End of March Spring is here... highs maybe the 60s

Ok all sounds pretty good 4 all 4 hives made it through winter........

Summary;
Hive #1 Italians (2 deep box config).
This is my weakest hive of the four. Early spring signs indeed showed the colony to be ok. It had brood, capped and uncapped larva but low on stores (honey mainly). There was pollen and bee bread.
I moved a frame of honey to that hive from Hive #2. I know unless you are 100% sure that isn't always a good idea in case of diseases or mites. Nothing like giving a weaker hive something a stronger hive can keep in check.... good move JohnE-Boy.

Hive#2 Italians I think(3 deep boxes and one honey super)
This is the hive I picked up last spring very strong genetics and fast build up. They had tons of honey and are building very fast. If I were to read what I just typed I might think they were Carniolans instead of Italians. Yes, the type of bees do things differently for winter. The only reason I am saying this is the Dave Irby wasn't sure and this hive by last fall was Very strong. They simply could have robbed Hive #1. If they did rob Hive #1 then I am lucky that #1 made it through winter and Hive #2 is honey bound (meaning little room for the queen to lay eggs) I am hoping that the bottom deep is relatively empty and used for brood currently.

A side note some beekeepers reverse boxes because the bees are in the top box and they always work up, so placing them in the bottom box in effect has them starting over and working up. The fallacy there is that queen does not usually travel across the top of the honey dome. So if she is in the second deep and it has a ton of honey then she won't travel above that unless or until the bees use or reallocate the honey. This then slows down the egg laying and that stunts the growth of the hive when you need it most (early spring). So I added a third deep late fall for the bees to have growth room on top of the box they had for brood chamber. This serves two purposes:

1. Give the bees expansion room to grow in early spring. In theory to prevent swarming.
2. Give the bees plenty of storage for a hard winter. In reality except for nucleus(nuc's) hives I want three deeps on all my hives eventually. To make it easier to remove swarm cell frames to start nuc's.
3. A third point is to give me some room/time for error. I have learned that bees are somewhat resilient and given time, they can survive my errors.

Hive #3 Russians (2 Deep configuration)
This is my weakest of the two Russian colonies but still fairly resilient and they were in the top box and active. This hive worries me constantly as it doesn't have much outside activity. This caused me to think it had died in early March until I looked inside (without my jacket and veil). They were not happy at that moment and I learned a valuable lesson..... again

Hive #4 Russian (3 Deep configuration)
Very strong hive and defensive. I am one of the few beekeepers who doesn't mind defensive behavior in his bees as long as I can't see a problem.

So what causes bees to be defensive?

1. Bees that are queenless.
2. Diseases
3. Excessive mites
4. Being robbed and one could say a beekeeper is robbing.
5. Animals (bears, skunks, dogs, etc.
6. Yes Africanized bees(AHB) also exhibit this behavior.  

I haven't observed any of these causes but then again constant vigilance is what is required.... and a veil at least ready to be put on quickly.

Now the peculiar thing I noted yesterday. strings as I call them on my two weakest hive (#1 &#3). These 'strings' are up to half an inch in length and are at the entrance and vent holes in the hives. This could indicate dysentery. I am not looking to introduce chemicals at all but I am researching Fumagillin B. Then I'll see how the bees deal with the issue after cleaning this up. off the hives.

I also made the fail of leaving my camera outside in the snow.....ARRRRG!!!!!

Just a look before the snow 62 degrees

March 2nd and we hit 60 then later tonight rain and mid-night snow and ice.

So what do all beekeepers do????

Go out and checkout their hives, I pulled the outer cover off on all of them and I had a feeder so I pulled those off on all but my weakest hive.

All four were bristling with activity flying, which is very nice to see. Last year at this time I was just demoralized as two hives died.

So Hive#1 Italian two deep configuration with a feeder. It was basically damp sugar so I pulled off the floats  so the bees could get there if they wanted. This would also absorb moisture too so a win/win for me.

I still didn't go into the hives  just pulled the feeders off. I also took a few pictures and a short movie.

I'll do an after shot once the snow has fallen.

The brown thing on top of Hive #1 is a hornet/wasp trap. I'll set those out when I return from Belgium.

