Two more sources of nectar

When I was out in front, I heard a lot of buzzing.  Looking around, I found the source- the catalpa tree.

On the underside of a catalpa leaf

You may recall sometime ago when I wrote about extrafloral nectaries.  Well, catalpas are one of the plants with this source of nectar and are mentioned in this article.
Maidi had bought some marigolds for our yard party and she wanted me to plant them.  I put them in front of the cucumbers.  I wondered if bees visited marigolds.  I learned from on online search that marigolds repel many insects and nematodes and are therefore used as companion plants in vegetable beds.  Some marigolds will also repel bees.  Fortunately, ours do not:

She blends in well

Yesterday when I was tending to the roses, I heard a lot of buzzing.  There was a cloudlet of bees in front of hive 3.  Oh no, I thought, they're going to swarm.  When I had done the sticky-board counts last week, this hive had as much as the others, but since it had so many fewer bees, I figured the ratio of mites:bees was unhealthy.  I had only one Mite Away quick strip and two strips is the recommended treatment.  So I concluded that even though there was plenty of room in the hive, they were unhappy with the mites and were therefore swarming or absconding.

Fortunately, they all went back into the hive, so it must have been a large orientation flight.
First video.  Second video.
I had already ordered more quick-strips, but I put the remaining single one in, just in case. 
I still don't know what I'm doing.

Solar melter; it works!

I needed a melter to process the beeswax.  There are well-constructed, fancy ones available, but I found this on YouTube and decided to make one like hers.
First, I needed a styrofoam cooler.  Every once in a while, I would stop by a garage sale to look for one.  I had been expecting that cheap coolers would soon be in the stores for summer.  However, last week at work, we received some medicine that needed to be cold.  It was in a thick styrofoam box with cold packs.  One of the nurses, who knew I wanted to make a melter, asked me if I wanted it the box.  Natch.
Next, I needed glass.  I had one pane for a long time, but it got broken when Jesus Chavez's crew was cleaning the yard.  I was going to go to Orchard for the glass, when Maidi suggested I use the glass from an old collage frame.  So, down to Ace for a glass cutter and glass breaking pliers.  It worked quite well and now I had two panes of glass.

 Using a steak knife, I cut a rectangle out of the lid.  I glued one pane of glass inside and duct taped the other to the outside.  I had to cut away two shelves from inside using my keyhole saw.
I lined the box with tin foil, put some water in a plastic tube and placed my paint straining bag around it, holding it taut with a clothes pin- so hi tech.

I put a bunch of wax on the cloth, put the lid on and waited, impatiently.  In not too long, I could see the wax starting to melt.  Then there were drops of was visible in the water.  Ultimately, I may have waited too long as the water was boiling and the residue on the bag was pretty cooked.

After 40 minutes

After one hour

After 4 hours. Melted wax on boiling water

As soon as I took the lid off, there was a strong smell of wax and two bees came over to investigate.  It was a little tricky to get the wax into the house simultaneously keeping the bees outside.  I put the wax in the fridge to cool.

My first (somewhat) purified bees wax

There was a little debris in the wax, but it the process worked. Now I need a bigger tub and either a larger bag or an old pair of pantyhose.

Sometimes, it looks like I know what I'm doing

Today I switched out the drone frames in hives 1&2.  No problems, really.  Of course, all I did was take off the supers and upper brood boxes, lever out the drone frame without moving any other frames and then slide the new frame into place.  Nothing dropped, no stings, little disturbance.  Wow!
I looked at about 10 drone pupae- no mites.  Does this means the mites are under good control (I hope so) or just sampling error or something else?  I'll do a sticky board count next week.
Two days ago, when looking in Olea's hive window, I saw the queen, with her red mark, crawling around the side of a comb; pretty exciting.

A fine mess, or Someday I may know what I'm doing, part 2

Who knew that bees liked olive flowers?

