discouraged, but a light might be at the end of the tunnel

What a time my girls have been through.....
Since my last post I have enjoyed one single stint of good times and that is it. I was having queen issues when it became 100% apparent that I did not have a queen and the new hatchlings were not laying. I called a semi-local queen rearer and he advised that I give them two weeks to see if the hatched queens will mate and to put some brood in there if at all possible. I gave them three weeks and two full frames of brood. At three weeks I ordered the queen, went to install her and boom, I had capped brood........ I sold the queen to a buddy and was happy to have growing bees again(that one single stint of good times). Then a few weeks later, more queen cups. I thought it was an individual thing so I cut the first one out. Then I found bunches(left them). About 4-5 if I recall. So I let them requeen at will. I also decided to add a second deep for brood since they were nearly complete with the bottom deep and were laying brood. Since May 5th 2008 they still have yet to fill out that bottom box. :? I gave them a few weeks in the second deep with ZERO comb production so I decided to remove it to "force the last few frames into production. My bee population was small enough so as not to crowd them. I had also found several full sized queen cells.


So I take the deep off, set it on the ground, and see tons of bees refusing to leave the super. So I smoke them. A lot. A whole lot. I get em good and riled up and realize Im not doing any good so I leave em to their own devices. 30 minutes later I look out and see a swarm. I give them time and start prepping a catch bucket. As they simmer down I find them on a lower branch of a gum tree and bump them in the bucket. Like a fool, I open the hive, and dump em right in. World War 3 will look a little like what I saw that day. Bad move.

Apparently I had a hatched queen hiding in the super I took off. I took her way from the hive body, I smoked her out in the open, and I restricted the space inside the main hive making the workers buzz about in the air exposed to this new homeless queen. then to add insult to injury I tried putting the swarm back in the hive. So I had a supercedure queen that may have been the savior of my hive. Then I ruined her and a good two handful of bees.

Im still not sure why my girls are so hard on wanting to replace every queen they get, but lesson learned- let them do it. I also learned that two hives is better than one. I would have combined hives a long time ago after all this crap. I learned not to smoke too heavily and to not make drastic changes in the bee habitat. Especially all at the same time. And I also learned NOT to put a swarm back in a hive if they even remotely have the possibility of having a queen. I also learned a few tricks about how to put a small swarm back in without causing the guards to kill the non-queen females. Not that I may ever need it again, but I learned something new none the less.

For now I have a shallow super on top of my original brood box. I have queen cells that have been chewed through and for the first time in months I have drones popping up. Im not seeing drones in any alarming numbers so for now I dont think its a laying worker. Im hoping this new queen will be able to keep the peace during the winter. THey are getting testy from all this stress and are beginning to be difficult to work. No stings so far, but a lot more angry bumping my hood and buzzing my head. They also are more apt to come out and investigte me if I stand near the hive. They never did that before, not like they do it now. These girls are not being the easy to maintain girls I was told I was getting. ITs discourageing.

06/16/2008

I checked my girls out today and found 4 new capped queen cells. I also have about 3 that are in the process of getting capped. Its kind of neat to watch. The girls are staying busy at least. I did manage to get a sizable increase in numbers before this all transpired so at least I have that to fall on while they re-queen. I dont see too much drone laying going on so thats good. the cells that I thought were drone may end up being attempts at queens. I checked pretty good for eggs and larva and found zero. Im confident that the original queen is dead. I do have lots of food stores. They have a bee sized truck load of pollen and nectar as well as plenty of capped honey. Once the queens hatch out and mate there should be plenty of food for a few generations of brood. One thing that I did was to put all of their drawn and used comb back together. I had mistakenly thought that it was wise to separate frames of brood comb so that the girls will draw out the empty frames. I wasnt supposed to do that. I was only supposed to separate empty and full comb that has been drawn. I think that I am the cause of my own misfortune. Live and learn I guess. Im seeing some more comb get drawn on my empty frames. Its not perfect comb but its getting drawn. the cells sizes are ok, but the depth is not consistent. if you look at it from the side the surface is wavy. I hope to see some new eggs soon.

Danger Will Roberson!!!!

I just checked my girls. Im a little stressed. I have queen cells. I have drone cells. ANd I dont see any fresh eggs and very few larva. I cut two queen cells off one frame because it was barely populated. Then the further I got into the hive, the more I found. Ive got one with a rather large queen almost ready to seal up I think. Ill past a pic shortly. If anyone is actually reading this, AND if anyone has a comment please post!

