Late Summer Flowers Are An Ossais in the Dearth

Preparing for winter and surviving the summer dearth can be challenging for hives.  Hives have to conserve resources and try to find as much food as they can all while trying to avoid predators.  Yellow jackets circle around hives this time of year like sharks, waiting for a weak bee to fall to the ground or get knocked off balance while entering the hive.  Dry soils also make finding nectar rich flowers a challenge and bees need to visit more flowers to find food.  All of this is happening while hives are raising bees that will need to survive months until spring rather than a few mere weeks which makes good nutrition even more important.

Malva sylvestris 'Zebrina' is a desirable pollen and nectar source.

Silk Tree (Albizia julibrissin) is a nectar source.

Fireweed is a great nectar source if you have a lot of it around.

Heather is in bloom and a nectar source.

Sunflowers are a good pollen and nectar source.

Knotweed is a good nectar source if you have any around.  This is usually a #1 suspect to eradicate on noxious weed lists.

Calendula officinalis is easy to grow and attractive to the girls.

Oregano is still blooming in some areas and covered in bees.

Borage is an excellent nectar source.

Mint is a good nectar source.

I don't often use cell phone camera pictures because the dimensions don't layout as nicely on the page, but it seems like the bees were posing for me so here are a few I snapped recently.

Dahlia flowers can be attractive to pollinators if you get the right varieties.  If you can, resist getting the ones that are all petals and try to select varieties where you can see the pollen.  I snapped this photo because of the mostly black honey bee next to what I would say was an typical Italian breed of honey bee.  I have one hive with a small percentage of dark bees like this but on average Carniolan bees look more like the bee in the second Dahlia picture.

Another Dahlia photo with a metallic green bee and a Carniolan looking bee in flight.

Zinnia is a popular nectar source.

This huge Artichoke flower is easily a feast for multiple bees at once.

Chitalpa tashkentensis 'Pink Dawn' can be a good nectar source.

Hive Checks (8/3/2014)
Swarm
They have gone through the 1/2 gallon of syrup I gave them in the last few days.  It looked like they had mostly transferred the syrup into existing comb and they have built a new half comb in the last week.  No signs of eggs yet, but I did see the queen and she looked large and ready to start laying any day now.  Will keep the syrup on in an effort to help them build comb and build up.

If nothing else she is a good sized queen.

Hive Checks (8/9/2014)
Solis
This new queen has a tight broodnest across three frames.  The queen looked good and they were making good use of the pollen and bee bread I gave them.  I would expect the first of the new bees to be emerging this week.

The new queen.

Brood pattern looks pretty good for a smaller sized hive.

Luna
Like Solis this hive has multiple frames of capped worker brood now as well.  The pattern is solid and I even saw a few newly emerged bees (mostly light colored).  I'll have to do some balancing next inspection to give the weaker hive a boost.  Between the two hives there is enough food for winter at the moment and the challenge will be to raise enough winter bees to make it till next spring.

Nice brood pattern.

The queen is looking good.

I posted previously about how I saw a higher percentage of bees requesting to be cleaned in this hive than what I see in my other hives.  A commenter asked what this looked like and I thought that it was a great question, but it's not easy to describe so here is a video.  What you are looking for is the bee vibrating in place and not dancing in any direction or pattern.

In case the embedded video doesn't show up (I'm pretty sure it doesn't in email) I also posted the link to YouTube here: Cleaning dance

Ballard daughter
Saw the new queen and she is a tad darker than her mother.  She still has that young queen look but she doesn't seem to be wasting any time either and had laid a nice cluster of eggs and there were even a few 1-2 day old larvae. So that means she started laying on 8/4 and since the split was done on 7/12 that gives us 22 days, or 15 to emerge and 7 to mate and start laying.

I like to see a large group of bees form around queens when they pause like this and tells me she is a desirable queen.

Hive Checks (8/10/2014)
Rose
I'm going to call the swarm from the Rosemary hive Rose because the landed next to an old climbing rose.  I gave them two frames of pollen and beebread I stole from the Rebel hive and have been adding syrup to help them build up resources.  I was quite surprised to see that they already had capped brood.  I'd say it was maybe 2-3 days into having been capped as well.  Doing the bee math this is quite an impressive turnaround.  Split on 7/13 and capped brood lets say in the last 2 days which means that eggs were being laid around 8/1 or just 4 days after the swarm.  She is definitely ahead of the curve compared to what I've seen from other hives this year.  Perhaps that is being driven by the urgency to buildup before winter and the fact that every day counts.

The queen is looking good and also well liked.

Rosemary daughter
This is the sister hive to Rose and while they aren't as far along as the Rose hive there was a good amount of young brood coming and just a few cells that looked like they were a few days away from getting capped.  I thought the Ballard daughter hive was being quick when I looked at them yesterday but these two queens are both a few days ahead of their pace.

