Blackberries Are Starting

I knew the blackberry bloom was going to be early this year, but I wasn't thinking it would happen the first week of May!  Everything is early again this year, and while last year we were an impressive 2-3 weeks early we've blown that record away with them being 4-5 weeks early.  Usually blackberries start about the second week in June and from what I can tell all the other typical June flowers are coming out now as well.  

So why does it sound like I'm concerned?  Last year this setup left us with a LONG dry summer which created weak hives and great conditions for disease to flourish.

Blackberry bloom

The other benchmark of both the maple and blackberry flows are that they align with swarm cycles.  I've heard of several swarms already this season due to the early maples and would expect without the normal spring lull before blackberries the swarm that urge will be compounded in the next few weeks.  If you want to catch them before they do something you really need to be in there every 7-10 days right now.

Here a swarm in a thorny bush.  Ouch and not from stingers!

The queen is in the box and everyone is slowly moving in.

This is the buildup from the swarm pictured above after about 12 days.  The gap you see was left by the pollen/nectar they placed around the initial broodnest as the queen started laying eggs.  Not to be slowed down she skipped over the cells that weren't empty and kept laying.  Now that the food is used up from feeding the brood there is a hole or wave in the pattern.  As those cells are cleaned up she will go back and fill them in.

This comb is more of the text book look for how honey, pollen and brood should lay out on a comb.  Keep in mind this is a flipped view and the comb is actually upside down in the photo.

The below are couple photos from the overwintered Quickdraw hive.

You are seeing big drone cells at the bottom of a comb here.  Notice how they point upwards and not down like a queen cell would.  I get a lot of questions from new beekeepers that see these and think queen cells because they are big and at the bottom of the frame.  Queen cells always point downward and would be even bigger than these!

Some nice mixed pollen stores are building up.  I don't usually see them store pollen in drone sized cells and you can see the bigger cells on the right have nectar or drones.  I often see them when they are trying to box the queen into a smaller broodnest area.

Back to the bees,

- Jeff

The Boys are Back

In a northern location like Seattle I find that the long summer days sneak up pretty quickly.  Sometime in June I'll be working in the yard and get caught off guard that it's already 10PM, and it's still light out!  Beekeeping has a similar parallel for me as I check on them throughout winter to make sure the cluster has food hoping they will survive, and then in a blink they are making plans to swarm.

During my last inspection over the weekend I saw drones in my strong hives.  Drones are a sign that the hive is on a stable buildup cycle and can invest extra resources beyond just making workers.  However with the waves of sun/rain we've been getting, the hives can't take advantage of the nectar sources available and brood combs are currently looking light.  I consider a comb light when I don't see a 2-3" band of honey/nectar and another 1" band of pollen along the top.

I do hear about March swarms every year and yes that could happen this year if the sun were to come out for a few days.  A few hives get lured into early swarming by the surge in blooms and lack of early spring management to open up the broodnest.  Based on what I've been seeing I have started doing swarm management inspections every 7-10 days to stay ahead of them.  As long as the weather keeps up this pattern I'm not too worried, but if we get more than 3 days of sunshine in a row everything can change.

The plums were in bloom a couple weeks ago, and are mostly done now.

Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis).  This is one of my favorite bee friendly herbs with flower colors varying from white, blue, pink and purple.  Around here they usually have a robust bloom coming out of winter lasting into spring, but they also tend to bloom whenever they want any month of the year.  On a spring day in the sunshine these bushes will be covered in bees working them for pollen.  I've observed the flowers leaving a white/pale pollen mark along the thorax of workers which isn't quickly cleaned off and can be found during inspections. These evergreens are usually hardy enough to survive our winters, but can be damaged by deep freezes or extended winter storms over time.  Plant in a well drained sunny spot and they will thrive.  They also respond well to hedging and can be easily propagated from cuttings.

Oregon grape (Mahonia aquifolium) is in bloom and tends to be more popular with bumble bees than honey bees.

Siberian Squill (Scilla siberica) is one of those wonderful blue pollen plants that will have you wanting to plant fields of them after you see the bees with blue pollen baskets.

Purple Dead Nettle (Lamium purpureum) is an early nectar source.

Red Flowering Currant (Ribes sanguineum) is actually more pink and is very appealing to humming birds.

Salmonberry (Rubus spectabilis) is in bloom and a nectar source.

Quince is in bloom and a good pollen source.

Nice patch of brood in Rosemary hive.

Look at all the young fuzzy bees and drones in the Rosemary hive!

Pollen and nectar coming into the hive.

A drone warming up in the sun.  Some of them are mature enough to fly.

This is the Dyno hive queen.  They are still pretty small.

Emerging brood in Quickdraw.

Another patch of brood in Quickdraw.  It's hard to tell why it's spotty, but I suspect it's normal early spring buildup and will correct itself.

They were carrying a few dead bees out like this.  I couldn't tell when/why they died, but suspect they might have got left behind when the cluster condensed last fall.

The Quickdraw queen.  This hive has a lot of diversity in bees and it's nice to see that they like their queen.

Back to the bees,

- Jeff

Spring Flowers Arrive in Abundance

Hello spring and here we are mid-April and I have more flowers to photograph than I have time for.  Stuff is blooming everywhere and it's sunny, cloudy, rainy and stormy sometimes all at the same time!  So far all four hives are still alive and I think I owe part of that to mother nature being kind and not throwing any late winter storms at us.  In fact the mild weather had maples in full bloom about 8 days ago blooming right along with the cherries.  That's a couple weeks before I usually see them hitting their peak.  I don't think the bees were able to do much with them because we had almost daily rain with sun breaks and from what I've been told you need several days of sunshine in a row to get good nectar production from maples.

Collecting pollen from these tiny Myosotis Sylvatica

This was Sunday afternoon for about 15 minutes then sunshine for an hour and then downpour rain.

Pussy Willow blooms - I took this a couple weeks ago by the water.

Chocolate lilies are about to open.

Quince

Stachyurus praecox

Mallow are great for attracting all kinds of pollinators and grow like weeds.

Cherry tree sap.  I've often wondered what the bees would do if I just left a gob of this by their entrance.  The bees are usually all over the cherry trees collecting propolis.

Lawn Daisy

Muscari armeniacum

Star Magnolia

Gooseberry

Euphorbia characias with a ladybug looking for aphids.

Platanus × acerifolia, London plan flower bud

Hive Checks (4/14/2013)

Rebels
Took a quick peak to see if were still alive and the good news is that they are still kicking and perhaps even starting to build up.  Added a jar of syrup to see if that helps them along any.

Girls collecting water.

Icon Daughter Nuc
They seem to be doing good and have a lot of drones on the way. They might be getting cramped for space so pulled one of three reserve bars of honey in the back so I could put a frame of brood comb up near the entrance.  They were also storing fresh nectar so I think they are going to be good for food without that bar. I saw another sick bee with deformed wing on this inspection so hopefully they can build up quickly enough to outpace the issues.

My what big eyes you have... sadly there is a varroa on this guys neck.

Back to the bees,

- Jeff