New queen healthy and a-laying

I went into #1and removed the formic acid pads that had been in for two weeks.  They definitely killed mites.  I just hope it killed enough.

Dead mites on formic acid pad

The bees seemed less defensive at first, but after some time, there were several pinging me.  But they did not follow me more than a couple of yards from the hive.  Overall, I have the impression that the re-queening has diminished the unwanted aggressive behavior; time will tell.
There were eggs and young larvae in the super and the queen was running around in the deep box, where there were larvae also . 
The top super had a reasonable amount of capped honey.  I may extract the capped honey before we leave next month.

The queen is dead! Long live the queen!

Ouch!  That was the final straw.  An angry bee stung me on the back of the neck while I was in the roses, 10-15 feet from the hive.  And the bees had not been disturbed for days.  This was not the first unprovoked attack.  Amaya had been stung on the scalp while looking at the hive from the path and I had been harassed while doing yard work in the vicinity of the apiary.  It was time to re-queen.
The first step was to determine which hive was defensive.  I was pretty sure it was #1, but I needed to be certain.  An internet search turned up different ways to measure defensiveness.  The leather square seemed to be the one that would be best.  Other articles stated that a 2"square of blue suede had been used.  Where to get blue suede? Aha!  One of the marimba players owns a leather shop, and yes, he has blue suede scraps I could have.  Off to downtown Santa Cruz.  I got two shades of blue not knowing which would be best. I made my squares and went out to test the hives.

There was no reaction at any of the three hives.  So I contacted Tom Seeley and asked if something needed to be done to the leather first.  He replied,

I would remove the outer and inner cover of each hive, and see which one has bees flying up at your when you do so.  If one is super defensive, it will start attacking in response to having the cover removed.  Well, duh.  I did just that and there was no question that #1 was overly defensive (for me).

Next step, find a new queen.  I contacted the queen suppliers I have used, but either they had no queens or the price was too high ($35 for the queen, $38 for shipping).  Posting in the local bee guild forum produced no response.  Finally, I found Wildflower Meadows.  Their bees were what I was looking for and they had good reviews.  They would ship for $18.50.  I ordered a queen and picked a date for shipping.
The old queen needs to be removed from the hive 24-48 hours before installing the new.  So I needed a queen catcher.  There are two types, clip and cylinder/marker.  I ordered the latter.
The queen was to arrive today, so yesterday morning I went to capture the queen.  I also had to find any queen cells present and destroy them.  I also planned to do an alcohol wash mite count to see if the oxalic acid/shop towel had been effective.
I found the queen in the bottom box and captured her easily.

There was brood in the bottom (deep) box and the next two mediums.  I did the mite count, a dismaying >30, and selected a frame on which I would place the new queen.  The old queen went into the freezer and she will get a proper burial.
The large number of bees flying around and pinging my head reinforced my decision to re-queen.
I would like to treat the mites with MAQs but it feels too risky to both treat and re-queen at the same time.
Today I stopped by UPS to pick up the queen.  

The queen marked with green

She's in there with her attendants.  This is the best picture I could get.
She is now in the hive and I will take a look in a week to see if she is out of the cage.  I will also treat for mites.

First extended oxalic acid follow-up

I wanted to see how much of the shop towel the bees had removed, so I took a look into the hives a couple of days ago.
The bees had chewed nearly none of the towel in #2 & 3.

Hive #3

Hive #2

These hives had only a deep box so I do not think the bees had much of an incentive to get the towels out of there way.
However, the towel in #1, which has supers above the towel, was nearly half gone.

Hive #1

The frames in both 2 and 3 were full of bees,as you can see in the pictures.  I put a super on each.  Now it seems that my new configuration will be one deep and one medium for brood.  Of course, this may change back to two deeps.
As previously mentioned, I want to build a long lang.  It dawned on me that I could probably use the board from my extra deeps.  This would obviate the need to cut rabbets. 
On another note, I am committed to reaping some grapes this year.  Just see the birds get them now!

The are over 60 bags each around a grape cluster.

Extended-realease oxalic acid

For some time, oxalic acid has been used to control mites.  It is effective, safe and does not affect the honey and does not seem to hurt the bees.  It is very effective at killing phoretic mites.  It is usually applied by a dribble or vaporization.  One drawback is that it does not penetrate into the capped brood where the mites are developing.  Randy Oliver, whom I have mentioned in many blogs, has been working on a way to deliver oxalic acid over an extended period of time.  This link will take you to his progress report. 
I did a second alcohol wash mite count on  #1 4 days ago- 15 mites, or 5%.  This is definitely above my treatment threshold.  The next day I prepared and applied oxalic acid impregnated shop towels as per Randy Oliver.  The following morning I saw evidence that the bees were chewing up the towel on the tray below the screen bottom.

