Worry, worry, worry…

I have to say this has to be one of the most challenging times of the year for me as a beekeeper. I spent the spring, summer, and fall caring for my hives — feeding my bees, treating them for pests like Small Hive Beetles and Varroa — and now I just have to sit and wait to see if they over-winter well. I estimated that by the time things got really cold each hive had about 100 lbs of honey stored away in the hive bodies and the super.

My wife went back to the compost pile and then came in telling me that there were dead bees on the ground (actually in the snow — we got about 21″ of it this past weekend). I wasn’t sure what to think. I know the bees throw out the drones in the fall in preparation for winter but I wanted to see what she meant exactly. Well — yes there were dead bees in front of the hives in the snow. And I picked up one of them and it was a worker — not a drone. That made me worried. So I opened up one of the hives and took off the hive top feeder and listened carefully. Deep in the hive I could hear the buzzing. I was very relieved. Also, looking at the top super I could see that there was a ton of capped honey in the cells. And, two bees came flying out to see who was messing with the hive. I immediately closed everything up (and took the hive top feeder with me back inside to clean up) and walked away. The sun shines most of the day on the hives which, in my mind, is good as it keeps my little girls warm (hopefully). Tonight is going to be the coldest yet for the year — a low of 18 — and it doesn’t look like it’s going to warm up any for quite a while. So I have to sit inside and worry.

Bee Update

It’s the first chance I’ve had in about two weeks to feed and look into the hives. Overall things look good. The hives sound strong and appear to be doing well. I’m feeding them 2:1 sugar syrup in order to get them to store as much food as possible for the coming winter. What I’m not sure about is when to stop feeding them. They’re still making it up to the hive top feeders (the temperature during the day still reaches 65 degrees Fahrenheit) so I figure I should continue to feed them. I do plan to put in an order for some fondant in order to supplement their feeding. I’m starting to get nervous and worry about them as the weather is definitely getting colder.

Getting Closer to Winter

I’ve been feeding my bees a 2:1 sugar syrup mixture to get their stores of honey up in preparation for the winter. At this point I believe that both hives have somewhere around 90 – 120 lbs of honey in the hives which should be more than sufficient for the coming winter. The last thing I want to have happen to my girls is for them to starve. I just saw a hive today that died because of starvation (and it’s not even winter yet!). We went out to Larriland Farms today to pick apples and to get some other things and they have an observation hive in their barn. The hive looked really good earlier this year but when I saw it today all of the bees were at the bottom — dead. I could see that there was no honey stored in any of the cells and there were bees with their heads down in the cells also dead. It was a very sad sight .

I asked the checkout person about it and she said that she was told that the bees died because of the cold this week. It didn’t make sense to me as bees in that kind of hive would be able to manage their temperature better than those in a Langstroth since they’re so compacted. But the lack of honey in any of the cells indicates that the most likely cause of the hive’s demise was starvation. It made me very worried about MY girls.

When I came home I whipped up a batch of 2:1 syrup, added a teaspoon of HoneyBHealthy, and went out to refill the hive top feeders as well as remove the 1/4 inch spacer between the hives that I had placed in order to treat them with ApiGuard. Unfortunately I was only able to get one hive done due to time constraints — the other one I’ll do tomorrow. When I opened the hive to remove the space (which is situated between the two deeps) the bees became VERY agitated and immediately stung me three times on my left hand. On top of that they flew at my veil continuously. Unfortunately I had to remove a bit of burr comb in order to put the hive back together. I also took out the queen excluder from between the deeps and the one shallow super that I’m leaving on top of the hives and I put in an entrance reducer.

Overall the weight of the hive components makes me think that I’m looking at about 90 – 120 lbs of honey in each hive total. I just hope that it remains completely accessible to them throughout the winter.

