The Blackberries Are Coming

I've been surprised to find a common theme from conversations with fellow beekeepers recently that many have been essentially following a calendar timeline for hive management.  We have had unusually nice spring weather for months here in the Puget Sound and many hives have already built up.  Without some level of swarm management most hives will be in a position where they are ready to swarm, if they haven't done so already.   This is the time of year to be doing inspections every 7-10 days to keep space open in the broodnest.

Blackberries are days away from having the first bloom spikes opening and we should be peak flow in the next 2-3 weeks.  If the weather stays on course this may also be the last nectar flow until fall and like the bees we should be thinking ahead for what is coming in the next 2-3 months.

Things I will be planning for:

• A long summer dearth
• Brood breaks to interrupt the disease cycle

Centaurea montana (Bachelor's Button Cornflower) is a good nectar source.

Sun Rose (Helianthemum nummularium) is in bloom and a good pollen source.

Ornithogalum umbellatum are in bloom.

Rock Rose is starting to bloom.  This is a popular pollen source.

This is a great time of year to start training bees to use a local water source before they find one in your neighbors yard.

Double crimson Hawthorn blooms.

Raspberries are coming into bloom.

Wisteria is blooming.

Dicentra aurora are still blooming.

Golden Chain tree is in bloom.

Sweet Cicely is in bloom.

Common Lilac is starting to bloom.

Apples have finished blooming.

Scotch broom has been blooming for awhile.

Viburnum plicatum 'Summer Snowflake' is in bloom.

Viburnum is filling the air with it's sweet scent.

Catmint (Nepeta) produces long lasting flower spikes that are highly appealing to honey bees.  They are members of the mint family and do best in sunny locations with moderate water requirements and also show good drought tolerance once established.  Unlike many other perennials Nepeta is tough and can flourish even if neglected for many years.  Both the foliage scent and flowers will benefit from short dry periods between watering.  Trimming back spent flower spikes mid-summer will help keep new flowers forming all summer long.  Many of the newer varieties of Nepeta you will find are sterile hybrid crosses that need to be propagated from division or cuttings.  They are great plants for use in rock gardens, along pathway edges, or as companion plants in rose gardens.

California poppy (Eschscholzia californica) is in bloom.

Some varieties of Lavender are already blooming.

Mock Orange or Philadelphus coronarius is a nectar source.

Chives are blooming.

Honeysuckle is coming into bloom.  Humming birds will out compete the bees for these.

Iris are blooming.

Iceland poppy is starting to bloom.

Hive checks (4/12/2015)
Nuc 1
Looks like the queen cell they had to work with was bad.  I found part of a developing queen on the floor of the hive and she was still white.  Added a virgin queen from another hive to give them a chance to get a mated a queen.

Virgin queens.

Picture of one of the virgin queens on the comb.

Nuc 2
The cell was open, but I didn't see the queen.  Will check again in a week and see if she has started laying.

Rosemary split
Lots of fanning and most of the cells were full of nectar or pollen. No signs of a queen.  I split them with about 4 day old larvae (day 7) in queen cells on 3/22.  I expected new queens about 9 days later on 4/1.  The new queen has had 12 days to start laying but with no sign of her or signs of queen activity and the excessive fanning I'd say it was a good bet they were queenless.  I added a virgin queen from another hive to give them a second chances to get a mated queen.

I believe horse chestnut is the likely cause of this yellow mark.  I had the pollen checked last year and it didn't "match" known samples of horse chestnut, but I still think this is caused by horse chestnut and need to get better samples from the pollen baskets and flowers for a more accurate ID.

Horse chestnut flowers.

Rosemary
The queen is building the hive back up again and there is a good amount of brood coming.  I did notice some brood disease, and I'm hoping that doesn't turn into a bigger issue.

Busy queen.  She has gone through as least 2 winters and perhaps more.

Hive checks (4/25/2015)
Nuc 1
The queen I introduced is still around and I saw a few eggs.  No idea yet if or how well she mated.

They seem to like the virgin queen.  Hopefully she mated well.

Nuc 2
Also found a few eggs in this hive and the saddest queen I've ever seen.  If this hive wasn't just a few frames of bees I would never have been able to pick her out.  Small queens are fine but that is not what she was.  When they aren't any bigger than a worker they usually don't survive long or don't mate and become drone layers.  Rather than wait for the inevitable I pulled her out and combined with Nuc 1 that at least has a good sized queen.

Sad looking queen.  Sometimes this happens with splits and emergency queens.