Now we are down to 42 at 16:45 EST...... I love the moisture as we really need it.

Spring is just around the corner.

Supplemental post for 22 Feb

I mentioned on my Facebook page (supplemental blog) that while the snow didn't block the hive entrance it did set up a wall on hives #3 &4.

In fact Hive #4 the snow wall was touching the landing. Hive #4 is all Russian bees and the colder wasn't an issue. This was my strongest hive by far and to prevent swarming I added a third deep in the fall so they would have room. By strongest I mean quite simply this hive had the most bees. So this wall of snow when I went out there was preventing bees from pushing their  dead comrades  out of the hive.

The inspection yielded a bit more to the story as the snow has melted and what I suspected was there was indeed there.....

Literally hundreds of dead bees at the base of  hive #4 and  the landing..... although the bees worked on that a bit. I mention this in case anyone thinks of keeping bees or is a new comer. This is a normal although scary progression. You walk out to the hive to see tons of dead bees, but think about it. In the summer the bee population is literally 60-80,000 bees by next spring you go to about 20-30 bees. The bees don't fly out and drop them they just drop them out and go back to the cluster.

The only sure way to see if your hive makes it is something called an inspection. While the sun is out today and yesterday and the temps were in the 60s..... it isn't a good idea to inspect the hives as much as I would like to make that a goal. I broke the inner cover off and the feeder to see how hive #1 was doing but I was VERY nervous about that one and I didn't dive into the two deep again it was huge temptation. I just didn't want to and here is why.

In Virginia we still have a few more weeks of cold weather possible and in fact snow is forecasted for the week. if I go into the hives, into the second and third deeps  to look for eggs and maybe the queen, then I break the propolis seals between the boxes for my own comfort.

The bees will not be able to reseal it with propolis because the weather and sticky stuff is not warm enough for them. On top of that while in a cluster, if I break the seals and work the hives then I am cooling what brood is there. Think of it they are in a cluster at 95 degrees Fahrenheit. I open the boxes and disturb the cluster and introduce 60 degree temps in the depths of the hive..... not good to lose that warmth.

So I keep weigh the benefit and danger... I'll stick to what my brain says to do..... wait for warmer days.
So the pictures below are scary we are looking specifically at the base of the hive on the left (aka Hive #4) there are a few leaves in the grass but the darker color is that of dead bees at the middle and top of the picture. You might say  MY HIVE died but in reality it is a good thing.... it is when you don't see them in winter and spring that you need to worry.

A sunny Winter day 65 degrees and all 4 hives are doing well.

Wow 65 degrees - and the bees are out

Ok I checked in on hive # 1 this was the weakest hive (in the pictures this hive is in two deep config on the right next to the little nuc.

All the sugar syrup almost gone (that applies to all 4 hives though). I am at this time pleasantly surprised. I can't tell you the amount of second guessing I was doing of my set ups. It appears to have worked though the bees are ramping up and I have a lot of them already. This hive I took off the feeder and inner cover and pulled a few frames.  The bees were hunkered down over the honey and almost ready start cramping up production of bees.

So all the bees were out flying around. I looked in the top deep for swarm cells and there weren't any nor was I expecting to see any. While you can't tell from this picture the bees were all flying around getting oriented and stretching their wings. A few days ago (see below) they were all snowed in. It's very promising and I may meet my commitments this year and share some bees with a few friends.

We are still in winter and next week we'll be back with the snow and then on to building out the hives. Not much as far as pollen yet but there is a bit and the fact that all four hives are active is great.

As you can see it was a good deep snow.
My other hives the entrance wasn't blocked but there was a snow build up there.

Spring will beeeeeeeeeeee busy.

Splitting 'Timed' or 'Walk Away'

Splits with some out loud thoughts folks tune me out but I need to get this straight for a discussion I am having and the 'Why' behind my plan.
So recall I have four hives, two very strong and two moderate to week.

The Goals for this set of splits I have coming:

1. To end up with at least 6 hives, two of which that I can share.
2. Still have honey production.... Not for hand outs but that will happen....if all goes as I THINK/plan it will.
3. Not to get demoralized if it doesn't work. This is a distinct possibility as when I combined down to 4 from 5 I was contemplating my skill/art as a bee keeper.