Robbing

I just came back from my hives and noticed a lot of activity around them. I went to refill the hive-top feeders with more syrup and noticed that the bees were somewhat agitated. I refilled the first hive (hive ‘A’) and then moved onto the second (‘B’). The second hive hadn’t finished the syrup I had filled for them back on Tuesday – they had about ¼ – 1/3 of a gallon of syrup left. I’m a little concerned as it could mean that it may have started to ferment or it will start to ferment soon. Fortunately the temperature right now is in the upper 60s/lower 70s…so I don’t think it will happen tonight.

What really got my attention was that it appeared that the bees were fighting with other bees. When I took off the inner cover I noticed bees that I “recognized” as “not mine” (from the coloring on their abdomens mostly) were trying to get into the feeders. The bees that were “not mine” had coloring similar to this. My bees are either Italians or Carniolans…I need to ask the beekeeper I got the nucs from in May.

There is a feral colony in a neighbor’s tree trunk (about 25 feet above ground) that’s been there all summer. I suspect that the robbing bees are from that colony. I ended up deciding that since the syrup was not finished in Hive ‘B’ I would close up the feeder and call it a day to prevent the robbers from getting in. It appears that these robbing bees are not trying to go through the front door but rather through the escape hole in the inner cover (which is heavily surrounded by my bees).

I’m not sure if there’s anything I can do beyond what I’ve already done at the moment. I’m considering putting in an entrance reducer to help my hives defend themselves but at the moment I’m going to leave things as they are.

Wonderful Article

Hat tip to Bees and Chicks on the link to Phillip Chandler’s article in the New Internationalist. He rightly argues that the path we are going down with commercial beekeeping is completely unsustainable and if we don’t do something soon we will be in serious trouble. Beekeepers need to lead a new revolution in apiculture that is organic in nature and that allows the bees to live more naturally. If we don’t we risk irreparable damage to the honey bee populations in North America and Europe — and perhaps elsewhere.

For my part I plan on getting a top-bar hive next year to add to my two other hives which I have already to allow a new colony to build up on it’s own.

Hive Update

Just finished putting in the second dose of ApiGuard in the hives as well as one of the MegaBee patties I bought from Dadant a couple of weeks ago. Important Lesson: don’t put the 1/4″ spacer between the hive bodies. I forgot that the bees don’t like the empty space so they built burr comb under the upper hive body and when I pulled it up in Hive ‘A’ I opened up some cells that had brood that was well on it’s way to adulthood. Very disappointing!

I did, however, pull the queen excluders out and put in new ones. Hive ‘B’ was almost impossible to get apart since the bees have propolized the queen excluder to the point that it literally cemented the super above to the hive body below. Thought I was going to pull a muscle on that one…but finally got it off. Put in new queen excluders (same type) — that should make it easier in the near term future to reverse the hives before the winter. I put the old excluders on a sheet of aluminum foil and put them in the deep freeze to get the propolis off.

Overall the hives were not defensive which I suspect is due to the fact that the ApiGuard that was in there was finished. Interestingly though I did get stung in the head through my veil — although I don’t know if that was by a bee or a wasp that might have been around since I couldn’t find the stinger. Overall I got a lot of things done. The only thing I didn’t get a chance to do was to use the Vitafeed on the hives.

Getting Ready for Winter

We’re now into the second phase of treating the hives for the Varroa mites. I’m going to replace the ApiGuard tray that is in each hive this afternoon and put in a new tray. On top of that I’m going to add some MegaBee Patties as well to try and keep brood production up in preparation for the winter. I have already started feeding the bees a 2:1 sugar syrup (adding in HoneyBHealthy) and I’m going to start adding VitaFeed Gold as well before the winter really sets in. Tomorrow is looking like there’s a good possibility of rain so today’s the day to get this done. The temperature did drop some this weekend with lows in the lower to mid-50’s yesterday and today but is expected to climb back a bit over the next few days. I also plan on removing the queen excluder from the hives and putting in new ones. The bees have put so much propolis on the excluders that they’re gluing the honey super that is above the hive bodies to the frames in the upper hive body. By swapping it out I’ll be able to then freeze the excluders and recover the propolis from them. It’ll make it easier to handle the hives later as well.