I got to do two things today. #1- I got my new bee jacket w/veil today. VERY nice. Here is a link to where I got mine [url]http://www.mannlakeltd.com/catalog/page91.html[/url]. I hope that html tag works. I hate HTML code. Im a drag and drop kind of guy. Anyway, it definatley feels bee proof or at least resistant. the veil will take some getting used to, but the back is supposed to be double layered to keep your noggin from getting zapped. We shall see. And #2- I opened thehive today and wow, I got to see some new girls hatching. I think I have some laying workers too. Due to the lack of bees to develope more comb and work the comb already built, I think some of the girls have been working like there is no queen. In fact I found another queen cup today. Im thinking that the arrival of a bunch of new bees will stimulate some new growth in both comb production and baby production. I still havent found the queen. She is ever elusive. I did find new bunches of larva so she is still busy. Before I add the next super I think Im going to alter my wood frames. Where the tabs at the top of the side bar are placed Im going to sand or grind out a notch so that just two small points are touching. I have found a couple smashed bees in these areas. I try to look for them, but they just wont move sometimes. I have too many projects in-line right now. I have a pig cooker in pieces in my shop, I need to build a honey extractor, and I want to build a top bar hive. Lots to do, no time to do it, and no room to do it all. lol.

thought it was ok

I need to get my beekeeper mentor or someone to come and take a look to help me out. If for no other reason than to make me feel better. They havent drawn much more comb at all. Im still seeing larva and eggs so Im more or less ok with the queen. I did see some random drone cells, but I guess thats ok too. I had the second super prepped and ready, and boom, still not much development. they are flying and bringing in pollen all the time so I know they are being productive and making food. I found one frame of almost all honey so I know they HAVE food. Back to my Beekeeping Class 101-103 dvd. Time to make some phone calls.

First Blog

This is my hive, or "Apiary" if you will











My hive is a simple 10 frame "Lang" hive. This is a new package installation so for now I only have one box or "super" in use. As the bees expand in numbers I will add at least one super for the bees to rear young bees in. For honey collecting I will use two standard shallow suppers, but that is a ways off. My package was installed on May 5th, 2008 by my mentor, George Harris of Beaufort NC. He's a mean looking old codger, but he is actually pretty friendly. :) He GAVE me the bee boxes and through some trading of labor, he bought me the bees. My, cough-cough, "apiary" consists of an old indoor throw rug laid on the ground and covered with pine bark mulch. I did this to limit how close I have to get with the mower/weed eater. I set the hive on three concrete blocks with pieces of tar paper on top to limit how much moisture contacts the bottom of my hive. The bottom board is all screen. I will use a piece of cardboard to cover the bottom in the winter to help the girls stay warm. There are two feeders because I was out of town the week my bees were installed. I wasn't happy about it, but I couldnt avoid it. I bought two metal entrance feeders ( I don't recommend those by the way) and had them ready so that they wouldn't run out before I got back. They serve double duty as an entrance reducer and feeders for right now. The hive is located in the back corner of my property, far from my house, but close to my neighbor's! lol Oh, and the large jar to the right of the hive is my version of a bee watering hole. Its a large flower pot base filled with decorative gravel topped with a pickle jar. I just poked some large holes in the lid, filled the tray and jar with water, and set the jar upside down on the rocks. Gravity keeps the tray full of water and the rocks let the bees land all around the water without drowning. Im hoping it keeps them out of the pools in the area.

Approx 5/13/2008- My first time EVER in a hive. Lucky for me they are sooo gentle. This is one of the lesser developed frames. Not sure how much detail is lost in the upload to this blog, but the original shot shows the transition from foundation to comb when magnified.






So, I have a hive, I have bees, they have been busy and its time to take a look. You can imagine the pressure I was feeling. I had never opened a hive myself, much less been there when one was opened. I fired up the smoker, tightened up the veil, and just stood there imagining how bad it could get. No bee suit. No gloves. Just me, a shaky hand, and no mentor to help out. I sucked it up and opened the hive. I was very surprised at just how gentle bees are. The didnt show the least interest in me. No bumps, no stings, and very few fly-bys. They had maybe 3-4 frames started with comb with minimal food storage and obviously no eggs. I found the queen. I was worried sick because I found the beginnings of a queen cell and the queen I found wasnt marked. I learned more about this and will comment on that on the next picture.

Approx 5/23/08 - Things are looking better











This is my third visit to the hive. Just a note, I didnt get stung, but they seemed testier than before. There was an obvious roar in front of the hive. Im new, so maybe its normal. That is going to take some getting used to. They were still just as gentle as the first day. I was tickled to find capped brood and honey. If you have seen this blog on myspace, I mentioned that the frame with the queen cell almost broke apart on the first opening. The wax foundation came lose from the bottom of the frame and was swinging free. Luckily no damage was done to the comb and the foundation didnt come completely off. It was a real close call because the queen was on that frame. I initially destroyed the queen cell and worried a lot about why I had one. I was able to find that sometimes the workers start queen cells or queen cups to stimulate the queen to lay. I was instructed by some to keep cutting it out, and by others to let it go. Im no tree hugging liberal hippy, but I do tend to lean towards more bio-friendly beekeeping, so Im opting to leave the queen cell. People may have lots of opinions on why the bees are doing this, but the bees KNOW why they are doing it. I figure Ill trust them on this one. They have since repaired the queen cup but not developed it into a full fledged cell. They have also repaired the frame by gluing the foundation to the frame so it cant move. When I add the second super, I am going to space the foundation evenly between the boxes and will cut that foundation loose and then fix it so it can hang straight. Ill just let them fix it after that.


Thats where Im at for now. Im planning on opening them again soon to see how the brood are doing. It should be getting on time to add the super, so Im prepping for that. Ill add another blog or thread and post my pics.