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.

What is going on?

The other day I cleaned out the trays below the screened bottoms.  There were a lot of bees on the tray of #3.  This was curious but I did not think about it much.  Today I saw a lot of bees Fthe front of the hive, like bearding, but it did not seem hot enough for  that (it was in mid-60s).

Front of the hive

Backside

The tray was pretty much covered with bees before I brushed it

I started walking closer to get a look and, while still over 10 feet away, a bee stung me on the side of  the nose!  (I tried to get a picture for your amusement, but the swelling did not show on the selfie.)
I wanted to know what was going on, and figuring that there might be something odd happening inside, I suited up and went in.
There was some nectar in the super that I put on a week ago.  (One week ago I took out the Apivar strips and put supers on all the hives.  I also added four bars to Olea's.)  The were 3 frames of capped drone in the top box.  In the bottom box, there was capped brood and larvae of all ages, including very young.  I did not see eggs nor the queen.  There was one empty queen cup, no swarm of supercedure cells.
So, everything looked fine inside the hive.  I guess they were just bearding, but I have no explanation for the increased aggressiveness.  I did take the entrance reducer out in to increase ventilation.  As I type this it has clouded over and cooled a bit and I can see that they are all back inside.

They really like their new water source!

 There will often be even more bees drinking than in this picture.  They seem to like the moss a bit more than the sand. 

While watching  them leave the bird bath and fly back to their hives, I saw several flying out of the yard.  I followed their flight path and discovered a feral hive in the redwoods behind us.  This must be the swarm I saw fly up that way a year or two ago.  I can not see the hive entrance itself, just bees flying around the general area.

Apiary maintenance

Here is the  apiary today.  Can you see the changes?  In the hive stands?
Yes, the legs are now braced.  When I made the stands, I drilled a 3" hole in which the pipe legs snugly fit.  I thought this would give enough support, but no.  Last summer, hive #3 tilted forward.  I realized there was a little bit of play and the weight of all the honey could actually cause the hive to fall over.  I propped up the hive with a stake which you can see in the bottom left of this picture:

 Ever the optimist, I figured there would be so much honey this year that the stands would need stabilizing.  Maidi and I moved the hives onto temporary stands and I could get to work. 
I did not know how I was going to put on the braces.  Drilling through the pipes would be too difficult.  I thought some sort of clamp would work.  An online search uncovered several types of clamps that would work, but scaffolding clamps seemed best, albeit a bit expensive.  I went to (ugh) Home Depot to see what they had.  What they did not have were scaffolding clamps, but I did find 3/4"- conduit hanging clamps.  These were perfect (the legs were made of conduit pipes).

I searched my scrap wood for strips long enough to fit between the legs.  I did end up needing to buy some more wood.
I screwed the clamps onto the strips of wood and then put the clamps onto the pipes.  It worked.  I braced all four legs and discovered that there was still some play.  So I added a diagonal brace from leg to frame, one on each side.  This made the whole thing stable.  A fresh coat of paint, removal of old Tanglefoot (with a surprising  number of  bees that had become stuck) and application of fresh, and ready to go. 

Once again Maidi and I lifted the hives back onto the stands.  All set for the 50 or more pounds of honey in each hive the bees will make this summer!  (One can always hope.)
Today I checked to see how #2 was doing with its second box.   I had noticed how heavy the box was when we had moved the hives.  I looked only at a few frames at the side.  There was lots of uncapped honey and the bees were building comb in a foundationless frame, so I figured they were happy with the added space.  I put a second box on #1 & 2, as you may have noted in the topmost picture.  I also put a single Apivar strip in the added top boxes.  It seemed to make sense to do so.
I still don' know what I'm doing, but I can put on a good show.

