The Late Summer Flow

The Knotweed flow has started and I did manage to find a few bushes here and there around the area.  Not enough to create any kind of flow, but something to keep the girls busy.  Fortunately there are a lot of late summer flowers blooming in gardens around the neighborhood.  There are also some bushes and exotic trees blooming and the herbs are just wrapping up.  For the most part there hasn't been much of a surplus in the city this year.  However beekeepers outside the cities have reported that this it has been a great year.  It seems that this year the rain lasted too long at the lower altitudes during the bloom here and broke just in time for the major blooms at higher elevations away from the ocean.

Nectar from Knotweed.

It seems like just yesterday I was waiting for summer to get going and now it's September.  Daylight hours are slowly slipping away and it's getting dark before 8:30PM, but at least the weather is still 70-ish and mostly sunny.  When looking at the bees I'm thinking about if they are ready for spring, and not so much what they are going to do next or worrying about them swarming (although you can always get a crazy hive set on killing themselves with a late season swarm).  Right now I'm feeling pretty good about most of the hives.  I'm concerned about the old Engineer hive with the iffy new queen and I'm concerned about the Geek hive and the varroa issue hurting their winter preparations.  I'm also watching the yellow jackets closely as there are a lot of them around looking for any weakness they can take advantage of in a hive.

The girls are all over the Cornflowers.

Nectar from Gladioli.

Pollen form Burdock.

Nectar from the Mimosa tree.  Too bad there aren't a few more of these around.

I've been a little behind on posting so there are several hive checks below.  I've also done some harvesting the last couple weeks I'll write up in my next post.

Hive Checks (8/19/2012)
Engineer Queens Nuc
The hive is looking to be in good shape for winter.  Will build them up with syrup for the rest of the season.

Engineer Hive
No sign of a queen.  Not sure what happened to her, but she is gone.  They did make at least one queen cell on the donated frame.  Will see how the new queen attempt does.  If she fails I will merge one of the strong nucs or the original queen back into the hive.  Harvested two frames of capped honey.

Northgate Swarm
The last bar in the nuc is now drawn out.  I didn't inspect beyond that because I have no room left to slide combs back and would have to take a frame out of the hive.  With the yellow jackets and dearth I didn't want to do that and start a robbing situation.

Geeks
Powder sugared again (this was week 4).  I believe I'm seeing improvement.  In retrospect I think I should have pulled the queen as soon as I saw an issue.  Next year I'm going to pull the queens from my best hives during the flow to maximize production and give them a brood break.

Nuc 2
Building up nicely.  Both of the empty frames I gave them last week are full of brood now.  Found a queen cup with royal jelly in it.  I suspect the frames helped, but they my have the swarm impulse going.

Nuc 3
They are getting syrup and are close to where I want them for winter.

Icons
I'll try to inspect later.  Too much yellow jacket activity in the area after going through the other hives.  I did check that back frames and they don't seem to be bringing in anything new right now.

Hive Checks (8/20/2012)
Surf
For a blond queen she sure is laying a lot of darker girls.  The hive is small, but looking to be in good shape for the winter.  Added syrup to help boost their stores and maybe get them to draw out a few more combs before winter.

The queen with her attendants.

Sand
Full hive of bees.  Saw the queen and lots of healthy larvae and eggs on the way.  Plenty of honey, and they are still drying the frames.  There are a couple ugly cross combs in the back I'll enjoy smashing up to harvest.

Hive Checks (8/28/2012)
Queen Castle 1
Slot 3 - Slowly building up and everything is looking good.

Icons
Full inspection.  Found a good amount of dried honey and several frames of brood.

Engineer Hive
The new queen has emerged and she's a slightly smaller version of the Icon queen.  Several nurse bees have emerged as well from the donated comb.  I'm not sure if she has mated yet.  She's not very big for a queen and appears to be be feeding herself.  My gut says she will be gone or not laying when I check again, but I'll cross my figure and hope anyway.  The Icon queen is not very "fat" either but longer so there is some hope that smaller is simply her genetics.  If she doesn't work out I'm moving the Northgate swarm into this hive as they could use the extra room.  Also noticed that these girls have mostly sealed their entrance holes with propolis.

