Spring Inspections

The Lair is back up to 3 hives and the Acreage is back to 5 or so after we lost around 60% last winter.  This week, I found eggs in all three hives, so it looks like all 3 hives are gearing up for summer.

The middle hive that made it through the winter ended the winter with about 50 pounds of honey and it's going like crazy!  I've had to keep adding space, and the queen is laying so frequently she keeps 20-30 frames of brood cooking at any one time!  They're also obviously bringing in honey, and while it's been a bit difficult for me to track recently since it's spread out throughout the 9 medium boxes, I think they're going to shoot into higher supers very soon.  Since the hive is higher than I am, and the queen has decided to lay in some of the higher boxes, I'm going to have to spend a few hours sorting it out at some point (putting all the brood at the bottom and honey at the top) and I'll probably have to steal honey at least twice to keep it at a manageable height.

It's not a bad problem to have, but as I'm selling my house and have to move in a few weeks, I'm going to have to let the bees run on autopilot for a while.  I'll try to give them plenty of space to discourage swarming, but that might be an inevitable consequence of my move.

Bees still buzzing!

It looks like I forgot to blog about wintering the bees, but it's pretty straightforward so here's what happened.  It turns out that there's not a lot you can do to help the bees make it through winter.  Insulation sounds like a good idea, but it turns out that the bees require constant airflow through the hives to remove moisture so the hives stay only a few degrees above the outside temperature all winter long.  The worker bees "shiver" by moving their wing muscles without moving their wings to generate heat and keep the little cluster of bees warm enough to make it through the winter, but they only keep their little cluster warm, not the whole hive.  On warmer days, they move around to follow honey stores, but they can't move far when it's really cold so it is important for a beekeeper to check the hives later in the winter (now) to shift around honey stores if the bees eat themselves into a corner and can't get to honey just a few inches away in a cold snap!

Because there's not much that can help the bees through the winter, it's not too difficult to get them ready.  The biggest concern is that they have enough honey to make it through the winter, and I covered that by simply being very conservative about how much honey I took from the hive.  Then you treat any diseases or parasites -- usually Varroa Mites, but since I didn't note any problematic infestation I didn't have to worry about that either.

Finally, in November, I added a sheet of particleboard to help wick moisture out of the hives and covered the hives in black wax-coated cardboard.  The cardboard heats up in the sun and might help to cut the wind a bit.  Here's a picture of the hives after I wrapped them up for the winter.

Late-Winter Inspection


On February 9, on a warm day above 40F, I drove out to the Lair to check the hives.  I gave a light tap to each hive and heard buzzing from the first two, but silence from the last.  It turned out that the third hive, the weakest of the three all last year, had died relatively early in the winter.  Below you can see the remains of a cluster with bees holding onto or with their heads stuck into the comb.  They are surrounded by empty comb so it is possible that they simply ate all the nearby honey and couldn't move far enough during a few cold days to find more food, but because they were still in the bottom two medium boxes out of four, I suspect they were also weak -- perhaps from Varroa.

The other two hives were doing very well and were clustered toward the South side of the top two boxes in both hives.  I took the top two boxes full of honey from the dead hive and added them to the other hive both to prevent the honey from going to waste (they're likely to mold if they stay unattended after it warms up) and to give the bees one more box of solid honey they can move up into in case we see more cold weather.

Below you can see a somewhat blurry picture of the left hive's cluster.  I only lifted up the box for a few seconds to see where they were, and while it's a bit worrysome to have the cluster all the way over on the side, I think it helps a lot that I could add a box of honey above them so they'll have room to move to nearby stores even if it gets very cold.

Another thing a beekeeper can do is move honey around within the boxes -- perhaps moving honey from the left side to a slot right next to the cluster, but the more you disturb the cluster, the more the bees will get stressed and cold so I was satisfied with adding the two boxes on top.

I plan to go back next weekend with some or all of my family to collect the two empty boxes from the dead hive.  They still have some honey (maybe 10-20 pounds) and I want to dry them out in my garage before they get regularly warm enough to mold.  In late March when the weather's good and the queens are laying eggs like mad, I'll split one or both of the living hives and buy a new queen to lead the new hive(s).  The bees will all appreciate the honey left on the hives and they'll have a head start on building up stores for me to steal next Fall!

Picture from the Lair!

Yesterday, I visited the Lair to make sure that they hadn't run out of room, and I think all three hives have just the right amount of room left so I didn't add any extra supers.  Here's the picture showing the final height of the three hives:

On the left side, the top super is about a third full, the middle hive (significantly taller than me now) is around 70% finished with the 8th super and hasn't significantly started on the 9th, and the right hive is only around 50% finished with the 5th super.