Overall the number of bees in the colonies appears to be lower (but that could be because more of them are in the hives themselves rather than hanging out in the hive-top feeders) but other than that they appear healthy. I considered the possibility of putting in the entrance reducers as well to help insulate the hive but with the temperature coming back up a bit I think I’m going to wait on that.

Irritable Bees

Yesterday I went to do some work with the bees — to continue the Varroa treatment as well as to feed them with a 2:1 sugar syrup (since we’re now into the fall preparations). To treat for Varroa I’ve used the Dowda method (with a slight modification talked about in Ross Conrad’s book Natural Beekeeping where I mix 4 parts powdered sugar with 1 part garlic powder). Well…that seems to work but the next time I dust the bees I won’t be using garlic powder. Seems that they’re very good in separating the garlic powder from the powdered sugar and dumping the garlic powder through the screen onto the mite board making it nearly impossible to count the mites that have fallen.

I’ve decided however to augment the Dowda treatment with Apiguard (later I will try Api Life Var as well if need be). Anyway, yesterday I went to install the 1/4″ spacer so that I could put the Apiguard trays into the hives. As I was walking towards the hives I was taking some equipment out there and didn’t bother to have my veil on. As I was walking away something pursued me and stung me at the base of the neck. I was very surprised to say the least. I could not tell whether it was a bee or something else but I went inside to have Diana take the stinger out. However, she could not find it…there did not appear to be a stinger in my neck.

I then went back out (with my veil on this time) and began to smoke the bees. Their disposition was very defensive almost immediately. Many bees kept coming at my veil and I couldn’t understand why they were acting this way. We were expecting a rain storm later in the day and this was around 4 PM when I went outside. As I opened up the first hive I recall seeing a yellow jacket in the hive (which I promptly squished) and managed to get the spacer as well as the Apiguard tray installed. I placed the spacer and the Apiguard in between the two main hive bodies on top of the brood frames of the lower hive body. I then replaced the upper hive body, the queen excluder, the super above the excluder (which contains honey just for the bees), and the hive top feeder. I then refilled the hive top feeder and closed up the hive. The bees were so irritable and defensive that I was stung a second time in the wrist of my right hand.

Hive “B” was even more difficult. I could not get the honey super (the one above the excluder) off since the bees had propolized it so much that it was pulling brood frames out of the hive body below it. After several minutes of very hard work (all while the bees were very irritable) I finally managed to get the honey super off. I then got the hive open and installed the spacer and the Apiguard tray. In the process I was stung in my left thumb this top at the first knuckle. I finally decided to go inside and get my gloves as I was becoming very frustrated with the fact that I was stung three times in one day. I managed to get things closed up and went back inside.

In the end the only thing I could attribute to the irritable, defensive nature of the bees yesterday was the presence of yellow jackets as well my working the hives late in the day and the coming rains. I also suspect that the sting on my neck was from a yellow jacket rather than a bee since no venom sac was found at the sting site. I’ve learned my lesson and will definitely keep my veil on whether I’m actively working the hives or whether I’m just bringing equipment out there. And I may use the gloves more often.

As it stands my tasks now are:

• Level the hives so that I can use pail feeders rather than the hive top feeders next year
• Install another spacer between the upper hive body and the honey super so I can add another Apiguard tray or Api Life Var tablets if need be
• Add mega bee patties to the hives
• Add essential oils to syrup to help build up the bees immune system and to treat for Varroa

There’s a lot still left to do to get ready for the winter but I’m hopeful that both hives will go into the winter strong and with plenty of food so that they will come out in the spring ready to go.

Dealing with Varroa Mites

I did a mite count about a week and a half ago and hive “A” had a count of 4 while hive “B” had a count of 19. I repeated the count this past Thursday and hive “A” had a count of 5 while hive “B” had a count of 45. I decided to move forward with treating both hives using the Dowda method(see under “Control or preventive measures and treatment->Behavioral Methods”). I’m using a slight modification that I read in Ross Conrad’s book “Natural Beekeeping” which involves mixed a 4:1 mixture of powdered sugar along with granulated garlic. I mixed everything up and went to the hives.

