Endless Summer Fries Seattle Forage

For the most part foliage around the Puget Sound has mostly shriveled up with the lack of rain this summer.  We've already had more 90F+ days on record than ever and it's early August.  This is a very unusual summer with trees and shrubs going dormant early or in some cases dying.  There are a few sources producing flowers but unless there is a reliable water source they aren't making much nectar/pollen. The only sliver lining of being in the city is that people water their yards/gardens and that does keep a few things going.

Besides keeping a close eye on hives to make sure they aren't starving, this is also the time of year that disease can take hold.  This is in part due to increasing mite population levels and the slowed brood rearing rates.  The treatment free way to address this is to create a brood break so that hives can "reset" and raise healthy winter bees.  If disease takes hold over the next 6 weeks hives won't be able to raise healthy winter bees and will die.

Many beekeepers miss these signs and end up pinning the cause of hive death on yellow jackets, queen failure, or starvation.  So if disease is happening NOW, here are a few scenarios that might play out:

• Disease will hit fast and kill the hive by the end of September.  You will find a queen running around with eggs in cells but insufficient bees to support her.  There might be some patches of capped dead brood from rapid brood-nest collapse. You may see PMS as well if you look early enough before things start to mold. 
• Same as the above except yellow jackets will sweep in and clean up the hive with no resistance.  You find an empty hive with a few dead bees and probably yellow jackets.
• Disease kicks in and the queen also gets sick and dies.  They are unable to raise a healthy new emergency queen with the high disease levels in the brood and lack of nurse bees.  They become a laying worker hive and die out early winter.
• Same as the above except the yellow jackets clean up the doomed hive when they don't have enough workers to defend it anymore.
• The hive will battle and overcome the disease.  However they will not have raised enough healthy winter bees.  They will go into fall with what looks like a good sized cluster, and then as summer bees die will be left with a tiny cluster.  The first freeze will take them out and it may look like starvation.  It will look like small moldy cluster if you find them in early spring.
• An alternative of the above is that they go into winter still trying to raise a lot of winter bees, but can't keep all the brood warm in the cooler weather with so many summer bees dying and the hive collapses.
• The hive manages to make it through several freezes but the cluster size isn't viable for them to ever build up in spring.

Basically there are many ways this can play out and I don't want to say that yellow jackets aren't a menace, especially with queen rearing and nucs, but the point I'm making is that I see them getting a lot more credit than they deserve.  I believe strong healthy hives can usually protect themselves from yellow jackets.  While starvation is another very real concern, it also gets blamed as the cause of death when it can also just be a symptom of an underlying disease.  Addressing issues now is the single most important thing you can do to get your hives through winter.

Hebe is blooming.  This variety is a late summer bloomer and a huge bee magnet.

Catananche caerulea is in bloom.

Fennel is in bloom and attracting all kinds of pollinators.

Salvia guaranitica 'Black and Blue' is in bloom.  I watched this poor bee struggle to wedge herself into flower after flower trying to get down deep enough to reach the nectar.  It's hard to say how successful she was.

Toad Lilly is blooming.

Globe Thistle (Echinops ritro)

This mid-summer flower will have bees falling over themselves to work, and it is not uncommon to see multiple types of bees, and butterflies working a single flower head in harmony.  Globe Thistle has spiked looking spherical blue/indigo flowers that are "hedgehog like" or Echinos in Greek.  While the common name says thistle this plant is actually in the aster family, and it's leaves do not have any spines that you would expect from a thistle.  However because the leaves are rough looking with deep cuts, and green on top with undersides that are slightly hairy and sliver green they can appear to resemble thistles.  This perennial is low maintenance, drought tolerant, and likes well drained soil which makes it well suited for local gardens.  Plant in full sun and water regularly to initially to establish plants.  New plants can be started from seed or root cuttings, while mature plants can be fussy when moved and do best when foliage is only cut back in spring.

Oregano is in bloom.

Butterfly bush is in bloom.  I've never noticed it to be a huge honey bee attractant.

