Beekeeping--a new beek's journey!PIC HEAVY (first week of Oct)

[lorihadams]

So, moving on to hive 1, our stronger hive. This one looks really good. I am really amazed at how quickly they are drawing out the comb on the upper deep and filling it with honey. If they keep this up I may look for some good brood cells and move a frame over to my weaker hive to try to help it out. I was hoping they would get stronger but I am beginning to think they may need a boost to make it through the winter. It has me worried. I didn't see a lot of brood cells this time though but lots more honey. The upper deep was really going well and they were filling it nicely, it's really pretty. We didn't see the queen this time on hive 1 but we know she is doing her thing so I am not too worried about her. All the bees looked clean, no sign of mites or anything and the comb looks good.

Here are the pictures from hive 1, hubby took over on this hive. He also came close to dropping the last frame as we were putting it back in and shook off about half the bees off the first frame on the lower deep. That made us do the quickstep! Everything was good though and everyone made it back in the hive and no one got stung....good considering I was in shorts and a t-shirt with no veil or anything. It was so hot I just couldn't make myself put on long pants.

Here's a view down inside the upper deep looking into the lower deep

Starting the lower deep, hubby got a little antsy when the bees got worked up so we switched

Looking down into the lower deep, you can see the screened bottom board underneath

 

[lorihadams]

Okay so did you see my face in that picture? I had one flying right at my face....you can see it over to the right of my head. Hubby was getting a picture of the bees hanging off the frame....we got to see the queen in hive 1 as well and as you can see there is lots of honey in there.

See Quail, I still get freaked out too!!!

 

[valmom]

I love the expression on your face- I thought it was at the beard of bees on the frame!

Can I hijack your bee thread a bit? What do drones look like? Are they bigger than workers? Would they be running around on the frames like the workers? I have something going on in my hive, I think they deposed the queen- I haven't seen her in 2 weeks and I have no new brood being laid! I do have 2 queen cells that I have left since my clipped, marked queen is nowhere to be seen. I have tons of honey everywhere! Just no brood. And I have seen at least one fairly large bee that may (?) be a new queen? But if she is, she isn't laying.

I just went out this morning to look again to see what they were up to. I have lots of bees and lots of honey, but little brood.

 

[keljonma]

Can I hijack your bee thread a bit? What do drones look like? Are they bigger than workers? Would they be running around on the frames like the workers? I have something going on in my hive, I think they deposed the queen- I haven't seen her in 2 weeks and I have no new brood being laid! I do have 2 queen cells that I have left since my clipped, marked queen is nowhere to be seen. I have tons of honey everywhere! Just no brood. And I have seen at least one fairly large bee that may (?) be a new queen? But if she is, she isn't laying.

I just went out this morning to look again to see what they were up to. I have lots of bees and lots of honey, but little brood.

Workers are the largest population, numbering 100k in a well-established colony.. They are small, aerodynamic, with well defined stripes. All duties of the colony are preformed by them. A worker lives about 5 to 6 weeks during spring and summer, all the time working at some task in the hive or out in the field (depending on her age).

You may see drones walking on the frames, but they are not doing anything productive in the hive. Drones are useless except for emergency mating when a new queen is hatched. These relatively huge bees are few in number compared with the number of worker bees in the hive. At the height of the season, there may only be a couple hundred in the colony. They are very large; about 2x the size of a worker bee. They have very large eyes (to be able to see the queen during mating flights) that appear to cover his entire head. Drones are hairy and stingless. They die upon mating with a queen bee.

Drones contribute nothing to the survival of the colony. They don't feed themselves, relying on the workers to do this job. They do not leave the hive to defecate, as worker bees do. So the workers clean that from the hive as well. [Edited To Correct...they contribute nothing not noting. ]

In autumn, the workers will pick them up and remove them from the hive; if the drones try to return the guard bees (workers) prevent them from re-entering.