January update

Much has been happening in the apiary in the past few weeks.
First, the mites.
A sticky board count done on 12/7-12/10 had frightening results: #1- 24; #2-22;
#3- > 50!  I have been following Randy Oliver's work on long release oxalic acid and figured that this would be a time to try it.  (I believe you all might find it interesting to look through his article.  Click on the link.)  After doing the count, I immediately went down to the local hardware store for oxalic acid and shop towels and the drugstore for the glycerin.  Randy call for grams of oxalic acid and since I do not have a gram scale, I had to convert weight to volume.  A number of beekeeper forums had threads about this.  One person figured that brown sugar looked a lot like oxalic acid crystals and used that to figure how many teaspoons to a gram.  I was not happy with that, and further searching found this, which seemed to me to be more scientific.  I cooked up my solution outside using the camp stove just in case there were lots of fumes (there were not).  Randy's work had been done in summer and he recommended laying the towels between boxes.  My hives were only one box, so I tore the towels in tow and lay them on top of the frames.  A few days later I went back and tucked the ends between the frames.  A week later I put a towel into Olea's hive between two bars.  I hope this would get the mites under control.  Two weeks after putting in the towels, I did a sticky count to see how effective they had been.  It was a four day count: #1- 104; #2-89; #3- >200, maybe 500.  So what did that mean?  Was the oxalic acid killing lots of mites or were my hives being overwhelmed?  I wrote to Randy and he said he'd be a bit concerned about counts that high after 25 days.  So I did an alcohol wash on Jan. 11: results per 100 bees- #1- 5.33; #2- 5.66; #3- 3.66.  These numbers are higher than I like.  I intend to treat this month with Apivar.
Next, the number of bees.
Each time I went into the hives, I could not help but be impressed with the number of bees.  The hives were full and there were even large numbers in the Vivaldi box.  The frames were filled with honey to the edges and there was even brood.  I asked the beekeepers guild's opinion about adding a second box, and the consensus was not to since it is winter.  This is how I felt, so I just left them in one box.  But I was still concerned about the crowding and possibly becoming honey bound.  I had been trying to figure a way to add a box with only 5 frames to give a bit more room.  That would require some sort of follower board and half bottom board so that the bees would not have access to the empty space.  then, Today, I went into #2 (more below)  and saw comb built up from the hole in the Vivaldi box attached to the lid.

Inside the telescoping lid

The hole in the Vivaldi box filled with bee-covered wax

The comb on the lid, sans bees

I thought enough is enough and retrieved a box with frames from the shed and put it on top.  Most of the frames had drawn comb.  I'll see how #2 deals with all this added space.  If they do well and #1 and 3 stay full, I will add a box to them as well.
Next, drones.
That is right, drones.  Drones in winter?!  I saw drones and drone brood in #2 when doing the alcohol wash.  Do those bees think it is spring already?  It is the available pollen that triggers spring build up and all the hives have lots of pollen coming in.  I am not sure what the drones indicate, but I did worry that there might be a laying worker.  Today I went into #2 to determine if it is queenright.  It is.  I did not see the queen, but the brood pattern is excellent, there were larvae of all ages and the drone cells were limited to the bottom and burr comb.
Finally, water source.

Matt and Laura gave us a lovely bird bath for Hanukkah.  Initially I put just rocks in for the bees to use.

They went to it right away.  They also still went to the old water source until I let it run dry and removed it.  Then I added sand and made the drinking area larger.  I also put in a bit of peat moss to see what they liked best.

Perhaps you can see the bee drinking on the moss

I think that covers it.

Pry scale, part IV, redux

I used the pry scale today: #1-45 lbs; #2-45 lbs; #3-39 lbs.  Afterwords I decided to spiff up the scale a bit.  I took off and shortened the lever and used a router to round the edges.  When I took of the pulley arrangement in order to round the edges of the base, one of the end pieces fell off.  The cutting board, from which the base derived, had been held together with a tongue and groove joint.  I suppose that the pressure from levering was too much for the tongue.  So now, I needed a new base.
Looking around for a plank 6-inches wide, I thought of the old planks from the fence.  Although quite weather worn I was certain one would suffice.
Some sawing, drilling, re-drilling, adjusting, sanding and screwing, et voila!

Note my fine routeing on the lever

This model also works and is a bit lighter. 

THE END

(I hope)

Pry scale, part IV

 I realized that the lifting bars had to be more rigid and figured that attaching an iron strap would do the trick.  But how?  Welding would be the best.  Hmm.  There is a fellow at pickleball player, Gary, who really likes to make things.  I had told him about the pry scale because it is just the sort of thing he likes.  I asked him if he had welding equipment, and, of course, he does.  And he wanted to work on the scale

Gary from a pickleball club photo

I gave him the scale and he returned it today.

A closer view of Gary's work

I had to do some adjusting of the string and then went to try it.
SUCCESS!
I plan to do a little work on the scale, such as rounding the corners and edges, shortening the lever arm and maybe making a handle.
Now to start weekly weighing.