Silk Tree (Albizia julibrissin) is finishing up it's bloom cycle.

Bee Balm (Monarda) is in bloom.

Russian Sage is mostly done blooming now.

American Chestnut was blooming early July this year.

Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’ just finished blooming.

Lilies are blooming.

Ginger is blooming.

Fireweed is in bloom.

Hive checks (7/11/2015)

Luna
The hive was very calm and was showing signs that the nectar flow was over.  They have several frames of capped honey and have started condensing the broodnest.  They built out the three bars I gave them a couple weeks ago, but I didn't add more as it looks like they are scaling back to deal with the dry weather.

The well liked queen.

Solis
Much like the Luna hive they were also in good shape and the queen has a good laying pattern.  I saw a few newly emerged worker bees as well from the new queen.  This hive was giving off a more floral scent than the Luna hive which was smelling more like Chestnut honey.

Nice patches of brood.

Good looking queen.

Hive checks (7/12/2015)
Queen Castle - Slot 4
If you are following my notes closely I never noted that I put bees in here when I did the join with the Loyal Heights Nuc and the Queen from Slot 3.  I originally broke that Loyal Heights Nuc into 4 parts, but actually ended up pulling another two frames out of it to make room for the merge that I had planned to use to raise new queens from one of my other hives (that I haven't had a chance to do yet).  Despite the fact I just threw a couple frames of bees in here they managed to make a new queen and she looks great.  I also found a nice area of 5-7 day old larvae.  Maybe she won't be pissy like her mother.  In general it's not a good idea to let little nucs make queens but these girls pulled it off.

Nice looking new queen.

Roma
The hive looks good.  The queen is scaling back and they have great honey stores for a smaller sized hive going into blackberries.  They have some pollen reserves.

The queen is looking good.

Nice frame of capped honey.

Queen Castle - Slot 2
They've filled up the space and are running out of room.  Things look really good.

Good looking queen.

Queen Castle - Slot 1
Still pissy, but the queen is a workhorse when it comes to laying and they are building comb.  They don't have much in the way of stores.  I will eventually replace this queen for calmer genetics.

Another great looking frame of brood makes it hard to get rid of this queen.

Her evil majesty.

Loyal Heights Nuc
There are still some pissy bees in here, but overall they are MUCH calmer.  The queen has been busy and the hive is full of bees again.

The queen is getting used to her new home.

Attis Nuc
I found a single nurse bee with DWV, otherwise it looks like the new queen has cleared up the issue.  They don't have much honey stored so I will need to keep an eye on them to see how they fare over the next few months.  The bees are very calm in this hive.

The queen looks good.

Hive checks (7/13/2015)
Plum Creek
They looked good and are still building up.  They have a little honey stored.  The queen looked good.

She's a big queen.

Quickdraw
Not a lot of extra honey, but LOTS of pollen of many colors.  It seems that they got a gene that prefers to hoard pollen over honey. The queen had also laid out the hive with brood and they are about to explode in numbers (not that they are small by any means already).  Like the nucs, the queen looked big and ready to lay a lot of eggs.  What I've been noticing in the mature hives is the queens have slimmed down a bit as they cut back.

I'm not really sure what to make of them since they seem to be out of alignment with the seasons.  On the one hand I like that they work a variety of floral sources, and on the other they are raising a lot of brood going into a dearth and they didn't store enough honey.  I fear that they could easily starve themselves planning for a nectar flow that isn't coming.

Lots of colorful pollen.

The queen is looking good.

They started to tear up their frame and then they changed their mind and started using it for worker brood.  You can see it used to be drone brood and there are still a few holes left.

Nice frame of brood on the way.

Took measurements of new brood comb they built and it measured in at 5.3mm.  This is quite a bit bigger than I would expect for a regressed hive to build.