Notice her small size next to the worker.  

They sealed down their entrances with propolis.

Nuc 3 and Engineer Queens Nuc
Feeding, but no check.

Nuc 2
Building up nicely and the swarm signs are gone now.  These girls are stubborn comb builders but otherwise everything looks good.

Northgate swarm
The Nuc is packed full of bees and brood and they need a full hive soon.  The girls are runny, but otherwise were not as aggressive as they have been in the past.  Also the laying pattern is very much improved.  Perhaps they did manage to re-queen themselves.

Next week I'll post pictures of the harvest.

- Jeff

Black Pollen Arrives and the March of the Drones

Usually we would be in a dearth right now waiting for the blackberries to start, but mother nature seems to have other things in mind this year and the flowers just keep on coming.  Our sun to rain ratio is really working out well for allowing the plants to make nectar.  Too much sun and the nectar dries up, too much rain and it gets washed away - Goldie Locks would say this weather has been "just right".  This means that the bees have been able to collect a surplus in resources and they have been storing and drying nectar into honey.  Bees by nature are hoarders and will store as much as possible for winter.  Here's hoping that blackberries and the rest of summer keep up the trend and we get a good harvest this year.

Poppies have been blooming for a few weeks now and the pollen is prized by the bees for the high protein content.  Also many herbs are starting to bloom as well giving the bees a medicine cabinet of variety in food sources to work with.  A well balanced diet is just as important for the bees as it is for us.  This is why the giant mono crops are so stressful on them, and that stress increases their vulnerability to disease.

This girl seems to have gotten herself covered in black pollen.

Ice blue Iris seem to be a hit with this one.

Chives at the pea patch.

Another change going on in the hives right now is that the drones are mature and flying.  They head out in the late morning and come back in the early afternoon.  Drones are much larger than the worker bees and with that size comes a bit more "buzz" sound from them.  When the drones are coming back home you can hear the buzz from the hives about 25 feet away.

Here's a short video of the entrance activity when the drones are coming home.

Hive checks (5/24/2012)

Geeks
Lots of stored nectar/pollen.  Not a lot of brood on the way, but tons of bees in the hive.  Found another frame with freshly laid eggs in swarm cells.  There was one newly created comb of honey in the back that collapsed and two other combs that were crossed together that had to be corrected.  I'm finding with this hive that when I add new bars between existing bars that they build bridges on the ends to cross between the combs while the comb is being built out in the middle.  It is only an issue if there is a surplus of nectar/pollen coming in that they make these bridges large enough to attached  to the new bars.

They should talk to the Engineers about building stronger combs before overfilling them with honey.

Engineers
Lots of brood and they are storing nectar/pollen and building comb.  So far everything looks good here.

Librarians
They have been storing nectar/pollen.  Not building comb, but have a good number of bees throughout the hive but not much brood.  No signs of supersedure or swarming.

Nuc 2
Took a quick look and one of the queen cells was opened but the others were still closed.

Nucs 3,4 or 5.
No checks, however Nuc 4 got a frame with eggs and cells from the Geeks.

Hive checks (5/25/2012)

Linda's Host Site

Tucked away in a sunny spot.

Sand
This hive is in good shape and they are building comb.  There is a little stored nectar/pollen but mostly it's just frames of solid brood.

Doing what she does best, laying eggs everywhere!

Surf
Saw the new queen and she hasn't quite kicked into egg laying yet, but her abdomen is swelling up.  As a result of the brood break this hive is almost all honey/pollen.  They are building new comb which is the only place the queen could lay in if she was ready.  Swapped a frame of nectar/pollen with a frame of fresh eggs from Sand.

She still has a bit of fuzz left and her mothers looks.

Next week I should have some updates on the Nucs and will talk about mating flights.  Hopefully we will have a patch of good mating weather this week.

