Nuc moved in preparation for Spring

As I was thinking ahead to spring, I thought it would be good to move the nuc to the position the colony would eventually occupy.  I thought it would be too disruptive if they were moved and put into a deep box at one time.  I had been planning to to this for some time, but I wanted to do it early in the morning before the foragers were out.  I frequently awaken early enough but do not remember to do it.  Yesterday I wrote myself a reminder, and this morning, awake and up at 5 AM, I saw the note.
Suited up when it was just getting light, I moved the nuc to spot #3.  I covered the door with a piece of wood as I carried the surprisingly heavy box across the yard.
I placed some grass (cut a couple of days ago in preparation) across the entrance to encourage the foragers to reorient.

Also, rain is expected today and this will help keep them in the hive.  See section 3 of this link.  I will be checking around the old nuc site to see if a lot of foragers go there.
Later that day, a few foragers had landed on the nuc stand. 

I saw a bee fanning with its Nasonov gland at the nuc's entryway, so I moved the stand and bees near the box.

Pry-scale revisited, one more time

Last spring I had built a pry-scale with which I could monitor the changing weight of the hives.  The scale worked fine but the bottom board could not tolerate the strain.  The bottom boards have a small cross piece to support the tray.  My bottom box is different than the one pictured below, but you can see a piece of wood below the white tray.  This is about 3/4" square and held on with staples.


When the hives were heavy, the strip of wood was pried away from the box.
I still wanted to monitor the weight, so I had to figure out a way to re-enforce the bottom.  I first used a piece of hard wood flooring. I used a router to make a space for the pry-scale levers, but this weakened the plank allowing it to bend too much.  Then I thought of using a metal strap.
I got 3/8" steel straps.

Using my reciprocating saw, I cut them into 16-1/4" lengths, then drilled holes in the ends.  I beveled the holes so the screw head would not protrude.

 The straps were screwed onto the bottom of the boards.

I tested one placing a cinder block and several heavy stones on it and it worked.  Now I will have an extra duty in the apiary next spring.

This photo has nothing to do with my bees.  The mushrooms were alongside the bike path in Ireland.

Hive #1 reduced

Finally I was able to reduce hive #1 to one deep and a medium.
I went in yesterday.  There was still brood and eggs in the medium as well as the queen.  She has no black on her abdomen- a golden queen.  There was honey and a little brood in the top deep.  The bottom deep had empty comb with a very small amount of honey.  I took three frames with the youngest wax from the bottom and switched them into the then top deep.
The bottom box was in need of repairs and cleaning.  Most of the frames have old, black wax and will be scraped.

My helpers cleaning the honey off of the frames

Fall update

Much has happened since the last posting.  I will try to keep it short.
#2 did not make it.  The two boxes never combined and the hive was robbed.  It has been dismantled and awaits bees next year.
Olea's continues to be strong on its 7 bars.  On one inspection, I saw no honey so started feeding with 1:1 syrup.  I used the entrance feeder, placing it inside the box.  The bees accessed it by going under the following board.  I added another bar when I started feeding and saw some new wax today.  I also saw more honey stores so I will no longer feed them after the present batch of syrup is gone.

#1 is still doing well.  When harvesting honey, there was brood in the bottom-most super so no honey was taken from that box.  We did get a fair amount of honey.  This is about half.

After the honey was taken, I put Apivar strips into the hives and the nuc.  I took them out today. 
On earlier looks, the bottom box of #1 seemed pretty empty.  Today I wanted to remove it in order to reduce the hive and do some repairs on the box.  However, after taking out 4 frames with empty comb, I saw a large patch of capped brood on the 5th; end of plan.  So #1 still is two deeps and one medium.  Some of the honey in the medium may have been made when the Apivar was in the hive, so I will not be able to harvest in.  I would like to remove the box before the honey flow next spring but I won't do it as long as brood is present.

Oh where, oh where has #3 gone?

#3 Hive stand

 As with #2, I noticed a marked decrease in activity at the entrance.  I took a look inside to see what was up.  What I found, in a nutshell, was a dying colony.  Only a few hundred bees, no viable brood, no eggs or larvae, hardly any honey.  All activity, as it were, was in the top brood box and bottom super.  There was nothing but drawn comb in the bottom brood box.  I did see some ants in the box but could find no ant trail on the stand.
I took #3 apart and put the boxes with bees onto #2 using the newspaper combine.  I put the escape board below the super that had capped honey and will take the super off soon.  In the next few days I will also start collecting the supers from #1 for the honey harvest

#2 with deep and super from #3, with escape board and newspaper

The silver lining of this dark cloud:  the bottom brood box was damaged and now I will be able to repair it.
It looks like I may need my nuc after all. (Sorry Matt and Laura)

#2 has a queen!