A new Beek

On his way to the hive.  All Eshel photos by Olea

Last week while visiting from Seattle, Eshel went into the hives for his first time.  We went into #3 and #2 on separate days.

Eshel sees the queen

He was very interested and would peer into the hive, often blocking my view.  We saw the queen in each hive, an uncapped queen cell in #3 and lots of brood.  #3 has expanded to 7 frames and is drawing comb on #8.  #2 has 4 frames of bee with brood on 3 of them.

Yes, Olea's hive is gone and will be put into storage until it moves to Seattle.  I noted a lot of debris and some dead bees on the porch, a sign that the hive had been robbed.  I had been expecting that. 

Capping debris and dead bees on porch

Inside the box after some frames have been removed

 

 

 

 

 

 

Swarm report and mite count

I went into the 3 hives today.
#1- There is some nectar in the top super and still a few empty frames.  The second super is heavy with honey.  The bottom super is heavy and may have some brood in it still; I did not inspect it.  I saw the golden queen in the bottom box.  She was on a comb with drone brood and drone-sized cells.  An alcohol mite count showed a 1.6% infestation, below the 2.0% threshold.  I will repeat the count in 2-3 weeks.  If high, I will treat with the shop towel/oxalic acid as per Randy Oliver.
#2- This is the most recent swarm, hived 10 days ago.  The bees are on 4 frames with brood and larvae.  They have done a good job on cleaning all the comb.  There I spotted the queen.  I can tell by her coloration that she has some carniolan in her.  A significant number of the workers are also dark.
#3- The bees now cover 6 frames and I saw an excellent brood pattern on at least two frames (I did not inspect the final frame).
So all three seem to be doing well.  We should get some honey from #1, but I don't expect any from #2 or 3.  Olea's continues to diminish.  There are still some bees visible through the window, but very little action at the entrance.  The swarm trap is back up in the front, but not much happening there.

A swarm in June...

A swarm in May... but this is June and one can not always get what one wants. 
Over the past couple of days I have noticed increasing interest in the pulp pot swarm trap.  This afternoon while I was changing out of my pickleball clothes, I heard a loud buzzing coming from the front.  I ran out in my stocking feet and saw what I expected- a swarm moving into the trap.

The first part of the video shows the cloud of bees, then a close-up of the entrance.  The next two segments show the bees forming a beard on the trap as they land and start moving inside.  The whole process took 10-15 minutes.  Some still photos of the process

The swarm approaches the trap

They begin to land and enter the trap

Traffic jam.  The bees are landing faster than they can go inside

Just about all the bees have landed

As I waited for them to all get inside, I went out back to prepare their new home.  I collected a screen bottom, one deep box with 10 frames, some with comb, a Vivaldi board and a telescoping lid.
Then, I made my big mistake.
I had been wanting to place ant moats under all the hive stands, and I thought it would be easier to place them now before adding another hive.  What I misjudged was just how heavy #1 was.
The whole thing was a bit tilted after I was able to lift the stand and place the moats under three of the legs.  The last leg was in the front below the hive.  As I tried to lift it, the inevitable happened-
the stand and entire hive fell over backwards!
I quick like a bunny ran to the shed, donned my bee suit, tried fruitlessly to get the smoker going, and ran back to the apiary.  There I righted the stand, easily placing the moats under the legs.  I re-assembled the hive from the bottom up.  Inspected the ground to see if the queen was there (I did not see her) and then went back to the intended job.
I placed the new hive in #2 position and removed all but the two outermost frames and put grass across the entrance.  I then went to the front, plugged the entrance to the swarm trap, unhooked it and carried it into the back.  I decided to keep the bee suit on since I did not know how mad the bees from #1 would be after their big disturbance.

Proud papa

After placing the trap in the deep box, I unscrewed the two halves.  There were still a lot of bees in the bottom half, so after removing the slum gum and piece of comb, I dumped them into the hive.  I then dumped in all the majority of the swarm that had gathered in the top half.  I then filled the moats with mineral oil and, voila!  three hives in the apiary. 

In a few days when all the stragglers from the swarm are gone, I will re-hang the swarm trap.

Olea's is definitely on the way out

This is what I removed today from Olea's hive.