It was only 4 days since I added the top boxes, so with any luck and good weather, the nectar will continue to flow and the top supers will get filled out.  If not, I'll be stuck with some partially-filled frames, but I can either swap some full, lower frames with the partly-filled ones or use the partial frames to bolster some of our weaker hives at the Acreage (probably both).  I want 2-3 supers full of honey going into winter, and while I can potentially feed the hives sugar-water after we harvest on August 21, it will be a hassle and I'd prefer to simply let the bees backfill the lower boxes as winter approaches.  I hope to have around 100 lbs of honey left for the bees when they go into winter which translates to about 3 Medium supers at a low estimate of 35 lbs apiece.

Lair Update

Over a week ago, on a Tuesday morning, once again I found that the center hive had totally filled the top super (after only about a week!) and the two outer hives had just barely started thinking about working on their 5th super.

As before, I took the untouched 5th super from the right hive and placed it on the center hive right away, and then came back on Thursday after my dad delivered two more supers now empty from the honey extraction for the center and right hives. Unfortunately, I end up rather distracted when I'm at the Lair, and while Jen (a Lair native) took some great pictures of the hives, I forgot, so I can't show how the middle hive has grown to a bit taller than me!

Just yesterday (August 4)  I visited the hives again with another 2 supers.  I quickly inspected the left hive and found that boxes 4 and 5 were totally drawn out and mostly full of honey.  I dug down deeper into the hive and found beautiful brood patterns (seen below) and found a frame of eggs and larvae proving that the queen was there within the last 3 days.

I was short on time and I'd hurt my shoulder earlier in the week (trying to start my lawnmower) so I didn't inspect the other two hives, but I checked the top boxes and found that the 7th box was full of honey and largely capped, and the 8th box was 80% drawn out, and probably 60 or 70% full of curing nectar.  I added a 9th super to the middle hive to keep them collecting as long as the nectar flow continues.

Here's a picture of a fully capped frame of honey on the very edge of the brood nest.  I'm not 100% sure, but I believe this was from the 3rd frame from the end in the 4th box from the ground.  I didn't see any brood in the 5th or higher boxes so harvesting should go very well.

The right hive is still the slowest, having drawn out the 5th box only about 60%.  I will bring 2-3 supers on Monday or Tuesday to add room to the middle and right hives, and possibly the left hive if they've made good progress in the half-week since I last added another super.

I think adding supers to just the center and right hives will be sufficient.  I might lose out on 20-50 pounds of honey that they'd otherwise pack away, but if you provide an excess of space right up to the end of the nectar flow, you have to deal with the large number of partially-drawn and partially-filled frames in the top super.  You can steal some honey from lower down and fill the partially-filled frames by feeding the bees sugar water, but since I can't be out at the lair twice a week, I'd like to avoid fall feeding if I can.

That means I'll have to harvest maybe 25-50 lbs (1-2 boxes) less honey than I otherwise could, and letting the bees fill up the hives to the top might mean they don't collect a similar amount, but at 25+ lbs per box, I'm already looking at over 200 lbs of honey from these two hives, and since my distribution network only had to handle 25 lbs or so last year, I'm not sure I'll notice the "loss."

Assuming good weather, we've tentatively planned to harvest the honey (brush the bees off each frame so that the bee-free capped honey can be transported to the Acreage and extracted) on the morning of Sunday, August 21.  Then I may start extracting in the evening, or wait until Monday evening after work to uncap and extract the honey from the honeycomb.

Honey harvest!

First, some bad news.  One of my dad's 6 hives was totally robbed dry by some of the other hives, and we've seen evidence of some robbing in both my hives.  Also, while we got 10 or so lbs of honey from Jo, most of the honey I had been counting on there was consumed by the drones that have overwhelmed the hive.  With an unfertilized queen (or possibly a laying worker) the hive will probably starve before winter, and certainly hasn't got a chance of making it until spring as the queen isn't laying workers, and unfertilized eggs (drones) can't become queens.

That said, Megmight yield some small amount of honey, there are a couple other hives at the acreage that have between 100 and 200 lbs of honey that is currently being capped and cured, and last weekend, we were able to harvest 100 lbs from one of the better-producing hives along with whatever we could salvage from Meg!

The Harvest

Unfortunately it always fails to occur to me to take pictures of the apiary -- really a clearing with 7 or so hives placed on the Westish edge -- but this picture from the back shows many of the hives.  Jo is in the front -- the hive with the bad queen -- and in the picture I'm selecting the fullest frames for harvest.  Second is Meg, and while we saw maybe 10-15 frames of capped honey in Meg, it was only 60% capped so we left it for the bees to finish processing.  On Sunday we noticed some robbing from Meg, so depending on how bad it was, all her honey might now be in one of the other hives, but we'll find out in late August when we harvest again.

The rest of the hives are "my dad's" although that distinction may become arbitrary as it makes more sense to divide up hives by apiary than person (remember "my" hives started at a different location).  They're named by color, but some colors are similar or being repeated so even my parents can't seem to keep them straight!