I looked into #2 today and saw a queen walking around on the frame.  There are still not a lot of bees and I did not see eggs (nor did I look hard for them).  I took off the super and will harvest the honey from it.  I considered moving the frames into a nuc box or dividing the current box somehow but decided to leave it as it is.

What happened to #2?

The apiary today

#2 used to have two deep and two medium boxes.Why now only one deep and one medium box?, you ask.  I will tell you.
Two days ago I noticed very little activity at #2's entrance.

#1

#2

 I immediately suited up and went into the hive.  Here is a pictorial of what I saw:

Under the telescoping lid

Under the Vivaldi box

Under the top super

Under the bottom super

Under the top deep box

As you can easily see, there are hardly any bees.  Unlike this strong hive (picture from Guildford Dragon NEWS:


I went through the hive and found only a couple of hundred bees, mostly on 2-3 frames in the top brood box.  There was a spotty patch of capped brood and some larvae.  The only drone brood I saw as on a frame bare of bees.  There were many queen cups, a couple of which were partially drawn out, but all were empty.  There was one (smaller than usual) queen cell with an open end indicative of an emerged queen.  I did not see a queen nor any eggs.  I looked for any bees with DWV or any mite feces and found none.  I did not want to do an alcohol wash since that would kill a large percentage of the colony.  Not knowing what else to do, I removed one super and changed the entrance reducer to its smallest size.  I figured there were a few options.  1. Do nothing and observe. 2. Perform an assiduous search for a queen. If she is there, do nothing. if she is not there, either repopulate with the nuc or combine the colony with one of my other hives. 3. Either combine or repopulate without searching for the queen.  I then wrote to my mentor and posted on Beesource Beekeeping Forums.  It was my mentor's opinion that, at best, the colony had swarmed and the new queen had not yet started laying.  She suggested waiting a week and if no queen activity then, go ahead and combine the hive.  A beekeeper on the forum said pretty much the same thing.  That is pretty optimistic, but I think that if they had swarmed that there would be many more bees left behind and much more brood.
Today I removed the bottom deep box, as in the opening picture.
If you have any more questions, feel free to ask.
There still is forage in our yard-

Oak hydrangea

Taking apart Olea's hive

Three days ago, I saw only some bees on the front frames of Olea's, so I decided to dismantle the hive.  I started at the back of the box and found nectar in most of the combs.  I took out only three, one of which had two queen cells on it.  One was open at the end and the other on the side.

Queen cells on both sides of the comb

Open end where a queen has emerged

Queen cell opened on side.  The pupa inside had been killed by another queen and the workers removed the corpse

An empty queen cup

I set these in a holder and went to do some other work (Next paragraph).  When I went back to photograph them, there was a small cloud of bees around them.  I moved the comb further from the hives until the bees had cleaned them up at the end of the day.
I hefted the top super of #1 and since it felt pretty heavy I wanted to add a fourth super.  I had some unassembled frames from Bruce and Greg, but after I had nailed together a couple, I realized they were shallows and I only have medium foundation.  I  got my box of medium frames and assembled them.  I had some Duragilt foundations, also from Bruce and Greg.  I found the Duragilt difficult to install, and I am not the only one.  I stopped after 3 and used plastic foundation on the remaining.
I went to #1, stood on the milk crate and took off the top super.  It had 6 frames of capped honey.  Usually one does not add another box until there are 8 frames full, but I went ahead.  I checkerboarded 2 frames of capped honey.  I looked into the top super of #2 and saw that it was pretty much untouched, so I switched in two frames of capped honey from the lower super.  Left #3 alone.
The next day, while working the roses, I was attacked without provocation and stung in the left eyebrow.

I think the bees might have been extra defensive because of possible robbing behavior triggered by the open nectar left near the hives the day before.  To forestall any further robbing, I decided to completely dismantle Olea's hive.  I put the removed comb with nectar at the far side of the house.  There was quite a bit of wax moth damage on the distal combs.