Dyno
The hive is full of bees and I was happy to find that they scaled back on the brace comb a bit (still more than I would like but better).  There is a LOT of honey in here that they are drying.  They also had a lot of burgundy pollen and a good amount of brood.  Rearranged a few frames to help condense the broodnest and gave away one frame to Plum Creek to make a little more room.  The broodnest in this hive is about halfway back in the hive with the front frames being pollen, nectar, and honey which is a little unusual.  This is a hot/sunny location so perhaps it's easier to keep the back of the hive cooler.

Nice frame of brood.

The queen is looking good.

Hive checks (7/14/2015)
Rosemary
There was some bad cross comb that I couldn't completely fix and only got halfway through the inspection before stopping as not to upset them too much.  I did see the queen, larvae, and eggs, but my guess is most of the broodnest is in the front of the hive.  There is a good amount of honey in the hive but it was spread out all over and there were very few full frames.

This queen has been going for at least 3 years.

Hive checks (8/8/2015)
Attis
The good news is there was no sign of DWV or disease and the hive was calm.  I didn't find any drones.  The broodnest had a nice solid pattern but was small and only covering a few frames.  They also have poor stores of honey and pollen.

This queen is not very robust.

Rebel
This hive is doing well and all the frames had nice looking pollen and honey arches.  She has a nice laying pattern as well and they were calm.  No signs of disease and lots of young bees which is great because that was an issue for this hive before swapping out the queen.  Honey stores are spread out over many frames.  Only saw a few drones but they are raising more.

The queen is looking good.

Titan
Found a pile of dead bees on the ground in front of the entrance that mostly looked like drones.  I saw an occasional drone in the hive, but there weren't many.  They were also calm and there were lots of young healthy bees with a solid brood pattern.  There is honey, but they aren't capping it yet.

This could be a sign of good hygienic traits in response to illness, that they are conservative/sensitive to food shortages, or a warning that they aren't able to raise healthy drones.  Most of these drones looked like they were pulled from brood cells.  I didn't see signs of disease on them and suspect they pulled them in response to the dearth.

The queen is looking good and they have brood over many frames.

Back to the bees,

- Jeff

End of the Nectar Flow and Summer Brood Breaks

The main nectar flow is essentially over and most of the secondary minor blooms have wrapped up in downtown Seattle.  There is still food out there but it's no longer abundant and takes more energy to find and collect.  Hives are stubbornly switching to a more conservative approach to raising brood and have for the most part stopped building comb.  There is still nectar to come later in the year but that will vary from location to location whether or not the conditions are right to create a minor or secondary flow.  The biggest factor may be how aggressive the local weed control programs are at removal.

An upside to all the nice weather in June and July is that I'm seeing full frames of honey getting capped.  I usually don't get fully capped frames in top bars until September and sometimes they never cap the bottoms of frames going into winter and leave open nectar.

So now what?  Well now that the nectar flow is wrapping we are seeing the swarm risk fall and brood production is slowing down.  Whenever brood production slows there is a risk of disease outbreak which can drag a hive into collapse very quickly.  As a treatment free beekeeper one "treatment" that can help is to create brood break.  A brood break would mimic what would happen during the swarm process and can interrupt the disease cycle.  The other perk of a brood break is that you can generate new queens in the process.  Having new queens laying by the end of July is about as late as I want to go into the season.  A top bar hive will need to be ready for winter come mid August and if they don't have stores will need heavy feeding (which I also want to avoid).  By September hives will be raising winter bees and you want those bees to be as healthy as possible as they have to survive months instead of weeks and sugar syrup is not what I would recommend as an ideal food source to use to raise those bees.

Marsilea mutica provides a safe surface for bees to drink water on without falling into the water.

Privet is a great nectar source in late June and quite common around city neighborhoods.

A crimson colored Lilly in bloom.

An onion in bloom.

Delphinium is in bloom.

Salvia is a good nectar source.

Bee Balm is a good nectar source if there isn't a lot of competition from humming birds.

Globe Thistle is a great nectar source and very attractive to the girls.