When drones fly in or out of the hive, they will sound loud. I always compare the hum they make to a B52-bomber compared to the Cessna-small-plane worker bee hum.


If you could post pics Valmom, that would be helpful. Are you sure what you are seeing isn't capped brood, not honey? Drone brood sticks up because they take more space and are usually found around the edges of the frames.

A queen is deposed if she is old and her pheronome levels are reduced or if she is sick. Since your queen was clipped, she would not be able to fly. Either she laid the egg for her replacement or a laying working took over. So it could be possible that you have a laying worker. Since worker bees are infertile, the laying worker will only lay drone eggs. This is a dying hive if that is the case. It is possible you can save this colony, but immediate action would be required. Do you have a beek nearby that could inspect your hive and give you some assistance??

 

[keljonma]

Okay so did you see my face in that picture? I had one flying right at my face....you can see it over to the right of my head. Hubby was getting a picture of the bees hanging off the frame....we got to see the queen in hive 1 as well and as you can see there is lots of honey in there.

See Quail, I still get freaked out too!!!

Lori, one of your hard workers comes to say hello, and you make THAT kind of face at her???? My family would post that on the living room wall.

Great pics

 

[valmom]

Thank you, Keljonma- I don't think I can get pictures, though, since I am the only one willing to go near the hive. Maybe I can try this afternoon when I finish chores. My other problem is I can't keep my smoker smoking! Really annoying. I think I am going to mix up some sugar water in a sprayer and try that. At least it won't give out on me when I have a lot of angry bees being disturbed!

 

[Quail_Antwerp]

Okay so did you see my face in that picture? I had one flying right at my face....you can see it over to the right of my head. Hubby was getting a picture of the bees hanging off the frame....we got to see the queen in hive 1 as well and as you can see there is lots of honey in there.

See Quail, I still get freaked out too!!!

yes but we didn't get a pic of ME freaking out! that's priceless!!!

 

[lorihadams]

Okay, this week has been nutso so I'm sorry I haven't been here to comment Valmom. Yes, the drones are bigger....they look more like a bus and the workers look more like a Toyota if that helps. They are much fatter and squattier.

We worked our bees this past Saturday 7-16-11. I was pretty pleased over all.

Started with hive 2, the weaker hive and we had added the second hive body last weekend, if you remember. When we put on the baggie feeder we purposely dribbled some sugar syrup onto the frames in the center of the second hive body and they have spread out nicely. We are still seeing brood, it is getting harder for me to see the brood in the very early stages (I recently went to the eye doctor and my astigmatism is worse and I need new glasses so things are a bit fuzzy sometimes) We did see some fatter brood progressing so I know my queen is doing her thing and the upper deep looked really good. They are building up new comb a lot and the middle 3 or 4 frames were almost completely done just in this week. We saw the queen again this week too and she looks good. All the bees look good and everything seems clean and in good order. I need to do some cleaning up on the bottom of the frames but it was so hot yesterday that I really didn't have the time to get all of it scraped off. The bees seemed a bit worked up in the heat and we are low on smoker fuel so we didn't push it any longer than we needed to. Next weekend that is on the to do list. Here are pics from hive 2.

upper deep pics

Lower deep pics

here's the queen

 

[Quail_Antwerp]

In pic 5, are those supercedure cells on your frame about halfway down?

 

[lorihadams]

Anything on the lower deep was there when we got it and is empty now. We've been trying to get rid of those gradually and didn't have time to destroy any more this weekend. We were running out of smoker fuel. We have some of those on hive 1 as well and we have been working to make sure they are empty and destroying them as we go. I don't think they are active supercedure cells, I really do think they are older. Just remember that these are from nucs so they could have been creating some supercedure cells right before we got them cause we only received 4 frames and they were packed full so they could have been making them and not developed them into queens once they got into their new hive bodies and had more room. At least that is my theory We have never found anything inside those cells each time we have examined the hives so we haven't worried much about them. We have been trying to eliminate them as we go if we see there is nothing inside.