Winter Notes

Well, a lot has happened. The two new hives collapsed so we sealed them up with moth balls inclosed to disinfect and prepare for Spring 2009. The original main hive appears to be doing well although, as I write the temperature is falling into the single digits. We are still feeding a 1:1 ratio of sugar water. I have placed an order for two NUCs from the NRVBA for next Spring.

This will probably be my last post until then!

End of Summer

Lots has happened. We combined the middle and third hives because the third hive was very weak and struggling. We did this about a month ago. Today, both hives are extremely active. More active than they have been in 5 to 6 weeks. We've had some rain recently and the goldenrod is blooming.

Routine Check

Casey and I harvested 30 more jars of honey two days ago. Today, I did an inspection of the other two hives. I pulled the super off of the middle hive because they were not building comb on any of the starter strips. I pulled and inspected all frames on the top brood box and things look really good. Lots of brood, capped and uncapped, lots of polen and honey as well.

The third hive looks exactly the same. I see lots of drone cells, uncapped larvae, and no Queen cells. I pulled off the top brood box because things were not happening in it. I took frames that had lots of drawn comb and put them into the lower brood box.

More Honey

Casey and I harvested three more frames of honey on Wednesday. The honey was really dark. We also took two frames of brood and honey from the first hive, shook off the bees, and placed them into the third hive, which we think has been Queenless for a few weeks. Tomorrow, Sunday, we will take a peek inside to see if there are any Queen cells forming. If not, then we'll order a Queen...if we can find a place that's still selling them.

So far, we've earned $250.00 in honey sales! If things go as expected, we should harvest another 25 to 40 jars of honey. If we can sell all of it, that should bring in another $125.00 to $200.00.

Honey Money

So far, Casey and I have harvested a little under fifty bottles of honey from two supers. We have sold between 25 and 30 jars for a net of $156.00. There is one super full of honey still on the hive that has not been capped yet. We will check on Thursday to monitor it's progress.

Still concerned about the other two hives. The packaged bees seem to be producing new brood but the activity in and out of the hive is very slow/weak. The split hive appears to have no new brood except for drone cells. At last check, last week, no Queen sighted but saw one Queen cell that had the side opened and the queen larvae exposed and probably dead. This is a sign of a new Queen that emerged and killed this develping Queen larvae.

Honey Flow!?

Walked out to check the bees this afternoon around 4:00 pm. The main hive and the middle hive had more bees coming and going than I have ever seen! The middle hive has been really quiet up until now. But today, very, very active. Hopefully not pre-swarm activity.

Honey flow? Maybe. Should be sourwood if it is. We'll know better on Sunday when we check.

Very Hot Weather!

It has been really hot and humid for the past three days. The bees are bearding so I pushed the supers back about an inch to help in ventilation. At this time, we have two supers on. The lower super is the one we extracted four frames from and the upper super has ten frames full of honey but the bees don't seem to want to cap it yet. Graham says that's because the cells aren't full enough. Be patient.

There's a slight possibility that within two or three days, we may have a lot of honey to process! That would be really cool! Graham said that sourwood should be out within the next two weeks.

 
The crushed comb and honey gets scraped into a 5 gallon bucket that has a "wedding veil" filter in it. This will be left to drain over night and bottled in the morning! The really cool thing is that all of the equipment, empty frames, tray, spoons, knife, scrapper, are all taken out next to the hive and the bees will clean it all up for us to be used again for the next honey flow!

 
Casey uses a knife to cut the comb from the frame. It falls onto a tray where it is crushed up. This is the messy part. Tended to get honey all over our selves!

 
Casey and I harvested our first honey today! We removed four frames. This is one of the frames and it is really heavy!

Honey Check

The top super is about 85% capped. The bees allowed me to open the super and pull up frames to inspect. No problem. However, whenever I attempt to lift the top super off to inspect the lower super, they stung me! The top super is extremely heavy so it's no fun to be struggling with a 70 pound super and getting stung on the hands at the same time.

Back to wearing gloves.

If the weather clears up tomorrow, I will take and post pictures.

We Have Honey!!!!!!!!

Performed a check on all three hives. The one year old hive has the super completely full of honey. All ten frames. It's about 10 to 20% capped and should be ready for harvesting by the middle or end of this week.

Tomorrow I will place a second super below this super and hope that the honey flow continues.

Memorial Day Weekend Check

The one year old hive had both brood boxes full of bees, honey, brood, pollen, etc. The bees are starting to work the top super and I think storing excess honey there. I am really concerned about those brood boxes being so full. Graham said to leave them alone...so we will.