Rebel Daughter
Saw a few eggs, and didn't see the queen.  This is a big hive and it would be easy to miss her.  I tried to get them to draw new comb and they are being stubborn.  Also everything they did start they wanted to make perpendicular to the existing comb.  Argh!  Also saw what looked to be an old capped queen cell in the front which wouldn't be a good sign.

I think this is old, but you never know.

Rebel
Still seeing DWV in this hive, but they are increasing in numbers slowly.  I'm surprised how hard of a time they are having bouncing back in this hive.  This hive gets almost no direct sun and that might be part of the issue.

She is trying to build up again.

Ballard
They have been slow and steady and have built up nicely.  They are using about 75% of the hive and are on the verge of increasing 3 fold in the next 1-2 weeks.  I found a few queen cells with freshly laid eggs in them that I removed.  Most were empty so I may still have some time to delay them.  I added some spacers to see if I can get them to draw comb instead of swarming.  I would like to delay until the second week in May, but sometimes you have to compromise.

Over the years I have seen newly laid eggs in random queen cups too often for it to be a coincidence and I think this is more common than people think.  I think queens lay eggs everywhere and workers decide when they want to let them turn into queens.  However there is no way to know which is the case if you should happen to see one.

Most of the frames look like this, she has a great brood pattern.

Here is the queen.

Another bee with the yellow pollen marks.

Rosemary
The laying pattern is a little spotty but the signs of disease I was seeing before appears to be clearing up.  They seem to be building up nicely again.

She look huge in this picture.

Brood frame is well covered.

Rosemary split
Saw the new queen and watched her fly off the back frame I was looking at and fly back in through the hive entrance.  Watching a queen fly off a frame is not something you want to have happen!  She hasn't started laying yet like her sister, but this is a bigger hive so could have easily missed a few random eggs.  They were polishing cells for her to start using which is a good sign and where I will look for her to have started laying next inspection.

Hopefully this young queen starts laying soon.

Hive checks (4/26/2015)
Dyno
Caught a swarm that I suspect might be a secondary swarm (virgin queen) and put it into the old Dyno hive.  This hive is full of half combs of honey and should get them off to a good start.

This swarm was wrapped around the trellis and grape vines making it necessary to scoop them off into the box.

What they looked like after I transferred them into the hive.

Blackberries are close.  Just a few more days.

Back to the bees,

- Jeff

A Queen Bees Journey From The Hive

Queen Death Match

Over the last two weeks the new queens in the nucs will have emerged and hopefully mated.  The first thing a new queen will do is make a piping sound to announce herself to any other queens in the hive and battle them to the death.  She will also seek out and destroy any other queen cells that have not yet emerged by stinging them and biting a hole in the side.  If another queen has emerged already they will battle until one is victorious.  A queen is critical to the survival of the hive and two queens will not battle in such a way that they could deal a simultaneous death blow to each other.  In such cases they will break off the fight momentarily and start the battle anew.  This is quite amazing to think about.  How on every level a hive really is the sum of all the parts and there is no individual.

Drone Congregation Areas (DCA)

Once the queen has her house in order it is time to mate.  Mating will occur in the afternoon on a nice day and may occur over one or more flights to a  DCA .  Each  DCA  is a special place that exist in the landscape from year to year that drones and queens from different hives are able to find without any existing knowledge being passed on to them of its location.  Every day that the weather allows for it the drones from hives all over the area will find these locations and wait for virgin queens to arrive.  The queen will fly to a  DCA further than the drones of her hive will to find a  DCA  with drones from other hives which prevents inbreeding.  The queen will mate with 15-40+ drones in flight, with the strongest drones out-flying the weaker ones to mate with her and providing the best genetics.  The mating process comes to an unfortunate ending for the drones much like life comes to an end for a worker bee that stings you.  After mating in flight the drones fall to their death while another drone takes their place to mate with the queen.

After the queen has mated with a sufficient number of drones she will return to the hive to prepare for a life of egg laying.  The mating process also alters the pheromones that the queen produces and the workers will find queens that successfully mated with many drones to be more desirable.  The queen looses the ability to mate within several weeks of emerging and will never mate again in her life.  This is also the last time the queen will leave the hive unless there is an opportunity to lead a swarm to a new home.

The bees are loving all the varieties of Creeping Thyme in bloom right now.

While we wait for the blackberries to start here there is still a lot of forage available for the bees.  There are also several locust trees in the area that have started blooming.  The Linden trees are also blooming but I'm not sure if there are any in the neighborhood for them.  The locust and linden trees can provide a minor flow if there are enough of them in an area.

