them into Olea's hive and went back to the hebe for seconds.  Then I put the lid on the hive and went in for breakfast.  This gave the bees on the ground time to crawl back onto the bush.  After breakfast and crossword, I repeated the shake and dump a couple of more times getting most of the bees into Olea's hive.  The rest will eventually make their way over following the scent from the Nasonov glands.
Fanning at their new home with Nasonov glands exposed


Sunday, April 13, 2014

How is hive #2 doing?

I'm glad you asked that question.  I opened #2 today because I was wondering myself.
There were some bees in the top box and one small area with nectar, but no new comb.
The bottom box seems filled with bees.  There still is no new comb on the side frames.  I was happy to see 4 frames with both sides filled with brood and a grapefruit-sized patch of capped brood on a 5th frame.  The queen was not seen today.
It looks like hive #2 is thriving, so I will not replace the queen.  So, unless things change or I decide to populate Olea's hive with the split, hive #3 is back.

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Queen cells

It has been nine days since making the split and I took a look into #1 to make sure that the bees were making queen cells.  Bees will quickly be aware of the queens absence and start making a new one.  They will build queen cells around some eggs and feed the larvae extra royal jelly.  Some beekeepers say to wait 4 weeks to check for eggs.  I just wanted to see the expected queen cells and share them with you.
First I looked on the underside of the lower super where there had been brood last week- queen cells.

I then looked on the underside of the top brood box- queen cells.
I took out the drone frame planning to cull the drones for varroa control, more queen cells.
I looked no further.
Isn't nature amazing?

Sunday, April 6, 2014

Both split and #2 seem to be doing well

Front door of the split box




It has been a week since we made the split.  There has been a lot of activity at the door since yesterday with foragers leaving and returning and a small orientation flight this afternoon.  Now I have to decided what to do with the nuc.  Some possibilities: transform the nuc frames to fit into Olea's top bar hive; use the queen to replace #2 queen; reactivate hive #4.  The original plan had been to use the queen to replace the #2 queen because she did not seem to be laying much.  (More about that below.)
I do want to repopulate Olea's hive.  Modifying Langstroth frames can be done but involves more work and mess than I would want to take on.  Making a "shook swarm" looks complicated, but there may be someway I can accomplish it, perhaps with someone's (Kathy Niven) help.  And we can also hope to capture a swarm.  I have no plans to buy bees for Olea's hive.
I looked into #2 to see if the queen had started laying in the frame I inserted last week.  Unfortunately I failed to mark the frame.  The one  I suspect was the transplant had nectar and pollen, no larvae or eggs seen.  But we learned last week that the bees will flood the eggs with nectar, so it's possible that the nectar-filled cells had eggs in them.  In any case, there were a lot of bees in the box, covering 7-8 frames.  There were at least 3 frames with brood (I did not inspect all the frames).  I put the top brood box back on.  It had only one frame with drawn comb on both sides, several with comb on one side, the drone frame and empty foundationless frames.
I did not have more frames with drawn comb available because yesterday Bruce and Gregg traded me five empty frames for drawn comb.  They are getting a package of bees this week.