Over the past weeks, I have seen Olea's population gradually decrease.  After putting in the Apiguard 10 days ago, the bees moved further back onto more central combs, away from the thymol.  They were on only 2-3 combs.  I went in today to start removing bars.

I also wanted to look for the queen.  If she were still there and I found her, I intended to move her into a nuc and add some frames with honey and pollen from #1 as well as many nurse bees and maybe a frame with brood.  However, the plans were moot as I did not spot the queen.

The two back most bars had no comb.  The next 4 had honey and were cross-combed.  I removed them en bloc.  The following bars had spotty brood, dead pupae, dead emerging workers and some apparently living larvae.  As I mentioned, the queen was nowhere to be seen.  There was a small number of drones.  I thought I saw one bee with K-wing.  However, this is due to tracheal mites, not varroa.

I closed up the hive decreasing the space with a follower board.

I broke the comb with honey off the bars into a large bowl.  After Maidi sees it, we'll mash it up and strain the honey.

Meanwhile, I expect Olea's will be without bees in a couple of weeks.

It looks like Olea's is on the way out

I went into the hive a couple of days ago.
#3- bees still on only 4 frames, but two frames had an excellent brood pattern.  The bees have not drawn new come but have cleaned the old comb.  I did see (and removed) a wax moth cocoon.  Even though the colony has not grown in the past 2 weeks, I am optimistic that it will grow and survive.
#1- I only checked the top super.  The bees had not drawn any new comb nor deposited any nectar.  I hefted the bottom super and it felt heavy.  I conclude that #1 is storing honey and will continue to do so.  I will need to inspect the bottom boxes.
Olea's- a month and and 1/2 ago, Olea's had 22 bars with bees on all of them.  Since then, the population had gradually decreased.  I thought (and still do) that it swarmed when we were away for Passover.  But it continued to see more bare comb through the window.  I hadn't planned to inspect it, but I was not tired, so I did.  I started at bar 11 and looked to bar 4.  There was not much honey and the brood pattern was spotty (picture from web).  I did not see any evidence of DWV.  I did see guanine crystals (more pictures from the web)  in some cells, a sure sign that the colony was overwhelmed by mites, leading of parasitic mite syndrome.  I had not done a mite count on Olea's and treating a top bar hive for mites is problematic.  So, Olea's is dying and I do not want it to be a mite bomb.  I put an Apiguard tray in the hive in hopes that it would markedly diminish the numbers  of mites before the colony completely dies. 
I do not intend to recolonize Olea's.  I find the top bar too hard to work and there is no good way to treat it for mites.  I plan on replacing it with a long Lang.

Swarm trapped and ensconced

This is what I saw when I looked at the swarm trap 6 days ago.  A swarm had moved in while we were away from the house.  I knew I had to transfer it to it's new hive.  This had to be done soon before much comb was built.  Since I had never done this before, I had no idea on how to go about it.  An online search resulted in no useful advice. 
That afternoon, I prepared the swarms new home.  One deep box with 10 frames of drawn comb in #3 position.  I placed Ant Moats under the legs of the stand.  (I saw these a few weeks ago when I helped Dinah with her bees.  They are neat and effective.  I bought enough for all my hives.)
So... I wanted to transfer all the bees, so it had to be done before the foragers started their jobs.   I went out when it was dark and plugged the entrance hole.  While on the ladder, I tapped the trap and was satisfied to hear an answering hum. 
I still intended to transfer them before their work-day began, so-

I arose early and went out at first light.  I carefully lowered the trap, noting that it was not very heavy.  I carried it into the back.  I opened the hive and removed the middle 8 frames. Since I did not know in which half of the trap they would be clustered, I placed the trap in a box, where I unscrewed the halves and opened it.

Trap in a box near the hive

The bees were all clustered in the top part.  In retrospect, I should have know this would be the case.
Placing the pot into the hive, I have it a sharp shake.  The bees tumbled into the hive and started to climb up the side frames.

The small swarm in their new home

Of course, not all the bees left the pot.  After a few more shakes and raps, I left the pot nearby so that the straggles would be able to fly to the new home.  The bees had already built a small amount of comb. 

I replaced the frames and closed up.
Whenever I had captured a swarm, I noted that 100-200  bees would return to the cluster spot.  This occurred here as well, even though I had placed grass across the entrance.  I had read that when moving a hive, placing grass across the entrance encourages the bees to re-orient.

