Wednesday, June 21, 2017

SR Hive Check 6/20/17

Despite it being extremely hot out at 100-degrees, I wanted to check in on the bees because we couldn't find the queen last time, and I was going to be out of town for a while. So Tristan and I wandered to the back-40 at around 6:00pm and looked in on them. It was getting a little overcast at that point. Well, the shade back there must have been working because, while it was still warm, it wasn't intolerable and the bees weren't bearding.

Because we wanted to work fast and just get things done so we could get back into our boxers instead of wearing long pants, Tristan and I forewent the smoker and just opened up the hive. They were actually pretty tame until the last few minutes.

The top box they have actually done a bit more expanding, but haven't really been filling the comb. And it was strange -- I'll probably get onto the NMBKS list and ask about it -- because the comb was empty, but the sides were a brownish color. I was wondering if they were just starting to fill it with pollen, but I was mostly concerned about disease or something.

In any event, the bottom box was full! They have used all the available space and almost every frame was full of comb that was being utilized. I mean, the end-frames were half-full with comb and underutilized, but I expected that.

First of all, we found the queen! We also found evidence that she's going; capped brood, less drones, lots of larvae. I think they've finally hit their stride! We made sure she was inside the box and moved on, looking at the rest of their frames.

We also saw lots of honey. They have one full frame of honey, and lots of honey at the top of their other brood frames.

In order to encourage them to expand, we took two of the full frames of brood and put them into the center of the top brooder box and added empty frames at the ends of the bottom box. I'm hoping that encourages them to move up and find that they can expand even more, so that later this summer we can start placing honey supers.

In any event, a successful trip to the hives! They're happy and industrious, and they are doing well!

Monday, June 12, 2017

SR Hive Check 6/11/17

I finally made it back out to Sunflower River on Sunday evening, June 11. I met up with Tristan around 6pm and we went out back to look at the hive. The sky was clear and the wind calm, thankfully, and the temperature was somewhere in the 80's.

Tristan checking out the bees!
Our smoker went out after the first couple of puffs, but the bees were all relatively docile and we continued without it. It was Tristan's first time actually getting into the hive, so he did a lot of the work, the both of us alternating looking at the frames.

We found that the second box that we added a few weeks back was still mostly empty. A skeleton crew of bees were working on building some comb in a couple of the center frames, but mostly it was empty of anything. This is probably because for so long the boxes had a large gap and they had a dry feeder for about a week, which probably stressed them out.

Look at that beautiful frame!
However, the bottom box was more or less full. The middle 8 frames were absolutely full, with two full frames of mostly nectar/honey, and the rest full of mostly capped brood.

And that was the problem. We were unable to find the queen, but we saw lots of capped brood...and not a lot of larvae. It makes me think that maybe they have lost their queen. What I am going to do is see where they are in two weeks, look for the queen again, and then decide what we'll do. I'd much prefer to find her, but if there's significant evidence that she is dead, we'll either get another one or encourage them to make some. There were no supercedure cells on any of the frames, so they don't seem to be too concerned about it just yet, so I feel comfortable waiting to see.

We decided to keep feeding them through the summer, as the hive is still small and they have been stressed. So Tristan is upping the number of times he will go out and check the feeder.

Mostly they were busy bees, happy and docile bees, so I'm glad to see the corrections to their hive have (hopefully) calmed them and they are under less stress.

Tuesday, June 6, 2017

Hive Checks 6/6/17

It's been a couple weeks since I've been in the hives, and I was a little afraid of what I'd find. I've become a little remiss in my checking the hives, and part of that, I realize, is fear. Not really fear of the bees, but of messing it up, not knowing what to do. When I realize that, it's easy to get through, but it keeps me dragging my feet.

Source Hive
Today was a little overcast, but it's my only day this week I can check the hives. It's hot out, finally, after a cool and rainy May. It's also quite muggy, today, for the desert, and that is displeasing. I went out at around 2pm and opened the hive. I actually got the smoker going and kept it lit for a while! I may become a firebug yet. Luckily, the wind didn't start to blow until I was closing up, but there's quite a bit of gust out there, now.

standard brood and honey pattern on most of
the bars
I was amazed at how much they've grown! In two weeks, they have expanded to 13 full bars of comb, and two that are half-made! And all except one of the latter are being mostly used. They are gathering nectar like crazy!

The queen is still at it -- she's fat and happy -- and they are certainly busy. I scraped quite a bit of wax off the sides, and I see that they are bulging out on the ends. I am not entirely sure what to do about that, but where I could, I reversed the bars. I put one empty bar in the middle, giving a bit more room so hopefully they might correct course. I'll research in Les Crowder's book later on for other solutions.

I removed that last can of syrup I put inside to feed them -- it was drained dry -- and the wooden props for it. After examining all the bars, I see lots of honey, so I'll just let them go with what they've collected and see how they fare. Maybe it will slow them down a bit; I haven't seen any swarm cells, but they've taken over just over half of the hive, so I may have to do a split soon!

I made sure to take a couple pictures, as I haven't been doing that. Things are looking good, and you can tell from how much they're working!

SR Hive...Didn't Happen
When I got to Sunflower River at around 5pm, Tristan and I got ready and went out to the hives...to find that the neighbors accidentally overflowed their field and the entire back property was flooded. Great for the plants and bees...not so much for the beekeepers. So I will go on Sunday morning and take a look, instead.

However, while I was at the farm, another neighboring farmer and friend of Sunflower River. He has a farm nearby and has had a swarm he caught twelve years ago. He's been following my bee adventure on Facebook, and asked if I was interested in working on his hives. I told him I'd think about it, but I already knew I'd say yes. So it looks like I'll be getting a few more hives to check this season!