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

Winter Storms Arrive

In typical Northwest style we've been getting storm system after storm system with an occasional calm day thrown in if we are lucky.  We also haven't had a hard freeze yet and the bees still seem active even though they are "mostly" inside the hives on the crappy days.  Whenever things calm down between storms the bees pretty much pour out of the hives and busy themselves doing something.  Mostly it seems they are collecting water, propolis or bringing in pollen.  There are a few scattered pollen sources out there, but nothing the girls are likely dancing about.

Calendula bloom from spring to late fall providing nectar for the girls.

Collards bloom fall to late winter and are often covered by bees.

Since we haven't had a hard freeze yet the yellow jackets are still around harassing the hives.  It seems that they are a bit more desperate to get a to the honey stores and are taking more risks to challenge the guard bees.  I'm getting a really high success rate with my traps using a light sugar syrup bait.  The bees aren't interested in the weak syrup but it sure does a good job of attracting the yellow jackets and I caught 30-40 in each of my traps in just a few days and I'm seeing a noticeable decline in how many I see snooping around. I have also seen a few dead yellow jackets in the leaves around the garden so I think the weather systems are starting to get the best of them.

Speaking of pests, I have also been monitoring for the Apocephalus borealis fly.  Ever since it was reported that they found signs of "zombie bees" in the area I've been capturing any bees I find under lights at night.  So far of my two sample sets I'm happy to report that they were both negative for infection by the fly.  Unfortunately it takes a few weeks for samples to show signs of infection so it does take a bit of patience to go through the testing process.  Based on the latest data reports it appears that the fly has been positively identified 30 miles to the south of here and about 20 miles north of Seattle.

Viburnum tinus is an evergreen shrub that will bloom in this area all winter.  It's tiny blooms provide food for the bees on those occasional nice days we get.

The Hollyhawks are on their last blooms of the year.

Hive checks (11/3/2012)

Sand
They had about a quarter gallon of unfinished syrup left that I pulled out.  Tightened up the follower board and didn't inspect.  I did see a bee with DWV crawling around and there were a few dead bees back behind the follower which can sometimes be a warning sign.

Surf
This hive looked great.  Didn't do an inspection but their syrup was completely gone.  I gave them the rest of the syrup from the Sand hive to finish.  There is a wall of bees just behind the follower which is another good sign and partly why I didn't inspect further.  One odd thing I noticed with this hive was a lot of dampness in the back behind the follower.  There are no roof leaks and the hive/comb area where the bees are looked dry so I'm guessing they are venting excess moisture/heat into the dead space and it's condensing on the sides.  I usually push the top bars together so they are snug and nothing can get in, but left the bars in the back area a little looser to improve the ventilation into the attic area to see if that helps.

Winter blooming Rosemary is just starting to flower.

Hive checks (11/4/2012)

Geeks
They seem to be stable again and the older Geek queen has several frames of brood on the way.  No signs of disease issues or DWV and they look like they are in good shape for winter.  They took about half the leftover syrup I gave them and I left the rest for them to finish.

Rebels
These girls look awesome.  They have built back up and have cleaned up the rest of the hive with no signs of diseases.  I saw them storing pollen and the brood nest stretches across 8 frames with all stages of brood on the way.  I gave them a little dry sugar in back but they really didn't need anything.  Took a frame of bees and brood for the Librarian daughter hive.  I like to put dry sugar in sooner than later with our warmer weather.  In top bars there isn't an easy way to put the sugar directly over the cluster so I give them sugar to eat on our warmer winter days so they save their honey for those stormy weeks when they cluster tight and have a shorter reach into the hive.  At least that's what I think they should do, but the reality is they don't always follow my instructions.

This was one of their smaller patches of brood.  The bees are looking fatter than the summer bees I'm used to seeing.

Architects
They finished the leftover syrup and they have good numbers.  Didn't do an inspection.  Pulled the syrup bottle and tightened up the follower board.  Added some dry sugar in back.