The Risks:

1. I lose the two weak hives and two/or more splits that try to make.
2. Then I lose the strong hives with no replacement hives. Absolute worse case scenario. This is assuming I come out of this winter with the four hives I describe.

Discussion:

There are two types splits I will talk about. One type is called 'A Walk Away' split. Another type of split is more natural selection called 'Timed' split. So the second type of split makes sense but is somewhat harder. The idea is that in spring when the bees are really into a honey flow it gets crowded in the hive as the bees are bringing in nectar and filling cells in the brood and honey supers. This is prime time where the bees think about swarming. Swarming is basically where the bees plan and set up to send the existing queen (who goes through steps to slim down) and roughly half the existing bees go swarm and fly to a branch or perch near by up to 200 yards away. Before they swarm the bees have created several swarm cells at the bottom of the frames that will contain queens in 'queen cells' usually multiple cells over several frames in the hive. So that seems easy as the queen cells are about the size of peanut and it looks like a peanut. so they are very easy to see. The real challenge is that you want to see the queen cell with an egg in it or larva developing but not sealed all the way. If the cell is sealed then the bees will swarm and leave. This isn't too bad as it will leave a hive out in the wild but not the best for a beekeeper. So to this is where the genetics should be very good (strongest possibility) rather than having the bees make a queen from 1-2 day old eggs.
So with the frames with queen cells separate them from the hive and place them in a nucleus (5frame) hive and let the bees decide which cell survives aka natural selection. Then perhaps this prevents the swarming. THATS THE THEORY. Bee keeping is based on science but it is an art form, cuz what do I know about science...LoL (yes, I crack me up!)

So as I mentioned it is harder doing a timed split but more likely to succeed for the hobbyist.

To simulate a swarm perhaps move all the non-swarm cells and queen to a new hive setup. Yes I have a couple of spare boxes. to do that and see if that prevent the weaker hives from swarming. Then the theory is that if I split my weaker hives they could then go and mate with the two stronger hives that I will spread the genetics to the weaker side and continue to make my bees more muts (Russian and Italian mix).

Then I rely on my stronger hives to produce honey that I could store for winter and use for feeding all the hives in winter rather than sugar. This process will place me more active in the hives in the spring. Let's see if I have the time as March/April has me traveling in the spring right when I should be in the hive.

Now for the word for 2014..... Raspberry Pi..... Hmmmmmmmmmmm

2 Feb @4:00pm EST 60 degrees expected to get colder

Ok did a quick inspection of all four hives. Big shout out to Zachary who helped with pictures.

Grass still dormant and ground very wet behind the hives where I stood....all torn up. The inspection was to simply see if there were any dead outs. We aren't out of winter by any stretch but we had three days of warmish weather  and I was happy to see after two weeks of severe cold single digits that the bees took the opportunity to find (honey) not above them but on the side frames of the hives.

This makes me wonder as a bee keeper if I need to situate all the honey and pollen above the cluster in the late fall. Most bee keepers do that to keep the honey warm and while it makes sense to us humans it probably confuses the bees. I am imagining I just don't know. Then too it is warm and they have a chance to spread out.

Hive #1 in the apiary is the one that has me most worried but the bees were very active and on the honey and pollen from the summer. It is a two deep configuration and not all frames were built out. The bees were on the top deep on the left where the honey/pollen was stored. The bees were calm and wasted no energy on me while I inspected I placed a feeder on top with 1.75 :1 syrup. These are Italians and I didn't dive into the bottom box at all but for all hives I will look at reversing the boxes. I did reduce the entrance on this one  to  give them a chance in the spring and reduce robbing chances.

Hive #2 This is the survivor hive and the genetics seem quite strong. This a three deep configuration plus a honey super medium that had honey in it for extra. I place the queen excluder on it after I was sure she wasn't in there. I gave a bit more syrup but not much. These bees were calm too but still a lot of bees I didn't take any frames out to look at just left everything alone. Then the feeder on top not much syrup.

Hive # 3 also a two deep config. bees calm no defensive behavior. This is a Russian hive and quite well off. I placed a feeder on it and will look to see how they are doing in two weeks. I opened it the bees 'boiled' out  so the bees are doing ok... probably hungry.