When thinking about July and plants that do well here, one of my bee favorites is Oregano and not just because I'm Greek.  Derived from the Greek words oros (mountain) and ganos (joy) the name translates to "joy of the mountain" and is reflective of the carpet of purplish-white flowers it creates over hilly Mediterranean landscapes.  Even before the flowers open it gets attention from the girls in anticipation.  Oregano is a hardy plant in the lowlands can even grown as a perennial around the city and reproduces easily from seed, by root spreading or even cuttings.  In Europe Oregano might also go by the name Wild Marjoram and it has been used for centuries in cooking for it's spicy, sweet or astringent flavors. Oregano doesn't need much water and once established can grow just about anywhere with well drained soil and also does great in pots.  It usually starts blooming early July and can continue for the entire month.

Another non-native Tiger Lily favorite in bloom right now.  I rarely see the girls on these lilies actually.

Crocosmia 'Lucifer' in bloom and very popular with humming birds and bees.

Hive checks (6/25/2014)
Rebel
Still no signs of brood.  Saw the queen and she was looking more queen like for her small size.  I decided to give her another week to see if she starts doing something.  Perhaps due to her small size it is taking longer for her to produce eggs.  Whether she mated is another question.

Here is the tiny queen.

Rebel daughter
The queen looked good and she had a frame of nicely capped worker brood.  She seems to be a little conservative on buildup.  The Rebel queen always seemed sensitive to when pollen was coming in and perhaps she is as well with the smaller work force of the nuc.

This queen is looking a lot better than her tiny sister.

Rosemary
The queen has been busy and there is a good amount of brood on the way.  They aren't building comb at the moment, but stores look good.

This queen looking good as always.

Hive checks (6/29/2014)
Luna
Pulled the queen with about 11 frames to make a nuc and relocated her to another site so she doesn't loose the foragers.  Gave the Luna hive 10 or so old empty frames from the Solis hive for them to clean up or fill with nectar/pollen.  My plan is to split the hive again in a week with each half getting queen cells.  The hive is mostly stores at the moment with about 20% brood.  They have cells with eggs and I'm confident they will make good emergency cells.

To dry honey many bees will get out of the hive and hang out around the door or under the roof.

Here's the busy queen.

Ballard
They are maxing out the hive now and only two frames in the back are unused.  I noticed lots of cleaned cells ready for eggs, but the queen is pretty conservative and is only laying what she wants.  Other than that everything looked good.

Here's a good shot of a queen next to a drone for comparison.

Scriber Creek
I picked up this swarm 12 days ago and I'm just starting to see brood getting capped.  I suspect that she might have been a virgin queen based on the delayed start to laying eggs.  However she is making up for lost time and has laid eggs everywhere.

Those tiny white dots are eggs at the bottom of cells.  They are just starting to fall over so they are around day 2.

The brood pattern looks decent for just getting started.  4-5 days without laying eggs makes me lean in the direction of a newly mated queen vs. an existing queen.  I find that existing queens most of the time start laying as soon as there is comb.

She is another big queen.

Roma
This is the new name for the old Architect hive that a swarm moved into 10 days ago. Took my first look at these girls today and the queen has been busy.  I'd say the swarm was likely around 3 pounds and they have done a great job cleaning up the comb.  The queen is unmarked and easily the biggest queen I've seen in awhile.

Here's the new queen.  I wonder if she can fit into fully regressed cells to lay eggs.

So far so good on her brood pattern.

I had some old broken comb in the hive and the swarm fixed it up.  Notice that the new comb is all worker sized.

Hive checks (7/5/2014)
Luna
They cleaned up the empty comb I gave them and mostly filled it with nectar!  I found a few so-so queen cells and some huge ones.  I moved a few of the cells and resources to the Solis hive.  Hopefully both daughter queens emerge out and mate well.  It will be another week for the queens to ermerge and then a few days to mate and start laying.  It will likely be three weeks before I see capped brood in these hives again.

I don't usually get fully capped top bar frames like this until later in the year.