I think that these must be scouts.  The oldest foragers search for a new home.  When they reach a consensus, they lead the swarm to it.  They have the location wired into their little brains, so when the leave the new hive, they follow the path back to the old spot.
It had only been 5 days since the transfer, but my curiosity overcame by caution.  I went in.  The bees only covered 4 frames.  There was some nectar.  And I saw the queen!  She is large and moderately dark.  I watched as she laid and egg and saw some other eggs, no larvae.
I looked into #1 also.  There is brood in all 3 boxes.  The 2 mediums have worker brood and it looks like it might be spotty.  I will need to do a mite count after we return from our upcoming trip.  The bottom box had some drone brood.  There was some honey being made in all three boxes.  I added a super with foundation only frames.

Reconfiguration successful!

I went into #1 with the plan to reconfigure.  My aesthetic sense was violated by the unusual set-up.  I expected the few brood I had last seen in the top box to have emerged and I could just remove the top box. Simple.
I brought over an empty box to hold the frames as I worked through them and put it on a work table.
The first few frames were either empty comb or a bit of honey.  Then there was some brood, honey and pollen and then, much to my surprise, I saw the queen, fat and golden.  I had been moving the frames into the empty box, but there was nothing under it.  I went back to the shed, dug around and retrieved a telescoping top that inverted and placed the empty box on.  Then I carefully moved the frame with the queen into the box, keeping my eye on her.  I selected four frames with brood, some resources and the queen to move into the bottom deep. 
After lifting off the medium, I went through the deep to find four frames to remove.  Two were easy to select- black comb, no honey or pollen.  For the other two, I found frames that were drone brood and larvae (I could tell by the size of the cells) and some nectar and pollen.  These would be sacrificed.

This is one of the frames.  You can see the scattered capped drone brood as well as some larvae (bright white in the upper-right quadrant).
I got the four frames into the bottom box, once again being very careful with the queen.  Voila!  A normal looking hive.
I scraped the old comb and sprayed B.T. onto the six I will keep and use again.  I looked at some of the capped drones and saw no mites.  Good news, but taken with a grain of salt as none of them were at the purple-eyed stage. This is when one usually finds the mites.

Split not made, swarm not trapped

A week ago I went to make a split from Olea's.  The plan was to get two frames with pollen and honey from #1 and get a frame with eggs and two with capped brood from Olea's.  These five frames would go into a nuc.  There the bees would raise a new queen from the eggs. 
I collected everything I needed including wires with which to hold the top bar combs to the Langstroth holders and a work table to hold the nuc.  Smoked #1 and went in.  Alas...
There was very little brood in the top box and only one frame with nectar and pollen.  I put this frame into the nuc.  Then I looked into the bottom box (did not check the medium box).  There were no frames with food to take but there was some brood.  It looks likeh the queen has moved downwards.  I briefly considered removing the top deep box, move the frames with brood into the bottom box and have a hive with a single deep brood with mediums for the rest.  However, it would have been too much to do and not in today's plan.  (Avoid impulse beekeeping!)  I figured I would do that another day- probably today.  So-
I would have to get resources from Olea's as well as eggs and brood to make a total of five frames for the split.Going through all the bars of a top bar is a lot of work as each comb needs to be cut away from the box.  There was brood in the the second bar, all drone.  The queen was on one of the first bars.  She is quite dark.  There were no eggs and no resources, bar after bar.  Finally, in mid-box, a frame with eggs and larvae.  But these were drone-sized cells and some capped drone brood.  These eggs would not a queen make.  I did not find worker brood until 4 bars from the end.  No eggs.  I gave up trying to make a split and closed up.  I did find the brood area odd; drone at one end of the box and worker at the other end.  I wonder if there might be two queen in the hive.
Olea's hive is filling up with bees and I keep adding new bars.  Today I but all 22 bars into Olea's.  Twice, once a few weeks ago and again today, the bees had built comb on the follower board.

Comb cut off follower three weeks ago

Comb on follower today

Comb on follower today

There has been on and off activity around the swarm traps, but nobody has moved in yet.