The bees had removed all the nectar by the next morning

When I reached bar #6, I found capped worker brood and larvae!  There must be a laying queen in there after all.  I put in a bar with fresh wax and nectar (total 7 bars), placed the following board and put on an entrance reducer.  It looks like Olea's may survive.
I pinched off the capped queen cell that I had seen through window weeks ago.

 With manicure scissors, I carefully cut a flap in the side.

 There was the desiccated head and thorax of the pupa.

I opened the cell a bit more and could see some strands of the cocoon.

The two nucs seem to be doing fine.

I am going to need a step-up

I checked the top supers of all three hives today.  #2 and 3 were light and I saw no capped honey when I looked down into the frames.  However, #1 was heavy and had capped honey in 8/10 of the frames!  I added a 3rd super, checker-boarding three frames of capped honey into it.  Now I will need to use Olea's step up to work the hive.

I realized the above picture did not suffice, so I am adding this one.

I am slightly on tip-toe so my eyes are over the hive.
And this photo just to brag a bit.

Rio Samba

Where did it come from, and where did it go?

It really is swarm season!  Across the street, a swarm was captured in a bait box. 
Yesterday I saw this on the grape vine:

It was a pretty large cluster.  I assume it came from #2 since I had seen a swarm cell in there a week before.  But assumptions are often incorrect.
Today there was no activity around the entrance of my bait box so I figured they were not interested.  (It may be that the bait box is directly above 2 active nucs.)  So I called a bee guild member to see if he was interested in collecting it.  He called me back within a half-hour, and just before he called, the cluster had taken flight.  He could hear the buzzing over the phone.  I followed them down the street, where, instead of going into a hive as I expected, they clustered on a tree branch in front of Pauline's house.  This is approximately 150 feet from where they had been. 
About 2 hours later I went to see if the new owners were home yet.  They were not, nor were the bees.  Where they went is unknown- re-cluster or new home.
I do know that there are quite a few bee hives in this neighborhood.

Good news, bad news

Where to begin? 
First, some good news: spring is here and the honey flow is on.

Now an update: 5 days ago two fellow pickleball players and semi-beginning beeks, Terry and Karen, went into the hives with me.  We removed the old MAQs and spacers from all 3 hives and did an alcohol wash on #2 & 3.  (#3- 4, #2- 7)  The counts were higher than I wanted, but I think they are ok.  At least, I will not be treating again until after the honey harvest.  In #2, we took out a frame to look for the queen (Terry and Karen have never spotted their queen) and found an uncapped queen cell.  It had royal jelly in it, and since it was at the bottom of the frame, I figure it to be a swarm cell.  The edges of the cell go a little bent when taking out the frame, but I do not expect that will be a problem.  We did not look for any other queen cells.  So, #2 may swarm in the next week.  If it does, and I see it, I will call a bee guild member to collect it or perhaps it will go into the bait box.  All three hives looked healthy.
Now some bad news:  I looked in the window of Olea's hive a few days ago.  The population looked very small, smaller than I thought it should be even after casting two swarms.  The distal 12 or so combs were bare of bees and there was even an exposed, capped queen cell.

No nurse bees equals a dead pupa
So I went into Olea's today to see what was going on.  I started at bar 13 and worked all the way to the front.  The findings:
1.  Many wax moth pupae on top of the bars.
2.  The population of the colony seems to me ~90% drones.
3.  Very little honey in the frames I examined.
4.  One comb with small patch of capped worker brood and larvae, bar 11 or 12.
5.  No queen spotted.  No eggs seen.
Conclusion- Olea's may be queenless; the larvae I saw are drones.  Of course, things may be ok.  After all, I did not see any capped drone brood.  But being pessimistic, I worry that Olea's will succumb and possibly become a varroa bomb.  So... one of the combs I removed had, unbeknownst to me, been attache to the floor of the box, and it broke off.  It was old, dark comb and had only some beebread in it.  I used the space thus serendipitously provided to place a single MAQ next to the small patch of brood.
To end with some good news:  I checked the nuc containing the secondary swarm.  There was drawn comb on three of the five frames and capped brood on two of them.  The queen successfully mated and the nuc will probably make it.  I could use it to repopulate Olea's if it does not make it.

They're all in the box!