Locust Tree

Lupine

Honeysuckle

The Swarm

To wrap up the weekend just when I thought it was time to relax on Sunday evening I got word of a swarm just a few blocks away, and thankfully they weren't mine!  From all the horror stories I've heard about hard to get swarms 30 feet up in trees or having them fly off on you just as you get there, this was a pretty mellow bunch.  They were just a few blocks away at Memorial Stadium on a staircase waiting to be taken to a new home.  There was actually a practice HS football game going on and people were walking by "cautiously" but otherwise not too worried.  Apparently they had been there at least all Saturday and they were having trouble finding someone to come get them and were getting ready to call an exterminator.  Thankfully I saw their post to prevent such a tragic end like extermination or having them find an unfortunate spot in someones attic or walls.

Swarm on side of stairs.  I'd guess around 9-12K bees.

When I got there I put on my suit to be safe (you never know how pissy they are going to be after a few days) which surprisingly didn't draw much attention from the people around.  I then setup their box and proceeded to lift them off the wall in handfuls into the box.  On the second handful I saw a pretty darker colored queen.  It took about 6 handfuls to transfer 90% of them into the box.  I then closed up most of the top and left a gap for them to fan the rest of the stragglers to come into the box.  I hung out for about an hour while the foragers came back in and then packed everything up and brought them back to their new home.

Fortunately I have a swarm hive ready to go for just this purpose.  It was used for a month last summer by the Geeks while I built their new hive.  This is perfect for bees needing a new home as it smells like bees and even has traces of wax in it.  I took a newer frame of brood from the Geeks and added it to the hive to give them some encouragement that this was an ideal place for bees to live in.  They seemed to agree and started fanning everyone to come inside.

The welcoming committee checking out their new home.

Justin already came up with the name "Icons" for these girls based on where they were picked up (Space Needle/Seattle Center).  That sounded pretty good to me.

Hive checks (6/2/2012)

Geeks
Saw the queen and no signs of swarm cells yet, but they are still making lots of cups.  Lots of brood on the way as well and they are storing and drying nectar.  Opened up several bars in back for them to build out the rest of the hive.  Less cross comb than last week.

The bees seemed a little more runny on the comb than usual.  When a hive is this full of bees on every frame, runny is a bit relative.  Runny is a term to refer to how active the bees are as a result of the inspection when you open a hive.  Ideally you have bees that seem unaware of you during inspection and focus on what they are normally doing.

Engineers
Such a well behaved hive with nice straight comb.  They hardly notice you are inspecting the combs and keep working away.  Lots of brood coming and I would expect them to peak for the Blackberry flow.  Both this hive and the Geeks take a lot of time to get through with the high number of bees in them.

Librarians
Seems that this hive peaked 2-3 weeks ago and is just on idle now.  They have as much drawn comb as the Geeks and Engineers but the hive isn't boiling over in bees (I'd estimate 60% of their size in numbers).  I did see a lot of eggs in combs so maybe she slowed down after the maples and they are picking up again.

Nuc 2
The queens have emerged and a winner has been chosen.  Hopefully she had successful mating flights while we had a patch of nice weather last week.  She seemed to be calmer than the virgins I've seen in the past so hopefully that's a sign everything went well.

The new blond queen from the Engineer queen line.

Nuc 3
The queen cell in this nuc was still closed which means it should be dead.  I found it odd that it wasn't opened and am wondering if it might have been an unfertilized drone egg they turned into a queen cell.  I'll know if I see a big ugly drone in there.  I moved the now capped cells from Nuc 4 to this hive that I stashed behind the follower last week for safe keeping.

Nuc 4
Not sure on this one.  The cell is open, but could not find a queen.  Will wait and look again next week.

Nuc 5
New queen from the Geek queen line has emerged and hopefully has mated as well.  She has an interesting color pattern that goes from light to dark that I like.  I wonder how it will change as she matures.

A bit photo shy, but you can see her tail really well in this shot.

Hive checks (6/3/2012)

Sand
These girls are doing great and the hive is full of brood.  They have started taking syrup and are building comb quickly.

Surf
Saw the queen again, but no eggs yet.  They have started taking syrup and there are more cells open for the queen to lay in.  The frame of eggs they got last week has been capped and the queen was found near them which is a good sign.  They have also started taking syrup and are building comb.

So that was my busy weekend and now mother nature is providing us with rain.  The weather report is saying "Junuary" is back.  Just what a beekeeper with lots of hungry girls wants to hear as they are reaching their peak numbers and can't fly.  If it doesn't clear up in a few day I'll have to start feeding to keep them from starving.  I don't dare underestimate how quickly 60,000 girls will eat up their reserves this time of year in bad weather.  However cooler rainy weather is good for the blackberry buds and leads to a flowers with more nectar.

- Jeff