A good looking light colored queen.

Hive Checks (8/15/2014)
Ballard Nuc
Upon opening this hive my first thought was, hey they aren't dead.  I did see a few bees with DWV, but overall the larvae looked healthy and there were a lot of young healthy bees.  It looks like the split gave them the boost they needed, and helped pull them out of the DWV issue that was starting to take hold.  There is a lot of brood on the way and a lot of young bees in the hive.  Hopefully they can make the most of fall nectar and pollen sources.  Stores were low and I likely will have to give them a frame of honey.

Still going her usual slow pace.

Roma
The hive looked like it was in good shape and the broodnest and honey arches looked good.  I also now know which hive the completely black bees are coming from (they look like the bee pictured earlier in the Dahlia photo)!  The make up maybe 1-2% of the overall population but they are impressive to see especially with bright yellow and orange pollen baskets.

This big queen is still going strong.

Hive Checks (8/18/2014)
Rosemary Nuc
The nuc is doing well and the queen has been busy.  The frames are crammed with bees and there is plenty of brood on the way.  Honey stores are still a little light.

Scriber Creek
Similar to the Rosemary nuc there is a lot of brood coming and frames have good honey arches, however there is not much surplus anywhere for winter.  They are going full steam ahead through this dearth and are burning stores which is more typical of what you would see with Italian strains for this time of year.

Another shot of Borage that captures late summer well.

Back to the bees,

- Jeff

Winter Flowers Arriving for Thanksgiving

This year I did all my winter prep back in August and early September and as a result there hasn't been much to update or write about.  The heavy rains and the occasional freezing nights have put the late summer and fall flowers to bed for the season.  However just as the landscape is starting to look dreary mother nature surprises us with winter blooming flowers.  While it is hard to see what gains could be made by the bees venturing out to collect pollen/nectar during these brief windows of sunshine that is exactly what they are doing. 

Collecting pollen from this winter blooming Camilla.

Grace Ward Lithodora have a few blooms now but it hardly compares to its spring display.

Some Rosemary bushes bloom in winter as well.

 Winter Daphne is just starting to bloom.  A little sun and you can smell their sweet fragrance in the air.

Winter Heather can add color and versatility to your winter gardens as well as supply food for pollinators on those occasional nice winter days.  Heather comes in several colors and depending on the variety can grow as a ground-cover or upright in mounds.  They do particularly well in rock gardens with acidic soils and like full sun but can tolerate some shade.  A common problem with Heather is they can get lanky and for winter varieties they need early summer pruning to keep their shape.

Winter Heather is a great nectar source.

Viburnum tinus is an evergreen shrub that is starting to bloom.

Choisya ternata or Mexican Orange provides pollen.  Typically they bloom in spring but every year I see them blooming in late fall as well.

Some Hebe varieties bloom in winter.

Most of my Asters have turned into corpses by now, but I'm really happy with this variety that is still going strong and putting out fresh flowers.

I have some inspection notes from October that I never posted below.  Today's inspection was a visual activity inspection which mainly tells me if they are alive but little else.  The only hive that had no activity was the Surf hive that was showing the worst signs of disease and wasn't building up at all.  This was one of the hives I expected to not make it.  The other at risk hives are the Sand, Luna, Solis, and Architect.

Hive checks (11/25/2013)

Surf
I suspect the numbers dwindled to the point that even with a single entrance hole they could no long defend the baseball sized cluster that was left.  Sometime in the last couple weeks and yellow jackets cleaned up anyone still alive before the recent freezing nights could kill them.  Any uncapped nectar had been depleted but capped honey and pollen remained and I transferred it to the back of the Sand hive.  The yellow jackets did not kill this hive but rather brood disease spread around by varroa back in late August.

The picture below if all that was left at the bottom of the hive and is the result of yellow jackets picking through the remains of the hive.

Sick brood they never pulled out of cells. 

Sand
They had good activity and I saw pollen coming in. I saw this little dead bee with pollen just inches away form the door.  A sad reminder that this isn't the best time of year to be foraging but her warning seemed to go unnoticed as her sisters zipped by.

Luna
Activity in this hive looked weak.  This is the sister queen to the Surf hive.

Solis
Had good activity and was doing much better than her neighboring hive.

Architects
This hive looked weak as well.  This is another queen from a similar genetic line to the Surf hive.

Rebels, Geeks, Geek daughter, Icon Grand daughter, Rosemary Swarm, Ballard Swarm
All of these hives have good activity.

...older hive checks below.

Hive checks (10/5/2013)

Sand
So so, they haven't been able to build up much and are still showing signs that DWV is an issue.  The queen is trying hard though.