Librarian Daughter Nuc
They look healthy and have a good patch of brood but are having a hard time getting over that growth hurdle so they can build up for winter.  Gave them a frame of brood and bees from the Rebel hive that should put their number closer to what they need to survive.  I introduced the frame by power sugaring the bees on the donated frame and the frames directly facing the new comb.  I usually would spray them with sugar syrup, but I don't want to chill them on these colder days or add any extra moisture to the hive and dry sugar is a good alternative.   The frame should have been mostly nurse bees so hopefully they don't loose any back to the Rebel hive.

Icon Daughter Nuc
Good activity and numbers.  Didn't inspect.

Glutton Nuc
They had as much activity as the bigger hives today and have good numbers.  They didn't take much of the leftover syrup and I added some dry sugar.  I find a little dry sugar under the syrup bottles helps to catch the moisture and entices them to take a bit more syrup.

Hive checks (11/11/2012)

Icons
Sadly this hive didn't survive last weeks cold spell.  The DWV and Parasitic Mite Syndrome (PMS) had taken it's toll and there just weren't enough bees to form a big enough cluster.

I've been reading up on bee diseases on what to call the condition I've seen take out several hives this summer and fall that is more accurate than DWV (Deformed Wing Virus) and believe the correct term is to use is Parasitic Mite Syndrome (PMS).  DWV is just one of many diseases the mites spread around the hive that can lead a hive collapse or CCD like symptoms.  The mites capability to spread diseases around the hive is not surprising but the speed that it can lead to a hive collapse is surprising with hives often failing within weeks.  The other surprising observation I've seen this summer is that the hives that failed were from over wintered nucs and even swarms.  Even the Engineer Queens Nuc failed which was essentially a swarm with empty comb created mid summer, and the Icon hive that was a early summer swarm.

Hopefully I'll have stronger genetics left next spring to raise new queens from and the 9 hives I have going into winter come through.  However I know that one of the nucs is weaker than they should be so we can only cross fingers for an easy winter for them.  I'm also curios how the Geek hive does and if they carry their viral resistance forward into next year.

Here's a shot of a Ginkgo tree last week before the storm blew the leaves off.

Hive checks (11/18/2012)

Plum Creek
Not really a hive check, but the girls finally got a real roof.  A few poked there head out to see what I was doing up there.  The roof is water tight and is lined with foam.  I see a lot of spiders around the outsides of these roofs but never inside them, which tells me that it stays dry enough to keep bugs out.  I like to believe that the spiders are helping the bees keep the wax moths under control too.

The new roof should keep them warm and dry.

Back to the bees.

- Jeff

First Days of Fall

Fall has officially arrived and before you know it the last traces of this summer like weather will be behind us and we will be back to cool rainy days.  Unfortunately for the girls this dry spell is killing their opportunities to get much of a nectar flow in the city.  There are a few avid gardeners out there that religiously water their flower beds but for the most part the flowers are looking pretty nectar dry.  It seems that new incoming nectar significantly slowed down around the third week in August and the girls have been trying to keep from digging into their honey stores since then. 

I'm seeing plenty of pollen coming in from the asters, dahlias and sunflowers but not much nectar.  Sedum is still blooming in some yards, but in others it finished up a couple weeks ago.  I haven't seen any knotweed blooms in the last week that looked to have any viable flowers left.  Crocus and mums are starting as well but I tend to ignore mums because people tend to buy the showy varieties with lots of petals that aren't useful to the bees.  As a general rule the best pollinator flowers are those with simple petal structures that are easy for the bees to access the nectar or pollen.

Collecting nectar from the Asters.

Here is an older girl on a beautiful late summer flower called Caryopteris x clandonensis 'Dark Knight'.  You can tell she is older by the missing hairs on her back and tattered wings.

Each Sunflower bloom provides lots of tiny flowers for the bees.

Sunflowers and blue skies really do occur in Seattle.

Look closely, this girl was caught in the act of combing polling off herself to add to the pollen baskets.