Quickdraw
They have built up well and the queen has a good laying pattern.  There is a preference for laying in new comb and that is where I see the most solid laying pattern.  I see this preference for newer comb on my more hygienic queens.

Dyno
This little swarm is making great progress to build up.  I'm not seeing much for stores coming in, but the old honey that was left seems to be helping them get a good start.  The laying pattern of the queen is looking good and the uncapped brood is looking well fed.

Nice buildup, but will they have time to bring in enough stores for winter?

Here is a shot of the queen.

Plum Creek
The old Luna Queen is in Plum Creek for the time being while we wait to see how her daughters perform.  I would like to try to overwinter her again this year because she has a nice balance of the qualities I'm looking for.  I didn't see the queen, but she has been busy laying and I suspect she was hiding in some cross comb in the back of the hive.  This group of hives will be good for at least two weeks before I need to inspect them again.

Hive checks (7/6/2014)
Rosemary
The hive has built up and seems to be stable at the moment.  No signs they want to swarm, but they also don't look like they are ready to start winding down for the season.  I am thinking I will move the queen into a nuc soon to help them along.  This will give them a brood break and help keep them from burning up all their stores.

No plans to swarm yet.

Rebel
We finally have some capped brood however it's all drone, and ironically it was laid in worker cells right next to drone cells.  I suspected this might happen when I originally saw the tiny queen.  I pulled the queen and did a "newspaper combine" with the sister queen that was in the nuc.  I quoted that because in a top bar it's really just a follower board with some newspaper around the gaps to slow down the introduction, but we don't have a fancy top bar term for that.

Here is the tiny queen again.

She has been laying drone eggs in worker sized cells and the pattern is spotty.  You can see here that they have to extend the cells to accommodate for the larger drone larvae.

Rebel daughter
The nuc was looking really good with nice solid brood pattern over several frames.  Hopefully the combine goes smoothly and the hive takes off again.  The long brood break appears to have completely reset the DWV issues.  A plus would be if the workers of the new queen are nicer tempered.

Ballard
They are crammed with bees and I don't have any empty bars to work with.  They are still being very stubborn about building comb or even finishing combs that are partially started.  They seemed a bit more runny today but no signs of swarming, and are making a lot of cups.  I suspect they might make a swarm attempt in a couple weeks.  I'm thinking they would benefit from a split as well.

Still a nice brood pattern in this hive.

Slow buildup and lots of queen cups but no plans to swarm yet.

Hive checks (7/12/2014)
Ballard
Did a hive check and pulled the queen to make up a nuc.  No signs of swarming but I did see a few bees with signs of DWV.  I saw DWV in this hive during early spring and it cleared up as they built up.  Now that we are past the peak of the nectar flow it seems to be coming back.  Hopefully the brood break will give them a chance to reset.  If nothing else perhaps a new queen with reshuffled genetics will help.

Moving her to a new home.

Hive checks (7/13/2014)
Rosemary
Moved the queen in this hive to a nuc as well.  They have a good amount of nectar stored and the brood pattern is looking good.  Gave them some extra empty combs to fill out since they will have some time on their hands until the new queen arrives.

Like the Ballard queen she is also getting a new home while there is time left in the season for the original hive to mate a new queen.

Bearding happens when there is a need to cool the hive or dry honey and getting bodies out of the hive to hangout on "the porch" is an effective way to free up space for better airflow. 

Hive checks (7/14/2014)
Roma
Warm weather means that they don't need as many bees to keep brood warm and this queen wasn't shy to fill up all the frames she could find with brood.  The pattern looks good and the first wave of young bees have already started emerging out.  I got an interesting photo of multiple bees head first in cells cleaning them for the queen to put an egg in.  They also have drawn out the empty bar I gave them on last inspection.

The brood pattern is looking pretty good on this queen.

They have drawn out a beautiful new comb since the last inspection.

Here's that giant queen.

Look at all the nurse bees (head first in cells) cleaning the newly empty cells.  They are eager to buildup and for the queen to come back through and lay eggs in them.

Back to the bees,

- Jeff