The Warrior Bees Are Early This Year

Flowers are out everywhere at the moment with some things blooming months early.  With the early warm weather and mild winter some things that usually would die back didn't and are picking up where they left off in fall.  To think just a few weeks ago I was saying how I would be worrying about swarms before I knew it, and now I am.  This is another early year and I've heard of a few swarms in the area already.  I will still try to stall the process in my hives for more reliably warm weather.  While I've had queens mate early in the year they never perform well.  I get reliably better queens if I can hold them off until a few weeks before blackberries start blooming and we are getting 65F+ days a few times a week.

After several years of looking at bloom times and different flowers I think I finally have figured out what plant makes this bright yellow pollen mark (not to be confused with the pale white one I've pointed out in other posts). Hyacinthoides hispanica has just started blooming and it's difficult for the bees to "hold on" to the flower and they appear to get the pollen all over themselves.  After they clean up they are left with a mark on their back.  I'm hoping to get some samples under a microscope to confirm soon.

This girl is getting a lot of attention from her sisters as she dances around.

Spanish Bluebells (Hyacinthoides hispanica) are just starting to bloom.

English laurel is in bloom.

Tulips are in bloom.

I found this nearby hardy fuchsia at over 10 feet tall and it was already in full bloom and will keep blooming through fall.  Usually they die back to the ground in winter and then the bloom cycle starts again late summer.  However our winter this year was mild so they are just picking up on last years growth.

Trillium ovatum is in bloom.

Raspberries are forming buds really early this year.

Sweet Cicely (Myrrhis odorata) is in bloom.

Redwood Sorrel (Oxalis oregana) is a native that likes shade.

Chocolate Lily (Fritillaria lanceolata) is another native in bloom.

California lilac (Ceanothus) is in bloom.

Rosemary queen.

The Quickdraw queen.  Notice there is a bee in the lower right part of the photo that has a varroa mite on her.

This frame looks pretty good for a hive in spring buildup.  Better brood patterns will come as the nights get warmer.

This is what backfilling looks like.  They should be putting those resources around the edge of the comb not in the center where the queen wants to lay.  By doing this they are forcing her to lay along the edges of combs.  If every comb looked like this then swarming would be soon to follow.

Lots of empty queen cups starting to show up along the edges of frames.  If the broodnest is backfilled the queen gets forced into laying here.

In the center of the photo is a new adult be emerging from the cell.  It's the only time you will see a head poking out of a cell.

Back to the bees,

- Jeff

Spring Build-up and Drone Maturity

Spring is marching along and we now have an abundance of flowers in bloom with cherry wrapping up and maples at their peak.  On top of that we've had several nice days of weather in a row which really gets the girls moving.  When there is an abundance food coming into the hive there is an opportunity for strong hives to try and swarm, and I've already heard of a few reports.

What I find interesting about these early swarms is that based on my observations I think they are unlikely to be rewarded for such a risk.  It is still a bit early for successful queen mating with the first wave of drones still a week or more away from sexual maturity and nice weather spotty at best.  Perhaps they might get lucky with rolling the dice, but I would think Mother nature would punish such behavior.  I'd be curious to get a peak into some of these early swarm hives to see how their drones are looking.

This girl is working scotch broom, another invasive weed.

Sweet cicely is in bloom.  This is one of those older forgotten herbs that doesn't find a place in modern herb garden for some reason.

Bleeding hearts (Lamprocapnos spectabilis) are blooming and are popular in woodland gardens even if they are not our native version (Dicentra formosa).

Leopard's Bane (Doronicum orientale) starts blooming early in the season.

Spanish bluebells are just starting to bloom and provide pollen and nectar.  

Vinca minor is putting out more blooms now.

Silver dollar plants (Lunaria annua) are in bloom.

Columbine or Aquilegia are just starting to bloom and do well in woodland gardens.

Hive checks (4/12/2014)

Rosemary
They are building up quickly and had a few drones moving around and more on the way.  They are using about 60% of the hive at this point and there were some signs that they might be back-filling a bit and had a surplus of pollen stored.  I also noticed some practice queen cups showing up.  I added one empty bar to see if they would start building comb with the light flow that's going right now.

The queen is looking well cared for.

My what big eyes you have.  These drones still have a couple weeks from emerging before they are sexually mature to mate.

Ballard
The broodnest is about the same as the last time I looked at them and they are being fairly conservative in building up and only using about 25% of the hive.  I did see a few bees with DWV and I suspect that is contributing to the slower buildup pace.

The punk bees are out, or what I call punk bees for their distinctive pollen marks.  This is not paint some researcher put on the bees, but rather it's pollen.  The pollen is positioned in a flowers in such a way that when the bee enters the flower the pollen gets deposited onto the back of the bees thorax.  I'm not sure which flower is out right now that does this, but at one time had heard it was horse chestnut.  However I don't believe that is actually the source anymore because it is far too soon for those to be in bloom.  Another reason I don't think it's horse chestnuts is that they have both reddish and yellow pollen and I've never seen this marking in any pollen color other than yellow or cream.  I've also heard jewel weed is the source and have seen matching pictures, but it's too early for that as well.  Another theory I've heard is that it's from flowers that get pollen all over the bees body and that's the only area they can't clean well, but I don't believe that either because I know they can clean around their head & eyes and and you can clearly see grains of pollen in those areas.  I also only see this until June and then it doesn't show up anymore.  Perhaps one day I'll find this mysterious flower or someone that can ID the pollen source from a sample. 

Standing out in a crowd.

Looking for space to lay eggs.

Rebels
They have good numbers and lots of activity.  They are using about 50% of the hive and I found the queen laying eggs outside of the broodnest area on old honey combs that were empty.  Usually you don't find the queen on the first frame you look at in the back but if that's where there are empty cells left then it makes sense she would go there.  I did see some sign of backfilling but not like the Rosemary hive.  Most concerning was I did see more bees with DWV on this inspection which may be an indicator they aren't going to be able to knock it down quickly and I will need to keep an eye one them that they don't start to collapse.  This hive has always appeared to be more resistant to issues so I'm curious to see how they do with this outbreak.

Queen with her entourage making an effort to expand the broodnest.

You can see that there is pollen and nectar backfilled into the center of the broodnest in this photo.  If this was mostly nectar and repeated on other frames I would take steps to prevent swarming.

Back to the bees,

- Jeff