Unusual configuration

This is the current configuration of #1.  This link discusses the common variations.  However, nowhere have I seen this set-up.  It did not come about by choice.  When I harvested the honey last fall there was still brood in the medium box so I left it.  I have checked many times and there has persistently been brood in the medium.  I left the bottom deep box in hopes that the queen and court would move into it.
Then I had my nuc.  I put the five frames into a deep box with follower boards to limit the space and put it in place of #3.  Well, as you faithful readers know, the colony lost its queen, so I used a newspaper combination in order to save the remaining bees.  I expected them to all move into the lower boxes and then I would take off the deep and have a single deep brood box.
So...
Yesterday I took a look into #1.  On previous inspections the bottom deep had only drawn comb and some honey and pollen.  If that had still been the case, I planned to do a lot of manipulation to get one deep brood box.  If the brood was gone from the medium, then I would rearrange to two deeps.
But the bees were not privy to my intentions.  There was brood in all three boxes!  I saw my (lovely) queen in the top deep box.  There was a fair amount of drone brood as well as worker in the bottom box.  What to do?  I added enough frames to make 10 in the top deep and left it as it was.
I did see a lot of uncapped drone brood and many with holes in the cap.

This picture is from another website and shows both uncapped larvae and caps with holes. 

I figured there must be a moderately high mite count.  Since I had intended to do a spring mite treatment anyway, I did not do a count but just put in Mite-away Quick strips.  I had to do some thinking about where to place them since the instructions say to place them between the two brood boxes; no suggestions for three boxes.  I did a bit of chemistry research and learned that formic acid fumes are heavier than air.  I put the strips between the medium and top super.  I also took out the entrance reducer to provide proper ventilation.

Olea's continues to go like gangbusters.  There were a total of 15 bars.  I saw brood on bar 14.  I added two more bars; 17 total now.

There continues to be sporadic activity around the swarm traps.

bees scouting the bait box

This is a close-up of the entrance to the bait box yesterday.  Today there is even more activity around the trapwith bees doing what looks like orientation flights and some guarding.  I took a look inside and there were many bees crawling around.  I tried unsuccessfully to see in which direction they were arriving and leaving.  If I had identified a "bee line"  I would have tried to find the swarm; that is if these are scouts from a swarm.  Assuming they are, I am hopeful that a swarm will be moving in soon.  However, check out this thread.
I attended a Bee Cafe meeting with Laura, a beekeeper to be.  The Sonoma County Beekeepers Association apparently has clusters and the meet at various homes.  The people were lovely and the food was delicious.  I learned about a swarm trap made from pulp pots and made one as soon as I could on returning home.

 All the holes but one are plugged with foam padding.  Inside is a piece of slumgum and a couple of drops of lemongrass oil.  The two pots are held together with wood screws.
I hung it in a tree in front.

After this picture was taken, I secured it to the tree with twine.
One needs to check this trap daily.  When a swarm moves into a new hive, it begins building comb right away.  Moving them would be difficult once there is comb.

It looks like spring has sprung, and, getting ready to split Olea's

 It looks like spring in the apiary.  Plants are beginning to leaf, the roses are putting out shoots, the bees are visiting the birdbath in numbers

and there is bee poop on the cars.
Olea's hive has survived with minimal treatment  soI have been wanting to split it.  The problem is that I want to put the split in a Langstroth hive; the bars and frames are not interchangeable.  There seem to be different ways to accomplish such a split.  Some of these seen quite elegant if not a bit too hard.  This one is done when a hive is about ready to swarm.  I thought of making a shook swarm.  This involves finding the queen and shaking her and a bunch of other bees into the split and leaving eggs in the top bar where the bees will make a  new queen.  I thought the easiest way would be to use the same method I have always done, i.e., move a couple of  combs with eggs and a couple of combs with honey and pollen into a box with a fifth frame of drawn comb.
I thought I would cut the selected combs off a top bar and hold them in a frame with rubber bands, as one does it collecting a cut out. 

Picture taken from another site

I posted a query on a beekeeping forum asking for advice from others who have done this.  One beek suggested just tying the entire top bar to a top of a Langstroth frame.  This seemed to be the easiest way, so today I did a trial.

Old top bar and a Langstroth top bar

Held together with rubber bands

 I had to see if it would fit as the top bars from Olea's are wider than the langs.

They all fit

 I had to figure how to space all the bars.  I put side bars on the langs and off-set the top bar bars so that they met each other and were flush with the langs on the outside edge.

The light wood are the langstroth tops and the dark wood between are the top bar bars

 I plan to make the split tomorrow when it is warm.
There were ants in #1!  The tanglefoot had lost its tangle.  I reapplied it the best I could (those dang cans make it difficult) to all the legs in the apiary, then spent some time killing ants that were crawling over the boxes.
I saw a couple of bees (at least two) looking at and in the bait box.  I do not know if they are scouts from a swarm (I hope) or just curious foragers.  I will find out in a couple of days.