Surf
No improvement.  Unlikely to have enough bees to cluster.

Luna
Not doing well and they still have signs of DWV.  Same queen line as Sand and Surf. Added sugar.

Solis
There is a little DWV but they have built up and look to have a good sized cluster for winter.  Added sugar.

Hive checks (10/6/2013)

Architects
Not looking good.  DWV is getting ahead.

Icon granddaughter
I saw DWV but not too bad, healthy brood. This genetic line seems to be able to keep DWV in check even if it doesn't go away.  Added raw sugar.

Rosemary Swarm
They were light so I added raw sugar.

Ballard Swarm
They were light so I added raw sugar.

On that note it's Thanksgiving this week and so here's a picture I took last month of an old summer forager with tattered wings collecting nectar for the next generation of bees that she would never meet.  Now that's something to be thankful for.  Perhaps it will motivate someone to tear up some grass to plant flowers.

Caryopteris x clandonensis, or Blue Mist Shru is a great late summer nectar plant.

Back to the bees.

- Jeff

Late Summer Blooms

Here in the Northwest it's that time of year when the summer sun has pretty much dried everything up and there aren't many flowers blooming unless you are at a higher mountain elevation.  Besides Asters and fall blooming Heathers this is an opportunity for some exotics to really take the spotlight.  Knotweed is the most abundant exotic bloomer this time of year, but there are some other great plants that are getting the girls attention that I'll be writing about later this month. 

Heptacodium miconioides is a tough one to find, and is a beautiful small tree of delicate white flowers with a light citrus scent that will be in full bloom until October. 

Future bee vacation spot in the Cascade Mountains?

I also heard at the local club meeting to try grease patties to help with varroa "because it makes the bee's slick".  I know how they work for Tracheal mites, but have never heard this before and checked online and found some research by WVU that seemed to confirm that this does work under some conditions (low brood and strong hives).  I added them to a few hives and if nothing else it's a little bit of sugar to keep them busy.

Yellow jackets have also been lurking around all the hives looking for anything to munch on or a weak hive to attack.  I stumbled across one of the local nests in the front yard while cleaning up a flower bed and got a couple stings before I knew they were there.  Not being a fan of them at that location or wanting to risk letting them take out one of the weak queen castles 15 feet away I removed them with a bucket of soapy water poured into the ground nest.  Soapy water is effective without adding the toxic pesticides to the environment that are bad for pretty much everything (be sure to pick a biodegradable soap if you opt for a home solution).

Geranium blooms.

Black Eyed Susan's still going strong.

Asters are loaded with blooms and bees.

Speckled Toad Lilies are blooming.

On the sad note the Librarian hive has lost their queen.  By the signs of the emergency queen cells everywhere I would guess she slowed down egg laying about 15 days ago and then died suddenly and they made their best attempts to build emergency queen cells with what was left, which there weren't many.  I found 6 frames with emergency cells, but two frames with uncapped cells that didn't look very promising.  I pulled two frames and put them into the queen castle to improve my odds of getting a mated queen.  

Looking back in my notes it was almost a year ago to the day that I looked into this hive to discover the same type of issue except in that case it was caused by their relativity large brood nest getting split into two parts by a honey wall in the middle.  At the time the bees on one side of the wall made emergency cells everywhere while the girls on the other side were just going along fine.  I pulled the queen last year (Geek queen) and put her in a nuc and let them raise the Librarian queen.  So I'll keep my fingers crossed that this hive can pull off another late season queen. 

Hive checks (9/2/2012)

Queen Castle 1

Slot 3

Brooding up and added some feed to empty comb.

Icons

Added grease patty.

Engineers Queen Nuc

Added more syrup & a grease patty.

Nuc 3

Added more syrup.

Geeks

Added grease patty.

Librarians

Added grease patty.  Found 6 frames with emergency queen cells.. some capped and some almost capped. No sign of queen.  Feels a little like deja-vu in this hive.

Hive checks (9/5/2012)

Nuc 2

The hive seems to be stabilized at it's current size and they have brought in a frame of dark honey.  

Librarians

Pulled 4 frames to make up two queen castle slots to increase my odds of getting a queen out of their latest adventure.

Hive checks (9/9/2012)

Queen Castle 2

Slot 1

Saw the newly emerged queen when I was adding syrup.

Newly emerged queen.

Slot 3

Looks to have been a bad queen cell.  Combined with Slot 1.

Engineers Hive

Saw the queen and she's a little bigger now and looking more the part.  Will continue to keep my fingers crossed she mated well and starts laying soon.

Icon daughter queen in old Engineer hive looking a little better than last week.

Nuc 3

Added more syrup.

Engineer Nuc

They have slowed down their syrup intake.  

Back to the bees.

- Jeff