So many types and colors of Asters blooming.

The Korean Bee Tree is also popular late summer nectar source, but there aren't many around.

I have feed on almost all the hives right now to keep them going and hopefully help them build up stores for fall.  My two main concerns is they have a good population of winter bees and they have plenty of capped honey or syrup.  In addition to feeding I did a little late season balancing to give the weaker hives a little boost to help them raise a bit more brood before it really cools off.  I estimate we have 4-6 weeks of brood weather left and then it'll trickle off to almost nothing.   However this is only true for the younger queens with feed on the hives and I think the second year queens will probably shut down sooner.

Hive Checks (9/18/2012)

Queen Castle 2 - Slot 1
No signs of eggs yet, but the queen is still there.  Checked them to see if they still had sugar left because a few stubborn robbers are still coming to take the sugar slush that is now crystallized on the bottom.

Librarians
Another full inspection looking for the queen or signs of her.  I can see where she would have emerged 2 weeks ago but otherwise nothing.  I'm guessing that she didn't return from her mating flight.  The girls are a bit pissy as I would expect from a queenless hive.  Pulled the queen from the Geek hive (grandma) and put her in a queen cage and introduced her to this hive.  The girls seemed very receptive to her and started feeding and fanning around her.  She'll stay in the cage for a few days just in case.

A short video of how the girls react to the new queen.  It's hard to tell but they are trying to feed her and her attendants through the cage.  If they were biting at the cage that would not be a good sign. 

Several girls also started fanning near the cage which is another good sign.  You can see the white Nasonov gland exposed near the end of her abdomen.

Geeks
The Geek hive has dropped down significantly and there is almost no brood and very few larvae left.  Will pull all brood frames and merge the honey stores with a nuc.

Nuc 3
They have pretty much finished off their syrup and gave them a little more.  These girls are pigs with the syrup even though it's a small hive.

Hive Checks (9/22/2012)

Librarian Hive
Removed the Geek queen from her cage and she happily went down into the hive.  This was the original Geek hive and granted all goes well will be again.

The girls are fearless when it comes to protecting the hive.  This yellow jacket had barely touched down and was covered in guards.

Geek Hive
Removed the couple frames with queen cells they started and merged with the Northgate swarm.  Added syrup to help them back-fill gaps.  This hive picked up a lot of frames of honey that aren't capped, but they will also loose foragers due to moving the hive.

Engineer Hive
Moved the Icon daughter queen into the Nuc the Northgate swarm was in so they would pick up a boost from the foragers.

An interesting observation that stands out in this smaller hive is the drones are helping to keep the brood warm and they are more likely to buzz around to distract you when you open the hive.  Drones aren't a complete waste of space.

Engineers Nuc
Moved the Engineer Queen back into her original hive.  Kept the syrup on, but they have stopped taking it.

Queen Castle 2 - Slot 1
Moved the Librarian daughter queen into the Nuc that the Engineer queen was in so they would pick up a boost from the foragers.  This queen has started laying eggs.

Queen Castle 1 - Slot 3
Added a frame of brood from the Nuc 2 hive.  The hive is building up stores and numbers.

Nuc 2
This hive has built up quite a bit.  Took a frame of brood and replaced it with an empty comb.  Will likely take another frame in a week or two to help build up the smaller hives.  They don't need food, but added syrup to push them.

Nice solid brood frames with large honey arches going into fall.

Nuc 3

Added more syrup (I might have to call these girls hoarders or something).  Lots of brood and stores.

Hive Checks (9/23/2012)

Icons

There are a lot of healthy looking fat bees in this hive and they are still raising brood. Add syrup to help them with back filling.

Sand

Added syrup.

In other news, Washington just had their first confirmed case of the zombie fly in honey bees.  The zombie fly is not new to Washington and until recently was only known to attack bumble bees and some wasp species.  The hive it was found in is actually a relative of the Sand hive.  Here's hoping this is something new to science but not honey bees.

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

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