Winter Solstice and Hive Activity

So far winter here in the Puget Sound has been warm and we even broke an all time record with 66F degrees on Dec 10th.  A few cold snaps have also blown through that took out pretty much everything that wasn't supposed to be blooming for this time of year, and forced plants into their winter dormancy.

One perk of the warmer weather is I was able to do a full hive inspection to see what they were up to for this time of year, and likely will have another chance to do another full inspection this season.  A downside is that I suspect they are burning through food reserves being so busy right now.  Another risk they could run into is that they could get caught in period of freezing weather with a lot of brood to keep warm.

I'm not sure how often people look around the site, but I've updated the Bee Plants page to bring it up to date!  Here's the newest profile:

Loquat (Eriobotrya japonica) is a small evergreen tree that adds an exotic look to our Northwestern gardens with it's large glossy leaves.  This plant is a native to south-central China and while it does need slightly warmer weather than our area can provide to produce mature fruit, it will still flourish as an ornamental.  New leaves will be fuzzy red to yellowish in color and slowly mature to a dark green.  Stems of the tree are light brown and also slightly fuzzy and while it looks delicate is actually pretty tough in our climate.  In December it will produce clusters of whitish flowers that give off a sweet scent that can smelled for a distance.  Once established trees will show a degree of drought tolerance, however they have a shallow root system and care should be taken to not disturb the soil under the canopy.

Loquat (Eriobotrya japonica)

Here's the Ballard daughter hive on 12/5/2014.  If you can't see the video, use the following link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efljOTnXEKY&feature=youtu.be

Crimson clover is slowly growing in my planters as a winter cover crop, and am thinking I should start it earlier next year.  Hopefully the birds and squirrels let some of it survive till spring so that it can do it's magic to amend the soil, and maybe bloom to provide an early nectar source.

Bodnant Viburnum has come into bloom.

Mahonia powers through our winters essentially immune to whatever mother nature throws at it.  They are amazingly drought tolerant as well.

Hive checks (12/5/2014)
Ballard daughter
It was 52F today with calm weather and I did a full inspection.  This is the latest point in the year I've ever done a full inspection on any hive.  The queen looked good and I found a patch of brood across 3 frames.  Largest patches of brood were on the sides of the comb facing the back of the hive away from the entrance.   The brood nest started on frame 5 in from the entrance.  I saw a few 7-8 day old larvae in the brood nest as well which means they were raising brood during the last cold snap.  On the very last frame of the brood nest I found a small cluster of dead/dying bees that couldn't get around the comb to the warmer parts of the cluster.  The side of the comb there were on also didn't have any honey stores left.  They are currently robbing honey from the Roma hive and I moved some of the best frames into the hive to save them effort.  These bees definitely have Italian traits.

Dead bees at the end of the cluster on a side of comb with no food reserves.

They have drones!  There were more than just these two.

The queen is laying!

I often find wax moth larvae trying to hide in the grooves above the top bars.  They don't actually get into the hive and are usually safe unless I'm inspecting which exposes their hiding spots.

There were a few frames like this and I didn't want to brush off the bees for a better photo but the brood is there in the middle and there was also uncapped larvae.

Roma
Sadly they didn't make it.  I moved the best frames of honey to the Rosemary daughter, Ballard daughter and Rose hives.

This is what it looks like when comb is torn open to get the honey.  Oddly I never see this rough behavior when they are opening their own combs to get honey.  Perhaps they just clean it up better when it's their own comb.

Scriber Creek
I thought it was odd there was no activity and when I took a look was surprised to find they died in the last cold snap.  I last inspected them on 10/5/2014 and they looked great and didn't see signs of disease.  There didn't seem to be very many dead bees on the bottom of the hive and I did notice what think were a few zombie bee flies (Apocephalus borealis) running around.  I find it interesting the flies survived freezing weather without the benefit of a warm bee cluster. I pulled a few random dead bees from brood cells and a few did have varroa and signs of DWV which I had never seen in this hive before.  In October they really would only have had one more brood cycle for winter bees which seems odd they would have crashed that fast.

Rose
No inspection, but swapped an empty frame in the back for one with capped honey and pollen.

Rosemary daughter
No inspection and filled the back of the hive with honey bars.

Hive checks (12/6/2014)
Visual Checks on the Ballard, Rosemary, Solis and Dyno hives and they all had entrance activity.

Back to the bees,

- Jeff

Sealed in Wax

It seems like summer just arrived a few weeks ago for many here in the Pacific Northwest, however the bees are already a few weeks into their fall preparations.  The girls are closely attuned with mother nature regardless of what it might be doing at the moment and have to stay a season ahead in their actions in order to compete and survive.  They have been building their winter army and using wax to seal up the nectar they have cured into honey to feed them over winter.  So far it is looking like a decent year despite all the spring and early summer rain.