After collecting Olea's afterswarm the other day, some bees were still in a small cluster; this always happens. This cluster was the size of a cantaloupe.   I was going to let them return to the parent hive, make their way to the nuc or just die.  Early yesterday morning, Maidi suggested that I shake them into a box and take them to the nuc- an excellent idea.  I immediately did so.  I put the box beneath the nuc.  But you can take a bee to a nuc but you can't make it go in.  They just stayed in the box all day, all night and today.
Since it was several hundred bees (maybe a thousand) I decided to help them into the nuc. At first I wanted to make a ramp using the flap of the box, but could not arrange things for that.  So, I poured the bees onto the top of the nuc, expecting them to crawl down the face into the door; but, no.  After sometime, I lifted the lid about 1/2 inch and waited.  In short time, two bees crawled into the hive.  So I propped the lid up, went inside and set the timer for 30 minutes.  I took a look, and almost all of them were inside.  I gave them another 20 minutes, et voila!- they were all inside.  I closed the lid and went in for dinner.

Olea's hive casts an afterswarm

This afternoon, while putting in drip emitters, a loud buzzing caused me to look up.  Bees were pouring out of Olea's hive....again.  The swarm clustered about 30 feet from the hive on the vines behind the apple trees.

The cluster as seen from the lawn

A closer view of the cluster

A secondary swarm, or afterswarm, is different from the primary in a couple of ways.  Firstly, it is smaller, and secondly, it has a virgin queen.  This means it takes longer for the queen to start laying in the new hive; a couple of weeks as opposed to as soon as comb is drawn.  (By the way, two days ago I looked into the nuc with the primary swarm.  There was new drawn comb and some capped brood.)

After I had made sure that the bees stayed in the box, I put in 5 frames and moved it next to the first swarm. 

If it survives, I will have two nucs, the number I want.  Future swarms, if any, will go to a fellow beek.

It's swarm season!

A proud beekeeper

It is spring, so naturally much has been happening in the apiary.  I thought I would start with the above photo of a happy, young beekeeper working her hive.
All three hives now have two honey supers on and there is nectar in the top one.  It looks like there will be a good honey harvest this year.  If/when I put on a third box, the hives will be so high that working them will be difficult.  I am considering keeping the height under control by harvesting any boxes filled with capped honey through the summer.  We will see.  Olea's hive has its full complement of 22 bars.  All entrance reducers are out.
The pry scale works well, however, the hives are so heavy that the slat of wood that the scale presses against cannot withstand the pressure.  Back to the drawing board to.  I need some engineering help.
I have been wanting to make splits and therefore have gone into the hives more than once looking for suitable frames.  Alas, no joy.  I have seen healthy brood patterns but no eggs, on different occasions because there was not enough light, it started to rain or I just can not see them.  A neighbor who is interested in beekeeping has joined me on these attempts.
One day the bees were unusually defensive chasing us when we were outside.  It was a hot day, 80 degrees, and being overheated and overcrowded are two reasons why bees are defensive.  That is when I put a second super on each hive.  They have not been aggressive since, but that does not prove crowding was the cause.
Eight days ago, Olea and I were looking into #3.  We saw the queen laying eggs and a swarm cell.  I considered possible actions and decided to let them swarm and do my utmost to capture them.  I set up a bait box in its usual place.
Then, a few days later, a swarm came from the trees behind the house across the street and clustered at the top of Paul's oak tree.  The next day the cluster was gone, whither to, a mystery.  (Not my bait box.) 
Yesterday, when I went out to mow the lawn, Olea's hive swarmed.  I saw them flowing out of the hive, like orientation flights but magnitudes greater.  I was excited to see this for the first time.  They clustered on the fence next to Paul's.  The bulk of the cluster was beneath the stringer.

I mowed the lawn, giving the cluster a chance to settle in.  Then I brushed to bees into a nuc box with its door blocked, set the box by the fence and waited  a while to be sure the queen was in the box (the bees would leave the box if she were not and re-cluster around her). 

Then I put the lid on and carried the box across the yard to the "potting shed" where the nucs usually live.  I put in five frames, two with scraped foundation, two new foundation and one foundationless.

I put the lid on and unblocked the door. 

At the door of their new home

They were still in the nuc this morning and they had started house cleaning.  I could see debris below the hive.  There were still a few bees hanging around the cluster site as the smell lingers for some time.

Hive #3 has not yet, to my knowledge, swarmed.