A nice frame of brood in hive #2

A couple of days ago, I thought I'd try to take some honey from Olea's hive.  According to my new book on top-bar beekeeping, taking some honey during the honey flow is ok and the bees will just make more comb and honey.  It may even have the benefit of preventing swarming by giving the bees more room.  Well, as we all know, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
According Les Crowder's book, white, capped honey comb can be kept intact to be eaten while old comb should be cut off the bar and mashed to extract the honey.  Accordingly, I brought to the hive, a large pot (my beer brewing pot) for the old comb and a box to hold the new comb on the bar.  I was careful to bring a cover for both to keep the bees out.  I also brought empty bars to replace all the bars I removed.  Der mentsh trakht un Got lakht.
The last time I went into Olea's hive I suffered the deleterious effects of cross-combing, so this time I intended to be deliberate and avoid repeating that experience.  I carefully removed the end board and the last top-bar.  The comb wasn't completely straight, as you can see.  No problem so far.

Last top bar with comb inverted on top of hive

There are spacing shims between the top bars.  I figured if I removed these first, I would be able to see into the space between combs and cut any cross-combing; then I could remove the bar without any trouble.  Figure again!  After taking out the spacer, I could see some crossing.  I cut across it, spilling a little honey.  Ok so far.  Then I lifted the bar and bam!, the comb fell off spilling honey all over!  Back to the house for the tongs.  I had to remove the next couple of bars.  One had very little comb.  The next looked like it had capped honey, so I placed it in the box.  There were bees all over it, so the cover was superfluous.  I moved other bars around, making a bit more of a mess by cutting cross-combs.  I then fished out the broken comb and put it in the pot.  There were probably a couple of hundred bees stuck in all the honey.  There was quite a mess in the hive, as well.

Looking down into the top-bar hive after the broken comb was removed.  Those are bees on the bottom stuck in the honey

I then re-assembled the hive.  I had to brush all the bees off the piece of comb.  After I did, yikes!  It was a frame of brood with capped honey only at the top.  I re-opened the hive, took out an empty bar and replaced the frame I had taken out. Then I took the pot onto the deck and picked out the bees, putting the comb into a bowl.  There was a couple of ounces of honey, as well as bees and comb, in the bottom of the pot. Honey gained- one broken comb of ripe, uncapped honey. 

What's left  in the pot after the comb had been removed

Maidi suggested I should make videos of my beekeeping techniques entitled "How not to...".  It would probably be a best seller.

Someday I may know what I'm doing

A couple of days ago I thought I should treat the hives with powdered sugar.  As you recall, this is part of controlling the Varroa mites.  I got my sifter and powdered sugar and sticky boards, donned my bee suit and went to work.  I also removed the top feeders.  In each hive, I placed the sticky board beneath the screen, took off lids and any supers to expose the tops of the brood boxes and sifted in the powdered sugar, a couple of tablespoons per box.  A couple of hours later, I took out the sticky boards to check for results.  There was hardly any sugar and no mites.  What was happening?  I checked one source.  So, I didn't use nearly enough sugar and I checked the boards too soon.  Obviously I had forgotten how I had done it in the past.  Oh well, live and learn. In a couple of weeks I'll do it again.
I just bought Top-Bar Beekeeping by Les Crowder and Heather Harrell.  Today I read the emphasis he puts on the need to manage the combs to prevent cross-combing.  This makes it very difficult for both the beekeeper and the bees to harvest the honey.  He says that after putting a package into an empty box, one should check every couple of days to manipulated the bars so that they are straight and not cross-connected.  Oops, I'm several weeks too late.  So I went out today to see what I could do.  I took out the back board and the last two, empty bars without a hitch.  the next bar had a nub of comb, no problem.  The next was stuck on the glass; I had dealt with that before and cut it away easily.  That was the last easy.  When I pulled that bar away, I, too late, discovered that there was cross-combing and the comb was pulled free, falling to the floor of the hive spilling nearly ripe honey all over.  The bees were getting a little upset.  I lit the smoker, gave them a whiff and went into the house for a bowl.  I removed and moved bars so I could fish out the broken comb.  I went back into the house for tongs.  Fished out the comb.  Then I moved and replaced the 6 bars trying to follow Les Crowder's method.