Hive #4 Also Russian 3 deep config. The three deep is to prevent swarming this spring. It is an experiment to see what I can do. When I took the inner cover off to see the bees were VERY defensive. I mention this incase I lost the queen two weeks from now I will need to look again at all hives then make decisions on splitting and queen excluders. If the bees are defensive it could mean the queen is gone but then too they could be fine and just want to be left alone.

Ok I have done two things both for me with this hobby of mine.
First for Christmas I purchased a bee jacket that is heavier than my others but well ventilated. The challenge I have with the 4 hives is in the inspections. I perspire at the drop of  a hat... always have and with bees all around you I wear a bandana or hat and inspecting all four hives requires a bit of time. We'll see if the Ultra Breeze Jacket helps. It wasn't a good sign that my bandana was wet at 60 degrees. I like the set up it is airy we'll see what happens I am thinking of not wearing a T-shirt under it and see if I get as hot. It frustrates me with perspiration dripping on my glasses.

 

Any way the second thing I just did was get a logo for Oui Bits Apiary. I'll need to get some labels, and T-shirts and perhaps a coffee mug or two. Let me say that Lotus Designs did a great job and I appreciate all the help since I have no left brain it's all calculations and reasoning (that I can do). So let me know what you think of it... There is already a copyright on it ;-)

 

 

 

 

Checked on the 4 hives and I had been a bit worried  when it was warm and saw no activity. What surprised me was that the Italian package didn't make it and while it was strong toward the end of summer it was the slowest to ramp up. The two Russian hives are with bees at the top and the survivor hive.

Will have to get some food for them just to be sure. The challenge will be the weather next week with an artic cold front coming Monday night.

See an update later.

Oui Bits Apiary Start of the 2014 year

First let me introduce myself and why I am using a blog. I started the apiary several years ago in my backyard. I lived in Florida and on some weekends would drive to New Smyrna Beach and on the way always see several bee colonies in boxes. I was interested then what was going on and living near orange groves I was always seeing bees. I mowed yards for a living and frequently saw bees. The time I am describing is 1960s-1970s and I helped a few apiaries on and off and it was fun. I never pursued it on my own but always thought about bees and having a colony. Fast forward the mid-1990s I picked up my first 'bee book' by Robert Morse and that really hooked me but I wasn't able to find a place to keep bees. Then in 2010 I discovered the book by Roger Morse in my library and re-read it. I started out on my quest as I had heard about CCD and mites along with all the other challenges and I decided to start a few hives.

In July 2010 I got my first colony, actually two, and that was my first learning, always have two colonies. In this case though I should add the line 'Of the same type of bee'. I got them in July and had a colony for Italians and Carniolans. Two very different bees but the first year was easy just get them to build out comb. I did that they had two deep boxes fully built out comb, 20 frames in each hive. I was a success my first year and no chemicals. My hives made it through winter and in 2011 produced a bit of honey. I relaxed this was easy and didn't pay attention, several lessons were learned here. Be more involved, have spare equipment, watch the bees behavior and spare equipment is always best.

The hives swarmed I missed the swarms in late summer and both barely made it through the winter. Then in early spring I realized not much left of either hive and I replaced them with two packages of 4 pounds of bees. One package was Russian bees (cold weather) and one package of Italian bees each with an extra queen. I split the two packages in half and ended up with four hives in total. Two Russian hives and two Italian hives. Plus last year I picked up an hive that was dying off at a colleagues house as he wasn't interested in having bees any more that hive I believe is Italian and has a very strong resistance to everything. So great I have 5 hives doing ok. last summer I one of the packages faded and I combined that to make a total of four hives in Oui Bits Apiary.

I am thrilled with it and I will share everything I do this year and certainly pictures. I will say I am going to be using three deep configurations and nucs to make sure the bees are strong. You'll nucs as smaller boxes (5 frames).

I want to say if at anytime you have questions or comments or want to say hi, please do and let me know where you are and if you keep bees. I have a blog of sorts on Facebook also Oui Bits Apiary and love to hear from you there too.

Email is several:
Oui_Bits_Apiary@comcast.net
john.p.eick@gmail.com
Facebook Ouibits Apiary

Stop on by.... take a look.