The other two hives had 7 to 8 frames filled so we put another brood box on top of both. All hives showed signs of an active Queen with lots of larvae and capped brood.

May Check of Hive # 1

Hive number one is the second year hive consisting of two brood chambers and a small super.

Casey and I pulled all the frames from the upper chamber and photographed them. How come everytime we do a photo check, I get stung...twice! Maybe the bees are camera shy.

As can be seen by the photos, all seems to be progressing well except for the super. Absolutely no progress. Same amount of drawn, white comb on the center three frames. All other frames are either empty or have very little drawn comb on them. See picture. The new frames that we put in two weekends ago when we split, seem to be progressing. Theres drawn white comb on all new frames. There's always a lot of activity coming in and out of this hive. Lots of polen being brought in.

I removed the Queen excluder.

I have not been feeding them sugar syrup but maybe I will start and feed for the next two or three weeks.

Queens Freed

Today we released the two new queens that we hived on Sunday. The weather was a beautiful 65 degrees F. One Queen was in the standard Queen cage and the workers freed her. The second Queen, from Karl, was in a standard Queen cage but did not have the candy plug so I pulled the mesh off the small cage and manually freed her.

New Queen Arrives

We purchased a Queen from Karl in Radford for $15.00 and installed her into the newly split hive that we separated from the main hive yesterday. There appeared to be lots more bees in the new split than yesterday. Graham said that this was a good thing. We now have three hives!!!

The weather today is overcast with a very light mist. Temperature in mid 60's.

Busy Day!

Today, we had our bee expert friend Graham visit to check the hive to make sure things were in place correctly. He said everything was in pretty good shape. We had opened up a drone cell and had seen a small mite; this is not a really bad thing because it is natural, and at the same time, the queen crawled by and was huge and full of eggs ready to lay. Graham had also split the hive for extra activity, and today at the same time our package of bees had come, so we now have the beginnings of three new hives!!!

Frame Switch

On Sunday we switched four frames. We took four from the bottom chamber, full of brood, etc, and put them in the top chamber. Then four from the top chamber, 65% full of uncapped honey and no brood, were placed into the bottom chamber. We did this to force the bees up into the upper chamber. An inspection of the hive showed no swarm cells and a very good brood pattern.

When I checked the hive today, there were many, many bees in the top chamber! I am now a bit concerned with swarming so I placed a super with some drawn comb on top. I am now going to try and leave the hive alone until Saturday when Graham comes to inspect.

Bees for the second hive arrive this Saturday. Weather forcast is not good for installing packages. :-(

April Bee Check

Today we went to do our normal weakly bee check and when we had opened our brood box, we had seen something startling. We could clearly see that there was a large bump on the lower left corner of one of the frame, this could be a queen cell but we are still not sure yet. If it gets any bigger then we will not take our chances and kill it.

Note: This could be a sign of swarming.

Another Check of the Hive

Last week on March 12th, Casey and I checked the hive because the temperature hovered around 55 F for a few hours. The pollen patty was completely eaten so we replaced it. The upper chamber looked great! Full of bees, brood, and honey.

The lower chamber was just about completely empty. No brood, no honey, very few bees. I called Graham and he said that this was perfectly normal for this time of year. He suggested that we rotate the boxes; placing the top one down and the lower on up. We did this.

We are continuing to feed them the 1:1 sugar syrup which they are consuming at the rate of 6 to 8 ounces a day. It is very cold and extremely windy so we have put the reducer back into the opening.

Thorough Hive Check

We were finally able to get into the hive and check both chambers. We located the Queen in the upper chamber and she looked happy and well. The bees, as a whole, were very active. Flying in and out of the hive. The two end frames of the upper chamber still show no signs of activity. Nothing but foundation. The pollen patty is about half-eaten. I expected the patty to have been completely consumed by this point but we have had some bitter cold weather lately.

All of the frames in the lower chamber had drawn comb. We saw drone cells, but no drones. I am feeding them 1:1 sugar water and they're drinking it down.

Hive Check

It's 52 degrees, slightly overcast and no wind. The bees were very docile today. They had gnawed away one cornor of the waxed paper that surrounds the pollen patty and were busily chowing down. They have slowed thier intake of syrup considerably. That may be due to the presence of the pollen patty.

Getting Ready For Spring

Casey and I pulled the top brood chamber off of the lower one and inserted a pollen patty. The patty was about the size of a hamburger patty and maybe an eighth of an inch thick. The bees were many and very active!

Last weekend we moved the hive up into the field so that it will be exposed to more sunlight. I talked to Mr. Gallimore of Wills Ridge Lumber and he was kind enough to give us permission to set the hives up in his field.