More Tales of Bad Beekeeping

On the bright side, Rachel is growing, full steam ahead. I went in, thinking I would add a queen excluder, and she had not only drawn out comb on the first shallow super, but it was chock full of bees. I ditched the queen excluder and just added another super. What the heck. Perhaps they'll keep the brood in the lower deeps. Perhaps I'll just wait and see what happens. Sometimes the queen will stay lower down below all the honey.

Meanwhile, things still seem dire in Sylvia. She has started to pull out the comb in the upper deep, but down below we still saw no sign of brood, and perhaps a few too many drones. I'm reading up on combining a weak hive with a strong hive. Reading, reading, reading. I'll study up, give her another week and proceed from there.

Wrongedy wrong wrong wrong

Hmmm.

So I did more reading after writing "A Box Full of Honey."

It turns out that queens take LESS time than workers to hatch out. So...probably the queen cells we saw in the Sylvia hive were formed before half the hive swarmed. I'm still thinking there is a queen of some sort in the hive, since the bees are calm and not cranky. She may be one of the queens that hatched around the time the hive swarmed....which would mean that she is only now getting down to business. It takes several weeks for a young queen (a virgin queen) to mature, go on her mating flights and settle into laying eggs.

I may poke into the hive today and see if there are any eggs or brood. Or I may just let them percolate another week or so and then check after the May honey flow is good and over, and prior to the July honey flow.

New Links

Be sure to look to the right for some new links that will show information about queen cells and such...

A Box Full of Honey

Pamela, beekeeper buddy from work, came and helped look at the hives today. ABK (usual assistant bee keeper) provided educational narrative to the young children watching from the back porch across the yard. Here's the update on the girls. Rachel, as previously observed, is busting at the seams. The second hive body is full of comb, bees and honey. I added a shallow super (a shorter box with frames) to the top for them to make more comb and more honey. We'll give them a few days to start drawing out comb and then put a queen excluder between the top deep and the shallow to keep the queen out of that top box so that she doesn't lay eggs there, which will keep that shallow super full of nothing but pure honey. You can tell that Rachel is now a taller hive than Sylvia.

We delved deeply into Sylvia, taking out each of the frames in the bottom deep to see what was going on. Still no production in the top deep.

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Sylvia seems quite lacking a queen. There was no brood (no eggs, no larva, no capped brood). Just frame after frame filled with nothing but nectar and honey. So...they've got food, but no mama and no babies.

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We did find queens in the making...peanut shaped protrusions from the comb called supercedure cells. When a queen dies or otherwise disappears, the worker bees will pick some very young larva that would otherwise become worker bees, and they will begin feeding those larva royal jelly. The royal jelly leads the bee to become a larger queen bee. When the queen bee hatches out of her very special cell, she will make a mating flight with the drones and begin a career of laying eggs.

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So...if I leave this hive alone, odds are that one of these queen cells will hatch into a queen and all will be well. The first queen will kill any other queens that hatch out.

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I could also order a queen and add it to the hive, which I plan to research some this next day or so.

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The lack of brood was not happy, but the queen cells and the box full of honey give me hope.

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No pictures inside Sylvia today...but you can find pictures of queen cells in books and through internet links.

Rachel's Beard

Rachel's bees have been sitting on the front of the hive the last couple days. Not robbing, not swarming, just hanging out on the front porch on a hot day. According to the bee books, this sitting out front to cool is called "bearding." Makes sense, since it does give the hive a bearded look.

Care Plan for Sylvia

Since the Sylvia hive is WAY behind Rachel in progress, we reduced the entrance of the hive in case there has been a robbing problem. The fewer bees don't need the full entrance, and the smaller entrance requires a smaller contingent of guard bees.

We're going back in this weekend to check for signs of a queen. Will have to plunder around a bit in the bottom brood box, which is disruptive, but important since the lack of a queen is possibly a major problem. We'll look for eggs and brood and then get back out as quickly as possible.

My learning for the week....I couldn't figure out how you were supposed to check for eggs and brood when the frames tend to be COVERED in bees when you pull them out. According to the forum at wncbees.org (link to right side of blog under "Western North Carolina Bees"), you blow gently on the bees and they will move away from your breath exposing part of the frame to view. Tips: brush your teeth, don't eat garlic...bees don't like bad breath. Also, be sure to wear your veil, as bees may fly at you when you blow them.

One of These Hives is Not Like the Other

A week or so ago, assistant beekeeper (ABK) and I found a pile of dead bees by the entrance of the Sylvia hive. We formulated some theories....a pesticide kill, a small robbing war (bees from another hive fighting to the death to steal honey...Italian Bees are bad about robbing as a species). Whatever the cause, there were dead bees. We also began to observe that the traffic in and out of the Sylvia hive was much less busy than the Rachel hive. Today, we cracked open the hives just for a few minutes to check on them. The Sylvia hive was full of bees on the bottom deep, but had only barely begun to draw out comb on the top deep. I didn't check for a queen or eggs since you're not supposed to mess with the bees too much during a honey bloom and since it was really starting to look like rain.

The Rachel hive, on the other hand, had really done some major comb construction. The two pictures below show the top of Rachel's top deep...you can see the beautiful white comb they've built. Rachel's only problem was that the frames were no longer evenly spaced, so I moved them around a little to get their bee space right.

We learned in bee school to get two colonies so that you have a basis for comparison. Later, I may end up taking some frames from Rachel to beef up Sylvia's supplies. We'll see how it goes. When I first brought them home, Sylvia was the stronger hive. Fortunes change.