I hope everything works out.  At least we got some honey and comb. 

Late spring report

In the past week I inspected hives 1,2 & 3.
Hive 1. I spotted the queen; the original queen with her orange dot.  She's now 2 years old (like Olea, almost).  Soon she will be superseded or I'll need to replace her.  She's already escaped one replacement.  I didn't check for brood, nor do I recall seeing much.  The queen was in the upper brood box.  At one time it was recommended to switch brood boxes so the queen would be in the lower box, but these days many beekeepers just let her alone and she eventually moves into the lower box.  There is still a lot of capped honey in the deep boxes and the honey super was filling up so I put on the second super.  Even though I don't recall seeing brood, the hive appears strong.  There were a lot of bees in the Vivaldi box when I first took the lid off.  Took out the used mite-away quick strips.  I removed the drone frame that had been in the upper brood box and placed an empty one in the bottom box.  There weren't a lot of capped drone cells, and they were even hatching as I watched.  Later I examined some pupa.  They were well past the purple eye stage; I saw only one mite.  The tray is now in the freezer. 
Hive 2. Spotted the queen.  There were larvae of different ages but no capped brood.  Since it takes 9 days from laying to capping, this makes sense.  This is the colony that had to make a new queen and had no eggs or larvae on May 1.  I inspected on the 15th which means that she had started laying a few days after I looked on the 1st.  I removed the spent mite-away quick strips.  The drone frame, in the upper box, had capped honey and honey-in-process.  I removed it and later scraped off the honeycomb.  Placed an empty drone frame in the bottom box.

Honeycomb for Seth

Hive 3.  Spotted the queen.  There were 4 frames of brood in the bottom box.  There was some comb being drawn in the middle frames of the top box and the side frames of the bottom box.  I scraped off some honey-filled brace comb that was between the two boxes.  This hive, started from the split I made, seems to be doing ok.  It's not very strong yet, but with all that brood I anticipate rapid growth.
Olea's hive.  I've decided not to go into the hive.  Through the window one can see that they're doing well.  They have built comb to about 6 inches from the back board and all the comb is covered with bees.
This is the honey flow.  Lots of flowers for the girls to visit.

This is the flower on the hedge behind the blackberries.  The bees really like them.  I saw a lot of it growing in Berkeley when we visited yesterday.  Do you know what it is?

Where's hive two's queen?

Collected pollen in comb

Hive 1- inspected 5 days ago.  Did not spot queen but lots of brood and larvae in top brood box.

Hive 2- took a look 2 days ago.  Did not spot queen.  There was some capped brood that was hatching, lots of empty cells, no larvae or eggs.  This was the hive that had swarmed, so it had had to have a new queen.  Since they swarm before the new queen hatches, there will be some delay until she starts laying.  I did see one torn open queen cell.  

Mine looked just like this

I wondered:  was she dead?  Had she been eaten while out of the hive to mate?  Has she successfully mated and not yet started laying?  This morning I read in Keeping Bees by Franklin Carrier that one should wait 3-4 weeks after swarming to check for a laying queen.  I looked after only 12 days, so I'll be patient and wait another 2 weeks.
I put sticky boards in a couple of days ago.  I had made a new one for hive 3.  I also made one for Olea's hive.  I foolishly inserted it to check for size and was rewarded by very angry bees and two stings.  I'd had to run into the house to get away.  Later, I put on my bee suit to slide the plastic sheet into the hive.  After it was in, I realized that since it was now the floor of the hive, it shouldn't be sticky.  I took it out, washed it off and re-inserted it.  The bees were initially confused about the altered appearance of their doorway.

End of non-sticky board at hive entrance

 The Vivaldi box arrived.  It was painted and now is in place on hive 3 with a top feeder inside and the entrance feeder removed.