I opened the hive “B” first since it was in the most need to treatment at this time. Isaac and I took off the hive top feeder as well as the honey super that contains the honey that the bees made with the sugar syrup I’ve been feeding them (I have no intention of using that honey for myself or giving it to anyone else. It’s strictly for the bees). We then took out a couple of frames and inspected them. Everything looks good. We did uncap one drone cell and saw two mites on the drone brood in the cell. We started by dusting the powdered sugar/garlic mixture on the top bars of the hive and then brushing them to fall in between (I’ve ordered a blower that will allow me to blow this mixture into the hive from the opening of the landing board to make this easier — it should also make the mixture finer as it blows into the hive). We then put the second hive body back on and added the dust to it. We then put the hive back together and refilled the hive top feeder. I put the mite board underneath the hive (and got stung in the process) and then we went to hive “A”. I’ve posted the video on Facebook.

Hive “A” is a bigger colony and they are more defensive than hive “B” (it’s all about temperament). I got stung twice here (I forgot to smoke my left hand after it was stung when I put the mite board on hive “B”) and then realized my mistake. I didn’t bother making a video of this as I wanted to get it done quickly. We got the hive dusted (although the mite count is only 5 at this time — based on the 24-hour mite count) and fed and then called it a night. Just in case this doesn’t do the job I plan on using Apiguard or Api Life Var. The other thing I need to get are some essential oils for the bees — things like spearmint, peppermint, etc. — and add that to the sugar syrup to help control Varroa.

Right now I’m treating the three stings I got today. One is on the middle finger of my left hand, on is at the base of the middle finger of my right hand (right in the meat of the palm at the base of the finger) and one is on the top of my right hand near the thumb (not too far from where I got stung a few weeks ago). This time, however, I have applied Benadryl cream to all three sites as well as taken two Benadryl capsules and applying ice to the sting sites (actually ice packs). Hopefully I’ll avoid the large local reactions that I normally have when I get stung. We shall see. Last time it took 48 hours for my hand to return to normal…that’s the risk I take (and I still need to bring my tools in).

Some Good News

I just checked the hives again (as well as refilled the hive top feeders) and in one of the hives, hive “A”, I only saw two small hive beetles (SHB) in the feeder this time (and I squished them). I opened the hive to check the frames for any sign of problems but everything looks good. I went down all the way to the bottom hive body and checked the brood pattern. Some of the frames are completely full of honey/sugar syrup in capped cells, there’s still lots of brood in the hive and and the bees are very active and busy. I didn’t see the queen but I couldn’t dig around so much as the bees began to get defensive and agitated that I was messing with the hive. While putting the hive back together I added a couple of SHB traps in the super above the queen excluder in order to try and trap any SHB that may be in the hive.

In hive “B” (the one on the left or the south side) I did not see any SHB in the hive top feeders and things are looking good. I didn’t see as much brood as there was in hive “A” but I did find a frame that was packed with brood in uncapped cells. One thing that bothers me is that almost all of the frames that I added to this hive — using Duragilt as the foundation — have comb on them that is incomplete. Rather than build comb on the entire frame the bees have built it only on part of the foundation. In the spring, assuming all goes well, I will be replacing these frames with new ones where the foundation is beeswax only with wire support. The hive has no problems with the frames in the super above the excluder (which is made with beeswax only).

I am waiting until this evening to go back out to spray the ground with nematodes who will burrow into the ground and feed on SHB larva. Once that’s done I’m going to wait a couple of days before putting down the diatomaceous earth around the hives. I’m going to install mite boards to determine varroa mite levels as well as Boardman feeders with water either tomorrow or the day after.

On the whole I’m pleased with the status of hives.