We took three and a half supers with about 8 frames each (normally they hold 9 or 10 but I like a little extra space when I'm dealing with heavy, sticky frames full of honey) back to the garage and got to work cutting the wax capping off the cells of honey and extracting the honey with my dad's new toy, a Maxant 6-frame radial extractor!

 

Above, my dad (left) and I are cutting the wax off the frames.  When the bees evaporate enough water so the honey is less than about 18.6% water and will last forever (or more practically, at least until the next summer) without fermenting, the bees seal each cell containing honey with a thin wax cap.  We cut off the caps and any comb that extends beyond the edge of the wooden frame (releasing a lot of tasty honey in the process) so that the honey will flow out when turned in the centrifuge!

Above, left, is a frame of capped honey with all the wax cappings and honey caught in a maple syrup pan, and an uncapped frame of gooey honey on the right.  We looked everywhere for the uncapping tank we had last year, but it was nowhere to be found!

Then my mum took over and spun the frames until all the honey came out (about 1 or 2 minutes of consistent turning for 6 frames).  Note that in this picture, we had tried tangential extraction with only three frames.  It worked, but it took a lot more time and didn't seem to be more effective.  Normally the 6 wooden frames would be arranged like spokes instead of around the edge of the centrifuge.

My dad and I took turns on the extractor, but being male, we were a bit overzealous and the next picture shows how too much force will "blow out" all the wax in a frame so the wax has to be replaced -- a huge inconvenience for both us and the bees!

The honey and some wax that fell off in the centrifuge is poured out the bottom of the extractor into a couple of metal sieves to strain out wax and any other debris.  Some people filter their honey even further to remove even some barely-visible clumps of pollen (usually still leaving lots of pollen, just not in clumps), but our honey turns out quite clear (when it isn't full of bubbles from pouring the dregs of a pail anyway) and while I'm skeptical of claims for amazing health benefits from strained but unfiltered honey, I don't see any reason to add another complex step.  I might change my mind if all the honey starts crystallizing right away one year, but for now, I just strain my honey.

Altogether we filled two 5-gallon pails about 80% full (one for Rachel and I, and one for my parents) for a total of 88 pounds.  Here's most of the 46 pounds I bottled last night in my kitchen!

The jar in the front, left, was the last jar I bottled -- you can tell it is absolutely FULL of bubbles while the rest of the honey is darker and more translucent.

So... anybody want some honey?  I think I'm limited to about 25 lbs for sale right now until our next harvest (but my parents have more, so feel to poke them too!)

I visited the Lair today to deliver one more super to replace the one I'd transfered to the super-productive hive.  The bees were already "bearding" at 7:00 this morning as the high heat index of 85 starts creeping up to a high of 118.  It's hard to cure honey or even evaporate water to cool the hive when it's so incredibly hot and humid.  There won't be much nectar collection today as the bees and flowers both just try to wait out the heat.

 

 

 

The two outer hives were about 80% finished with their 4th box, and the center hive was drawing out about 30-50% of their 6th box, although as I was in a hurry and the bees were cranky on such a hot and humid morning, I just peered in through the top instead of examining any frames more closely.  When the heat subsides a bit, I'll need to spend some serious time on a full inspection in the next couple weeks.

Queenless Resolution

Meg and Jo both have around 2.5 fully capped boxes of honey!  However, only one of them is thriving with a new queen.  Below is a picture of Meg's queen -- she's been laying some pretty good patterns, and I don't foresee any problems going into the winter.

I did notice more brood cells ripped open with Varroa mites than usual.  This is exactly what I got Minnesota Hygenic queens for, although I guess I can't really be certain of the queen genetics now that the queen has been replaced at least once.

Jo, on the other hand, does appear to have a new queen (there are no signs of laying workers) but she's laying mostly drones and I noticed 3 queen cells in the hive.  Maybe they're trying to supercede, but the population isn't up to peak nectar gathering any more.

We're going to wait another week or so to decide what to do.  Maybe we'll combine Jo with a swarm my dad caught at the acreage, or maybe we'll just take all their honey and restart with a split in the spring.

At the Lair, I had a quick look under the covers, and found that while the two outer hives had just barely started drawing out the 5th box (and were only half done with the 4th), the middle hive had drawn out every square inch of space in all 5 boxes!  Since I didn't have any extra supers on hand, I simply moved one from the right hive to the middle hive to even out the space.  I'll stop over there tomorrow or the next day to drop off one more super so all 3 hives have extra space.  As a related note, frames with wax should not be left outside in a hot car in the sun where the temperature can exceed the melting point of wax.

Here's a picture of the lair after my manipulations.  I should really come up with names for these hives, but now that I'm having trouble with Meg and Jo (I'm sure I'm screwing them up now and again) I'm not sure what kind of naming convention I should look for.  Maybe just serial numbers?