Lesson learned

Before I share what I have recently and painfully learned, a quick update on the rest of bee activity.  

A couple of days ago, I pulled out the trays (from below the bottom screen) to clean them.  As always, there were a number of dead bees on top of them, albeit more than usual.  I also noted that there were a fair number of drones, definitely not as usual.  If you can enlarge the picture, you will see that 42% of the bees are drones.  The bees evict the drones in winter, but I wonder if they started early this year and that these fellows were trying to get back in.

I started bringing in the fall harvest of honey.  Since I only have one escape board, I can only get one super each day.  I extracted the honey from two supers (one from each hive) today and put one sticky back on, with the bee escape board.  Tomorrow, I'll take off the super and put the escape board and remaining sticky onto the other hive and the day after that, I'll be able to extract the rest of the honey.
I did take a look into both hives but looked no further than just finding capped brood.
For the past several months I have been saving the propolis that I scraped off the frames.  I now have a  small jarful.
Now for the hard-learned lesson: pay attention to the experts.
Most sources recommend storing comb in special ways, but I erroneously figured that if they were getting air and some light, that would be enough.  Today, I looked in one of the nucs in which I was storing some comb, and this is what I saw:

 

Close up of the webbing and frass

The (out of focus) culprit

These two frames are ruined and I will scrape them clean.  In the meantime, two frames with only a few cells with webbing are currently in the freezer.  It looks like I need to purchase some Paradiclorobenzene (PDB), 80% acetic acid or a large freezer.

Hive #1 robbed

FOOD RIOT IN HIVE #1

HUNDREDS KILLED

September 25, 2014

It was an ugly scene at the Sherwood Apiary this afternoon when hive #1 was robbed of its honey stores.  Since the demise of its queen in June, its population has been gradually diminishing.  Even though, the intrepid insects continued to bring in nectar and pollen.  Although the hive had been reduced to a single deep box and the entrance reducer was in place, Tom Sherwood, beekeeper, expected that eventually the population would become too small to defend itself. 

"I noticed an unusual amount of activity around the hive this morning", Sherwood said.  "I suspected it might be robbing especially with the bees flying erratically, climbing on the walls of the hive and gathering around the vents of the Vivaldi box."

This afternoon, Sherwood donned his bee suit and went into the hive to get a closer look and confirm his suspicions.  "I first looked closely at what was going on at the entrance.  Immediately I could tell this was robbing because of the large number of fights occurring."

A yellow jacket drinking its fill

He next examined the tray below the screen for chewed off capping.  "I didn't see cappings, but there were about a dozen bees and a yellow jacket on the tray."  Another yellow jacket was in the Vivaldi box and one or two others were on the comb.
Inside the hive a few bees were fighting, but most were busy chewing open the cells and drinking the honey.  On the picture to the right, one can see the rough edges of the robbed cells and a small mob of bees gorging themselves.

Fallen dead on screen bottom

Uncounted hundreds of bees lost their lives defending the honey they had worked for so hard.
At the time of the inspection, there were still untouched stores, but Sherwood expects that it will all be gone within a couple of days.

Yet to be robbed capped honey

"It was to be expected", said Sherwood philosophically.

#1 down to one box

There are subjectively fewer bees in #1, although still a fair number.  I did see many wax moth larva in the tray but saw no damage in the hive.
Because the population had diminished, I removed the top brood box.  I selected frames with no comb or the least nectar/honey/pollen and removed them, combining the remaining frames in a single box.  There was one frame that had some capped drone cells, so it seems another worker has started laying.  I removed that frame as well.  I leaned it against the bridge while I checked the honey production in #2 and 3.  (There is still room in the supers for more honey.)  When I went to put things away I discovered a cloud of bees around the frame, eating the nectar and honey.

Capped drone cells in middle and feeding bees at the ends

I will leave the frames out until it cools off this evening.

 This is from later on.  The bees have chewed open and eaten all the capped honey on the frame.

What to do about those danged woodpeckers

The woodpeckers have now found the hives to be a reliable source of food.  There are four or five that regularly hang out on the stakes in the rose bed to gorge on my girls.  I'm not the only beekeeper who has been plagued by these birds.
I have to do something.  I thought of a scarecrow or an owl statue.  Then I remembered my roll of flash tape.  A search through my collection of stakes uncovered one long enough to reach between the hives.  We will see tomorrow if this works.

They found the water hole

Many weeks ago I had made this watering spot but the bees never went to it.  I kept it filled but they did not visit.  Many weeks ago I let it dry out.  A couple of days ago, after considering the generally dry conditions, I refilled it.  Today I saw this girl as well as one other drinking their fill.

Mites and bee death

Yesterday the sticky boards had been in #2 and 3, so I took them out for the mite count.  There was not much debris on either, so I was hopefully optimistic when I sat down to count.  The optimism was short-lived.  I stopped counting at 60 mites when I had not even examined more than half the board.  More than 20 mites per day translates to more than 800 mites in the hive, way too many.  I needed to treat right away.
I already had a supply of mite-away quick strips.  When I have used them in the past, I was unhappy with the way the pads became somewhat squished between the boxes, so I wanted to put in some sort of spacer.
Looking around at my collection of hive parts, my eye fell on the two inner covers that had I had replaced with the Vivaldi boards.  These were just the right size; all I had to do was remove the Masonite. I pondered my choices- cut it out or disassemble the frame.  I elected the latter move since I would then have the Masonite to use for some other project.
Using a screwdriver and vice locks, I removed the nails with a minimum of damage, took out the board and put the frames back together.

 

 

My usual workshop

The frame/spacers worked well giving the formic acid pads plenty of room.
It was a warm, sunny day, but the #3 bees were still testy, so I crossed "bad weather" off my list of possible explanations for their unruliness.
Later in the afternoon, I took a look at the hives and noticed several dead and dying bees.  I recalled that the mite-away strips could kill bees (#6) and a quick search confirmed my belief.  This is what I saw this morning.

#3

#2

I have confidence that they will do well in the long run.

Testy three

I inspected #3 yesterday.  It looks like it's doing well with reasonable honey stores in the brood boxes and lots of brood.  I didn't see the queen, though.  I observed that the drones were concentrated on the outer frames just as they had been in #2.  I tried to find reference to this online and in my books to no avail.  I can speculate regarding this behavior, and I do, but it would be nice to have a more authoritative explanation.  My theory is that the workers do not want them around the "work" areas and chase them off to the sides.  Soon, the workers will be chasing them out of the hive altogether.
The bees in hive were testy, pinging  me frequently (that is, bumping into my veil) and buzzing about my face. One guard started after me as soon as I took the top off!  To stop the annoyance, I got the spray bottle of my honey-bee-healthy and spritzed the buzzing girls.  Then I got the smoker going and smoked everyone.  Then I just did my best to ignore them. 
There are several reasons why a colony is testy; no queen, no honey flow, bad weather, robbers, etc. I seem to remember that this colony has been testy in the past, so I'm a bit worried that it might be this hive's personality.  In the future, I will keep the smoker handy and note their behavior.  If it continues to be aggressive, I will re-queen.