Blackberry flower down the street - A preview of things to come!

.  

- Jeff

4 Frames of Queen Cells

Wow what a busy week it has been.  It is swarm season and lot of beekeepers have been getting calls the last few weeks.  The chestnuts are still blooming and the hives are showing signs that they were able to take advantage of the nicer weather and store surplus maple/chestnut honey.  We will see if they cap it or eat it before blackberries.  Lots of flowers are blooming now, but no significant nectar sources beyond the chestnuts and I'm watching their stores closely.  There is usually a slight dearth between now and the start of blackberries in this area and those big booming hives can quickly exhaust their honey stores and perish.

Thimbleberry just started blooming and provides nectar and pollen.

Blackberries are a few weeks off, and the flower spikes are starting to form.   

Russian Sage - this is a great drought tolerant plant that blooms most of the summer, and like most essential herbs the bees love them.

Wisteria are starting to bloom as well.

Also this week both Nuc C (with new queen) and Nuc 1 were moved into full hives at Linda's host site in West Queen Anne.  Moving the hives went well with only a few minor issues - like forgetting to pull the syrup bottles out of the hives before taping them up and making a slightly sticky mess in the bottom of the nuc.  The other change I would make next time would be to get an earlier start so they are installed by dusk as everything seems to take more time to load and unload than you plan for.  As for the transfer of comb from the nucs to the big hives the bees were surprisingly calm and non-aggressive and for the most part stayed on the comb like they would for a normal inspection.

It might be a bit early to give Nuc C a name since they have a new queen, but now that they are in big hives at their new location they are getting one so they will be easier to reference.  Since this Italian queen line likes nicer weather I'm opting for a "beach" theme for the names in her line.  Nuc 1 which has the mother queen will be Sand and Nuc C will be Surf.

New hives built and ready to move to new apiary.

Hive checks (5/16/2012)

Surf (Nuc C)
Did a quick check on the frames and saw the new queen running around and she looked to be in good shape.  Didn't do a thorough check beyond that due to the stress of the move.

Sand (Nuc 1)
No check other than the frame transfer into the big hive and found the queen by the sound change when I picked up the frame she was on.  You don't always hear it, especially if they are already pissy, but sometimes when you get to the frame the queen is on they will make a slight roaring sound as you lift the frame.  When I heard this all it took was a quick glance and there she was.  This is a strong queen and they are building comb with lots of new brood on the way.

Nuc 2
Did a quick check and found 4 frames with 1 or more uncapped queen cells on them.  One frame from the Engineers with 4 cells all next to each other, and three frames that came form the Geeks that had just 1 cell per frame.  Two of those queen cells on the Geek frames came from eggs laid in queen cups (I saw the eggs when I transferred the frames).

Marked the frames with cells for transferring into Nucs (3, 4, 5) on next inspection.  I wanted an even split of Geek and Engineers cells, but I didn't want to risk causing damage to any of the cells on the Engineer frame by trying to cut them out.  I like to have at least 4 cells buffer when I'm cutting cells out of combs. So I'll have three nucs from the Geeks and one form the Engineers when all is said and done.

Capped queen cell with drones and nurse bee.

Hive checks (5/18/2012)

Sand & Surf
Took a quick peak behind the follower board and last frames to make sure they were adapting to the new hives and location and all looked good.

Hive check (5/21/2012)

Nuc 2
Due to very crappy weather over the weekend I could not check the hives or even split up the queen cells form Nuc 2.  However I lucked out with an hour of rain and wind free weather on Monday evening and I took three of the frames with queens cells from Nuc 2 and made up Nucs 3, 4 and 5.  I pulled three frames from the Librarians, Geeks, and Engineers and added one to each of the new nucs to help supplement the populations and will add more brood after queens are mated.  Timing would put the cells around 10-12 days old with emergence around day 16.  I will be surprised if they have not emerged by this Friday.  I'm worried about not getting an inspection in on the Geek hive this weekend as they may be planning to swarm soon.

- Jeff