Nectar from Globe Thistle

Inspections are getting a little trickier this time of year because you need to be fast as not to trigger robbing, but also careful not to over stress the delicate comb.  Beeswax melts around 145-147F, but can get a bit putty like when it gets above 100F range.  Bees do an amazing job of ventilating their hives to keep the brood around 95F either by generating heat or fanning to cool the hive.  This time of year those combs are packed full of honey right up to the tolerance point that the combs can support and pulling them out can potentially cause them to fail under their own weight.  Capped honeycomb turned sideways will essentially "melt" into your hands under the weight of the honey.

On the topic of robbing this is basically what it sounds like.  Hives are ready for fall and have lots of food stored and are trying to scale back their numbers so they don't eat through it all before the spring flowers bloom.  If the opportunity presents itself to steal honey from another hive a robbing situation will occur when two (or more) hives may attack and try to overwhelm another hive to steal their honey.  This is often fatal to the hive either because the queen is killed or the hive is left without enough food to get through winter.  A different type of robbing might also be triggered by Yellow Jackets that are not just interested in the honey but also in eating the bees themselves.  It takes several bees to fight off a Yellow Jacket and once they get through the defenses they will head home to tell the rest of their hive.  At the moment the Yellow Jackets are just snooping around and picking off the weak/dying bees outside the hives in the grass.

Sedum is another popular nectar source.

Magnolia blooms.

Artichokes provide nectar.

Fennel is getting a lot of attention right now.

Hive checks (8/11/2012)

Queen Castle 1

Slot 1 - Didn't see the queen today.

Slot 2 - Empty

Slot 3 - Saw the queen again and she's a big blond girl.  Saw eggs and young larvae!  This is a daughter of the Engineers.

Slot 4 - Empty

Queen Castle 2

Slot 1 - This had the bees from Nuc 3 and I moved them back into their older house so this box isn't in use anymore.

Slot 2 - No sign of a queen.  Dumped them out.

Slot 3 - Empty

Slot 4 - Empty

Icons

- Saw queen, some eggs and brood, but mostly honey.  Moved empty frames into the brood nest so she will keep building up.

A freshly capped frame of honey that is about ready for harvest.

Due to the heat and a newly drawn weak frame I did harvest a frame of this honey.  It's very different from the frame harvested from the Sand hive in West Queen Anne a few weeks ago.  It has notes of Blackberry, Sweet Chestnut and Mint.

Ballard Swarm

- No sign of a queen and they didn't do anything with the frame of eggs I gave them.  Found a small patch a drones in worker cells which means they have a laying worker.  I dumped them out to join other hives.

Northgate Swarm

- Pissy girls again!  I saw the queen and 10+ torn down queen cells and she didn't look like a new queen, but rather the same one from before.  There are eggs here and there throughout the hive as has been the case for the last month.  I've never worked with Russian bees, but I'm starting to think they might be a Russian breed based on the usual building of queen cells and tearing them down at the last minute.  At the moment there were no queen cells in progress, but I will pull the next one I see into a nuc to see what happens.

Queen running around.  She doesn't look like a young or virgin queen.

Engineer Queen's Nuc

- This hive is growing and she is laying out more of the frames.  They should be back up to strength and ready for another winter in no time.

Engineer Hive

-  I didn't see the new queen this time around and no signs of eggs or larvae.  Added some eggs from the Icons to see what happens.

Hive checks (8/12/2012)
Nuc 2
They are building up and are showing signs they will be good hoarders.  I found a queen cup with a newly laid egg in it.  It was the only one so I removed it to see if they make more.  I also added empty frames into the brood nest.

Librarians
This hive has turned around and everything is looking good.  There is a lot of nectar, but not much dried yet.  They are looking like they are in good shape for winter.  I saw a few girls dragging drones out as well, so it must be that time of year.

A good brood pattern for this time of year.

Geeks
Same as last week.  It looks like they might be improving, but hard to say just yet.

There are still a lot of flowers around the neighborhoods to keep the girls busy, but no major honey sources at the moment here.  The Knotweed has started blooming, but I'm not aware of any within several miles that actually has been allowed to flower.  Apparently like many of the other nectar flows here it is considered a noxious weed and on the destroy list.  If there is any around I am sure the girls are dancing in the flowers right now.

Invasive Knotweed delighting the girls with late season nectar.

Back to the bees.

- Jeff